Quote from: ICP on August 20, 2012, 18:01

I would appreciate any/all feedback from everyone with some time to do so. Good, bad and indifferent...it's all good...and you can't hurt my feelings.

You asked for feedback from everyone...  That's what you are getting.   

Quote from: ICP on August 21, 2012, 18:11

...Smile a little. We have it good. Most of us are making a living off taking pictures and drawing.

I think you've vastly overestimated the amount of money "most of us" make.  There's very few people making a living from this and it's getting harder every year.

If you are genuine, I still can't see the point when we already have Warmpicture doing virtually the same thing.  Why not work with Dan on that site?  It looks like there's very little money to be made with these sites at the moment and they aren't going to attract many buyers.  Having two similar ones paying all the fees and for marketing seems like a waste of resources.  I'll stick with Warmpicture unless you come up with something that has more appeal to buyers.

Is this yours http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-3613p1.html   ?

One thing you should know is that big agencies don't like contributors who own an agency.  So, they will probably close your account if your site www.incolorphotos.com starts working as an agency.   

Quote from: ICP on August 21, 2012, 18:38

I'll definitely check out Warmpicture. I'm always open to seeing a better way to do things. I see a common thread in your posts here: "come up with something that has more appeal to buyers". Do you have any ideas or thoughts regarding this?

It makes me nervous having you ask people to upload their high rez images to you, and then have you ask US to tell you how to run your business. If I knew the answers to your questions on how to make a site successful, get buyers, etc. , I'd be doing my own and not contributing to yours.

I wish you a lot of luck on your venture. I'm one of those "sit back and see what happens first" kind of people.

Quote from: ICP on August 21, 2012, 19:10

Quote from: ShadySue on August 21, 2012, 18:50

Quote from: ICP on August 21, 2012, 18:38

I'll definitely check out Warmpicture. I'm always open to seeing a better way to do things. I see a common thread in your posts here: "come up with something that has more appeal to buyers". Do you have any ideas or thoughts regarding this?

Better search; weed out spam; better search.

What would make for a better search?
"Weed out spam."

Do you mean better than everyone else's or better implementation of the search on my site?
Better than every one else's.
In theory, iStock's is currently best, but in practice, spamming trumps the best match, though BM2 was supposed to thwart spam.
Controlled vocabulary is really the way to go IMO, but I believe they're very expensive to buy in.

Quote from: ICP on August 21, 2012, 19:11

Quote from: Digital66 on August 21, 2012, 19:00

Is this yours http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-3613p1.html   ?

One thing you should know is that big agencies don't like contributors who own an agency.  So, they will probably close your account if your site www.incolorphotos.com starts working as an agency.   

No. That's not me.

Are you sure?   Images in your new website can be also found in the portfolio of Mark Bernard at http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-3613p1.html

Here are some of my findings which I hope might be useful � written in a patronising form for the sake of speed

You won't be able to take a holiday for the first two years at least - and you won't want to.
You will need to keep expectations low and keep under the radar after launch whilst you learn how to run an agency.
You will really notice and appreciate the contributors putting in the time to help your project.
You won't be able to get behind test portfolios and their owners will be your most vocal critics.
You must have the full support of your immediate family, even if not directly involved they will have to make sacrifices too.

Above all you will need to enjoy your new job and you will only enjoy it if you can shape and control it - Ktools might not be up to the job in the longer term, that's just my opinion though.

I was up last night until 6AM due to someone in the southern hemisphere having a credit card issue which I needed to look into in case it turned out to be a wider site problem (which it wasn't thankfully & the customer got his image) - it will be your baby and you might have to skip sleep sometimes.

If no one here can talk you out of it then just do it, but I would consider writing your own code so you can deviate from the norm if you want to and when the time is right.

Good luck!

Quote from: ICP on August 21, 2012, 19:26

I realize there's a lot more to it, but for starters wouldn't you control spam by requiring a short, concise keyword lists? Like iStock now does.

I'm not sure 50 is 'short and concise', and I see that certain contributors seem to think that 'up to 50' means 'you must use 50 even if it's an apple isolated on white'. I think I've gone up to 50 an absolute maximum of 20 times, and I really doubt if it's even 10.
The trouble without a CV is that you can't second guess what a potential buyer might search on. Sometimes I'm astounded at what people search for (i.e. the search terms they use) and wonder what on earth they wanted, or expected. And these are the 'big buyers', not Nadia Newsearch. E.g. one search I got was for 'Margaret'. H*ll, what did they want from that? (Plus on Alamy that would turn up all images from contributors named Margaret ...) I guess 'senior leg' must mean something, but what? Mis-spellings too: I had one for man ringing hand. I bet they wanted a man wringing his hands. I've actually seen quite a lot of mis-spellings in Alamy search reports, leading to some odd results, no doubt.
Would you have variant spellings, e.g. British English vs US English? What about languages - would you encourage people to keyword at least their most important words in several languages (more keyword checking) to encourage a global market, or are you only targetting customers who can search in English? How will you work it so that someone searching e.g. 'Wheat' won't get hit with photos depicting Wheat Street? How will you encourage contributors to be less parochial, e.g. not just keywording Robin, but being specific about whether they mean European, American or any of the less well known ones? That probably matters to potential buyers, but a remarkable number of micro contributors haven't a clue about anything outwith their own locality. Or they know they haven't a clue and list a whole load of e.g. fish species hoping to hit the right one, and sometimes none of them are correct.
These are just trivial examples. You'll no doubt know tons more yourself.