First Sales @ 3D Studio "Edit: 5 Sales"

[Adeptris]

I was quite active on the other thread about 3d Studio pointing out the negatives, so as a balance here is a more positive comment.

I uploaded 86 RF Images on the 27th July 2009, the upload was quite quick and took all the metadata as expected, so easy to manage I only had to add a category and attach a model releases where required, I checked today 30th July 2009 and I already have 1560 views and 1 sale.

Now I am not going to rush to do the IRS W-8 form, but I left the prices as the Minimum (Minimum: $4/$8/$12) which is the default, I could have set my own prices if I had wanted, the sale was 1600 x 1067 and sold for $8, the commission is $5.40.

I checked this against Istock pricing and the size relates to 1600 x 1200 which is 6 credits, in the UK the credits work out at $1.71 each, so that would be a $10.30 sale, and I would get $2.06 from IS.

Now I know that 3d Studio are not going to compete in anyway to the big players, and it will be a while until I get 10 downloads for a payout, but I thought I would share!



David      

[Talanis]

Thanks for Sharing David

[WarrenPrice]

That was the right thing to do, David.  You gained a bit of my respect. 

[Sean Locke Photography]

Good job!

[Phil]

thanks

[Magnum]

Good job!

Is everything ok?

[Sean Locke Photography]

Good job!

Is everything ok?

Sorry! 

Geez, David, what were you thinking?  You're contributing to the downfall of Western Civilization!

[Squat]

That's awesome,
That's  good commission for the size. A few cents less for what we get with certain Big 6 on an Extended License for a much much larger size image . Or like how many subs 20 ??  congrats David.

I also like the watermark.

[cidepix]

That's awesome,
That's  good commission for the size. A few cents less for what we get with certain Big 6 on an Extended License for a much much larger size image . Or like how many subs 20 ??  congrats David.

I also like the watermark.

The best watermark I have seen.

[bittersweet]

I think Veer MP's watermark is pretty good:



*not my file, in case you're wondering

[Adeptris]

O.M.G.

I just had another look 2 sales in 4 days!  

Quick statistics:
Royalties today: $7.20
Royalties this month: $12.00
Royalties owed: $12.00
Total active products 86
Total product views: 2,005
 
The second sale is full size and an object not a people shot, $12 and I get $7.20, maybe as they are a 3d modeling website someone wanted it to base a a new 2d or 3d model on


David   (Now I might rush to do the IRS W-8 form)

[LSD72]

and only a $50 payout for Paypal...yea...might want to get that form in ...lol. You might hit payout in August.

[kaycee]

I send them also some images.
See what's gonna happen.
Lots of views . 

[Squat]

I think Veer MP's watermark is pretty good:



*not my file, in case you're wondering

Yes, totally.
It's good to see two "new" sites (new , to me and many of us here , that is) , both with excellent watermarks. Shows that some sites DO care about protecting contributors images.
Let's hope the sales is just as good 

[Squat]

David  (Now I might rush to do the IRS W-8 form)

btw David, where do that?
US and Canada (we have a treaty vice versa), do we still have to do the IRS thing? On which page is that?

[Adeptris]

David  (Now I might rush to do the IRS W-8 form)

btw David, where do that?
US and Canada (we have a treaty vice versa), do we still have to do the IRS thing? On which page is that?

Login then My Account > Payment Information there is all the info there:

David 

[Squat]

cheers David. and congrats for your dl #2 success.

tan
(btw, the CEO of 3D is also matt ... a fine name !)   

[Adeptris]

and only a $50 payout for Paypal...yea...might want to get that form in ...lol. You might hit payout in August.

You might be right there, less than two weeks, 4 downloads, $24.00 commission:

Royalties owed: $24.00
Total active products 86
Total product views: 2,302
Total product downloads: 4

1 Big Cat image
1 Girl on mobile phone
1 Boy in hat
1 Wooden toy

David  

[Suljo]

Is it joke site like SCAM - PTC and PTR sites or what?
On Alexa graph they curve is crawling just little above bottom line?

[michealo]

Is it joke site like SCAM - PTC and PTR sites or what?
On Alexa graph they curve is crawling just little above bottom line?

Alexa sats mean nothing, I have worked for 3 companies with a total of almost half a million workstations between and no one ran Alexa because the desktops were locked down and each of the three bought lots of stock imagery

[willie]

and only a $50 payout for Paypal...yea...might want to get that form in ...lol. You might hit payout in August.

You might be right there, less than two weeks, 4 downloads, $24.00 commission:

Royalties owed: $24.00
Total active products 86
Total product views: 2,302
Total product downloads: 4

1 Big Cat image
1 Girl on mobile phone
1 Boy in hat
1 Wooden toy

David 

it must be nice to check your earnings and see a lot more than 30 centavos..lol..

at this rate David, you might be saying goodbye to micro stock and sub price very soon.
send me one of those  shamrocks  or rabbit's foot you have there hiding in your wallet pocket, ok?

p

[Suljo]

Is it joke site like SCAM - PTC and PTR sites or what?
On Alexa graph they curve is crawling just little above bottom line?

Alexa sats mean nothing, I have worked for 3 companies with a total of almost half a million workstations between and no one ran Alexa because the desktops were locked down and each of the three bought lots of stock imagery

Hmm
Half million workstations???
I think that Google and Yahoo summary dont have that ammount of servers eg work stations together!!!
Maybe the Total product views is general views of this site visits not views for each authors port  
I post them 30 photos and after few hours stats is:
Total product views:   437
Like every hour views are rising about 100 view amount???

[michealo]

I didn't say any of them were Google or Yahoo

And if you see here

http://www.pandia.com/sew/481-gartner.html

some estimates put Googles servers at 1,000,000

do some basic research  on Google or Yahoo before contradicting people

For example how may workstations do you think IBM or HP have deployed?

[Suljo]

I didn't say any of them were Google or Yahoo

And if you see here

http://www.pandia.com/sew/481-gartner.html

some estimates put Googles servers at 1,000,000

do some basic research  on Google or Yahoo before contradicting people

For example how may workstations do you think IBM or HP have deployed?

OK
Let it bee that you are right. After few months I was watching some Google video on they site about grid software and they servers, and they claimed that they didnt purchase servers and workstations and  terminals from this manufacturers because they make they custom models of machines for they own purpose. Its not my point how many machines some of manufacturers sell to different customers.
It was not point on that when I was see this lecture because this lecture can be old few years and if you are counting Moore Law in doubling space, memory, performance etc etc every year or 18 months it will be possible as you are claiming.
For all quoted above you right in this case
but I am just curious about visit stats for my 30 images in few hours. I know that people from Dreamstime are complaining for missing views eg no views no sales problem at this time.
From port on Dream of 800 images I havent so much views and now from 30 images in few hours I have 439 views???

[Adeptris]

but I am just curious about visit stats for my 30 images in few hours. I know that people from Dreamstime are complaining for missing views eg no views no sales problem at this time.
From port on Dream of 800 images I havent so much views and now from 30 images in few hours I have 439 views???

It is a matter of what constitutes a view, different website calculate differently, I was also wondering when I joined but the sales did happen, when you first upload your images go straight to the most recent thumbnail strip displays, maybe on each pageload a view is recorded, they also feed out via RSS and these might be recorded as views, lets not confuse views of thumbnail strips or pages with zooms to the details.
<...
EDIT: deleted comment as answered by 3DStudio in next reply
>...
If you have joined and worried about how much traffic, then go to reports and look at the last 100 searches, look at the date and time of the first and last searches, when I checked the 100 searches were carried out in around 5 minutes, so that is 24 a minute or one every 2.5 seconds.

B.T.W. after the inital rush of views they do settle, my 86 images average about 100 views a day.


David  

[Magnum]

Anyone else sold anything?

[The3dStudioDotCom]

I just got an email from somebody reading this thread and asking to clarify what a "view" is. I haven't read this entire thread yet but nice to see everyone talking about us, much appreciated! I figured I would paste my response in here as well...

A view on The3dStudio.com gets added when (and only when) the "details" page of a product is viewed, for example, this page...

http://www.the3dstudio.com/product_details.aspx?id_product=97483

...any time that page is loaded a view is counted. If you view your own product then a view is counted. Views are not intended to count unique visitors but are intended to be a good measure of the overall traffic each product gets and is especially useful for comparing one product view to another product view to spot trends in what's popular (and we have some newer reports in the works to show more info there as well).

It's important to note that views are not counted simply by turning up in search results or via the RSS feed (unless somebody from that feed clicks the link and views the details page). Views on our site is very high and that is normal, we get a lot of traffic though stock is still new and thus we are still ramping up our stock buyers.

It's also good to note that when you add a product you are on our home page for a while (until you get bumped out of the newest 10) and thus you may see initially higher views during that time.

Hope that helps...if anybody has any additional questions please let us know ([email protected] or use our contact form on www.the3dstudio.com) and we wll get back to you right away. I can't gaurantee that I will keep up on this thread though, sorry

[LSD72]

Anyone else sold anything?

Not yet but still a small port. Usually Lumaxart (I think) buries my new images with a crapload of their own. Not upset about it...just saying that seems to happen with no upload limit there.

[Magnum]

Anyone else sold anything?

Not yet but still a small port. Usually Lumaxart (I think) buries my new images with a crapload of their own. Not upset about it...just saying that seems to happen with no upload limit there.

If people want shiny golden small people, they know where to go .  I don�t think You need to worry about your work being burried.   And this is not like SS I guess?  I�m not sure.  Is the search based on newest?

[willie]

Anyone else sold anything?

Not yet but still a small port. Usually Lumaxart (I think) buries my new images with a crapload of their own. Not upset about it...just saying that seems to happen with no upload limit there.

If people want shiny golden small people, they know where to go .  I don�t think You need to worry about your work being burried.   And this is not like SS I guess?  I�m not sure.  Is the search based on newest?

lol.

Who was it ? Sean? who said something about somebody with x,000 images and no downloads?
I think if you flood the site(s) with 1,001 variations of one image, you really don't increase your chances of dl.  Instead you increase the chances of being another person with x,000 images and
very little downloads.
Once again, I think it was Sean (sjlocke) who also said it's best never to upload too many samey-samey images . 

LSD72, I guess that person at 3D studio did not pay attention to what Sean said.

But what surprises me even more is that 3D studio actually encourages this flooding of same images... I think that person was Featured Artist or something like that lately.
Not good ... especially when one of the Big 6 only recently went on a giant cleanup to get rid of such over-duplication.
 
 

[LSD72]

Like I said...not upset about it. I just remember uploading a few images one time then immediately checking the home page.....My last shot was at the end of page 2 or 3. The variations was same shot with a little gold guy, then Blue Guy, then silver or something like that. It's the same at Most Photos and some people flooding with 20 of * near the same pic.

Just seems to me like you would be competing with yourself by doing something like that. I also don't know how they run their search engine either. I dunno though...still a newb basically. I just keep doing my thing and trying to get paid that way.

[cascoly]

i started uploading to 3d last week - have about 350 images & 8800 views, with first sale last friday netting $4.8

  and, the support so far has been excellent

s

[dnavarrojr]

As someone who sells 3D models, let me also point out that TurboSquid has made some major policy changes that have ticked a lot of people off.  And T3DS is getting a lot of new sellers and visitors as a result. So now is probably a pretty good time to join.

I'm in the process of moving my models off TS this weekend and onto T3DS.

[Microbius]

Whenever  Alexa gets mentioned their stats are dismissed out of hand. Often by admins from new sites with very little traffic/ sales (though not in this case).  I for one see an absolutely excellent correlation between Alexa stats and my earnings on any given stock site.
I would recommend everyone tried comparing the sites they upload to on Alexa to see just how well this works.
For this reason alone I recon they are a brilliant tool for checking potential sales from a site. It's really odd that this is first site to buck this trend (?)

[Adeptris]

Whenever  Alexa gets mentioned their stats are dismissed out of hand. Often by admins from new sites with very little traffic/ sales (though not in this case).

I am shell shocked my images did not suit the microsites so I pulled them, I tried PhotoShelter then they popped, I have had sales on Alamy, now today there is another sale at 3DS of a 'horse's head through a stable door', not microstock but it shows there are plenty of buyers out there for non micro looking images.

As the recorded views are zooms to the comp size, I am getting far more activity here than from Alamy, whatever they are doing they are doing it right for me!.

Royalties yesterday: $4.80
Royalties this month: $16.80
Royalties owed: $28.80 (5 sales $5.76 Ave)

Total active products 86
Total product views: 2,523

$0.33 RPI in 15 days!  

David.

[The3dStudioDotCom]

It's hard to keep up with everyone on this post but I guess that's a good thing! Maybe I can jump in and clear some stuff up.

Although we do remove some images if they are too similar we don't think the solution is to disallow what some people call "too many of the same" unless they really are the same. A gold is not a blue guy is not a silver guy and all have markets. That's just how we feel. Instead, we have a different approach in mind and we would much rather instead keep updating our search systems to best handle that sort of thing.

Imagine if somebody went to google and said "You guys have too much stuff that's the same, you need to remove some of your indexed sites". Doesn't make sense right? Instead, google simply refines their search processes to show the most relevant results. Oh, right, that's the new thing at msn.com...er live.com...er bing.com...yea, bing.com...well, we'll see how well that works for them

While I wouldn't say we are on a google level yet, we do the same thing and results returned are based on how well the search matches the keywords and are then sorted by a rank much like google would do. There are other factors involved and we are adding even more to the mix now so as the collections grow the searches will still show the best results. We also have systems in place for tie breakers and one of those even includes seniority so now is a great time to add your products!

It just always seemed odd to me that larger stock sites would remove images if two were similar (unless they were near identical). To me that means that they don't have the know how to correctly handle that and show their customers the right searches. Like many things at The3dStudio.com, we just prefer to try things a different way that makes sense to us (and it's been working for us on the 3D side for years). We'd rather not do things like another site simply because that's how "they" do it. That's not slam against any of them, if what they do works for them I would say they should stick with it....we just work a little different and different can be good.

So, even if you see Lumax (etc) bumping you off the home page your results aren't actually being impacted by that unless the customer performs a search and then chooses to sort by date. But all searches are first based on keyword relevancy.

Oh, and as dnavarrojr wrote...there is a major upset over at the SlimySquid on the unethical way they are running their business (into the ground) and thus we are seeing a huge surge in new sellers and buyers which is great. There really is no better time to get started with us...we're not on an iStock or SS level yet but we have our own market and it's doing well for some and will grow over time as well. We will get there with your help and we truly appreciate all the support everyone here is giving us so far!

[Sean Locke Photography]

While that's all good in theory, I think we've seen Alamy suffer the backlash of "let it all in". 20 slightly different views of the same thing does not really benefit the designer and could possibly drive away customers due to search frustration.  I think that new sites are more likely to take this approach to build their collections and eventually end up turning about.  If I found in a search, five different color versions of the same shiny guy, I'd take my business elsewhere.

[krimi]

...why not just pick the best one?

[The3dStudioDotCom]

Well, again, I think there are different types of customers out there. Some who want a lot of choice and some who don't and as our stock section grows we will simply adjust our search engines to accommodate that.

Any time I see "too many results" in a search engine the solution to me is better programming, and that will put the burden on us to make sure we are constantly updating our results in a way that works best for our customers.

We already have data showing how customers either save to their lightbox or cart a few different views of a similar shot before picking one they like to buy. That may not be the case every time but even at this early stage we have data supporting our theories...and that makes sense because our 3D side works much in the same way.