MicrostockGroup
Microstock Photography Forum - General => Microstock News => Topic started by: m.panzarella on April 10, 2013, 16:46
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Hello,
I'm Marco Panzarella and, with some researchers from the Politecnico di Torino in Italy, I've been working at the website www.geostockphoto.com (http://www.geostockphoto.com), which is a new stock photography marketplace for geotagged photos.
We are a start-up and we would like to know what you think about it since we believe that the advice and comments of the experts are essential to achieve a good product.
Thank you for your help! For any information please email me at [email protected].
Bye
edit: updated the subject to be more descriptve
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You'll need to stay on the forum here for feedback. Some may email you directly, but most would prefer that any discussion stayed open.
I realise that you're translating into English, but
"We are looking for your Photos
Enjoy selling them with gratification!"
Gratification = "pleasurable emotional reaction of happiness in response to a
fulfillment of a desire or goal".
I'm not even sure if 'sell photos happily' reads well either.
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so, mostly travel photos, landscapes, etc?
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How can a new site make it when we see lots start up each year and fail to get buyers? There's no incentive to upload to new sites now. I think it's almost impossible to be successful, unless you can provide something radically different that gets interest from buyers. Even if you have something different, the established sites can copy it. It looks like that happened to Vivozoom.
So a new site has to come up with a new way to sell to buyers that isn't easy for the big sites to adopt. Good luck with that. I can't think of a much worse business to get in to at the moment. I think it's about as easy as starting a new search engine and taking on Google.
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Thank you all for your comments!
We are an Italian startup so... yes, we're translating into english. Anyway, the "gratification" to the photographers is given by our high revenue (from 50% to 85%). Does it make sense?
We focus on photos related to the area where they were taken. Some of our categories are: landscape, animals, buildings, arts, foods... and almost everything is specific of a particular place.
We know very well how difficult is to enter the market but we did a market survey and we discovered that the geolocation is something that would bring great value to the sale of the photographs. If others want to replicate our idea, they must start a new marketplace since they do not have geolocation in their huge portfolio. Also other big players have their most profitable market in other kind of photos that we all know (sign/symbols, business...).
We also want to give more to photographers, such us:
- high-revenues
- opportunity to decide on pricing and licensing
- visibility (ie personal page with info and contacts)
We are also working on a map containing all photographers so customers will be able to ask new photos directly to photographers.
What do you think? We really like to get any feedback from you.
Thank you!!!
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DT has a geotag feature already.
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yes we know about DT and there is also another one in the market. But geotagging is not a requirement for them (DT does not even say anything in their homepage). We believe that we can compete to them if we make the map our core business... so all photos are geotagged on GeoStockPhoto but also photographers, new photo requests, events will have their own map in our vision.
There is the entire world of journalism (and others) that can't wait for it.
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yes we know about DT and there is also another one in the market. But geotagging is not a requirement for them (DT does not even say anything in their homepage). We believe that we can compete to them if we make the map our core business... so all photos are geotagged on GeoStockPhoto but also photographers, new photo requests, events will have their own map in our vision.
There is the entire world of journalism (and others) that can't wait for it.
Then you plan to be an outlet for editorial images?
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GeoStockPhoto is not an outlet since prices and licenses are chosen by photographers.
Jurnalism was just an example. We are also already in contact with some turist office of some big cities which would like to have a database of photos in order to promote their territory (in websites and promotional merchandising). We are also in contact with web agencies which work as search engine for private and local activities, they are looking for photos which can be automatically purchased and used in their customer's pages. Well, I can't say more publicly but we have explored a lot of sale channels specific for geotagged photos.
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Thank you all for your comments!
We are an Italian startup so... yes, we're translating into english. Anyway, the "gratification" to the photographers is given by our high revenue (from 50% to 85%). Does it make sense?
what you may not understand is that "gratification" tends to go well with the words "self" or "sexual", as well as "instant" or "delayed". It's too, um, ... emotional.
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If people want a photo of a location, they can just put that location in the search box. It's hard for new sites because they have to start with a very small collection of images and it appears that most buyers are happy with the sites they already use.
I'm struggling to see how geotagging is going to be a big enough attraction to buyers. Isn't it going to be quite a lot of extra work for contributors as well or do you do all the geotagging?
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Your site is not accessible. I get error blank page with “CdbException“.
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I would like to try and register successfully, less buyer/seller but more exposure for my images :D
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If you have automatic geolocation on your camera it could be just a little useful.
If you have not, it is just "something" more to add manually to the long list of keywords, titles, categories, age of the photographer, etc.
Time consuming for what real plus?
And frankly I do not see a great utility for geotagging, as if, for example, I am looking for a photo of the Duomo in Milan I can expect to find it just using the keywords "Milan" + "Duomo"
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Thank you all again for your comments, we really appreciate them.
Thank Gillian, can you suggest another word?
About geolocation, I can say just two reasons why it is useful:
1) we found a lot of customers asking for geolocation. For example, we are agreeing a partnership with a company that provides wifi hotspots in Europe and wants to customize the login page to all their hotspot with photos of the area where they set up their hotspot. They have the hotspot location and want to exceed to beautiful photos with automatic calls to our server. There is no man who searches for the word "Dome of Milan". And like this there are many other examples.
2) keywording is always ambiguous because of the language itself (many places have the same name), because of the translations from different languages and because there are places that can not be precisely defined with words (think, for example to a specific location in the path of paris-dakar or a specific place where there has neither address nor name). If you write "Milan"+"Duomo" you expect to find what you are looking for, if you go to "Duomo di Milano" in the map you do actually find it!
In order to submit photos on GeoStockPhoto you have to insert:
1) Title
2) Category
3) Location (in the map)
All other fields (included keywords) are optional.
We are also working on an mobile app for tracking and geotagging your photos taken by any camera. You should register to GeoStockPhoto and we will let you know when it is ready the first release.
Also, we are just starting a new market with still few photographers and we already have customers waiting for us, so all photos that we will sell may be yours :-)
Please keep on giving us feedbacks so we can understand your needs and what we have to push in communication with all of our photographers.
Thanks!
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Am I the only one for who is this website not working?!?!
When I visit the link:
http://www.geostockphoto.com (http://www.geostockphoto.com)
All I can see is ONLY blank white page with:
CDbException
CDbTransaction is inactive and cannot perform commit or roll back operations.
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I'm afraid I'd suggest losing the whole thing, cos it makes me laugh, and I'm not a 15 year old boy... but still! the "!" is also not used widely, except by teenage girls and rubbish marketing types who think red and yellow are still great colours.
I would also say the capital "p" in "Photos" is making me cringe. Why the random capital? Lots of people do that, and it's just wrong. I'd rather see no capitals at all - much friendlier.
"sell and buy photos from all the world" should probably be " ... from all over the world" and that full stop ("period" for US/canadian types) is just ugly there.
the "enjoy selling them with gratification" is getting more and more lewd as I read it, lol. (esp if you read the "you do nothing, we do everything" .... um, can you come visit me sometime? ;D) so yeah, just scrap it. you don't need that line at all on your english page.
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there is an iPhone app I've got that's v similar to your site though, with a very similar name. I use it sometimes (when my bloody network coverage works, thanks for nothing Vodafone), it gives me an idea of what's been done to death already. I can quickly see what angle is popular (shoot it), and then try to find a new or different angle.
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I uploaded 1 photo to see what the site was like. Works quite well but after submitting I noticed I hadn't placed the tag on the map correctly. Hope that can be adjusted later.
Should a tag be from where the photo was taken or of the main subject in the photo?
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Jareso, try to change browser (just to check). Everything looks fine for us.
Gillian, can you send us your cv? :-)
We are already working on a new homepage since the one we have right now does not look professional and was intended only for photographers. We will consider all your feedback.
Thank you, sharpshot. You can change everything anytime after approval.
We suggest to tag the subject but it is up to you.
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Gillian, can you send us your cv? :-)
We are already working on a new homepage since the one we have right now does not look professional and was intended only for photographers. We will consider all your feedback.
ha! di niente :) enjoy the freebie.
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Jareso, try to change browser (just to check). Everything looks fine for us.
I have tried IE and Opera. It works fine in them, no problems. Nice website. :)
However in Mozilla it doesn’t work at all with the error message I mentioned previously.
It is strange.
I am using Mozilla Firefox for years and I have never ever encountered this type of error message on any other website except this one of yours. I just wanted to let you know about that. Maybe it can happen also to other visitors of your website, and thus you may loose possible visitors because of this strange error.
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I reach the site with firefox, it's working.
I uploading a few images with FTP 3 hrs ago, but still not apprear on the page. the username and pass seems is assigned by the site automatically, maybe these images goto another guy's page. :-[
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Thank you all for your comments!
We are an Italian startup so... yes, we're translating into english. Anyway, the "gratification" to the photographers is given by our high revenue (from 50% to 85%). Does it make sense?
what you may not understand is that "gratification" tends to go well with the words "self" or "sexual", as well as "instant" or "delayed". It's too, um, ... emotional.
ROFLMAO!!!!!! ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
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Just noticed that the original size has an extended license by default. The default price is 10 Euro. I think that should be at least 50 Euro. Buyers have no problem paying $100 or more on other sites for an extended license.
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We will check the browser issue.
Linma we are having problem with the ftp account but your photos can never go to other users.
Sharpshot, you can change prices of your photos and you can also change your default prices (go to your personal page and modify).
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Thank you all again for your comments, we really appreciate them.
Thank Gillian, can you suggest another word?
There is no man who searches for the word "Dome of Milan".
Still a translation problem, I guess, as duomo doesn't translate as dome in this context.
2) keywording is always ambiguous because of the language itself (many places have the same name), because of the translations from different languages and because there are places that can not be precisely defined with words (think, for example to a specific location in the path of paris-dakar or a specific place where there has neither address nor name). If you write "Milan"+"Duomo" you expect to find what you are looking for, if you go to "Duomo di Milano" in the map you do actually find it!
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You are assuming that people will correctly geotag their images.
You clearly don't know how ignorant or spammy some people can be.
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We will check the browser issue.
Here is dump of if my configuration if it will help you somehow:
Browser: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:20.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/20.0
Monitor/Display: DELL U3011, 2650x1600 pixels, 32-bit color depth
OS: Windows 7 Professional
System: Intel i7-3930K s2011, MB MSI X79A-GD45, 16GB (4x4GB) RAM, HDD 2TB, VGA GeForce 560GTX-Ti 1GB
The problem with your website when it is accessed through my Mozilla Firefox is still there.
I tried restarting of my Firefox and even whole PC to see whether it is not some problem with my Firefox. <- The idea that problem can be even on my side came to my mind because error message on your website is now in Slovak (with the same meaning as that one in English). The language to which my Windows 7 is primary set.
Anyway it is strange. As I said maybe it is just me, maybe it is everyone from Slovakia with Firefox , I am not sure.
But this never happened before and it only happens on your website.
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Thank you Jareso for your detailed report. It will help.
ShadySue, we know people may geotag photos in wrong position but we also know that a lot of photographers add wrong keywords just to be shown in more search results. Also, it is quite simple to check if a photo is in a wrong position by looking at the satellite view of the map or by looking at the nearest photos. In this case, if our users find one of them, we will provide an easy way to report a wrong position and suggest the correct one.
This whole conversation will be of much help for us.
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Your agency is certainly the most interesting new start to me of all those we've had coming on here in the last couple of years. The one person I know who buys stock imagery always has a problem finding the exact location she needs. All in the UK though, but when you have more UK content, I'll let her know.
Good luck!
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I think it's a great idea, especially useful for travel related businesses.
Am having a problem with the ftp though, it won't log me in.
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Thanks flotson and ShadySue!
Please spread the news if you want more photos in UK and all over the world :-)
We are working on solving some issues on our ftp server. Hopefully they will be fixed in 24 hours.
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As far as I can tell, many promotional organizations have learned they can get all the images they want at very low cost by organizing a "competition". Here https://fotoweekdc.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=167 is one example (take a look at who the board members are in this particular case - very illuminating). The organisers just write the rules to give themselves free, perpetual, fully paid licenses to use all submitted images - with no payment to any but the few who win prizes.
I wish you good luck, will keep watching, but trust you have taken this into account in your business plans...
Regards
;)
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I haven't tried submitting but the major things that you'll need to have to get people involved is that the system needs to be very simple and quick.
If you can make it a 2 second process to submit you'll get alot more images than if it is a 7 step process with drop down menus etc.
Does/can the geotag location go the correct basic area from reading the keywords if you don't have the co-ordinates embedded. eg I have london as a keyword, can the map centre on london to start and then I can fine tune its location. eg Tower Bridge.
Make categories optional, auto-populate. The members here have hundreds to thousands of photos.
Do you have particular market areas in mind ?
Europe, USA, Asia ?
I wish all startup the best of luck.
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submitted 3
one rejected for focus - on ALL other sites I'm with , AND its my best seller on SS --hellooooo
So far I am a bit disappointed with that, not a good first impression with me
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Thanks Pinocchio for your information, we were not really aware of that.
Qwerty, we have been working hard on having a fast and easy submission process. Right now we have:
- 3 methods for upload (ftp, plugin, html form)
- fast submission in just one page (upload, selection, editing info and submission)
- single and multiple selection of uploaded photos
- only 3 fields required (title, category, position)
- exif used for populating title and position
- service that you can use to send us a phisycal storage device with all your photos and we provide to upload and submit them (this is a pay-per-photo service).
We will have the category auto-populated from your keywords in the future. But we have planty of other ideas in mind.
Noodle, I will check your photos and get back to you explaining our evaluation process.
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I was about to forget...
We are based in Italy so our target area is Europe right now. But our CEO Marco Cannizzaro is moving to New York City in two months, we believe he can bring GeoStockPhoto to the US market as well.
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the map used to geotag location looks too small, not easy to fix the location exactly.
BTW, 1 credit = 1EU?
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Linma, click the "edit" button to have a bigger map (you can also select multiple photos).
Remember that you can change the position even after the photo has been approved.
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...Sharpshot, you can change prices of your photos and you can also change your default prices (go to your personal page and modify).
I did change my prices but I see lots of photos being sold for 10 Euros with an extended license. So most people just seem to accept the default prices. You will lose money on this, as buyers are used to paying $100 or more. In my experience, most sites that charge less have failed to sell many extended licences. Shutterstock sell more than any site at $100. Your site could be good for people that buy extended licences and I don't see why the default price would be so low?
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I did change my prices but I see lots of photos being sold for 10 Euros with an extended license. So most people just seem to accept the default prices. You will lose money on this, as buyers are used to paying $100 or more. In my experience, most sites that charge less have failed to sell many extended licences. Shutterstock sell more than any site at $100. Your site could be good for people that buy extended licences and I don't see why the default price would be so low?
thanks sharpshot's, I treat RFe as editorial before. I need to change the price accordingly. Thanks again!
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The multiselect function doesn't work for me (using the latest version of IE). I need to be able to assign categories and location data to several photos at the same time in order to manage my time wisely and efficiently.
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Thanks Sharpshot, we will definitely review our price of the extended license. We did not care to much about it since photographers can change it but we are seeing everyone is accepting the default one. So yes, we are going to change it.
Csproductions: which operative system and IE version do you have? Does the "Select all" button work?
Thank you for your patience, our website is still in beta version and we are working hard on it.
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Anyone willing to share their price levels? Is anyone filling in keywords and description?
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Buona Sera, m.panzarella,
Come Va? Mi piace il tuo nuovo sito :) Vi auguro buona fortuna con esso.
My Italian is not very good anymore, so I hope I got that right. I hope to add some photos soon.
Ciao Ciao
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I was just looking at your site. I don't see any information about Model Releases or Property Releases. I did see this in the 'submit' section:
"Submitting your photos, you declare:
to be the author of the picture as well as the owner of all rights to use;
that photo does not infringe any third party rights (eg copyrights, trademarks, rights of privacy);
that the photos do not constitute nor contain material that is defamatory, unlawful, libelous, vulgar, obscene or otherwise harmful to the other person. "
Does that mean you are leaving it up to the photographers to police themselves?
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Ciao JohnItalia, siamo contenti ti piaccia il sito :)
We look forward to seeing your photos.
Hi LesHoward, you are saying right. Let me explain our philosophy which also replies to Noodle's question about the evaluation process...
GeoStockPhoto is not like other microstock websites. We offer a competitive platform for photographers so they can sell their photos in a free market. You are free to choose prices and licenses, you get from 50% to 85%, you have a personal page... and other services are coming soon. Following this philosophy, the evaluation of all photos is done by our users who can give a vote (from -5 to 5) to the submitted photos. Every vote has a different weight depending on the level of the photographer who is voting.
So we are not in charge of the evaluation process. LesHoward, the owner of the photo guarantees that he is the owner of all rights to use on the photos (including rights on people and private objects pictured therein), so we do not request photographers to submit any release (although we may ask it in the future if so requested by customers).
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I don't see how a voting system can work because people will abuse it. It's been a big failure on other sites that have tried it.
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I'm using Windows XP and IE8. When I click the "select all" button, an error message appears in the lower right corner that says, "error on page." When I press the multiselect button, all of the images just disappear.
Screen shot:
(http://www.csproductions.info/images/geostockscreen.jpg)
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I don't see how a voting system can work because people will abuse it. It's been a big failure on other sites that have tried it.
To spell it out:
Photographer A has a photo on the site of famous landmark X.
Photographer X submits a similar viewpoint but with better light.
You have given A a moral dilemma, especially if its a long way away and s/he can't go back and reshoot.
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I don't see how a voting system can work because people will abuse it. It's been a big failure on other sites that have tried it.
To spell it out:
Photographer A has a photo on the site of famous landmark X.
Photographer X submits a similar viewpoint but with better light.
You have given A a moral dilemma, especially if its a long way away and s/he can't go back and reshoot.
Photographer A is not so fair… So he will give a bad vote to the photo of photographer X.
And as he feels that photographer X could be a serious competitor he will give a bad vote to every photographer X's photos…
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And even if photographer X's photo was rejected on other grounds, s/he will notice the other pics on the site and get suspicious and disgruntled.
Sadly, we're dealing with human nature here.
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I was getting interested until I read the voting evaluation process. Come on, thats for sure going to be abused. What a pity.
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We have explored all your points which are correct. This is how we deal with them:
1) Geo StockPhoto decides which photos can be rated by each photographer. There is one page on the website which shows you one photo and you can give a vote to that photo (or skip it if you do not want to). It is very rare you will rate photos of some places where you also have taken yours.
2) While you are rating a photo you do not know the author of it.
3) The final rate is given by the average of 2 votes (but we are thinking to increase it) where each vote has a different weight on the basis of the photographer who is rating.
4) If some votes are very different from the average, we will check if someone is abusing the system.
Anyway, we are still monitoring the system and we are still ready to change it if it won't work. So if you believe that something can be improved or you have any further suggestions, please tell us.
Thanks for your help.
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Or only allow positive votes / likes - so ratings can't negatively impact a photo.
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It is very rare you will rate photos of some places where you also have taken yours.
(Is it a fact or) just your opinion (?) …
Or only allow positive votes / likes - so ratings can't negatively impact a photo.
Facebook already has geotagging… (or not?)
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Facebook already has geotagging…
So does Flickr, and many photos there are available CC.
It all depends how technically perfect a user needs their pic to be (and some CC on Flickr are technically excellent).
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It is very rare you will rate photos of some places where you also have taken yours.
(Is it a fact or) just your opinion (?) …
You can't choose the photos you vote since our system will do it. So, since there are photos from all over the world to be voted, it is very rare that the system will let you vote photos of places where you also have taken yours. Moreover, in the future we are planning to add a relevant filter aimed at avoiding such overlapping.
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^ okay, i did not understood that.
So it is a good point.
Will the customers have this possibility too?
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Will the customers have this possibility too?
Yes, they will.
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Hey, Marco ~
You're doing brilliantly here!
In case you didn't know, this forum contains the most wary and critical potential contributors.
Good luck!
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Marco,
What is the payout minimum? Are you using PayPal, Moneybookers and/or bank transfer (for euro countries)?
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Marco, I am trying to connect to the ftp server, I have not answer: no connection, but no refusal of connection too, just *nothing*
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Thanks ShadySue. We were just looking for such critics since, if they are constructive, we can improve.
Firewall, minimum payout is 50 euro and, at the beginning, we are going to use only PayPal (maybe bank transfer too).
Beppe Grillo, our ftp server seems fine to us. Please check that you are using an ACTIVE connection. If you need further help, please contact Gaspare ([email protected]).
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I probably have missed a feature, and I know your site is particularly all about geotagging, but are the only two searches you can start with location or photographer? What if people want a certain subject, e.g. 'churches' or 'national parks' without specific location?
I ask because I looked up a specific location and found mostly photos which could more or less have been taken anywhere (a female model in front of an out of focus wall and tree). Nothing at all wrong with the photos, but the photo was much more about the model than it was about the location, and the image would have been far more interesting to someone who wanted a photo of a 'specifically-ethnic model in an outdoors setting' rather than someone who wanted a photo of that specific location.
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Beppe - ftp isn't working for me either, not sure if it's my isp or not but if I do a traceroute the ftp it just times out.
Some bugs:
The 'save these as your personal sale options' doesn't save in IE or Firefox and the form below it stretches to the right off of the page.
The title & description doesn't match IPTC meta - description comes out as title and title doesn't import.
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flotsom
I have done a traceroute too
It connects to the first IP (my ISP) and then I get a lot of ****
I will mail to Gaspare.
our ftp server seems fine to us. Please check that you are using an ACTIVE connection. If you need further help, please contact Gaspare ([email protected]).
I have sent him the result of my traceroute and of a ping (100% packet loss)
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ShadySue, right now you can search by location and filter the result by photographer, category, rate, dimension and license. We are planning to add filters for price and keywords.
We've just restarted our FTP server and doubled its units. Please check if it is not working yet.
Thanks flotsom for reporting us the bugs. We will check them.
If you want to send us some other bugs please use our "Send feedback" button on the bottom of any page (right side).
Thank you.
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well I guess that explains why my best seller on SS got rejected - It doesn't take much insight to see how this acceptance/rejection system based on the views of your competitors on the sight can easily have a biased rating.
I would much prefer rating by trained reviewers who have 'no skin in the game' - in other words , they are not your direct competitors. You can keep the voting from fellow submitters , but as something seperate and not directly affecting something so vitally important as acceptance/rejection.
Already for me, I think I got dinged unfairly, so I doubt I will upload anything else unless I see changes.
just my $0.02
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noodle, our business model (and so the 50-85% revenue to photographers) is based also on the fact that we are not in charge of the evaluation process. Anyway I understand your point so I want to ask you: would you pay a fee (let's say 10 eurocents per photo) in order to have your photos evaluated by a trained reviewer? We can think about this or any other solution (such as to lower your revenue).
Also, you should consider that even an expert reviewer can evaluate a photo in different ways on the basis of the policy of the agency. We also have some experience in other microstock as photographers and we know that the best seller photo in one competitor may be rejected in another. I really believe (but I may be wrong) that our users do not give negative votes because they are your competitors but because they may be too selective.
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Still can't access ftp getting this error with ftp client :
The server cannot open connection in active mode. If the problem persists, consider switching to passive mode.
Could not retrieve directory listing
Unable to establish the data connection
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I suggest that the main page need to include the detail information concerned by the photographer, like:
how many dl ( total, monthly etc )
how may online
(how many reviews by others )....
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Still can't access ftp too. No sign of "life"…
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noodle, our business model (and so the 50-85% revenue to photographers) is based also on the fact that we are not in charge of the evaluation process. Anyway I understand your point so I want to ask you: would you pay a fee (let's say 10 eurocents per photo) in order to have your photos evaluated by a trained reviewer? We can think about this or any other solution (such as to lower your revenue).
Also, you should consider that even an expert reviewer can evaluate a photo in different ways on the basis of the policy of the agency. We also have some experience in other microstock as photographers and we know that the best seller photo in one competitor may be rejected in another. I really believe (but I may be wrong) that our users do not give negative votes because they are your competitors but because they may be too selective.
85% of nothing isn't worth having. The voting system will put people off uploading. I'd much rather let buyers decide what they want. A good search should order the photos well, without having to ask people to waste their time rating photos. Rating photos is highly subjective and has been abused on other sites lots of times. I doubt any system is going to be able to prevent that 100%. I don't like uploading a photo that sells very well on other sites only to find someone that obviously doesn't have much knowledge about microstock has given it a low rating. The best microstock contributors wont waste their time rating photos, those that aren't that good probably will. That's what happens on another site and they sell very little.
I think as a new site, you should just have a flat 50% commission. If you get buyers buying out photos, your site will be a success. If you don't, the 85% commission isn't going to help. It's all about bringing buyers to the site and keeping them there.
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Personally I'd prefer a % of say 50% If and only if
1) paid competent reviewers
2) the additional money went to improving the site, advertising etc.
I'd prefer to have 50% of more sales than 85% of none.
Others will have different views.
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We've learned a lot from this discussion and we are definitely going to change something on our model and website. We need some time to be able to discuss in depth with our team and then we would like to involve all of our users, and you again to decide how to change things.
We are not yet able to understand how the ftp is not working for some of you while other users are using it without any problem. We apologize for the inconvenience. We will continue to investigate.
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ShadySue, right now you can search by location and filter the result by photographer, category, rate, dimension and license. We are planning to add filters for price and keywords.
That's fair enough.
I just wondered what's the point of uploading a model photo where the location was effectively generic, to a site which focusses on location as being the most important factor. Also whether a buyer would be looking for that on a specific location search. When Alamy introduced their 'best of', the 'best of' Glasgow was totally dominated by a series of models shot in a white studio, presumably in Glasgow. The images I saw of the model on geostockphoto were only a bit more representative of the location (but even if the oof background tree could be recognised by a botanist, presumably it could be found in botanic gardens anywhere.)
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FTP connection update: connection problems in active mode are often due to a firewall installed on your private network. We have updated our ftp server to allow both active and passive connections. Please try again using a passive connection and let us know if this solves the issue.
ShadySue, your observation is correct. We are trying to monitor this type of behavior: each photo on GeoStockPhoto must be contextualized in the place where it was taken. However, the evaluation is very subjective: some trees in the background can already be indicative of the fact that we are in the wood and not in the city, desert, glacier, etc.. Of course it could have been taken anywhere in the world where there are trees. The sales will tell us whether it is in the right place but we do try to limit this type of photographs.
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FTP connection update: connection problems in active mode are often due to a firewall installed on your private network. We have updated our ftp server to allow both active and passive connections. Please try again using a passive connection and let us know if this solves the issue.
So, with Transmit it still refuses to connect
With Cyberduck it connects without problem
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OK, I've some images which can fill some areas still empty in your map. Let's try, and good luck, Marco!
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Also, we are just starting a new market with still few photographers and we already have customers waiting for us, so all photos that we will sell may be yours :-)
Thanks!
QUESTION: Any sales yet?
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Our sale channels are not officially open yet but we are already moving to make ourselves known among buyers. To get the most of it we still need that many photographers believe in the project and upload their photos so we can show them to all buyers. We are also in contact with some partners which are interested in our service (we are working on our API for them).
Also, yesterday we have just received the notification that we have been selected for a 2 months acceleration program for startups launched by Microsoft and I3P. This will certainly help us.
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ShadySue, we know people may geotag photos in wrong position but we also know that a lot of photographers add wrong keywords just to be shown in more search results. Also, it is quite simple to check if a photo is in a wrong position by looking at the satellite view of the map or by looking at the nearest photos. In this case, if our users find one of them, we will provide an easy way to report a wrong position and suggest the correct one.
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this is a major problem an any site that uses geotagging -- many people are lazy and will not use the exact location, but instead just place the space needle in 'seattle' when looking at a map of the United states. i've found this more than once when looking on travel sites for hotels where exact location should be mandatory
I created a scavenger hunt game http://cascoly.com/games/hunt/main.asp (http://cascoly.com/games/hunt/main.asp) but the biggest problem with accepting user submitted places was the inaccuracy of the geotagging
unless the image was tagged in camera, it's going to be a major problem. as I user, if I were to find a site with many mistakes, i'd be more likely to just leave rather than taking the time to make corrections
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In order to submit photos on GeoStockPhoto you have to insert:
1) Title
2) Category
3) Location (in the map)
All other fields (included keywords) are optional.
We are also working on an mobile app for tracking and geotagging your photos taken by any camera. You should register to GeoStockPhoto and we will let you know when it is ready the first release.
Thanks!
This is a fantastic idea! All my photos are geotagged since many years (except studioshots) but I will never have the time to keyword them all. I will certainly register and upload.
Don't mind the comments about your English I think it's great and well understood, I love the Italian language and would love to speak it better.
Mille grazie.
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In order to submit photos on GeoStockPhoto you have to insert:
1) Title
2) Category
3) Location (in the map)
All other fields (included keywords) are optional.
We are also working on an mobile app for tracking and geotagging your photos taken by any camera. You should register to GeoStockPhoto and we will let you know when it is ready the first release.
Thanks!
This is a fantastic idea! All my photos are geotagged since many years (except studioshots) but I will never have the time to keyword them all. I will certainly register and upload.
Don't mind the comments about your English I think it's great and well understood, I love the Italian language and would love to speak it better.
Mille grazie.
ouch I hope I didn't read it wrong my photos have the exact geotags embedded I hope your system can read it automatically also get rid of the categories they are a PITA and nobody needs them.
Geotagging is an automated process just make sure the time is right on your camera and it's easy to synchronize with your gpx-track.
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Marco, I am also interested to know if your system can read embedded GPS tags. Perhaps your system could indicate when images have embedded GPS data, on the theory embedded data should be consistently more accurate than manual positioning? I know this information can be manipulated, but it's much harder to manipulate embedded GPS data than it is to spam the keywords.
I also believe you'll find any photographers who would prefer to keep the GPS data for a given image invisible even though your system contains and uses that information.
Do you have an update on your image review and acceptance process? Like some who have commented already, my preference is professional unbiased inspectors, and I would be willing to accept a lower royalty rate to pay for this approach.
Regards
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isn't this site a bit niche? Yet all those categories suggest you aren't just after location images? I'm a bit confused.
The ratings are confusing me:
0-100 have no rating, then 101-999 are "newbies", followed by "pro" at 1000 images. Won't there be some temptation to upload as much as possible to reach those ratings? peer review probably won't pick up on similars.
How does one become a pro in the first place if you have to have 1000 images peer approved, by a Pro? seems like you'll have to start with some self-appointed pros.
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With regard to rating images I think you're also missing :
dust/sensor spots
CA/fringing
overfiltered/overprocessed
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...........................................
Do you have an update on your image review and acceptance process? Like some who have commented already, my preference is professional unbiased inspectors, and I would be willing to accept a lower royalty rate to pay for this approach.
Regards
The acceptance process is, I believe, the most interesting part of the game.
I guess that the staff has made some game theory analysis about that, and that the "peer review" process seems sustainable.
Up to now, I have some images approved, and I can fully agree with the valutations (the number of stars). On the other side, when I review photos of other people, I have no way to be biased against someone. Not more than a trained inspector, anyway.
The average contributor (and inspector) to Geostock is not a professional inspector but have a training derived from the experience in other microstock agencies, and is free from the pressure of the overwork. There are some weird rejection from trained inspectors very often, certainly due to haste and overwork.
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well sure, but on the other hand, there is a lot of rubbish there.
landscapes shot at ISO 400 1/2000 f 4.5 i pretty much feel the need to reject that based on those numbers, esp the ones shot in Yosemite (ansel adams and all that)
it does give you a feel for the stuff inspectors have to wade through. if you were to compare the stuff to the best that iS or SS has to offer, you'd have to reject 90% of it so far. that feels kind of mean, but so far i've seen mostly p&s camera stuff.
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I agree, there's a lot of rubbish other than mine :)
And yes, at least "dust/sensor spots" and "overfiltered/overprocessed" can be added.
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I will try to answer all your questions...
Our system can automatically read embedded GPS tags (we can also report this information but we are not sure if it's worth it). We cannot get rid of categories since a lot of people need them.
About the acceptance process, we need some time to evaluate it since this would affect our business model, terms and conditions, communication strategy and so on. We know that this system can be difficult to get accepted but we would like to ask people who are actually using it (if they are fine with the evaluation of their photos). Let's consider it as a test: if it does not work we always have time to change it.
We are aware that some rubbish may be approved at this point since there are still few pros on GSP. Anyway, we are fine with them since they usually do not get high rates (maybe 1 or 2 stars) so they do not easily show up on results (unless there is not anything else there).
Thanks Gillian, we will add your suggestions (dust, overprocessed...) to our evaluation process.
About the rating of photographers: you need 100 photos with 3 stars to become a newbie, 1000 photos with 4 stars to become a pros and 10000 with 5 stars to become a power. If you are a power, we trust you and all your photos do not go to the evaluation process anymore but they are automatically accepted with 5 stars.
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so my question remains, how do you become a pro in the first place?
your terms state that every image must be rated by at least one pro, so you must have a few that have entered straight at that level?
personally I think it could take a long time to even get to 100, as we're relying on others to spend time reviewing our work.
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If you are a power, we trust you and all your photos do not go to the evaluation process anymore but they are automatically accepted with 5 stars.
Take care with this. There was an iStock admin who was (presumably) on a non-inspection privilege - his photos were fine, but his keywording was spammy beyond belief for a long time.
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Sorry Gillian, I missed that question. Of course there are already some users who can rate as a pro (someone had to start the process). They do not have that title on GSP (so their earning rate is not as a pros) but we know them and we trust them just for the evaluation. They all sell photos on other microstock websites with good earnings and we believe they will become pros on GSP. Also, remember that one vote is never enough to get a photo accepted.
I'm not sure if I've already written here that we have been selected for Biz&Dev Camp which is a 2 months acceleration program for startup organized by our incubator and the Microsoft Innovation Center. They will help us review our business model and so our evaluation process. Tomorrow we are going to start.
I'll keep you updated.
ShadySue, we will trust power users but we will keep them under control (maybe just reviewing some of their pictures every now and then).
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Marco, when will GSP start selling images?
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If you are a power, we trust you and all your photos do not go to the evaluation process anymore but they are automatically accepted with 5 stars.
Take care with this. There was an iStock admin who was (presumably) on a non-inspection privilege - his photos were fine, but his keywording was spammy beyond belief for a long time.
what keywords? there aren't any being used, are there? There are also plenty of files with not description.
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If you are a power, we trust you and all your photos do not go to the evaluation process anymore but they are automatically accepted with 5 stars.
Take care with this. There was an iStock admin who was (presumably) on a non-inspection privilege - his photos were fine, but his keywording was spammy beyond belief for a long time.
what keywords? there aren't any being used, are there? There are also plenty of files with not description.
on iStock - yes, there are keywords.
on geostock: I was only warning about non-inspection privileges being abused.
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actually I found that they do have KW, there's an edit button that is located on the right hand side of the submit button. max of 10 keywords *sigh* so they'll all have to be manually adjusted.
edit: sp
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Thank you all for your comments!
We are an Italian startup so... yes, we're translating into english. Anyway, the "gratification" to the photographers is given by our high revenue (from 50% to 85%). Does it make sense?
what you may not understand is that "gratification" tends to go well with the words "self" or "sexual", as well as "instant" or "delayed". It's too, um, ... emotional.
ROFLMAO!!!!!! ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
why thanks for that. but no one commented on this one (esp if you read the "you do nothing, we do everything" .... um, can you come visit me sometime? )
I was quite serious :D ;D
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I hope that your knowledge of geography will be better than the iStock one…
(http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/429/scr20130423alle151236.png) (http://img690.imageshack.us/i/scr20130423alle151236.png/)
:D
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I hope that your knowledge of geography will be better than the iStock one…
([url]http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/429/scr20130423alle151236.png[/url]) ([url]http://img690.imageshack.us/i/scr20130423alle151236.png/[/url])
:D
Lol
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I thought France WAS the center of the world!
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France is not Central Europe, but it is on CET.
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.
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I have understood that for them western Europe is Quebec…
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Firewall, we are planning to open the sale channels during the next summer more or less.
GeoStockPhoto allows authors to optionally insert up to 10 keywords although such research has not been implemented on our website yet. You may have heard that other big players are changing (or have already changed) the system of keywords search by giving priority to different keywords following the order of insertion and penalizing all authors who insert more than 10-15 keywords. We are on the same road, but we are telling you that from the beginning.
Some technical updates: we've added in the evaluation page the parameters suggested by gillian and we've assigned to each user a coefficient that indicates its precision while adding geographic location in his pictures. The latter is calculated as the number of photos with a correct position on the total number of submitted photos.
Anyway, we are still working on the new evaluation process. I'll keep you informed.
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Big players like Crestock and Fotolia (who have been doing for ages...... allegedly)?
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I've just registered and uploaded first photo :)
I like the idea of geotaging photos, but correct position is sometimes not enough. Direction of lens can be useful in many situations. Something like here (camera icon with green arrow):
http://radom.ws/index.php?n=Tekst.Mapa&Rx=51.40005&Ry=21.1585&Rk=21&Rt=Grafika.03795 (http://radom.ws/index.php?n=Tekst.Mapa&Rx=51.40005&Ry=21.1585&Rk=21&Rt=Grafika.03795)
Maybe additional field (optional), where submitter could choose direction (N,E,S,W and maybe NE, ...)?
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Thanks Ajt, this is a great idea. Adding directions is already in our todo list.
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Thanks Marco.
Most of my images have the GPS coordinations embedded. The direction should speak for itself when looking at the map.