MicrostockGroup
Microstock Photography Forum - General => Microstock Services => Topic started by: leolintang on September 27, 2010, 04:26
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im just opening http://www.isyndica.com/ (http://www.isyndica.com/)
too bad now they're closing...
but dont worry there will be refund
in my country where internet speed is slow than US or europe
we still need service like this
cause its time saver :)
we miss you isyndica...
*are there any service like isyndica..?
im need this thanks
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Oh no !! that is bad news ! Been using them more and more lately, and love the analytics :)
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too bad, it was very useful for uploading pictures when traveling...
And of course, there is no explanations...
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Very sad to hear, they had a great site. Best of luck to Hugo and the rest of the iSyndica team in the future.
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There's another "didn't see that coming"...
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the idea was good but credits were too expensive, compared to current cost of bandwidth
so I never actually used it - besides registering for free.
Now, the only similar alternative is Photoshelter (http://www.photoshelter.com/referral/CL5DY6W42W) *
They offer an FTP export option, priced by bandwidth usage instead of credits. It is possible to upload to every site which accepts FTP - basically, all sites except IS. It's working pretty well, I am using it when I have to upload too many files at a time, otherwise I countinue to use plain old FTP.
*for those using my link to photoshelter above, yes it's a referral but there's also a discount for you!
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Yes they will be missed, back to square one now ....:(
Will be a pain to upload footage now for sure even pictures...
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Wow... We almost joined them 2 months ago but I thought their integration fee was too high and we decided not to... I'd be pretty mad if we did...
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Wow... We almost joined them 2 months ago but I thought their integration fee was too high and we decided not to... I'd be pretty mad if we did...
pixmac did that, their preferred submission method is (was) via isyndica...
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Darn it! I like Isyndica. With restricted upload bandwidth capacity (slow ADSL), it was a lifesaver.
Are there any comparable alternatives?
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No alternatives I am afraid:( hopefully in the future...
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This is a major bummer. It was especially useful for footage and I loved/used their analytics daily.
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Darn it! I like Isyndica. With restricted upload bandwidth capacity (slow ADSL), it was a lifesaver.
Are there any comparable alternatives?
No alternatives I am afraid:( hopefully in the future...
As I posted above, there's an alternative at least for multiple uploads: Photoshelter (http://www.photoshelter.com/referral/CL5DY6W42W)
(it's a referral link but there's a bonus for referred people as well)
I don't know of an alternative for analytics.
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PhotoShelter is stills only, isn't it? They don't support footage?
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humm I am already on smugmug :(
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I’m already on Photoshelter. Haven’t found them useful enough to continue, though.
E.g. The lack of iStock uploading is a bust.
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Add me to the ones who will miss isyndica. It made uploading to 5 or 6 agencies at once literally a one click operation.
Especially for video, it was worth the cost. But my favorite thing was to click on it in the morning and instantly see where and how much you were selling.
The support response was almost real time, incredibly helpful.
Like sjlocke said- I didn't see this coming. They had just enabled the process to upload to istockphotos archaic and stupid video folder system ( a true steampunk system), which must have been a lot of work down the drain.
I think the biggest problem is that the market they were going after counts the pennies on everything, and did not want to pay the price.
I'm on photoshelter for the ecommerce capabilities, but the system they have is too awkward to replace Isyndica. Photoshelter only does images, not footage, which was the real selling point for me at isyndica. I looked at smugmug, but I really didn't want little smiley faces all over my site.
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Wouldn't it be interesting if iStock had quietly bought them and shut them down to make it more difficult for their exclusives to jump ship?
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Wouldn't it be interesting if iStock had quietly bought them and shut them down to make it more difficult for their exclusives to jump ship?
I think you're giving istock too much credit for intelligent business decisions, which does not seem to be their strong point...
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I'm gutted. Uploading on my internet speeds is just so slow. iSyndica was such a great time saver, plus great to have my stuff all organised. I could see what was submitted where, check analytics, edit keywords with ease. It just made the whole process less cumbersome. I'm dreading the thought of it not being around anymore. Seb, Hugo and Kate, thanks for a great service and wish you all the best..
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PhotoShelter is stills only, isn't it? They don't support footage?
I never tried uploading video, but help says "PhotoShelter supports all major image formats including JPG, TIF, RAW, PSD and PDF" so I am afraid you are right
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Wouldn't it be interesting if iStock had quietly bought them and shut them down to make it more difficult for their exclusives to jump ship?
I think you're giving istock too much credit for intelligent business decisions, which does not seem to be their strong point...
It would be interesting if other sites - especially low earners - tried to introduce new upload methods to attract photographers, e.g.:
1. allowing FXP (site to site file transfer)
or
2. grabbing pictures (or a password-protected .zip file) from a free online storage (skydrive / dropbox / etc...) or generic server;or
3. peer-to-peer file sharing between a cloud of associated minor sites
we could then upload once to our preferred service and upload to a lot of minor sites which otherwise aren't worth the bandwidth
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Wow, this ruined my whole week! I used their upload system every week, though I joined them just because of the Istock upload possiblity, so Photoshelter is no alternative for me.
Any one know why Photoshelter cannot include istock?
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Wow, this ruined my whole week! I used their upload system every week, though I joined them just because of the Istock upload possiblity, so Photoshelter is no alternative for me.
Any one know why Photoshelter cannot include istock?
because Photoshelter (http://www.photoshelter.com/referral/CL5DY6W42W) sends files through generic FTP, and iStock doesn't
however, for iStock you may use deepmeta; it doesn't save bandwidth, but saves a lot of time with keywording - the boring part everywhere but particularly boring at iStock
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It would be interesting if other sites - especially low earners - tried to introduce new upload methods to attract photographers, e.g.:
1. allowing FXP (site to site file transfer)
or
2. grabbing pictures (or a password-protected .zip file) from a free online storage (skydrive / dropbox / etc...) or generic server;or
3. peer-to-peer file sharing between a cloud of associated minor sites
we could then upload once to our preferred service and upload to a lot of minor sites which otherwise aren't worth the bandwidth
Some of us are doing that now. I upload new images to my web provider and then FTP to Shutterstock. I remove what they reject, and then run a script that does an FTP to all the other sites. Except for iStock of course, but that ceased to be a problem a couple of weeks ago.
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Some of us are doing that now. I upload new images to my web provider and then FTP to Shutterstock. I remove what they reject, and then run a script that does an FTP to all the other sites. Except for iStock of course, but that ceased to be a problem a couple of weeks ago.
But your website says that you are an experienced Systems Engineer, besides a photographer - great port and gorgeous models by the way.
Something which didn't require server-side programming would be easier for the general public.
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I'm also surprised they are closing, it was great for footage and helped me get a lot of files to the sites quickly, will take much more time to upload now. Their prices were reasonable, for anyone making money doing this.
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never been there
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I'm also surprised they are closing, it was great for footage and helped me get a lot of files to the sites quickly, will take much more time to upload now. Their prices were reasonable, for anyone making money doing this.
You mean there are people making money doing this? ;D
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This stinks. Does Photoshelter support EPS (vector) illustrations? I can't seem to find anything about it on their site. ???
the idea was good but credits were too expensive, compared to current cost of bandwidth
so I never actually used it - besides registering for free.
Now, the only similar alternative is Photoshelter ([url]http://www.photoshelter.com/referral/CL5DY6W42W[/url]) *
They offer an FTP export option, priced by bandwidth usage instead of credits. It is possible to upload to every site which accepts FTP - basically, all sites except IS. It's working pretty well, I am using it when I have to upload too many files at a time, otherwise I countinue to use plain old FTP.
*for those using my link to photoshelter above, yes it's a referral but there's also a discount for you!
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This stinks. Does Photoshelter support EPS (vector) illustrations? I can't seem to find anything about it on their site. ???
the idea was good but credits were too expensive, compared to current cost of bandwidth
so I never actually used it - besides registering for free.
Now, the only similar alternative is Photoshelter ([url]http://www.photoshelter.com/referral/CL5DY6W42W[/url]) *
They offer an FTP export option, priced by bandwidth usage instead of credits. It is possible to upload to every site which accepts FTP - basically, all sites except IS. It's working pretty well, I am using it when I have to upload too many files at a time, otherwise I countinue to use plain old FTP.
*for those using my link to photoshelter above, yes it's a referral but there's also a discount for you!
I tried uploading an .EPS right now and it s supported.
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Wouldn't it be interesting if iStock had quietly bought them and shut them down to make it more difficult for their exclusives to jump ship?
My thoughts exactly. I'm not sure, but this isn't normal. iSyndica seemed pretty solid and well established. I used them every week, a few times a week! It made my life so simple, for so long.
I read someone saying the credits where too expensive! It's 1 cent per image! I always thought it was the perfect price!
I still think there is a conspiracy here. Some stock agency could have paid them to close it so it makes it harder to contribute to other agencies. Well well... what agency could that be, that has enough money for that and treats non-exclusives like ****!?
I'm downloading ProStockMaster to see if it helps at all. Anyone used it? Thoughts?
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I'm downloading ProStockMaster to see if it helps at all. Anyone used it? Thoughts?
for what I know, ProStockMaster still requires to upload files directly from your computer to every site. So it doesn't help to save bandwidth, it's just a microstock-flavoured FTP client
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I hate conspiracy theories, there are lots of possible reasons they are shutting down and I think it is probably better to ask them if you're curious.
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I'm downloading ProStockMaster to see if it helps at all. Anyone used it? Thoughts?
for what I know, ProStockMaster still requires to upload files directly from your computer to every site. So it doesn't help to save bandwidth, it's just a microstock-flavoured FTP client
I tried prostockmaster and found it to be amazingly buggy and amateurish. I had a problem and repeatedly tried to contact support. I thought they must have gone out of business because I never heard anything back. When isyndica came out i walked away from prostock, and even though isyndica is closing I would never go back to this program/company. A total theft of money.
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My sad goodbye to iSyndica: http://www.themicrostockblog.com/ (http://www.themicrostockblog.com/)
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For me to , i really liked them , made my life much easier , and really don't understand why that happened.
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Conspiracy theories aside, it seems awfully sudden. If it were financial difficulties, you would have thought they could have written a straightforward announcement to people who have been using their distribution service, explaining their predicament in an open and upfront manner, then announced some kind of increased pricing for the service.
Or they could have pulled an iStock, and just announced a price hike as if it was great for us, but we know how that went.
To just fold up shop seems unusual, must have been *really* unsusatinable.
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I'm downloading ProStockMaster to see if it helps at all. Anyone used it? Thoughts?
for what I know, ProStockMaster still requires to upload files directly from your computer to every site. So it doesn't help to save bandwidth, it's just a microstock-flavoured FTP client
I tried prostockmaster and found it to be amazingly buggy and amateurish. I had a problem and repeatedly tried to contact support. I thought they must have gone out of business because I never heard anything back. When isyndica came out i walked away from prostock, and even though isyndica is closing I would never go back to this program/company. A total theft of money.
I've recently started using ProStockMaster and haven't found any problems. The don't charge for their software anymore, it's a free download so it's worth a try. The only concern I have right now is the photo tracking data seems to be tied to which file a photo is in, so as you add more to a folder it could become very cumbersome to sort through several hundred or thousand
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PSM is excellent !!
Been using it for a year now, alongside iSyndica, and no problems at all !
Highly recommended, especially as it's now free :)
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The only concern I have right now is the photo tracking data seems to be tied to which file a photo is in, so as you add more to a folder it could become very cumbersome to sort through several hundred or thousand
It's tied to the folder !! Use a different one for each month of each year, and u won't have a problem ;)
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I have loads of files pending submission on iSyndica, specially for iStock. Now I'm going to have to check each image for each each agency and finish submitting them before they close! :(
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I'm downloading ProStockMaster to see if it helps at all. Anyone used it? Thoughts?
for what I know, ProStockMaster still requires to upload files directly from your computer to every site. So it doesn't help to save bandwidth, it's just a microstock-flavoured FTP client
I tried prostockmaster and found it to be amazingly buggy and amateurish. I had a problem and repeatedly tried to contact support. I thought they must have gone out of business because I never heard anything back. When isyndica came out i walked away from prostock, and even though isyndica is closing I would never go back to this program/company. A total theft of money.
I've recently started using ProStockMaster and haven't found any problems. The don't charge for their software anymore, it's a free download so it's worth a try. The only concern I have right now is the photo tracking data seems to be tied to which file a photo is in, so as you add more to a folder it could become very cumbersome to sort through several hundred or thousand
well free is what it's worth.
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I have loads of files pending submission on iSyndica, specially for iStock. Now I'm going to have to check each image for each each agency and finish submitting them before they close! :(
Me too , now before they close i have to upload 1000 of images
If wonder if it is ok for sites with limits like veer or stockfresh to upload tons of images and than adding little by little as limit allows u
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If wonder if it is ok for sites with limits like veer or stockfresh to upload tons of images and than adding little by little as limit allows u
For Veer, it is ok. You can upload all and then submit a few at a time.
Stockfresh, I don't know as I am still waiting for application approval.
(Shutterstock has no limits but deletes your unsubmitted files after a few weeks).
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I have loads of files pending submission on iSyndica, specially for iStock. Now I'm going to have to check each image for each each agency and finish submitting them before they close! :(
Me too , now before they close i have to upload 1000 of images
If wonder if it is ok for sites with limits like veer or stockfresh to upload tons of images and than adding little by little as limit allows u
I have about 300 to submit to veer but syndication is not working at the moment. I HOPE they fix this soon! Now I only have those files pending submission to Veer and about 35 to iStock. I managed to finish the other agencies! :D
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snip
Me too , now before they close i have to upload 1000 of images
If wonder if it is ok for sites with limits like veer or stockfresh to upload tons of images and than adding little by little as limit allows u
you can do that on canstock as well
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Hi all,
good news from an exclusive conversation with David Mail of ProStockMaster: Pixamba + PSM integration in 3-4 weeks!
Check it out:
http://www.mystockphoto.org/prostockmaster-pixamba-for-the-isyndica-orphans/ (http://www.mystockphoto.org/prostockmaster-pixamba-for-the-isyndica-orphans/)
Ciao,
Roberto
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thanks for the info!
nice blog by the way
ciao
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thanks for the info!
nice blog by the way
ciao
Thanks Diego :-)
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Pixamba brought back from the dead:)
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Hi all,
good news from an exclusive conversation with David Mail of ProStockMaster: Pixamba + PSM integration in 3-4 weeks!
Check it out:
[url]http://www.mystockphoto.org/prostockmaster-pixamba-for-the-isyndica-orphans/[/url] ([url]http://www.mystockphoto.org/prostockmaster-pixamba-for-the-isyndica-orphans/[/url])
Ciao,
Roberto
"unlimited number of FTP distribution channels" AND "Most of the functionality will be will be free of charge."?
should the two things come together (=free ftp), it sounds like great news
it would be nice to know how they'll manage to profit from this: what will they do with our images? should they sell at an acceptable price, or get a % from other agencies, no problem for me - just my suppositions
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My name be haloed or cursed forever on...
I suppose I should give a few word to address the common "why, oh, but why?" question and a few other points raised on this thread.
"Why?" - give you one guess, and some of you had reasonable guesses for part of the issue: sustainability, or lack thereof.
"Why not raise the price?" someone said. Well, you tell me, this very thread has a mix of comments between "it was great and cheap" and "credits sucked and it was too expensive". I guarantee you, it makes it quite tough to find the right price point to balance the customer base with the revenue targets, and your operating costs.
I will give you a comparison that is a bit crude but has the benefit to make your reflect on the matter with the proper angle. Most of us, me included, have no problem spending $5 at Starbucks to get a coffee. Well, heck dude, you can get a coffee just about as good, if not better, for 50 cents if you make it yourself. I don't see us counting our pennies then, right? You enjoy the coffee and forget you just pissed out $4.50.
When it comes to providing a service that revolves around you (or I) making money, suddenly prices become a much more sensitive story. You start comparing your income versus your cost. And the truth of the matter (some here pointed that too) is that the majority of contributors really don't make that much. And because most people don't value their time, the $5 spent on a coffee suddenly becomes a more attractive proposition than $1 spent on saving you a couple hours of work.
Because, from the start, based on our positioning as a tool for contributors, and not a microstock agency on steroids (with distribution), we were caught between a rock and a hard place: most potential users don't really feel like paying and we can't make a commission on content sales for fear our distribution network would collapse under anti-distribution warfare from agencies who would see us as direct competitors endangering their supply line. You have this attitude to thank for Shutterstock persistent refusal to be listed on the network (and them threatening to sue me personally and closing my personal contributor account a couple times). Believe it or not, we grew to feed 5% of their weekly content supply through that magic "Generic FTP connector", but does that really matter?
In the final analysis, much like anywhere else, the Pareto principle applies: 20% of the contributors publish 80% of the content. Of those contributors, 20% make 80% of the revenue. Everyone else is reduced to see micro stock, now very much a commodity market, as a mildly enticing waste of time or moderate income source, which, in truth is disproportionately small in comparison to the energy we spend "feeding the beast".
As a final point to answer "why", yes, iSyndica had some reasonable backing, however the business results were disproportionately small in comparison to the original objectives. We weren't supposed to just focus on micro stock, for one thing, but problems following one another, we ended up being stuck there. You do not get investors without having to measure yourself to some minimal expectations. And thus, while the platform was technically sound and could have gone further (for fear you might cry bloody murder I won't give you details on some of the features we kept under wrap in the last 3 months and would make some people who post in these forums look like Mickeys at the Zoo, I won't name them), but in terms of business, in terms of pure profitability, we shot ourselves in the foot (and the head) from the start and it was time to pull the plug, instead of pissing money in a black hole - excuse my French (I get discount points for actually being French).
So there is for the "why".
For all those of you out there who used us - even for free - you have my most sincere apologies that this flight-of-fancy is coming to an end. Believe you me that nine of you will be as sorry as I am after giving my heart and soul to this venture over the past 2 years. For those of you who didn't use us, you should have tried, it would have made you realize how valuable your time is.
Now, regarding specific points raised in this thread:
- Syndication was paused for a couple hours today as I rolled out the account closure/refund page. Things should be back in order now.
- If you run out of credits for your last syndications, contact support. (@isyndica.com) you can't place orders for credits anymore because I want to limit accidental user errors causing frustration for everyone at refund time, BUT we will arrange something fair and I certainly won't begrudge you a few pennies if that's all you would need - that's on the house
- Refunds: we pay you back pro-rata for your subscription and storage and credits based on your average purchase price, everything rounded to your advantage, AND your referrals. No payout limit. No BS. BUT you must fill out the Account Termination form because we do not have your billing information to pay you back and Paypal does not allow refund on old orders. I have extended the deadline for refund requests to October 17 and will be playing Captain on the deck on my sinking ship to fulfill all the requests we receive.
- Manually synchronizing your portfolio after iSyndica to figure out what you sent, where: no need. Connect to you FTP account on iSyndica and download the Syndication.tab.txt file that you can open up in Excel and transform into a Pivot table. If you need more details, I can probably accommodate this as well,l. Contact me on the support email.
- Other solutions in the life after iSyndica. My cynical side would say no other sucker got caught into that trap, but there are some ways: PSM, Cushystock, and eventually Pixamba, the makers of PSM actually mentioned they were planning an online distribution service. There is also a slim possibility that the service could be revived by either of a few companies that contacted us for a possible transfer. This is a discussion in progress however and there is no promise (and no, iStock didn't buy us to plug exclusive account leaks, god bless them they never figured out everybody cracks the API key from their Aperture pllugin to syndicate to them!)
I think I answered all the questions raised in this thread, if there is more, please contact me at [email protected] - I guarantee you I will treat everyone of you as best as I can.
Ladies, gentlemen, again, it has been a pleasure (if all relative in light of the abyss I now contemplate) to serve you these past two years, and for what it's worth, you have my sincere apologies for capturing you along with me and all our team at iSyndica in a dream that ended sooner than desired.
With all my Best regards,
Seb, CTO, iSyndica
PS: Dave thanks for the lovely blog post. Funny I had in mind to put a tombstone on the homepage after I put the key under the door. That and maybe this cool poem from Yates, you know: "... But I, being poor, have only my dreams, thread softly, for you thread on my dreams..." maybe I should just point the DNS to your blog ;-)
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Seb,
my public thanks for all your work and for sharing with us these "personal" facts and thoughts.
Best,
Roberto
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How much for a copy of the website I can run locally on my system? :)
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Excellent response Seb, I'm very sorry to see you guys going, but thank you for the honest info on what happened.
Best of luck in the future, if there's ever anything I and picNiche can work with you on, you have my fullest attention :)
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If wonder if it is ok for sites with limits like veer or stockfresh to upload tons of images and than adding little by little as limit allows u
For Veer, it is ok. You can upload all and then submit a few at a time.
Stockfresh, I don't know as I am still waiting for application approval.
(Shutterstock has no limits but deletes your unsubmitted files after a few weeks).
Hm , Im got this message on isyndyca:
The last upload to your channel failed with the report that your quota has been reached. Credits have not been removed from your account, however subsequent uploads would fail until you resolve this issue.
Consequently, your channel Veer® has been temporarily disabled.
Please visit your channel account to correct the matter by submitting your uploaded files first and making sure you free up your quota for further uploads
So I guess they have limits , if Im understanding this right , only I just back from a party so I better see again tommorow
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It could survive if there was no economic downturn in last 2 years. But you cannot target your product to 5% of the market. I was stating this from the beginning, most of the contributors do not make enough to justify spending money on such service. I wish it is 20/80 then you might build business around it. I guess it's more like 5% of contributors earns 95% of revenue.
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So I guess they have limits , if Im understanding this right , only I just back from a party so I better see again tommorow
I thought they didn't. Maybe limits are so high that I never met them: I think I had about 1K images in the unprocessed queue at times.
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@ Seb,
just wanted to thank you for your service! I really enjoyed isyndica.
I wish you the best!
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Like Seb and Roberto mentioned above, we do plan to introduce a new online service soon. First of all, this new service will allow ProStockMaster customers to send their images out only once, while the online system will do the actual distribution. This client-server extension to ProStockMaster will be ready in October, and, like anything else in ProStockMaster, it will be available free of charge for the PSM customers. The online distribution will be done through our Pixamba SaaS which will get an additional, contributors-oriented GUI.
The vision is quite simple: we plan to offer 80% of the functionality free of charge, including unlimited number of custom FTP channels and Pxamba-added stock agencies that we will integrate periodically, in addition to the existing 9 of them.
Media can be stored either offline (i.e on a local filesystem, like we do now with PSM) or online with Pixamba. If the latest option is chosen we'll provide a bunch of the additional functionality, including detailed sales stats and reports, and will charge a monthly fee for this service.
Of course it would be great if we could come to agreement with iSyndica, it could make the things much easier to their customers. Meanwhile, I suggest to download all the dump files that iSyndica offers. Probably we'll be able to make a use of them in the near future.
Also, a few frequent questions I am getting these days are listed here: http://prostockmaster.com/2010/isyndica-closes/ (http://prostockmaster.com/2010/isyndica-closes/)
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Hey Seb.
I'm really sorry to see iSyndica closing. It has made my life so much easier in the last year or so. I don't think prices were too expensive and I would have paid more, if necessary. I feel that you could have given it a little more notice so we could prepare ourselves and finish syndication before the deadline, but that's not going to be possible for some agencies.
And seriously, someone asked how much for a copy of the website. I'm interested too! :)
Best regards!
Dan
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First of all, this new service will allow ProStockMaster customers to send their images out only once, while the online system will do the actual distribution. This client-server extension to ProStockMaster will be ready in October, and, like anything else in ProStockMaster, it will be available free of charge for the PSM customers. The online distribution will be done through our Pixamba SaaS which will get an additional, contributors-oriented GUI.
Hi David,
Uploading once, and then distributing is great! expecially for free
Will you also allow direct FTP to Pixamba for redistribution without using ProStockMaster?
I am asking because I already have a workflow in place, which includes IPTC and FTP from a Linux machine, and I don't see a reason for introducing another step (ProStockMaster, which furthermore is not available for Linux) when a simple FTP client would suffice.
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Thanks for all the info Seb. It is sad to see iSyndica go. It was a very well designed site. Good luck on your next project whatever that may be.
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Will you also allow direct FTP to Pixamba for redistribution without using ProStockMaster?
Yes, of course. You will be able upload images to your online portfolio with any SFTP client, e.g. Filezilla.
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Will you also allow direct FTP to Pixamba for redistribution without using ProStockMaster?
Yes, of course. You will be able upload images to your online portfolio with any SFTP client, e.g. Filezilla.
Thanks, I'm starting to like your project.
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Thanks, Seb, for a classy post and an honorable end to your service. I wish it didn't have to end. I will miss it very much. The alternatives to your service are garbage, unfortunately. Good luck wherever you go next!