MicrostockGroup

God the zym site is slow.
I've been trying to get images edited all day and it's taking forever. The amount of time it takes to refresh the view when you select an image to edit or put in a category is ridiculous (if you've got a large number of images to get through). And the category disappears after you press submit, so you're left unsure as to whether the changes have taken effect aaaaaaand you only get one shot to edit the image then the "edit" button disappears aaaaaaaaaaaaaand you can't order the images in the que by which have been "artist edited" and and and basically it's driving me nuts.

Please learn from those in the industry that have this right and sort your site out!!!

I tried to upload a few times in recent past and after churning away for quite a while watching the progress bar, nothing happened.  Also found out that some keywords had not arrived on earlier submissions.  So I am laying off for a while, and only have a few online. 

I really like the site and the owners are very responsive.  Commissions are very generous so hopefully the sales will come.  They are doing a few different things (selling fonts).  I hope they take off.

If they could learn something from DT... we have a contributor area where we can sort our photos by upload date / by sales / by views.  I can't find any useable data on Zym.

Does anyone have referrals?  A nice reader of my blog signed up under me last week and there is nowhere on the site that I can find reference to it.

Well I guess no one noticed our new flash-based batch model release uploader.         

Ok,  I will respond to each of the issues here in points.  I should put a disclaimer, if you want the best level of support then simply raise a support ticket on our website. Yes, we subscribe to this forum section on MSG and will respond, but it's pretty difficult when you are using a different Username on this forum than on our website, and then some more people chime in with issues not directly related to the original issue. 

- Editing: A couple months back, there was no 'Edit' option on the Artists Submissions page. Our Reviewers chose the category and price, which was in my mind, an extra service from us to the people uploading.  Then pressure mounted that some other businesses 'let' you choose categories etc. in advance, and that we should also permit/enforce an after-upload, pre-review Edit option.   So, we changed the system to permit this.  As described on the 'Editing Waiting Submissions' help button on www.zymmetrical.com/account/submissions/,  the choices you make on the Edit screen are optional (except for the minimum 10 keyword requirement).     So it is a compromise; if you want to zip through them, you have the choice, but it will be then our Reviewers choosing the category/pricing for you.         

As for the strange result after pressing submit, the answer is 'Yes', the choices you make are sticking, it's just not updating your screen in some cases. It is a cosmetic error and nothing more, the Reviewers do see your choices. This is in our bug tracker and will be resolved.

I can't think of a good reason why you would need to 'Edit' a submission more than once, but I can think of several why you wouldn't - the main one being, as soon as you click 'Edit', review/make changes, and submit, your file moves up in the queue to receive the Reviewers attention, so they can be working on it at that point.  So what should happen if you were to come back and make changes, when a Reviewer had already started to check it out, it just wouldn't work.   I don't want to use a factory assembly line analogy, but really there is a workflow defined and things can't be efficient unless things flow in a straight line.

- Buyers: Tough one to discuss, I truly respect the patience of everyone participating on our site, some are making money, and of course some not so much thus far. Here's a beacon of hope for you perhaps:  http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=buy+stock+photos&ei=UTF-8&fr=moz2. (yeah it's not Goog but they're next   )   We are working hard to build the business, and let the brand define itself, rather than build a brand 'in the cloud' and try and match our business to it.

- File views / etc. Data: We have a system in the works for displaying all sorts of data about whos viewing your files, their country, etc. If anyone here has used Google Analytics before, think that interface, except with data regarding your account/ art files.    Obviously we have some more urgent issues on the plate right now but stay tuned.

And if I may add, we just posted a press release this week showing an example on how we market Zymmetrical directly to image buyers with strategic relationship instead of only using Ad words in the hope that someone will notice.
http://www.microstockgroup.com/index.php/topic,4890.0.html

We will be announcing more of these relationships in the future as we engage Zymmetrical to be present, and visible, anywhere and anytime someone has the intend to purchase photographs.
 Our marketing strategy is comprise of much more than just relying on word of mouth or links exchange, and we are using the full power of our relationships and experience to bring your images in front of the eyes of those who will pay to license them.

We are generating sales, quite well in fact, but as Rome, or longer established companies, we will not be at full speed in one day.

Hope that helps

Microbius,

We are taking note and we thank you for your feedback !!

Cheers !!

Improperly slow site. Zymmguys, I do not care about your flash uploader since I upload directly by FTP. Please do not bind colorful and useless features. You should better concentrate on pictures review and buyer bringing in.

Another question: is it normal for files to be more than 5 month on FTP without review 

This site becomes really annoying.

You must be doing something right because your Alexa ranking is the best of the newbie sites. You still need to iron out those kinks though!