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Messages - chromaco
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201
« on: November 22, 2013, 10:35 »
Starting yesterday I am no longer being directed to unread posts. Instead I am being sent to the top of the current page regardless of whether I have read those posts or not. Previously I would select the "home" button and then look for bold topics. After clicking the topic it would redirect me to the unread posts and bypass the read ones. This is no longer happening. Same on my home laptop, ipad, and work computer.
Anyone else?
202
« on: November 18, 2013, 15:14 »
I'm not sure if there has been any need at all for upgrading to keep consistent with Wordpress. If there ever was that need I have no doubt that the 150 plus members of the network would figure out a way to pool resources to get the job done.
I think that would be where some of the security concerns come into play. Not that there aren't security concerns for any website on any platform. Just one of those things to think about. Plan for the future and all that... which I assume was the purpose of this thread. To get another mushroom doctor or two on the scene. Just in case the mushroom gets sick. 
Yep, I work in microstock and in my mind that requires more than a little bit of trust. Trust that the agencies are reporting fairly etc. I guess for me that is just one of the risks of being in the business. One of the nice things about this forum is that there are quite a few watch dogs.
203
« on: November 18, 2013, 14:55 »
Not so much... I now have a working website that sells which I can hire my own programmer to update if I need to. There would need to be some serious changes to wordpress before this is ever an issue. At that point I would consider it a cost of doing business which is far less expensive than paying someone to build me a custom platform. Furthermore I can network with a few other site owners to offset the cost of the upgrades. This is not a security risk unless you feel like you are entitled to free software which should be maintained at no cost to you for as long as you want. If you feel that way then yes... you are probably viewing this as a potential problem. I see symbio as an almost free platform for selling my images which I can do with whatever I please for as long as I want to support it. I am grateful for what has been done up to now and if I want more I can go out and pay someone to do it for me. Maybe if my custom upgrade is useful enough I can sell it to others for a reasonable price and recoup my expenses.
I guess it would depend on the frequency of having to hire somebody. If it is only every few years, then maybe not a big deal. If it is every couple months, then it starts to become a problem. I'm not sure how often Leo makes updates now or how often things need to be updated. I was thinking that I'd create a Symbio site in the next few months or so, but I assume that it will require more maintenance than my KTools site by virtue of it being linked to Wordpress.
Well don't hold me to this because I really know very little about the programming but I believe almost all of the upgrades to Symbio have been adding functionality and debugging. I'm not sure if there has been any need at all for upgrading to keep consistent with Wordpress. If there ever was that need I have no doubt that the 150 plus members of the network would figure out a way to pool resources to get the job done. What I was referring to was things like plugins - I could really use a plugin that does some reporting of sales and views etc. I might have to hire someone to build it for me and then I would try to defray the expense by sharing the cost or selling the plugin to other site owners. I think this is what Leo had in mind when he started this project.
204
« on: November 18, 2013, 13:42 »
No it is worse. The site came to a halt because of lack of manpower. I mentioned Leo as the biggest security risk, and that has proven true.
And this is not personal, towards Leo, he did a great job. But you simply dont develop sites based on one mans knowledge and development skills. Its a far too vulnerable construction.
The synergy between subsides is also a risk if not harnessed and pushed in a direction.
it compares to wanting to make a fruit juice cooperative and send fruitpluckers out in all directions, and when there are pluckers enough, you begin to look for the barrels and stoves. And two sisters begin to pluck mushrooms instead of berries because they are beautiful.
It is not good enough. Not focused.
Structure, friends, and aim.
Come up with a goal and a plan.
Not so much... I now have a working website that sells which I can hire my own programmer to update if I need to. There would need to be some serious changes to wordpress before this is ever an issue. At that point I would consider it a cost of doing business which is far less expensive than paying someone to build me a custom platform. Furthermore I can network with a few other site owners to offset the cost of the upgrades. This is not a security risk unless you feel like you are entitled to free software which should be maintained at no cost to you for as long as you want. If you feel that way then yes... you are probably viewing this as a potential problem. I see symbio as an almost free platform for selling my images which I can do with whatever I please for as long as I want to support it. I am grateful for what has been done up to now and if I want more I can go out and pay someone to do it for me. Maybe if my custom upgrade is useful enough I can sell it to others for a reasonable price and recoup my expenses.
205
« on: November 06, 2013, 23:40 »
Perhaps but that isn't the argument in this thread. The question is are the results believable? Based on how the sites relate to each other I believe the poll is reasonable. If you choose to add a value to it, so be it. For example if you would like to know how much your symbio site might earn based on the poll - all you really need to do is compare it to your SS and DT sales totals. Obviously how well you build your own site and promote it will skew the results but in general I believe it is very possible to sell 1-2 images on your own site for every 100 on SS.
that makes me want to join but again that is your average, I don't think I would have that ratio
That's not my average. That is the average being reported by all of the self hosted contributors. FWIW my numbers don't match the poll results at all. That is why I keep my own records and when I started I contributed evenly to over 20 sites. I just chime in from time to time on this topic because it is very relevant to my uploading procedure and self hosted is a large portion of what I would like my future sales to look like. I really believe that self hosted is the most probable way for contributors to secure a reasonable future for ourselves. Furthermore I believe the more people that embrace self hosted the more likely it will be that I will still be making money off of my images 10 years from now.
206
« on: November 06, 2013, 23:15 »
Perhaps but that isn't the argument in this thread. The question is are the results believable? Based on how the sites relate to each other I believe the poll is reasonable. If you choose to add a value to it, so be it. For example if you would like to know how much your symbio site might earn based on the poll - all you really need to do is compare it to your SS and DT sales totals. Obviously how well you build your own site and promote it will skew the results but in general I believe it is very possible to sell 1-2 images on your own site for every 100 on SS.
207
« on: November 06, 2013, 22:44 »
We are getting too concerned with a number when it is really more about comparing the sites to each other.
Ask yourself if the relationships of the various agencies makes sense. For example can a person with a portfolio capable of selling 100 images a month on SS make between 1 and 2 sales on a self hosted site?
Probably yes.
Likewise can a person with a portfolio capable of 1000 sales on SS make around 13 sales a month on a self hosted site? Again probably yes.
SS Rpd around 80 cents x 100 sales = $80
Sym Rpd around $15 x 1.5 =$22.5
DT Rpd around $1.8 x 10 sales =$18
In other words approx 1 sym sale for every 50 SS sales or 10 DT sales.
I think this is entirely possible.
This relationship between sites is really what the poll is measuring and the actual number or numbers are kind of irrelevant.
208
« on: November 02, 2013, 12:17 »
Yes this is correct. A similar imbalance is probably in play with the exclusive ranking. Not so much zero sales, but probably a much lower percentage of low performers. As far as self hosted goes even though it may not be exactly relative to the rest of the poll it does illustrate that it is possible to make decent money by hosting your own site.
In order to post a result at all you would need at least one sale. At $15-$20 per sale the score would be in the 3-4 range just to start.
If you have to make a sale to post earnings then it will lead to massive inflation of the "self-hosted" figure, because all the sales will be at a decent price and all those who are trying to sell but failing will be excluded. There should be an "earnings = 0" option to dilute the figure and give a more representative idea of the sort of return people can reasonably expect, in comparison with how they do on other sites.
209
« on: November 02, 2013, 11:35 »
This is in no way a knocking exercise although I'm sure it will be so interpreted (I'm just a pedantic SOD who likes the facts to add up). No high symbio earnings and, based on those that are, the actual score on the right would be somewhere between 4 and 8.
In order to post a result at all you would need at least one sale. At $15-$20 per sale the score would be in the 3-4 range just to start. I think it is very likely that 15-20% of the self hosted people voting are actually getting very good sales. Those 8-10 people are probably bringing up the score quite a bit. When you couple this with a pretty high entry level I think this score is probably fairly accurate. My self hosted results were third in my personal rankings and just below shutterstock. Symbio was about 1/4 of my self hosted earnings.
210
« on: November 01, 2013, 12:34 »
There are other options that he isn't exploring, but I will agree with you that this is probably the best argument for staying exclusive. However, it does throw the whole "bottom line is all I care about" argument out the window. It makes very little sense to upload in this manner if you are only concerned about how much money you are going to make.
I have a similar but slightly different uploading philosophy. I am in it for the long run and spend much more effort on a higher rpd and self hosted. My results have been constant BME's without supporting the sub sites for almost a year. In October my self hosted results were 95% of what I earned on SS and 3 times that of IS with a smaller port on SS and a comparable one on IS.
211
« on: November 01, 2013, 12:25 »
While I admire Sean's uploading preferences and methodology it is hardly what you would consider to be typical. If he were uploading in a method anywhere close to the average independent contributor his numbers would be significantly higher. The only reason I even mention this is because it is very likely that his results are going to be quoted a bit later on as a reason not to be independent. We need to remember that without subs on DP and 123 and no Shutterstock or DT his numbers are not exactly indicative of a true independent.
212
« on: October 21, 2013, 17:28 »
I don't really understand Symbiostock. Do photographers like it? Why? Do they think it will succeed? How much do the websites cost per year for the photographer?
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.
If you really have the skills to do something like this you should really explore the symbiostock network. Leo has outlined a number of ways someone might make money by improving how the networks interacts and I am sure there are some options for circles of similar artists and the like. I don't need 100% and I would be willing to work with other illustrators in a co-op type of situation. For example developing a management system for multiple symbio content under one pay system. I believe this has more potential than a new agency. Just a thought.
213
« on: October 03, 2013, 13:28 »
When you consider that just 2 sales per month at around $18 per sale would put Self Hosted into the middle tier its not that much of a stretch. You need to have at least one sale to even report, which should put anyone reporting at all ahead of Veer. An overall average of 4 sales a month isn't that unreasonable.
214
« on: September 23, 2013, 14:34 »
If you are an illustrator you need to test some of the other sites. For me Shutterstock is the only Big 4 agency in my top 4.
For what it is worth I have 12 sites with a better RPD than any of the Big 4. I can't really view these downloads as "cannibalizing" my sales from the big 4.
215
« on: September 17, 2013, 16:12 »
JPSDK
I understand your concerns and they are valid from a devils advocate perspective. But I am not really all that concerned about these issues. Here's why.
1) Poor images polluting the network - thats everywhere and from that perspective that actually helps my images stand out which improves my chances of making a sale. Besides that, most people with symbio sites are actually curating their sites more than the micros are. I guess there is a sense of pride and ownership which so far has kept the quality fairly high.
However, if for some reason there are some sites that have abnormally bad quality I can easily exclude these sites from showing up on my site.
2) Bad experiences with other sites affecting my sales on my site. - It's my site and my branding, the only place that it even says symbiostock is in the footer and I can turn that off if I don't want it there. I have nothing to do with the other sites on the network and I can exclude anyone I want to. That's a little like saying since I have images on both FT and IS that a customer won't buy my images on IS because they had a problem with FT.
3) Pirates - Pirates aren't going to last long on symbiostock. At least not in the network. If someone reported a pirate on the forums I would immediately exclude them from my search and remove any sites linked to them from my network. I am pretty sure they would be excluded from the global search and in no time they would be an island of one which would pretty much eliminate any seo benefits they were hoping to receive.
216
« on: September 17, 2013, 14:19 »
@ JoRodrigues
I'm not saying there is no expense and you certainly need to put in some time. You will need to determine if it is worth it.
To answer your questions.
New stuff goes to my two personal sites first. I then upload to my premium sites (sites with rpd over $5.00) next. I will track sales on my sites and on the premium sites and then maybe 6 months later the sub sites will get anything that isn't selling.
I have no idea why people find my sites but they do. I am careful to use different descriptions and I prioritize certain keywords on my own sites.
My pricing is lower or equal to almost all of the big sites for on demand and my customers almost never are looking at enough images to get a sub plan. They are printers and soccer moms and sign shops who want 1 image. Some if not most of them don't even know about the agencies.
Here's a story for you. I got a call from a customer who wanted one of my images but didn't understand the licensing. I spoke with her for about 5 minutes on the phone and answered her questions. During the course of the conversation she told me she originally found my image on a FREE site. Yes, she could have had the image for free but chose to find my site a couple of images down in the search because she wanted to pay for it (good karma I guess). She also went to the agencies but couldn't get her questions about the license answered. She bought the image from me instead of using the free site or one of the agencies because I was there to answer her questions.
This is just one example of why you should have your own site. I won't even go into custom requests and other non-stock ways to make money off of your site.
217
« on: September 17, 2013, 13:46 »
Customers DO use google images. I get them from there everyday. Do I make as many sales as SS - no way, but I do make sales. When I do it is worth 33 sales at SS and around 16 at IS (average rpd).
I guess a better question is why wouldn't you try? Initial expenses are around $75 for a year. Based on most peoples pricing that equates to about 4 sales per year or 1 sale every 3 months to break even.
As far as why would our sites compete with the big guys here is my answer. I sold two images last week on my symbio site that are also on 22 other sites and have been for over 3 years. My site is just over a month old. For whatever reason the customer found my symbio site before SS, IS, DT, 123, FT, or BS.
I don't blog and do almost zero social networking.
I understand that my results may not be typical but the symbio platform works and considering the cost to get started to me it was a no-brainer.
218
« on: September 12, 2013, 14:58 »
I hesitate to write this because I do not want to undermine the sterling work done by so many for a very worthy and useful cause, but as a graphic designer I cannot get past the ugliness of it.
It looks amateurish and I wouldn't want to display my pictures in that context for that reason. Compared to something like this:
http://graphpaperpress.com/themes/sell-photos/
it doesn't look great, even if the underlying functionality and 'symbiosis' idea of artists sharing data is miles ahead of everything else. You're not entirely wrong about the aesthetics. However, I do think you can do just about anything you want if you know how to do it. The really great part about symbiostock is that you can be like me and know absolutely nothing about coding and still have a nice looking functional website that sells for the cost of about $100 and 10-12 hours worth of work. Uploading is about the same effort and time as the micros. The thing that most people don't get is that symbiostock is not an agency. It is a way to create your own site with awesome seo and networking. If you are really motivated you could hire someone to modify the child theme to look as professional as you like. I will probably do this somewhere down the road but for now I am making sales with very little investment. You should not think of your symbiostock site as a replacement for the micros. Instead it is more like adding another microstock agency where you control the pricing and get 100% of the pay. Some micro sites look better than others and some of the less "professional ones" sell better than some of the bigger ones. At least for me. For me it is more of an "and" situation rather than a "or". My symbiostock site "and" the micros so to speak. My site is just another way for customers to buy my images and will probably fall somewhere between DT and DP in the earnings poll for September.
219
« on: September 12, 2013, 12:31 »
How many of you more successful microstock players have not given Symbiostock a chance yet?
Who wants to know how much money Symbiostock has made me as a developer? Not as much as you might think. Yet my site www.clipartillustration.com is like old faithful, with almost daily sales. Sometimes some very large ones over $100, and in the "glory days" it did $1000+ when I sold a collection every few months on top of regular sales. Sadly with my dedication to this project, I haven't been able to redo my collections except a few of them. And regarding "hired" work that my website was responsible for...I had been rescued a long time ago from the decline of microstock.
Symbiostock, by comparison, has made me very little as a developer in consideration of the size of the network. Even with the release of the "Premium" version, the earnings were enough to slightly redeem me from 6 months of working virtually free. This is for the simple reason that Symbiostock is engineered to require little investment, and give returns immediately. Former microstockers need an advantage like that.
This project was born by necessity when it became apparent just how badly contributors were getting exploited (directly inspired by the Google/Getty deal). Personally I've enjoyed the ability to make a living doing what I love, and being home with the ones I love. I didn't want to see that end. Its not hard to see why a group of people (the Symbiostockers) could invest so much time and energy into bringing this thing to life. No doubt they feel the same. This project succeeded largely due to them.
At this point I don't think there is much more that I can do, since developing this thing has burned me out thoroughly. I'm crawling through the days now, and every bit I put into this project is forced and not like my starting energy 8 months ago. Its time for some fresh energy and fresh inspiration. Dare I say, even development should be taken from me! Symbiostock is an idea, and a brand. Anyone is welcome to add their own elements and strategies.
I'd like to put out a call for microstock's biggest contributors to start joining in, as I believe this will be the final step in making the network replace the former agents we had invested so much of our work into, just to have it virtually given away. We own the "assets", why not the websites too?
I believe this will "tip the scales" and bring this project the rest of the way.
I guess we're back to the Symbiostock spam again on this forum?...enough is enough!!!...if this does not change I think is time to stop being a member of this forum.
I agree - lets get this forum back to an endless number of posts complaining about Istock and 48 pages of Yuri. That seems to a much more productive use of my MSG time!
220
« on: September 10, 2013, 14:08 »
Almost all of the symbio discussions have moved to symbiostock.org. It's not that people have lost interest its that most of the discussion isn't here anymore. I agree it is better that they are separate.
221
« on: September 07, 2013, 17:55 »
This issue just happened for one of my customers. 4 sales so far and this is the only time with this issue. Waiting for the customer to let me know what browser. Did we ever solve this issue?
222
« on: August 27, 2013, 17:04 »
Looks like that worked this time. Wow am I learning a lot this month.
Thanks
223
« on: August 27, 2013, 16:52 »
Ok got it, I deactivated and reactivated but the pluploads folder is still missing. Can I just add that folder and place the upload folder in it?
224
« on: August 27, 2013, 16:42 »
According to Bluehost it's there but now there are two folders in it. One called "2013" and another called "symbiostock_rf_content" which appears to have all of my files.
225
« on: August 27, 2013, 16:23 »
Yeah thats what I'm using. Looks like there might be an extra folder now. Called, symbiostock_rf_content
This is what I'm getting I just don't know what it means
Warning: opendir(/home2/teamclip/public_html/wp-content/plupload/uploads/): failed to open dir: No such file or directory in /home2/teamclip/public_html/wp-content/themes/symbiostock/inc/classes/image-processor/symbiostock_image_processor.php on line 1446
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