Fotolia V.2

[Karimala]

I think I'm the only person around who has seen an increase in sales since the announcement.  But that's really not saying much, because last month was my 2nd worst month in an entire year.

[ozbandit]

I'm with you Karimala, sales have definitely picked up since the announcement

[CJPhoto]

K - Had an EL so this month is going to be a good one for me. 

Site still down though and since most of my sales come from Europe, my guess is I sont get my daily sale today.  Hopefully it doesn't scare of buyers long term.

Why didn't they upgrade during the weekend!

[Pixart]

I have better sales at BigStock than Fotolia and I think it is likely because I was too *lazy* to order my keywords.  I tried, but it was just too agonizing... now that the system should be faster I will clean up my act. 

By the way... I went through my files at Dreamstime and 1/2 done at Lucky Oliver by putting the major keywords in my titles rather than artsy titles.  Most sound like horrible broken English, but it seems to have boosted sales a little, even got 2 sales at LO this week.

[dbvirago]

Interesting idea on the titles. I may try that, but the 'artsy' titles is how I remember which photo is which.

Sales at Fotolia way down this month - even more than the other sites which are all down just a bit.

I like how Fotolia tells you to go to their blog for more info, yet there is no new info on the blog.

[hatman12]

FT still down and out.  Like others here have said - it does seem to be poor business planning that this should happen in the middle of the week rather than at the weekend.

Still, let's hope that once the new servers are up and running more customers are attracted to the site and buy more pictures at the new higher commission rates.

[Peiling]

Fotolia is still down after one day

[rossco]

reading the UK version of the blog earlier it gave a rough estimate of  the times that the site would be back up and announced the winner of the v2 logo competition. The US site did not have the same blog post.

Quote:
"...The V2 will be online today in the afternoon for Fotolia Europe and tomorrow morning for our American Fotolians..."

-Rossco

[Fortunefame]

Seriously, this downtime during a week s*cks monkeyballs. Poor poor business planning...

[Freezingpictures]

Maybe it takes 5 days and they want to be ready on Monday..
From my view it is better sooner then later. They allready took so long...

[budgaugh]

It's probably in everyone's best intrest to get this V2 going ASAP.  Do you think the buyers like the three minute page loads and errors when searching for photos.  I don't think waiting longer was an option. 

[ozbandit]

At least we have a latest update!

"This is the final round ... We have been working hard for the last 36 hours and a lot of work has been achieved :
7000Go of images have been imported and the same for the backup, 20 Go of data and 200 millions records have been processed to populate the 20 brand new servers, 20 people are checking and tracking bugs for the 8 websites in 6 languages.
We are working on the last steps and fixing the last bugs to make the site perfect for you. We appreciate your patience and continued support. We plan to launch the website in the middle of the afternoon or later this evening."

[HughStoneIan]

Just call it a hunch, but something tells me we still have a long long wait in front of us 

[sharply_done]

A very amateurish move on the part of FT. They've probably lost customers because of this, and it's an easy bet that at least a few people will be gone after this is all over. Unless V2 is (at least) as good as they say it is this could be the beginning of the end for FT.

... I'm ready, FTv2, I hope it's worth the wait!

[wysiwyg_foto]

Has anyone noticed that throughout the whole process the little green light to the right has remained on indicating that Fotolia is online?

I think Leaf has a secret portal in and isn't telling anyone about it. 

[Pixart]

No matter how bad it is shutting down in the middle of the week,  I'm sure they lost more customers with the sluggish site than they ever would being down a couple days.  Thank goodness they have a splash page explaining what is going on.  It would just suck for someone with a small budget though who only has credits there and needs access today.  I might be wrong, but I think that in the past Fotolia had quite a good reputation and client base.  Hopefully the changes will be a positive turnaround for them.

[hatman12]

The problem with Fotolia is lack of credibility, which is something of their own doing; they have persisted in deliberately misleading customers and contributors with their '3.5 million' stuff (and probably also with their 'we sell 10,000 pictures a day').

Once a business or an individual gets used to misleading (lying) they'll dig a big hole for themselves because professional people simply aren't that gullible.

Like others here I suspect that this transfer to V2 will take days and they probably won't ne up and running until next week.  But that won't stop them 'misleading' by putting out reassuring announcements that they are 'almost there'.

Once someone gets used to being dishonest it is very difficult to change them.

Having said all of that, I do believe that FT has potential, and they do appear to be able to sell my pictures, so that's encouraging.

We'll see if I'm right though - an announcement that 'we are almost there' even though they probably know it will take all weekend.

And let's see what happens after they've deleted all those pictures from the past; will they change the 3.5 million number?  I hope so; I hope they'll see sense.  But somehow I doubt it.

I suspect that FT is short of cash; probably underfunded; probably one of those internet bubble situations where the CEO is paying himself $500,000 a year while the business and customers starve.

Perhaps I am being unfair.  I hope so, but we'll see.

[madelaide]

I only hope they are not having problems (it's taking too long...) and that V2 will be something really really good.  FT is a good seller for me, and the only place were I sold EL so far (apart from one at FP), so I do hope things work right there.

Regards,
Adelaide

[takestock]

I agree Madelaide,

I hope it goes well, FT is a good all round site in terms of acceptance and sales. There's no harm in waiting!

[fotografer]

Maybe it takes 5 days and they want to be ready on Monday..
From my view it is better sooner then later. They allready took so long...

It's starting to look like you could be right. 

[ozbandit]

Fotolia V2 has already come up a few times, I even managed to login successfully. Unfortunately it was very slow which means they are still working out all the bugs. The good news is that it only said 1.6million pictures, meaning they definitely pruned their database. I bet there are a few stressed out techies working on it as we speak.

[hatman12]

Well if it really did say 1.6 million pictures Oz, that would be a HUGE step in the right direction.  HUGE.

And if they have cut the database, that should clean up the searches no end and give the rest of us a better chance for sales.

Let's keep our fingers crossed........

[dbvirago]

FTP isn't working yet. Not sure if that's temp or permanent. There is a new flash uploader I'm trying now. Slow, but I'm sure the site isn't 100% yet. It is a bandwidth hog, though. Hope ftp comes back

[Peiling]

I have problems logging in and the system is super SSSSSLLLLLLOOOOWWWWW..... connection failure.....ooopssss....looks really bad to me...

[CvanDijk]

I can get in but the Fotolia is even slower than before.  I hope this is getting better soon, because this will cost customers.