Koken is brand new, offering photographers, designers and artists a new kind of publishing platform. Koken focuses primarily on images, can be used on your own web server, and offers publishing tools for web sites. It is interestingly enough completely free. Having experienced the free model myself with TeuxDeux I can honestly say I have become wary of using services that don’t charge. Yes, I had a complete change of heart. Why? Hosting and upkeep of a web service is expensive. With so many services shutting down or being aquired these days, I am afraid of investing time in a service that might not exist in a year or so.
In this blog post the Koken founders epxlain why they want to keep it free. I hope they can make it work.