I am working with at least 10 agencies for video. This is a list of what I believe these agencies should do but they often don't.


- when media is disapproved, give us a chance to correct the problem (such as a missing model release) instead of demanding that we reupload everything. some of us have large profiles and I am so far behind that I never ever will reupload any content to fix a rejection

- accept every format and every codec. some companies accept almost everything I ever uploaded, which means I can send the original unmodified files that I recorded. other companies demand that conversions be made, which means they get my work last or never at all.

- don't ask us to select categories. make your category system keyword based, and make your site auto matically pick the right category. this allows us to submit faster.

- autofill as much info as possible when we fill out forms. very few companies do this

- all CSV uploads for metadata. a few companies do not. these are the ones where all of my videos are always pending for many weeks or months

- when we submit a bug report to your customer support, don't retaliate against us by refusing to approve our content. send the bug report to your developers so the problems can be fixed, which will reduce the number of times sellers contact customer support

- accept csv uploads from other sites. right now, I have to generate lots of csvs and it would be nice it I just had to make 1

- don't take metadata in XLS or other binary formats. use CSV plain text. it is easier to make CSV than XLS.

- use the maximum amount of space on the browser for the user interface. some sites I can only view 1 media clip at a time (fotolia) because the interface is horrible

- don't make the check boxes and other links on your seller page so close to white in color that I can't find them. (fotolia)

- put the important things, like check boxes to select a clip, at the top of the form, not in the middle. at the top, it is easy to find and always in the same place. in the middle, I have to hunt for it, and scroll the form off the page

- don't make the check boxes on forms so small that they are difficult to click (fotolia, videoblocks)

- always put the original file name with the video form so we can find it in our spreadsheet

- if you are going to remove keywords because they are plural for example, don't make us submit the clip a second time. just remove the keywords and submit it (shutterstock)

- allows us to download a spreadsheet or a nicely laid out plain text page with all content that has been rejected so we can easily fix the problem, instead of making us click on hundreds of pages to find all the rejected items (shutterstock).

always put a large thumbnail that either displays the video when the mouse hovers, or displays a full size thumbnail. many forms I can't fill out because I can't see the thumbnail, or can't recognize the person in the tiny thumbnail

- lay out the page so we can see the maximum number of forms onscreen at the same time. if there is a lot of 'whitespace', you are making it difficult for us to work (videoblocks)

- don't wait until we have 1,000 videos pending before you process them. they all get thrown onto your site perhaps once per month, and we get awful exposure for 'new uploads' because all our content pushes off the rest of our content.

- let us search out submissions by filename so we can find our files

- let us see all the files associated with a model, plus a total count, so we can know if all the files were uploaded and processed correctly.

- let us sort our submissions by every imaginable way. date uploaded, date approved, file size, filename, title, number of keywords, number of sales, etc. it helps us find what we need easier.

- sort all your drop down menus. put the most recent or most popular in the first few positions, but please alphabetize everything else, or let us choose.

- make sure our model release forms have a name associated with them and not just a filename (istock).

- support FTP (istock). everyone uses ftp. ftp is widely support. dropbox has many problems with it.

- allow us to have an employee log in to do metadata for our accounts

- allow us to group our content by batches. makes it a lot less clutter. dissolve and istock do a good job with this.

- come up with better exclusivity programs. I would not use any of these programs because I can make the same amount of money or far more simply by submitting my content to lots of different sites. in my opinion, the higher % of exclusivity is not worth it. we need better placement, or top placement for a week, faster approval, etc.

- automatically detect and remove duplicate uploads. it is not hard to do. you just get the SHA1 or MD5 checksum for the files. if there is a duplicate, and the file size is the same, it is probably a duplicate upload. you don't even need to check the whole file. you can check the first 1% or a video and you will probably get unique checksums. then flag or remove any duplicate uploads. only 1 site I know of does it right now.

I'm glad you brought this up. I'm releasing a free web program that will automatically address alot of these issues for you. I'm accepting beta testers now. Interested?

Quote from: pfcaleb on October 10, 2016, 14:43

I'm glad you brought this up. I'm releasing a free web program that will automatically address alot of these issues for you. I'm accepting beta testers now. Interested?

OLD THREAD ALERT

They're obviously just searching for a somewhat  relevant post to tack their ad on.

Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on October 10, 2016, 21:13

They're obviously just searching for a somewhat  relevant post to tack their ad on.

Clearly.  There seem to be more posts nowadays from cottage industries related to microstock than there are actual posts about microstock. Free software, keywording, free books to tell you what you are doing wrong, what you should be doing, and what other people do. And dont forget "how to become a millionaire shooting stock photos".

How to become a millionaire selling a book about how to become a millionaire shooting stock photos.