Make a Symbiostock that looks great and appeals to designers.

Make it use the photographers connecting together to form sympathetic groups whilst retaining control of their own content idea, but provide them with a seamless secure client payment pathway whilst still giving them 100% royalties.

Make it completely idiot proof with a frictionless set up and uploading.

Make the search perfect.

Make it infinitely customisable.

Make it affordable for a one off payment, not endlessly expensive like PhotoShelter.

Make it next week.

The development of Symbiostock is relentless and much of what you are suggesting is already being worked on by Leo. The latest version 2.8.9 is seriously cool.

Quote from: Toms45 on October 21, 2013, 18:06

To be honest with you, I could make something like SymbioStock in less than a week, to give you an idea of where my skills are.

I haven't read this entire thread but I think I got the idea. You want to build something innovative and feel you have the skills.

A lot of people here are pessimistic because every week someone comes here with an idea to build a site. They have no funding, no buyer base, no unique selling proposition, nothing attractive for contributors, and on and on. There's a whole laundry list of startup sites that contributors have invested time in that have failed so maybe you can understand the pushback.

The microstock distribution model is mature and in decline. To compete with the existing model you will need business experience in this industry, a massive amount of money, and a technical background.  You have one of those which is a good start. I believe Shutterstock's financial report said their annual sales and marketing costs are $33 million.

I think the opportunity is beyond just building a site. The next big thing will be a disruptive change in licensing and distribution.

Spot on!

I don't really understand SymbioStock.

Do photographers think this will be a success? How does it compare to Stocksy? Do photographers like Stocksy more or SymbioStock more?

I don't really understand. How does SymbioStock make money? To do well, as someone mentioned above, you need to raise a lot of marketing dollars. I don't understand how such a platform could do well, as if it can't be monetized, why is someone invest in it?

I mean this in a nice way, just as you guys are giving me advice. It's a cool project and concept, I'm just not sure.

I don't really understand SymbioStock.

Well, are you sure then that you can do something like it in a week?

In any case, even if you're only half as good technically as you claim Symbiostock needs you. Leo has done an amazing job. However there is a hell of a bunch of loose ends and unsolved questions, such as the current tedious registration process.
Chip in discussions on symbiostock.org to learn what Symbiostock is all about and where your technical expertise can fill the gaps and/or add amazing new features. You're definitely welcome!

You can't compare Stocksy and Symbiostock beyond that they are both this year's news. Stocksy is backed by Bruce (founder of iStock), good ideas addressing both buyers and contributors, his in-depth industry knowledge and excellent contacts and assumingly quite a pile of money as well.
Symbiostock on the other hand is nothing more than a clever wordpress theme that is open source and free for us. Currently, 123 artists have live SYS sites with a total of 150000 images online (see symbiostock.info). All these sites are interconnected (linked) by the network and along with some build-in SEO this results in a lot of images showing up on first google page. That's how we hope our SYS sites will pay off.

I have been spending a small fortune on Photoshelter during three years. After just six month traffic (and sales) on my SYS site is already 10 times of what it was last on Photoshelter (and I have only 1/3 of my port up, yet).

While that is promising, nobody still knows if this will be sufficient in the end to justify hosting cost and much more so time spent working on our sites, uploading, SEO etc. We are going to find out (the hard way, as there is no other way).

Also, I think even Leo struggles monetizing the tremendous work he put into this project.

Time will tell.

So, if you are serious about this, learn Symbiostock, talk to us Symbiotes and then discuss with Leo how you can be best part of this effort. That's lot of work and won't be a get-rich-quick-scheme. I can guarantee you that much.

Good luck!

My social network + marketplace idea, would show up much higher than SYS in google, I'm sure, if that's the only basis.

Well, then I call [lays poker hand on table]. 

.....

I'm just asking around, b/c I do have the technical background to make a very complicated product and I want to do something in photography. You guys should want me to try something, as I actually have the background.

repeated unsupported claims to authority - classic trollisms --  how about a bit of actual information -- what HAVE you done? 

To be honest with you, I could make something like SymbioStock in less than a week, to give you an idea of where my skills are.

I think by now, we know where your skills are -- NO competent software developer would ever make such a ridiculously silly claim!

I don't really understand SymbioStock.

Do photographers think this will be a success? How does it compare to Stocksy? Do photographers like Stocksy more or SymbioStock more?

I don't really understand. How does SymbioStock make money? To do well, as someone mentioned above, you need to raise a lot of marketing dollars. I don't understand how such a platform could do well, as if it can't be monetized, why is someone invest in it?

I mean this in a nice way, just as you guys are giving me advice. It's a cool project and concept, I'm just not sure.

I am not in Symbio YET but your statement is absurd like most coming from you, curiously you have been trying to get anything (everything) from us here at MSG (for free) and know you are saying it is all about marketing, wow that is a big surprise LOL do you have plenty of money to invest? why don't you do it yourself? stop messing with everybody and everything, if it looks so easy what are you waiting for? GO!