You'll find a number of useful posts about customizing your site's look on the Symbiostock forums, including the CSS changes i made to my site which is based on Slate but doesn't look anything like it

I had not heard of them before reading your post. I have to say that "As seen in Cosmopolitan" didn't do much to convince me they're a professional service

I've done takedown notices for sites that offer an automated process (Flickr, Google/Picassa, etc.) and I can't see using a service for anything that straightforward. If someone lifted my whole portfolio to put on a torrent site, that might be worth paying someone (if I thought they could really remove it permanently and not just have it shift around from site to site, each incurring another fee).

I had 4 sales on Sunday and so far no refunds - I assume I'd have seen them by now if I'd be caught up in whatever scam you were hit by.  Sorry it happened to you.

It does, but you have to choose to participate (I don't). Some of the other sites offer all sizes free, but 123rf restricts the size to something that's good for blogs or tiny sizes in print, but not much else. DT has freebies as well, but again, you don't have to participate if you don't want to (I don't). I believe FT still does too.

123rf also time limits the free small size.

If I find someone using things without a license I'd rather direct them to free (but legit) stuff than have them pirate.

Thanks for the link Martha. I can read it as a NY Times subscriber (one of two newspapers for which I buy the Sunday paper as my vehicle for purchasing online access; rather bizarre but they set the pricing not me)

I particularly liked this idea about writing/photography/"content" being reduced "...to the status of filler, stuff to stick between banner ads." Because this is a big issue - that many sites want to use contributions to make themselves advertising revenue which they don't want to share with the creator.

My favorite example of being asked for a freebie came from a site that had found my work at 123rf and said how much they liked it, but could they have it for free. So they knew it was for sale - didn't even offer any special reason why I should give it to them!

As a user of sites (like Facebook or Twitter or Google) I can't stand the ads and do my best to ignore them. I'm puzzled that this stuff keeps growing - obviously someone must be clicking on the ads or the companies wouldn't keep paying for them. I pay for the NY Times because their writers can write and I want them to keep doing that so I can read it - the semi-literate rants on other sites with "free" content don't even come close.

On the photography side of things, I have yet to see a site with free images (not including those that peddle stuff stolen from Shutterstock) where the quality was even close to what you'll see from those of us who expect to be paid for licenses to use our work. We need to keep saying "no thanks" to people who ask for freebies and chase up the thieves when we find them.

 I think we're not that different from other areas of work where people ask for freebies. Think of those stories you've heard from lawyers or doctors about people asking for free advice on social occasions - it's anyone with an intangible product or service that gets asked I think, not just those who sell licenses over the internet. You ask for free medical opinions from a doctor you meet but not from a cabinetmaker, for example (although I don't know any cabinetmakers, so perhaps they get hit up for freebies too!)

There are many people who have run into Getty's tight control of the Flickr group and either been banned or left as a result:

http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/gettyflickr-contributors-google-deal/msg295373

You can read one ex-Getty/Flickr photographer's thinking about this as an option here

http://thomashawk.com/2010/06/so-is-the-new-flickrgetty-request-to-license-feature-a-good-deal-or-bad-deal-for-flickr-photographers.html

What's even more strange - and makes me think that their code is just buggy - is that if I use your link and then change last three months to "Any time", your images start showing up on page 4 (by relevance) in an all collections search.

If I change to laughing santa (instead of blue santa) and set "Past month" and "All collections" three of yours show up. I change that to "Evo" and it says there are no results!

Repeat the above two searches but with "Past 3 months" and I see three of yours for "All collections" and four of yours if I say "Evo"

The only constant is errors!

Interesting - I had fun dong a few searches.

Couple of thoughts.

It wasn't immediately clear where to type - the huge blinking vertical insert point did eventually get my attention, but I think having the background of the search box a slightly lighter gray would have given me a clue visually that I'd have "got" faster.

I like it that you keep the current "seed" image up at the top left, but I would like to be able to see a rack of past seeds for the current search term - in case I didn't like my current branch and wanted to go back a bit. Currently the image is just visual and I'd like it to be a link to  prior search.

Even having read Sean's comment about the slider in Find similar, I didn't understand what was going on. I think that dropping the percentages and having an arrow with Keywords and Visual on either side (along with the color change which is a good visual clue).

Several times I clicked on the image I liked and it did nothing - how about making that default to a find similar with a 50/50 keyword/visual split?

I'd like to say "none of these" - perhaps a box with an X in it on the thumbnail? - for images that aren't at all what I want. I did some searches where the first few screens weren't at all what I wanted (I did one for beach and the first screen is full of people on beaches and I was thinking of a scene with no people) and I wanted to get more to choose from without the clutter of stuff that was of no interest.

I'd rather see button over the image for show details or buy now or whatever than clutter up the search refinement popup with the huge Show Details bar.

I got their newsletter and signed up right away - I really like the set it and forget it option, so I'm glad they added this.

I gave them my 90 day notice this spring and my content was duly removed by the summer. I'm sorry things didn't work out with them, but they just couldn't seem to make up their mind what sort of site/agency they wanted to be.

I don't think blaming all the other sites and photographers for the crappy state of the market isn't much of a strategy IMO, and pretty much every communication from them (I didn't get this most recent as I was already gone) had that theme.

Based on being part of WarmPicture (based on Ktools) I couldn't recommend going that route. You customize the store (because it doesn't do what you want out of the box) and then when there's an upgrade you're stuck as there's no path to integrate your changes. It wasn't IMO a great option.

StockBoxPhoto (a) looks awful and (b) doesn't appear to have any real sites using its very expensive software - the "demos" don't appear to be targeting stock, but event and wedding photography. If I were going to spend that sort of money why wouldn't I go with PhotoShelter?

I am in the process of setting up a Symbiostock site, so I've obviously made my choice

Don't knock that apple, It's for early Ipads that dont have a screen rotate. 

Ha! But if they can't afford a new iPad, how will they afford the 135 credits or $242 it costs to buy this gem of an image (with wrong keywords) (that don't even include apple)?

And you don't even impose a cover charge for the comedy show