Quote from: cascoly on January 02, 2016, 22:06
earlier robin posts:

QuoteSymzio, 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.

however, buried in the symzio FAQ is this little timebomb:

Quote
Once the Symzio BETA is over, we will consider charging a nominal Stock Inclusion Fee (SIF) based on the number of images a contributor includes in Symzio as a means of self-regulating quality control. The implementation and pricing of any potential SIF will depend on market conditions when the BETA is complete.

of course agencies  can change the TOS too, but none charge by # of images.  if you don't agree, you can just  leave that agency.  the big difference here is that symzio is touted as a major advantage of the system, and a photog can devote considerable time to setting up a personal site, only to be bit by a rule change

That is a nasty little bomb. I'm in this to make money, not to lose it to yet another "agency". If it's not an agency and instead is a contributor network, then these terms are definitely more restrictive than I expect when I do the bulk of the marketing, pay for the hosting, etc.

I'm a Legacy Symbiostock Pro user. Greatly neglected my site for a long time (no sales, but I host so many sites, the cost to host my own is negligible to me). I installed a test version of the "new & improved" and unlike the old version, it's not compatible with my web host who uses magikwand instead of imagick.

Ironically, the OLD Symbiostock works just fine on the host. I feel like I lose a LOT of functionality with the new version. No more collections that I can see. No more setting my own pricing. No ability to upload zip files. I uploaded new content (eps, jpg) to my legacy site and it works. Is it perfect? No. But I do have a lot of options with it.

Problems I see with the new version: 

1. There is no way to address a user repeatedly using an image. I mean really, prove it?! By one use does that mean one campaign? One client? One product? One print run? Etc.

2. Symzio seems to do a lot of interference for a contributor run project. I'll decide what is editorial and what isn't for my business. It's my liability. I don't want another entity deciding for me.

3. Perceived value is reduced. If I have to pay $20 for an image at Agency X but I can get it for $2 at Symzio, it's only worth $2 for me. And don't kid yourself, designers (most anyhow) do a reverse image search to find the best prices. Many downloaded images are only used once by a downloader, at least in my experience as a designer.

4. I want to control my pricing. I don't want 'set' values or to have to put custom pricing on every image. That's a time waster.

I'll be doing some site tweaking (Currently have a *terrible* slideshow) and then I might do some test AdWords campaigns, some additional FB promotion, some cross promotion, etc.

The 'resolution' to this is basically 123RF essentially told me to go to hell and eat it, they "forwarded" my issue to Paypal so Paypal could explain why I was charged fees. 

I'm eating the loss and now waiting to reach payout again so I can take one last payout and tell 123RF to screw off. I know my Paypal address was entered correctly WITHOUT the second period they claim was between gmail and com because I had checked that the email address was correct before I contacted them.

I'm still more than a wee bit annoyed about this, but it is simply another case of agencies who want to screw over contributors.  The sad thing is I'd only decided to stay as a contributor because I'd hit a new payout tier. Now, I sincerely regret not firing them when I was preparing to take my payout.

They had a few options on how to fix it, a credit to my 123RF account in the amount equal to the fees would have been sufficient. Perhaps, I'll convert my balance to credits and buy some client images and get out of there sooner, rather than later.

I think you're right as to what happened Semmick. I'm really upset about how they handled the whole thing. They claim my email address was entered wrong (but the address they sent me to confirm was correct, was correct, so the error must have come from somewhere else in their system). So they failed to notify me that there was a problem at all. Then, they tried to make it "my fault", then I get hit with fees and they act like I should be cool with that.

I'm pretty bloody annoyed.

One, had to contact them because the payout wasn't on time. Got that rectified and then discovered I was charged $5 in Paypal fees. I get all my royalties from agencies via Paypal and have *never* been charged a fee until now. The initial response from support sounded a lot like "Too bad, *bleep off*" so I'm wondering if I'm alone on this?

Re: Hosting costs and not having large portfolios.

I have had a web hosting account for years and always have at least ONE web site going. If you're hosting with Bluehost, the fees (if you pre-pay) are ridiculously low and I can host multiple sites on the one account. Essentially, setting up a SYS site cost me nothing but time and the add-on I *chose* to purchase. 5 sales of large files will more than cover my start up costs. I chose to use stock royalties to fund it.

Maybe I'll make nothing for a year and one day, one buyer will find me and start using my imagery and licensing directly...instead of through the agencies I currently license through (an ever shrinking number!).  I don't have a large portfolio, my site isn't perfect and there are things I need to adjust...but it is there...it is in less than 2 weeks starting to get traffic and individual images are showing up in searches (judging from my analytics).

I can offer discounts, market directly to buyers and actually *know* where some of my images end up. That is worth it to me. Even better, I can develop relationships with my buyers (assuming they come) and offer better service than I would be able to do through any of the agencies.

And...it was a lot cheaper than the SmugMug account I had for a year that was just a drain on my bank book.

I would love to see a 'Rights Managed License' option...even if it is just another license option we select to activate on a per image basis. I have some images that have never been offered as Royalty Free that I'm not particularly eager to offer that way. I want to know where they end up and how they're used. Offering them as Rights Managed would be a way to do that, plus possibly be able to leverage additional revenue from them.

Questions first: Is there a way to offer separate classes of licenses? I have some images that if someone wants to license for POD/whatever I have no issues. Other images, I prefer to keep the POD sales for myself. Is there a standard license file to start from?

I'm planning on converting one of my old photo domains to my stock site since I have it and have zero dollars to put forward on any projects right now. It includes my name and photo, so it should be workable. Selling stock from my own site has been on my list of things to figure out how to do, but I was afraid I was going to have to futz with a mass of programming and tweaking to figure it out. I'm excited to see there is an easier option.

As far as tips, if there is something you wish someone had told you when you started your symbiostock site, I'd love to hear it. :-)

Quote from: phildate on February 19, 2009, 00:19


I would prefer a price increase and no decrease in commissions but I don't think I can start jumping up and down in a violent rage when I still accept iStock's 20% commission for non-exclusives, as well as their obvious disdain for non-exclusive photographers.

The difference is the traffic at iStock. I've made more at iStock in 2 months than I have in several years at Fotolia. More at DT too. Fotolia's system is totally broken. If I miss a keyword on iStock I can fix it. On Fotolia, I'm stuck with those keywords unless support intervenes. I have dozens of files with phrases that can't be found because Fotolia did not inform contributors that it was an issue (maybe in the forums, but I don't read theirs) and refuse to allow those files to be corrected. I'd have to email every file # and changes to support to get it corrected.

All I want is the money they owe me. I quit uploading there after the last change. They're looking for more ways to screw contributors and they've found it.

Okay, I'm a very minor player but this does it for me. I was going to hold on until I could make payout but with the decrease in commission, that would probably keep me there another 2 years.  I'm done.  They are the worst seller for me (and that's saying something!), the lack of ability to adjust keywords (after approval) or use phrases means it takes me 3x as long to upload images there as even iStock. 

Is anyone else thinking of leaving, but pretty close to payout? I'd prefer to spend my credits with those who are not going to support Fotolia's continued screwing of it's contributors.

I don't think the responded to anyone's emails.  I know they never even sent the read receipts on mine.  It's a shame, but that's okay because I won't sign onto any of Bryan's projects in the future. 

Does anyone know of a decent IPTC editor?  I have a batch of photos that I did for a model a few months ago, I did not keyword at the time I created the jpgs because I didn't have a commercial release from the session.  I do now and would like to quickly keyword the files for upload.  Would be awesome if it had a bulk edit feature which would allow me to add all the common keywords at once and then go back and get more image specific. 

I looked at ProStockMaster, but I don't feel like paying $50 for it. 

Thank you.  I will post a person isolation when I get home...after trying the threshold trick on them. :-)

I've done the levels and moving the midpoint to find any stray areas in the background, but apparently it doesn't catch everything.

Rejections are almost always

QuoteThe execution of isolation contains stray areas that are either too feathered or rough.

Which doesn't help much. 

Perhaps DOF is my issue, though most are also marked can resubmit.  I do most of the isolation in camera with lighting and such and most of the time have very minor spots in the background that need a touch up. 

I uploaded a watermarked version of one of my recent rejections.

Shot and uploaded and post processed at the same time but accepted.
.  I was actually certain this one was going to be kicked back because I left a shadow in or for uneven lighting.     The ones I'm sure will be accepted are rejected and vice versa.  Enough to make a person nuts! 

Thanks,

Diana

I have a hit & miss relationship with isolations at iStock.  Most of the time, the same files will be accepted at Shutterstock, Fotolia or <<insert other agency here>>.   I haven't been bothering with resubmitting because the inspectors have not been including clips to indicate where the issue is. 

I would greatly appreciate it if someone who has a lot of accepted isolations for iStock could maybe help me figure out specifically what my issue is.  Sometimes they accept one that I'm sure is going to be rejected, so the rejections are not clear cut to me.

My port is half the size at istock compared to elsewhere and I have a stunning 41.86% acceptance rate. 

Regards,

Diana

The key words are set as a phrase, so one line arctic lupine, now this works fine on other sites, and if that is not the case at Fotolia, * I'm going to have to re-keyword everything just for them. 

I don't think Bryan or anyone else there plans to do anything wrong with our pictures.  I just don't want to license more that I'm not getting paid for. 

Thank you jsnover.  I appreciate your feedback you've always been helpful in the IS forums. :-) I wondered if the newer one was a database issue, but I figured the databases would update every 24 hours. I will contact support and see if they have

Chode - I never said I expected a bazillion sales. Yes, it's a small port, however other sites perform a lot more consistently for me and my images do turn up in searches. I did not criticize the sales at Fotolia other than to say I thought I was doing something wrong in the keywords because they weren't even getting views.  You say two words is an issue, I'll look into that possibility. MS is a side bit that I do when I'm bored or not shooting portraits, models or art. If I take myself out to dinner and a play every few months on MS earnings, it's all good. 

I get occasional sales at Fotolia which I chalk up to very, very low views on my images.  The average is somewhere between 0 and 20, even on images that have been there 6 months or more. The highest views is 93 on an image that has been there over a year. 

When I try to search using keywords I know i have in the top 3 of my images, they don't turn up.  Obviously some of them eventually turn up, in someone's search but it's starting to really make me wonder.

For instance I have a photo of Arctic Lupine on Fotolia.  I'm actually surprised they accepted it, since they seem to hate that type of content. 
http://www.fotolia.com/id/3665083  it has one view, which I'm sure is me. It's been there a year.  A search for arctic lupine (first keyword, also in title) is "no results found".... what? 

A newer photo "Yellow Hard Hat" http://www.fotolia.com/id/7143517 has been there a few days but has 1 view and does not turn up in a search for "Yellow Hard Hat" or "hardhat" or "hard hat".  Granted, I don't expect this image to be a top seller, but why on earth isn't it showing in searches? 

I have others that are in similar situations and I cannot for the life of me figure it out.  They get views & sales everywhere else, the Fotolia key wording mechanism seems to be so vastly different I can't figure it out. Could someone, kindly let me know what I might be doing wrong?   

I ended up doing mine one at a time because there is no response from Bryan or anyone at support.  I wasn't going to make payout because they didn't market the site and they haven't even notified all site users via email of the coming closure. 

It took forever, but it seemed to be the only way to be sure I don't license more images for free.

Yep, it was an ISP issue.  Silly, stupid DNS servers.  :-)

Yep, it was an ISP issue.  Silly, stupid DNS servers.  :-)

I think it's my ISP but I'm going to try a full restart. 

Okay, can someone send me the IP?  My ISP sometimes does naive things that makes sites not work.  I still can't access it.

Can anyone access big stock? I'm getting a page not found.