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Messages - stockastic
Pages: 1 ... 153 154 155 156 157 [158] 159 160
3926
« on: April 28, 2009, 15:37 »
I say, walk away. You'll feel better.
I just submitted a few to IS and got the now-expected rejections for "artifacting" on 2 of them. There are no noticeable digital artifacts in these images even at 100%. But, I no longer bother to appeal these things, I just move on. My plan is to get going on several sites, take more pictures and quit trying to figure out what's going on with any of these reviewers. If they reject for a visible trademark I may fix it and resubmit; if they say there's noise I'll take a look, sometimes that happens. For any other reasons, I just delete the rejection email and forget about it.
3927
« on: April 27, 2009, 20:27 »
I started at Fotolia a few weeks ago. They accepted all but a couple from my initial submission - but they rejected my best photo, because it didn't meet their "aesthetic level". All I can say is they're looking for something different and can't really articulate what it is. As always, the thing to do is pay no attention to the rejections unless they're for something tangible, like noise you overlooked.
3928
« on: April 27, 2009, 15:58 »
I just checked my images on StockXpert again. Admittedly my portfolio is small.
Images uploaded before February have continued to get views. (Hardly any sales, but that's another matter.) Images after the first week of February are stone dead. In the StockXpert forum, 'Admin' continues to post now and then, saying that the search engine is fine, nothing is wrong, nothing has been changed. Right.
Like I said, I've given up on StockXpert but I enjoy a mystery. Here's my theory : Getty directed that some portion of SXPs new image uploads be sent elsewhere - to some other reviewing group, and probably another database entirely. The new group reviews promptly and those images have a chance for views and sales. The stuff left for the old group, which is now a skeleton crew, takes longer to get reviewed and then sinks like a stone. The 2 databases are both searchable from the single StockXpert site but there are now actually 2 microstock operations behind that site.
Left as an exercise to the reader are the rules Getty gave for choosing which submitters get the first-class treatment and which (like me) are left behind as scrap. Maybe it's just proven sellers, or favored subject matter...
Basically Gettty is just siphoning off what they consider the "good stuff" from new submissions, and the rest is ignored. A crazy theory perhaps but it explains what's happening. Go ahead, carve up my theory. But if you do, offer one of your own. It's fun.
3929
« on: April 27, 2009, 12:57 »
Agreed. For me, it's over. No views on new uploads, which sends them to a quick death.
I guess when you have 5 million images you figure you can just go on selling what you already have for a long time.
The fact that some people seem to be getting normal results is the most puzzling thing. It's like new images are being divided up and sent down 2 different paths. Whatever the game is, I'm through trying to figure it out.
3930
« on: April 24, 2009, 21:40 »
I take back my previous post - it still takes 10 seconds for the main page to render in my browser. But now the site timer at octagate.com shows quick access, whereas the other day it showed 8 seconds until the first byte was returned. Why the difference? The octagate server is in Stockholm and I'm in the US. Does access time for an Amazon-hosted site depend on which "edge" server you're getting?
3931
« on: April 23, 2009, 23:05 »
I see the difference, and octagate.com shows that long wait for the intial page is gone. Was this an Amazon thing?
3932
« on: April 23, 2009, 14:47 »
3933
« on: April 23, 2009, 14:35 »
Try www.octgate.com. Enter the CC url and it will show you an interesting breakdown of the time spent loading the page and everything it pulls in - graphics, thumbnails, javascript files, css. When I tried it, about 8 seconds were spent waiting for the first byte of the main page; after that, everything happened pretty quickly. So at first glance it seems like Amazon's page latency is the sticking point. I'm not really an expert so I shouldn't point the finger at Amazon, but that's my initial reading of what octgate shows. I wish I could just paste in a screen capture here...
3934
« on: April 23, 2009, 14:05 »
OutsideView, I think a lot of my subscription sales on Shutterstock are what you're talking about - people picking up images for 25 cents just because they like them, not having any specific use in mind. But at 25 cents it's hardly worth the trouble of uploading them, much less producing them.
3935
« on: April 23, 2009, 14:02 »
goldenangel, your studio page took 10 seconds for me. But once I've opened the CC main page, my own studio page pops right up. So it depends on whether you've already hit the main page, I think.
3936
« on: April 23, 2009, 13:48 »
John, by "slow" I mean a consistent 5-10 seconds to get the main page displayed, and I've noticed this for a couple of weeks at least. By comparison Shutterstock, for example, comes up just about instantly. In today's attention-deficit world, people start to avoid sluggish sites without even thinking about it.
I'm a software developer and if you find a clear reason for the slow access, I'd be interested to know it. Apparently CutCaster is hosted by Amazon and I'd like to know how that's working out. I use Amazon S3 for backup storage of my images but didn't know until recently that they were hosting sites in their "cloud".
3937
« on: April 23, 2009, 12:49 »
You're hitting Amazon, but only by IP, so it looks like the problem is in DNS. Try nslookup to see if the name is resolved - my results are below. If the problem is name resolution, it could be at several levels, including your local ISP. Can you open the site as http://174.129.248.125 ? C:\Users\jim>nslookup cutcaster.com Server: UnKnown Address: 192.168.30.1 Non-authoritative answer: Name: cutcaster.com Address: 174.129.248.125
3938
« on: April 23, 2009, 12:23 »
whitechild, the site is working for me (in US). But I've noticed for quite a while that it's consistently very slow to respond (or render) and I think that's a turn-off for buyers. The site looks good and is well constructed but the pages take too long to render. Could be a hosting issue, or the way the site is built, but I'd like to see i improved.
I found I'm unable to ping it, even if I specify a 20-second timeout (ping -w 20000 cutcaster.com). This is odd, but some hosts disable ping as a security measure.
I think a tracert may have answered these questions - my results are below. It seems CutCaster is hosted by the Amazon "cloud" which is not responding to a ping, and probably explains the slow site response too. The reachability of the site depends on deployment of Amazon's "edge" servers around the world. I don't know where you are, but you should do a tracert and see if you're even finding an Amazon edge server. If Amazon isn't delivering the goods, CutCaster should know about it.
C:\tracert cutcaster.com
Tracing route to cutcaster.com [174.129.248.125]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
[.... I deleted the hops through my ISP ]
6 18 ms 30 ms 25 ms vlan104.car2.Minneapolis1.Level3.net [4.59.66.9]
7 26 ms 27 ms 22 ms ae-11-11.car1.Minneapolis1.Level3.net [4.69.136.
101]
8 42 ms 46 ms 34 ms ae-4-4.ebr1.Chicago1.Level3.net [4.69.136.106]
9 49 ms 33 ms 33 ms ae-6.ebr1.Chicago2.Level3.net [4.69.140.190]
10 43 ms 37 ms 38 ms ae-1-100.ebr2.Chicago2.Level3.net [4.69.132.114]
11 45 ms 44 ms 49 ms ae-2-2.ebr2.Washington1.Level3.net [4.69.132.70]
12 61 ms 61 ms 55 ms ae-72-72.csw2.Washington1.Level3.net [4.69.134.1
50]
13 65 ms 62 ms 53 ms ae-2-79.edge1.Washington1.Level3.net [4.68.17.80
]
14 64 ms 72 ms 56 ms AMAZONCOM.edge1.Washington1.Level3.net [4.79.20.
14]
15 * * * Request timed out.
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * * * Request timed out.
18 * * * Request timed out.
19 * * * Request timed out.
20 * * * Request timed out.
3939
« on: April 22, 2009, 21:32 »
OutsideViewer, thanks for the interesting posts. Many of us would be very happy to find an image market such as you describe, where people could find our images, click on them and buy without becoming a registered "buyer" at a "microstock". As others have pointed out, there are already some sites doing roughly this, such as RedBubble.
I have imany mages on which I've spent serious time and effort, that aren't very marketable as "stock", but I actually believe many people might want copies, or prints, if I had a way to reach them. And of course there are countless other photographers who'd say the same thing.
What would a collector, such as you describe, do with purchased digital images? Wouldn't they typically want a print instead of just an image file?
3940
« on: April 22, 2009, 16:04 »
i have a tear in my eye that www.cutcaster.com isn't mentioned. hahahah just kidding
As soon as I make a sale there, it will shoot to the top of my list. Seriously.
3941
« on: April 21, 2009, 18:26 »
The main reason I'm not using CushyStock is that I thought it cost money, and I'm not very flush these days. If there's a free version I may check it out. I've been using a folder system and AceFTP, but it's a pain.
3942
« on: April 21, 2009, 13:48 »
Well it's news to me. Sounds interesting.
3943
« on: April 21, 2009, 09:27 »
I'm with click_click on this one. I never did get the "folders" thing. Sure one can defend this process and say that each step takes "about 2 seconds" but why not just make it simple? Categories. folders, I don't need. The extra "briefcase" step - ditto. It's not the time spent that annoys me, it's all the ditsy little stuff I have to remember, times the number of sites I submit too. And microstock isn't the only thing I do in a day.
Life gradually fills up with tiny annoyances like this, unless we continually kick back.
(But why do I care anyway - all the images I uploaded in the last 3 months are apparently dead, due to lack of views for new images - I'm not submitting any more to StockXpert. All those images are selling at SS...)
3944
« on: April 20, 2009, 19:15 »
I had a small number of images on StockXpert but they were getting views and making a few sales. Then "the trouble", whatever it was, began a few weeks ago. After that point, new images I submitted got essentially no views. And not a single sale, old or new, since that time. Zero. If the search ranking problem has now been fixed, that's had no impact on the images I already have there.
So I've quit submitting to StockXpert - of course, your mileage may vary. I've thought about deleting my images and re-submitting - not sure if that would be allowed though.
3945
« on: April 20, 2009, 18:35 »
Drag and drop into your FTP client AND DONE!
Amen.
3946
« on: April 20, 2009, 13:30 »
lisafx "I open as many browser tabs as I have images to upload. Pretty simple."
As a software developer who's worked on web sites I can only LOL at being forced to jump through crazy hoops like this just to transfer a bunch of files. To me (an IStock outsider) it sounds like a sort of abusive relationship that IS regulars have come to accept as somehow normal.
3947
« on: April 20, 2009, 10:15 »
photox, you're right, IStock is a pain. They do everything differently than the others and are the hardest microstock to deal with. I don't submit to them because I found it too aggravating. Others say the earnings make it worth jumping through the hoops, but I didn't find that to be the case with my images. I may try again in the future.
3948
« on: April 20, 2009, 10:11 »
I agree with a lot of what you're saying but this line "In fact, real, down-to-earth, everyday people are what sell." has been going around since the dawn of stock. Unfortunately as great as it sounds it's not true, what buyers actually want is shots of good looking models made to look like real, down to earth everyday folk.
Nail on head. Except they're not even "made to look like" ordinary people. Just made to look like they're pretending to be looking like ordinary people. I will never do people shots for stock because I can't pay for models, and I don't know any good-looking people 
3949
« on: April 18, 2009, 21:44 »
The microstocks really only want what they think they can sell next week. They don't know what their buyers "want", they only know what they bought last week. The microstocks aren't pushing creative new imagery. They don't "push" anything, it's a totally passive sales model like a big self-service warehouse. They just want to get more of what's been moving well, and to quit spending time and money reviewing everything else. It's not a system that actively encourages creativity.
3950
« on: April 18, 2009, 19:03 »
Ok so at some point the microstocks' customer surveys show that most buyers are finding what they want. So they don't really need any new photos unless they're really unique, and can tell their reviewers to start rejecting anything else right off the top without even bothering to look at it at 100%. That cuts reviewing time way down and is a big cost reduction for the microstocks. A lot of submitters give up, that reduces costs even more. Eventually the archives have all the standard, ordinary stuff anyone is likely to want - all the common objects, foods, architectural landmarks, and 10,000 snappy "business team" and "confident doctor" shots to choose from. Then what? All they would want would be top-drawer new shots featuring unusual subjects or novel treatments - done by pros, requiring serious setup, model fees, extensive Photoshop work etc. . To get those, they have to raise their commissions considerably, and raise the price to the customer. You see where I'm leading - the "microstock" era ends.
Just a bad dream I had last night. In reality, I think there is always a market for creativity. But it's hard to see how today's microstock business model can continue indefinitely.
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