Crated - dead or alive?

[stockastic]

I decided to give Crated.com another chance, maybe things had changed.  I put up a couple dozen of my best wall-art photos, including some that have sold on FAA.   Not expecting anything, really, and after a couple weeks they still don't show up in search, so the mystery 'curator' either hasn't looked or didn't like me. 

What bugs me, though, is that I now see plenty of seriously mediocre photos that do appear in the search.    I'm talking about really lifeless snapshots, some just as-is,   many with the typical artsy Photoshop filter or  'vintage' app applied.  Click on the contributor and you find they've submitted nothing but a handful of similar shots.    There's a lot of good work on Crated, but I'm seeing a lot of questionable 'art'.

No, I'm not going to post links and embarrass people, or talk about how great I am.  They can apply whatever standards they want, it's their show.   I'm just wondering if Crated is still alive.  I see pretty much the same photos and artwork on the main page every time I look. 

[Jo Ann Snover]

I haven't uploaded there in a long time. I had some sales at the beginning, but then nothing (and I sell via FAA too and have seen things slow down a lot there as well). I'm not uploading unless there's some signs of life, but they don't even send a newsletter to contributors, so I'm assuming things are not going well for them (but I know nothing specific; just my best guess)

[stockastic]

I'm also seeing less activity on FAA.  I used to think that as I made sales, my search rank would go up, so sales would increase.  But that's never happened, I still sell just a couple of prints a month.   People are posting on the FAA forum, about how search analytics tools are showing much less traffic to the site, but they're being slapped down by the moderators who claim things are going great.  No secret that FAA is increasingly focused on the Zazzle market - they already have the shower curtains and throw pillows, and I'm sure t-shirts are coming. 

I'm currently wasting my time trying to figure out 500px  :-)

[click_click]

...  No secret that FAA is increasingly focused on the Zazzle market - they already have the shower curtains and throw pillows, and I'm sure t-shirts are coming.  ...

T-Shirts are already on sale at FAA.

[stockastic]

...  No secret that FAA is increasingly focused on the Zazzle market - they already have the shower curtains and throw pillows, and I'm sure t-shirts are coming.  ...

T-Shirts are already on sale at FAA.

Aaaagh. I missed that.   The next step in their Zazzlization will be some not-so-subtle pressure to reduce our markup, probably by tying it to search placement. 

[wordplanet]

I'm getting more sales on FAA than on Crated even though my work places very well in searches on Crated and is in a couple of collections there. I was ready to give up, but a few of my friends have seen sales suddenly pick up on Crated this week, nice big framed prints and canvases, so I figure I'll stick it out through the Christmas season and see how I do. I have about 300 images on Crated and about 500 on FAA.

Anyone here getting sales on Crated? I like that it is just art without all the "zazzlization" - I joined redbubble - where sales are very steady despite a very tiny portfolio - so I could sell iPhone cases and the like. I have a very different portfolio there and sell mostly iPhone cases, mugs, cards, T-shirts, notebooks and the occasional poster. They've picked up a lot.

Crated is less than two years old - 500px is 6 years old and really came into its own fairly recently - so I'm not ready to throw in the towel on Crated yet. I made the effort to upload and my photographs show up well in search - and the site looks very good.

[stockastic]

Having nothing to lose, I emailed Crated and asked what, if anything, I could do to get included in the search.  I received a friendly reply saying someone would take a look - and within an hour, another email telling me I was 'in'.   So their curation is still active, but maybe slow or intermittent.  And IMHO they've taken in too much questionable stuff.

I've been looking at 500px but not 'getting' it.  It looks like an art site, with a clean presentation,big previews and all the social networking stuff.  But stock photographers aren't normally admiring other people's stock shots.  And without any way to sell prints, there's little point in using it as a gallery site for my 'art'. In fact there's a downside, because it would compete for page views with FAA or Crated, where I can actually sell prints.   My understanding is that 500px used to do print sales but got out of it.     

[Ariene]

Unfortunately - Dead.

I'm here for 1,5 year and almost 500 files in gallery. 0 (zero) sales so far. At the same time I have nice monthly sales with FAA and Redbubble.

In my case it was similar - I asked what I can do to find my work by keywords in their search and then got "curated". As above, it didn't change anything in (no) sales.

So, after that long time today all I can say it's - waste of time only.

[stockastic]

Yeah I feel like I probably wasted my time uploading 200 photos.  I've noticed 3 things: 

First, compared to a year ago, the site has a lot more junk.  There is good work there, but also  portfolios of hundreds or thousands of mostly unimpressive  images that don't eve look all like the work of the same person, causing me to wonder if they're stolen.  And other portfolios of groaner snapshots that will never sell, but are nevertheless in the search.  So it looks like the original standards are history.

Second,  the "collected by" hits that I'm getting are mostly from a few contributors who seem to be "collecting" thousands of images at random, maybe thinking that's how we game the system. 

Third, there's very little change in the images that appear on the home page.  And quite a few are from those people madly "collecting" and following everyone.  Hmmm.

I'm thinking  the site hasn't gone anywhere and that the people who started it have lost interest.   Which would be a shame because FAA just desperately needs some serious competition,  from a site showing quality work.