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201
« on: May 16, 2009, 02:16 »
what do you think would be an easier way to lay it out? should i just have 100 images per page and have you scroll up and down that page or is there an easier way? Long ago in a PM, I gave already hints to a solution. First of all get rid of the right column with the upload conditions/keywords explanations on each and every submit screen. It wastes screen real estate, and we know them by now. They can always be on a separate conditions screen. The IFRAMES can be much wider then. Putting model thumbs in an IFRAME, rather than a popup is great, but there should be more models visible at once. Now there are just 2 rows of them. Removing the right conditions column and adding just one or maximum two rows (total 3 or 4) would eliminate the excessive scrolling and clicking in the models IFRAME largely. There is no reason that the thumbs of the images themselves should be in an IFRAME. Let them just run the rest of the page. Or make that IFRAME much higher. I don't think many upload more than 100 images at once by FTP, since the chance on errors grows exponentially. Therefore, an IFRAME with 50 images or so would be fine. As it is now, there is far too much clicking and scrolling in and out IFRAME needed, and ergonomically speaking, it's a pain in the wrist and the elbow.
202
« on: May 16, 2009, 02:00 »
I was submitting some images today and I can see that I get discouraged when submitting to CutCaster due to amount of scrolling up and down that I have to in the small frame on the submit page. I asked for this feature a long time ago in a private message, but nothing happened. The MRF and Submit module are great, but the ergonomic aspect of it is ruined by the many scrolls and clicks needed outside the tiny IFRAMES to make things advance.
203
« on: May 15, 2009, 08:02 »
Larry, looks like you already made one useful post...  At least that green dot below your picture say so. I just hope that Leaf will make my left column much wider to cope with my usefulllnessness. 
204
« on: May 15, 2009, 07:12 »
No names of people from the organisation, their experience or qualifications. No contact details. No street address. No thanks. They have names and a PO box in the /whois, but not on the site. No thanks. Registrant Contact: Dynamite Stock Images Null Null () Fax: c/o Intl G.D., Box 303 Lynden, WA 98264 US Administrative Contact: Intl Graphics and Design William Scott ( help@wrknet.com) +1.3603181125 Fax: +1.3603541307 Box 303 Lynden, 98264 US Technical Contact: Intl Graphics and Design William Scott ( help@wrknet.com) +1.3603181125 Fax: +1.3603541307 Box 303 Lynden, 98264 US
205
« on: May 13, 2009, 20:46 »
I usually am well above the 7kg allowed hand luggage with laptop, cam, lenses, USB disks, so the tripod has to go in the checked luggage. Make sure to use a reinforced case because the last few years, I presume they let elephants run over the checked luggage. Bahrain is the worst for damage, Abu Dhabi and Qatar are slightly better.
206
« on: May 12, 2009, 10:00 »
On iStock, buyers prefer to find what they are looking for. Correct, that's why Istock is the best. Police officers also eat donuts. Should all donuts be keyworded with "police officer"? Of course that never happens on Istock. Looking for "police donuts" gives this on Page #1:  Keywords: Doughnut, Police Officer, Eating, Breakfast, Indulgence, Overweight, Food, Morning, Cream Cake, Doughnut, Elevated View, Snack, Sugar, sweetened, Yeast, Restaurant, Diner, Baking, Bakery, Freshness, DietingWhere is the indulging overweight baking police officer dieting on his lofty elevated restaurant taking sweetened donuts for diner?
207
« on: May 12, 2009, 01:13 »
You're not exactly setting the stock-world on fire are you? When, after several months, the size of your portfolio is waaaay bigger than your sales, with precious little likelihood of that changing any time soon, it may be a sign that your talents lie elsewhere. Charming.
208
« on: May 12, 2009, 01:00 »
Veer has been an innovator with BUYERs for YEARS. A few very knowledgeable people, like yourself but also RT, stated that before. Many microstockers never heard of Veer, probably because they operated in another arena. Success in one area doesn't necessary mean success in another one. Veer certainly seems to have the market potential. So let's just wait and see. The site isn't ready yet, it's rumorware for now. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, as I said long ago, and as long as Veer Marketplace/Microstock isn't live there is no sense in discussing how and if they will transplant their indisputable success elsewhere into the Microstock arena. We don't even know yet what their content and acceptance policy will be. I'm a fan of the Austrian philosopher Wittgenstein's adagio : Worüber man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen. ( Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent).
209
« on: May 12, 2009, 00:35 »
"if you're going to go head to head with corporations with deep pockets, don't show up to the event with nobodies". That's exactly what Bill Gates did when he went presenting his brand new MS-DOS to the grinning big brass of IBM in Baton Rouge. He even had to rent a suit for the occasion, and iron it in the cheap motel they staid in. I guess we know what happened since then to Microsoft and IBM.  (The Big Brass saw no harm in this nerdish kid so they allowed him to offer MS-DOS next to the "fantastic" IBM-DOS on the IBM-PC. A few years later, IBM-DOS and then OS-2 were history.)(from one of my fav books: The Unmaking of IBM).
211
« on: May 11, 2009, 15:11 »
Also - there is no reason why perhaps people could not link to the same image at any of the existing agencies as evidence at least that those sites have already inspected the file. This is not totally fair towards our agencies, since they put up the initial reviewers fee. Also, imagine a buyer sees the image is cheaper at ShutterStock 
212
« on: May 11, 2009, 14:51 »
It looks promising. Images sit on your website, no subscription fees, put some code and voila you can sell prints. I am waiting for invitation. Hopefully later you can sell images also. No middleman but you need to do marketing yourself. Payout limit 200 $ by paper check. They do nothing nada nichts for their 15% fee, not even host the photos. They just keep our money in their bank, forever for those who never will reach payout. They don't do any marketing since the customer first has to reach your website, then the traffic gets diverted to them. You do their marketing and they charge you for that. Hahaha, come on. You can as well add a Paypal button or a button from a Print house: no fees and immediate payout.  Prediction : mr. Ahmad Kiarostami will soon appear here on MSG explaining what a wonderful chance we are missing to lose money.
213
« on: May 11, 2009, 07:19 »
why don't they just remove the keywords they don't want, and accept the image? Because they want to teach you a lesson and to spank you.
214
« on: May 11, 2009, 07:09 »
I'm just not sure what to do now. If you put it on this forum, you could at least make an effort to put a link to those pictures. What do you expect? Hugs or shouts like "woohoo Istock"?
215
« on: May 08, 2009, 14:22 »
If I do create a website would you then instantly take it serious and advertise it on this forum as a newcomer? It is that easy really
As if I didn't know Well the guys have been friendly and quite charming in private messages but it was quite clear from the start that didn't know one syllabe about microstock. We all know that they will never make it (and I think the same about Veer snapstock). Fotomina anounced 10$ and then when my 10 shots got online, it suddenly was 5$, 2.5$ for me at full size and EL. I'm sorry but I hate players and liars. Their site doesn't work under FF now but if I find my shots there full size back at 2.5$ later, I'm going to give them a very rough time.
216
« on: May 08, 2009, 13:45 »
Actually we will focus on Africa and Arabic countries.. ROTFL. There is no money in Africa. Even here in SE Asia with a much higher standard of living, nobody buys stock. Here they get all their stuffs from pirate sites or torrents. The market is the US, not Patagonia, Elbonia nor Timbuktu. You must be kidding, I'm sorry. Our buyer will be from international country
We are on Finland. Our buyer sWe are in Finland Please feel free to post any question... Why don't you hire a native English writer? English is my 3d language but I do have a spellchecker.
217
« on: May 08, 2009, 13:37 »
Initially, the introduction said quick payout $10, etc.. No they fooled us. It's 5$ and 0.5$ for the smallest size. That's for an extended license. But I checked them the last time begin of April when I uploaded 10. Maybe they repaired that. I can't tell any more and their site doesn't work under FF (CSS not loading), plus I can't even log in also. No time now but I will re-check these guys later. My advice for now would be to stay away till their site works properly and their policies are fixed. Their promise of 10$ certainly wasn't kept and if it's true, I'll kill them for sure.
218
« on: May 08, 2009, 02:44 »
What about all the NASA photos that they allow? Some of them have hardly been changed from the originals. If they are allowed then perhaps these should be too? NASA/JPL explicitely put their images in the public domain, even for commercial work (if you credit them). The policy of iStock has been very clear on this in a separate article. You can use them if the change from the original is significant enough, as part of a derivatory work. You can't sell them as is.
219
« on: May 08, 2009, 01:17 »
I agree. many rely on that income from the big 6 and it would be hard for them to stop uploading, but on the other hand if they would start uploading fresh images that are available on one site and that site only, then I think alot of the buyers would come. That was the idea in my first post when somebody asked for a USP. A premiere site would get a lot of free attention from buyers that are keen on fresh images before they became promiscuous on many ms sites. You would have the best of both worlds. It should also be possible to have an exclusive buyout (compare this license at DT) at the premiere site. It would be much easier to manage since you don't have to remove the still exclusive image from the other sites yet (not mentioning their lock-in periods). As such, it's the best of three worlds, RM included, and all this in a microstock RF model. Existing sites (except IS with its exclusives) can't beat this scheme since they can only control themselves, not others. The only one that has full control is at the source: the contributor. If an image doesn't sell or bought out at the premiere site, it will still be uploaded to the Big-whatever and generate the normal RF income there. This idea is open for established sites too. They can start a "premiere collection" under the same conditions. They just should make it easier to opt-out of the exclusivity after one month. Dreamstime for instance has exclusive images, but they are not so happy or it's a bit of a mess if you opt out of exclusivity after 30 days.
220
« on: May 08, 2009, 01:06 »
Even If I have the greatest idea, I am not going to come here and post it on this public forum so all the microstock representatives can read the plan and prevent it. I have some ideas too I don't post here. That's what PM is for. The idea is not competitive to existing microstock, since it addresses the long tail and the so-called LCV. But I can't come in the open until the IT framework is finished. And I won't make the mistake of Fotomina being exposed prematurely when their framework was still in the making. I also don't like the associated pressure at a moment I'm on call for News video and might disappear suddenly for 1-2 weeks.
221
« on: May 08, 2009, 00:53 »
1. The rise of rejection rates by most of the established agencies. An explanation for this would go a long way toward easing the hostility that this problem causes. It's understandable, but I don't think it has to do with the server or bandwidth costs, but with the relevance problem flawed by design when starting with an equivalent keyword system that must break down after 5M images. With one million or ten million images, there still is one single front page for search results. How many girls with headset does one need? 100, 1000, 100,000? Looking at my sales at DT, I see less and less keywords used to find my images. Buyers obviously are resorting to visual search more and more. 2. Decreasing income % from sales. This is due to subs and changes in pricing structures by the agencies. Buyers still need subs, for realistic comps. The main issue is that if they use one of these comps for real-world production, they can use the 1$ full size without limits. My proposal would be to allow downloading comps full size, and allow use for sidebars and blogs up to 250px, but recharge the full license for anything else. You would have best of both worlds then. In fact, subs would fall under a separate licensing scheme, just as templates and print runs do now. 3. No control over the pricing structures for our images other than to complain and stop uploading.
4. Irrational reviewers giving unclear or inaccurate reasons for rejections. Those are major points and they can easily be solved. The rejection screen of the reviewer often contains too few choices. The agents should think of extending that backend screen. 5. Lack of policing or cleaning out of the databases for older substandard images. It would be nice to believe that we can police our own images, but how many of us have any objectivity about our own work? The main thing that keeps us from doing that is its repercussions on the ranking. For instance, I heard that on BigStock your ranking goes down when you delete images. In the "duplicates" thread in DT, I asked for a way to replace older images with a newly better edited version without losing the image level, but got no reply yet. Dreamstime is my favorite of the stock sites, but I just wish that they'd said that they needed to change and tighten their standards and given us an explanation before the rejections started. It's their company, but it's our images. They have the right to make any changes that they want to their corporate policy, but as a contributor I want a detailed explanation. Dreamstime is pretty good at it. I always felt respect from them. There are other sites that are much worsolia  Whatever direction we go if we decide to organize formally, it is probably the best idea not to make our headquarters in the US, but I don't know enough about business in the world outside the US to say what country would be the best. A US-based site still generates the most trust. Dreamstime realized that very early. The only issue against the US is the ridiculous out of control litigation system, but since most buyers are still in the US, it's imperative that you have at least a US presence. Nobody will trust a site in Elbonia. Many of us are creative, but business novices. We're going to need a ton of input from the more business savvy among us. Some have both talents, like Arcurs. Achilles is a pretty good photographer too, although he hasn't volume studio work in his port. Maybe the most we can hope for is to influence the established agencies to listen and respond to our issues with the way things are currently run. Maybe we can open up a dialogue. This might be the least time consuming and cheapest way to go. That would be a major accomplishment. I heard rumors that this topic is followed with vivid interest by the sites. I don't like the sound of a "union". It reminds me of socialism, picket lines, force, boycotts. It won't work any ways in a global market. We could influence though some policies about subs, like my proposal above. Right now, sites are only relying on their site forums for contributor feedback, but those forums are too tightly policed for mere rants of individuals. A wiki-ed set of suggestions here on MSG would have more effect and certainly it would be more representative.
222
« on: May 08, 2009, 00:11 »
How does that sound Great and feasable. I had another idea of loosely linked personal sites, but with a common IT framework to safeguard the unique look and feel of the different personal sites. My USP (unique selling proposition) still holds, that is offer all our content exclusively for a period of one month (period debatable). Buyers keen on fresh images would be attracted that way.
223
« on: May 08, 2009, 00:07 »
welcome Monsieur Griffin, your dialogue has been conspicuosly absent ! Come on Batman, nobody bought your crap of failing servers. We all know that your are monsieur Griffin. I won't mention your side business in snake oil but I'm quite sure you took 2 days off to read the Ego-Rythm handbook, and to streamline your adult sites.
224
« on: May 07, 2009, 23:46 »
One of the biggest obstacles which will need to be overcome, and which surprisingly has been mentioned here only in passing (and I think as an aside by just one person), is customer confidence. By this I mean that if you wish to attract corporate buyers, beyond bloggers, they will want to feel very secure about the legality of what they are purchasing in terms of copyright and necessary releases. I avoided that issue intentionally in my first post for brevity. There are imho two solutions to the legality problem. The keyword is of course "trust". The accumulated trust of the established agencies only rests on the trust they put themselves in the contributors. In my thoughts, the Collective would only be open to contributors that are established themselves, and who reveal their name and business address/info to registered buyers. That would make them legally responsible for the availability of Releases (with protection of course against multimillion fantasy lawsuits). The second idea is to entrust an independent third party Release Clearing House with the releases. Each release would receive an ID number and the photo of the model/property would be available on the Clearing House site, together with a statement that the facsimile of the release and of the passport/ID of the contributor were received and conform to the legal requirements. The Clearing House would embody the trust and serve as a buffer for the privacy of the model/property. Expanding on the confidence, is the issue of payment processing. How will payments be handled? If they wish to purchase two images from two separate artists, will they need to complete a separate transaction for each image? What forms of payment will be accepted, and will everyone offer the same options? A common shopping cart makes the most sense here, but that comes with splitting up payment processing fees, currency exchange, etc. etc. Paypal offers some pretty good APIs. There are payment gateways that could handle it cheaper than an in-house secretary. Problems are CC fraud, POCs. It would be good to listen to buyers what is the most convenient way to pay. Finally, there have been some suggestions that there be no inspection—that each photographer promises to upload only their best work, or something to that affect. Reviewers fees are the most significant cost of any startup. They represent an investment before any income. The original idea of Rinder 2-3 years ago was to abolish that cost by only taking in established contributors into the Collective, and let them be responsible for QC, based on their reputation. The idea isn't that odd. Do you get rejects for technical issues/framing after years in stock? I don't: it's all about LCV and too much of the same. Quite of a few of those contributors are reviewers themselves. A Collective site should have a way to zoom in 100% on all parts of the image, like Mostphotos has, so if real crap slipped in, it could be wiki-ed out. The wiki-idea (or flagging) is an essential part of a Collective. That's why it's called a collective. It should also extend to keywording and technical issues. A couple of established sites like DT and IS do it already. If you want to reduce startup costs drastically, you will have to outsource as much as you can, like payment and a clearing house for releases, since those costs are predictable, fixed, and can't spiral out of control. Once again, reviewer fees are what kills most startups, and they should be avoided at any price. An outsider startup like Fotomina has no other choice than rely on external reviewers. A contributors collective doesn't. Entry into the collective should be reserved to contributors that are not-anonymous and that have a portfolio of at least 500-1000 on the established big 6. These all might lean toward the idea of adopting an existing agency to model into your vision, as opposed to starting from scratch. An important element in this discussion is that our established agents are not enemies but partners. If the Collective would end up defining some benchmarks for existing agents, that would be a major accomplishment already. A limited example is the handling of releases. Some sites still require upload with every photo. Others have a very elaborate release library with batch-attach, like 123RF. The benchmark could issue scores to every agency in regard to release handling, from 5 to 0.
225
« on: May 07, 2009, 13:12 »
Good job guys! Let's work on those sales now  YAY is not for sale - yet.
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