Hi Shelma:

1) I just timed myself - it took me 10 minutes to setup a new Symbiostock site on a fresh server. This includes uploading an image, titling it as my store, and choosing a free WooCommerce compatible theme. WordPress already installed, however. It really is that easy.

2) Co-ordinated marketing:

http://www.symbiostock.org/forums/topic/dec2015-what-have-you-done-to-promote-symzio-this-month/

Nothing more effective than organic, random backlinks created through relevant channels. Any more co-ordination and Google would think we're trying to game it.

3) Reciprocal linking is highly effective, and very potent when it comes to SEO juice, as long as the links are relevant. The reciprocal linking myth is only based on 'link farms' - thousands of sites spawned just to generate link juice. Nothing to do with us.

I realize you may be burned out from the efforts you put forth with legacy, and am in no position to gauge your apprehension based on that. However, from a purely technical standpoint, we've got your points covered.

Hey Shelma - thanks for your comments - a couple of things:

1) SEO is all about link juice. Basically, it's a type of 'democracy'. That is to say, if search engines gather that lots of different people are 'voting' for a specific site, that site gets boosted in the search engine. The interesting thing is, it is nearly impossible to buy these votes nowadays - agencies rely on big budget advertising to maintain their 'link juice' by being mentioned in blogs and what not as a result of being noticed.

As the independent contributor network is made up of so many different people, if we all did our part to 'vote' for each other and Symzio, it is highly likely that cumulatively, our organic footprint would effectively dwarf the agencies... for free. This is why it is so exciting, and why the contributors that see this potential are so driven towards its success - it's actually very attainable to create an agency that has more organic SEO power than any other agency in the world... if we work together.

2) I don't know about legacy, but the new Symbiostock is plug and play - you could literally have a basic site up and running within about 20 minutes. You should give it a quick try just to get a feel for it and let us know what you think. Designing it may take more time, but that's relatively normal when it comes to design related stuff. The only exception to this time estimate is if your web-host does not support the basic functions required for Symbiostock to run.

KimsCreativeHub: Simplicity was a huge factor in our pricing system. We wanted a reliable low-cost medium size specifically to target digital purchases. Our licenses have the 'one time use' title attached to them, from the product page to the checkout, and we remind end users of the licensing terms pretty much everywhere.

As for 40%, forget that! You deserve at least 80%. It's all your equity, your work.

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The average contributor that is currently not with Symbiostock can likely have an operational Symbiostock site up and running within about 1 hour, including signing up with a web-host and registering a domain name. The domain name would cost about $10, and the host would be perhaps $5-$10.

Then they could set it up basically and start uploading media, which is all done via FTP, processed automatically. Within 24 hours, it is likely they would have over one thousand images on sale on their own independent site. Then they apply to Symzio.

That's it. Within about 24 hours and $20 in costs, you can have your own independent site running and syndicated in Symzio.

Then, just mention your site, Symzio, or one of your peers every now and then in a blog, or on Twitter, or on Facebook.

If everyone did this, I believe sales on Symzio and independent sites would begin to provide a substantial revenue stream for every participating contributor.

Now there's an interesting idea - video submissions are still not that easy, nor is keywording, so you could plausibly get involved in that. Even more-so if you are willing to submit to agencies on their behalf.

Additionally, videos require a lot more standard post-processing than images, which can be tweaked in a million different ways.

Depending on the codec, with H264, most videos will be under 500mb.

The only problem with videos is there still are not that many videographers as compared to photographers.

Quote from: fotomine on January 01, 2016, 00:35
Would consider joining.  Any success stories from current users? Any regrets?

I encourage you to read a lot of the stuff I've written about the infrastructure that is Symbiostock and Symzio, because that is where the main meat of it is. There is no magic pill to the problem we've been facing. By signing up with Symbiostock and Symzio, and launching your independent site, you're not going to suddenly start getting sales.

What you will get, however, is a strong sense of the powerful infrastructure we've created which we can use to forge long term success in this business. As you explore more and more of what we're all trying to do and how streamlined the whole process is, you'll start understanding that this is a unique opportunity.

The only thing I'm relatively certain of is that based on all the policies, infrastructure, and mechanisms we now have in place with regards to Symbiostock and Symzio, which has been almost a year in the making, if enough contributors passionately do their best to fight for independent success, a noticeable portion of our monthly revenue will permanently come from Symzio and our independent sites, providing an income stability we've long yearned for. All we need is impassioned participation.

I encourage you to read this post I made:

http://www.symbiostock.org/forums/topic/the-big-switch-the-two-responsibilities-of-every-symbiostock-contributor/

It outlines what every participating member should do to ensure that we don't lose this particularly potent opportunity. Our current members have been spectacular - extremely active in pointing out bugs, pushing the marketing, and debating important mechanisms.

And based on my experiences, if you go through the trouble of launching your independent site, it really is in your best interests to maximize the return you get on your investment. It's all about deciding, right now, if you want to join the fight or sit on the sidelines. You can easily wait for others to do all the work and join when you see revenue coming in - it is up to you to decide what path will provide you the most personal and professional fulfillment.

But just imagine how it will feel when you make your first sale on Symzio, through our own agency - you sell a medium sized image for $1.99 and see $1.80 commission in your account. Then you click over to your affiliate control panel and see an additional $0.19 cents in revenue, because that sale came directly from one of your marketing links.

That is 100% of sales revenue, directly to you. You then flip over to the agencies and see 5 full sized royalty free sales, totaling $1.65 in revenue. Then you ask yourself - "if those sales had come through Symzio, I'd have made $10!". Then look at the entire month -

Agencies: 150 royalty free, full sized images distributed to customers to use indefinitely - your compensation, $49.5.
Symzio: 150 one-time use, medium sized images, distributed to customers to use once - your compensation, $300.

Will the numbers vary? Yes. Are we going to successfully compete with agencies and get all those sales immediately? No. But as I've pointed out on the Symbiostock forums a few times, if even one sale comes to us directly rather than through third parties, we're moving forward by leaps and bounds.

I apologize about this being relatively long, but I wanted to curb any expectations that participation is just signing up - at a minimum, contributors will be encouraged to use social media to promote both their independent sites and Symzio. It's more than just uploading to agencies and sitting back, but the return is so large and valuable that it is nearly inconceivably sweet, given how bad it has been for us for so long.

Thanks for your question, and I hope additional contributors respond to it, sharing their honest thoughts as well. I also hope you are inspired to join in the fight.

Hey ana: I responded to your request on the forum. It appears your EPS files are corrupted in some manner, which may even be because they have metadata stored in them - from what I've read, storing metadata in EPS files may make them unreadable in other software. I'm not 100% on this, but it appears to be the problem.

Quote from: Maui on December 31, 2015, 18:35
I see that you are based in Australia. How do you handle VAT for customers in the European Union?

We haven't looked into this yet.

VB Inc: As Steve pointed out, with our one-time-use license, we are effectively creating a new price model that provides a more restrictive license while providing a slightly more competitive price for on demand sales. It blows subscription pricing out of the water.

But all of that is totally irrelevant. Agencies are publicly advertising media for $0.33. Do some searches and you will stumble on graphic ads that clearly state to customers that they can get media for a third of a dollar. We can't curb the effect of that by charging more. By comparison, Symzio looks outright boutique.

I sympathize with the surprise, but it may be beneficial for you to do some market research as a customer to really see how your media is being priced to customers.

Ana: Try enabling advanced color correction in your settings - some Imagick installs invert the colors of EPS files.

VB inc: The pricing was determined after a lengthy discussion with contributors. The central things to remember are:

1) These are one time use licenses - the only other agency to currently offer these on a mass scale is Canva, and they charge $1 for full sized images.

2) Most agencies pay you about $0.25 for a royalty-free, full sized image. With Symzio, for a medium sized, one-time-use license, you earn over 700% more ($1.80). With Symzio, we are remaining highly competitive and structuring the pricing and licensing in a way where customers pay less and contributors get way, way more.

To match what most contributors earn with agencies, Symzio would have to limit charging customers $0.31 for a full sized, royalty free image.

It seems unbelievable, but that's how much more the revenue share is. It is astronomical when you look at the math - which is all that matters when it comes to your earnings. Volume, and revenue per image.

Thanks for your comments - much appreciated, and I hope this has shed some light on your concerns.

You are absolutely right Pilens - Symio offers a unique opportunity, and we need everyone to work towards it. Not for just the ideal of having control over our media and earning our fair share, but to protect the value of our work for years to come. If we all choose to fight for Symzio's success, through great images and vigilant marketing, we can truly dictate a fairer revenue share industry wide.

Hey ana,

If you are uploading a vector, just upload the EPS. Symbiostock will generate a thumbnail for you. However, everything runs via the processor which you must run manually or on a schedule through your operating system:

http://www.symbiostock.org/docs/setting-up-the-schedulerimage-processor/

If you do not run this after uploading media, your media won't show up. When you upload media, it is being put in queue. Also, you must have Imagick running on your server to process EPS files.

You also have the option of uploading your own JPEG version of the EPS once the product is created. Just use the 'upload alternate' form on the product edit page.

As Pilens mentioned, if you have other questions, you can throw them over on the Symbiostock forums. Welcome aboard!

See, it's through contributions like these that Symzio becomes more and more robust:

"Our team regularly peruses the Symzio engine and if an image that appears to be editorial is found to be missing the tag, we will flag it and notify you. If we are mistaken, no harm done. If it is missing the editorial tag, you will be encouraged to check your entire collection to ensure everything else is accurately tagged. If your images are found to be missing editorial tags more than once, your contributor account will be temporarily disabled and you will have to pay the re-inclusion fee for reinstatement."

FAQ has been updated to reflect the mechanism more thoroughly - thanks Jo!

Received a private question from a contributor - yes, both Symbiostock and Symzio fully support editorial content.

The important thing to remember with editorial content is you must mark it as such in your control panel. As we don't screen your media, you have increased responsibilities when it comes to releases and editorial stuff.

This is how an editorial image is marked on Symzio:

http://www.symzio.com/stock-photo/entrance-golden-nugget-hotel-and-casino-fremont-street-las-vegas

The ultimate partner to the Symbiostock project has now been launched - though still in beta, it is fully functional, aggregating all the images across the Symbiostock network.

The Symzio system has been organized for maximum revenue and growth:

1) Firstly, and most importantly, it serves as a one-stop solution for all purchases. Customers do not have to leave the Symzio interface to complete their purchases, making the likelihood of conversion much more likely.

2) Contributors retain 70% of all sales revenue on Symzio - affiliates earn 10%. This gives the engine a small but consistent source of revenue with which to grow through promotions and advertising while passing to contributors a large majority of the earnings (as it should be).

3) Contributors set the price for all their full-sized royalty-free media. All medium sized images are standardized to $1.99 to maximize digital sales, and to attract bloggers who would otherwise pirate images or use freebies.

4) Your contributor profile is the key portal to everything: your Symzio images, your social media, and your independent site. Customers can even contact you through it.

5) With regards to the backend, we've implemented a cutting edge system whereby contributor media is spidered often, changes implemented, and most importantly, all media is sourced directly from your independent site in real-time. Symzio caches very little. If you update a title, or keywords, or a thumbnail for your independent site, Symzio will catch on soon enough. However, on the front end, the search provides results that appear seamless, much like other traditional agencies.

6) No more stress with unreliable reviewers! Once you're approved as a Symzio contributor, you control all your media. Add, delete, or revise it at your leisure.

7) Videographer heaven - no more 1 minute limits. As long as your server can handle it, all videographers can expand their portfolios with longer clips, in any format. Symzio is fully compatible with video: http://www.symzio.com/stock-video-footage/juvenile-grey-butcherbird-sitting-tree-another-young-butcher-bird-lands-branch

8 ) SEO heaven - Symzio has been intricately optimized for maximum search engine stickiness. We've littered the site with algorithms that take your content and dynamically create unique descriptors so that as much of your stuff holds its own in the search results.

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Just imagine the future workflow of the average contributor: create a beautiful set of images. Come home, process them. Upload them once to Symbiostock. They go live on your independent site and soon go live on Symzio automatically. No secondary submissions, no fear of them being rejected. And when you get a $5 sale, you keep $3.50.

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Symzio, along with Symbiostock, provides contributors a complete independent solution: you can host and sell all your media on your own site, and syndicate it with everyone else in Symzio. Best of all, this is all 100% free. Symbiostock costs nothing, and Symzio costs nothing.

You can expand on the base functionality of Symbiostock if you need Video or agency Submissions with optional plugins. But for most of you, the core plugin will work a treat.

This is a fantastic opportunity, and has been developed to give us the chance, as a community, to truly carve a portion of the industry for independents and reduce our dependence on third parties. Here's one of our more traditional stock contributors talking about it: http://picturebreeze.com/symzio-com-a-new-stock-media-agency-idea/

I truly believe that we have been unable to break out from under the yoke of third parties because the proper infrastructure was not in place to provide both contributors and customers a competitive edge - with Symzio and Symbiostock, a wide array of contributor sites, all supporting one another is now within our grasp. All we have to do is step forward and take it.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to throw them my way, and thanks for reading. As we are still in beta, we're always open to improving the system - so if you have suggestions on how we can make it better, let us know!

I leave you with some random samples from Symzio to give you an idea how how it looks:

http://www.symzio.com/stock-photos/bird.html
http://www.symzio.com/stock-photo/detail-japanese-cherry-blossom-flowers-2
http://www.symzio.com/stock-photo/tourists-los-arcos-caves

Can someone explain to me how Adobe Stock compares to Shutterstock with regards to commissions with videos, and how this relates to Fotolia? From what I remember, Fotolia was paying terribly for videos, but I may be wrong about that.

In general, do you get paid the same whether it's Adobe Stock or Fotolia? And are their current rates comparable to SS?

Quote from: Bruce Weber on December 19, 2015, 20:53
Thanks everyone for your comments!

No worries - and good luck! I think the idea of promoting more realistic portrayals of men and women is a valiant notion.

I don't fully understand their response - does that mean they are charging less and therefore paying less? Is there any indication how much was actually charged?

Can you provide a permanent 80% cut to contributors (which is certainly fair given that contributors are the sole creators of nearly all of your equity) and still provide a convincing argument that you can get sales?

In my opinion, the idea that you are providing us a break by giving us more than half of the revenue on media that we have created is, in and of itself, the wrong mentality.

So perhaps if you explain to us why we should pay affiliates (and you are an affiliate) an astounding 50% or more for finding us customers, we would more realistically be able to sympathize with your cause.

Antivirus became necessary with Windows XP because there was a period of time where a fresh install of Windows XP, once connected to the internet, was susceptible to the LSASS virus simply by having your IP discovered by an infected peer.

However, as a result, a firewall is far more important than an AV solution. I use AVG for a fresh scan when something awry is happening, then de-activate it once the infection is clear, if there is one. But I use Comodo Free Firewall which is pretty much the best free firewall solution, IMO.

I think videoblocks relies on contributor videos to swell its numbers, and this is a short term necessity. They need to make money, so it must be from their subscription plans. Therefore, once the subscription numbers swell up, contributors will be less necessary.

I don't mind them as you're right - it's great for us right now. But it can't last because there's no business model for them with us earning 100%. If you can think of one, post it - that would be great to explore.

AVG my good man:

http://free.avg.com/au-en/homepage

Free and good.

Terrible man - I don't know of any other way to speed up contacting them. Their support tickets have been responded fast for me, so fingers crossed.

It's a technical support forum! It's quiet because Symbiostock is awesome!

I'm serious too - you really should upgrade. All kinds of goodies. We're now matching Sell Media for new daily installs, which is some incredible growth.

And if you need technical support, you know where to go! I won't respond, but someone might...

There may be a pricing or business model that could benefit all parties, but it probably wouldn't work in an all-or-nothing fashion. Perhaps sub-licensing batches of images at a set amount each image, per month or something. That could be fair as the contributor gets dedicated revenue from their media, and the licensee can make as much money as they want for one flat fee. And the contributor can continue to use their images.

I have personally found that most contributors have a personal investment in their portfolios that goes beyond its pure monetary value. If you were to, for example, mathematically average out how much they are likely to make on the port in the next 5 years and offer them 70% of that, unless it matches their 'perceived' value, they are likely to be unhappy with that offer.

In fact, I get the distinct feeling that most contributors would rather sit on their port earning nothing than sell it for less than their perceived value of it.

That isn't to say contributors are wrong or right; there is a lot of emotional investment in one's media, so it's a tough thing to quantify. However, in answer to your question, you are likely going to have to offer something substantially more than you are willing to pay, or catch a contributor who is so disheartened with the business that they are on their way out.

Lots of companies popping up that are basing their business model on a mixture of contributor owned content and their own owned content, so selling your collection shouldn't be that difficult.

Pricing it will be, however.

Hey guys - answers below -

danr13: Yes, Symbiostock watermarks the videos with your custom watermark. However, this was previously only available with our PLUS hosting. Along with the release of Symzio, we are shortly going to be releasing a standalone video plugin that will add video functionality to Symbiostock standalone. We previously were not able to accomplish this but spend some time trying to find a portable processing solution, and have done so.

Shooterguy: Yes - Symbiostock is primarily focused on the sales of digital media. If you are not going to be selling digital media, you can still use it to host your images and sell prints. Our licenses can now be set as physical rather than digital products, in which case when someone purchases an item, you will fulfill it just as a normal ecommerce item through WordPress. So, you could mass upload all your images, set only physical licenses for different sizes of prints, and operate your store like that.

There is not yet a way for automated print requests to be send to a third party upon order placement, however.

Growth is steady - sales will increase once Symzio is fully operational. New industries take time, however. And every independent, whether they be on Symbiostock or another platform, is fighting for that... rightly so.