MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => Sites that no longer exist => LuckyOliver.com => Topic started by: melking on July 05, 2006, 06:40
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Anyone here signed up or know anything about Lucky Oliver? Is it worth my time?
Melissa
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Have submitted my first three but haven't got around to sumbitting more (will probably do about 20 then wait for itcp reading.
process to upload is tedious due to keyword entry
Will let you know.
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you have to keyword each one....oh well i don't have time for that
thanks
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Not only that, you cant copy and paste - each word has to be added separately. Apparently they are working on both. There is another thread on them in this forum I think where they actually gave a few posts.
A lot of hype in the talk but everyone gave a pretty clear message back that they need ITPC reading.
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I did the same as CJ, I added my first three and then stopped because of the boring keywording method.
But I like the look ofthe site, is not such standard like many other new sites such as Micro Stock or US Photostock.
BTW, on the site header they say about vector images, but I don't remember anything specific for vector images when uploading. Is there a special upload area?
Regards,
Adelaide
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Hey Gang- I thought I would reply to let you know that IPTC reading is now available. If anyone has additional questions, feel free to email me. We're still just a month in, so I expect that we will be adding new features on a regular basis. Thanks for everyone's feedback!
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Just thought I would ask....can we upload same photos to Lucky Oliver and all the other sites too?
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Just thought I would ask....can we upload same photos to Lucky Oliver and all the other sites too?
Melking- you sure can. To jumpstart our efforts, we're also offering 60% royalty to the first 30,000 exclusive photos.
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I like the look ofthe site, is not such standard like many other new sites such as Micro Stock or US Photostock.
Beside the western-/outlaw/cowboy - look or however you can call it -you have to ask what else is new and what is better. Its easy to see that content-wise it is a complete istock-ripoff nothing new at all. Competetion is great and in general i'm thankful for every new site but i'm not so happy about this one.
I don't have the feeling that the owners really know the market, for me it looks like that they heard about the getty-istock -deal looked at the site and said: "hey we can do the same and earn millions, We give them 10% percent more than istock and all contributors will join us". Come on 30% sucks and to offer an exclusive deal as a new site with no traffic well thats simply to early. If you look for the company behind luckyoliver it seems that it is only a hosting company with no expirience in the photo-/design- market at all. Starting with no Iptc- and no FTP, i think none of the owners have ever contributed to a microstock-site otherwise they should have known better.
If you look at other new sites like featurepics and stockxpert they do a lot better offering a fairer deal (at least 50% with no exclusivity at all) have a lot of experience in the photo-market (stockxpert with sxc.hu also it is partly owned by jupiterimages) offer an easy upload and categories are optional - simply great. Beside that they try new things (set your own price - featurepics).
Sorry guys to have a fancy site design is not enough you have to change your policy, you need new ideas and you have to keyword at least thousand of your own pics in the iptc-data and then upload it to all the sites so you can learn and understand the market and to see the market from our side because you want our pictures and without our pictures you are nothing!
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Come on 30% sucks and to offer an exclusive deal as a new site with no traffic well thats simply to early.
You took the words out of my mouth.
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At LuckyOliver, we're building a company, not a website -- and certainly not a fly-by-night operation. We're one month into the live site. We've made the decision to build the product in front of our audience so we can get good feedback along the way. Some stuff is still broken, but each week we make good progress.
On the whole the site is in good shape to grow.
Just to give you a little bit of background on us--I myself have operated a design firm for 8 years, helped more than 55 start-up companies and ran my own gallery space in Sausalito, CA. I've been denied on Istock, purchased over $15,000 worth of stock photos for companies and have submitted 250 of my own images to LuckyOliver. Our team has even more experience in marketing, public relations, hosting, and design.
To clarify our offer, 30% is the base payment, with the potential for earning more based on your status. We don't require a photographer to be exclusive, but you do have the option of making an image exclusive. We have FTP, now have IPTC reading (based on feedback received a week and a half ago on this forum!), no categories and a formal submission process. We allow photographers to set a buyout price.
We'll let the photographers make the decision on what they think is fair.
Running any business including LuckyOliver still requires employees, rent, servers, marketing, credit card transaction fees and bandwidth. It's not just putting up a web site. I can't speak for our competition, but giving a high royalty rate that isn't sustainable long-term will make it difficult for many of these sites to survive. We have partners and investors that believe in us and have specific skill sets that'll help us get off the starting blocks and into the running--skills that help ensure our growth. How about you give us 6 months and then write a review. :-)
Thanks for the feedback!
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Thanks for your answer!
Some points:
-Dreamstime is a very succesful site since the beginning of Microstock i think it was the second or at least the third microsite and offered a fair 50%-split from the beginning.
-its not enough only to look at istock they only can do so like they do because they still rule the market nobody likes them except a few but this few are exclusive artists so you will never see photos of them on your site.
Fortunately the gap between istock and the others is getting smaller i hope this trend continues. Have a look at the others and contribute to them its essential to become a contributor to understand the market!
-You have to understand that contributors only have limited time and to upload pictures costs too much time even on the easiest site (you still have to deal with slow connections, server timeouts,what did i already uploaded on this site?,unfinished uploads etc). And on the more successful ones the ones we already contribute it costs even more time most annoying istock,dreamstime,fotolia the only exception is stockxpert (pretty painless and my big hope for the future).
-we all already wasted to much time with dead sites like areaimage, gimmestock, shuttermap to name just a few if you don't change your policy you will be a dead site very soon.
- 70% like featurepics is too much i think so too but 30% like is far too low a 50% split is fair to both the site and the contributors and all the new sites with at least little success (123rf,stockxpert,) offer this deal. I could accept 40% but i will never accept 30% i'm not exclusive at istock the main reason ist because i want a fairer share.
-and forget any exclusive deal before you prooved any success to us otherwise we can't take you serious.
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Uploading some photos today i will let you all know how I get on. Of popular subject that don't really get a chance to sell elsewhere
Hopefully FTP + IPTC + no cat = ;D though sales is the most importnat thing
Certainly was a very busy day at the forum yesterday
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I have been uploading too. Now we wait for sales.
Teh problem with new sites it that you need to get to a certain size before you can do the big marketing push.
So Bryan - how do you propose to make both of us money (ie. how do you plan to get sales)
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my two cents for big growth.....
And what has been proven by other agencies.
Have a reward to uploading photos for a month or so. Fotolia did this and got everyone uploading instantly. it is not worth anyones time to upload to a site that doesn't have sales. We are busier than that and need a little more encouragment. If there is a compensation for uploading our photos it will be worth, or at least more worth our time even if the downloads don't come right away.
Get a referal system. Basically every site has them. Some better than others. Sites like fotolia and shutterstock with really good referal systems have people talking about them on every forum. If microstock comes up as a topic on a photography forum you can be guaranteed that about 10 people will mention either fotolia or shutterstock, just because they have a good referral system.
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If microstock comes up as a topic on a photography forum you can be guaranteed that about 10 people will mention either fotolia or shutterstock, just because they have a good referral system.
I agree. I try and drop shutterstock (http://submit.shutterstock.com/?ref=60535) and fotolia (http://www.fotolia.co.uk/partner/39857) links into most posts I have. See how easy it is.
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If microstock comes up as a topic on a photography forum you can be guaranteed that about 10 people will mention either fotolia or shutterstock, just because they have a good referral system.
I agree. I try and drop shutterstock ([url]http://submit.shutterstock.com/?ref=102[/url]) and fotolia ([url]http://www.fotolia.co.uk/partner/7318[/url]) links into most posts I have. See how easy it is.
:)
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Yeah referrals the way forward.
FTP and IPTC reading went OK except one file with garbage for a desciption.
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From Bryan's reponse it basically sounds like he has had success in the past building companies. He is relying on his team's superior marketing and business skills to become successful. I agree that many of the failed stock sites, failed because of their lack of marketing skills. They probably started with a team that had a lot of experience as designers and photographers and figured they would extend it to a microstock site. But their lack of marketing skills killed them. So I agree with Bryan that those skills are needed. But unlike most companies where you control the product design and production and focus, in the stock business you are at the mercy of the photographers. Right now you don't have a product to market. No matter how good your business or marketing skills are, your product is horrible. Meaning you have almost no selection. So instead of focusing on marketing your company that focus needs to be towards photographers and getting your product where it needs to be. Offering referal programs, giving initial photographers a bigger % if they sign up first. Whatever you think will bring in photographers. Offering a payout like fotolia did for every photo for a month worked extremely well for them. Your focus need to be on your product (photograhers) before you can go out and sell it. Having said that we have been a little impatient with you and your company. Like you said you have only been out there for a month. I for one have no intention of uploading my pictures until the upload process is painless and you raise our % from 30% to at least 40%. Maybe you can find others who are willing to take a risk with you, but I'm going to sit back and wait 6-12 months before I jump.
Mark
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Striker - the upload is now painless (easier than StockXpert - beleive it or not).
So you are just waiting on an incentive to join. i agree that unless you have shutterstock (http://submit.shutterstock.com/?ref=60535)
or istockphoto (http://www.istockphoto.com/index.php?refnum=Jakich) download numbers, you need a higher payout ratio.
Note: see how easy it is for us to refer other sites that have referal programs (not that iStocks is any good if you only refer photags). You should at least offer a buyer referral program, they are after all what you need.
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allright, I have uploaded my first three.
now give me my referral program and I'll upload the rest :)
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* - I was hoping to refer you leaf - that way I might actually make some good money.
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Thanks for all your suggestions on the IPTC and referral system. I appreciate all the Carnies who have already submitted- your efforts are noticed. For those photographers waiting to submit, we'll be happy to get you on board you when it makes sense for you!
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While we are suggesting upgrades. i noticed your payout is $100 and is by cheque.
Given that you dont have many buyers yet, it is unlikely any of us will see $100 soon so you may want to lower that to give us an incentive (I would want a payout at least once a year - all sites including start ups I support should hit this rate). Some sites are $30 (BigStock) or $50 (FT and StockXpert) and FT even lets you cash out at any time, though at a cost.
You should also get paypal and moneybookers. Most people use paypal but this isn't accepted in all countries so Moneybookers is essentual. Paypal is fine for me.
Note: I didn't put referal links in this time but I think you get the point from previous posts.
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* - I was hoping to refer you leaf - that way I might actually make some good money.
darn, i didn't think about that :( sorry. I would have actually been willing to wait until I was able to be referred by someone, that would have been a good idea.
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here is a typo for you
On step three it says
Sit tight and we'll get back to your with the good word when we've had a chance to scrutinize your photos.
perhaps you meant
Sit tight and we'll get back to YOU...
and don't forget about the referral system. :)
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Just jokes - it wouldnt have been a true referral, especially since the guy has been kind enough to be posting on your site.
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Bryan, rigth now i´m uploading my photos to your site. I like very much the desing of the site and I wish you the best.
One question: can illustrations been submitted as vectors?
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Just jokes - it wouldnt have been a true referral, especially since the guy has been kind enough to be posting on your site.
well do agree it is very nice that he has taken the time to post here.
I don't think it would be wrong however to click on a referral link if it existed.
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Bryan,
On the header of the site you say about vector art. I don't see anything about uploading vector files. Am I missing something?
Regards,
Adelaide
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One small fly in the ointment when uploaded files make sure your IPTC data is in order because if the keywords are missing. You are back to entering them one by one.
Vector illustrations??
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Well - I have a total of 17 veiws and more importantly 1 DL - earned myself 0.90. I have no idea what photo though (I assume that feature is coming??).
Not sure if it is a "true" buyer or someone using one of the tokens they get when they start.
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Any chance of making the watermark more central or more prominant, top right hand corner very easy to crop off and the preview is a generous size. The Lucky oliver writing is hardly noticable on some photos.
As a customer suggestions for the programmers
A search box on home page and after the search if you click on a thumbnail hitting back should ideally take you back to the thumbnails not a blank screen to do another search it does this on IE but not on Firefox. Unfortunately IE is still very popular.
Not sure about LO price structure
1 300x 400
2 600 x 800
3 1200 x1600
4 1920 x 2560 not sure what mimimum size is
Expensive for small shots (>2 mp) and a very wide range for larger shots
Standard price structure
1 600 x 800
2 1200 x 1600
3 4 mp
4 8 mp
CJ how big was your photo?
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If I knew which photo, i could tell you. Either taken with a 5mp ixus or a 8mp 20D. I rarely crop.
It must have been a 3 token purchase though.
Re watermarks - they have a very fine watermark that I agree hardly shows up sometimes so maybe this needs to be darkened?? I like the skicky in the corner though, nice touch but with the quality of the photos, that isn't enough (can be cropped out) if the watermark is to faint to be scene. Minor gripe only.
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A search box on home page and after the search if you click on a thumbnail hitting back should ideally take you back to the thumbnails not a blank screen to do another search it does this on IE but not on Firefox. Unfortunately IE is still very popular.
In Netscape, the back button takes me back to the search page, not to a blank one, but still I agree this is not right and should bring the thumbnail page from the search again.
I also agree that the price structure is a bit exagerated - optimistic, perhaps. I think it's ok that they have such small sizes (400x300), but indeed charging US$2 for a 800x600 that the other sites sell for US$1 doesn't seem very attractive to buyers.
Regards,
Adelaide
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I'm not sure where Lucky Oliver gets their copyright information, but a park out in a field is NOT copyrighted, and neither is the word CASINO. That being said, it seems that the site is being VERY picky (even pickier than SS). A toy dog is not copyrighted either.
I'm probably not going to bother submitting to them if they have unreasonable rejections like this in the future (keeping in mind that some of these pictures do not sell on Shutterstock or elsewhere, I'm not caring too much about those)
Hopefully it works out otherwise...but it did take 3 days for my FTP'd photos to show up.
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I hate to say it, but Lucky Oliver is just following the lead of others in this case. I submitted some Easter toy images to Istock, and they rejected them as "copyright problems." When I asked about it, they said they routinely refuse toy photos as potential copyright infringements--no matter how nondescript the toy is. Istock also rejected a photo that had part of the name of a restaurant in it, similar to your "casino" rejection.
It's bizarre, I agree, but unfortunately Lucky Oliver is not being unreasonable--at least by some standards.
I'm not sure where Lucky Oliver gets their copyright information, but a park out in a field is NOT copyrighted, and neither is the word CASINO. That being said, it seems that the site is being VERY picky (even pickier than SS). A toy dog is not copyrighted either.
I'm probably not going to bother submitting to them if they have unreasonable rejections like this in the future (keeping in mind that some of these pictures do not sell on Shutterstock or elsewhere, I'm not caring too much about those)
Hopefully it works out otherwise...but it did take 3 days for my FTP'd photos to show up.
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I have been lucky (oops!) with my submissions so far, only one rejection and that was in an image that was rejected in many sites, unfortunately.
I also had a toy bunny pic rejected in many sites and SPM was the only one to give a good explanation: images of toys alone get normally rejected for potential copyright infringement; if they are in a composition with other elements, then it's ok. Of course not all sites - iStock especially - follow this reasoning, but I find it acceptable.
Regards,
Adelaide
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Guys, I thought I would follow up on a few of your questions.
Vectors? We got a little ahead of ourselves. It should be coming soon though. We're currently working on search- we know we have some improvements to make here.
Pricing? It's what the market will bear, but we think it's good for our photographers. A ~600x800 pixel image will generate a $.60 payout and has the potential of earning $1.20 as an exclusive photo (part of the first 30,000 images offer). In the end though, it doesn't mean anything unless we get our photographers in front of buyers. Give us some time- we're going to continue to build awareness of LuckyOliver. There's still a lot of room for growth.
Line items? We're also working on the display of payouts and purchases.
Copyright? Boy this one is tough. It's an area that's not black and white. I will say we take borderline photos into consideration- it's not just tossed aside. It's a manual job though, so mistakes will happen.
Thanks for all the suggestions!
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Anybody had any strange rejections so far? I notice no reason is given either by e-mail or on the site
I had over half of my photos of paris rejected all of which were accepted at DT. I though maybe a few people uploaded their entire Paris portfolio but no a search for Paris gave 20 results and 16 were mine.
I was a bit more successful for London 41/66 so I suppose I can't complain.
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All of my rejections have had explanations. In fact, they were some of the politest rejections I've had to date--very complimentary, and with good reasons (such as the reviewer not liking the photo's perspective, or the photo having artifacts at full resolution, etc.).
Was there a lot of redundancy in your Paris submission, with similar images or many photos of the same subject? That might cause them to pick and choose what they considered the best of the batch. But, that's just a guess.
Anybody had any strange rejections so far? I notice no reason is given either by e-mail or on the site
I had over half of my photos of paris rejected all of which were accepted at DT. I though maybe a few people uploaded their entire Paris portfolio but no a search for Paris gave 20 results and 16 were mine.
I was a bit more successful for London 41/66 so I suppose I can't complain.
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ok, i'll post this sudjestion in a more civil manner this time.
Hey Brian, a question for Lucky Oliver.
What are the chances of you having a referral system in the future? I think it would be a really great idea and would encourage me to advertise and recruit for Lucky Oliver (if it was a good one.. ie 10% of my referer's sales)
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OK Notre Dame had 7 photos but different angles east, west, south, close up BUT it is the most popular tourist attraction in Paris receiving 10 million visitors a year so I think it merits more than one photo.
For those of you who are REALLY interested
OK 42 photos at DT
Dreamstime Link (http://www.dreamstime.com/search.php?do_action=search&searchmode=complex&searchwithinid=&searchwithintype=&searchwithintypeid=&srh_field=paris&searchtype=new&searchlevel1=Y&searchlevel2=Y&changecontentfiltered=0&searchmatch=all&searchexclude=&searchphotographer=fintastique&searchresfrom=0&searchresto=10000&searchimage=Y&searchillustration=Y&searchcolor=Y&searchmonochrome=Y&searchportrait=Y&searchlandscape=Y&searchsquare=Y&searchpanorama=Y&x=18&y=7)
16 photos at LO and 7 of those were generic modern architecture ones taken at La Defence
http://www.luckyoliver.com/search
you will have to type in Paris
Just a bit miffed as I went to trouble of filling in the IPTC data as they were old photos just checked and only 17 were rejected so mustn't have uploaded the other 5.
Professorgb who many did you upload?
Referrals are good
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Leaf-
We are in the process of working on some issues with search. Right now it is built with AJAX- which is causing some issues- but longer term it will enable some interesting features. A referral system is definitely a priority for marketing the site. We haven't started expanding our efforts beyond photographers until we feel the site will be useful to buyers. Hang in there!
As far as reviews, we comment on every photo that is not accepted. Spam blockers might have filtered our bouncer emails. We're looking into putting the response directly in the site.
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Leaf-
We haven't started expanding our efforts beyond photographers until we feel the site will be useful to buyers. Hang in there!
It is photographers I want to refer to the site. There are a few good micro sites that let you refer photographers. I receive 10% on whatever images that refered photographer sells... it is a great solution and makes people want to refer other photographers... bringing many images to the site.
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I think it's been 131, but I may be forgetting a few. They rejected something like 5.
Professorgb who many did you upload?
Referrals are good
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So Lucky Oliver is down now for the second day. Wonder what's going on with them.
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Well I checked out their site again today and noticed that they are giving 60% royalties to the first 30,000 images. I don't know if I just missed it the first time or what but I think I'm ready to bite and start uploading. Easy uploading and 60% royalties is worth a chance.
Mark
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Mark, they only give the 60% to exclusive images.
I´m submitting and got 3 sales. The site still needs a lot of work but I like the people and the feedback
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Hats off to you having 3 sales I have 260 photos and have 50 views though of course I don't know which of all these photos have been looked at.
We should organize a sweepstake and we use our 3 credits to buy from the winners portfolio to see if they payout.
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hehe :) that would be fun...
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Erdosain, where does it state that. The only thing I can find is this on their front page. "If your photos are part of the first 30,000 accepted, you'll receive a 60% royalty on each photo." There is nothing that states their are qualifications on it. How did you find out that it is only if you are exclusive?
Mark
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Read the beginning of this thread...
I guess that they "conveniently" left out the EXCLUSIVE part!
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Mark,
this
LuckyOliver Exclusive (?)
Make more money and be able to sell your image outright. The first 30,000 exclusive images we receive can be sold at a whopping 60% royalty for you.
is what it says when you edit your image to submit. I think that they "forgot" to put it in other place of the site. When I sign up I also thought that I´m going to have a 60% of royalties.
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So Lucky Oliver is down now for the second day. Wonder what's going on with them.
I have been accessing them daily without many problems. Only a few times when I uploaded 5 images in the form I got an error and not all are uploaded, but this was eventual.
Regards,
Adelaide
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So Lucky Oliver is down now for the second day. Wonder what's going on with them.
I have been accessing them daily without many problems. Only a few times when I uploaded 5 images in the form I got an error and not all are uploaded, but this was eventual.
It's working now but all yesterday and most of today I would just get an error page which I believe said Application Error (Rails) or something to that effect. Looks like it was just me because I have two more sales, the right people were able to get through anyway.
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Sounds like they are relying more on marketing skills (marketing tricks) then they are on just providing decent incentives to upload. If their 60% is only for exclusive photags then I'm going to wait until I see better incentives. I'm not interested in supporting another 30% only stock site.
Mark
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agreed
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agreed too!
Come on give us a fair 40% and i will happily upload my 2000+ Portfolio. Dreamstime and Stockxpert prooved that you can run a succesful microsite with even 50% so it should no problem for you!
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Wow! 2000+ photos. If only I could have that kind of range
How are you fairing in terms of return on your photos?
-gareri
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To be honest only at one site i have over 2000 Pictures on the others i have about 1500 because of rejections etc.this month is horrible but before it was about 800 to 1000,-$ so my pictures are not the best seller :'(
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Oh.. still good collection, i would be happy with 500 $ a month :-) But you are doing it more proffessional I guess. And probably you have to pay for your equipment, I just had to pay for the old used Canon D60 with an average lense which I got really cheap... :-) Hopefully next month will be better..
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Hey! Lucky Oliver is using one of my photos for their new "music" image promotion (the guitar player)!
Woohoo!
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congrats. :)
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Congrats Professorgb! The guitar is mine :)
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Nice image.
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Have you noticed that 1600x1200 pix images do not show for sale at their original sizes? It's only 400x300 and 800x600. I have already emailed support about this, they said they'll take a look. I don't know if this happens in other limiti sizes. Well, if it's to sell them at a maximum of 800x600 pix, they might accept 1280x960 pix images as well!
Regards,
Adelaide
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I've been uploading there for a few weeks. I like the fact there is clearly a person behind this that wants it to succeed. Uploading via FTP is as easy as any other site, so it's not taking much of my time. So far I have an 88% acceptance rate. Also, per the pay rate, I am getting 60% as one of the first contributers I believe. Of course, at the end of the day, it's all about return. I'd rather have 33% of $1 than 50% of .50. That being said, witht the lowest per image out there, Shutterstock will still earn my more money this year than the rest if the trend continues.
Today at Lucky Oliver there is something strange going on - my view count keeps rising quickly. It looks like someone out there is looking at every image on the site once. Don't know if this is real or someone is trying to boost stats.
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You only get 60% if you are the first 30,000 exlcusive photos. Otherwise you get a small 30%.
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You only get 60% if you are the first 30,000 exlcusive photos. Otherwise you get a small 30%.
I thought the same thing and was disappointed when I found out the truth. Personally I think it is bordering on the edge of false advertising, and is a big turn off for me.
Mark
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You only get 60% if you are the first 30,000 exlcusive photos. Otherwise you get a small 30%.
You are right. I went back and looked. I thought I had a 60% payment, but it was .60 for a $2 purchase. I will see how it goes - it's still about volume. Regardless of %, I would rather sell 100 at .30 than 100 at .25. If the volume isn't there in a few months, they'll get dropped along with other non-producing sites.
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Today at Lucky Oliver there is something strange going on - my view count keeps rising quickly. It looks like someone out there is looking at every image on the site once. Don't know if this is real or someone is trying to boost stats.
More likely search engine spiders aren't being excluded from the view stats.
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News about LuckyO: Now for every photo that you get accepted they give you a token (its like credits) to buy other photographs.
To me is a good thing because my wife is a designer, not sure for anyone else.
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I'm sorry, but Luck Oliver's commissions are 30% excluding all their promos. 30% is almost the lowest in the industry - second lowest next to Istock's 20%. To have such a low commission they would need to have the second best sales which they clearly don't have.
My advice to LO: raise your commissions or I predict you suffer a slow death.
My 2 cents.
Photogs - check out Stock Expert and Dreamstime which offer 50% and better sales -wouldn't waste my time on LO with these low commssions
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Agree about Stockxpert. Highest avg price I have, but slow sales, so low total. I wish their volume would pick up for me. DT is still #1 in revenue, but SS is coming on strong with 1/3 the per image price. For me, it's still about gross not %. I have approx the same number of images on all sites, although the mix is different due to different reviewers, critieria, etc. An agency that sells 20 images a day at 25% commission is going to gross me more income than an agency that sells 1 image a day at 75% commission.
IStock may have the lowest %, but I have a lot of $1 sales there, so they are consistenly tied with BS for 3rd place which pays 50%.
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Well, I´m not trying to make anyone to join LuckyO, just dropping the news to keep everyone informed. :)
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News about LuckyO: Now for every photo that you get accepted they give you a token (its like credits) to buy other photographs.
To me is a good thing because my wife is a designer, not sure for anyone else.
well i suppose it is better than nothing... not sure it is enough to convince me though.
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is it unethical to download eachother's pictures?
It says on the blog that we shouldn't download our own images. I don't download images though, so what good is 1000 credits going to do me...
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is it unethical to download eachother's pictures?
I'm not sure if it is "unethical", but I don't think that I would want my photos being given away for free to others (photographers or not).
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why would it be giving them away for free?... or I don't quite understand your problem? Or are you afraid they would try to upload them???
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why would it be giving them away for free?... or I don't quite understand your problem?
Since photographers get "tokens" for uploading photos, they can then use these "tokens" to download others photos for free.
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but we still get our % of the sale
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but we still get our % of the sale
Are you sure about that? If they are not generating any income, how can they pay you a royalty?
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Easy enough to find out. One of us needs to buys one of our pictures.
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Great idea! someone put links to her/his portfolio and I will download some photo to see how this works.
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I don't see why they are doing this. It doesn't make sense. If they are going to give 20 cents per photo uploaded away, they might as well give it to the photographer who's uploading the pictures. I have a boatload of credits and I really don't want anything but to cash it out for myself (I'm in no way trying to be greedy but I need the money for new photography stuff). If they are going to give away 20 cents per token to others, it would make better sense to give it to the contributor...it worked for Fotolia.
Anyone want to make a trade? lol
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Oh yes, as well, they do give you the credits....that I know for fact
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yes i know for a fact as well, the photographer gets paid for the image. And the credits are in fact worth 30 cents to the photographers, so they could just as well be giving away 30 cents. I imagine however, they want to at least create internal traffik on their site. they are hoping tht if they give away credits on their site, images will start to be purchased and people will start to be happy because they are getting sales.
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I remember reading they'll be watching. Probably they'll change something if they see a trend of a group of people downloading each other images.
Regards,
Adelaide
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the 'we'll be watching' quote I saw was for people downloading their own images. If it is to create traffic for the site, what is the problem with downloading images from people i 'know'. Why would I have to download from strangers?
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The problem with the reward system is that I am a photographer, not a designer. And, while I like the work my fellow photographers produce, I'd honestly rather print my own or use my own. I don't see myself using the tokens I've earned. I think I would prefer a cash bonus, something like FT offered at the first of the year.
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i wonder if lucky oliver is still reading this thread?
Any comments if you are???
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I don't see myself using the tokens I've earned.
This is exactly what they are probably hoping for. If you don't use them, then they don't need to pay for them.
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Anybody up for I download yours if you download mine??? PMs welcome!! SY
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Can anyone beat 301 credits?
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Can anyone beat 301 credits?
I have $5 in my pocket.
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Hey gang. Yep, in fact we do pop in to read posts. I appreciate the feedback and ideas.
It's going to be difficult to please everyone, but we think the token payment is a good way to reach a broader audience of photographer/designers. It stimulates activity in the community without additional work and creates momentum. For a photographer, it's not much, but a nice to have. Expect to see additional incentives rolling out over the next couple months.
We're still nose to the ground making sure we have a platform ready to go for growth. Thanks for the input!
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well i did it... i broke down out of curiosity and uploaded some photos to lucky oliver.
I was pleasently surprised how easy it was, so a thumbs up for that.
Now just for the referral program, and a few customers :)
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Referals for buyers yes! Referals for photographers no thank you, there are enough photographers and we don't need another fotolia (lot of contributors but far to less buyers).
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photographers are going to come wether you like it or not. May as well get a cut of their earnings.
Plus, buyers will only come if the site has something to offer, which means enough photogs.
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Sure leaf, maybe you misunderstood me. I think the money should spend to get buyers to the site. For example i really don't know why shutterstock still have a referal program for photogs they have enough pictures. A good performing site will attract enough photogs in very short time without any referal program simply look at StockXpert the do it in the right way.
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no matter how saturated any profession is, there is never enough of the best.
I still like the photographer referrals.
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Seem like more positives than negatives with this site so might just sign up and give it a go...
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Sure leaf, maybe you misunderstood me. I think the money should spend to get buyers to the site. For example i really don't know why shutterstock still have a referal program for photogs they have enough pictures. A good performing site will attract enough photogs in very short time without any referal program simply look at StockXpert the do it in the right way.
Definately need a buyer referal system. I would also do a photographer referral system initially (though may get rid of it after a period (with a grandfather scheme for those who have already referred).
You need to get buyers but one way is to have a big portfolio - if they cant find what they are looking for, they will go elsewhere and not come back.
Most sites need to spend more on marketing, LO is not alone.
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Application error (Rails)
Anyone else seeing this message at LO?
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Seem like more positives than negatives with this site so might just sign up and give it a go...
err aahh no no.. lucky oliver is no good phil date.... don't sign up
(or at least not yet, wait until you can click on my referral link :)
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yep I got this error too.. perhaps a site bug?
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I have signed up (with leafs referral link) and tried to upload my 3 photos, but I only get the message "Application error (Rails)".
Inger
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with my referral link? I don't have a referral link :( sniff sniff.
I think there is a bug on the site... I wrote them a message
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That's a common error in the platfrm they are using. It's happened before and usually gets cleared up fairly quickly.
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it seems to be fixed now yeah.
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with my referral link? I don't have a referral link :( sniff sniff.
Sorry, I mixed up about the referral link. That was at StockXpert!
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Application error (Rails)
I have that once in a while. In one occasion I discovered it was related with special characters in the filename and changing the character (ç to c) solved the problem. I have reported it to them and I think they told me they had solved it, but I haven't had any files with such characters lately. But I've had that on other occasions also.
Regards,
Adelaide
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Bryan: let me be the first one to say that the credits on your site stating "Mega Global Image Syndicate" just totally FREAK ME OUT!
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Felt it was time to raise this one again. Anybody making any sales on LO? I don't mean the fake sales when we were trading our 'free tokens'. I have almost 500 images there and only one sale from outside. How is everyone else doing? Haven't heard much from Bryan lately and the blog has gotten a bit static.
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i have had about 1 sale every 5 days or so, so not too much, but on par with the slow sites, like canstock and scanstock.
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i have had about 1 sale every 5 days or so, so not too much, but on par with the slow sites, like canstock and scanstock.
For me, it's not even keeping up with Canstock - which is already on the endangered list. I hope it picks up - I like the site
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Keep in mind that LO hasn't even ramped up its PR and marketing. The fact that anyone is getting sales is a good sign.
i have had about 1 sale every 5 days or so, so not too much, but on par with the slow sites, like canstock and scanstock.
For me, it's not even keeping up with Canstock - which is already on the endangered list. I hope it picks up - I like the site
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I had 8 "real" sales so far...
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I registered a few days ago with 32 pics online and had 2 sales. (How do you know if they're real sales??)
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I don't like a royaly of 30 % thats one site i,m not gonna join.
Actually we should concentrate on sites like featurepics they pay 70%
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I'm pretty pleased with LO. I've had 19 "real" sales. They come in clusters, on the weekend at night. 2 clusters--8 in one and 11 in the other. Do wish they'd get to reviewing more rapidly. I have about 30 images waiting. They used to be as fast as SS, but in the past couple of weeks they've slowed down tremendously.
Pat
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I personally don't get the concept. I submitted 3 of my newest top sellers, like I mean really good downloads at other sites, and one was accepted, two rejected, although if you click on one of the rejections, you get a view count and sales. HUH?
I think they've got to get their sh_t together before I submit anymore. The site reads like it was made by a bunch of high school droupout Southern California beach boys. Hey Duuude, wanna buy a picture?" "Yeah, cool, getta token"
Ian
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anyone know what the waiting time for the que is these days at lucky oliver. I uploaded a stack of pics, and they seem to be taking a while.
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fyi for those of you at LO with 'free' tokens. Back in August when this first came out, I bought 2 of my own shots just to see if it would work. It did, but they just figured it out and took them back. So not only no sales, but now I have a negative balance for September.
And yes, reviews still extremely slow there.
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they probably figured it out because you said that you did it about 10 posts ago ;)
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same here, I also got tokens refounded for self download! For the moment I stop uploading to them and wait if they are really worth the hasslle ??? SY
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yep same here. I test downloaded 2 pictures back in july and have now been slapped on the hand.
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Has anyone actually gotten a real check from LO? I am not interested in the token gimmick; I want real money.
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Woohoo! Made a .30 sale today, another one last month. If it keeps going like this, I'll be read for a payout in 300 years. And still no reviews.
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i have been making about $1-$2 per week. Pretty small potatoes, but not bad for a start up company. I also have over 2500 images there though.
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I've made a whopping $2.70 on this site and have been on the site about a month. Thank goodness I have a day job! I'm hoping their sales vamp up soon.
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My first three just got accepted at Lucky Oliver.
Do they pay with Paypal, and is the payout limit still $100? I can't find anything about it on their site.
Inger
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Payout is $100 and I beleive they only do cheque at the moment. Paypal is on their list of things to be but I would put gettng buyers ahead of paypal as without the buyers, I will have no need for paypal.
Had a few says at the start of the month but haven't had any in the second half. hmmmm
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been a few days since any downloads for me as well.
and yeah, just to echo cjphoto.. paypal won't be coming for a while by the sounds of it.
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What difference does it make how they pay? According to all posts I've read, best case scenario is a payout in 2 years. If that doesn't improve, none of us will still be there.
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That really doesn't sound too good.
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Just got my three shots accepted and have started uploading. Super fast approvals and a motivating comment or two on some of my shots -- nice touch. I cannot get the ftp link to work (my side I'm sure) so we're uploading 5 at a time. I have older shots saved to disc that don't have titles/keywords/desc. so I'm having to cut and paste from already uploaded spots (when available) so this is quite an investment. Here's hoping all of us do well.
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Any update on LO? Anyone with a check in his hand?
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Joined LO July. Currently about 500 images online. My stats read as follows:
Views: 5536
Downloads: 66
Piggy bank: $61.20
No payment yet, but for me LO is for sure much better than sites such as CanStock, Crestock and Featurepics. I feel possitive about them and will continue to submit to them.
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I cant remember where I read it but I think the views numbers are misleading as they were excluding the crawlers from Google etc.
That is a good number of Dl from a new site.
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I had no dlds in Oct and Nov. Since it's still a new site and I see them investing time in it, and also uploads are so easy, I keep on uploading.
Regards,
Adelaide
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I cant remember where I read it but I think the views numbers are misleading as they were excluding the crawlers from Google etc.
That's a good thing. Otherwise the number of views would be inflated.
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I've been a member there for a few weeks now. I have over 90 images in my portfolio and not one download yet :( even though the reviewers were quite impressed with the images I had uploaded. Only 1 image has been rejected. *shrug* so I think I'm going to wait and see what happens over the next couple of months before I upload anything else. I am hoping that they start marketing heavily and then maybe things will start taking off.
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I had my 9th download this week, out of about 120 images. Hopefully sales will catch up...?
Regards,
Adelaide
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I have 673 images in my gallery with a whopping total of 7 sales since August 2006. I've made a total of $4.20. I'm not sure why I keep uploading there but I keep hoping sales will pick up and the FTP uploading is so easy (I start it before going to sleep at night). I also like the fact you don't have to select categories but can just select a model release for those needing it and push all of them through with the click of a button. Very convenient. Sure hope things pick up and sales start occuring!
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it seems like they are working somewhat hard at least, and that there is more than one person involved which often means there is wages to pay and the site HAS to make sales. So hopefully in the future the sales will come. other sites where it is a one man show, if there are now sales, it probably doesn't matter THAT much to the owner because he has another job anyhow.
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it seems like they are working somewhat hard at least, and that there is more than one person involved which often means there is wages to pay and the site HAS to make sales.
But there is the rub.
First, as many of you know, salaries are usually the largest cost for a company. And from what I am hearing thru the grapevine, they aren't making many sales. Most of you that are reporting hardly have any sales. Here is a short synopsis of this thread recently:
637 images - 7 sales
120 images - 9 sales
90 images - 0 sales
500 images - 66 sales
So that adds up to 1347 images and 82 sales. If we assume that they have 50,000 images and extrapolate the sales, you end up with 3,048 total sales. Even at $5/sale, that is barely enough to cover one persons salary, let alone a whole team.
Second, LuckyOliver has pretty much missed the biggest sales season of the year (Christmas). A large percentage of sales come from the holidays.
My prediction, they won't last another year...
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ouch, that is a pretty tough prediction.
I think they will last the year quite easily.
my vote for the next doomsdayer is canstock.
although back to luckyoliver.... yeah salaries are probably one of their biggest expenses (assuming there are a few people working there). which means they are either going to pick up speed, or kick the bucket. I think they will have a while yet before they push over.
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yeah salaries are probably one of their biggest expenses (assuming there are a few people working there).
They have at least 9 staff:
Bryan Zmijewski - Head Honcho
Robert Konves - Lead Designer
Joel Michael - Developer
Jill Goodell
Amy Maven - Publicity & Marketing
Jeremy Britton - Director of ZURB
Hunter Block - Business Development
Ryan Wilke - Web Designer
Nichole Nye
That is a lot of mouths to feed. Even if they make only $35,000/yr., then you are talking about $315,000/yr in salary overhead alone. And salaries are probably much higher than that, considering that they are based near San Francisco (which has some of the highest property values in the world).
And that figure doesn't include anything else, such as office space, hardware, software licensing, internet connectivity, etc.
It ain't cheap to run a business.
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they may also have other revenue sources than lucky oliver.
but none the less, what you are saying is exactly my point.
If they don't make sales, they aren't going to get paid. that means, you had better believe they are going to work hard at getting the sales. in the end it is either going to be a good site, or be dead.
sites like canstock on the other hand who are a one man show (as far as i can tell), with that one man having another job, don't really care how much they make. if the site has 1000 or 100 000 sales in a month, it is hobby income for them, so it doesn't matter. they aren't going to spend the thousands on advertising like shutterstock and istock do.
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Said it before, and I still don't have any hard facts to back it up, but I think that LO has some decent financial backing from investor(s). This means they have a business plan and that plan probably projects operating at a loss for x months. My fear is that the plan is projected out too far and while they can afford to wait 2 years to turn a profit, their suppliers aren't going to. If it does tank, I can assure you that it will be the last startup I'll participate in. Been burned too many times already.
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they look like a hell of a lot of work but dont have the sales to back up the effort
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I just started uploading there, and with a very small portfolio I've already had a couple of sales. Looks good to me. Uploading is easy, and the design rocks. The latter may be important to some customers.
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I've also had a few sales when I started uploading, but now it stoped for what it looks like a long time now.
I just keep uploading because it's easy and I really like the site.
I'm just starting to think I do submit for to much non (or very low) sellers sites.
Cuts will start sooner or later!
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I'm still slowly building my portfolio there... hoping it's going to take off soon!! 8) -tom
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I am not wasting time uploading until I see some signs of life. At the moment, I am concerned that they will either run out of money or sell the site. I don't think they should have taken so much time before trying to attract customers. Their rivals now have a big advantage. They also pay a very low percentage compared to other sites. Why should I take a lower percentage from a site that spends less money on advertising? It just doesn't make sense to me.
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sales have been picking up for me lately - for a week or two i was getting about one a day. litifeta said that it looks like too much work - actually, their site is the easiest of all to upload to... iStock is the absolute worst and LuckyOliver is the easiest. And their making progress on all fronts. Google searches often come up with LO links in the first page now - that is building traffic by itself.
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Google searches often come up with LO links in the first page now - that is building traffic by itself.
Are people who search Google actually looking to BUY photos though?
Agree it is the easist to upload to if you have all the IPTC done.
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Are people who search Google actually looking to BUY photos though?
That's how I got most of my sales in ShutterPoint.
Regards,
Adelaide
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I get first page links on Google under my name and/or under names of my pictures. I just assumed that was normal. Sometimes I get multiple links to LO, BigStock, DT, FT, SS & StockXpert all in the first 1-3 pages... Thought that was just the way it worked. isn't it?
But for all those links to LO... I've only 8 sales. Beats me... 8) -tom
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Hi!
LO is steadily improving for me. Two sales on each of the last three days. I'm happy :-)
All the best,
Michael
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Just got my first extended lic. sale -- very 8)
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I've joined LO on Dec 25 2006
Since then until 6 Feb I had 7 sales.
After 6 Feb not even one sale, despite that the views counter is going up.
Also I've noticed some delay on the reviewing process. I have 3 pictures waiting for more than a week now. I'm not worried with that since none of mine are selling any way.
I'm not happy with things at LO, at least for me.
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Hey guys, it's great to see some of you getting sales- downloads are steadily increasing week by week. I know the importance of seeing the dollars in your account, but we'll continue to ask for your patience as we expand our presence. It's going to take some time to see the same type of activity as companies that have been established for five + years. We're getting there...just keep mind that the market is still rapidly expanding.
Some artists will see more growth than others now- it's key to look at our momentum over months and years. We're focused on two things- establishing relationships with people and providing education for buyers and sellers. Longer term this will provide a solid foundation for growth- short term it will be hard to see our progress. We believe this grass roots approach teamed with a strong marketing program will fuel growth.
Thanks for your efforts!
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hi.
after reading a discussion here on msg. forum, i decided to try with l.o. site. i sent some 800 images in a few batches, and as a matter of fact, one of my photos is a photo of a week at this momentum.
and i even had a download of this photo the same day.