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Messages - Pilens

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101
Newbie Discussion / Re: Size of Licensing Market
« on: October 22, 2013, 16:02 »
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).



@Pilens,

Why is this? What make SYS have better traffic than Photoshelter? Is it something different that just having a large collection of images?


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

Tom,

it is build-in SEO and the design of the SYS network that provides "backlinking". When I look-up google analytics for my site I find more than 100,000 (!) backlinks.

I doubt your social network + marketplace idea would show better results for every single image online. And that is what SYS excells in, that's where the traffic comes from. Yet, as I said, it still far from clear if that's good enough to be worthwhile.

In any case, I'd love to see whatever contributor friendly solution that beats SYS and at least the middle tier agencies. Did you see BTW where "self-hosted" is placed in the list on the right? A good deal of "self-hosted" actually means "Symbiostock". So here you go, take your pick: either compete with SYS (and all of the agencies) if you're sure you can develop something much better or join the community effort that SYS actually is. 

102
Going to your page I don't see any menu/categories whatever to find/see your images. Would google struggle here as well?

When I google "site:royaltyfreestockphotos.co/" I find some of your image (not that many, though), so at least a few have been indexed.

103
Newbie Discussion / Re: Size of Licensing Market
« on: October 22, 2013, 13:03 »
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!

104
I stopped uploading to IS a while ago. I find my share of 16% too insulting and the uploading even using DeepMeta too time consuming to bother any longer. Since then my RPD dropped almost 60%. There is also some risk that Getty is deliberately sinking their IS ship. So why should I start uploading now?

105
Microstock Services / Re: PicNiche for Contributors
« on: October 19, 2013, 13:18 »
I regularly use it for keywording and I really like it. Uploading/distributing to the agencies, however, never worked for me reliable enough. Far too often meta data got randomly lost in space creating a time consuming mess. But I haven't tried again for almost a year. So maybe this bug is fixed now. I use my bluehost (symbiostock) account to distribute stuff to the micros via SSH script, which is a nice extra benefit I get out of self-hosting.

106
You need to delete the old version first. You can do that by activating one of the default WP themes and then explicitly deleting the SYS theme. After that installation of the newest theme should go through. - At least that's how it used to be (I am still on version 2.6.5).

107
Newb to symbiostock here... I am trying to purchase the Clean Theme, but cant seem to find a working link, anyone can help? Thx!


If you are just starting out then you are probably on SYS version 2.7.x. The clean theme doesn't work with the newer version anymore. Be patient for a few days, I hear on symbiostock.org that it's being overhauled for the 2.7.x right now. I think a link will be posted there as soon as this is done.

108


Honestly enough though I think the last thing remaining for the Symbiostock community is unlearning "reactivity" and simply being happy. Microstock has left us bitter (its reflected in many forums) and its a hard habit to break. I'd love to see a happy, fun, humorous, and forward moving community when everything is finally done.

Leo, I am getting there, the fun part. It was fun and exciting to start up with Symbiostock, then it became a stable version and I was just uploading, and now with the latest version, I am really excited again. Man this latest version is so much fun. The Professional plugin combined with 2.7.4 is just fun. I love creating collections, customising the site with live preview, every thing is so pretty now, and so many cool features.

So yes, the fun is definitely coming back. And I am sure once the final version is out, we will see the fun come back to all of us. You did a great job man. Thanks a lot. 

Yes, fun it is! Very important point.

Personally, I am not long enough in and dependent enough on microstock to become bitter over what's happening. But I am definitely into photography/microstock for the fun of it. Symbiostock and its community is keeping that alive.

And now let's have sales!  ;D 

109
Stocksy / Re: Stocksy News
« on: October 11, 2013, 19:32 »
Well done, Stocksy! Congrats!  :) :) :)

I wish I was part of this success, but my photos suck  :-[

110
Selling Stock Direct / Re: Paypal or Credit Card?
« on: October 11, 2013, 19:27 »
Beppe, if it wasnt safe it wouldnt be used. The biggest companies in the world, Facebook, Skype, Nike, Air France/KLM, Starbucks, name them all,  use PayPal. PayPal has 110 million users. You dont get that far as a company if it wasnt safe.

I would buy a car using PayPal.

PayPal is regulated as a bank in Europe, if there were any security issues, that wouldnt be possible. PayPal is PCI compliant as well, and Visa and Mastercard approved PayPal as a payment processor.

PayPal is safe.

Yes, it is.

I used PayPal a lot for more than 10 years and never ever had a problem. It saved me a lot of time (by not having to enter all those CC numbers), a small fortune in currency conversion fees (I am Canadian but shop online in US$ and EUR a lot), and probably some major headache as well because my CC info is present in much less databases world wide to exploit.

111
Well, SYS isn't perfect (yet  ;)). For me, however, it is absolutely stunning to see how far Leo and the SYS community have pushed this wordpress theme in just half a year. It is working for most people even without previous experience in wordpress and/or web hosting and/or knowledge of php css etc. Development and bug fixing still goes on at rapid pace. There is an active bunch of helpful people over at http://www.symbiostock.org/ that bend over backwards to assist you when things get rough. IMHO there's nothing left to ask for. Remember: The SYS theme is free!.

IMHO SYS is the best personal image sales platform on the market (I've tried Photoshelter, Zenfolio and CMSaccount), it's generating traffic and sales through its SEO and networking features, which are superior to all other available options and on top of it its free.

That being said, it is still a tough personal decision if the amount of time required to set up your own site is worth it (saleswise or otherwise).

My 2 cents

112
Symbiostock - General / Re: Report your SYS sales
« on: October 03, 2013, 16:31 »
Revealing the actual number of votes might help us with the poll results. too.

113
Selling Stock Direct / Re: Self-Hosted at 14.6 - top 5
« on: October 03, 2013, 11:50 »
...

Congratulations to all who made this happen. Great achievement, be proud.

+1

And what a jump! I didn't expect to see Self-Hosted on 5 right away. Great! ...and we are not that far from Top Tier, actually  ;D

114
General Stock Discussion / Re: 500PX is it worth uploading?
« on: October 02, 2013, 12:33 »
No watermark protection of your images there. I decided against it since I fear 500px will hurt my sales on the micros.

115
Symbiostock - General / Re: Report your SYS sales
« on: October 01, 2013, 17:36 »
Done! - But I have no September sale to report  :(

116
General Stock Discussion / Re: Where to buy !! images?
« on: September 18, 2013, 03:03 »
...

@all
Misunderstanding
we do not want to buy in bulk.
we need to buy a bigger amount but we are willing to buy as single downloads.
we do not want to buy as subsriptions because we dont like "exploitation models"
Fair prices for good work!

regards axel

Axel, you sound exactly like the image buyer we are looking for and appreciate most.

Fair Trade is what you get on all the sites of the Symbiostock network.

Welcome!

117
Symbiostock - General / Re: Have my cake and eat it too
« on: September 18, 2013, 02:57 »
I don't really understand your concerns. If your SYS site is doing so good that SS sales are getting hurt you'll be smiling all over and jumping up and down shouting "Yahoo!"  ;D - Just make sure your SYS licenses cost similar $ amounts like SODs on SS. Also, I think it might help to have some images exclusively on your SYS site giving buyers an excuse reason for looking there.

From what I hear it's currently mostly vector artist that are getting regular sales on their SYS sites. So give it a go, there won't be any looking back, I am sure... :D

118
General Stock Discussion / Re: Where to buy !! images?
« on: September 17, 2013, 02:31 »
Check out the Symbiostock network. Launched about 6 months ago it consists already of more than 100 independent artists offering a growing number of currently about 120.000 images for licensing. Because there's no middlemen involved you are supporting the artists 100%. You can start looking at my site (see link below). The search on my site will take you to other member sites in the network if I can't provide you with what you are looking for. You can also start searching at a hub site such as http://www.symbiostock.info/, which provides a global network search.
Even if you don't find what you want now, make sure to check again in a few months since our network is growing fast.

Good luck!

119
General Stock Discussion / Re: Winter of our discontent
« on: September 11, 2013, 02:47 »
There's no winter on the micros for me either. BUT as RPD is sliding winter might settle in sooner rather than later.

A small dose of d. and definitely e. are my options of choice.

Long live Symbiostock!  :D

120
Dreamstime.com / Re: DT Sucks
« on: September 08, 2013, 23:13 »
 How about

c. set up your own (Symbiostock) site?  :D

121
Illustration - General / Re: Picworkflow?
« on: August 25, 2013, 18:18 »
I use it regularly for keywording, titles and descriptions. I find it quite helpful to learn what their keyworders see in my images.
Uploading doesn't work for me. Too often images and/or metadata go missing. But I didn't try again for a while so things may have improved.

122
Symbiostock - Suggestions / Re: Paid Plugin Requests Here
« on: August 25, 2013, 13:18 »
Not sure if it has been requested before:

A "loupe" function would be a great feature where potential buyers can check the outstanding quality of our images 1:1. - Some precautions need to be taken, though, to prevent pirates from downloading full size images piece by piece.

123
Great news! Congrats, Ron  :)

124
iStockPhoto.com / Re: What are you doing about istock?
« on: August 25, 2013, 02:57 »
Considering that iS is going bad and worst (and it is my impression too), I wonder why a photographer considered as the best microstock photographer in the whole universe has decided, in this precise moment, to become exclusive with them?

CASH is the answer, I think. He is watching his RPI eroding for quite a while and can extrapolate the date when his image factory business will become unsustainable. I guess he's switching sides from contributor to agent. Thus, he comes up with his own innovative website, partners with desperate but cash-loaded GI and invests in new ventures such as this Scoopoop (?  ;D) business. Makes perfect sense too me. BUT: will it help IS stay afloat? I hope so but have serious doubts. Time will tell.

125
iStockPhoto.com / Re: What are you doing about istock?
« on: August 24, 2013, 11:54 »
I stopped uploading ages ago. IS is a waste of nerves and time. Which is sad because IS backed by Getty has/had the potential to a least be/stay on par with SS. Sometimes, however, I get the feeling they are deliberately sinking their ship. I mean can bad management really be that bad by accident?


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