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Author Topic: keywords and Category  (Read 5162 times)

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« on: October 06, 2009, 13:26 »
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Zymmetrical requires now the selection of a category and a minimum of 10 keywords.


« Reply #1 on: October 06, 2009, 13:42 »
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I don't mind the keywords but adding categories slows the process down too much.  I don't mind doing it for sites that make me a lot of money but zym is still a relatively low earner and I don't want to spend much time uploading.  Is is really necessary for us to select categories for each image?

zymmetricaldotcom

« Reply #2 on: October 07, 2009, 02:39 »
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Something needs to be done to balance out resources. We're not prepared to cut the commission rate nor impose upload quantity limits. When some people upload 1000 images with no categories, our staff sits there plunking them in, while others who participate fully, must wait because of that.   It was inconsistent and this became more apparent as we scaled.

Categorization is and always has been an essential element in online stock and in general, product selling - why do you think Amazon.com and Ebay.com feature in the most prominent position on their sites - yep, categories.  It is unfortunate the importance of categories has been downplayed by elements of microstock, in the rush to appease contributors and hit X million images in the libraries.  We are, however, not microstock by definition - no subscriptions, flat commission rate, no tiered earnings, so on and so forth - as Sbotas asked a while ago, "what makes zymmetrical different so that people should pay higher prices" - enhanced metadata is one part of this offering.

Anyhow - i'm not going to try and sell you on how fun it is to categorize, I know we generally all could think of more interesting things to do, so i'm happy to say that enforcing the category selection is a short-term measure only - we are testing some code that uses image recognition and other factors to auto-categorize the images. So when you select an image in "Describe" it will have the most likely category already assigned - as soon as we get the tolerance percentage high enough, we will put it on online.

« Reply #3 on: October 07, 2009, 03:11 »
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I agree with Keith!

Keywords are one way how to separate what you are looking for,and categories are another way...

I like Zymmetrical, more than any other midstock site!?

Also I still think that midstock sites should build a clear presentation what is different and/or better between midRF and micRF...
New brand rises from the crowd...

"Maybe rabbit is lying in that bush..."  ;)
« Last Edit: October 07, 2009, 03:22 by borg »

« Reply #4 on: October 07, 2009, 03:20 »
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A few sites try to auto-categorize but I don't think it works well enough.  I don't like spending time picking categories for an image that is then rejected.  I wouldn't mind so much adding categories after an image has been accepted.  I am not convinced categories are worth it and there are higher priced sites like alamy that don't use them and sell more than zym, so any way of saving us time would be appreciated.

zymmetricaldotcom

« Reply #5 on: October 07, 2009, 03:38 »
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That's a good point about doing the work and then being rejected - with your port I wouldn't expect rejects to be much of an issue however?   

We tried to hold it off as long as possible pending the auto-categorize, but yes it's got to work right and it's taking a bit longer. It is a bit of an AI and learns with each new approved category choice and will get better with time. There always has to be an element of artist-override choice however, because part of involving the artists in categorization is the special knowledge they have of their images - an image of a building could be just that to the reviewers, but you know it's a famous landmark in Croatia or such, adding that knowledge by choosing a better category than "Architecture - Miscellaneous' adds value to the metadata.

In the meantime - we are always open for UI tweaks on the submissions page, so as to increase the efficiency. I listened to our reviewers on how to shave half-seconds here and there on their own system, and do so as well for the submissions page. In my mind, it's pretty good, but i'm a geek and we always go towards checkboxes and dropdowns. Drop any ideas at http://zymmetrical.uservoice.com.    Applying a category is probably always going to require at least one extra click but there could be room for tweaks otherwise.

« Reply #6 on: October 07, 2009, 09:46 »
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From the agencies where you have to categorize, I think BigStock has the best system. You pick the first image from your FTP upload and it will display all the IPTC information with auto select three categories. If one category is incorrect you change it of deselect the category. You click submit and you have the next image with its data and categories in front of you. Very fast and easy. No carefully checking if anything is left check from the last image or not, because you don't want to overwrite accidentally you keywords and categories from the current image with the one from the last.

zymmetricaldotcom

« Reply #7 on: October 07, 2009, 09:59 »
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Sounds good, but what if, like some people, you specialize in let's say models, having a batch select system like ours in that let's you select many images at a time - you could classify hundreds if images as "People - Women" in one click.  Maybe the solution is to have a toggle be able to switch between batch and single image editing when it's more efficient.

« Reply #8 on: October 07, 2009, 15:48 »
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I tried to submit one with a category and keywords but it wont let me.  I am using firefox.

zymmetricaldotcom

« Reply #9 on: October 08, 2009, 02:55 »
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Sorry I can confirm in certain circumstances the "Apply & Submit" button wasn't firing as it was supposed to. "Submit" worked normally.

It is repaired and all is working good again. 


 

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