Meero: Helping freelance photographers optimize their time to create more great work
About Meero
Meero helps photographers make the most of their time, from connecting them with jobs, to handling invoicing, delivery, and post-production. Founded in 2016, it has delivered more than 10.5 million images to 31,000 customers.
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About Web Geo Services
More than 450 companies optimize their use of Google Maps Platform with Web Geo Services, a leading Google Cloud Premier Partner.
Meero helps photographers around the world monetize gaps in their work schedules by leveraging location data to connect them with jobs nearby, calculate their travel times, and automate admin.
Results:
- Calculates travel expenses for photographers automatically, using the Distance Matrix API and Directions API
- Ensures stakeholders are clear on locations by combining data from coordinates and street addresses on a single map
- Saves time for photographers by generating detailed itineraries with real-time traffic information
Delivers one photoshoot every 25 seconds, worldwide
For freelance photographers, making the most of their time is a constant challenge. Travelling away from their studios, and working on a project-by-project basis, they often find themselves in unfamiliar places with hours to spare. Meero helps them fill those gaps, connecting photographers with quick assignments nearby.
“Meero helps photographers monetize time they have never been able to monetize before,” says Joyd Sousa, CTO at Meero. “They can just go to the location, take pictures, upload them to the platform, and we do the rest. They don’t need to search out new clients, handle bookings or schedule time for post-production. We do all of that for them, so they can fill gaps in their schedules to earn more.”
“Our map is the core of our system, where everything comes together. Internally, it’s where we find photographers, plan assignments, and execute them. Customers use it to specify the location of a shoot, then follow progress. And it shows photographers where they need to go and how to get there.”
—Joyd Sousa, CTO , MeeroMeero coordinates large-scale projects for clients in a range of verticals, from holiday rentals, to food delivery, real estate, and marketplace retail – any business in need of professional photographs. “We give clear client guidelines to each photographer, then manage post-production ourselves,” explains Joyd. “As a result, the images clients receive look great next to each other on a website, or a listing, though they may have been taken by dozens of photographers spread across Paris, Bangalore, and Tokyo.”
Location data is at the heart of the company’s business model, enabling its key processes to operate at scale, at speed and worldwide, whether identifying shoot locations, finding photographers, making travel arrangements, or calculating expenses.
“Our map is the core of our system, where everything comes together,” says Joyd. “Internally, it’s where we find photographers, plan assignments, and execute them. Customers use it to specify the location of a shoot, then follow progress. And it shows photographers where they need to go and how to get there.”
The right photographer, in the right place, at the right time
By tapping into unused downtime between typical photography assignments, Meero creates new earning opportunities for freelance photographers in more than 100 countries. It’s an innovation made possible by accurate, up-to-the-minute location data, matching photographers on the move with assignments nearby.
“Geolocation is an essential part of the process,” says Joyd. “And once we’ve put points on the map, we need to work out how to get the photographer between them. For example, it might take someone in the French countryside 10 minutes to travel five kilometers, but a photographer in the Paris rush hour would need 80 minutes to cover the same distance. There are often multiple locations, in which case we need to work out the best route between them, and, of course, costs are different in different parts of the world, which plays a big role in billing and expenses.”
“Our finance team used to calculate mileage costs by hand. That’s fine for doing ten shoots, but when you have 10,000 shoots going on, it’s impossible. Now we use the Distance Matrix API and Directions API to make those calculations and generate expenses automatically, making life easier for everyone.”
—Joyd Sousa, CTO , MeeroTo make the most of dynamic, real-time location services, Meero built its solution with Google Maps Platform. “We tested options from alternative providers, but none could deliver the same level of detail in remote areas of the world as Google Maps Platform,” says Joyd. “To work with photographers worldwide, in a variety of locations, we need truly global tools.”
With predictive input functions in the Places API, customers find specific locations at speed from more than 150 million listed places. Where locations need to be found with coordinates, they are converted into standard addresses using the Geocoding API. Photographers can even drop a pin on the map to give their location. By combining these different forms of data on a single map, Meero ensures that locations are clear and unambiguous for all stakeholders, while using the Time Zone API to keep everyone on the same page, no matter where they are in the world.
To bring together everything from the planning to the execution of a shoot, customers, photographers and internal Meero teams refer to a dynamic map powered by the Maps JavaScript API. Following a suggestion from Google Maps Premier Partner Web Geo Services, Meero makes cost efficiencies by replacing the dynamic map with a static version, using the Maps Static API, ready to switch to the dynamic map when activated by a customer.
Time is of the essence for freelance photographers looking to fit short assignments into their schedule, so Meero uses the Directions API to calculate accurate travel times with real-time traffic information. And because shoots often involve multiple locations, Meero also deploys the Distance Matrix API to calculate itineraries, as Joyd explains: “Photographers optimize their time when they do several shoots on one trip, so we give them the option to do as many as ten a day, and use the Directions API and Distance Matrix API to produce accurate itineraries at speed.”
“Meero really optimizes the experience of a shoot for a photographer, and Google Maps Platform is behind many of those optimizations, from matching the right person with the right job, to creating efficient itineraries, to automated travel expenses. These things just wouldn’t be possible without detailed, reliable, real-time location data.”
—Joyd Sousa, CTO , MeeroBeyond producing itineraries, Meero uses APIs to calculate travel costs and compensation for car fuel: previously a laborious process that limited the company’s capacity to scale.
“Our finance team used to calculate mileage costs by hand,” says Joyd. “That’s fine for doing ten shoots, but when you have 10,000 shoots going on, it’s impossible. Now we use the Distance Matrix API and Directions API to make those calculations and generate expenses automatically, making life easier for everyone.”
Helping freelancers make the most of their time
Today, Meero delivers one photoshoot every 25 seconds, with 60,000 photographers on its global platform. By operating at scale, connecting customers on one side of the world with local photographers on the other, the company continues to create new opportunities for photographers, without bogging them down in post-production and invoicing. Next, the Meero team is looking to develop new ways of leveraging location information, including migrating all of the company’s data to BigQuery, both for its scalability and to make the most of improved integrations with Looker. And with every innovation and improvement to the platform, Meero gives photographers a little more time to spend doing what they love.
“Meero really optimizes the experience of a shoot for a photographer,” says Joyd, “and Google Maps Platform is behind many of those optimizations, from matching the right person with the right job, to creating efficient itineraries, to automated travel expenses. These things just wouldn’t be possible without detailed, reliable, real-time location data.”
Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact us
About Meero
Meero helps photographers make the most of their time, from connecting them with jobs, to handling invoicing, delivery, and post-production. Founded in 2016, it has delivered more than 10.5 million images to 31,000 customers.
About Web Geo Services
More than 450 companies optimize their use of Google Maps Platform with Web Geo Services, a leading Google Cloud Premier Partner.