Author Topic: A call to arms - Support StockFresh (Read 40208 times)

rubyroo · « **Reply #75 on:** May 19, 2012, 15:42 »

Quote from: EmberMike on May 19, 2012, 13:00

So I'm focusing on my work, which really is the only thing that makes any difference in my income

Ain't that the truth. When it all seems negative it's definitely best to look at what's within your control and to work positively with that. Good luck EmberMike. Hopefully see you around here again further down the road.

lisafx · « **Reply #76 on:** May 19, 2012, 16:48 »

Quote from: EmberMike on May 19, 2012, 13:00

...one of the things that came out of that conversation was a renewed realization that focusing on my work is what matters, and the rest of it is all just silly little stuff. There's nothing good coming out of being concerned with a lot of the things we get concerned with here.

So I'm focusing on my work, which really is the only thing that makes any difference in my income and it used to be what people talked about around here. Now it's all just which agency is screwing us over, which new whatever is bad for business, etc. None of this is helpful, and none of these discussions lead to any positive change.

As usual, you make a really good point. It is easy to get swept up in the negativity and lose focus on the things we CAN control, like our work output, quality and volume. It's a good reminder to me, as I often get sucked in to focusing on the problems rather than solutions.

Thanks for coming back and saying a proper goodbye.

Wishing you all the best. You will be missed...

cthoman · « **Reply #77 on:** May 19, 2012, 17:37 »

Sorry to see you go. I try not to take this site too seriously, although I do need to take a break from it now and then (when it gets overly negative). For me, it's mostly entertainment. I just like to see everyone's opinions and what they are doing. Maybe, "edu-tainment" or "info-tainment" are better words to describe it.

As far as being optimistic, that's a mixed bag. I'm confident in what I'm doing, and I think I'll be fine. My revenue is increasing, and I like my game plan. That said, I'm pessimistic though on a lot of the industry. It seems like it has hit its growing pains, and the solutions to remedy those aren't necessarily positive or effective. I could be wrong though (it happens... a lot. More than I like to admit).

But worse comes to worse, I'll just have to get a real job. Then, you'll see less of me too.

lisafx · « **Reply #78 on:** May 19, 2012, 17:46 »

Quote from: cthoman on May 19, 2012, 17:37

But worse comes to worse, I'll just have to get a real job. Then, you'll see less of me too.

God forbid!!

qwerty · « **Reply #79 on:** May 19, 2012, 17:55 »

I upload all my work there. I wish that sales were better but it takes about 1% of my time I spend on microstock to submit to SF. Their upload process is easy, reviews happen quickly.

velocicarpo · « **Reply #80 on:** May 20, 2012, 00:18 »

Back on topic....I had some nice sales over at SF the last days. Every sale they make may be one sale less at istock, fotolia,...

lagereek · « **Reply #81 on:** May 20, 2012, 01:27 »

Dragons Den! anybody here watching that on TV?. How many times do you see these tycoons investing in a project because they like the person? NEVER! they always invest in the idea, presented. I.E. never mix business with personal feelings, biggest mistake one can do. Sure, by all means help with know-how, etc, but never invest.
This thread is going the opposite way, lots of personal feelings, etc, nice! but not effective.
I like SF and the team behind it and I upload but untill they get their act, search, etc, together, I will refrain from sticking my entire port up.

sharpshot · « **Reply #82 on:** May 20, 2012, 04:37 »

I upload in the background while doing other stuff. It takes virtually zero time. On Dragons Den, they love an investment where they can't lose, there's only an upside for them and the other people are taking all the financial risk. I think Yuri is the best microstock businessman and he has 53,159 images on SF.

lagereek · « **Reply #83 on:** May 20, 2012, 04:59 »

Quote from: sharpshot on May 20, 2012, 04:37

I upload in the background while doing other stuff. It takes virtually zero time. On Dragons Den, they love an investment where they can't lose, there's only an upside for them and the other people are taking all the financial risk. I think Yuri is the best microstock businessman and he has 53,159 images on SF.

There is nothing like an investment (s), where you cant lose. Better then wine, women and song.

tiero · « **Reply #84 on:** May 21, 2012, 09:49 »

Quote from: Tabimura on May 17, 2012, 10:34

Nope, sorry. I had 5-6.000 of files with them and I pulled the plug. I never saw more than $20 in a month, they are simply deaf to suggestions (well not exactly deaf, but they never took action to any advice) and the only thing they always say it's "starting is difficult, we ask you for patience, etc".
They'll never gonna make it. But I wished they did, as everyone else.

Same here, till now it was a waste of time...

peter_stockfresh · « **Reply #85 on:** May 21, 2012, 10:47 »

Hi Everyone!

First of all, thanks Helix7 for the kind words and the initiative to support Stockfresh and I'm also very grateful for those who have been supporting us all along. I read the original post about 2 days ago but didn't continue reading the rest because I expected the exact same reaction that you can see in the first couple of pages and this kind of negativity, ignorance and malice is not easy to tolerate.

Instead of personal replies I'd just like to follow up on a couple of general sentiments.

1. The idea of "selling out"

This is the last time I'm going to write about this. Stockxpert was party owned by Jupiter right from the start. Most of you weren't even there yet. The reason why it got shut down eventually is that Jupiter had to sell their images division during the 2008 financial crisis and within the Getty family there was no place for StockXpert. This wasn't a planned event, but an unfortunate coincidence.

This is not the real point though. The point is, most stock sites out there are already partly owned by a 3rd party (or going to be soon) because companies need to raise capital to function and grow. This happens in all stages. Depositphotos got $1-3 million, Fotolia just got $150 million and Shutterstock is going for an IPO as we speak.
Labeling us as "sellouts" just for taking investments is ridiculous, especially if at the same time you also blame us for not growing as fast as the competition who are also "sellouts". Make up your mind!

By the way, I have to mention that during the Jupiter partnership which lasted several years, not once has the royalty rate been reduced. Not everything was perfect, but we're definitely proud of that.

And also, for the brilliant mind who suggested investing our money to prove that we believe in the project: well, guess what happened!

We took a big risk and invested our own money and a great deal of time into Stockfresh. I personally designed and developed the whole site from scratch for example. All the work we put into the site is already paying off, and it's just going to get better.

2. The site has been around for ages, it's not a startup any more.

Stockfresh is about to become just 2 years old. If you ever tried to build a business, you'd realize that success doesn't happen overnight. It takes many years of hard work and dedication. I know that expectations are very high but it's unrealistic to expect Stockfresh to rise to the top so soon. We have great growth though and the site can already support itself, so I have bad news for the guy who hoped for our Lucky Oliveresque demise that we apparently "deserve" (how can someone be so evil in the first place, that's a really good question): we're definitely not going anywhere and we'll continue to grow at an even faster rate. In your face!

3. My photos don't sell at all / I had a lot of sales on StockXpert but this site is a waste of time.

It's a fact that despite our growth we're still quite small. Some types of images therefore won't sell well, or at all. Not everything can be attributed to the lack of traffic though, we often see clearly useless subjects or badly keyworded and dated imagery that have very limited potential. Obviously a lot of the latter sold well on StockXpert partly because that was 4-5 years ago and partly because we had significantly larger traffic there. A lot of things changed since then. As you are all well aware of this, competition between contributors now is fierce. There's a huge influx of talent and you have to be really good to stay on top. This effect gets amplified on sites with smaller traffic, so Stockfresh is not for everyone (at least for the time being), but a number of contributors do quite well, even some with smaller portfolios. We also try to make it easy for contributors to submit (we even import portfolios if necessary) so you don't waste any of your time, but you have got to have what it takes.

Once again thank you very much to those who support us. If you have any questions you know where to reach me. There's been a few things I'd still like to address but I have to run now so I'll do that in a later post.

See ya,
Peter

lagereek · « **Reply #86 on:** May 21, 2012, 11:32 »

Quote from: peter_stockfresh on May 21, 2012, 10:47

Hi Everyone!

First of all, thanks Helix7 for the kind words and the initiative to support Stockfresh and I'm also very grateful for those who have been supporting us all along. I read the original post about 2 days ago but didn't continue reading the rest because I expected the exact same reaction that you can see in the first couple of pages and this kind of negativity, ignorance and malice is not easy to tolerate.

Instead of personal replies I'd just like to follow up on a couple of general sentiments.

1. The idea of "selling out"

This is the last time I'm going to write about this. Stockxpert was party owned by Jupiter right from the start. Most of you weren't even there yet. The reason why it got shut down eventually is that Jupiter had to sell their images division during the 2008 financial crisis and within the Getty family there was no place for StockXpert. This wasn't a planned event, but an unfortunate coincidence.

This is not the real point though. The point is, most stock sites out there are already partly owned by a 3rd party (or going to be soon) because companies need to raise capital to function and grow. This happens in all stages. Depositphotos got $1-3 million, Fotolia just got $150 million and Shutterstock is going for an IPO as we speak.
Labeling us as "sellouts" just for taking investments is ridiculous, especially if at the same time you also blame us for not growing as fast as the competition who are also "sellouts". Make up your mind! By the way, I have to mention that during the Jupiter partnership which lasted several years, not once has the royalty rate been reduced. Not everything was perfect, but we're definitely proud of that.

And also, for the brilliant mind who suggested investing our money to prove that we believe in the project: well, guess what happened! We took a big risk and invested our own money and a great deal of time into Stockfresh. I personally designed and developed the whole site from scratch for example. All the work we put into the site is already paying off, and it's just going to get better.

2. The site has been around for ages, it's not a startup any more.

Stockfresh is about to become just 2 years old. If you ever tried to build a business, you'd realize that success doesn't happen overnight. It takes many years of hard work and dedication. I know that expectations are very high but it's unrealistic to expect Stockfresh to rise to the top so soon. We have great growth though and the site can already support itself, so I have bad news for the guy who hoped for our Lucky Oliveresque demise that we apparently "deserve" (how can someone be so evil in the first place, that's a really good question): we're definitely not going anywhere and we'll continue to grow at an even faster rate. In your face!

3. My photos don't sell at all / I had a lot of sales on StockXpert but this site is a waste of time.

It's a fact that despite our growth we're still quite small. Some types of images therefore won't sell well, or at all. Not everything can be attributed to the lack of traffic though, we often see clearly useless subjects or badly keyworded and dated imagery that have very limited potential. Obviously a lot of the latter sold well on StockXpert partly because that was 4-5 years ago and partly because we had significantly larger traffic there. A lot of things changed since then. As you are all well aware of this, competition between contributors now is fierce. There's a huge influx of talent and you have to be really good to stay on top. This effect gets amplified on sites with smaller traffic, so Stockfresh is not for everyone (at least for the time being), but a number of contributors do quite well, even some with smaller portfolios. We also try to make it easy for contributors to submit (we even import portfolios if necessary) so you don't waste any of your time, but you have got to have what it takes.

Once again thank you very much to those who support us. If you have any questions you know where to reach me. There's been a few things I'd still like to address but I have to run now so I'll do that in a later post.

See ya,
Peter

Hi Pete! thanks for your info, nice and sincere and to the point. We will support! no doubt about that.

rubyroo · « **Reply #87 on:** May 21, 2012, 15:07 »

Thanks for dropping in with an update Peter.

velocicarpo · « **Reply #88 on:** May 21, 2012, 15:19 »

Thanks Peter....as said before, I continue to support you and never felt it as a "waste of time".

lisafx · « **Reply #89 on:** May 21, 2012, 15:34 »

Thanks for weighing in Peter. The upload with the easy upload process and the good contributor terms, it is worth continuing to upload IMO.

Would be nice, if you have a chance, to hear your plans for growing the site and its traffic in the future.

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #90 on:** May 21, 2012, 17:11 »

Hi, Peter.
I'll admit I thought you had been around for more than two years when I initially posted, more like three +. That said, on the one hand you use the old trad-business argument that it takes years to get established, on the other you use the digital-era argument that stuff changes so fast that changes so fast that three or four years renders content outdated. That dual approach seems illogical to me. It would also seem to be bad news for those who supported you from the start but whose early images are out of date before you achieve lift-off.

Deposit Photos arrived after you but, you point out, needed 1-3m $ to propel it into its fiftn place on the chart opposite, with 20% of what SS delivers. You've had longer and achieved a tenth of that (if the figures are to be believed).

I'm the brilliant mind that suggested putting your money where your mouth is and you say you have, and have even designed the site yourself. Of course you have put SOME money into it, but you hold up the $1m-$3m for DP as an example of the heavy capital investment needed to boost a site ... yet I seem to recall that anecdotally you are meant to be a multi-millionaire from the sale of StockXpert. If so, why do you appear to find DP's investment impressive when you should be able to match that yourself? If you have and have not got results then I am sorry but that also fails to inspire confidence.

I remain sceptical. If you start soaring up the lists then I will probably sit up and take notice and start offering submissions (though you might not want me on your site) but until then it looks to me like a wasted effort.

luissantos84 · « **Reply #91 on:** May 21, 2012, 17:49 »

I will support you and SF but I really think you aren´t spending enough..

Gunter Nezhoda · « **Reply #92 on:** May 21, 2012, 18:07 »

Almost 2 years ago I tried to apply and they told me come back in 4 weeks, nothing happened and I emailed 6 months later and they replied that they don't accept new contributors. I don't say there was no reason, my images certainly were not top notch, but today, 2 years later most of them are and I'm kicking on the top agencies who accepted me in the beginning. Why support SF now?

They didn't support me and we have plenty other $50 a year agencies.

Whatsoever, I'm ready to upload ........ how much do you pay per approved image?

Tabimura · « **Reply #93 on:** May 21, 2012, 18:55 »

From what Peter is saying, no. 1 we already knew, he's said that before, no. 2 the same - we heard that almost every time he comes to MSG, and for no. 3 - when a bunch of top echelon stock photographers say that their sales on SF suck, the normal thought is that there's something wrong with SF.
Thanks for confirming that I made a right decision by leaving.

lagereek · « **Reply #94 on:** May 22, 2012, 00:59 »

Paul, has got a big point here! speculate and invest in order to accumulate.

sharpshot · « **Reply #95 on:** May 22, 2012, 04:18 »

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on May 21, 2012, 17:11

....I remain sceptical. If you start soaring up the lists then I will probably sit up and take notice and start offering submissions (though you might not want me on your site) but until then it looks to me like a wasted effort.

That's the chicken and egg situation that new sites have to face. Buyers want a big collection and don't have much of a reason to move to a site that has less choice. We want sales but wont get them without buyers.

I think the best way to break this is for us to upload as much as we can, not thinking about earnings. Then the site has something to offer buyers and they might be more attracted to them. We will then see earnings. Unfortunately, most microstock contributors don't think like that. This is nothing personal, I know my view is in the minority but I wish that wan't the case.

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #96 on:** May 22, 2012, 06:48 »

Quote from: sharpshot on May 22, 2012, 04:18

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on May 21, 2012, 17:11
....I remain sceptical. If you start soaring up the lists then I will probably sit up and take notice and start offering submissions (though you might not want me on your site) but until then it looks to me like a wasted effort.
That's the chicken and egg situation that new sites have to face. Buyers want a big collection and don't have much of a reason to move to a site that has less choice. We want sales but wont get them without buyers.

I think the best way to break this is for us to upload as much as we can, not thinking about earnings. Then the site has something to offer buyers and they might be more attracted to them. We will then see earnings. Unfortunately, most microstock contributors don't think like that. This is nothing personal, I know my view is in the minority but I wish that wan't the case.

Of course it's not personal, we're all trying to understand the market and the more serious opinions people present, the better.

One obstacle I see to your argument is that if we supply, say, 100 sites and they all succeed in attracting an even spread of customers, then we could end up having earned thousands and thousands of dollars without achieving a single payout.

After a year or two we might start getting payments but until then, we have to invest time and effort for no return. Inevitably, some sites will fail and we will lose money. With the industry "spend" spread so widely, no sites will have the income to mount strong advertising campaigns, so overall earnings will fall, and the funds for support staff, servers etc. will be hard to come by.

Eventually, someone will notice that these weak sites can be bought up cheaply and the background stuff can be merged, cutting staff and commissions, reducing management costs and allowing for more advertising that will generate higher revenues to allow other ailing sites to be bought out and closed (StockXpert) or run in parallel (BS).

And we end up back at the start again, with a bunch of new sites popping up and promising good times if only we will stick with them until the cash starts coming in.

Obviously, this is a somewhat exaggerated description of the process but I think the logic is good and fits with what we have seen happening in the real world.

m@m · « **Reply #97 on:** May 22, 2012, 08:09 »

Quote from: sharpshot on May 22, 2012, 04:18

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on May 21, 2012, 17:11
I think the best way to break this is for us to upload as much as we can, not thinking about earnings. Then the site has something to offer buyers and they might be more attracted to them.

Sure yeah!...YOU do that, and good luck with it...

Edit: The Mother Teresa syndrome within me faded away once I got kick in the teeth several times by agencies with the likes of SF...I agree with Gunter, let me know when they start paying good money for accepted uploads and I'll start considering uploading there again.

disorderly · « **Reply #98 on:** May 22, 2012, 09:05 »

Quote from: m@m on May 22, 2012, 08:09

Quote from: sharpshot on May 22, 2012, 04:18
I think the best way to break this is for us to upload as much as we can, not thinking about earnings. Then the site has something to offer buyers and they might be more attracted to them.

Sure yeah!...YOU do that, and good luck with it...

[/quote]

I did that. For two years I uploaded to StockFresh despite not seeing much in the way of returns. Now I've stopped. I won't remove what's there, but I won't submit any more until I see some sign that my time will be rewarded.

I'm not asking for much either. My threshold is $5 a month averaged over a year, which should be achievable by any site with reasonable traffic. Understand that I'll still take a chance on a new site, but my patience has limits.

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Author Topic: A call to arms - Support StockFresh (Read 40208 times)

rubyroo

lisafx

cthoman

lisafx

qwerty

velocicarpo

lagereek

sharpshot

lagereek

tiero

peter_stockfresh

lagereek

rubyroo

velocicarpo

lisafx

BaldricksTrousers

luissantos84

Gunter Nezhoda

Tabimura

lagereek

sharpshot

BaldricksTrousers

m@m

disorderly

peter_stockfresh

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