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Following on from the Photographers Collective thread how to proceed

Join together for leaverage
23 (31.9%)
Create a Collective Website
26 (36.1%)
Not Interested Wate of Time
23 (31.9%)

Total Members Voted: 59

Author Topic: Photographers - Collective which Direction  (Read 30632 times)

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WarrenPrice

« Reply #75 on: May 13, 2009, 13:05 »
0
I was turned off by the sarcasm and ridicule.  Not my idea of characteristics expected of "leaders."



« Reply #76 on: May 13, 2009, 13:09 »
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So the 'Photographer's Collective' is your thing now?
That's news - I thought it was a group effort.
Unfortunately, I believe things like this will be happening a lot :(

« Reply #77 on: May 13, 2009, 13:19 »
0
It's a fair guess that most people would be open to joining some sort of microstock association (e.g. microstock.org - click on it and look at the photo for a prophetic chuckle). From my point of view it would be an extremely good idea for leaf to purchase that domain name, then revamp this place into the forum for the organization.

What's turned me off so far is that certain people seem to be under the impression that they can (almost) single-handedly whip up some sort of commercial website, or that they can successfully enter the marketplace with an absolute minimum of venture capital. I'm also put off that the people with the most to say on this are also the ones who hardly sell anything - they seem to blame their lack of income on 'unfair commissions' rather than their inability to make and market commercial imagery.

As to what's missing, I think that to be perhaps one of the earliest goals any organization needs to set: a mission statement.
« Last Edit: May 13, 2009, 13:26 by sharply_done »

« Reply #78 on: May 13, 2009, 13:37 »
0
I think the the biggest photographers watch closely this thread, just they don't wanna be exposed because they don't want to ruin relations with agencies.

I am sure that will be one of the reasons why the Big Ones do not react.  Another reason (especially for smaller contributors) might be the possibility of retaliation by the agencies.  If an agency notices that contributor X gives his/her images exclusively to the new collective "premiere" site for the first six months, the Big Agencies will not like this.  I don't expect they will ban Yuri for it, but what about the smaller contributors?
By the way, I really liked the term "Premiere" - don't remember who launched it in the other thread, but I think it would stand out as part of the site name (photopremiere.com, premierestock.com?)

« Reply #79 on: May 13, 2009, 14:08 »
0
By the way, I really liked the term "Premiere" - don't remember who launched it in the other thread, but I think it would stand out as part of the site name (photopremiere.com, premierestock.com?)

Ironic, that's the name of IS's new collection , isn't it?

« Reply #80 on: May 13, 2009, 16:29 »
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Ironic, that's the name of IS's new collection , isn't it?

Yes, but theirs seem incorrect.  They seem to want it to be a collection of top quality images, highets in importance, thus it should be "premier", not "premiere".  A collection of images not seen elsewhere before, as suggested here, should be "premiere".

« Reply #81 on: May 13, 2009, 21:26 »
0
Ironic, that's the name of IS's new collection , isn't it?

Yes, but theirs seem incorrect.  They seem to want it to be a collection of top quality images, highets in importance, thus it should be "premier", not "premiere".  A collection of images not seen elsewhere before, as suggested here, should be "premiere".


maybe since canada being bilingual ,  they had a french translator  where one is masc (without the e) and the other is fem (with the e) but synonyms.
then again,  coming from IStock, we won't know until they tell us what THEY really mean  ;)
« Last Edit: May 13, 2009, 21:34 by Perseus »

« Reply #82 on: May 14, 2009, 00:28 »
0
What's turned me off so far is that certain people seem to be under the impression that they can (almost) single-handedly whip up some sort of commercial website, or that they can successfully enter the marketplace with an absolute minimum of venture capital. I'm also put off that the people with the most to say on this are also the ones who hardly sell anything - they seem to blame their lack of income on 'unfair commissions' rather than their inability to make and market commercial imagery.

As to what's missing, I think that to be perhaps one of the earliest goals any organization needs to set: a mission statement.

It is not that hard for a couple of people to setup a scalable website the problems is unpaid time to plan, QC, marketing who gets paid for what etc:, when you look are starting a website and think of the bandwidth and space to hold a few million images it becomes scary, I have been looking at the Amazon Cloud where you rent all the services on a usage basis, so as your model grows the soulution and charges grow in proportion this keeps hardware costs very low, there is are case studies on the site and one on media companies using this service, you may know them as SmugMug they just sell you space in thier bucket at $39.00 per year and have built thier services on the cloud technology, looking at this model is good because they pay for space and traffic at a very low rate and charge you a subscription a lot of people will pay for the service and only upload 100-200 images, as a guide low use rate for 1000 Alamy sized images costs $36 a year to store on Amazon. 

For any private Venture Capital you would have to give a big slice of the business away, you could ask photographers to pay a subscription or a joining fee but it would be hard to raise enough capital that way  to cover any full time staff etc.

I have had account with most microstock sites and Alamy and did have sales, at the moment I have closed all these accounts, not because of 'poor sales' but poor percentage returns for effort, this stopped me uploading and looking again for a better model.

If you created a new agency then there would have to be owners, these would be the ones doing the work so you have just another agency, the other option with the least overhead would be an organisation like SAA but I am not sure how much they are listened to by the traditional agencies.

Quite right about the mission statement and a business model, there are many photographers here with the skillsets required, I am a contractor and have been programming databases for 12 years, but like most things it will be how much time any one can give.

David

« Reply #83 on: May 14, 2009, 02:37 »
0
It's a fair guess that most people would be open to joining some sort of microstock association (e.g. microstock.org - click on it and look at the photo for a prophetic chuckle). From my point of view it would be an extremely good idea for leaf to purchase that domain name, then revamp this place into the forum for the organization.


I looked at pre-registered domain names and one company wanted $10000, I would think that one would not be cheap, if you can come up with one that is not registered let me know the name and I will give you a site and some space free of charge, although I cannot offer anything that fancy but if you want a webspace and domain to use as a place to kickstart this, I will donate one and you can have it free of charge:

This is what I will contribute:
www.photographers-collective.com which comes with .co.uk and .net
Preloaded with DNN which gives you a Blog, Articles, Forums, wiki, FAQ etc: many of these can be written to and submitted from your desktop via Live Writer, also you have webmail and 20 email addresses, so emails would go from [email protected]

There is no catch, I am taking another direction and will be looking more at 'Digital Web Logistics' tools, that will act as transport between vendor and customer more than another imaging website, there is room for all idea's and if I can get this working with micro payments for use then I will be back to talk to you.

I registered DigitalWebLogistics .com .net and .org for 2 years total cost $70, so there are still some bargins to be had out there.

David  ;D   

« Reply #84 on: May 14, 2009, 06:09 »
0
I have had account with most microstock sites and Alamy and did have sales, at the moment I have closed all these accounts, not because of 'poor sales' but poor percentage returns for effort, this stopped me uploading and looking again for a better model.

David, you mentioned "most micro and Alamy...having closed all these",  does this mean you 're now doing it independently or just with trad sites?


« Reply #85 on: May 14, 2009, 06:25 »
0

What's turned me off so far is that certain people seem to be under the impression that they can (almost) single-handedly whip up some sort of commercial website, or that they can successfully enter the marketplace with an absolute minimum of venture capital. I'm also put off that the people with the most to say on this are also the ones who hardly sell anything - they seem to blame their lack of income on 'unfair commissions' rather than their inability to make and market commercial imagery.

As to what's missing, I think that to be perhaps one of the earliest goals any organization needs to set: a mission statement.

perharps the collective could try approaching Photo Shelter as they already had once the model of a working site, AND, they had a similar mission ie. taking on Getty. I recall reading their frontpage agenda and thought, "wow David (no pun intended) taking on Goliath !"

« Reply #86 on: May 14, 2009, 07:10 »
0

What's turned me off so far is that certain people seem to be under the impression that they can (almost) single-handedly whip up some sort of commercial website, or that they can successfully enter the marketplace with an absolute minimum of venture capital. I'm also put off that the people with the most to say on this are also the ones who hardly sell anything - they seem to blame their lack of income on 'unfair commissions' rather than their inability to make and market commercial imagery.

As to what's missing, I think that to be perhaps one of the earliest goals any organization needs to set: a mission statement.

perharps the collective could try approaching Photo Shelter as they already had once the model of a working site, AND, they had a similar mission ie. taking on Getty. I recall reading their frontpage agenda and thought, "wow David (no pun intended) taking on Goliath !"


With due respect, what makes you think you can make a success out of what Photo Shelter failed at?

« Reply #87 on: May 14, 2009, 07:49 »
0


perharps the collective could try approaching Photo Shelter as they already had once the model of a working site, AND, they had a similar mission ie. taking on Getty. I recall reading their frontpage agenda and thought, "wow David (no pun intended) taking on Goliath !"


With due respect, what makes you think you can make a success out of what Photo Shelter failed at?

With due respect in reciprocation, with your exemplary pro-active voracious enthusiasm they just might stand the ghost of a chance  ;)
« Last Edit: May 14, 2009, 08:06 by Perseus »

« Reply #88 on: May 14, 2009, 13:10 »
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David, you mentioned "most micro and Alamy...having closed all these",  does this mean you 're now doing it independently or just with trad sites?

I started in Microstock as most do to "make money from you photo's", I enjoyed the steep learning curve and the realisation my images were not as good as my daughters told me, but I did learn hell of a lot out of it, but my mind kept going back to my ex-partner and her Amway Pyramid experience, where a few made all the money while other aspired to be like, and I could not accept the different canisters and diamond concept or the low returns, so I  moved across to Alamy the playing field more even, returns were greater there but with a couple of changes it was clear that they would not be able to sustain the growth of 6 million images a year shared between falling revenue, so I have pulled out of there, I am of the opinion now that the next model will be direct sales with more photographer control, so I will be working on a type of image RSS feed for Ebay for images solution for the rest of this year and will look again at the market in 2010.

David  ;D     

RacePhoto

« Reply #89 on: May 14, 2009, 14:25 »
0
Before it changes, I had to do a screen snapshot of this one.  ;D




Talk about even results? Out of 66 people, it's a dead heat!

« Last Edit: May 14, 2009, 14:43 by RacePhoto »

« Reply #90 on: May 14, 2009, 16:29 »
0
...I  moved across to Alamy the playing field more even, returns were greater there but with a couple of changes it was clear that they would not be able to sustain the growth of 6 million images a year shared between falling revenue, so I have pulled out of there,


David, cheers.
granted your justification to pull out of micro, if you didn't care for their culture.
but why would you have to pull out of Alamy when they don't require exclusiveness. Would be no harm to just leave them there given the sales you had.  ???
if you don't mind me probing. just trying to objectively weigh in.
« Last Edit: May 14, 2009, 16:31 by Perseus »

« Reply #91 on: May 14, 2009, 16:43 »
0
David, cheers.
granted your justification to pull out of micro, if you didn't care for their culture.
but why would you have to pull out of Alamy when they don't require exclusiveness. Would be no harm to just leave them there given the sales you had.  ???
if you don't mind me probing. just trying to objectively weigh in.

Last post as this is off topic.

In a year the Alamy library grew by 50% that is from 10 million to 15 million images, revenue flattened and fell, the market Alamy fits into is shrinking with online content and newspapers squeezing suppliers, many will not last another 5 years and in my opinion many other stock imaging sites will shrink as well as new delivery models come online, Alamy have tried a couple of schemes that were not thought through so the trust to take things forward is lost.

It takes 90 days for Alamy to release the images after deletion, I want to have control over my assets and a new Digital Web Logistics (digital media distrubution) model up and running by late autumn this year.

Regards

David
« Last Edit: May 14, 2009, 16:52 by Adeptris »


alias

« Reply #92 on: May 15, 2009, 10:46 »
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I have said several times that I do not believe that just another microstock site, another closed model, would be the way to go.

I believe that what will work, when it happens, will be a different model. Not an agency. And it will be a model which is so obviously going to win that photographers and designers will not need to be persuaded. That is what happens when you get the right synthesis of ideas, timing and technologies. If the model works the idea will quickly take hold now that nearly everyone is connected via Twitter,Facebook etc. What is needed is an infrastructure via which pictures can be browsed and bought. There needs to be some system of quality control or rating.

I do not believe that stuff done by committee or agreement has any chance of getting anywhere. For that reason I am pleased to see individuals putting together prototypes and models of how a thing might look and feel. Great projects work when an individual or a small team has a good idea and works hard to follow it through.

« Reply #93 on: May 15, 2009, 12:39 »
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I have said several times that I do not believe that just another microstock site, another closed model, would be the way to go.
EDITED
 If the model works the idea will quickly take hold now that nearly everyone is connected via Twitter,Facebook etc. What is needed is an infrastructure via which pictures can be browsed and bought. There needs to be some system of quality control or rating.


good ideas, but not sure about Twitter or Facebook with them being so easy to set up or hack,
see latest today on Yahoo news

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/090514/tecnology/net_us_facebook_hackers

« Reply #94 on: May 15, 2009, 12:45 »
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If your Digital Web Logistics is just a framework anybody can plug in new website that's what I was asking for. There is noting like that on the market. If anybody allows you to use their system usually they want you to upload to their site first. One thing I wish to avoid is uploading same stuff to many places. I just want to be able to share and sell pictures stored in one place across internet.

« Reply #95 on: May 15, 2009, 13:59 »
0
If your Digital Web Logistics is just a framework anybody can plug in new website that's what I was asking for. There is noting like that on the market. If anybody allows you to use their system usually they want you to upload to their site first. One thing I wish to avoid is uploading same stuff to many places. I just want to be able to share and sell pictures stored in one place across internet.


That is the concept, but I was struggling to get it across, then I though about a phrase or term that people could relate to and it is Digital Web Logistics via the internet, at the moment you upload to many sites as you say, and let them set the price and sell your assets and only pay you when you have enough sales, they have to pay the bandwidth for you to manage your images, pay for storage, pay someone to look at many images they do not really want, that is some of the costs that cuts the photographers share.

I know I am going on a bit and yeah you have heard it before, but try to think in Vendor - Asset - Store - Customer, and not Photographer - Image - Agency - Customer, these are your assets that you load up to the next best startup website.

This model is good for the photographer and agencies:
1. photographer uploads once and retains control of thier asset until the point of delivery
2: by choosing to submit a small data packet the image data (text packet) is added into a data warehouse,
3: the agents pull the data they are interested in via a large online search engine
5: the engine gets a request for one of your images copies the thumbnail 170px x 170px to a storage zone
6: it will be availiable for a month in that zone
7: the agent now has a smaller set of images to suit thier website to look at
8: Agent has much lower costs as they do not store the full size image just thumbnails
9: Instead of many uploads, rejections for not what we need, you images are working for you
10: You have set the price the agent must pay for the image
11. if you trust the agent you could let the cash build or select instant payment
12: you get the price you set not what the agent sets, they run thier business on the markup they add

Example:
Look at the new model for agents, lets say a wildlife magazine want to add and image stocksite to bring in some more interest and revenue, Agent downloads a toolkit or template, registers to use the service, creates thier pages, goes to the search engine and filters by keyword and price band the images they want, marks the images which can either be an instant addition or the Photographer can request a notification and decide later, within a day the Magazine has a very large gallery of images they need without having to deal with one submission

This will either be a yes or no based on the search engine, I will be uploading 2 million combinations of random keywords as a test, the submit process to the search engine will have an option to submit matched keywords in several languages, this opens up your images to the worldwide market place not just english speaking. 

David
   

« Reply #96 on: May 17, 2009, 01:37 »
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The first discussion started out very promising but eventually descended into two pages of bat signals and the like, and some people may have lost interest at that point. As more and more people voiced opinions, there was revealed to be some fundamental, and possibly insurmountable, differences in ideology about direction.

Technically, it's not that difficult to make yet another stock agency. SEO and combined promo could take care of the marketing for the most part, when the big brass joined. One month exclusive lock in could attract buyers that are keen on fresh and not overused images.

The main issue, like always, is in the search engine and image ranking. The contributors might have common goals in the collective, but in the battle for the front page, they will be deadly competitors. If it's a collective, that will end in bitter fights amongst ourselves of how the search engine is organized.

We already had a mild preview of this when DT started to play with the image ranking default. A vested stock site can always say "this is how it is, period", but a collective with some big egos will have endless discussions, backstabbings, alliances and factions.
« Last Edit: May 17, 2009, 01:41 by FlemishDreams »

« Reply #97 on: May 17, 2009, 01:53 »
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Based on the people contributing to this thread, there seems to be little or no interest from significant/successful photographers, and you will not succeed unless you can attract at least some of these people.

Yes, to steal a quote from an article on Waterkeeper's Alliance  Bobby Kennedy fundraiser, "if you're going to go head to head with corporations with deep pockets, don't show up to the event with nobodies".

Good point sharply_done.



Yep unfortunately there doesn't appear to be significant interest from the contributors that matter... let alone any broad support from elsewhere. Don't be fooled - the most important thing here isn't the format of any site, its the participation of contributors. Unless there is broad based support for any "collective", there isn't a collective.


 

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