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Author Topic: Bye bye  (Read 18738 times)

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sandorgora

« on: July 04, 2014, 09:40 »
+7
as Leo closed the symbiostock-forum before giving change to say bye to each other, i use this message to do so:

greetings to all those with whom I had nice digital contacts in the past year

Sndor Gra
www.sangostock.com


« Reply #1 on: July 04, 2014, 09:43 »
0
Whhh... ?! Where is forum?  :o

marthamarks

« Reply #2 on: July 04, 2014, 10:24 »
0
Unfortunately, a lot of us found the forum had disappeared before we even knew anything was up.

It was a great group of supportive colleagues who came together around Symbiostock over the last year. Many became friends. I will miss that community a lot.
« Last Edit: July 04, 2014, 10:48 by marthamarks »

Shelma1

  • stockcoalition.org
« Reply #3 on: July 04, 2014, 10:26 »
+2
You're all welcome to join us on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1413060825613141/

marthamarks

« Reply #4 on: July 04, 2014, 10:44 »
+1
You're all welcome to join us on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1413060825613141/

Yes! It's a great place for Symbiostockers to gather and continue to help one another as needed. Thanks, Michele, for creating that group on FB several months ago.
« Last Edit: July 04, 2014, 10:46 by marthamarks »

« Reply #5 on: July 04, 2014, 13:15 »
+13
maybe closing the forum was a result of his poll wanting us to pay him 10 bucks a month for updates?

« Reply #6 on: July 04, 2014, 13:44 »
+1
maybe closing the forum was a result of his poll wanting us to pay him 10 bucks a month for updates?

Yes,  the poll was showing only about 11 votes, 2 supporting the idea of a monthly fee and 9 against it (if I remember well the figures). At this point the poll was closed and a long bye-bye message was posted by Leo. A couple of days after the forum has gone...

« Reply #7 on: July 04, 2014, 14:10 »
0
what was the "gist" of his bye message for those of us that missed it?

« Reply #8 on: July 04, 2014, 15:15 »
+5
what was the "gist" of his bye message for those of us that missed it?


Here's what Leo has on his own site:

http://www.clipartillustration.com/symbiostock-beginning-to-end/

So the (very rough) summary of things as I saw them (and I may have missed bits as I haven't spent much time in that forum of late):

Leo had a new system in the works, plus a "transition" release to help people get there - but for the transition you dropped any child theme and all the sites would look the same. Not sure what the work would be to move an existing site to the transition as I didn't take that release.

There's a link to a latest release available from GitHub posted elsewhere on Leo's site, but again, I don't know what version or if that supports child themes or not

http://www.clipartillustration.com/symbiostock/

In the now-defunct forum, Leo had a poll to vote on whether people would pay $10 a month to get updates automatically on their new sites. I wasn't completely clear on the alternative, but I think the new code would be available free if you did the updates and maintenance yourself.

Although there are 180 sites, after getting 9 no and 2 yes votes on the poll, Leo declared everything over and he'd be shuttering the forums in 7 days.

A day or so later I saw a post that said he'd been contacted by several people who hadn't had a chance to vote. There was also a comment about the possibility of some alternative to $10 a month - a percentage of sales. Leo said he was bowing out although he might make fixes available as needed (because he'd be keeping his own site up and running) but the forums could stay up for site owners to support one another. But then the forums went dark a day or so later. I didn't see anything (e-mail or forum) that explained why he'd changed his mind about leaving the forums around.

There was a lot of useful information in those forums - long posts, code snippets and how-tos, tutorials, etc. Lots of people spent lots of time putting all of that together. I don't know much about hosting a forum, but I'd have guessed one of us with hosting could have taken that over to keep it available for all of us to use.

As Michele says, there's the Facebook group - good for keeping in touch, although minus all that stored information in the forums...

Magnetic

« Reply #9 on: July 04, 2014, 15:24 »
-3
Hey guys, a small update.

I'm departing from Microstock for a while by necessity. I'm happy to see you've found a place to put the microstock community at lesser expense where you can also play farmville.  8) If that is not a good sign, I don't know what is!

I've simply removed a few dead-weights until I can afford the hobby again. Besides that I'm fairly certain nobody liked the .com address, and when I finally felt comfortable to remove the .org, it had not been used in 5 days (other than responding to something I posted).

I'm a creative person, and I can see a very good opportunity here for the group. This really is a time to make this thing truly invincible. Part of making this indestructible was by minimizing dependencies. Even its dependency on me is not as strong as it seems.

As mentioned, I still have to update my own site, so I'll be turning out updates as they are needed as I have with Christos (two years before I started this Symbio-thing). If you guys are happy to set up camp at facebook, I'll update the theme links to lead there for the community. Github is the place to get the latest as always.

Personally I see this as a wonderful, magnificent move forward. I'll open things up again after I recover here on my end. Believe me, there is a lot to recover from on this end. Think of working almost exclusively on Symbiostock for 2 years with 6k profit (thats not much for almost two years) and making no uploads or investments in other areas. Believe me, its only the tip of the iceburg you guys are seeing. On my end its a red alert emergency. Think of "supporters" publicly flogging you 1 year into it (for lack of sales), and watching everything sink into limbo, and network growth go from exponential to accidental.

There has to be a saying for photographers and illustrators: "If you can survive in Microstock, you can survive anywhere!"

Also I'm moving the collective to a place where it can survive on its own, and someone else will be watching over it.

I've also enjoyed the friendships made through this project. Here's to hoping I can return to it eventually. I have a few symbio-projects almost done which I can release when I've recovered our situation.

Leo

« Reply #10 on: July 04, 2014, 15:29 »
+2
...I'm happy to see you've found a place to put the microstock community at lesser expense ...

But we have no tutorials, how-to's, code snippets or other advice that is now unavailable as the forums have gone.

Is there some way that information can be handed on to one of us with a place to host it? For as long as there are sites running with the existing code, that information (lots of it anyway) is really useful...

« Reply #11 on: July 04, 2014, 15:32 »
+4
This seems a lot like what happened to that last collective.  What was it called?  Everyone excited for awhile and eventually the poor guy running it had to admit he was losing way too much time and money.

Magnetic

« Reply #12 on: July 04, 2014, 15:38 »
+1
Regarding tutorials, I'll export those forums and perhaps someone can set up an easily sustainable wordpress.com blog or something...just posting things to it. Let me find a phpbb-to-something converter and I'll hand it over to someone when I get a chance.

Meanwhile I've got a project on the islands here which seems fairly well aimed and intelligent plus a few illustration jobs. If things come back together, perhaps I'll have a little more fuel to finish the symbio-related projects.

« Reply #13 on: July 04, 2014, 15:54 »
+11
The collective isn't dead just moving. I have a new domain and Leo is going to transfer it for me. Ill keep you all in the loop. Hopefully it will be up and kicking in about a week. Thanks for your patience.

« Reply #14 on: July 04, 2014, 16:12 »
+4
Thanks for the update, guys.

Hope things improve for Leo.

Russell

marthamarks

« Reply #15 on: July 04, 2014, 16:59 »
+4
I also hope Leo finds peace and prosperity as he pulls back and refocuses on his own life and family.

Thanks, Leo, for everything you've done for us... and also now for letting somebody else manage the wealth of info found on the old forum, somewhere, somehow. It would be a true tragedy to lose all that.

« Reply #16 on: July 05, 2014, 06:23 »
+8
Hey guys, a small update.

I'm departing from Microstock for a while by necessity. I'm happy to see you've found a place to put the microstock community at lesser expense where you can also play farmville.  8) If that is not a good sign, I don't know what is!

I've simply removed a few dead-weights until I can afford the hobby again. Besides that I'm fairly certain nobody liked the .com address, and when I finally felt comfortable to remove the .org, it had not been used in 5 days (other than responding to something I posted).

I'm a creative person, and I can see a very good opportunity here for the group. This really is a time to make this thing truly invincible. Part of making this indestructible was by minimizing dependencies. Even its dependency on me is not as strong as it seems.

As mentioned, I still have to update my own site, so I'll be turning out updates as they are needed as I have with Christos (two years before I started this Symbio-thing). If you guys are happy to set up camp at facebook, I'll update the theme links to lead there for the community. Github is the place to get the latest as always.

Personally I see this as a wonderful, magnificent move forward. I'll open things up again after I recover here on my end. Believe me, there is a lot to recover from on this end. Think of working almost exclusively on Symbiostock for 2 years with 6k profit (thats not much for almost two years) and making no uploads or investments in other areas. Believe me, its only the tip of the iceburg you guys are seeing. On my end its a red alert emergency. Think of "supporters" publicly flogging you 1 year into it (for lack of sales), and watching everything sink into limbo, and network growth go from exponential to accidental.

There has to be a saying for photographers and illustrators: "If you can survive in Microstock, you can survive anywhere!"

Also I'm moving the collective to a place where it can survive on its own, and someone else will be watching over it.

I've also enjoyed the friendships made through this project. Here's to hoping I can return to it eventually. I have a few symbio-projects almost done which I can release when I've recovered our situation.

Leo

I can understand that is unprofitable or all too much!
What I can not understand is why not talk about the whole in order to find a solution.
"Shutting down overnight" is superfluous and only destroys trust with interested parties.


Tror

« Reply #17 on: July 05, 2014, 06:29 »
+9
While I highly appreciate Leos initiative with symbiostock, the whole project never felt "stable" for me. One developer which was obviously getting to his limits financially, timewise and knowledge wise is not enough for a project like this. A bit of good business sense was missing to make it worthwhile for him financially and probably it should have been more of a community project with more help from other coders to lessen his burden.

I am now hopefull that someone more exprienced may jump in and create a similar concept or may take over symbiostock as such....

Magnetic

« Reply #18 on: July 05, 2014, 13:28 »
+1
Tror and R2D2, I can appreciate what both of you are saying. I haven't told this community the whole issue, so people must be stuck with overly simplistic assumptions.

Reasonably you have to give this thing some credit. Before I took some initiative, people would deal with their microstock problems by writing 20 page forum threads. After, people will revert back to that. I love how intelligent people sound in these forums. This place never lacks an audience. If anyone does pick up where Symbio left off, they will have learned from my mistakes. Sort of like how social networks learned from MySpace.

I coded up some good systems for the Microstock Initiative...it took. But also profitless. I'm handing it over to chromaco who has the time and resources to keep it running.

As an illustrator this is a slowly dying business. As a developer, all the more so. If we are talking about "business decisions" I believe at this point the best business decision would have been to never make Symbiostock. If others thought it was a great business decision, I would have had qualified developers or financiers clawing their way in, but everyone knew what a profitless burden it is.

This is only the stuff you guys know about. This doesn't count the badly timed issues in our own lives here which caused me to have to give my 2nd and 3rd best to this project.

This is Microstockgroup. Not exactly the land of understanding. This is where people come to get out aggression. This is where Symbiostock started. I'm not saying it couldn't have worked. It just so happens one of the few guys that had the ability and the initiative just got tired.

Here is a prediction from a guy you don't respect: Micrsotock is going to continually slip away with greater exploits against you, and you are going to complain and be frustrated while you claw like rats to get into this digital sweat shop. People who willfully submit to agencies which are * you dry simply cannot talk about my business sense. Its a marvel this project even lasted past a year after it was ripped apart in this community.

My first reply in this thread reflects business sense you'd do well to consider: I'm getting out of microstock.

« Reply #19 on: July 05, 2014, 13:39 »
+3
I'm getting out of microstock.

SymbioStock will work well for Macro stock. That is where I think I am headed when I take a break from writing. I don't agree with all your decisions, but I do hope you will keep the theme updated so it will continue to work with newer versions of WordPress, and let us know. I would appreciate that very much.

Thanks for everything, Leo. There are many sides to this story. I'm still glad I have gone this route and I hope you don't turn your back on SymbioStock completely.

All the best!

Jo

« Reply #20 on: July 05, 2014, 13:43 »
+1
Tror and R2D2, I can appreciate what both of you are saying. I haven't told this community the whole issue, so people must be stuck with overly simplistic assumptions.

Reasonably you have to give this thing some credit. Before I took some initiative, people would deal with their microstock problems by writing 20 page forum threads. After, people will revert back to that. I love how intelligent people sound in these forums. This place never lacks an audience. If anyone does pick up where Symbio left off, they will have learned from my mistakes. Sort of like how social networks learned from MySpace.

I coded up some good systems for the Microstock Initiative...it took. But also profitless. I'm handing it over to chromaco who has the time and resources to keep it running.

As an illustrator this is a slowly dying business. As a developer, all the more so. If we are talking about "business decisions" I believe at this point the best business decision would have been to never make Symbiostock. If others thought it was a great business decision, I would have had qualified developers or financiers clawing their way in, but everyone knew what a profitless burden it is.

This is only the stuff you guys know about. This doesn't count the badly timed issues in our own lives here which caused me to have to give my 2nd and 3rd best to this project.

This is Microstockgroup. Not exactly the land of understanding. This is where people come to get out aggression. This is where Symbiostock started. I'm not saying it couldn't have worked. It just so happens one of the few guys that had the ability and the initiative just got tired.

Here is a prediction from a guy you don't respect: Micrsotock is going to continually slip away with greater exploits against you, and you are going to complain and be frustrated while you claw like rats to get into this digital sweat shop. People who willfully submit to agencies which are * you dry simply cannot talk about my business sense. Its a marvel this project even lasted past a year after it was ripped apart in this community.

My first reply in this thread reflects business sense you'd do well to consider: I'm getting out of microstock.

Leo, I am not part of Symbiostock but I respect you for working on a bold solution.  I can understand
How such a project could drain anybodys time and resources.  You can be proud of your talent and effort.   Wish you the best in what ever you are going to be doing in future.

« Reply #21 on: July 05, 2014, 13:46 »
0
As an illustrator this is a slowly dying business. As a developer, all the more so. If we are talking about "business decisions" I believe at this point the best business decision would have been to never make Symbiostock. If others thought it was a great business decision, I would have had qualified developers or financiers clawing their way in, but everyone knew what a profitless burden it is.

I'm not sure. I was disappointed when some of the affiliate marketing suggestions got shot down by the community. I thought that was a great area to expand profits and let marketers mix with artists. There are still a lot of ideas floating around the ether, so I'm still hopeful one will strike gold for at least a few of us hungry micro monkeys.  ;)

Magnetic

« Reply #22 on: July 05, 2014, 14:01 »
+4
As an illustrator this is a slowly dying business. As a developer, all the more so. If we are talking about "business decisions" I believe at this point the best business decision would have been to never make Symbiostock. If others thought it was a great business decision, I would have had qualified developers or financiers clawing their way in, but everyone knew what a profitless burden it is.

I'm not sure. I was disappointed when some of the affiliate marketing suggestions got shot down by the community. I thought that was a great area to expand profits and let marketers mix with artists. There are still a lot of ideas floating around the ether, so I'm still hopeful one will strike gold for at least a few of us hungry micro monkeys.  ;)

Just to close on a positive note though, we all have websites. You have access to the most recent version which I'll update as I take care of Christos' and my site. All the ingredients are there. Cascoly is taking over Symbiostock.org, Chromaco is taking over the Microstock collective. I'm moving onto some local ventures on the islands.

I think many people will continue to benefit on an individual level with this. It just wasn't engineered properly to benefit a centralized entity. :D

Please continue to enjoy your sites and grow together.

Leo

« Reply #23 on: July 05, 2014, 21:38 »
+4
There are still lots of ways for Symbiostock to make money. That is not the problem. The real issues is that right now people are happy to pay Istock $800 for the opportunity to keep $200. The reality is that one sale a month on a symbio site would generate the same income. People should be jumping up and down to pay $100 per year for a self hosted site that actually works.  But for whatever reason any time fees get mentioned no matter how reasonable the community screams in outrage. These sites make sales even without any marketing. Sean Locke has said so and so do I. Not everyone has sales but enough do that I can confidently say Symbiostock should have been worth paying for. Maybe in the future a project like this will be embraced by the larger community. I know how to make it work but I don't have the coding skills. Leo has the skills but no longer has the time. If there are a group of people out there with the desire and ability we should get together. In the meantime I will be preaching change at the collective which I will be pimping shamelessly once it has been transferred.

« Reply #24 on: July 05, 2014, 22:39 »
+2
I liked it when it was here, I never understood why a separate category/section here would've been a problem.. It's relevant, and each of the agencies has a section even illustrators has one.


My Very Best :)
KimsCreativeHub.com

« Reply #25 on: July 05, 2014, 22:54 »
+16
If it were paying for something that led to sales, $120 a year wouldn't be an issue. But that wasn't the request

The request was for money for new (and different) software - not for fixes to what we already had. There was no way to tie the expenditure to even one additional sale

As far as sales, I have made about $115 since last September with no signs that things are ramping up

I'd pay for marketing; I'd pay for fixes and improvements to what I have (which I worked very hard on); I have already paid for the premium plugin, CleanTheme and SYxtra

It's just not true or fair to say that the community screamed in outrage over a proposed fee. There was no discussion allowed and after 11 votes - 11 out of 180 sites - Leo closed up and shut things down

This isn't the first time there has been a blow up. Each one has made it harder for people to have confidence in the longer term prospects. I expect that factored in to site owners' thinking too

It should be noted that Sean Locke has a much viewed blog and a well known brand name. His sales do not surprise me but most of us are not in that situation

Bottom line is that yet another new software direction with no marketing didn't look like a good bet to me. The $120 didn't help but it wasn't the main sticking point (for me)

« Reply #26 on: July 05, 2014, 23:11 »
0
You've been a big supporter and a solid voice of reason throughout. Most of what you are saying isn't wrong. However, I really doubt these decisions were made because last weeks proposal wasn't met with open arms. Pretty sure this started 6-9 months ago when more or less every attempt Leo made to move the project forward was met with at best limited excitement and at worst downright hostility. Sure there was some growth but any enthusiasm Leo might have had tended to be squashed like a bug by naysayers. There was even a good amount of discontentment amongst some active site owners.

Multiple times in the last six months I have proposed various ideas to help make this program viable for Leo. Many of them were very reasonable and nearly all of them wound up killing the thread. The ones that didn't turned into "what about me" comments.

My recent comment here was simply to state that what we seem to accept from the agencies seems to be unacceptable for self hosted. Until we change our perceptions of how we want the agencies to treat us we are doomed to be at their mercy.

Shelma1

  • stockcoalition.org
« Reply #27 on: July 06, 2014, 02:56 »
+7
The problem is that most people have lost money on Symbiostock rather than make money. I'm one of the few with sales, but I spend more money on marketing my site than I make. So I pay Shutterstock $70 and keep $30, and I pay iStock $80 and keep $20, but at least i make money. I lose money every month on my own site.

This is the same problem people have with the smaller micro sites...it's not worth the time and effort to upload to them if you get no sales.

Until someone comes up with a way to attract buyers to the collective, it will never take off. You can't gain independence from microstock unless you make money with your site.

« Reply #28 on: July 06, 2014, 04:16 »
+4
The collective isn't dead just moving. I have a new domain and Leo is going to transfer it for me. Ill keep you all in the loop. Hopefully it will be up and kicking in about a week. Thanks for your patience.

I was thinking I could put together a couple of sites, an ad (and hopefully donation) sponsored community site, and the image browse/search site. I'd need some help retrieving data from the symbio network and stuff but, I have unlimited hosting and domains are relatively cheap ... If I could break even on keeping the symbio community afloat, I'd break my back doing it.

« Reply #29 on: July 06, 2014, 04:22 »
+1
If it were paying for something that led to sales, $120 a year wouldn't be an issue. But that wasn't the request

The request was for money for new (and different) software - not for fixes to what we already had. There was no way to tie the expenditure to even one additional sale

As far as sales, I have made about $115 since last September with no signs that things are ramping up

I'd pay for marketing; I'd pay for fixes and improvements to what I have (which I worked very hard on); I have already paid for the premium plugin, CleanTheme and SYxtra

It's just not true or fair to say that the community screamed in outrage over a proposed fee. There was no discussion allowed and after 11 votes - 11 out of 180 sites - Leo closed up and shut things down

This isn't the first time there has been a blow up. Each one has made it harder for people to have confidence in the longer term prospects. I expect that factored in to site owners' thinking too

It should be noted that Sean Locke has a much viewed blog and a well known brand name. His sales do not surprise me but most of us are not in that situation

Bottom line is that yet another new software direction with no marketing didn't look like a good bet to me. The $120 didn't help but it wasn't the main sticking point (for me)

I messaged Leo about the proposed fee, and told him that I'd definitely be willing to pay that ... if I were making that. It's quite unfair to judge everyone on an even $120 a year fee, sure 20% or so I'd be willing to send the (usually $0) checks ...

Anyhow, the community is definitely in for a turn but, don't give up. Please.

« Reply #30 on: July 06, 2014, 06:45 »
+11
Multiple times in the last six months I have proposed various ideas to help make this program viable for Leo. Many of them were very reasonable and nearly all of them wound up killing the thread. The ones that didn't turned into "what about me" comments.

To be honest, and in all fairness, what might seem reasonable to you may not appeal to other people. You worked very hard for SymbioStock, but I too made practical suggestions only to be ridiculed. My suggestions were even more simply and cost effective. Only the ones I made privately to Leo were implemented. The rest were ignored. This is not about my own ego. This is about watching a wonderful idea being mismanaged. That is sad.

In the latest 'take over' of the SymbioStock forums, most of the regulars felt ignored, and we started staying away. I did support by purchasing the premium and I would have bought more if they were released as modules for purchase. Instead I landed up paying for two when one was already included in the other.

It is not just the people who bitched that killed SymbioStock. Erratic and sweeping changes, and the several shut downs made us all wary. I am not afraid of change and with every update I immediately did so without waiting to see if other people had problems.

I'm sorry, but I am tired of taking the blame as the SymbioStock collective. I am still in there, and I am still part of the community, fragmented as it is now. Those of you that pulled out, well ... need I say more? Again, I'm sorry, but this has to be said. The blame CANNOT be laid at those of us who invested not only money, but time daily to help out on the forum.

SymbioStock is NOT a failure but it has also not been managed very well. When everyone can accept their part in the blame, perhaps we can all stop complaining and move forward. The main challenge facing SymbioStock is that everyone was in a hurry. No one waited long enough for success. Perhaps I am a fool, but I think I will wait a little bit longer ....

Jo

Valo

« Reply #31 on: July 06, 2014, 06:53 »
+9
The inevitable has happened. I am sorry to have to say this, but in all honesty, to me it sounds like a case of abusing ones position. I am afraid the situation at hand was going to happen someday.

Even more upsetting for me is that it seems a community has seen their forum taken away because they didnt want to follow suit. That is right up there with the behavior of some of the agencies have displayed. The poll was started with the insinuation that it was just to feel the waters, it turned out it was a crucial future decider. It is not entirely fair to mislead a community like that, the poll should have been formulated differently and the importance of the votes should have been explained.

I apologise for my bold comment, but I want to express my feelings (powerless) and when  the one thing you had hight hopes for, turns to the same antics as the bullying microstock agencies.

« Reply #32 on: July 06, 2014, 07:53 »
+5
So far everything I have read here I agree with. It was rushed and probably mismanaged. Also for many people there were little to no sales. It was difficult for people without Wordpress experience to launch and yes sadly there were a lot of emotional decisions which were counter productive.

However, there also were/are a lot of good things that came out of it.
1) Nearly 200 people have decided to try self hosting
2) some of those people have changed the way they view microstock because of it
3) a community of pioneers (so to speak) started a new possible direction for contributors to follow
4) people are now more receptive to alternative ideas for selling images
5) current symbio sites are still making sales and will continue to for quite some time

Was symbiostock as a business destined to fail? Probably. There was to much going against it and no matter how hard myself or others tried there were factors that just couldn't be overcome. Personally I think 90% of symbiostock was done correctly and 10% was mismanaged. Turns out that last 10% is pretty important.  Everyone tends to take a lot of ownership in projects like this. Truth is it isn't about 1 person or ten people or even 100. It's about the project itself. Symbiostock has run it's course and no one/everyone is to blame. Hopefully people have been paying attention and have learned from the mistakes. If so the next idea will be better and we will all benefit.


« Reply #33 on: July 06, 2014, 08:23 »
+8
Symbiostock has run it's course and no one/everyone is to blame. Hopefully people have been paying attention and have learned from the mistakes. If so the next idea will be better and we will all benefit.

Call me crazy, I take ownership of that, but I don't think it has even begun to run it's course. It's had it's rug jerked from under it. SymbioStock is NOT a failure. It is just not yet matured. It may never now because of decisions taken that affect all of us, but that we are powerless to change.

The mistake was in thinking that SymbioStock was going to compete with iAnySite. It could not ever do so. It could, however, give you your own power back. I finally got my own site. I haven't made money, but I have my wish fulfilled. In the future, when I have the time to spare, I am going back to grow my site that has been dormant for a while now.


Jo

« Reply #34 on: July 06, 2014, 08:31 »
0
Please excuse all my typos, I worked until three in the morning and the edit button is doing nothing ....

Jo

« Reply #35 on: July 06, 2014, 10:05 »
+1
Symbiostock has run it's course and no one/everyone is to blame. Hopefully people have been paying attention and have learned from the mistakes. If so the next idea will be better and we will all benefit.

Call me crazy, I take ownership of that, but I don't think it has even begun to run it's course. It's had it's rug jerked from under it. SymbioStock is NOT a failure. It is just not yet matured. It may never now because of decisions taken that affect all of us, but that we are powerless to change.

The mistake was in thinking that SymbioStock was going to compete with iAnySite. It could not ever do so. It could, however, give you your own power back. I finally got my own site. I haven't made money, but I have my wish fulfilled. In the future, when I have the time to spare, I am going back to grow my site that has been dormant for a while now.


Jo

Well having some behind the scenes knowledge I do think this version had run its course. My sites still run great and will for a long long time. Symbio v2 whatever it is called will be better but still not perfect. Maybe Leo is involved maybe not. I think you are right though. This isn't the end just the beginning. Time simply isn't a luxury that this theme and its developer had. Leo gave as much as he could and I am certain he will be willing to help anyone who is brave enough to follow in his footsteps.

« Reply #36 on: July 06, 2014, 13:05 »
+6
Symbiostock has run it's course and no one/everyone is to blame. Hopefully people have been paying attention and have learned from the mistakes. If so the next idea will be better and we will all benefit.

Call me crazy, I take ownership of that, but I don't think it has even begun to run it's course. It's had it's rug jerked from under it. SymbioStock is NOT a failure. It is just not yet matured. It may never now because of decisions taken that affect all of us, but that we are powerless to change.

The mistake was in thinking that SymbioStock was going to compete with iAnySite. It could not ever do so. It could, however, give you your own power back. I finally got my own site. I haven't made money, but I have my wish fulfilled. In the future, when I have the time to spare, I am going back to grow my site that has been dormant for a while now.


Jo
agreed

one problem has been solved -- i'll be hosting the forums once I work with leo to get everything transferred.   so we'll have all the tutorials and faqs that many have contributed to over the last year.


there is forward progress:
  • we have a stable version of symbiostock now, so we can start to concentrate more on marketing. 
  • the global searches continue to generate traffic, and this is traffic individual sites would not have seen otherwise. 
  • my co-op has achieved a high alexa rating - boosting those new sites into 10th place overall among symbiostock sites. 
  • the total number of networked sites has leveled off around 180, but the number of images continues to grow at the same rate it's maintained over the last year

a major problem is still getting the right people to the sites -- we mostly rely on google et al to be found -- but that means many people will find us when they search for 'elephants' -- but they are interested in info about elephants, not in buying images of elephants.  image buyers are still more likely to find the agencies first.




« Reply #37 on: July 06, 2014, 13:52 »
+4
one problem has been solved -- i'll be hosting the forums once I work with leo to get everything transferred.   so we'll have all the tutorials and faqs that many have contributed to over the last year.

Oh, and I know you don't hear it very often, thanks for your contribution to SymbioStock.

Jo

« Reply #38 on: July 06, 2014, 14:47 »
+4
Now that you have beta'd Symbiostock with real users, why don't you take it to a marketplace (Themeforest, thememojo) and monetize it there?  There must be some real money to be made from all this effort.  Create some add-ons - like ordering prints and ordering physical goods and the theme would be useful to more than just photographers.  I mean, there's 10s of thousands of stock photographers, but it must be 10's of millions of photographers who would find this theme useful, and a great alternative to paying Smugmug and Zenfolio rent and transaction fees.

« Reply #39 on: July 06, 2014, 15:04 »
+3


a major problem is still getting the right people to the sites -- we mostly rely on google et al to be found -- but that means many people will find us when they search for 'elephants' -- but they are interested in info about elephants, not in buying images of elephants.  image buyers are still more likely to find the agencies first.

In my view the buyer wants an "agency feeling" with a large selection not many sites in a network. The things have to be simple for buyers. We should promote one site with nice looking like symbistock.info or other search sites. Symbiostock needs a strong branding and not single promoted sites.

If we will promote a main domain and offer cheap rates symbiostock will be successful.

« Reply #40 on: July 06, 2014, 17:42 »
+1
In my view the buyer wants an "agency feeling" with a large selection not many sites in a network. The things have to be simple for buyers...

Bingo.

I was just reading on another forum about a buyer who is annoyed to have to sign in to the site at all. They don't want an account anywhere, not even at an agency site where they do most of their buying. They just want to pay and go. I personally think that's sort of silly (having an account saves time, helps track purchases, etc), but I think it speaks loudly to some buyer sentiment.

If having one single account is a hassle to some buyers, having an account at every Symbiostock site they want to buy from is a non-starter. They won't do it.

Symbiostock never stood a chance unless the lack of a single point of entry to the network was resolved somehow.

« Reply #41 on: July 06, 2014, 20:06 »
+5
one problem has been solved -- i'll be hosting the forums once I work with leo to get everything transferred.   so we'll have all the tutorials and faqs that many have contributed to over the last year.

Oh, and I know you don't hear it very often, thanks for your contribution to SymbioStock.

Jo
Well said! Leo's work made me move  forward with a web site that has been a cost factor to me for years buut now I can make sales from there if a client so wishes. I am forever grateful.
I dont think symbio is dead .... I just think it is moving into its next evolutionary process.
Thank you so much Leo for your work and Steve for taking up the baton!

marthamarks

« Reply #42 on: July 06, 2014, 20:29 »
0
Well said! Leo's work made me move  forward with a web site that has been a cost factor to me for years buut now I can make sales from there if a client so wishes. I am forever grateful.
I dont think symbio is dead .... I just think it is moving into its next evolutionary process.
Thank you so much Leo for your work and Steve for taking up the baton!

+1

« Reply #43 on: July 06, 2014, 21:30 »
+2
I was just reading on another forum about a buyer who is annoyed to have to sign in to the site at all. They don't want an account anywhere, not even at an agency site where they do most of their buying. They just want to pay and go. I personally think that's sort of silly (having an account saves time, helps track purchases, etc), but I think it speaks loudly to some buyer sentiment.

If having one single account is a hassle to some buyers, having an account at every Symbiostock site they want to buy from is a non-starter. They won't do it.

Symbiostock never stood a chance unless the lack of a single point of entry to the network was resolved somehow.
You don't have to sign up for an account on my Ktools site. People still do (I try to encourage it), but most of the sales probably come from people that don't. I think people that buy from me aren't always seasoned stock buyers, although most of them know how to use a vector. There is such a large market out there that it is hard to figure out who your customers really are. They exist though and I'm happy for that.

« Reply #44 on: July 07, 2014, 09:45 »
+2
For most potential clients, standalone stock photo sites make no sense - because they inevitably have far too little variety of content - and too much which would have been rejected elsewhere. An exception would be specialist (unique) normally rights managed collections. Or perhaps the collection of somebody with a very large portfolio of high quality stock work. Illustration is a different matter completely.

The Symbiostock software did at least begin to address that issue via site linking. But it did not go far enough. Clients expect to visit what looks and feels like a single well designed site. Even if in reality people manage their own content and contribute their own share of the processing. I am surprised that nobody has set up a turnkey solution built on, say, Amazon's EC2.

I do not believe that Open Source is a good model for this sort of development. Neither on the design or the programming side. There are too few potential users for something like this to work as Open Source. It would need to be contracted according to a schedule and a design. And properly documented.

A business, even something which is distributed, needs to be properly modelled and there needs to be investment in place to fund further development and for all of the legal and contractual work to be done right. And to fund the continued development and security of a system. Photographers should not be their own systems administrators.

Stocksy launched about the same time as the Symbiostock software. Look at the difference.

« Reply #45 on: July 07, 2014, 10:04 »
+4
Stocksy launched about the same time as the Symbiostock software. Look at the difference.

From the contributor side, there probably isn't much difference between the two. A few people are making money and getting sales and everybody else isn't making anything or isn't involved.

« Reply #46 on: July 07, 2014, 18:44 »
+1
In my view the buyer wants an "agency feeling" with a large selection not many sites in a network. The things have to be simple for buyers...

.....
If having one single account is a hassle to some buyers, having an account at every Symbiostock site they want to buy from is a non-starter. They won't do it.

Symbiostock never stood a chance unless the lack of a single point of entry to the network was resolved somehow.

there are a coupla approaches that might work:

1. when a new user registers give them a chance to register with the other sites at the same time (or to choose which sites to register with)

2. have an option that would automatically add the person as a new user to all the other sites

3. create a central depository were people just sign in once, then on the login screen have an option to use that instead of the individual site login

other considerations: privacy issues, security of passwords, different treatment of 'spam' on individual sites, etc

« Reply #47 on: July 08, 2014, 12:25 »
+2
it is this kind of negative talk and attitude that caused Leo to finally say enough is enough. I am amazed than Leo spent as much time as he did on the project with the kind of crap he had to put up with. This was basically a fre adventure, if you could not afford a couple of hundred $ and some time to setup your site, go get a job at Target or McDonald's.

Shelma1

  • stockcoalition.org
« Reply #48 on: July 08, 2014, 14:15 »
+1
In my view the buyer wants an "agency feeling" with a large selection not many sites in a network. The things have to be simple for buyers...

.....
If having one single account is a hassle to some buyers, having an account at every Symbiostock site they want to buy from is a non-starter. They won't do it.

Symbiostock never stood a chance unless the lack of a single point of entry to the network was resolved somehow.

there are a coupla approaches that might work:

1. when a new user registers give them a chance to register with the other sites at the same time (or to choose which sites to register with)

2. have an option that would automatically add the person as a new user to all the other sites

3. create a central depository were people just sign in once, then on the login screen have an option to use that instead of the individual site login

other considerations: privacy issues, security of passwords, different treatment of 'spam' on individual sites, etc

This was discussed briefly on the Symbiostock forums, and the issue with blanket logins or registrations (other than security issues) is marketing your individual site. Having my own site allows me to finally see who's buying my images and to contact them directly, so hopefully over time I'll build a mailing list and a stable of customers. If there's one registration for all 180 sites, who gets to see who that customer is? You can't let everyone see, because then that buyer might be swamped with emails, etc. from 180 people. And if you let nobody see, then we've lost that ability to build a customer base individually.

I agree registration should be easier...I'm just not sure what the solution is, honestly. But I do think one thing that would help is not having to use PayPal, just direct credit card purchases. Not sure how to solve that either.

Valo

« Reply #49 on: July 08, 2014, 14:26 »
0
You know who buys your images, you get a PayPal notification email with the buyer details, email and billing address. So you can build your customer database in the 'one login' scenario as well.

« Reply #50 on: July 08, 2014, 14:46 »
+1
In my view the buyer wants an "agency feeling" with a large selection not many sites in a network. The things have to be simple for buyers...

.....
If having one single account is a hassle to some buyers, having an account at every Symbiostock site they want to buy from is a non-starter. They won't do it.

Symbiostock never stood a chance unless the lack of a single point of entry to the network was resolved somehow.

there are a coupla approaches that might work:

1. when a new user registers give them a chance to register with the other sites at the same time (or to choose which sites to register with)

2. have an option that would automatically add the person as a new user to all the other sites

3. create a central depository were people just sign in once, then on the login screen have an option to use that instead of the individual site login

other considerations: privacy issues, security of passwords, different treatment of 'spam' on individual sites, etc

This was discussed briefly on the Symbiostock forums, and the issue with blanket logins or registrations (other than security issues) is marketing your individual site. Having my own site allows me to finally see who's buying my images and to contact them directly, so hopefully over time I'll build a mailing list and a stable of customers. If there's one registration for all 180 sites, who gets to see who that customer is? You can't let everyone see, because then that buyer might be swamped with emails, etc. from 180 people. And if you let nobody see, then we've lost that ability to build a customer base individually.

I agree registration should be easier...I'm just not sure what the solution is, honestly. But I do think one thing that would help is not having to use PayPal, just direct credit card purchases. Not sure how to solve that either.

That's always going to be the question with sharing. Is it equal? Are you the person bringing in tons of buyers or are you the other person just piggy backing off other people's success. I liked the Picture Engine concept of you pay for access to their buyers/network. Unfortunately, they didn't seem to actually have any of that stuff they said, but the concept seems sound. If you can find someone to fill that role, then I think more people will line up to pay for that service.

Shelma1

  • stockcoalition.org
« Reply #51 on: July 08, 2014, 15:14 »
0
Well, one solution would be a monthly fee for all members for marketing. But then people who aren't making sales wouldn't want to pay, so then you go to a percentage of sales to pay for marketing--and then you're an agency.

Uncle Pete

« Reply #52 on: July 08, 2014, 15:24 »
0
One Universal login and sites only see who buys, after the fact, to prevent what has been discussed and also security, would be a fantastic option. Note = OPTION. Some people might want to have their site independent and private, others might want the benefit of the coop shared buyer verification.

Since I don't write this and Leo or Steve do, I don't know if that's a valid choice? Remote buyer verification of accounts. Starts to get complicated in my mind. Take someone to site A, then verify at site S, return them to site A. If they visit B then off to the main hub server again, back to the site...

It would be nice. I'm not sure if it would be able to be done, without some complex issues?


You know who buys your images, you get a PayPal notification email with the buyer details, email and billing address. So you can build your customer database in the 'one login' scenario as well.

« Reply #53 on: July 08, 2014, 16:17 »
0
In my view the buyer wants an "agency feeling" with a large selection not many sites in a network. The things have to be simple for buyers...

.....
If having one single account is a hassle to some buyers, having an account at every Symbiostock site they want to buy from is a non-starter. They won't do it.

Symbiostock never stood a chance unless the lack of a single point of entry to the network was resolved somehow.

there are a coupla approaches that might work:

1. when a new user registers give them a chance to register with the other sites at the same time (or to choose which sites to register with)

2. have an option that would automatically add the person as a new user to all the other sites

3. create a central depository were people just sign in once, then on the login screen have an option to use that instead of the individual site login

other considerations: privacy issues, security of passwords, different treatment of 'spam' on individual sites, etc

This was discussed briefly on the Symbiostock forums, and the issue with blanket logins or registrations (other than security issues) is marketing your individual site. Having my own site allows me to finally see who's buying my images and to contact them directly, so hopefully over time I'll build a mailing list and a stable of customers. If there's one registration for all 180 sites, who gets to see who that customer is? You can't let everyone see, because then that buyer might be swamped with emails, etc. from 180 people. And if you let nobody see, then we've lost that ability to build a customer base individually.

I agree registration should be easier...I'm just not sure what the solution is, honestly. But I do think one thing that would help is not having to use PayPal, just direct credit card purchases. Not sure how to solve that either.

the discussion earlier was for the symbiostock theme to automatically register across all sites, which has the drawbacks you describe - both buyer & site owner would need to agree for auto-registration -  we'd need to give the buyer a choice to register with all the other sites that choose to allow such automatic registrations. site owners would still get to see who's registering on their sites, either directly or indirectly

I could help with the database part of such an addon/plugin,  but right now don't have the time to do the coding

« Reply #54 on: July 08, 2014, 18:23 »
+1
I have my site set up that buyers can use any one of five social media/blog ID's to log in as well.  They can click on the icons for Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, Wordpress or Blogger and log in with that instead of creating a new registration.  When setting them up I tried to minimize as much as possible the information the app reads in hopes that it doesn't turn someone away.

Shelma1

  • stockcoalition.org
« Reply #55 on: July 08, 2014, 19:31 »
0
That's great! Would you mind telling which plugin you're using?

Uncle Pete

« Reply #56 on: July 08, 2014, 20:39 »
+1
Sounds like a reasonable answer without someone making a special change to SyS.

I have my site set up that buyers can use any one of five social media/blog ID's to log in as well.  They can click on the icons for Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, Wordpress or Blogger and log in with that instead of creating a new registration.  When setting them up I tried to minimize as much as possible the information the app reads in hopes that it doesn't turn someone away.

« Reply #57 on: July 09, 2014, 00:00 »
0
That's great! Would you mind telling which plugin you're using?


I'm using a plugin called Social Login by OneAll - http://www.oneall.com/
You can find it in the Wordpress plugins and upload it from there.

It was a bit of work to set them up but the tutorials were very good.  Easy enough to follow but it did take a bit of time.

Shelma1

  • stockcoalition.org
« Reply #58 on: July 09, 2014, 05:12 »
0
Thanks...I'll check it out!


 

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