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Messages - mantonino

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1
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/12818-democratic-national-convention-honors-us-vets-with-russian-warships

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-58244947/stock-photo-row-of-military-ships-against-marine-sunset.html

I looked for a thread about this but couldn't find it - apparently the DNC used a Shutterstock image of Russian warships behind their veterans. 

NICE!  Oops! lol

2
I have 200 photographers on my list on facebook, how many do you have?
I have 2000 pictures in play.

I have a "photographers" list on Facebook with over 2300 friends in it.  I have at least 2 groups with over 2000 members each.  And I have 4500 stock images "in play." 

And I'm telling you ahead of time - it can't be done without a USP.

3
I reviewed the first copy of the book and while I haven't seen the second, I can say this is definitely a good book for those who may be looking.

4
I'm ignored by 3 people. lol  That's funny since I try to be nice, informative and generally I don't give a rat's behind about the 'politics' of microstock so I get to stay out of most of it.  I wonder what I wrote! 

(It's probably 3 istock exclusives who are upset that I call myself iSuck@istock.) 

5
General Stock Discussion / Re: Microstock Theme Song
« on: April 04, 2012, 19:47 »
HAHAHAHA I'm dying of laughter here - thank you.  I just created this in like ... 15 minutes.
----------------------

To the tune of
Party Rock Anthem
by LMFAO, this is

Microstock Rock Anthem

MICROSTOCK!!  Yeah!! 

Microstockin' in the house tonight!
Everybody just give up your time
And it'll make you lose your mind
You won't even make a freakin dime ...

Microstockin' in the house tonight!
Everybody just give up your time
And it'll make you lose your mind
You won't even make a  ... cent here!

At the pc and on the clock, getting it done in microstock
Nonstop we're removing spots, booty getting fat, on chairs we rot,
Need a drink, I gots to know - tight crops, tattoos? Yeah they've got to go!
No black, no white, they do their own, want that money? Go upload.

Yo I'm running these pics through Lightroom,
I got a fab workflow, I'll be outta here soon,
We microstock! Yeah that's the crew that I'm reppin,
Removing zits, using Photoshop as a weapon

Microstockin' in the house tonight!
Everybody just give up your time
And it'll make you lose your mind
You won't even make a freakin dime ...

Microstockin' in the house tonight!
Everybody just give up your time
And it'll make you lose your mind
You won't even make a freakin dime ...

Everyday I'm uploadin ...
Uploadin, uploadin...

Step up fast and be the first agency to make us cash,
Give us money, don't be mad now, stop, stealin's bad.

One more batch for us, another round,
Please don't knock it back, don't mess around
We just wanna see them sellin' now,
Now you wanna be ... you're buyin now

Sales up, sales down, put images all around
Sales up, sales down, put images all around
Sales up, sales down, put images all around.
Get those sales up, get those sales up...

Microstockin' in the house tonight!
(get those sales up)
Everybody just give up your time
(get those sales up)
And it'll make you lose your mind
(get those sales up)
You won't even make a freakin dime ...

6
Possible but extremely improbable - any retailer that doesn't select the right stock is not going to be very successful

Alamy accepts 99% of everything I've ever subbed and they are in my top 3 best sellers over the last year.  Maybe #2.  WAY ahead of DT.  Long tail stuff does sell.  I have $150 sales on Alamy that were rejected on DT for lighting.  Really? lol  Some buyer thought it was worth $150 but no buyer would find it useful at a buck?

M

7
I didn't vote out of sour grapes - I have almost 4000 images at every agency except istock.  I have about a 90-95% review rate on every site, including DT.  My vote and comment was based on the fact that I get more images rejected at DT that Fotolia, SS and iStock take than anything else.  I know some people get rejects at Fotolia but I do about 99% with them.  Same with SS.  I am able to produce images and I know what's going to get rejected and sometimes do push my limits with agencies.  Dreamstime, however, doesn't get all of my photos anymore.  I know what they won't accept so I have a high enough accept rate still but it's because I keep a lot of shots away from them.  

Crestock and Panther would be lower on the list than Dreamstime for me but their terrible reviews made me give up on them long ago plus they're small potatoes so honestly who cares?  I don't care if 123RF rejects a few of my images.  For the payments I get, it's not worth caring.

The fact that my Dreamstime sales took a major dive almost the same time they decided to crush similars means to me that it's hurting my business.  I don't like that - and that's not sour grapes, that's business.

8
Oh come on - it's DT and it's not close. lol

9
New Sites - General / Re: Superhug sells stock images
« on: March 21, 2012, 17:04 »
Ok - thank you all for saving my time. :)

10
New Sites - General / Re: Superhug sells stock images
« on: March 20, 2012, 00:05 »
Is this site something anyone contributes to really?  A few sales? 

11
I have again problem with Fotolia, suddenly doesn't work any more!
Also there is only 1 image uploaded on 123rf from batch of 6 photos...

Same issues.  1 of 19 to 123RF, no Fotolia.  :(  I'll be doing both manually today.  I just want this program to WORK!  UGH.

12
What sites accept editorial:

http://microstockinsider.com/agencies_that_accept_editorial_images

Also, Demotix, Alamy ... maybe more?

13
Linking it to news isn't very difficult for really any topic.  My friend does photos at MLB parks.  He writes "such & such is the home of MLB's ...whoever" and it always gets accepted at SS.

14
I have to say - Lightburner basically solves this. 

I upload everything I can to Lightburner and distribute from there.  Where do I finish pics on?  Definitely SS first.  I go by their reviews.  But Lightburner rocks.

15
Actually, I've decided you're right, Wut.  You should only upload 1-2 of your best from each series. 

(However, I'm going to upload what I want when I want...)

16
Funnily, I mentioned sales at SS as an example. So what you're saying you're selling roughly the same number of all similars or that the difference is just not big (for instance the best of 6 similar photo sells 10 times/month, the rest sell 8 times or so)?

What I'm saying is if you sell 8 of one image on Dreamstime and then you sell 3 of another, that hurts your income.
On Shutterstock if you sell 8 of one image and 3 of all the rest put together, it's the same as 11 of the one image, assuming all 25-a-day.  It doesn't hurt your sales on SS as long as you still get 11 sales.  But if you put up more than a few, maybe you'll get 15 or 20 sales from that same batch.  If you only uploaded the best 1 or 2, you'd have 10 or 11 sales.  I did a series of posts a number of years ago on long tail sales and I know most of the income in this industry doesn't come from your top 10% of images - it comes from the other 90%.

17
You're on one side. Yuri's on the other.  He uploads batches of similars.

I dunno, I think his sales say "get less at the end" doesn't pan out. 

Maybe it's not applicable to us because we don't produce as much as he does but you can find evidence on both sides. Similars on SS makes tons of sense. Not so much on DT or IS.

18
General Stock Discussion / Re: Pinterest finding a loophole ?
« on: March 14, 2012, 05:33 »
i haven't tried yet but it will just give you a message, if you link the image directly there's no way Pinterest can know
if a web site allows pinning or not.

Yes, there are ways around it - but then someone is going out of their way to steal your image.  Probably better for you if you ended up suing anyone.

19
Of course I waited a few hours before I posted on here.  The minute I do...

A few have started to upload.  Perhaps I was being too anxious.  Only my first ftp to LB so I wanted to get it right.  :) 

Sorry for the hassles all - apparently I am doing it right...I'm just an impatient jerk. lol

(At least 2 sites have gone through now... Colourbox and DepositPhotos.)

20
General Stock Discussion / Re: Pinterest finding a loophole ?
« on: March 13, 2012, 21:34 »
If you don't want your stuff pinned on a site you control:

Code: [Select]
<meta name="pinterest" content="nopin" />
If you don't want it pinned from other sites, better start the petitions now.

21
Thanks Steve!

I read the chapter - still not sure I'm doing anything "wrong." 

I did configure the channels. When I uploaded through Prostockmaster, all the stats changed almost immediately.  My first 40 went through fine.  However, when I did the ftp upload through filezilla sftp, it just ... it hasn't changed all day. 

Photo 1 - no stats yet. No distribution.
Photo 2 - it SAYS it's going to all channels.
Photo 3 - channels are all green and should be working.







22
I can't figure Lightburner out but I really want to.

1) First time I uploaded through Prostockmaster after keywording.  It failed the upload so some images were sent, others weren't.  This is obviously a big problem if you don't know which image failed because if you resend the whole batch, you get duplicates straight to your agencies.  So I removed the images one at a time, put them all back to upload and it worked - every image went.  No idea what caused the glitch "file was invalid" or something.

2) I decided to bite the bullet and upload directly after it failed another batch.  So I tried to put the info into cuteftp to do sftp and no way no how would it work.  I downloaded filezilla ONLY for lightburner and it works.  

3) Now, my images are all uploaded properly to Lightburner and they say they're assigned ... but nothing has sent to an agency and it's been like 4 hours.  

What on Earth am I doing wrong?!

(I have sent a message to support. I thought someone may be able to help me faster.)

23
Anyone who hasn't read it already should go pick up Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat. 

You have NO competitive advantage. Anything you can do today, we can all replicate tomorrow.  This is the problem with vivostock that they never saw coming.  The world is flat - I can compete with istock - successfully or not - out of my basement.

Good book - suggested reading for this topic.

24
@mantonino
how is this related to astroturfing?  :D

Because people would use XGenSEO to create new accounts that automatically voted competitors down.  I could setup XGen to do that in about an hour and have everyone on the top 5 pages of my top 10 keywords pushed so far down they'd never be seen again.

Or as someone said "watch it get abused by hackers, black-hat 'seo experts' and the rest... you'll wish it was never thought of."

Imagine this was implemented on Shutterstock.  Are you telling me if your income depended on it you wouldn't upload a series of say cheerleaders over white and then go vote down all the cheerleaders over white?  Be serious.  EVERYONE else would, even if you convince yourself you wouldn't.

25
 ::)

 ???

And we think astroturfing is a problem NOW?

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