Author Topic: Ultimago-Earn money with free images (Read 15014 times)

Tryingmybest · « **on:** February 21, 2013, 11:19 »

Just got this email. Last time I posted something like this with my opinion of it, I got in trouble. So I'll just post what Panthermedia sent me:

after successfully introducing our new pricing model at the end of last year, we are continuing to diversify our portfolio, from free images
to high end royalty free premium imagery. So take part and use all
our possibilities to market your images!
Ultimago: Earning money with free images

You have images that are not good enough for stock agencies, you think? Or old images that have already seen there best times and are hidden on page 1.245 in the 20 mio vast archives? That's a lot of unused potential!

All these images will get a chance or a "second life" on the new and independant platform Ultimago. At Ultimago, users can download images for free - for private and limited commercial use. There are premium or merchandising memberships for extended commercial uses. Ultimago earns money with membership fees, advertising revenues, donations and revenue of distribution partners. This revenue will be equally shared with you, our photographers. For every download, you will get your fair share of 50%.

Besides the additional income, you profit from:

Unused potential: There is a lot of potential hidden on
your hard drive. Also, a lot of images in your stock agency portfolio that is good enough, but faces too much competition
or is just a couple of years old, are still waiting to be turned
into money!
Market yourself: Each customer has to put a backlink to your image and to Ultimago in return for downloading your image
for free. This drives a lot of traffic to your profile on ultimago.
Once they are on your profile, send them to your preferred stock agency!
Upselling: Use your public profile to redirect customers of your topsellers on PantherMedia.
Cross-selling: Images on Ultimago can also be printed
directly on canvas and other material. This way, you can also earn money.
Photographers from PantherMedia have many advantages.
This is how it works:

Sign up with Ultimago as photographer.
In the settings of your account, you can verify yourself as a PantherMedia photographer by using your PantherMedia credentials. This way you don’t have to verify via PayPal
or by sending a copy of your ID.
You can access your PantherMedia portfolio directly on the Ultimago upload-page. Import selected images (e.g. no sales,
no clicks) from PM to Ultimago. All images accepted by the PantherMedia inspectors are automatically transferred
from your PM-account to your Ultimago account, if you wish!
Additionally, you can upload new images via FTP
or web-upload. Model and property releases don’t have to be uploaded, but need to be provided upon request.
The upload-process is reduced to a minimum and is very fast.
Use that chance and earn money with free images! Ultimago is a joint project of fineartprint and PantherMedia.

Explore Ultimago!
Next challenge: Premium images!

We want to offer our customers the whole world of images. That’s
the reason why we are going to build up an exclusive premium-collection over the next few months. This exclusive collection will stand out with a very high quality and premium prices.
So watch out for our next newsletter.

cthoman · « **Reply #1 on:** February 21, 2013, 11:42 »

I think I made the statement before that I'd rather throw my images in a hole and bury them than give them away for free. I still stand by that.

sharpshot · « **Reply #2 on:** February 21, 2013, 12:35 »

I don't mind so much if it's images that could never be sold on the microstock sites. It does annoy me when people give away images that are too good to be free.

SID · « **Reply #3 on:** February 21, 2013, 13:01 »

Every image that is given away for free is a statement that images in general are worth nothing.
My two cents…

Tryingmybest · « **Reply #4 on:** February 21, 2013, 14:25 »

Quote from: SID on February 21, 2013, 13:01

Every image that is given away for free is a statement that images in general are worth nothing.
My two cents…

They think we are slaves on which they gamble and hook us in with fancy talk of "potential." A digital art prostitution ring.

cidepix · « **Reply #5 on:** February 21, 2013, 14:44 »

Quote from: cthoman on February 21, 2013, 11:42

I think I made the statement before that I'd rather throw my images in a hole and bury them than give them away for free. I still stand by that.

If I HAD TO give them away for free, it would be on my own website,
so that I can at least collect %100 of advertising revenue..

FREE becomes POPULAR very quickly and why let anyone else get any revenue from it?

alberto · « **Reply #6 on:** February 21, 2013, 16:03 »

I Never, never, never, never and ever understood why give free photos should be a great self marketing. Those who download free photos even look the name of the photographer and never seek pictures to buy. Who took a photo for free yesterday, today takes a photo for free, that's all.
Free picture is popular because is free and not, for the name of the photographer that don't care to anyone.
Next email: if you give us 10$ we sell your photo for 8$, but it is a great satisfaction to know that your work is on the net and not in your HD, you'll be an artist.

roede-orm · « **Reply #7 on:** February 21, 2013, 16:23 »

Quote from: alberto on February 21, 2013, 16:03

I Never, never, never, never and ever understood why give free photos should be a great self marketing. Those who download free photos even look the name of the photographer and never seek pictures to buy. Who took a photo for free yesterday, today takes a photo for free, that's all.
Free picture is popular because is free and not, for the name of the photographer that don't care to anyone.
Next email: if you give us 10$ we sell your photo for 8$, but it is a great satisfaction to know that your work is on the net and not in your HD, you'll be an artist.

In the German Forum of panthermedia the users have the same opinion. The whole project is suspect

Tror · « **Reply #8 on:** February 21, 2013, 16:24 »

"Potential" is the promise of possibly consequent desired events (such as sales). As it is always with promises: it requires trust. Sadly, in this industry trust is not very present and as such "potential" is not exactly a good business partner.

I do not sell images for "potential" nor for "potential extended license" nor for "potential premium" or "potential attention". I prefer incarnated Dollars :-)

gillian vann · « **Reply #9 on:** February 21, 2013, 17:04 »

ugh, like customers looking for freebies have any respect to provide backlinks or adhere to specific usage.

cthoman · « **Reply #10 on:** February 21, 2013, 17:55 »

It's probably just me, but this site's name makes me hungry for some sushi.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamagoyaki

trek · « **Reply #11 on:** February 21, 2013, 18:08 »

No free images EVER.

luissantos84 · « **Reply #12 on:** February 21, 2013, 18:25 »

Quote from: cthoman on February 21, 2013, 17:55

It's probably just me, but this site's name makes me hungry for some sushi.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamagoyaki

I am a sushi lover but eggs? nah, raw fish

shiyali · « **Reply #13 on:** February 21, 2013, 19:06 »

The whole sounds to me like, "Give us your free content, so we can make a pile of money, and a few crumbs might fall of the table for you."

dbvirago · « **Reply #14 on:** February 21, 2013, 19:16 »

Besides the additional income, you profit from: Unused potential

Huh? what?

Let's see, profit = income - expenses and overhead, so no. I don't think so. If I want to get my name out there and gain exposure by self marketing through this unique opportunity, I'd answer a Craig's List ad.

Sean Locke Photography · « **Reply #15 on:** February 21, 2013, 20:41 »

A: hire someone who knows English to write copy
B: "Market yourself: Each customer has to put a backlink to your image and to Ultimago in return for downloading your image" - this is the kind of thing no one monitors

Xanox · « **Reply #16 on:** February 22, 2013, 01:19 »

Hahahaha.

Hope it becomes a booming success.

No glass ceiling in microstock, welcome to nanostock or "freestock".

Poncke · « **Reply #17 on:** February 22, 2013, 03:00 »

Quote from: Xanox on February 22, 2013, 01:19

Hahahaha.

Hope it becomes a booming success.

No glass ceiling in microstock, welcome to nanostock or "freestock".

It still baffles me, you burned down each and everyone here on the Alamy forum, including this forum itself and Leaf, you then got banned at Alamy, and then you come here to gloat over the misery of others on a microstock forum. What is the reason for you being here if you hate micro and only sell macro? I dont get it.

sharpshot · « **Reply #18 on:** February 22, 2013, 03:12 »

Quote from: Poncke on February 22, 2013, 03:00

Quote from: Xanox on February 22, 2013, 01:19
Hahahaha.

Hope it becomes a booming success.

No glass ceiling in microstock, welcome to nanostock or "freestock".
It still baffles me, you burned down each and everyone here on the Alamy forum, including this forum itself and Leaf, you then got banned at Alamy, and then you come here to gloat over the misery of others on a microstock forum. What is the reason for you being here if you hate micro and only sell macro? I dont get it.

I don't see much point in letting someone who's been banned from alamy post here, when the only reason they're here is to do a Nelson Muntz "HA-Haw!" every time they think something is bad for microstock. And this is going to be devastating for the macro sites, because the images that the micros reject and will now be free, are all over the macro sites, HA-Haw!

StanRohrer · « **Reply #19 on:** February 22, 2013, 08:04 »

Quote OP:
For every download, you will get your fair share of 50%.

Uhm, 50% of what? 50% of free is still free (zero). Sounds fair share to me!?

Paulfleet · « **Reply #20 on:** February 22, 2013, 08:51 »

If I had pictures that are so bad they are unsellable on microstock sites why would I want to advertise this by giving them away for free.

click_click · « **Reply #21 on:** February 22, 2013, 11:13 »

Quote from: Paulfleet on February 22, 2013, 08:51

If I had pictures that are so bad they are unsellable on microstock sites why would I want to advertise this by giving them away for free.

You got a point here, Sir.

StanRohrer · « **Reply #22 on:** February 22, 2013, 11:57 »

Quote from: Paulfleet on February 22, 2013, 08:51

If I had pictures that are so bad they are unsellable on microstock sites why would I want to advertise this by giving them away for free.

Using free bad images to advertise and link to your better images that are for sale. Uhm, that doesn't sound viable either. ;-)

cthoman · « **Reply #23 on:** February 22, 2013, 12:08 »

Quote from: luissantos84 on February 21, 2013, 18:25

Quote from: cthoman on February 21, 2013, 17:55
It's probably just me, but this site's name makes me hungry for some sushi.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamagoyaki

I am a sushi lover but eggs? nah, raw fish

LOL. Yeah, it's not as good as the fish, but still tasty.

Team PantherMedia · « **Reply #24 on:** February 25, 2013, 05:17 »

Hello all,

let me explain the business model beyond the newsletter:

First of all, I would like to point out that Ultimago is a new company and is not part of PantherMedia. However, we use the traffic of Ultimago to upsell PantherMedia images or to cross sell posters/canvas prints to earn licence fees.

Second, it is important to compare Ultimago licences for free images with microstock image licences. Microstock images as we all know them are not for free on Ultimago. There is a private and restricted commercial licence in the free section for customers who would unlikely join the microstock market as a paying customer, but rather steal images on the net (e.g. images for a private birthday invitation). We do not want to support stealing images, so we want to offer a solution where still money is spent, but indirectly via advertising and other sources. But if customers want to use images commercially in the sense of a microstock licence, they have to become a paying premium member. Basically, this is a subscription offering. Additionally, we can connect Ultimago to distribution partners, who pay monthly or per download. And last but not least, if customers want to print images on canvas or posters, we will charge a licence fee and forward this to the photographer.

At the end of the day, it is not a free service to people who use the images/site as regular microstock customers. However, we are expanding the business model to people who currently not buy at microstock agencies or private people who spend money indirectly buying posters and canvas prints and other partner products. All this income is split with the contributing photographers.

Best regards,

Robert

MicrostockGroup Sponsors

Author Topic: Ultimago-Earn money with free images (Read 15014 times)

Tryingmybest

cthoman

sharpshot

SID

Tryingmybest

cidepix

alberto

roede-orm

Tror

gillian vann

cthoman

trek

luissantos84

shiyali

dbvirago

Sean Locke Photography

Xanox

Poncke

sharpshot

StanRohrer

Paulfleet

click_click

StanRohrer

cthoman

Team PantherMedia

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