CASE 3: can't stop the deviance

The pure play business that I am going to analyze is called deviantArt, a massive online art community.  DeviantART would be considered a merchant model, more specifically similar to a bit merchant like iTunes.  However, deviantART can also be categorized as a community model, because of its interaction and networking between the members.  The website functions as a place for artists of all skills to upload and share their creations digitally.  The art can be downloaded, requested for a print, bought, collected my members, commented on, and sent to your mobile.  However, many of these extra feature are part of the premium membership.  This is how the site gets its revenue, which was not happening when the company first started as an open community.  This also then puts the business under the subscription model, because of the vast expansion of features after one pays to be a member.

The types of 

work vary tremendously, from traditional to digital media, flash and sketches.  Members can also upload unfinished work, which opens the site to collaboration.  One category under digital art is photomanipulation, which with time I’m sure one could find many examples of jamming. 

DeviantART can track their success by the number of deviants (members) and the number of deviations (uploaded art) per deviant.  Success is also measured directly when a deviation is downloaded or printed.  There are counters that express that under each deviation page.  They can also measure the growth of their network by looking at the comment and chat action.