Quote from: H2O on May 03, 2014, 10:38

Quote from: Noedelhap on May 03, 2014, 09:34

Quote from: H2O on May 03, 2014, 06:44

The people to contact and inform about what Oleg Tsheltzoff and his DPC site are doing, are the Advertising and Design Agency's, who use the content.

Deleting and Opting out is not enough the people who buy the content should be informed, they are creatives like us, they wont be happy about exploiting other creatives.

The quickest way to inform them, is through the Advertising and Design Press.

This would stop Oleg Tsheltzoff and his DPC site selling the content.

I don't think you'll be able to convince ad agencies to stop buying there. It's a cheap deal for customers, so why should they care about our commissions? You need to inform contributors. Without contributors, there will be no (or less) content, and then customers will stay away as well.

Convincing advertising and design agencies is a good idea because if they stop buying that hits Dollar Photo Club, and if they buy more it hits the contributers who are going to see an increase in 25 cents commissions.

This is a Win Win for US the contributors, as all those who get these low commission are going to start to ask some serious questions and be altered to this problem.

It really needs a big push to publicize this to the Advertising and Design Press to get the message out their - which ever way the agencies jump as a whole it will be a win.

The quicker the better.

Seriously? Big business doesn't care. It just wants cheap and Oleg thingy knows that. You go round agencies and tell them that they are going to hurt artists by getting the cheapest deal on the market and they will be queuing to sign up. Business isn't full of nice people. Take it from someone who's seen an oil industry chief exec boast to a central banker about getting Nepalese workers to take $200 a month.

The message to business/agencies needs to be that all the best images have fled from DPC because it is such a rubbish return for artists that only the dross is left. If they want anything half-decent they need to go up-market.

That is the strategy that iStock used so effectively in promoting its exclusives as providing the best imagery on the net. And you know what - true or not - it worked.

I feel like I did a pretty thorough search for stock photos & I have to say, I'm impressed w/@DollarPhotoClub! $10/month, $1/image

Checking out @DollarPhotoClub. Tired of paying a bundle for a single image.

@DollarPhotoClub Finally a no-nonsense photo stock website! Thank you! Bye bye shutterstock! #photography #webdesign

Quote from: Ron on May 02, 2014, 07:03

27,927,829

27,926,036

I'm still really bothered that they sent Mat in here to act like joe-average-contributor and try to sell us on DPC, only to see Mat leave in a huff when he was forced to admit his connection with Fotolia and blamed it all on us and the hostility of this forum.

Quote from: EmberMike on May 03, 2014, 12:13

I don't know if it is commonly known, but there are a number of micro sites that will close your account if they find out you work for another agency. 

I didn't know this until I was asked to be a reviewer at one site, and during my probationary period, I was contacted by several others who knew somehow that I was reviewing for this one site, and I was told that I would be thrown off some very lucrative sites if I continued "working for" this site I was reviewing for. It didn't even matter that I was an independent contractor and not an employee.   I had to stop reviewing before the probationary period was up because I needed the micro income more. 

Perhaps in the future it might be a good idea for agency employees who are also micro contributors to join under a different name, and get the agency badge from Leaf, but remain anonymous as to who they are as contributors.

Since I went indie I have been contacted by several agencies to work for them as either an image reviewer or community builder. I have always declined even if some projects sounded very interesting. I know that some agencies will consider you as "working for the enemy/competition" even if you are just checking releases and looking for sensor spots.

For me it is important to stay independent. If I ever was going to be on any agency payroll, I would probably withdraw my portfolio from others or at least I would contact them in advance to avoid misunderstandings.

Back on topic. what I think we have been seeing this year is more and more agencies using their apis to transfer our content to other sites where they set up new business models that we never agreed to. Deposit with their 30 dollar 30 cent api deals, getty who are building an advertising network on the back of very high quality contributor content for free and DPC that offers content that was sent to Fotolia in a new unlimited  1 dollar plan. If they had just opened a new agency and asked for content, they could only be offering the lower value files that the low value agencies are able to attract.

We really need to keep our networking skills very sharp and favor the agencies that communicate at eye level and run their business with longterm vision.

I wish Fotolia had invested their energy and money into improving their main site. There is a lot that can be done to make Fotolia itself more attractive.

It won't be anyone's 2nd agency (or 3rd or 30th) if DPC succeeds. That's the big threat here. DPC is the new FT, that's the product they are pushing, that's where they want people to buy images. They're advertising DPC right on the FT homepage (in some markets at least).

I've deleted 1/3 of my portfolio from FT. I suspect I'll be totally gone from there shortly, as it seems pretty unlikely that FT will change course with DPC any time soon. They're pushing this thing too hard, no way they will go back on it now.

DPC is the future for FT, and by staying with FT we're just helping them fund the growth of DPC.

That's the genius of this whole thing. DPC has been thought of before, but no one could pull it off from scratch. Who would contribute images to such a thing? So instead, they build it from the existing FT collection, launch it without letting anyone know about it, and funding the growth, marketing, and future development of it on the continued income from FT until DPC outgrows FT.

That's why they even offered an opt-out. It doesn't matter if you opt-out. FT can fund the growth of DPC via FT. Opting out shrinks the DPC collection, but staying with FT still supports DPC.

The end result, if they succeed in this, is to beat everyone, including SS, and completely disrupt the market. DPC is a game-changer, folks. No doubt about it.

Yesterday I checked if I had opted out of the social media promotions on FT. I suggest everyone does the same. Stop all auto posting to Twitter and Facebook. Stop promoting the hacks.


https://us.fotolia.com/Member/Modify/SocialNetworks