QuoteWell, I'm not going to get involved in the pointless banter.

If you didnt read the pages, how do you know there was 2 pages of crap and pointless banter? Did someone give you a heads up and call upon you to come over here and comment?

Not everything is an argument on MSG, but this is a public forum. Forums are where everybody gets to have their say, according to the rules of the forum host. Just because some people dont like what is being said, doesnt necessarily make it pointless crap and banter.

Quote from: cathyslife on January 01, 2017, 20:26

QuoteWell, I'm not going to get involved in the pointless banter.

If you didnt read the pages, how do you know there was 2 pages of crap and pointless banter? Did someone give you a heads up and call upon you to come over here and comment?

Not everything is an argument on MSG, but this is a public forum. Forums are where everybody gets to have their say, according to the rules of the forum host. Just because some people dont like what is being said, doesnt necessarily make it pointless crap and banter.

No Cathy ... I read the comments on the first page, replied and realized that we were 3 pages deep ... I get the emails of trending threads, and I click on them to engage with others as I sip my coffee ...

You can't really say that it's not pointless crap and banter, when there's rarely an actual solution to an issue posted but, instead it's generally the tearing down of another and the work that they're doing.

Quote from: DallasP on January 01, 2017, 20:55

Quote from: cathyslife on January 01, 2017, 20:26

QuoteWell, I'm not going to get involved in the pointless banter.

If you didnt read the pages, how do you know there was 2 pages of crap and pointless banter? Did someone give you a heads up and call upon you to come over here and comment?

Not everything is an argument on MSG, but this is a public forum. Forums are where everybody gets to have their say, according to the rules of the forum host. Just because some people dont like what is being said, doesnt necessarily make it pointless crap and banter.

No Cathy ... I read the comments on the first page, replied and realized that we were 3 pages deep ... I get the emails of trending threads, and I click on them to engage with others as I sip my coffee ...

You can't really say that it's not pointless crap and banter, when there's rarely an actual solution to an issue posted but, instead it's generally the tearing down of another and the work that they're doing.

LOL   

Quote from: DallasP on January 01, 2017, 20:55
I get the emails of trending threads, and I click on them to engage with others as I sip my coffee ...

I totally get that! That makes me happy.

Right now:

   
• Laptop, easy chair.
• Large cup of coffee on my left (cold, black, left over from yesterday, but still good).
• Fruit gummies settling in Li hing mui powder, probably ready tonight.
• Wife and daughter watching Brady Bunch. Son reading.
• Cheap laptop, Linux, working on Xenos.

I still have my legacy Symbiostock site
Its up and functioning, havent paid much attention to it for quite sometime, and th results reflect that as well.

I would be interested in still having an independant site, but with everyones images being available from a centralized location - much like how most agencies work today.
Most contributers do not have an extensive enough collection that would garner the interest of buyers, and for buyers to skip from individual site to individual site would be a non starter if I were a buyer.
I would be willing to share proceeds of sales made for maintenance and advertising of this kind of site

Quote from: noodle on January 02, 2017, 03:49
I still have my legacy Symbiostock site
Its up and functioning, havent paid much attention to it for quite sometime, and th results reflect that as well.

I would be interested in still having an independant site, but with everyones images being available from a centralized location - much like how most agencies work today.
Most contributers do not have an extensive enough collection that would garner the interest of buyers, and for buyers to skip from individual site to individual site would be a non starter if I were a buyer.
I would be willing to share proceeds of sales made for maintenance and advertising of this kind of site

That's what I want too but I think it would be better with just one site with one domain and dedicated hosting.  It worked to a certain extent with the Warmpicture site that Dan Padavona set up a few years ago.  I sold more there than with my symbiostock site.  I think the problem was that it was too much work for one person and for it to succeed, a large group of us would have to employ a few people.  I would be willing to invest in a co-op style site but there's never been any serious discussion about it and we really need an entrepreneur with the right business skills to see the opportunity.  Until then, I'm happy with the sites that pay 50%.

Quote from: sharpshot on January 02, 2017, 10:06

Quote from: noodle on January 02, 2017, 03:49
I still have my legacy Symbiostock site
Its up and functioning, havent paid much attention to it for quite sometime, and th results reflect that as well.

I would be interested in still having an independant site, but with everyones images being available from a centralized location - much like how most agencies work today.
Most contributers do not have an extensive enough collection that would garner the interest of buyers, and for buyers to skip from individual site to individual site would be a non starter if I were a buyer.
I would be willing to share proceeds of sales made for maintenance and advertising of this kind of site

That's what I want too but I think it would be better with just one site with one domain and dedicated hosting.  It worked to a certain extent with the Warmpicture site that Dan Padavona set up a few years ago.  I sold more there than with my symbiostock site.  I think the problem was that it was too much work for one person and for it to succeed, a large group of us would have to employ a few people.  I would be willing to invest in a co-op style site but there's never been any serious discussion about it and we really need an entrepreneur with the right business skills to see the opportunity.  Until then, I'm happy with the sites that pay 50%.

There was an attempt last year and before. It cannot of course run totally free, because of hosting, development, business parts. These are full time jobs.
BTW - manufacturer always wants to be closer to consumer. Intermediate businesses always want to separate them. The problem is the same in all industries, even in jobs market.

Quote from: sharpshot on January 02, 2017, 10:06
That's what I want too but I think it would be better with just one site with one domain and dedicated hosting.  It worked to a certain extent with the Warmpicture site that Dan Padavona set up a few years ago.  I sold more there than with my sym site.  I think the problem was that it was too much work for one person and for it to succeed, a large group of us would have to employ a few people.  I would be willing to invest in a co-op style site but there's never been any serious discussion about it and we really need an entrepreneur with the right business skills to see the opportunity.  Until then, I'm happy with the sites that pay 50%.

Same here. I agree, a little too much work for one person, though Dan did a pretty good job. He had to make a living too though. Maybe a small team, with each person having different skills, i.e. one who excels in SEO, one in social media, etc. and a leader with good communication and interpersonal skills might be able to get something going and succeed. And startup operating capital would be necessary.

Quote from: cathyslife on January 02, 2017, 10:23
Maybe a small team, with each person having different skills, i.e. one who excels in SEO, one in social media, etc. and a leader with good communication and interpersonal skills might be able to get something going and succeed. And startup operating capital would be necessary.

What you're proposing is close to a microstock co-op. A leader, an IT developer, marketing people and a group of selected photographers. The idea of a microstock co-op had been ridiculed on this forum many times over the years. Then Stocksy emerged out of the blue and bang, a midstock co-op turned out to be relatively succesful. But the skills, knowledge and experience necessary to launch a successful co-op are not so easy to find.

Basically, but a much smaller scale...not thousands and thousands of contributors. The sites goal would be to make money, sure, but not turn into your typical agency. And i agree, not so easy to find or do. Probably why it hasnt been done yet, except for stocksy (started by a millionaire who already made a name for himself in the business).

I hesitate to use the S word, but isn't that what the Symzio website does - it pulls together all the contributions of artists using the new Symbiostock plugin into one site with its own branding, and its own ability to purchase direct from that site. As far as a buyer is concerned, there is one site with a large number of images that can be purchased directly from the site. It handles photos, illustrations and videos.

http://www.symzio.com/

Steve

Quote from: steheap on January 02, 2017, 14:04
I hesitate to use the S word, but isn't that what the Symzio website does - it pulls together all the contributions of artists using the new Symbiostock plugin into one site with its own branding, and its own ability to purchase direct from that site. As far as a buyer is concerned, there is one site with a large number of images that can be purchased directly from the site. It handles photos, illustrations and videos.

http://www.symzio.com/

Steve

I see some problems with that, every contributor still has the expenses of hosting their own site, that money could be better spent.  Then there's the time they all have to spend keeping all those sites going.  Also, if it's a success, the symzio.com owner could decide to sell it or get greedy like lots of the microstock sites have.  We need something that is controlled by contributors and perhaps designers as well, so it can't be closed down or sold to people that are only interested in making more money from it.

 

Quote from: sharpshot on December 31, 2016, 19:54

Quote from: ranplett on December 31, 2016, 19:14
Wow! Sorry that this thread was trolled so badly and that I wasted so much time trying to get through the pointless banter.

Sounds interesting. I've always wanted to host my own database but any time I've tried Wordpress I just gave up because it always felt bloated.

What I'm primarily interested in is a clean, ultra search engine friendly site to host thumbnails / previews to drive customers to an agency using a referral code.

Anyone working towards a stronger photography community should be encouraged, not trolled.

Do you even know what a troll is?  I don't necessarily agree with everything some people throw at Leo but he doesn't deal with it well and overreacts.  If he genuinely considers this trolling, why would he keep feeding the troll?

Yes, I know what a troll is. If troll isn't the best word, then would you accept nagging? Or thread hijacking? Or unsolicited, pointless nonconstructive criticism? As for feeding trolls, I guess that's just human nature, hoping that eventually that person stops being lame and you can get the information you wanted sooner.

I would say non constructive criticism after an over reaction to a legitimate criticism.  Good luck to Leo and I hope one day we can all get the selling platform we want.

Quote from: sharpshot on January 03, 2017, 09:57
I would say non constructive criticism after an over reaction to a legitimate criticism.  Good luck to Leo and I hope one day we can all get the selling platform we want.

A lot of comments after post 18 were by multiple trolls, so why is one person getting singled out? And the conversation in the last few posts had gone back to being on-topic, but ranplett came back here to troll! How is that for being hypocritical? 

Quote from: ranplett on January 03, 2017, 02:27

Yes, I know what a troll is. If troll isn't the best word, then would you accept nagging? Or thread hijacking? Or unsolicited, pointless nonconstructive criticism? As for feeding trolls, I guess that's just human nature, hoping that eventually that person stops being lame and you can get the information you wanted sooner.

So its human nature to troll a troll.

My posts have all been related to self-hosting. How is that thread hijacking? I guess you must have missed other posts by other people expressing their opinion on self-hosting.

How can posting in a public forum be unsolicited? Unsolicited would be if the developer had his own forum and people went over there to comment uninvited. And just because YOU or he didnt like what was said doesnt mean it was pointless.

My suggestion would be for the developer to provide his own area for developing if he doesnt want to attract "trolls" or be a "troll" himself. Its a very simple solution!

Quote from: cascoly on December 30, 2016, 02:41

Quote from: Leo on December 30, 2016, 01:32
@cascoly what is your opinion of the inter-site search network that we all had? Hindsite is 20/20, I'm curious what you think.

I didn't intend to carry on anything like that in this endeavor, but still I'm curious. You had contributed very well to it.

(...)
as I wrote earlier, I think the biggest problem is google image search where my images from 123,ss et al get higher rankings than my sym images

the latter is, IMHO, mainly due to Google's insufficient overall image "search" approach which rather randomizes that entire process and yields (random) rankings like the one you mentioned above (these are not even real "search results" notwithstanding the fact that it is labeled "Google"...). Looking for better ways of searching for images for some time now, have been working on some ideas with a guy from Denmark for some time, nothing useful we could release so far in order to cure Google's shortcomings though :(

Much depends on whether or not there is demand (here, maybe?) for a better and wholly different approach to photo and video*) search over the conventional "solutions" out there at Google & similar. Would be lovely to hear whether or not anyone here would be interested in using an improved solution to this problem?

---

*) and graphics, of course ;)

Quote from: nazlisart on December 30, 2016, 11:41
What we really need is a "Shopify" like platform for mikrostockers, and it needs to be from serious, dedicated and committed intrapreneurs. The rest is bla bla bla...

I'd like a nice shop store. I see self hosted rated at 12.4 which make that the 6th best place to sell in the poll? $25 to $50 a month isn't that bad, is it?

Quote from: marquixHD on January 05, 2017, 20:11

Quote from: cascoly on December 30, 2016, 02:41

Quote from: Leo on December 30, 2016, 01:32
@cascoly what is your opinion of the inter-site search network that we all had? Hindsite is 20/20, I'm curious what you think.

I didn't intend to carry on anything like that in this endeavor, but still I'm curious. You had contributed very well to it.

(...)
as I wrote earlier, I think the biggest problem is google image search where my images from 123,ss et al get higher rankings than my sym images

........
Much depends on whether or not there is demand (here, maybe?) for a better and wholly different approach to photo and video*) search over the conventional "solutions" out there at Google & similar. Would be lovely to hear whether or not anyone here would be interested in using an improved solution to this problem?

---

*) and graphics, of course

having a better search in itself won't matter as long as google is how people search for images;  and unless your content is both unique and highly desirable I just don't see self hosting as a solution for most people

Quote from: Chicago on December 28, 2016, 15:43

Quote from: jjneff on December 27, 2016, 23:05
One is needed to work with video files as well, I am actively looking for the best solution. I think a great option is to be able to invite people to submit to your site so you could grow your business in the future if you wanted!

i'd love a relatively small but smart video site for a loyal talented artists.   If i could, i'd set that up in a heartbeat.

Hey jjnef,

Nice Direct Licensing option at Nimia + marketplace embedding options for your personal site. Here is a little info about it: https://nimia.com/platform/. I use it: https://app.nimia.com/profile/SpaceChimp/ Let me know if you have any questions...

Quote from: Jafo2016 on January 05, 2017, 23:01

Quote from: nazlisart on December 30, 2016, 11:41
What we really need is a "Shopify" like platform for mikrostockers, and it needs to be from serious, dedicated and committed intrapreneurs. The rest is bla bla bla...

I'd like a nice shop store. I see self hosted rated at 12.4 which make that the 6th best place to sell in the poll? $25 to $50 a month isn't that bad, is it?

I don't see self hosted in the poll at all this month.  I think the average microstocker wouldn't be able to make anywhere near that much without spending a lot of time and money.

Quote from: sharpshot on January 06, 2017, 08:42

Quote from: Jafo2016 on January 05, 2017, 23:01

Quote from: nazlisart on December 30, 2016, 11:41
What we really need is a "Shopify" like platform for mikrostockers, and it needs to be from serious, dedicated and committed intrapreneurs. The rest is bla bla bla...

I'd like a nice shop store. I see self hosted rated at 12.4 which make that the 6th best place to sell in the poll? $25 to $50 a month isn't that bad, is it?

I don't see self hosted in the poll at all this month.  I think the average microstocker wouldn't be able to make anywhere near that much without spending a lot of time and money.

Hover over the word Self-hosted you see 10 votes 12.2 that's better then everything below it as the names are in order of earnings for all with less then 50 votes. That's a long list of places that make less then self hosted, isn't it?

Now do you see it? 12 would be average of $50 a month for the 10 people who voted. When more people were urged to answer it went higher. Keep in mind the percentage rate for self hosted is around 100% 

Quote from: FlowerPower on January 07, 2017, 19:45

Quote from: sharpshot on January 06, 2017, 08:42

Quote from: Jafo2016 on January 05, 2017, 23:01

Quote from: nazlisart on December 30, 2016, 11:41
What we really need is a "Shopify" like platform for mikrostockers, and it needs to be from serious, dedicated and committed intrapreneurs. The rest is bla bla bla...

I'd like a nice shop store. I see self hosted rated at 12.4 which make that the 6th best place to sell in the poll? $25 to $50 a month isn't that bad, is it?

I don't see self hosted in the poll at all this month.  I think the average microstocker wouldn't be able to make anywhere near that much without spending a lot of time and money.

Hover over the word Self-hosted you see 10 votes 12.2 that's better then everything below it as the names are in order of earnings for all with less then 50 votes. That's a long list of places that make less then self hosted, isn't it?

Now do you see it? 12 would be average of $50 a month for the 10 people who voted. When more people were urged to answer it went higher. Keep in mind the percentage rate for self hosted is around 100% 

I think though self hosted will be those who are more dedicated and probably skilful than average so may be worth it for some but if you are not full time, super talented or good at self publicity may not prove a good option.

Quote from: FlowerPower on January 07, 2017, 19:45

Quote from: sharpshot on January 06, 2017, 08:42

Quote from: Jafo2016 on January 05, 2017, 23:01

Quote from: nazlisart on December 30, 2016, 11:41
What we really need is a "Shopify" like platform for mikrostockers, and it needs to be from serious, dedicated and committed intrapreneurs. The rest is bla bla bla...

I'd like a nice shop store. I see self hosted rated at 12.4 which make that the 6th best place to sell in the poll? $25 to $50 a month isn't that bad, is it?

I don't see self hosted in the poll at all this month.  I think the average microstocker wouldn't be able to make anywhere near that much without spending a lot of time and money.

Hover over the word Self-hosted you see 10 votes 12.2 that's better then everything below it as the names are in order of earnings for all with less then 50 votes. That's a long list of places that make less then self hosted, isn't it?

Now do you see it? 12 would be average of $50 a month for the 10 people who voted. When more people were urged to answer it went higher. Keep in mind the percentage rate for self hosted is around 100% 

I'm sure that some of the big contributors with their own sites do well but they will skew the results, especially with so few people.  The 100% is wrong because you need to spend money to have a site.  So you need to take your expenses away from the amount you make.  I was making a minus percentage, every time I sold something, I effectively paid to do it.  I wonder how much those people that did the poll are spending?  I also found I was spending more time on my site than I was on any of the others I use and that was as bad as losing money.