This is for those who want to gather photos from other family members, or those who want to create a mosaic with their community. Some people gather it themselves manually using Google Drive, or emails, but there is a much easier and fun way. You can simply allow other people to add photos directly to your mosaic. They don't need to create an account, and they get to see their photos in the mosaic instantly just as you see your photos added instantly when you add your photos. And if you're wondering how much it costs, it's free.

However, what they see is a preview of what your mosaic will look like once their photos are added. Other people will not be able to see these new photos until you approve these photos. This is to safeguard against pranksters adding inappropriate photos. This may not be a concern if you're collaborating with family members, or a smaller tighter-knit groups like a small church, or clubs, but if you're a school, or bigger non-profit or a business trying to engage a larger audience, you want to make sure that your audience only sees what you've approved. But for the person uploading it, they get to see what they uploaded immediately, because this makes the experience that much more fun and engaging, and they will be more likely to share the experience with others, further amplifying your message. And when people add photos, you'll get notified on our site, so that you can go view the photos and approve them. You can do this as often as you like, or once in a while depending on how you want to run your campaign. We will also email you notifications if you have notifications that you haven't checked in a while.

• Why do people/organizations collaborate?
• How it works
• Inappropriate photos
• How to approve photos
• Can I do this on my own website/blog?
• How much is it? It's free!
• And getting help

For personal mosaics, for example, a gift for grandma, various family members will have photos with grandma on their phone. Often times, the person organizing it will gather photos manually through Google Drive, or through a family group chat. And then proceed to upload these photos to the mosaic manually at the end of the gathering process. If you have a large family, it can also be at times a bit difficult to get certain family members to participate, or get them excited enough to contribute their photos. These people tend to be the last ones to give you their photos, or even worse, they'll give it to you after they've seen the final work you've created, and see how awesome it is, only to make you go back and do the work all over again. But when you create a mosaic with whatever photos you already have, and then allow people to add their photos, you immediately give them something they can see, and zoom in on, and get excited about, so they'll be more likely contribute to it. And it's equally easy for them to add photos directly as it is to for them to send you photos as they don't need to create an account to add their photos. And you don't have to do all the work of gathering all the photos manually.

For organizational mosaics, for example, a dog rescue wanting to engage, thank, and further deepen their relationship with their donors, can start a mosaic with photos of all the dogs rescued, and then invite the donors or adopters to add their photos of their rescue. And at the next fundraising event, this mosaic can be auctioned off, or a large quantity of smaller prints can be purchased at a discount, and then gifted as a thank you.

Maddox & Friends

The process of starting a mosaic is as simple as picking the big picture, and adding the small pictures. If you haven't tried it already, you should try it out as a guest using sample photos to get familar with it. Once the mosaic is created, you can change the privacy setting from Private(Default) to Public or Unlisted. And when you do this, there will be a checkbox that's already checked for you to allow others to add photos. Now, when you share the link to your mosaic, other people who visit the page will see Add Photos button. They can click on this to add their photos. When they add their photos, it will appear to them as though their photos have been added to the mosaic immediately. However, they're seeing a preview of what your mosaic will look like with their photos added. Other people won't see these photos in your mosaic until you've approved these photos.

The biggest problem of engaging a larger community with a mosaic collaboration is inevitability of pranksters and their inappropriate images. There is only one way to combat this, and that is to not add the photos to the mosaic until it's been approved by you. However this makes it so that people can't see their photos in your mosaic immediately. And that's no fun. So our solution is to only add photos to your mosaic upon your approval, but also let people see their photos in your mosaic immediately before your approval. We do this by temporarily creating a new version of your mosaic with their photos in it, and make this only visible to them and not everyone else. So when someone adds some photos, they'll see the mosaic with photos added immediately. But other people will not see these new photos until you've approved these photos. And when you approve of these photos, your original mosaic gets updated to include these new photos for everyone to see. This is how we give you the safety net and the control you need over your mosaic, while keeping the experience fun and exciting for your audience.

When someone adds photos to your mosaic, you will get a notification when you log in. Then you can go view the mosaic. Then you can scroll down and check all the photos that's been submitted by others, and then delete any that are inappropriate, and then click Approve New Photos button to update your mosaic with these new photos. And if you have notifications that you haven't checked in awhile, we will email you the notifications.

There are couple of ways to do this on your website. There's the easy and free, hybrid way where some parts are done on your site, and some parts are done on our site. This is a great option for most. But if you want to have more control and want it to be a more customized experience, then you can customize the experience by utilizing our API.

The easy and free way is to embed your mosaic on your website, and then enable the Add Photos button on the embedded mosaic. This will enable a small '+' button on your mosaic, which will take them to your mosaic page, and pop open Add Photos dialog. You might additionally put a bigger call to action button your site directing people to add their photos, so that they don't have to look for this small '+' button. Then they can upload their photos, and they will see their preview version of the mosaic with their photos added on the mosaic page. The original mosaic that is visible to everyone remains unchanged until you approve these new additions.

If you have a decent budget, and you're going for the full customized branded experience, and you want people to do everything on your site, then you can use our API. You will embed your mosaic the same way, but the way you take in photos will be through your site. You'll need to manage this yourself, and take their uploads and save it on your server, and then using our API to add these photos to your mosaic. These photos that you add through the API are added to the mosaic immediately, so you'll need to handle the vetting process yourself as well. If you automatically add photos to your mosaic prior to vetting, you'll risk having inapproriate images in your mosaic. If you require human approval before adding the photos, the experience of adding photos won't be as fun for your users.

It's free to create, share, and collaborate. When you collaborate with your friends, family, and community, you are introducing Mosaically to them in a much more meaningful way than we ever can using ads. It's a win-win for everyone.

Tell us about the project you have in mind, and we can assist by bouncing off ideas, or give you some insight based on our experience. Just click Chat Now at the bottom right corner of our site.