Quote from: MicrostockExp on April 05, 2013, 14:58
Great you missed :
http://www.imagoborealis.com
http://www.stereoshutter.com

Also:
www.hookstockimages.com

My portfolio is heavy on food and isolated with some sports and people.  Ideally, I would like to network with contributors with people, lifestyle type ports, but I'm open to any type.  I have about 700 RF images, but I'm going to weed out some of the stuff that doesn't sell.  I'm also optimizing each image for SEO, so my upload process will take some time. 

www.hookstockimages.com

Quote from: Microstock Man on March 31, 2013, 07:22
I highly recommend Wordpress SEO by Yoast - http://yoast.com/

This guy really seems to know his stuff, it's updated very frequently and has helped me hugely with improved SEO on www.microstockman.com

I will definitely be using it on my new Symbiostock site.

Agree.  Excellent plugin.

Got it installed this morning.  Just have to upload a few images and do a test purchase.

Quote from: peter_stockfresh on February 28, 2013, 00:28

Quote from: cclapper on February 27, 2013, 23:45
I had an interesting conversation today with our SEO guy (I'll call him Fred) at work. I work on e-commerce sites, web designing, loading products, etc. Fred was asking us web doods if we had made any changes to categories, because he has been noticing a significant drop in our organic search results from about Feb. 5th through the 15th. He could not pinpoint a cause, so of course the first people to blame is us.  Anyway, I related to him that that was just about the time when Google made the change in their image search.

It also took me a while to figure that out, despite the fact that I knew about the change... First I was worried about the effects a bit, but we actually benefited from it. Our sales weren't affected negatively and there's considerably less pressure on the servers without all that "fake" traffic.

The key takeaway from this is that people WILL buy the images if they can and if they know they have to, but you have to let them know by watermarking all the images you intend to sell on your own website. There shouldn't be any unwatermarked images on Google search from agencies except for the teasers on their front pages. If there are, they are doing something wrong.

It would be great however if we could provide Google with some HTML based data about the legal status and price of the images because I think that vague disclaimer stating that the image might be protected is not quite useful enough.

Great to see your input here, Peter.  Wish more agencies were concerned enough about their contributors to participate here.

This is going to be great!  Thanks, Kona, for your hard work.

Lobo is analogous to a defense attorney representing a client that he knows is guilty.  Everything out of his mouth reeks of desperation.

Much of it does appear to me to have little post processing.  Not all of it.   I do agree that's it's a refreshing change.

Quote from: fotoVoyager on February 28, 2013, 19:53
I'm guessing this is a good indication of what they'd like to see:

http://pinterest.com/stocksyunited/

Looks like straight out of the camera stuff.  Very little post processing.  Definitely not micro. 

Seems a little counterproductive to keep people in the dark about what kind of images they're looking for.  The contributors who've been rejected may have very well had images in their portfolio that met the required criteria, but the secrecy surrounding that criteria may have ultimately led to rejection.  Doesn't make sense to me.

No problems here.  Apparently, it's only inaccessible to buyers this month.

Quote from: SunnyMarsDesigns on February 20, 2013, 23:42
I'm a few dollars away from giving them the arse. 

If Shutterstock later follow their lead with this RC payment system, I'll tell them to stick it too.  I've had a gutful of dirty microstock agents.  Last year I gave away Dreamstime, DepositPhotos and 123rf.  This year BigStock and who else?  I'm not even bothered anymore.  The more I let go, the less stressed I am, the better I feel and funnily enough, the more income I make from my images.

Are you selling from your own site?

Quote from: bddigitalimages on February 20, 2013, 12:39
Is anyone having problems with using suggest feature on this? It was working fine then now for the last few days it keeps saying that it cannot find any matching keyword no matter what keyword I put in. Everything else works but that for me.

Yep.  Same here.

Quote from: nicku on February 15, 2013, 06:28
I believe the big majority of SS clients will stay on SS... BS has only 13 millions images online and SS over 21 millions. The extra 8M will make the difference for majority of clients.
........... at least i hope 

I agree, and that difference will only increase.  Bigstock is basically irrelevant regarding income.  This is not like Istock where closing an account might cause a big drop in income.

Quote from: gostwyck on February 18, 2013, 14:18

Quote from: Beach Bum on February 18, 2013, 12:32
Before reading this thread, I thought nobody could be as bad as Peebert.  I now see how wrong I was.

What are you talking about? Peebert was as sharp as two giant sharp things and very entertaining. It was a shame when he left. The IS forums in those days were a vibrant source of wit, repartee and useful information. Quel contraste.

A moderator shouldn't be the source of that wit.  I agree that the forum was much better in those days, as was Istock in general, but I considered Peebert very unprofessional and juvenile in some of his comments.

Quote from: blackwaterimages on February 09, 2013, 01:13
I would never have thought I'd see the day where Peebert seemed like a rational and reasonable alternative to forum moderation. Guess times really have changed!

Before reading this thread, I thought nobody could be as bad as Peebert.  I now see how wrong I was.

Quote from: Poncke on February 17, 2013, 11:45

Quote from: Beach Bum on February 17, 2013, 11:38

Quote from: Poncke on February 17, 2013, 11:19
Anyone who says that 500 dollar a month "it's not necessarily life changing" and "not really a huge difference" has lost all touch with reality.

It's all relative, I guess.  $500 a month would be a huge difference for me.  For others, maybe not so much.

It is relative, but if you can no longer see that 500 dollar a month does make a difference for a lot of people, you have lost touch with reality.

Very true.

Quote from: Poncke on February 17, 2013, 11:19
Anyone who says that 500 dollar a month "it's not necessarily life changing" and "not really a huge difference" has lost all touch with reality.

It's all relative, I guess.  $500 a month would be a huge difference for me.  For others, maybe not so much.

Okay.  When titling this thread "Great Letter",  I wasn't referring to her grammar, punctuation, and the number of words that she used.  I was referring to the point that she made in that photographers should be paid for their services.

Quote from: Poncke on February 16, 2013, 07:00
Its not a great letter at all.

Quoteevery Tom, Dick and Harry having a digital compact camera or a cameraphone, my profession has become a bit of a joke. Because anyone can take a picture, right? Now let me burst your bubble right there. Yes, every fool wearing yellow socks can take pictures just like every box on 4 wheels can drive and just like every broadband provider can offer you the internet.

I cannot stand it when they bring up that argument because we all know its simply not true. There are as many talented amateur photographers with proper equipment and amazing images, as there are professional photographers that cant produce more then the average snapshot and have no clue about what they are doing. Pro and amateur says nothing these days.

And the fact that she is throwing out these insults makes her a petty person.

You're missing the whole point of the letter.  She's not dissing amateur photographers.  She's simply saying that, as a professional photographer, she should be paid for her services,  just as you would expect to be paid for the work that you do at your job.

Thought this letter was right on point.  Aimed at the music industry, but could apply to many.

http://christiegoodwin.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/open-letter.html

Doesn't Wordpress limit file sizes to 10MB?

Quote from: Elenathewise on February 14, 2013, 23:32

Quote from: cthoman on February 14, 2013, 22:14
Maybe, he'll makes some new friends to make up for losing Poncke.

Made me laugh:)
I am impressed with the guy.  Looks like SS is on top from technical point of view, moved in successfully into non-sub business, doing corporate licensing (taking the territory from traditional Getty grounds), and generally managed not to piss off their contributor base....

Istock was once on top with a cult like following from contributors.  Funny how greed changes things.

Quote from: Poncke on February 14, 2013, 20:34
I have to say, after the introduction of the RC schedule and subs over at BS and cutting referrals, my thoughts about Jon are no longer 100% positive. I think if SS follows the rest, BS, 123, IS, etc, by squeezing contributors, it will be the end of civilization in stock.

I am still on the fence, and with great anticipation I await SS next move.

If that happens, I believe it will lead to a huge drop in uploads from top contributors.  Those contributors will probably then concentrate on fair paying sites like Stockfresh and GL.  If those sites become successful and then become greedy as the others have done, it's all over. 

Finally reached first payout today.  Hopefully, the next one won't take as long.  I really like SF and hope it can be successful.