Linda - Your post here says if you put up a banner in December, you are entered. In the email I got, it said "if you add an affiliate link and banner today". I have two questions. Okay, guys, don't laugh too hard. Sometimes, I need to have a picture drawn for me. LOL!

• Am I going to be disqualified because my banner went up on November 30, not in December?
• Do I need an "affiliate link" (i.e., a text link) and a banner, or does the banner suffice? The email said "and".

Thanks!

Hi!

You'll get it if you put it up in December - or today! We add every link, username and e-mail to the list, making sure everyone get a change to win the iPad. The bonus should be on your account by the end of tomorrow.

A banner with a link is what we're looking for, the one you sent me was perfect!

Cheers,

Linda

Happy to help!

Linda 

Be careful using the search box though. It has no affiliate reference.

We've fixed this, the new code is:
YAY! Search Stock Photos & Illustrations:


<script type="text/javascript">
   function clearField(thefield) {
       if (thefield.defaultValue==thefield.value)
       thefield.value = ""
   } </script>

<form action="http://yaymicro.com/search.action" method="get">
  <input id="searchbox" name="search.search"
  value="" onfocus="clearField(this)" class="txt"
  type="text" size="40" /><input type="hidden" name="referredBy" value="YOUR_USERNAME"><input type="hidden" name="search.first"
  value="true" />   <input type="image" name="radio"
  src="http://yaymicro.com/images/b_search.gif" id="searchbutton"
  alt="Search" height="20" style="vertical-align:top;" /></form>

As you can see you have to replace YOUR_USERNAME with your actual username.

Linda

I don't know, maybe I'm missing something. I would never have known about this new program had I not come here looking for something else. It seems a little silly to have to go to another site just to find out information about YayMicro. I still liked it better when the forum was where it belonged - on YayMicro. Maybe an alternative to not putting this information on YayMicro would be to at least send email to the contributors so they would know what is going on. For some reason, I'm not getting the notices from this site anymore, either. Not sure why.

I'm not sure if I understood you correctly in a previous post, Linda. Do referrals that we had before this program started count for anything, or do we just lose any benefit from them?

Thanks.

Hi LivingLife!

The program is still in Beta, and we're working on some design changes making it easier to understand how the affiliate process works. In addition, we're still discovering faults and prefer to fix as many as them as possible before going for a full launch of the program. When we do we'll make sure to e-mail all contributors, post about it at the front page etc. You'll also find a link and more information under your account (later, not now.)

The referrals you already have will join the new program, no worries!

Linda

A new holiday this week - approval will be delayed, but should be back to normal within next week. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Cheers, Linda

Update:
After request we've made a few changes:
Cookies will track your referral for up to 30 days. This to ensure that you actually get the referral credit for the people you refer. We have also changed the referral-input box. It won't show when you are referred, but it will be visible if you're not entering the site via a referred link. This to make sure that people don't remove referrals, and to make it easier to refer people without using links. (Now all they need from you is your username - they will still get a 20% discount.)

And to be clear: Beta is beacuse we'll improve the program when we get feedback. The commission and terms will be the same after the beta-period.

Cheers, Linda

I thought they already got referral program in place. Do I have to change anything in my referral banners to be in new one?

You don't have to change anything, and the members already referred will continue in this new program. As for contributor referral - it's the same as before: �0.1 for each image downloaded/bought by a customer. You'll find answer to many questions under the Q&A.

FD: We think the people bringing in customers should get the same terms as the photographers bringing in the product. You get photo commission forever, and the same will be for our affiliates. And trust me, we're not going anywhere soon!

We're adding a couple of new requested features tomorrow, we'll get back to you with details.

Cheers,

Linda

We've been contacted buy a potential client, and he claims they can buy EL at iStock for less than a dollar, -if they maximize the subscription plan they have.

I find it hard to believe that iStock would sell their EL for so little money, and unable to find any information to support this claim I'm wondering: Do any of you know the price for EL when you buy them in bulk/subscribe, for use on a print-on-demand site? All I can find is that EL don't grant you the right to use images on print-on-demand sites, making this even more odd. I do suspect the client is using the wrong license from iStock.

There is no way we'll reduce our EL price to a dollar, but it would be interesting to know how low other agencies are willing to go on these licenses.

Do you have any experience with price and commission on EL?

Thanks,

Linda  (from yaymicro.com)

(Yes, we're a competitor to iStock, but I hope this don't exclude us from discussing prices & licenses. If you feel we shouldn't discuss this here, we'll refrain from it in the future).

Hi there!

We've just written a blog post about image rejections. You can read the blog post here: http://blog.yaymicro.com/2010/08/27/help-i-got-an-image-rejected/

We're always looking for ways of improvement, so if any of you have feedback to our team of approvers we'd really appreciate it! I'll make sure their supervisor reads this thread, as well as any e-mails you might send about the review process.

We've also made smaller updates to our list of rejection/explanations, you'll find it here:
http://yaymicro.com/view.action?page=rejections

Cheers,

Linda 

I don't get why anybody should close a forum for spambots (if that's the real reason, of course). There are some good captchas around and if forum access would be limited to contributors with at least 5 images or buyers with at least 1 purchase, there would be no spambots at all. Surrendering to an independent forum where YAY has no control over (and where YAYosceptics can post too) might not be a very good business decision.

Hi!

We've decided to close the forum while we decide what to do (as you can read more about at the top of this thread). After 2-3 years there wasn't much activity, although we had a group of loyal, friendly photographers discussing and encouraging each other. Hopefully they'll continue their discussions here, in our blog etc. We'll try out this option for some weeks, and then decide if we'll fix the forum, or continue without.

Personally, I don't see any problem with an independent forum. The same people could post the same stuff at our forum as at MSG, as we don't sensor our contributors.  Of course, there might be a bit more skeptics here at MSG than at our internal forum, but we don't mind. Criticism is valuable and appreciated! (Ref. your post about our search (http://www.microstockgroup.com/yaymicro/introducing-myself
), where we'll hopefully discover a design or technical bug. Fixing this will improve the overall quality of our site).

Cheers, Linda

Welcome to the Lion's den Linda. 

Haha, thanks - wish me luck 

Linda

Hi Ivan!

In general we�ll see a rise in sales in September, - July and August are the slowest months of the year in almost all businesses. December is also known for lower sales than the other months. More specific for YAY, we do see a high growth in sales in 2010 � already more than doubled from 2009. We have several campaigns toward customers the coming fall, as well as the launch of a new and lucrative affiliate program. We�re also working on an API.

For those of you who are part of our third party deal there will also be a rise in sales this fall or winter, as a new partner has entered the program. I�m not sure about the dates and specifics, that�s Jan�s main responsibility. He�ll send out information as soon as it�s ready. If you�re not a part of it you can read more about joining in here:
http://yaymicro.com/view.action?page=third_party_sales_program

The growth in YAY has been slow, but steady � hopefully we�ll speed it up a bit this fall!

Linda