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Messages - SuperPhoto
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776
« on: August 22, 2019, 15:23 »
Seeing as certain agencies are trying to "force" the bigger ones in a race to the bottom through a subscription model (and seem to forget what made them BIG was the contributors contributing content)...
What would you pay for your own subscription site? IF you had an easy to use/plug & play solution?
(Also - by 'plug & play' - I don't mean a wordpress plugin. I mean something where *literally* all you have to do is upload your assets, and enter your payment information, and then start marketing - unless you want that included too).
a) Images? Video?
b) $29/month? $59/month? $99/month? More? Less?
c) Features you'd want?
d) What would you pay for 'marketing' of your content?
e) What is your portfolio size? (100 items? 1000? 10000?)
I'm thinking a good solution to the "content crisis" was if individual authors could manage their own content, and collect 100% of the fees for their work.
Not only would it help stop the race to the bottom (simply because the "mega" agencies would receive significantly less new content), but it would help make authors feel more in control of their work, and not have to undermine their own efforts.
What are your thoughts?
777
« on: August 22, 2019, 15:14 »
Solution:
a) Don't upload to subscription sites.
b) Start your own subscription site.
While yes - some types of content will most likely become saturated - there are still 'unique' types of shots that I would pay more for if it suited my project. But if I can find that 'unique' shot on a subscription site (because someone was desperate) - then of course I would just go with the subscription site.
I think what WILL happen is:
There will be a bit of an 'equilibrium'. The "subscription" agencies seem to forget that what made them "big" was standing on the shoulders of other people. They make money because of users submitting content. Without those content creators, they'd make $0.
Not that they will be "hurting" any time soon (i.e., envato, motionarray, storyblocks, etc) - because they already have a large content pool. (I think they will still make LOTS of money for years to come).
BUT, they'll likely see a huge slowdown in "new" submitted content - simply because it won't be profitable for content creators to submit new content. So their collection will become stagnant. It will still of course make lots of money - (it's like a casino saying they are "losing" money because intead of making a $150 MILLION dollar "profit", they are "only" making a $120 million profit. It's still "profit" (revenue - expenses = net profit) - but they will spin it saying they "lost" $30 million dollars. (No, they "made" a huge profit, just not as much as they wanted).
Taking good videos, and processing them is much harder than images.
And so I think there will still be a market for that.
778
« on: August 17, 2019, 07:17 »
Don't listen to anybody here. They only know what they know and thought they are already right about it. After all, those that have really tried and are truly successful will not speak of anything here because they don't want you to know about it.
Not true. I actually have created subscription sites, ad not related to photography, and sometimes I do share my expertise. Some successful people will share, because they want to see others succeed as well. Anyway, like I said - definitely doable - the main challenge you have to figure out though is the marketing. If you can figure out a good USP (unique selling proposition), and make something go viral (because free advertising here is probably what you want) - then you can get the 4000 subscribes.
779
« on: August 16, 2019, 22:03 »
Is it possible to launch own subscription site? I have a lot of photos, I sell a lot of photos. Like between 25,000 - 50,000 images, per year, mostly all subs. Most of my photos are of one genre that graphic designers use a lot of. If I just charged a $5 per month sub fee, and I got 4,000 people to sign up, that would be $20,000 per month, before expenses. My thought was that $5 per month is a rounding error for almost all advertising agencies. I think my content is good enough that I can get 4,000 people to sign up, BUT I earn enough from iStock's exclusive contract to be weary to experiment, it is the same reason I've never tried to sell to other sites.
Right now I'm just speaking out loud. It is fairly unlikely I'd try this, I don't feel like having my income plummet by going independent.
Answering your question: Yes, you can launch your own subscription site. It is very inexpensive if you know what to do. Price-wise, not sure where you live - maybe $5 in your country is a 'large' amount - here (north america), that would be too cheap. You can get your cc fees low depending who you go through (so could "net" about $4.50-$4.75/subscription). The challenge you'll have is acquiring customers. That is marketing. If you are looking for paid marketing methods - there is a steep learning curve in order to see a positive ROI (making more than you spend). There are a lot of very smart people competing with a lot of other very smart people (& software). I think you would probably find it quite challenging to use paid marketing methods. If you can figure out a way to make your site go 'viral' for free - AND - you have a good sales page/process/funnel in place - then yes, acquiring 4,000 customers in a short period of time (1-3 months) is doable. People have done it, and you can do it too - but that is where the challenge is. In the marketing of your site.
780
« on: August 16, 2019, 21:45 »
Housing 50000 high res images will take a lot of server space plus the traffic. You'd need a private server and an admin to maintain it. It only seems like the web is automated.
Private servers can go for $1000/month plus an IT guy (at least one to start but more if you grow).
You'd need a CSR to handle customer questions and complaints. Full time job even if you out source that's a chunk of change.
Insurance and security since you'll be dealing with user's financial info. Expensive.
Accounting. Do you want to shoot more photos or deal with the bookkeeping on 4000 subscriptions?
I'm pretty sure with just the above your $20000/month is gone. Of course you'd need working capital to keep you going at least 2 years unless you can get 4000 to sign up and pay on the first day.
You would need at least a quarter to half a million dollars in start up money. Good luck.
Where are you getting your numbers? You are *way* out to lunch here (I *do* this kind of thing - and those numbers are waaaaay off).
781
« on: August 14, 2019, 18:54 »
Strange, where are you located?
I just tried it (north america), and it shows minimum to maximum ($700).
782
« on: August 12, 2019, 14:29 »
I know, it is funny.
Probably a lot of people didn't "get" the difference - so I can see people who go the subscription route (paying $30 for 100,000+ clips) getting a little annoyed thinking "wait! I hafta pay 2x that much just for a SINGLE clip?".
(I've used their services as a customer, and I admit - when I first was using it - I didn't understand that it was "contributors" that had submitted the majority of the content. I thought storyblocks "employees" had taken 100,000+ videos - and was a bit annoyed because I thought they were trying to upsell me to get the "good" stuff.
Many times there would be a clip of a model that wasn't "exactly" right - and then I'd noticed a "perfect" clip - but it would be $79 to get it. I didn't (at that time) understand that it was a "contributor" who had taken 10-15 different videos, and that storyblocks had just purchased the one clip to include in their 'unlimited' marketplace).
But - once I got it - it wasn't a big issue. If there was a clip I REALLY wanted, I would pay the extra.
So it's just a bunch of B.S. rhetoric on SB side, they just want more $$$, for less work.
783
« on: August 10, 2019, 05:26 »
Now that conversation faded to more generic, does anyone want to read outloud the post?
That micro...pennies sounds non politically correct but funny enough!
Thanks for the levity Never thought of that - but yes - aside from SB going micro pennies, they may also have a micro p_____... so have to make themselves 'look big' otherwise 
784
« on: August 10, 2019, 05:22 »
Yeah that video doesn't explain why they've shut down a highly lucrative part of their business.
Well, you seem to be quite a mary mary quite contrary know it all, that always has a 'BEST MONTH EVER', no matter what the case (yet whines about people stealing stock when you upload it to micro penny sites like this, then says 'haha it was a humorous post!' when called on it), so let's hear your side. If I said this was a 'fantastic' deal, you'd probably say 'Oh no! its HORRIBLE!'. So, what are your numbers/calculations/insights, in your grand wisdom of things? Maybe I am not aware of some insight you have, that may change my view on this. Since you seem to be quite the contrarian, have you decided to make your portfolio available for micro pennies? You probably should, it will help you have even more best month's ever, while totally devaluing your work and eating into future revenue. But, at least you can say 'best month ever!' for now. Plus - at least you'll get lots of exposure, and just think, you'll be helping your fellow man by letting pirates download & resell your complete portfolio and make their own best months ever too! Quite the nice grand gesture!
785
« on: August 09, 2019, 23:25 »
822,000 * 0.3 GB * $0.021 per GB = $5,178.60/month.
So I'm confused... is it $5,178.60 a month, or considerably less than $8.22 a month? If it is $5,178.60 a month... then where did this 'considerably less than 1 cent per 1000 videos' come from? Did you pull that out of thin air?
That is if you use AWS. There are cheaper services (which increasing guy doesn't seem to believe), so I decided to use his numbers for the calculations, to illustrate my point. It's still highly lucrative for them, & still very inexpensive to host the files even if they use AWS.
786
« on: August 09, 2019, 09:08 »
Storage, like I said, is less than 1 cent per 1000 videos. (Significantly less, actually).
$0.021 per GB. All of the data needs to be accessible at any time, as they have no idea which clip will be bought.
SB themselves are reporting a nosedive in marketplace sales.
Pretty much every contributor active on various forums has reported a nosedive (often to $0) in marketplace sales since the end of 2018.
It's likely the marketplace only brings in four figures or a low five figure amount (SB's cut), which means - not profitable.
Even so - assuming then using the AWS rates (with according to SSF they have 822,000 clips) - Let's say each clip on average would be about 350 MB (thats for 4k video about 20 seconds at high detail, looking at my own clips. Many do a much lower MPS, so in reality the average would probably be about 50-100 mb. But lets say 350 MB for arguments sake). 822,000 * 0.3 GB * $0.021 per GB = $5,178.60/month. (That's if each clip in their entire market place was downloaded once). Let's be super generous and say every single clip in their market place is downloaded 10x/month. (It's not - you'll have some extremely popular clips downloaded 1000x+, and then the majority of them - 75-80% - download 0x). But let's be generous. So $5,178.60 * 10 = $51,786/month in costs for their *membership* library that is downloaded. Add that to the super low previews/resolution (assuming 1 million videos 'previewed' - which are super LOW resolution, not the original mps/dpi/etc) so add +$5,630/month. SO their costs are $57,416/month. Subscription revenue is roughly (according to 3-4 years ago, so most likely much higher), $2.5 million per month ($30 mil/year). So 2.5 million revenue/month - 0.05 million in costs/month = $2.45 million profit/month (or $29.4 mil/year). They are doing 'okay'. Of course there is staff/overhead, according to linked in (which may or may not be accurate) - they have 107 employees. Employees generally are not paid millions/year, more like let's say $50k/year (being generous again, because a lot most likely are support staff, so most likely would be getting paid close to minimum wage, i.e., $7.25/hr =~ $15k/year) - but lets be generous and say everyone makes a 'nice' salary of $50k/year. $50,000 * 107 = $5,350,000 expenses in wages/year =~ 450k/month. Let's also for arguments sake say their building rental/office space, with electricity/hydro/etc is $100k/month. (Most likely not, because you can get a LOT cheaper, but trying to be super generous here). $2.5 MILLION revenue/month - $60k hosting costs - $450k salaries/month - $100k building costs/month = $1.89 MILLION PROFIT/month = $22 million PROFIT/month. They are still doing "okay". Lol - given the fact that their staffing costs are higher than their hosting costs - I'm surprised they haven't sent a letter to their staff saying "GOOD NEWS! We've realized the salaries we are paying you are too high, so we've decided to cut it in HALF! YAYAY! Aren't you HAPPY"?
787
« on: August 09, 2019, 08:46 »
Storage, like I said, is less than 1 cent per 1000 videos. (Significantly less, actually).
Their website says they have over 822,000 clips. You can't seriously be suggesting that their total hosting costs are 'significantly less' than $8.22 a month?
Your math is off, 822,000/1000 = $822.
788
« on: August 08, 2019, 20:23 »
thanks, I appreciate it! I believe I should qualify.
When will the codes/info be sent out?
Thanks!
789
« on: August 08, 2019, 11:07 »
And BTW - videoblocks does not use petabytes for the the 'client' side of things. The videos are highly compressed, clients do not *preview* 100,000 videos at a time (maybe "10" or "15" in a day) - so the costs are VERY very minimal.
And where do you think they store the original files? In their basement on USB drives? The original files all need to be available at all times.
Shutterstock, P5, SB all have very big hosting and bandwidth costs. Shutterstock/P5 probably in the millions. Maybe you should approach them as a consultant and you might make some good cash?
Storage, like I said, is less than 1 cent per 1000 videos. (Significantly less, actually). It is only the data transfer that really costs. SO yes, it is dirt, dirt, cheap.
790
« on: August 08, 2019, 10:46 »
So funny. HISTORY of storyblocks. (BTW - for those that cite "cost" for hosting videos -
it's actually become dirt cheap to host videos, i.e., 1 cent per 1000 videos/month, so
"cost" really is not a factor for any of these decisions).
I see, do you run many companies that need to use Amazon/CloudFront to store petabytes of data that needs to be available to the entire world at high speeds?
Look it up. You don't use a free DropBox account and post the public links...
---
Did someone hurt you personally at StoryBlocks? Do you know the purpose of a business? Did you know that if a part of a business isn't profitable, a smart business owner closes that part. We don't have to like it, you don't have to like it, it's business. If the marketplace was profitable, they would keep it. Evidently it costs more than it makes, so it must go.
I'm wondering why you haven't started your own site we can contribute to so you can sit back and see that $30 mil roll in? Let us know when you've found the $0.01 storage.
*Actually* - I do - but I don't need petabytes, nor do I use AWS. There are much cheaper alternatives specifically for videography. I do this for fun, because I like videography. And BTW - videoblocks does not use petabytes for the the 'client' side of things. The videos are highly compressed, clients do not *preview* 100,000 videos at a time (maybe "10" or "15" in a day) - so the costs are VERY very minimal. Doing some simple math. Let's say you have 100,000 people view 10 videos/day. 1,000,000 videos previewed. Video previews are super compressed - let's say 2 mb's on average for a 15 second preview. (I just did a test run at a resolution LARGER than what they use, and my test video with lots of information was only 1.5 MB). So that is only 2TB of data transfer (1 million videos previewed per day @ 2mbs each preview, or 60TB/month). Using the cost caculator here: https://calculator.s3.amazonaws.com/index.htmlIt is $5,630/month *TOTAL* - if they had ZERO customers - and 100,000 people just looked at video previews per day. They make $30,000,000+/year in subscription revenue. $70,000/year for "previews" is a drop in the bucket. It is dirt cheap for them. For the *actual* subscribers - while you have outliers (i.e., some people downloading 2,000+ videos/month, then others that try to scrape the entire collection which videoblocks automatically blocks) - the "average" I would estimate (based on my experience) is about 15-20 videos/month, at about 30MB/video. And then you have probably 75% of subscribers that never use their subscription beyond the initial signup. So for people who *use* their subscription, it's about $3-$4/month in cost (downloads/transfers/etc). So also dirt cheap for the actual subscribers that download content. It's a VERY very profitable business model.
791
« on: August 08, 2019, 09:49 »
So funny. HISTORY of storyblocks. (BTW - for those that cite "cost" for hosting videos -
it's actually become dirt cheap to host videos, i.e., 1 cent per 1000 videos/month, so
"cost" really is not a factor for any of these decisions).
a) 100% COMMISSIONS FOREVER! Aren't we great?
Translation: (We want a no-risk way of seeing what sells, then buy those clips dirt cheap)
b) SOZ - 50% COMMISSIONS NOW DUE TO "EXPENSES". BUT AREN'T WE GREAT?
Translation: (We bough all the dirt cheap clips that sold well, but now want a cut of the
periodic sales that we don't want to buy).
c) OMFG! MICROPENNIES FOR YOU CLIPS! MORE SALES FOR YOU! AREN'T WE GREAT?!??
Translation: kk, we've squeezed as much juice as we can out of the clips that don't sell
well - customers don't want to pay full price for those, but we can boost our subscriptions
making us craploads of money, and throwing a few crumbs their way.
d) WHAT? No one is signing up because they don't want to sell it for micropennies? Well,
we'll send them a PRETEND letter saying they were "specially" selected! (So storyblocks
sent out a letter to contributors saying "YOU HAVE BEEN SELECTED TO BE EXPEDIATED
FOR OUR MICROPENNIES PROGRAM!! AREN'T YOU EXCITED?!?!? APPLY NOW!"
e) Very few still get excited about the micropennies program, even with the "SPECIALLY
selected" program. So storyblocks says "FINE! You ain't gonna sign up? Well - we are
gonna try and FORCE to sign up then! SIGNUP FOR THE EXCITING MICROPENNIES PROGRAM,
otherwise we are going to KICK YOU OFF! EXCITING NEWS, EH?!?!?!?!"
Cost is a minimal factor here. (It literally is less than a penny to host 1000+ videos/month. As long
as you make more than 1 penny/1000 videos in sales, you are profitable).
The only real complaints they would have had would be from subscribers - who were paying a dirt
cheap price ($30/month) - and noticed there was a corresponding clip from the marketplace that
"looked" better for their project - so they complained, asking why should they have to pay $70 when
they have dirt cheap access to 100,000+ other clips.
So, the reason for the program is pure greed, and simply because they want to reduce customer support
questions specifically related to that.
They want to further dominate the video marketplace with cheap cheap content
(but great subscription revenue for them). They have already successfully decimated the
industries previous prices (getting other people to follow in the subscription battle/revenue
war), with contributors as the casualties.
Not that I think they will be hurting any time soon (they have such a HUGE library, they can now
auto-pilot it for at least 10-15 years making $30+ million/year in profit, with pretty much no effort.
The effort is logging in to your bank account and saying 'oh cool, I made $30 million this year!!).
I hope contributors are smart enough not to panic and think 'oh-oh, I better get into the MICRO pennies program!'.
I'm pretty sure everyone who "applies" will be "accepted", but that the "application" process was part
of a ploy to give a sense of "importance" to this micropennies program.
So, I guess good for them.
792
« on: August 06, 2019, 07:39 »
likewise, if all your work is original - perhaps someone stole your content, and is submitting it as 'their' own...
in which case I would ask them about that. easy to prove, etc.
793
« on: July 30, 2019, 14:06 »
Part of it is due to companies like videoblocks saying "GIVE AWAY YOUR CONTENT FOR PENNIES, AND YOU'll MAKE "LOTS"!". And people believing that, and making their content for virtually free.
794
« on: July 24, 2019, 21:49 »
je n'sais pas... pourquoi y-a-t-il toujours des franais dans l'avion?
795
« on: July 23, 2019, 13:10 »
are you saying shutterstock gave your name/contact info to the airline? and that your content was marked as "editorial"?
seems very strange... what are they suing for?
796
« on: July 23, 2019, 11:19 »
what I find *really* interesting though is -
given how computer algorithms work - I imagine the image would have been "found" first on unsplash by copytrack because unsplash is a 'bigger' site... so....... was unsplash sent a message/notice?
797
« on: July 22, 2019, 22:44 »
try uploading a picture of a 'pinkish' ring around a whitish planet you might get a 'mature content' or 'nudity' rating for that too!
798
« on: July 19, 2019, 15:06 »
I'm not making any comment on the degree of responsibility of the photographer. That would depend a lot on e.g. whether his image was a Live News photo of e.g. the opening of the exhibition, and how the image was originally captionned. IIRC, there was a label on the wall in the Alamy pic which presumably indicated the origin of the pic. and clearly showed that the tog was not trying to pass it off as his own work.
However, I've learned something via this as I'd never heard of Nandar, and possibly not of David Lynch, before. GIMF.
It's an interesting topic. Who is responsible for infringement? The photographer took a picture "of" a picture that was not cropped. So there is some 'freedom' here (i.e., otherwise other than nature shots, or shots with absolutely *no* identifiable features of any person/business/art work/etc - you couldn't resell. I.e., say you had a city picture, with 1/32 of that shot containing a billboard for a 'coca cola' advertisement. Then... the person who purchased the picture cropped it (i.e., say to 'just' the coca cola' advertisement). Is the onus really on the 'photographer' - or - rather should it be the company that used the "cropped" image knowing full well it was not in the context of the original picture? (and might be brand/trademark issues). In this case - (while I haven't "seen" the original photo, but from what was written it was clear that it was a photo "in" a frame, i.e., so someone seeing the original picture would know that it was a portrait on a wall)... I am thinking the onus would be on the actual company?
799
« on: July 19, 2019, 15:00 »
-----------------------------------
800
« on: July 18, 2019, 20:46 »
...
However, I do love it how people who are strongly against the subscription model have been presented with information that goes against their preconceptions, so as a result... that means it's 'strange', I may be out by a factor of ten, I'm dreaming etc etc! I'm not preoccupied with selling to the bottom feeders... I'm preoccupied with selling to the top feeders, the middle feeders AND the bottom feeders.
Well, then don't cry/whine when people steal your content and pass it off as their own, i.e., this post you started here: https://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/check-this-pond5-account-see-if-they're-selling-your-content/It's because of people selling assets/their entire portfolio for fractions of pennies, undervaluing their work thinking only of the short-term gain, which causes the problems/race to the bottom.
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