Quote from: Leo on July 20, 2013, 10:11

They probly think this is cute.

agree Leo, your work on this project is amazingly generous and progressive, but yeah, I think I agree. They aren't worried.

Quote from: Les on July 21, 2013, 21:00

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The 2nd paragraph on my home page explains that "royalty free" does not mean "free for the taking" and that it's not okay to steal or "borrow" images. But many viewers will go directly to the photo pages and never see that paragraph or never click to the EULA page.( I also believe some people assume "royalty free" means "FREE!!", which of course it doesn't.)

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by Steve
I would drop the statement off your home page as well. I'm sure it would annoy me if I was a real buyer (I don't think you see it on Shutterstock plastered all over the page) and I don't think it makes any difference to the non-buyer.

I agree with Steve, that it is best to drop the Royalty Free term. A compromise solution might be to mention RF rather than full wording.

I am getting web traffic when people are searching "Free Vatican photo" , Free Venice photo etc.
I think Getting traffic and clicks is good for SEO and placement. But for sure these clicks and traffic will not turn into $.  Hasn't happened so far.

i'm watching with interest, and also would be good to know how many files you had (though of course this is less relevant as you could have 1000 files but only 5 different subjects).

I did what I did because I had high hopes for symbiostock. I was serious with every word. And I was not there to stirr up or destroy things.
I saw you were moving in a counterproductive direction and wanted to kick ass to make it stop.

I have now, since yesterday. Come to a depressing conclusion:

symbiostock is not viable as a serious business attempt.
the construction is too risky and the code is out of control.
the arrangement cannot be geared up to a professional amount of traffic.
the construction is open to all sorts of piracy, scams, parasitism and theft.
many of the users are not interested in cooperation


it can, however, be used as a case study

And it might be worht while to start all over again, with secure code.
With that i mean, that if serious business is going to take place, you must have the code secured in a bunker in Fort Knox, so that it cannot be interrupted.

Quote from: cascoly on July 17, 2013, 22:37

for the global search engines to attract customers, sym site members need to link to and promote  those engines

how many pages & iMages from your site has google iNdexed?  without doing some seo work, your site isn't going to get noticed.  and if you're not being noticed, other members are less likely to include you in their network list.  symbiosis means it works both ways

Hey, if it comes to it, I will do my part to get traffic into the network, don't misunderstand me, but what I fail to understand is how linking to fifteen other sites will boost my sales?? Isn't the potential 1000 times bigger with a global search where potential customers can choose between (hopefully) millions of photos based on keywords rather than klicking away in an endless network where you find 10-15 sites at the time? Isn't the vision to compete with the big agencies like that?

 

Here's the thing.  If people want to do this, they can get together and do it in a closed network.  You could cover things like centralized logins/terms and cart not to mention quality control etc.  You could even have your own branding of the group.  The smaller the group at the beginning, the easier it would be to agree on things and then add people as the details are ironed out.  It's a good idea I'm interested to see who moves forward with it.

The fact is that not everyone who uses the Symbiostock theme is going to want to be a part of that, some people really do prefer autonomy and control of their own sites and don't mind the extra responsibility and marketing.

Personally I think there is room for both models using the base Leo and others have built.  Whoever is serious about this idea of centralizing should get together and discuss making it happen. 

I'd just caution you to remember that with an open source solution that is already "out there" there is really no way (or reason to) force every single person who uses the theme into the same terms.  There is a post about hub sites Leo made earlier with additional ideas.