An online photo-sharing business that pays

Rodney Rumford of Lockerz, a successful social media company, at the company's Sorrento Valley office that's complete with ping pong table for his developers. — John Gibbins / Union-Tribune staff

If you wanted to share a photo with your social network two years ago, you were limited to three main services that made the process possible: Flickr, TwitPic and Plixi.

Not so familiar with the last one?

Plixi, cofounded by Solana Beach resident Rodney Rumford, was the conduit for 1 billion-plus pictures each month. It was acquired almost a year ago by Seattle-based Lockerz, which rewards image-sharing users with points that can be redeemed for discounts. After the acquisition, estimated at $10 million to $15 million, Rumford and most of the Plixi staff stayed on to push Lockerz forward.

Rumford, chief product manager of social, spoke to the Union-Tribune on a recent Friday at Lockerz’s Sorrento Valley office to reflect on the past year, the latest changes to the company’s design, and how the photo-sharing landscape changed after the birth of Plixi, which was first named TweetPhoto.

(Answers have been edited or paraphrased for length and clarity.)

Q: What’s the point of Lockerz?

A: You get rewarded for what you like to do online. Say I’m collecting images of shoes, you earn points by uploading photos of shoes ... and points can be redeemed for real-world products. In this case, you could get shoes. Or it could be (7 For All Mankind) jeans. We just did a big denim promotion, where 7 jeans were like half off.

Q: What exactly do you do at Lockerz?

A: My job basically is to work with the CEO on executing her vision, and the vision is to bring together social (media) and commerce. I work on the functionality, the layout of the product.

Q: What’s the target demographic?

A: Late teens. Lockerz has more than 20 million members. It started as an invite-only network, so friends would invite you. It all started with teens, and they have remained the primary demographic.

Q: Just a few hours ago, you launched some new features on the website. What were they?

A: We’re now allowing users to express, curate and really showcase who they are online. You now can upload any image that you can grab from any Web page, turn it into a “decal” and upload it to a collection that you can share with people. Think of it as social bookmarking 3.0.

Q: What else?

A: We used to have a “friending” model like Facebook. We’re now using the follow/follower model like Twitter, so you can follow tastemakers and trendsetters based on what they’re into. I can see what my friends are into. You also can follow a collection but not necessarily the person. If I look at categories, I can look at entertainment. A lot of celebrities use our site.

Pauly D from MTV reality show "Jersey Shore".— AP photo

Q: Like?

A: (Pointing to a Lockerz photo on a flat-screen monitor) 50 Cent. That’s one of him with Pauly D.

Q: The Jersey Shore guy?

A: Yeah, it is.

Q: What prompted the new changes to the website?

A: We really wanted to deliver on the brand promise, which is rewarding social expression and rewarding people for what they love to do online. It was what you loved to do on Lockerz for the longest time; now it’s what you love to do online.


