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Messages - bobbigmac

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26
All of the custom pollers are user-contributed. I try and maintain them but very short of time at the mo.
Alamy, stockfresh and canstock work for me, but it sometimes needs you to login to each site and manually refresh the pollers (the refresh button on the left) and can also depend on your language version of their site that you use.
If you know a little about regular expressions (some great tutorials on youtube) though you can build your own for your version of each site. Hit the 'Edit' button for a custom poller to see how they're built and use similar settings for your own pollers for any site you like (I have my own for gmail, for facebook notifications, for monitoring picWorkflow, and tons of other sites) :)

27
Unfortunately I had to port the server from asp.net to php, and wasn't able to carry over the functionality for the keywording panel. Very few people ever used that keywording tool so I'll remove it from the toolbar at some point in the future.

If you need an easy to use keywording tool, I highly recommend Microstockgroup's own tool: http://microstockgroup.com/tools/keyword.php
or of course: http://picWorkflow.com :)

30
PicNiche Toolbar / Re: I looking for PicNiche for Chrome
« on: February 08, 2013, 10:13 »
Afaik there is nothing exactly like the picNiche toolbar for Chrome. I considered building one, but because they don't allow custom toolbars and the popup panels execute in a confined memory-space it's not really practical. I am planning a complete redesign and rebuild for Chrome and Firefox but hard to find the time as I'm too busy with picWorkflow at the moment.

There are several similar tools for Android (search the store for microstock) and I think one for iPhone but the closest thing to the picNiche earnings display for Chrome currently available is Stock Performer's website (they have a Chrome addon to gather the data, then display it on their site).

31
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Image Deactivation Tally for iStockPhoto
« on: February 03, 2013, 19:23 »
+49 deactivated of my small 52 images port (last 3 staying till I reach payout then dropping them too).

Glad to be out of it since iStock screw photographers in so many ways it's hard to believe people have even been submitting there the last couple of years :/ (I stopped c2009)

32
Because of the nature of the system (crowd-sourced with QA being long-tail based), both the time taken to keyword each image (even on average) and the types of keywords used tends to vary based on a few things:
1) The chosen payment level
2) The chosen number of keywords
3) The quality and clarity of the image-content to be keyworded
4) The keyworder's 'style', both in word use, and UI use

Some detailed info here:
http://picworkflow.com/blog/research/how-long-does-image-keywording-take-on-picworkflow/

33
Happy New Year all :D

Recruiting again :)
Looking for people to keyword 400+ images per week.

34
Need 3 more keyworders/captioners again :)

35
PicNiche Toolbar / Re: forgot log-in info
« on: October 26, 2012, 10:53 »
You couldn't email me?

36
Some technical input since I already work in this space... I've toyed with this idea in the past (still loosely am considering something similar for picWorkflow), and everytime I've tried to come up with a way to do it, I run into the following issues:

1) Technically, regularly pulling data from and maintaining changing data, across a wide variety of sites (hundreds at-least to be financially viable) is very VERY difficult. I have a couple of tools which pull complex data from just 13 microstock sites and simple data from 40+, and both are an absolute nightmare to maintain.

2) To perform step 1, costs money, as the OP suggested 'no fees', but then states a small annual fee for upkeep, presumably thinking of server-costs, would leave little-to-no development or marketing budget.

3) Storing images would be essential, as if any source site went down, the image-buyer would still need access to thumbnails, and not-caching those would be a big error because of any inconsistencies in the source data leading to unpresentable search results.

4) The site to be viable would probably work best if it took a cut of every sale (which other similar services have done), but then the participating artists would figure "hey, people are buying my images, why am I paying 20% to this middleman service now I have the customers", thus making the need for it to be an end-to-end, not just a referral service.

5) Maintaining relationships with that many artists and supporting both userbases (artists and buyers), and that many sites, would again be a total nightmare.

6) The issue of who handles payments is tricky, the buyers want a single-point service, but the OP suggests artists handling payments.
From my research 2 things buyers want above all else are:
a) A good search engine, with a useful relevance algorithm so they spend less time searching (hard to do).
b) A fast, simple and transparent payment structure with no hoop-jumping.

My solution:

1) Photoshelter already does a good job of providing a network of sites for selling your work, if you don't like microstock, sell from your own site and spend a few bucks (on Fiverr if you're cheap, on odesk/freelancer if you have a couple of hundred to spare) on content marketing people (pickup some link builders (white-hat only) and content writers/enrichers, and actually add some web-friendly content around your images).

2) Don't like agencies that keep 80% plus of the income? Easy... Don't sell through them. Plenty of people will, but vote with your feet and the agencies will listen if enough people do so.

Not a full-service solution, but just my 2c, gave me an idea for a blog post though too, thanks :)
Bob

37
PicNiche Toolbar / Re: forgot log-in info
« on: October 16, 2012, 22:19 »
Heya Dan

Assuming you mean for picniche.com?
If so, sorry there is no reset mechanism on that site. I can delete your old one though if you'd like to signup with the same address, just email [email protected] from the address you'd like removed.

Cheers :) Bob

38
Sorry didn't see this earlier, seem to no-longer get notification emails for this board. You found the right solution though, thanks :)

39
Hey All

Looking for more keyworders and captioners for picWorkflow again.

Payment is 90% of the cost to the keyword-purchaser, and is usually around 30-50c per image (paid per keyword at a flexible rate).

If you're interested, take a look at:
https://www.picworkflow.com/keywording/
Then drop me an email: [email protected] with links to your portfolio so I can take a look at your keywording prowess :)

Cheers
Bob

40
Is your own keywording an indication of the standards required?


Not even remotely :) My own portfolio hasn't been added to since well before I started picWorkflow, have been too busy :)
A lot of my very early images were lazily keyworded using Yuri's keywording tool, so I know they're really terrible and have a lot of irrelevant (or only loosely related) keywords.

I had most of my portfolio keyword-audited when I cleaned it out and distributed to 6 of the newest agencies, but all my old images on the big-5 agencies are pretty poor quality keywords by comparison. A description of my updated workflow post-picWorkflow can be found here:
http://picworkflow.com/blog/microstock/spring-cleaning-my-microstock-portfolio/

41
General Stock Discussion / Re: future microstock
« on: July 20, 2012, 23:51 »
Thanks Bob, really interesting. One thing, where does the specific 606 top photographers figure come from?
And I would also like to know why Pixmac has a good future.
Thanks again!

The figure is brought out of the data of number of sales vs number of photographers sourced directly from iStock (the earlier videos in the series cover it in a bit more depth).

This was recorded almost a year ago now, at which point Pixmac was roaring for me and they were the only ones around doing all the technical stuff right (SEO/design/convenience etc). Since then a couple of the established agencies have upped their game on that side of things, and with Deposit Photos arrival they've also dug in too. Whilst I'm still optimistic about Pixmac (my referral earnings there are still solid for both photographers and buyers) due to their good traffic figures, I'm not as blown away as I was with their performance a year ago :)

42
The last time this came up on here (a week or two back) I asked why some/most/all? the agencies strip out our copyright line from the EXIF data: thus rendering them orphan works as soon as they're out there on a legal buyer's website, without any thief even having to know how to do it.
No answer was the loud reply.


I discuss that quite in-depth here: http://picworkflow.com/blog/research/do-microstock-agencies-violate-photographers-dmca-copyright

43
General Stock Discussion / Re: future microstock
« on: July 14, 2012, 13:50 »
I cover quite a lot about the future of microstock in this talk/presentation I gave for StockInRussia last year:
Future of Microstock (Part 4) - Understanding Mature Microstock Stock Photo Industry - picWorkflow

@Leaf not sure if that counts as a promotional link, please feel free to remove if it's too much :)
Bob

44
Very interesting thread. Would love to hear more about people's workflow :)

I use Lightroom for the initial selection process, then upload to picWorkflow (I own that site btw).
I don't usually post links to the site in here but in this case I think it's relevant because I recently wrote a pretty detailed blog post on how I select and organise my images as part of a portfolio spring-cleaning, I think it may be useful to you.

45
Recruiting more captioners at the moment as we're growing a backlog of captioning tasks.

Rather a high quality bar so you must be experienced and speak fluent english.
If you'd like to caption images and have images you've captioned as an example please drop link(s) to me at [email protected]

46
I understand that all images shot on a phone will only be accepted under our Exclusive Content Supply Agreement.
I understand that all images are submitted non-exclusively except images shot on a phone.


I'm in favour of this model (actually discussed it at the last couple of conferences as I was considering setting up a mobile-focussed market myself).

The agreement indicates quite clearly where their priorities lie, and that's in creating a collection of content-focussed images without too much regard to 'perfect' technical detail. Especially with the rising fashion for 'instagram' effect photos regardless of their complete lack of artistic value in the eyes of 'real' photographers, there's a rock-solid market here which (potentially at least) can open up a new market for imagery without (for once) cutting into the existing market.

It of course remains to be seen whether there's 'real' revenue there but I'm (cautiously) optimistic, I just wish they had a referral programme so I could write them some mobile apps and nab an extra slice of the cake from the other side ;)

47
Not sure what their requirements are, or much about them really, but I noticed that new site PocketStock accepts and (claims to) sell mobile-sourced images, though when I signed up to try them out I noticed they require exclusivity for mobile images.
http://www.mystockphoto.org/introducing-pocketstock-open-letter/
http://www.pocketstock.com/

48
Photoshop Tutorials / Re: Picworkflow lightroom plug in
« on: April 27, 2012, 08:53 »
For anyone not familiar with it, info is here: http://www.picworkflow.com/lightroom/ :)

49
Microstock News / Re: stockfreeimages.com
« on: March 15, 2012, 23:48 »
If I can get free gas at one gas station why would I go somewhere else to pay for it?

I hope this fails miserably and should be a lesson to anyone who gets warm fuzzys from offering some of their images for free.

Because most of the microstock agency's free image offerings are akin to red-diesel (agricultural grade), yes it'll 'do the job', but it's not going to be good for your engine :)

I'm in favour of agencies making free-images offerings, and here's why:

1) Most agency-hosted free images are really crap. There are exceptions of course, but for the most part they are sub-standard when compared to the bulk of the paid collection, particularly in the major demand topics.
2) The upsell from free-to-paid has worked for me, I've been referring free-photo users to dreamstime (and other agencies) for about 2 years now, and they do convert quite nicely into paying buyers. My referral income makes a lot more (especially from dreamstime) on upsold buyers than from contributors (even though I have referred many more contributors).
3) At microstock-expo when I asked his panel about this, Oleg Tscheltzoff said "People who like free, don't want to pay"... which is fair enough, maybe they don't 'want' to pay, but those who are most successful eventually realise they will get more if they do, and fortunately microstock has a very VERY low 'barrier' price.
4) I have a couple of tools to help buyers search for free images, with a focus on the upsell, and I quite often get sent questions like "I like this image *link*" but it's not quite *reason*... where can I find a better version". I then refer those people to a lightbox or search results page of similar images.
5) The main competition to many microstock agencies is creative commons (mainly flickr/google) and wiki-commons. Bloggers want images, and the sheer number of blogs out there is unimaginable, I'd rather the people who 'like free' are getting them from somewhere where there is at-least a chance of them turning in to paying buyers.

I think a free offering is smart, and whilst stockfreeimages.com in particular could use a stronger focus on the upsell, it's neat, easy and quick use, and has potential to reach a lot of people.
If they just add an api I can get on upselling through them too :)

50
Recruiting again if anyone is looking for work keywording images :)

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