There are thousands of people wondering how to make money online each day. Although searching the online medium for an easy way to monetize might be fun, most users’ testimonies say that they rarely come across platforms that offer the possibility of making money online without any weird catches being involved. The most legit ways in which you can monetize the internet are advertisements and blogging. That’s excluding app development from the picture, but this article is targeted at the average surfer who doesn’t work on apps.

Making money online can be easy, but it can also be quite a challenge. This time around, we’ve come across one of the best ways in which you can actually use your habits in your favor and make some extra cash off of them. As Instagram, Facebook and other social media platforms are beginning to dominate the way in which we share our photos and snapdshots, Foap, an application that is available on Android and iOS, too, thought that it would help photography enthusiasts get the best of their online experience.

Instagram is quickly becoming the most popular photo-sharing platform and it stands as proof that the rise of smartphone photography can be something that can help you grow your business. Foap is a platform which allows photographers and companies to get in touch and share libraries, all the while helping the users of the app monetize on their creations and essentially make money online.

This time around, we’ve managed to score an interview with the Founder of Foap, David Los. The full interview will be posted below and we encourage you to read everything, because David has treated us to a few bits of information that you might find useful if you’re looking for a way to make money online. Before delving into our discussion with David Los, you might be interested in why we’re talking about Foap right now.

As social media extends and as advertisements fill up our news feeds, people are starting to realize that the online world is a great place to make money. Websites use advertising space in order to monetize their content, while companies use advertisements to generate interest in their company, thus growing its value. In social media, photography is king, and while smartphone photography is becoming more and more professional thanks to new technologies and software solutions being embedded into phones.

Although many condemn smartphone photography, we can’t deny that certain devices can capture exquisite images and it would be a shame if we would deny the value between those photos. With Foap, you can upload your smartphone photos, or any other photos you’ve snapped and try to sell them to companies like Motorola, Volvo, Conde Nast, Mango, Heineken, Sony, Lavazza, Mastercard and more. These companies access the Foap photo libraries in search of photos that they can use in their ad campaigns, social media channels, websites, promo videos and promotional materials.

Using Foap is extremely simple and it offers a way in which you can make money online without hassle. You just create an account, upload your photos and with a bit of luck and a demonstration of your skills, you’ll be selling all of them in no time. Licensing these photos isn’t a big deal, and an individual photo sold to one company will make you $5 richer. But the good part is that you can sell a particular photo as many times as you’d like, to as many different buyers as you’d like to.

Foap founder David Los was surprised when one of the first photos he published on Foap, for fun, was bought in a matter of minutes. He was surprised, thinking that one of the members of the Foap development team had surely bought his photo as a surprise. It turned out, that his piece of art, which according to David, wasn’t really special, was actually bought by a Danish company and would be used in their promo materials.

The way in which Foap helps you make money online doesn’t just revolve around you posting photos and hoping that they will be seen. The partners of Foap, which were mentioned above, also participate in missions that they organize. These missions mean that each company publishes a so-called tagline for a photo competition. Users then have to follow a basic set of rules, such as a theme, elements that should be included in photos and their representation. Conde Nast, for example, has organized missions in which users could submit photos of women working out, moments of triumph, adventurous people and more. Any Foap user can participate in these missions and all they have to do is submit their thematic photos.

The organizer, in our example Conde Nast, will review the submissions and pick the ones that they like best and the ones that they will use in their campaigns and products. The winning photo or photos will then be rewarded with cash or various different prizes, ranging from a couple hundred bucks to thousands. Absolut has a mission in which you can still participate and it offers $100 for the winning photo. Their theme is #TeamBloodyMary, which means that you can submit photos that are related to one of the most popular vodka cocktails in the world.

One of the current missions that Foap is running is actually sponsored by Motorola. Foap just launched their Android application and Motorola was the prime sponsor of the launch. To celebrate this milestone, Motorola and Foap have launched the “For the love of Android” mission, in which you can still enter for a chance to win $1000, one of the two Moto X 2014 smartphones or one of the two Moto 360 smart watches that are up for grabs. As I’ve said before, it’s an international competition, so anyone can enter and the only criteria for participating is to include something Android into your photo.

If you’re wondering whether you can enhance your professional photographer career through Foap, the team behind the app has told us that many Foap users have managed to gain a good reputation in the photography world and managed to sell a lot of photos to many famous brands around the world. One Foap submission is currently the cover photo for the Absolut Facebook page, while Volvo also uses Foap submissions in their promotional materials. Volvo also has a running mission in which you can try your luck, called the Professionals of Tomorrow.

Before trying Foap, you should know that there is some verification to be done. First off, if you really want to make money online, you need a PayPal account, which most of you probably already have and use. The other thing is that Foap needs a scan of your ID, in order to promote trust between companies and users. This measure doesn’t ensure that users of the app don’t steal photos that they find online, but it does help with credibility and trust. If you’re skeptical, only Foap and their scanning partner can access the information on your ID and they promise not to use it maliciously, so you’re safe.

As for my personal experience with Foap, let me just say I’ve absolutely no talent when it comes to photography. I would definitely be interested in making money online, but not with photography. I usually take 100 photos of our cats, and none of them look normal. But who knows, maybe in the future I’ll get better at it. Nonetheless, I’ve tried the Android app from the company, and it’s surprisingly easy to use. Although I was expecting complicated ways in which you can get in touch with companies and find out what they’re looking for, it was rather simple, to be honest. It’s a neat app, covered in green hues and very user-friendly. You don’t have to fiddle with a lot of settings and you don’t have to configure your account for more than a minute. If you’ve got the ID part down, you’re good to go. Actually, you can even sell photos if you don’t scan your ID, which is definitely a neat option. It does impact how the companies that use Foap to find photos see you as a photographer, though.

Overall, Foap is one of the easiest ways in which an amateur (or professional) photographer can make money online. We’ve discussed all the matters involving Foap, Motorola and what Foap is planning for the future with David Los, so you can read through the interview to find out more about what Foap’s goals and aspirations are and why it is one of the best platforms to use when you want to make money online but you’re not a professional. Enjoy!

Charlotte: How did Foap and Motorola kick off the new “For the love of Android” mission?

David Los: Many brands are submitting requests for missions on Foap. Motorola was one of those brands that contacted us through one of their digital media managers, and proposed the collaboration for the mission. We are seeing Foap awareness more and more, and we have been receiving offers from day one of Foap. Brands are very welcoming to Foap and users are also pretty delighted with the service we offer. Many brands are coming to Foap, and we’re seeing more and more international, big brands like Mastercard, Hyatt Hotels, Volvo Group and more showing interest towards Foap. The brands that work with Foap like that they are getting truly authentic photos and content from the community.

Ch: How is the Motorola mission being organized? What are the specifics of the contest?

David Los: It’s an international contest and everyone who snaps photos of an Android device or the Android robot is welcome to submit photos. You don’t need to have an Android device exclusively in the photo, but there has to be an Android presence in it, such as the robot, an Android device being used by someone or visible somewhere in the photo, drawn as artwork, etc.

Ch: Does Motorola handle the selection of the winning photos?

David Los: Yes, Motorola can monitor the photos that are being submitted to the mission and when the mission ends, they’ll review all the photos and select the winners. This is how most companies on Foap go about the missions. Even if you don’t win a prize from the company, you still have the chance to sell your photos that you submitted, because it would be in the image library and Motorola for example might want to use it in the future. It can be like getting a “super-Instagram” profile. You don’t get likes from your friends, instead you get super-likes from international companies and brands that are buying your photos. It’s not only about the money, but about the fact that you will be seeing your photo used by a big brand who is sharing it with millions of other people.

Ch: Does Foap plan to make the app available as a pre-loaded app in the future on certain smartphones?

David Los: I can’t tell you about that right now, but we of course want to get into deeper publishing relationships with Motorola. As a first step, we already tried integration with the Motorola Moto 360. Everyone with a Moto 360 can automatically see photos that they upload through Foap and they can also get push notifications of new missions that are launched on Foap. Motorola liked Foap so much that they became the official launching partner of our Android application.

Ch: Do you have any other partnerships in mind this year?

David Los: We’re having a very interesting pipeline with new brands that will be running missions on Foap, but we haven’t announced them officially yet. There are many brands in our line-up that will be emerging with new missions in the next couple of weeks. We are currently running missions with Conde Naste, who are known for using highly professional photos and this is the first time they’ve tried tapping into the user-generated library and we’re happy that they came to Foap for that. We were also running an interesting mission with Hyatt Hotels, who were launching this Free Wi-Fi service across all their hotels, so they needed a lot of photos to promote this campaign. They wanted people to submit photos explaining what Free Wi-Fi meant to them, on a global scale. Hyatt Hotels are also super-happy about the content they’ve received, and they are using it across their social media platforms and in advertisements.

Ch: How does the growing number of partnerships with Foap influence the development of the app? How do you plan on enhancing the Foap experience for the companies that buy through the platform and for the users who sell through it?

David Los: We can’t disclose new features we’re working on yet, but we’ve been working closely with big clients. These partnerships, from the very beginning, have affected the way in which Foap developed over the years. The whole enterprise platform is adjusted for these big brands, who can in turn create sub-brands and teams that work with those sub-brands on Foap. All of the agencies and employees that work on a brand, Absolut for instance, can share and collaborate around all the photo assets on Foap. We adjusting the platform a lot for these big brands and their needs.

Ch: Would you like to include other media like audio smaples, Vines, videos, etc into the Foap licensing process?

David Los: We have been thinking about it and we’ve been getting some requests, too. Right now, we really just want to make the best out of what we have and become the best in delivering photos in the best possible way to the brands that are interested. Working with videos is totally different, so we wouldn’t like to switch the focus from photography right now. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be a possibility in the future.

Ch: Where did the idea for Foap come from? How did you end up creating a platform that allows artists and companies to share in such an easy and readily available way?

David Los: We realized at one moment, that today, anyone can become a photographer because everyone has a smartphone with a great camera that is only improving. Since everyone who has such a smartphone, the interest for photography is growing exponentially, and everyone is snapping great photos. There’s a lot of content being produced. I’ve been following the stock photo industry for a long time and I realized that the stages, stock images don’t really work in today’s environment. Maybe they worked 10 years ago, but they don’t work when companies want to get into our Facebook feeds and our social media platforms. In order to not be ignored, these brands need to use photos that are melting into the environment, and are similar to what everyday social media users are posting on platforms like Instagram and Facebook. I then realized that every brand that is on social media will need a lot of content, and I saw a big opportunity there. I anticipated that the need for content is just going to grow over the years, which lead to the idea of a social photography app, much like Instagram and Facebook but with a crucial difference that will allow its users to make money online out of their everyday photos. Users will get recognition for their photos, while brand will be able to access that massive amount of content that is being produced each day. The need for content is there, and this is just the beginning.

Ch: What is the purpose of the ID scan on Foap? How does it help the user, the company and Foap?

David Los: In general, since we are selling photos, we need photo buyers and users to trust each other, we need a community based on trust. It’s the same thing as Airbnb, where you have to scan your ID when you want to rent an apartment, so that you can gain trust in the Airbnb community. We mainly require this ID scan to form trust among photo buyers and sellers, so that we don’t end up with people uploading stolen photos. We have found that verified users are actually selling more than those who haven’t provided an ID scan. We are also ranking verified users higher in different searches. You can still sell a photo without completing the ID scan, but some missions require that you are a verified Foap user.  You also need to be verified before you cash out.

Ch: How do you ensure that user-generated content is genuine, original and not stolen from somewhere else?

David Los: This is a big issue in the general photo market, as a whole, too. We scan photos that are being uploaded through the app and run them too most reverse image search platforms, including Google. Also, the engaged Foap community usually reports photos that they think that are stolen. We try to tackle problems as they become significant ones. Until now, stolen photos haven’t been such a big problem on the platform, but we are always trying to find solutions to combat this type of behavior in the future. Usually, if a user posts a stolen photo, their account is deleted immediately.

Ch: How do you see Foap in the future, in the next five years for example?

David Los: I think Foap will become a very natural source for everyone that is on social media and sharing photos commercially, on social media and online edvertisement as well. Foap will become a very natural tool and resource for these kinds of photos. We will be focusing on being the go-to app when somebody needs a photo for their social media platform. We want to be able to deliver photos in the easiest way possible, we want to use technology and social data in order to help people find the photos they need much faster.

Ch: Will you make Foap available for Windows Phone in the future? How about other wearable platforms?

David Los: It will happen for sure, but I can’t disclose when exactly. As for wearable platforms, everything is becoming more and more mobile and Foap will definitely want to be there when technological advances are made.