I looked hard at the home office deduction again... If I were full time, I would have done it. But I can't quite make it look completely airtight (computer and room gets a bit of general family use, even though it's 80% business). I skipped it.

And in fact you CANNOT pay to be at the top of those results - that's why they are organic.

Lots of linking between sites, getting your site in blogs, getting people to use and like it, with a little (perhaps sketchy) SEO and the rankings will rise. How that site got to the top will be hard work, a bit of search engine luck and SEO.

But you can't pay for the ranking. You can pay to be in the ads on the right though!

There is one listing of your lifetime total earnings, and the current balance since last payout, is that what you're seeing?

Well I'll offer $20.

According to Godaddy
Expires on: 31-Mar-11

So basically you want to sell something you have for the next 6 weeks.  I'll give you $20, you transfer it to me and I'll re-register it myself. lol

^^ I hope this is a joke.

The other interesting one is http://www.cmsaccount.com and the PhotoVideo script - tons of features, but sort of a mess on the admin side. I couldn't bring myself to do it, though it's cheap and has some nice stock templates.

I recently chose Pixaria 3 over Ktools 3 for a site and I love it - smarty templates and many other things that Ktools won't have unit v4. It's really nice to work with. But the ktools script does more and is more flexible in many ways, such as managing contributors, reviewing photos, offering pricing and subscription flexibility, multiple sizes, etc... better for a microstock-type site. Ktools V4 will put it in rarified air if it every appears.

I think overall this speaks of the "wild west" nature of an immature industry where quite a few things happened, all of which are understandable from a business development standpoint in an immature industry:

- It makes perfect sense that a new agency like pixmac would try to become established by partnering as much as partner agencies will allow in order to built a library and credibility and sustainability
- The technical underpinnings of these relationships are complicated and made more so by the fine line between too much and not enough information.
- These relationships get confused and strained by the vague nature of the technical relationships, as well as the lack of experience on all fronts with such an affiliation.
- The relationships outlive their usefulness on one or both sides as the relative postion of the agencies evolves.

This seems, to me, like what's happening. Sounds like it could have been handles more smoothly, by it's nice that zager is here trying to work it out. Just my .02.

The ktools forums aren't closed - I'm over there all the time. Sounds like they're closed to new registrations, which is odd.

If you've making modifications to the code of the script, it can be quite hard to upgrade. The V4 update, if it ever comes out, will make look and feel changes easier to keep updated.

I highly recommend ktools hosting - it will future-proof the host tweaking their system away from what's needed to have it work. And it uses cpanel, so if you do move to another host, you can migrate the cpanel without rebuilding the site. Very easy.

Lisa, the language file is an exception - it's basically a list of phrases and words the site uses at various points. As long as you don't tinker with the syntax, you can update the text. It will say something like "Thank you for contacting us" and you may want to say "We really love your feedback" (whatever...) - it's easy to make some quick, valuable updates.

If you bought the software, you can submit to their support system and they are quite responsive. If you are customizing, the forums can be helpful, but it seems like they are not used as much as they were in years past. Most people are waiting for version 4, which has ben in the works for years. Several years. If it's ever released, it will be great - the product of many years of requests and refinements. But it's a decent sized if.

Generally, the site kicks out "Photostore had encountered a problem" when the SQL server isn't available.

I was looking through the Bigstock Standard license, and here's how it opens:

"Use of image files
Bigstock licenses to you the use of image files only as provided herein  on a nonexclusive and nontransferable basis upon payment of the required fees. All other rights to the image files and any accompanying materials such as copyright are retained by Bigstock and its members. The license granted to you is limited to one usage per download. For example, if an image is used in a website design and in a business card design, this is considered two usages for which the image license must  be purchased two times. Using an image in multiple products without purchasing the licenses for each usage violates this Agreement."

I've never seen wording related to the "one use per download" before, and this has never been my impression about royalty-free usage.

I didn't see anything like this in other agency terms and it seems like a significant restriction. Any thoughts?

I think there is some of each out there. Some have no copyright, and are basically public domain photos you can use for anything, some are a standard royalty-free license for which the cost happens to be $0, but the usage restrictions apply, and other are Creative Commons, which are several licenses, but they are explained well.

http://www.canonrumors.com/2010/11/100-400-replacement/