Well, Sjlocke has been bugging me to create this site forever now, so here goes  

I have started a microstock 'social network' for lack of a better term at microstock.me.  

The site is obviously not meant to compete with MicrostockGroup.  It isn't a forum.  Discussion will still happen on microstock.me of course, but it would be geared towards allowing people to have conversations between smaller groups of people, or private discussions within groups etc.  The site was also designed to give a place for microstock photographers to have a 'profile' page, a place to send people when they wanted to know more about them, or to sign up with agencies under their referral links.  Lots of photographers have their own website, which of course would be better, but for those who don't, this could be a solution.  You can see my profile here for example.  So when someone asks what I do or asks me about microstock photography I can send them there so they can sign up under my referral links and I can connect with them.

Anyone is also able to create their own groups.  The groups can be public, private and hidden.  That way if you wanted to have a small discussion group with a few people concerning 'selling strategies on Shutterstock' , or have a group just with your friends, or just Canon photographers you can.

So to summarize, why I think the site could be useful

• It will allow members to have private / small discussions with other members - at their own control
• Give members a 'microstock homepage', a place to send potential referrals

Compared to MicrostockGroup, I would say that MicrostockGroup is a group discussion, a large round table discussion arena allowing everyone equal opportunity to talk about everything.  Microstock.me is the place for chat within small groups, limiting the people who are involved.  If it was a conference, MicrostockGroup is the socializing party event, microstock.me is the private meetings that follow.

If there is interest in the site, I'll work at integrating parts of MicrostockGroup and Microstock.me to compliment each other.

Good job Tyler, I will enrol as soon as I'm near a real computer. I've spoken to a few people before about having a place where certain level of members can discuss things in private and this could be the answer.

Good idea. Some topics don't belong in public view.

Quote from: cclapper on January 21, 2011, 08:30

Just signed up, Tyler, but when I go to login, the wordpress box is already filled in for a second, then my email in the username field disappears and it wiggles, meaning that is not correct. Not sure what else I should put in there?

have you activated your account by clicking on the activation link the email you should have gotten?

Yes. See my post above, i was editing when you posted this. Sorry about that.

Just signed up, Tyler, but when I go to login, the wordpress box is already filled in for a second, then my email in the username field disappears and it wiggles, meaning that is not correct. Not sure what else I should put in there?

EDIT: Actually Tyler you can go ahead and just cancel my account. I'm thinking you created the site mostly so that private groups could be opened, and those groups are designed to filter out smaller contributors. I won't be able to participate and my comments are irrelevant, so there's really no sense in me belonging. Thanks anyway.

Well the site certainly does allow 'private groups' or groups with similar interest but that doesn't mean they only filter out one targeted group.  There is nothing stopping anyone from creating a 'newbies' group, or a 'i do this just for fun' group, or 'less than 100 images' group etc.  Groups can also be made on any other subject like location or camera type, language preference etc.

Groups are also only one part of the site.  The other goal was to give a smaller community for the people who wanted (you can just see the posts of you 'friends') and to make a way for people to have a microstock profile page highlighting all their portfolio's and images.  The profile page will need to be worked on a bit still to make it highlight peoples images if they want

Quote from: cclapper on January 21, 2011, 08:30

EDIT: Actually Tyler you can go ahead and just cancel my account. I'm thinking you created the site mostly so that private groups could be opened, and those groups are designed to filter out smaller contributors. I won't be able to participate and my comments are irrelevant, so there's really no sense in me belonging. Thanks anyway.

Cathy - I hope my Diamond Group didn't spark this reaction, I'll admit the group is designed to filter out the smaller contributor and I've clearly mentioned that in the description.

But in defence of Tyler - The majority of us do this anyway either by way of email, PM's, phonecall or meetings. All Tyler has done is create a much needed site where we can have these discussions easily and conveniently and to have the option to participate or not. This forum is a great place but like some others I've spoken to it's becoming harder to discuss things at a peer level due to not everybody being on the same level, threads get diluted and the original point of discussion diverted to the stage it's almost impossible to work out what's relevant and what isn't.

It's all a moot point, because I can't even log in. If you read my post above, I created an account name, using my email address, and a password. I received an email. I clicked the link. I thought it activated. But I can't log in. I just tried clicking the link in the email again, and was taken to a page that says there was a problem activating, and I needed to enter an activation code. So I copied the link from the email and used the characters after the = sign and entered. The screen refreshed but nothing happened. I still can't log in. I give up.

If there is no restriction on who can register:  What's the Point?

If there is no restriction on who can register:  What's the Point?

there is no restriction on who can join the site, but when people create groups within the site they can restrict who can join those groups.

Made an account, tried to login, got this at the bottom of the page:


Warning: call_user_func_array() [function.call-user-func-array]: First argument is expected to be a valid callback, '_bp_external_activity_refetch' was given in /homepages/44/d354239890/htdocs/wp-includes/plugin.php on line 395

Browser - Firefox.

Made an account, tried to login, got this at the bottom of the page:


Warning: call_user_func_array() [function.call-user-func-array]: First argument is expected to be a valid callback, '_bp_external_activity_refetch' was given in /homepages/44/d354239890/htdocs/wp-includes/plugin.php on line 395

Browser - Firefox.

Some of us are having a small problem? Firefox also. Do I need to use something else to sign up? Got this one:


Warning: call_user_func_array() [function.call-user-func-array]: First argument is expected to be a valid callback, '_bp_external_activity_refetch' was given in /homepages/44/d354239890/htdocs/wp-includes/plugin.php on line 395

Tried Google Chrome - That name is already in use. OK, we all love computers.

I just created a private group called  "Top Tier Non-Exclusive Microstockers". Basically,  to participate your total downloads from iStock, Fotolia and/or Dreamstime must be over 30,000. This could be a combination of all or any of the three. For approval you must give home links of to those sites to show your credential. As well you must be a non-exclusive.  

Thanks Tyler, this is an awesome initiative.    Denis

Yea, the bug was that a confirmation email was sent too late and arrived in the spam folder
Now it works.

Thanks for the hint. I might have gotten to that eventually.

That was all that was wrong. Confirmation of registration and validation went into my spam folder.

All fine now.

Quote from: cybernesco on January 22, 2011, 09:27

I just created a private group called  "Top Tier Non-Exclusive Microstockers". Basically,  to participate your total downloads from iStock, Fotolia and/or Dreamstime must be over 30,000. This could be a combination of all or any of the three. For approval you must give home links of to those sites to show your credential. As well you must be a non-exclusive.  

Thanks Tyler, this is an awesome initiative.    Denis

I'm happy you like the site.
I'm glad you took the initiative to create a group - we now have three sort of similar groups though.  Full time microstock photographers (which I started), where I said you had to have over 1000 images and earn over 50% of your income from microstock, RT's group (Diamond group) which you have to have diamond on istock or gold on fotolia, and then your group with total downloads over 30,000.  I think we may be spreading ourselves a little thin with three groups?  I would imagine many of the same people would be in all the groups... perhaps I should make you an admin of the group I started already and we can drive that one together?

The conditions should include other aspects too. I think Denis' is the most appropiate. For example, I am in top tier at SS - 0.38 (which means at least about 30k sales by itself if I'm not mistaking), but I am bronze at istock with only 300 files, because their upload system was too much for my patience. However, I am full time on photography (mostly stock).