Let's give him a break, he's doing what he can to improve Symbiostock and Symzio at the same time. On a daily basis.
As mentioned a couple of times, this is the start of a very new project. Most people understand that not everything can be absolutely perfect from the first minute.
And by the way, do you expect the other CEOs or owners of the agencies you're submitting to to answer any and all of your questions and conspiracy theories?

Nobody has really refused anything from what I've read.
I can't and don't want to speak for Robin but I've already explained that Symzio is different than other agencies. The quality of content depends on what Symbiostock users feed to it. This is way more freedom than you can have with any other agency out there. But with freedom comes responsibility. And of course there need to be some rules to make sure this system doesn't get abused by individuals who don't work actively to keep up the standard (too many similars, keyword spam, low quality images etc).
In my personal opinion nobody who's honest and professional, and delivers content that's up or above the quality level of Symzio, needs to be afraid of getting punished. There's simply no reason for that.
But even if someone would get kicked from Symzio, this person would still have his/her own Symbiostock site.

Quote from: cathyslife on January 04, 2016, 13:37
People are looking for an intelligent solution with good returns on their time and money. That needs to be proved.

Others need to build the nest for you and then prove that it's nice and comfy?
Nobody needs to prove anything to you. If you want success, stop whining and make it happen, or learn from failure. The chance is there. It's up to you to take it or not.

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on January 03, 2016, 20:26

Quote from: Redneck on January 03, 2016, 18:22
Everybody is entitled to his opinion.
However, waiting until many others have joined and pushed it, and have reported frequent sales is basically the laziest and most cowardly attitude anyone can have toward a new enterprise.
Well, that was my opinion.

You're right, everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. My opinion is that I deeply resent your characterization of those who aren't ready to participate in this venture as having "...the laziest and most cowardly attitude anyone can have toward a new enterprise"

I won't repeat my list of concerns, but so far I've heard only peppy marketing talk and insults to address those concerns.

There's an old expression that you'll catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. If you're trying to draw people to the new endeavor, I don't think this is a good way to go about it.

Sorry, I apologize for my snappy remarks.

Quote from: PhotoBomb on January 03, 2016, 20:15
I didn't and still don't like the new Symbio's look (very amateurish) so I never converted.

Thanks for the good wishes.
Your Symbiostock site looks like you want it to look. You can choose your own theme or you can design a complete new one. Customize it as much as you want. There is no one Symbiostock look.

Quote from: cascoly on January 03, 2016, 19:08
waiting is the only logical choice at this point given robin's refusal to respond  to significant issues raised about the TOS which can destroy an independent's work; his arbitrary decision can kick someone off the symzio service based on undefined criteria; ...

I think you might be a little paranoid. Are you talking about the potential submission fee or the being kicked-out danger?
It has been explained already that the content of Symzio is almost entirely Symbiostock user controlled. Once you're approved as a contributor it's up to you what appears on Symzio because nobody will select your best work and reject the crappy stuff. So being a Symzio contributor comes with great responsibility, to deliver work that's up to the standards and that's not flooding the system with similars.
Of course there need to be some kind of rules to avoid possible misuse of the system. In other words, if you try to cheat the system, you might get kicked out or fined. That's it.
I can't speak for Robin but why in the world should he demand a fee when contributors deliver high quality content?

Keeping the content on Symzio on a high technical and creative level is in everybody's interest.

Everybody is entitled to his opinion.
However, waiting until many others have joined and pushed it, and have reported frequent sales is basically the laziest and most cowardly attitude anyone can have toward a new enterprise.
Well, that was my opinion.

Quote from: Shelma1 on January 02, 2016, 19:09

The trick is getting eyeballs to the sites, and I don't see anything here that's any different than old Symbiostock, other than asking people to do more marketing work while giving you a cut.

Very important facts are different now.
1. Symzio is acting as a central hub agency fed by individual Symbiostock sites. It's a completely different solution than anything we had before. It's not just a search engine that lists images from/to individual sites. It's a complete agency without the pain of traditional agencies (subscriptions, credits, registrations etc).
2. The Symzio widget which any Symbiostocker may use creates highly relevant outgoing text and image links to Symzio which in return will link back to your site from any contributors profile page. Relevancy is the key here.  Example: http://picturebreeze.com/stock/photos/image/baby-dog-christmas-tree/ . Look at the links automatically and dynamically created by the Symzio plugin at the bottom. It doesn't get much more relevant. That's what search engines dig. And you even earn affiliate money if the customer finds one of the Symzio widget images more suitable for his project.

Quote from: marthamarks on January 02, 2016, 18:33
I still have my original Symbiostock (SYS) site, although with a new layout of my own choosing (Elegant Themes' Divi) and Woo Commerce (using Leo's grfx setup): http://bestnaturestock.com/

When Robin came out with "new SYS," I understood I couldn't migrate the text I'd written for each image in "old SYS" and would have to redo it all. With 2,000 images/pages of text, that was a deal-breaker for me then, and it still would be.

So I'll ask now: is that still the case or is it now possible to migrate the descriptive text that accompanies each of my images?

Overall, I'm happy with the look and feel of my site, but as a sole proprietor I don't get any benefit from being part of a group. I could see switching if the text carried over.

And I appreciate  from Redneck and others I got to know in the early-SYS days. It's good to hear you're happy with the new SYS.

Hi Martha,
I d on't have a quick answer for you because I'm not familiar with grfx. I know that titles, captions, keywords, release statuses are included in the migration process from old Sysmbiostock theme to the new plugin.
However I believe your case is a little different since you're asking to migrate from grfx.

Two things I'd suggest.
1. I don't know if grfx is a plugin. If so, you could temporarily disable it and then install the Symbiostock plugin to see if it works the way you want it. You can keep your theme.
2. Head over to the Symbiostock forums if you need help or have questions. In fact head over there anyway because there's every day something to learn and to get tips and help, even individual support by Robin or other Symbiostockers. http://www.symbiostock.org/forums/

Quote from: Shelma1 on January 02, 2016, 15:56

Quote from: Redneck on January 02, 2016, 13:50

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

If you're a stock contributor anyway, and you're able and willing to set up your own Wordpress website, then it's a no-brainer really. It's like doing the work once but creating 2 sales channels, your own site with 100% revenue, and Symzio with at least 80%. And the community network tools of the Symzio system will even push your own website in a way you could never achieve on your own.

Putting together your own website is a huge amount of work, and for most people it simply won't be worth it. It wasn't for me.

We've discussed all issues the old Symbiostock had (mostly in the Facebook group). One issue was that it really was quirky, hard to handle and not easy to maintain.
These problems are gone. The new Symbiostock plugin is based on WooCommerce as selling platform. The new plugin is way easier to set up and to handle, is more performant and a lot more stable.

The second, even more important core issue was, that Leo as developer and driving force couldn't really gain anything from his efforts toward the project and eventually completely dropped the ball. This problem is gone now, too. Robin is not only a very capable developer but he's also entrepreneur enough to invest his time and work into an enterprise designed to make money at a later point.
I certainly don't agree on everything with Robin or Symzio, but at least there's a clear vision and a strong driving force. And it's one of the best stock selling options available. From a technical, sales, and revenue point of view.

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

If you're a stock contributor anyway, and you're able and willing to set up your own Wordpress website, then it's a no-brainer really. It's like doing the work once but creating 2 sales channels, your own site with 100% revenue, and Symzio with at least 80%. And the community network tools of the Symzio system will even push your own website in a way you could never achieve on your own.

Quote from: Dave on December 31, 2015, 23:46
ALL you contributors will be sorry in 12 months time!!!!

I can guarantee you that you're wrong about that. Even if Symzio as central hub agency fails, contributors will still have their own website presenting their best work available for licensing.

I'd love to have an "Alamy Export Plugin" for Lightroom. Or at least FTP Upload so we could use the traditional Lightroom SDK to export from RAW Files directly to an FTP server at Alamy.

Quote from: marthamarks on February 25, 2014, 13:32
I didn't get any kind of newsletter either, just noticed yesterday that the SYS forum was "down for maintenance." It's still down, and if Ron hadn't posted those quotations, I wouldn't have thought anything about it.

Ron, is there a date on those quotations? The name of a sender attached? Did they come from Leo? If so, when? It would help to know that.

We all greatly appreciate Leo's talent and what he's done for our little community. But the near-constant up-down-up-down instability is disconcerting, to say the least.

If you want to give me your email address by PM, I can forward the newsletter to you.

Quote from: Kerioak~Christine on February 25, 2014, 11:13
Ron, you seem to be the only one who saw that message, was that the whole thing?

I received it as well and I have to say I don't like these kind of surprises. Not a good form to communicate wanted changes.

http://picturebreeze.com/stock/photos/how-to-move-your-wordpress-site-to-a-different-webspace-host/

Another sale today. 

$50 sale today.

Quote from: Kerioak~Christine on September 23, 2013, 07:03
Hi and welcome to symbiostock, we now have our own forum where you will probably get more response at symbiostock.net -hope to see you there

Wrong domain. The support forum can be found at http://www.symbiostock.org

In my experience prices and returns generated by Corbis are surprisingly low. 10% of low doesn't sound very promising to me.

Just to put the backup issue into perspective, I've been with my host (all-inkl.com) for over 10 years now, running several websites on shared hosting. I've never lost a website or a single file within this time due to server outages or hosting malfunctions.
Don't get me wrong, backup is important and makes you feel safer. But backup shouldn't be the center of your universe and it shouldn't cost more than hosting your entire website, IMO.

Make sure the free plan offers PHP 5 and a MySQL database.

Not for me. Still getting the 195 error message.

Quote from: cidepix on September 06, 2013, 14:56
I don't think we need a zoom feature..

symbiostock previews are already "largest" in the industry.. there are so many more crucial features that need to be implemented before this luxury..

I mentioned it before.. at these early stages, sales are not that great, and the lack of sales make people look for reasons like: "oh, is it the zoom" or "is it the registration process"

NO, no it's not the zoom and it's not the registration process.. previews are HUGE already and people do buy when they need an image.. and they do register in order to buy an image..

customers don't just go like: "oh, there is no zoom, I am not buying here" or "oh, I have to register, so I will go to another website"   at the end of the day, you pretty much have to register on almost all the sites and that's not a problem when you are getting a service from that site..

you would be TOTALLY right if we had a 400px preview image, but we don't, we have a 590px preview image and zoom is a luxury in my opinion.. at least for the moment it is.. once all the other issues are sorted, we can think of fancy stuff..

I think if you want to reach out to serious or even semiprofessional buyers (and charge accordingly), then you'll need a 100% preview of some kind. Whoever is willing to spend more than peanuts on an image will probably want to make sure not to buy sub standard quality.

I believe the SYXTRA plugin will do just that.