Quote from: CvanDijk on July 02, 2008, 09:34
I'm trying for weeks now to have my name changed at Snapvillage in my public profile. I have sended 3 mails now, but no reactions at all. Before I used my husbands name, which is Aaldijk. But sinds a couple of months i'm using my maiden name which is van Dijk. So I really want to change this. Every other agency changed it allready, but only Snapvillage isn't answering
Does anyone know how I can get through?

Hi CyanDijk -

This has now been changed. Just sent you an email - and I'll PM you here too.
Thanks again for your patience! 

- Brian (SV)

Quote from: RT on July 03, 2008, 18:15

Quote from: brian_SV on July 03, 2008, 18:04

Quote from: RT on July 02, 2008, 10:43
Brian,

Thanks for the reply, I've now changed the individual images to take the subscription option out.

Any chance of an update as to my other enquiry - FTP? then I could upload lots of images 

Hi RT:

All I can say:  we're working on it. 
Thanks for your patience.

- Brian (SV)

Work faster 

Heh heh.... will do!
I'll go get some Red Bull for the developers now.... 

Quote from: drop on July 03, 2008, 13:16
that happened to me too last week,
but i disabled subscriptions six (6) months ago!
ALL OF THEM.

Hi Drop -

Sorry to hear you're having trouble too. I'll PM you to get your details and investigate further.

If you can - double-check that you haven't had the same issue as I described above (changing the account preferences which changes the settings for future uploads, but not currently published images)

- Brian (SV)

Quote from: RT on July 02, 2008, 10:43
Brian,

Thanks for the reply, I've now changed the individual images to take the subscription option out.

Any chance of an update as to my other enquiry - FTP? then I could upload lots of images 

Hi RT:

All I can say:  we're working on it. 
Thanks for your patience.

- Brian (SV)

Hi All -

Just in case you need help - and are having trouble via the normal customer service route, or have an urgent problem:

I'm happy to help directly as needed:

email: [email protected]
direct phone:  1-206-373-6040

(all I request --- be nice!)   


- Brian (SV)

Quote from: CvanDijk on July 02, 2008, 12:18
Oke, I will try that. thanks

Hi CyanDijk -

I have seen your emails, and apologize if you haven't yet received a response.
I'll follow-up with you over PM/email on this one and investigate why you didn't get a response from customer service.

- Brian (SV)

Quote from: RT on June 29, 2008, 20:09
I just logged in to my Snapvillage account to find that despite having blocked subscriptions (and it's still showing as blocked in my account) somebody has purchased one of my images by subscription.

I've sent an email to support but wondered if anybody else has had this happen?

Hi RT -

I am just looking at your email in the support inbox as well, but I'll start here:  Moori is correct - currently, the pricing option/subscription preference option on the "My Account" page is for changing the setting of future uploads. This does NOT change the status of images that have already been published.

RT - you are not alone in finding this confusing. Our apologies.
We are aware that this is quite confusing, and as I've mentioned elsewhere - we really dropped the ball on the My Account page.
Rebuilding this entire page is high up on our priority list.

In the meantime:  to change the subscription option on images that have already been published you can either: 


** change this on each image individually by going to your Portfolio -> Published, and then clicking the "change pricing" button and checking or unchecking the checkbox for "allow subscription downloads", and then click "save"

OR

** if you need to make a change to your entire portfolio - and you've got lots of images, I can handle this for you on the backend. Just shoot me an email.


RT - you are not alone in finding the preference setting to be an issue.
We are aware that this is quite confusing, and as I've mentioned elsewhere - we really dropped the ball on the My Account page.
Rebuilding this entire page is high up on our priority list. 

Hope this helps. Please feel free to contact me if you have further questions/comments on this.


- Brian (SV)

Quote from: LadyBlueEyes on June 18, 2008, 20:28
I think you need a queue also.  The "five at a time" download doesn't bother me so much as having to immediately sit down and keyword it all.  Also hope traffic will be picking up soon on the site.

Hi All -

Definitely what we are thinking too.

FYI:   We've  just updated the site  ---  in response to your feedback we've pulled the flash from the home page (for now). We may try to do something like that again if we can get it to be really lightweight and load super super fast.  But lesson learned for now. 

Also - new subscription packages out to lure buyers.

Let me know how things are looking out there now speed wise. Seeing any improvements without the flash? 

-  Brian (SV)

Quote from: litifeta on June 18, 2008, 00:42
Yeah I never got the connection either Paulie. They must have a business relationship of some type.

Hi all -

No business relationship or promotion meant here.
Just thought that this was really great information and wanted to pass it on.

- Brian (SV)

Quote from: ichiro17 on June 17, 2008, 18:56

Quote from: brian_SV on June 17, 2008, 18:09
Hi All -

Thanks to tan510jomast  for pinging me on this thread:

Some info on subscriptions on SnapVillage:

- Yes, currently 80% of the total SnapVillage library is available for subscription customers. This includes some of the 'big guns' like iofoto and AndresR (among others) who have decided that the extra payments from subscription sales are valuable. Ron Chapple's iofoto team are a smart bunch and keep an eye on the bottom line - so the fact that their images are available on subscription says something.

- Subscription sales are paid at a flat .30 per download currently. One cool thing- as we don't have tiered royalty payments - you get this regardless of your status on the site (don't have to have xx amount of images, or xx amount of sales or the like)

- Yup, you can opt-in or opt-out on an individual image basis. Most other sites don't let you do this.  We know that the process for changing this isn't perfect, and it can be a pain to change an entire large portfolio --- we're happy to change this for you on the backend until we get a better subs. management system running.

- Personally (of course I am a bit biased    )  opting into subscriptions is a good way to go. Subscription customers behave differently than a customer buying images a la carte - and those "extra" .30 payments can start to help pad your baseline earnings from single image or produce license sales.


Hope this helps. Let me know if you have questions.

- Brian (SnapVillage)

Why do sites try and make us believe that a 30 cent payment in a non-tiered systems is a blessing for photographers?

This quote:
Subscription sales are paid at a flat .30 per download currently. One cool thing- as we don't have tiered royalty payments - you get this regardless of your status on the site (don't have to have xx amount of images, or xx amount of sales or the like)

...is the reason why I hate when sites post to the forum and confirm that they have no idea whats going on.  Shutterstock gives 30 cents per download too in a non-tiered system.  123RF is at 36 cents, DT just upped it to 35 cents. -Brian, do you think Snapvillage is special because you pay a 'flat .30 per download'?

How about some FTP?  I've signed up, but refuse to submit until an FTP so I don't have to spend 50 days uploading

Hi Ichiro17 -

You're right - we're clearly not special at .30 per download. Apologies if I didn't have my facts straight or if I sounded like I was "spinning" in my answer. I had been looking at the Fotolia rates earlier today and was thinking of that.

I'd like to continue participating in these forums, but if my presence here is cause for consternation, then I can bow out. I too dislike corporate PR leaking into forums - I'll try to keep that more in mind.

We're working on FTP now - your frustration is understandable. We'd love to get your images up , it pains me that you're not alone. It's our highest priority.


- Brian

Quote from: Bettyboop on June 17, 2008, 18:41
what really gets me bothered is the lack of queue. Sometime i do forget, walk away and the darn thing has timed out on me. I could spit when that happen coz i have to start all over again. please fix that brian. its maddening 

Hi Bettyboop -

Ouch - sounds frustrating. I'll check in with the rest of the team and see if we can lengthen the timeout --- or eliminate it altogether.

- Brian (SV)

Quote from: RacePhoto on June 16, 2008, 18:14

Quote from: Brian_SVBut yes - the homepage flash is still way too heavy and quite slow to load. We're working on a fix for that.

- Brian (SnapVillage)

Ha Ha, just realized after all the messages about "site slow" and on my old windows 98 Pentium 400 on slow speed DSL, browsing and email computer, I have no speed problems. (DUH)

I have Flash Turned off. 

I had to turn it off after so many sites started putting the heavy flash intros and flash ads on their pages, and just like the days of dialup when people had huge graphics that took forever to load (so we just stopped and went somewhere else...)

I know I'm not telling you professionals at SV anything, and I have managed websites and pages before, but a fast loading intro page, that tells the user where they are and what they are looking at, is more important than useless bells and whistles, flashing lights, graphics and interactive buttons.

You have approximately 13 seconds to grab a users attention and hold them on your site, unless that number has dropped. After that, you lost em... If your page isn't fully loaded and functional after 10 seconds, or less, it's a bomb. (not the good kind either)

Like I said before, I have no problems with the speed of the pages at Snap Village, just that I finally woke up and understand why not. 

Hi RacePhoto ---

Good points!  We love feedback, espeically when it is this thoughtful.  We're working on a change to the homepage to address the load time in the near future.

thanks!

- Brian (SV)

Hi All -

Yikes!  I am forwarding this info on to our dev. team to see if we can help identify the issue.
Dolgachov - I'll be PM'ing you to see if I can help troubleshoot.

- Brian (SV)

Hi All -

We did have an issue yesterday mid-morning Seattle time that caused login issues. That has now been fixed. We're looking into the other login trouble some of you are seeing intermittently - but this feedback is really helpful. I may message some of you individually to try and see what issue you were facing specifically.

thanks!

- Brian (SnapVillage)

Hi All -

Thanks to tan510jomast  for pinging me on this thread:

Some info on subscriptions on SnapVillage:

- Yes, currently 80% of the total SnapVillage library is available for subscription customers. This includes some of the 'big guns' like iofoto and AndresR (among others) who have decided that the extra payments from subscription sales are valuable. Ron Chapple's iofoto team are a smart bunch and keep an eye on the bottom line - so the fact that their images are available on subscription says something.

- Subscription sales are paid at a flat .30 per download currently. One cool thing- as we don't have tiered royalty payments - you get this regardless of your status on the site (don't have to have xx amount of images, or xx amount of sales or the like)

- Yup, you can opt-in or opt-out on an individual image basis. Most other sites don't let you do this.  We know that the process for changing this isn't perfect, and it can be a pain to change an entire large portfolio --- we're happy to change this for you on the backend until we get a better subs. management system running.

- Personally (of course I am a bit biased    )  opting into subscriptions is a good way to go. Subscription customers behave differently than a customer buying images a la carte - and those "extra" .30 payments can start to help pad your baseline earnings from single image or produce license sales.


Hope this helps. Let me know if you have questions.

- Brian (SnapVillage)

Quote from: louoates on June 11, 2008, 23:11
Still very slow. I guess "beta" version for them meant "pretty fast compared with what we can really do to slow the site down once we get the hang of it."

Haven't uploaded there for about a month. No loss.  Slow site. Slow learners.

Hi Lou -

Fair enough. You might check again though - search, and search results are performing faster than ever.  But yes - the homepage flash is still way too heavy and quite slow to load. We're working on a fix for that.

- Brian (SnapVillage)

Quote from: litifeta on June 13, 2008, 02:30
Good on ya Brian for answering us here. You are up a notch with me now.

Hi Litifeta -

Thanks for the kind words. Glad to hear it. I'll work hard to keep SnapVillage moving up a few notches more.
We've got an awesome team in place now and we're really excited about what the next six months are going to bring.... 

- Brian (SnapVillage)

Quote from: Trebuchet on June 11, 2008, 18:17
Very very slow. Imposible to use 5x upload.

Perhaps I have missed but did you answer somwhere if you will set FTP or you wont?
It is an important question for people (like me) who arent uploading until there is a confortable way to upload their portfolios

Hi Trebuchet.

We'll keep working on fixing the performance issues. Thanks for letting me know what you are seeing. I'll likely keep checking back on this.

As far as FTP. I did answer you here (last message):
http://www.microstockgroup.com/index.php/topic,4883.0.html

Short answer = yes! 


- Brian

How is the site running out there now? You all are definitely the best judge.

We're continuing to tweak server/DB settings to help performance. We're seeing the the site is performing better - but the homepage flash is still too heavy. Working on a fix now....

Quote from: epixx on June 11, 2008, 17:07
I also get sales there occasionally. That doesn't help much though, since I don't have access to the money. I'm sure PayPal is happy to keep them though   

Hi Epixx -

I know this is frustrating.
We're looking into ways around this now, and want to consider other ways to pay you all royalties earned.

- Brian (SnapVillage)

Quote from: litifeta on June 10, 2008, 23:05
Before you do that you need to come up with a better way of showing how much someone has earned. The only way I can find is to go through all the statements and add them up.

Hi litifeta -

You're 100% right!
We totally dropped the ball on this workflow. It's terrible right now.

We're definitely going to tackle entirely revising the way SnapVillage contributors track royalties and the way they are paid.

- Brian (SnapVillage)

Quote from: Trebuchet on June 06, 2008, 08:13
Hi Brian,

Can I ask you if there is any intention to enable ftp upload in a near future or this will be ignored?

Its simple, yes or no.
If yes. Ok I can wait.
If no. I cant upload to SV as I cant use batch upload and one by one upload is painfull

Hi Trebuchet:

Short answer: yes, SnapVillage is committed to adding FTP! 

Long answer: I know you've been waiting for awhile. Give us a bit longer - we'll get it up and running by the end of summer. We've had some technology issues that are now clearing up. We're working to "unpack" our current linear upload workflow to make it more effective and allow use of FTP.

Thanks for being patient! Hold on a bit longer if you can.

- Brian

Quote from: epixx on June 05, 2008, 02:45
Images from 6MP cameras are still presented as 1600x1200 (less than 2MP). Size do matter, but I don't think that they've understood that.

Hi epixx -

This is definitely on our fix list. We know that this is confusing both to contributors and buyers. The orginal intent was that the medium file is at least 1600 x 1200. We'll work on making that clearer.  Rest assured we aren't downsampling 6mp images to 1600 x 1200 and throwing away the rest.

- Brian
SnapVillage

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on June 05, 2008, 03:36
Well, at least there some sign of life over there. No face yet but there's a pulse.

Hi PaulieWalnuts -
Hi epixx -

I'll get a pic up at some point soon. Don't want to be "faceless brian" forever. In the meantime you can see a glimpse - second from left in the back row of the SnapVillage team page:  http://www.snapvillage.com/TheTeam.aspx

We're gonna pick that pace of that pulse up. 

- Brian from SnapVillage