I agree! Friday was almost like a Saturday, and Saturday was like...bad.

Hi all,

After some discussion on the Symbio forums, I've started a Symbiostock Facebook page. I'm looking for thumbnails to add to the page header. Join the discussion here:

http://www.symbiostock.org/post/5867/#p5867

Like the page here:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Symbiostock/466435486810556

My experience is that ad agencies, at least, rely on stock images more and more every day. But there are so many images uploaded daily that supply far outweighs demand.

well I spent all of today going crazy trying to figure this stuff out - and I'm partway through it.

I have ZERO computer skills, in fact I didnt even know what wordpress was until I signed up and started to go through this crazy process - Definitley couldn't hack it as a computer whatever in this field, I would go mental.

There was a couple of times when I felt like dropping on the floor and running around in circles like Curly from 3 stooges. Anywho, my noggin is tired, and I will spend a few hours tomorrow to tackle another bit of my site.

It definitly is far from complete, and there will be a clean up at the end too.

But lmk what you think so far, any tips would be appreciated - and if you do make sure its in regular English, cause I dont know all this computer jargon.

http://jeneimages.com/

I think you're off to a great start. In addition to the other suggestions, I'd suggest cropping all the photos in your slideshow so they're all the same height and width and are much wider than they are now, so you don't have a gray box to the right when the photo slides in.

Shelma, Cathy said what she had to say with manners, you were just rude, sorry

I agree 100%.

I haven't read 4HWW but I did buy Ferris's 'The 4-Hour Body' and, from reading it, I'd take anything he has to say with a large pinch of salt. Ferris is very good at self-marketing and making good money in supposedly providing simple solutions to all of life's problems. Unfortunately the real world is actually much more complex than he would have us believe and therefore his basic ideas often don't actually work.

This issue is a good illustration of how Ferris's theory breaks down when examined. We (i.e. microstock contributors) may consider the 'product' being sold by our distributors to be the content we create. SS however wouldn't agree. SS believe that what they are really selling is a service and it is their skill on handling data that allows them to provide a better service than anyone else.

Once again here's Oringer's blog explaining his thoughts on the issue;

http://jonoringer.com/2013/01/13/why-going-exclusive-as-a-microstock-photographer-doesnt-work/

Let's say I had a real tangible product to sell __ a really good homemade jam for example. Here in the UK we have the 'Big 4' supermarkets (a bit like we have the Big 4 agencies). Now I could do an exclusive deal with just one of those supermarkets. They would then be able to sell it at the optimum price and both they and I would achieve good margins for the product. However, if I sold my jam on a non-exclusive basis to all the supermarkets, then it might sell in 4x the volume. Price competition might mean that I made less margin on each sale however the greater volume might mean I made far more money.

The 4-hour workday reminds me of those pyramid schemes where someone trying to convince you to sign up tells you they're "retired." Um, no, you're not retired, you've just switched to working for a pyramid scheme company and spend all your work time trying to convince people to sign up. I'll bet Ferris works more than full time writing, making appearances, blogging, etc.etc.etc.

I went on the wordpress site:

"Custom design ability" $30yr
"No adds" $30yr
"Domain mapping" $13yr

Would I need to subscribe to the 1st and 3rd and blue host to get this started?


My Very Best
KimsCreativeHub.com

No. Just bluehost.

Tons of things, some very subjective and some less so.  I'm not talking about individual images, I'm talking about product offerings and, with 10s of millions of images, there is nothing that unique or special and the only things that differentiate the agencies are price and perception.  Using the example of Apple, there is a perception of quality but there are very few serious companies that have one of those on every desk.

In the case of Apple, perception matches reality. Their products *are* high quality. Almost all ad agencies and advertising production companies run on macs. I believe Apple is the world's most valuable brand right now...bigger than coca-cola.

I think there are two markets for stock art. One is small companies and bloggers, who don't really care if an image is exclusive as long as it looks good and is inexpensive. But large corporations and ad agencies are interested in exclusive images (and buyouts) because they're willing to pay more to stand out from their competition.

When we have stuff like that, we are able to just put it on the curb with a sign that says "free" and there are people who patrol the neighborhoods around here for stuff who pick it up and take it away.  I've never had anything decent sit out there for more than 2 days.  They're welcome to it. 

We don't even need a sign in my neighborhood...there are a few people who drive around in pickup trucks every trash night looking for stuff. I had a yard sale once and dragged everything that didn't sell out to the curb for trash pickup, and 1/2 hour later when I went to walk my dogs 90% of it was gone. I couldn't even imagine how they knew the stuff was there so quickly.

All these threads on Syms growth and early success makes me want to try and do it myself - the only thing holding me back is my own lack of knowledge and confidence, you see, I am totally intimidated by anything to do with computer programming, seo (yikes), and all that kind of stuff.

However, I am motivated to at least give it a try.

Question:  Does anyone use HostGator for there website? Is this good service or is there a better one?

Any direction is extremely appreciated.
Modify message

Step-by-step instructions at http://www.symbioguides.com/getting-started/

You can get an old-fashioned paper check in the mail. Takes a while to arrive, but you don't lose any of your earnings to fees.

That's awesome! 

Make a Symbiostock that looks great and appeals to designers.

Make it use the photographers connecting together to form sympathetic groups whilst retaining control of their own content idea, but provide them with a seamless secure client payment pathway whilst still giving them 100% royalties.

Make it completely idiot proof with a frictionless set up and uploading.

Make the search perfect.

Make it infinitely customisable.

Make it affordable for a one off payment, not endlessly expensive like PhotoShelter.

Make it next week.

I'm not sure there's a way to make Symbiostock look great in everyone' opinion across the board, because people are free to design their own sites. There 's a lot of flexibility in it now, so if you have design talent you can certainly create a site that appeals to designers. I'm sure if I asked my art director or designer friends for help my site would look fabulous. Or you can pay a designer to create a look for you.