Right on Prof.

Right on.

No one wants to be a carney, or an oliver, or a half-wit.  And if you buy into the carney/oliver propaganda, you tend to be viewed as a half-wit.  They are differentiating themselves on stupid things like this, where the model is exactly the same as everyone else.  Nothing special, just a brown site with pictures surrounded by other shades of brown.  Unless my monitor is not calibrated.  Then its another colour with many shades of the same colour.

I think they have a great upload system.  The recent reviews seem a bit off, but the system is great.  I've already decided that its time for me to stop uploading to a few sites due to poor performance - Featurepics, BigStock are the two for now. 

Their way of saying thank you - those stupid useless tokens - should be there way of saying "here's 30 cents for contributing" and Bryan's previous post was incredibly evasive of the call to convert those tokens to some useful coin. 

I will upload a bit more and then I will see how it goes after a long hiatus from uploading.  If things change, then sure, otherwise "me out"....I pinkyswear.

Like Amanda from IStock pointed out, contributing to too many sites makes it very difficult to control your images.  It also is time consuming.  So, that sparked me to really look at who's producing and who isn't.  And those that don't can go - no matter how amazing their uploading is.  Another thing is that these sites may be knew and only God knows what they do with your photos off the site - I'm not accusing anyone but suspicious sites like TotallyPhotos and others tend to scare me.  The 80 cents in 6 months of earnings and time that I save from not uploading to these sites is probably going to make me better off than the small little rewards that I would get otherwise.

I have written to Bryan directly--several times.  He is always very responsive and very complimentary about my portfolio (maybe he has bad taste? ). 

My point is this:  It is a good idea to differentiate yourself from the competition, but you need to do so intelligently.  It is unclear to me who the target audience is for this site.  Is it designers?  If so, they want images, not a site "feel."  They want a product that they can use for a decent price.  This is definitely the case with Lucky Oliver.  However, I think they also want a site that treats them as if they are intelligent, which they are.  Humour is one thing, but it needs to be humour that fits into the professional environment.

As to complaining publicly, I did so on purpose.  It is important for Bryan and the other founders of LO to get feedback.  By posting a complaint here, I was hoping to generate a conversation that would be useful to LO as they get a handle on marketing, promotion, and site design.  If a lot of people had chimed in with, "Yeah.  This stuff is juvenile," then I'd say Bryan and company would have something to think about.  If people had said, "We love the site as it is," then LO also has important information.

Just because a comment is negative doesn't mean it shouldn't be said publicly.

Just because a comment is negative doesn't mean it shouldn't be said publicly.

I totally agree with this.� This forum is for open discussion.� It is not for only positive "Woo Yahs".� We are here to discuss the pros AND cons of the industry and the sites.

There are a lot of people reading here and if some of them are considering uploading to places like LO and they read comments like some of what i've read here today, then they may certainly think that they shouldn't join up.

I don't think that finding photographers will be a problem for any new start up site.� There are plenty of people that want to get started in microstock that are not yet up to the standards at IS and SS that will submit to LO.� There are also plenty of people that already submit to other sites (including IS and SS) that will submit to LO.� Lack of photos is definitely not the major issue for any microsite.� The lack of buyers is the major problem.

Granted, you need photos to attract buyers, but just give it some time.

And I also agree that the promotional was a little off base.  At first it made me laugh, but then I looked at some of the ingredients and wondered about it...

I agree that the conversation should be promoted. I'm not exactly sure i buy into the style of the site either, but i do believe it will differentiate them to a big degree and i'm willing to go with it. What do others think?

I think maunger you should stop acting like a moderator in a free speech democratic forum. If anyone has the right, it would be Leaf.

Profs and ichiro's comments are to the point. They bring out problems in LO, but that's called "constructive criticism". We all want LO to succeed, because it will bring US money. Collectively we know what sells, when it sells and how it sells. Between all the users of this forum we've probably sold a million images (Phil probably accounting for 990,000 of them ).

So:

What I like about LO:

1. Great upload system, FTP fast, submission process great
2. Fast review times (obviously that might change with popularity)
3. Fact that they are new (I like the new guys, the underdogs)
4. The admins: Bryan and others are very informative

What I'm neutral on about LO:

1. Tokens: nice, but useless for photographers. I've suggested in another thread a trade-in system for stuff
2. The layout: I agree with Ichiro that it's a bit weird, but I actually like it. But I don't know how the world feels about it

What I don't like about LO:

1. The names/levels are idiotic. Word up! I mean why not: 1. a git, 2. a prat, 3. a prig, 4. a wanker
2. Affiliate program: make it percentage plus a fee like Fotolia had for a while. $1 for signup + 10% of their sales for 5 years. Not just $5 for credits, but 10-20% of the sale. If I bring someone who buys a $415 package I'll feel totally ripped off with just $5

About the LOAF package... I think it's meant to be a gag. Considering I currently reside in the middle of * nowhere it would cost Lucky Oliver about $400 to send that bologna sandwitch to me by UPS Global Priority before it went off...