Do I need the regular license or the extended licence?

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on May 27, 2013, 12:51

If you check out the site, what he is doing is trying to use free images as a lure to redirect people to DT.

If people hadn't agreed to have their work given away then there wouldn't be this issue.

You are right about that. But aren't agencies supposed to look out for contributors? If an agency is hired to make money for a contributor, why would the agency even propose such nonsense? The answer is, of course, because the agency continues to make money while the contributor has been convinced that the free images are going to bring in paying customers. That was Serban's philosophy regarding Pinterest, and now he has taken it one step further. I would like to see the hard data saying that contributors are getting lots of conversion sales and people are indeed being educated. 

I just noticed that Google has some of my photos with the wrong link.  It goes to my web site but to the wrong image. 

Attached is a screen shot.  The picture is definitely not a Brown Leaf.  Also the link seems to change each time you search for the image.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Quote from: w7lwi on May 22, 2013, 15:04

Quote from: Xanox on May 22, 2013, 13:59

SS now is on Nasdaq, it's a public company, their mission now is not to survive but to GROW over time, that is making profits for their shareholders.

in order to so, either they grow their customer base or they cut costs or both.

Actually SS is on the NYSE, not NASDAQ and a third option is to somehow figure out a way to increase prices.  Apart from that, you've pretty well hit their dilemma.  Their stock took a fairly hard hit today.  Even at that the stock is still at 47 times future earnings and 9 times sales.  Over priced in my estimation.  I sold my IPO shares when they went above $43.  If they fall back to the upper $20's or low $30's I'll consider buying again.

The whole market seems over priced. Lots of people still think it has a way to go yet !

I cannot see them growing the microstock market which is being eaten into especially by shared social media content. Many small and even many larger businesses and groups are abandoning their websites in favor of social media. And cheap junk print marketing is dying. I could see them buying and consolidating other agencies in order to try to expand their share especially outside of the US. Sooner or later Thinkstock is going to be a challenge.

Maybe they will go into a completely different business.

Quote from: Travelling-light on May 22, 2013, 01:13

Quote from: falstafff on May 22, 2013, 01:06

Well there isnt really. Unless you turn to the world of  commissioned photography. I do not think uploading to micros or other stock sources counts as being true pro photography.

The traditional definition of a professional photographer is someone who makes more than half of their income from photography. That has included us since 2005, and probably a whole bunch of other people here.

Yes thats the traditional definition but as much as we all wish to be labelled pros. In the world of stock?  I doubt it.

Offset is interesting, and has a more editorial feel than what is being discussed. I don't see it being high end or even stock photography primarily. Shutterstock is an intriguing company. It's the one agency I'm really on the fence about. I have argued myself onto both sides. The price per download is so little that it really does feel like an insult when you've been 'raised' in another agency. But, there are a lot of really good shooters out there who make great money on Shutterstock. They have good contributor relations, reaching out by phone and email. I also like what I know of Jon Oringer. But it's not like that matters, except that he is a photographer first and still runs the company. Right now my 500 or so images are all opted out. I'm reluctant to completely close my account at SS though until I've made a concrete decision about whether it's worth it or not. If I do continue to contribute to SS, it will probably be the only sub site I contribute to (other than iStock).

anyways, I heard from someone with more experience with SS. they have me rethinking the decision to stay on SS.

Am I correct that Shutterstock doesn't farm images out like istock does to programs and subsidiary sites? Or do they?

Leo, you may want to look at what Graphic Press don't seem to be concentrating on anymore - their partnership with Photoshelter. Photoshelter can be a bit pricy, but the power of their back end site is amazing. Finding a way to link with what you have would make your offering even more powerful.

Or better - getting them to develop a whole system for stock photographers which works like the interconnect rate between telcos. Photoshelter has the size and power to turn the whole stock business on its head . . . but I get the feeling they burnt their fingers with their last agency experiment.

WRT Photo Shelter - their best offering for stock photographers has nothing to do with selling images, but rather the sending of images to stock agencies directly from their server via FTP. I just upload to Photoshelter - use their excellent keywording system and send the files on via ftp to multiple sites simultaneously. Saves a whack on bandwidth and time.

Do you know a way to do this via Wordpress? I can't seem to be able to find a ftp plugin that will do this - move images from the wp media gallery via ftp to multiple agencies. Does your system offer this? If not, please, please modify a "backup" ftp plugin to do this.

I like your offering too - but maybe you want to get some of the premium theme developers over at Theme Forest to give your look and feel offering a full makeover. Or see these guys if theme tweaking is not your thing: https://www.tweaky.com/

I've just contracted them to convert a .psd file to a Wordpress theme for a client. Not sure how great the results will be yet.