Peter and I have been working on another idea for a Dingo business. We believe the amateur artist community may well represent a significant business opportunity. Peter and I have achieved some success with the rare book site, www.rarelist.co.uk as it is now self financing and growing. However, the total community in the UK that is interested in rare books is unlikely to exceed tens of thousands so www.rarelist.co.uk has practical limits to its growth, at least here in the UK.

I recently visited my cousin James. James has been retired for a few years. On retirement, he took up his interest in painting and drawing by attending a few classes. The cohort in his art classes have now formed themselves into a local interst group meeting regularly. James has exhibited his output at some exhibitions and has managed to sell three pictures.

This set me thinking about amateur art as a community. There are already some sites devoted to amateur illustartors and graphical artists but nothing of any scale is available to amateur artists in general. Now, I would estimate the population that is interested and actively participating in amateur art would be in the millions. If a proportion of these would use the Internet to display their works then we have a potential Dingo business.

So some principles, we will provide a basic membership free that will allow amateur artists to upload digital images of their work. These will be organised under different galleries by genre, by subject etc. People will be able to search by a number of criteria. We will also provide a forum for members to exchange views and debates topics of interest. We will also provide articles that would be of interest to the community. We will also provide a basic auctioning facility where standard members may bid on artwork.

Where is the money, you may ask? Here is the Dingo element. We will provide a Premium membership pitched at £3.00 to £5.00 per month. A Premium member will be allowed to display a price on their artwork. They will also be the only ones entitled to submit their art for auctioning. Unlike other auction sites, we will not charge commission on sales. Finally, premium members will be allowed to set up sub-communities or clubs on the site. The clubs will be private (everything is invisible to non-members), semi-private (where only members of the community may contribute contenet) and puvlic. Eventaully, we will allow owners of the most valuable communities to charge for membership.

Such a business follows the Dingoes principle and I believe it will prove to be a winner.