Thanks.  We're on it.

Hi guys,

Our apologies - the team is aware and focused on fixing the issue.   Thanks for your patience while we sort this out.

Best,

Scott
Product Manager
Bigstock

Hi Steve,

Thanks....I'll ask the team to look at the wording for these.  We have an extensive list of trademarked terms and it's possible that some are marked with "too broad" an explanation for why they might be an issue.  I'll see if the team can tweak the wording on some or all items so it's less confusing.

Thanks,

Scott
Product Manager
Bigstock

Hello,

I did a little more research on this, and it appears that the issue was our "Problem Keyword Alerts" and not an image rejection.   We provide feedback to users when they've entered a keyword that we suspect will be problematic.

In this case, the keyword alert uses language that's not specific enough. 

We're going to modify the language to:

Apple - Not allowed if isolated or artwork of Apple Inc. designed products. Apple Inc products are unacceptable for commercial use. Re-classify as editorial if newsworthy. Images of fruit (real apples) are acceptable.

As always - please flag these issues for Support, since they'll be able to track down the problem (and answer) quicker than the forums will.

Thanks!

Scott
Product Manager
Bigstock

Hi guys,

Most of the "10 great photos of...." posts do go in our newsletter to a large pool of buyers as a either a main article, or featured sidebar.  We have a separate newsletter for contributors, and these posts are sometimes shared in the sidebar there as well.  

For example:
http://www.bigstockphoto.com/newsletters/downloaders/2010/07/18-amazing-travel-images/
http://www.bigstockphoto.com/newsletters/downloaders/2010/08/illustrator-vector-face-tutorial/

The primary reason that we don't contact each featured contributor is because we feature hundreds of contributors and photos through different vehicles (newsletters, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, our homepage, our featured collections, trade show presentations, etc...) and it's often not practical to contact everyone (although your point is well taken and we'll look at if something can be done in the long-term).  Contributors will also work with us to create tutorials.  

If you're not already doing so, you should keep an eye on both blogs, The Upload and The Download.  

Best,

Scott
Bigstock

Hello,

We've got a number of tips on our blog, The Upload.  I was going to make some additional suggestions in this thread, but if you can give me a day or two, we'll try to put together a blog post that services everyone with that information.

These are pretty general, but here are some blog posts on this topic.  What we would create as a new blog post would likely summarize the tips in a more specific fashion.

How to keep image sales high:
http://www.bigstockphoto.com/blog/theupload/2010/05/stock-image-sales-tips/

7 essential keywording tips:
http://www.bigstockphoto.com/blog/theupload/2010/07/keyword-tips/

What's the best time to upload images?
http://www.bigstockphoto.com/blog/theupload/2010/05/when%E2%80%99s-the-best-time-to-upload-images/

5 ways to make your images more salable:
http://www.bigstockphoto.com/blog/theupload/2010/07/5-ways-to-make-your-images-more-salable/

Some basic tips:

• Keywording and metatata.  We generally recommend 25-40 (or more) **accurate** keywords per photo, since keywords drive search results.  Titles should be descriptive of the photo, but "Black Dog Barking at Burglar" is better than "Dog" for search.
  
• Our top contributors keep a large and diverse portfolio.  The larger and more diverse your portfolio is, the more successful it will likely be.
• Make sure that your images reflect needed and topical themes, but they need to be creative.  If you're trying to compete in the category of saturated topics, such as a "business handshake" - the image really needs to be one of the best of its type to be successful.  Think beyond the usual and stay aware of seasonal and topical trends. For example, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico could cause a spike in the use of environmental- and oil-related images.

We give buyers a large number of ways to get to images (recent, popular, etc...) and we also feature images in topical blog posts and newsletters.  We've got pretty robust marketing efforts underway, but you can also market your own images through social media.  

I'll look to create another blog post with this type of info, but there's some info there to get you going.

Some of these concepts are also covered in Ellen Boughn's new book, Microstock Money Shots:
http://www.bigstockphoto.com/blog/theupload/2010/09/book-about-stock-photography/

Best,

Scott
Product Manager
Bigstock

Hi guys,

If you experience any issues with the site, please reach out to Support.  We have an active customer service team that's very good about responding to questions and making sure that issues get fixed.

The site is functioning fine and if any bugs are reported to us, we generally fix them as soon as soon as we find out about them (new feature requests may take longer, since we're coding something new from the ground up that needs to be created, tested and deployed).  For example, users requested the ability to read metadata from JPEGs uploaded with an EPS file and we put that in relatively quickly.  

We made some adjustments to view numbers a month or two ago because certain non-human activity was getting recorded in views (such as automated bots).  We want to make sure you're seeing actual users who view your images.

**edit** -- Also - to be clear - our "views" are only "image detail page views."  Customers who view your image thumbnails or medium-sized previews in a search result will not be recorded as "views." 

That said, if you're seeing a low number of "detail page" views, we find that it can be for a few reasons:

-- Keywording.  We generally recommend 25-40 or more **accurate** keywords per photo, since keywords drive search results.
-- Size and diversity of your portfolio.
-- Holidays / seasonality / weekends.  Obviously, activity can dip during these periods and we just had Labor Day weekend in the U.S.
-- Topical nature of content.  Certain topics are more popular at different times of the year - for example, some of our "Back to School" images are getting a good amount of activity now because bloggers, students and educators are illustrating the concept of the new school year.

We do put recommendations for success in our blog and our newsletters for contributors:
http://www.bigstockphoto.com/blog/theupload/

For example: Words to Sell By: Seven Essential Keywording Tips
http://www.bigstockphoto.com/blog/theupload/2010/07/keyword-tips/

As always, feel free to reach out to Support if you see something amiss.  We have some very nice folks staffing Support and when issues come in, those issues are pitched over to our development team immediately for resolution.  We have internal email distribution lists so that the team gets visibility into what's going on when issues come in.  

http://www.bigstockphoto.com/contactus.html

We don't continually monitor forums for support requests, though I'll pop in here on occasion.  It's much more effective to contact the team directly.

Best Regards,

Scott
Product Manager
Bigstock

Hi Warren,

When I refer to social media, I'm primarily talking about professional and personal networking outlets such as Facebook and Twitter.   We actually reach out to images customers via all of the different marketing outlets: graphic design magazines, mail, newsletters, online banners, trade shows, etc...   

I wouldn't say that image buyers focus on Facebook and Twitter as a source of free images for stock use...I think you'd be more likely to see that at Flickr, since it's a photo site.   It would be more accurate to say that image buyers and contributors often want to get updates on Bigstock news, and Facebook and Twitter allow them to subscribe to news updates by way of becoming our "friend" or by "following" our news feed. 

We consider it just one method of communicating back-and-forth and having a relationship with people who are interested in our service. 

Shutterstock and Bigstock are sibling companies, so we do share some marketing resources.  For example, if we go to a trade show - we'll travel together and we'll help each other, but we do have different booths, different sites, different image collections, and different handouts.  Both Shutterstock and Bigstock have extensive experience and share the best of that experience, but they are two different services. 

We start and end each day with a large team committed to the success our members and we want people to know how many great images are in the collection.

Best,

Scott



 

Hello all,

Pixart -- if I understand your concerns correctly -- Bigstock aggressively pursues copyright infringements and these images are presented and saved at a lower quality setting than either what we would accept or deliver via a download.  This type of post also provides direct access to a proper path to licensing and the images are shown with a copyright / credit.  However, your feedback is appreciated and taken seriously.

Featuring images benefits contributors, since featured images tend to receive more downloads than if those images were not featured.

The purpose in posting here is to provide contributors with some added awareness of the great work being done.  We have print and online campaigns, newsletters, social media outlets, trade shows, etc..., for introducing the collection to buyers, but would like to share the great work in the collection with contributors as well.  We're always inspired by these great images and we're sure others are, too. 

Best,

Scott

Thanks.   

As mentioned, we're looking at this internally right now...and the Adobe Bridge scenario has been among our discussions. I'm not in a position to give an exact release date for an update yet, but we'll see what we can do and I'll post more information as I have it.

Again - any details you guys can add are always helpful for us.  It's often the case that users will describe their needs as solutions (we need a field for "X") but our goal is to also understand the issues, why they're issues, etc..., and get as much information about your workflow as possible.   The goal is ultimately to shorten the amount of time and the overhead of contributing. 

Best,

Scott
Bigstock

Hi guys,

Thanks for the info.  It will be very helpful for us if you find a bug - please submit a quick email to our support team with a short description (or however long you'd like) of what happened and what browser and browser version you have.  There may be times in which a bug is related to a specific browser, specific images, a specific software version or a specific series of actions that didn't show itself during our testing.   

Some issues are quick fixes as long as we have that information, so your feedback is very helpful in getting directly to the core of the issue and implementing a solution.   

Thank you!

Best,

Scott
Bigstock   

Hello,

Larry - if you're having technical problems, have you reached out to Support directly?  Any problems that they find out about are immediately forwarded to our technical team and developers for a resolution.  We always encourage people to pursue technical issues through Support, since that keeps us informed and starts the process of creating any necessary fixes.   There may also be some known alternative options.

http://www.bigstockphoto.com/contactus.html

pling - That one question is answered in our FAQ.  

https://www.bigstockphoto.com/account/tax-center/tax-center-faq.html

Are taxes withheld at the time that the money was earned, or at the time of payout?
Taxes are deducted from your earnings at the time of payout.

As always, we don't regularly monitor these forums - please contact Support with any questions and they'll be happy to help you. That's always the fastest path for a resolution.  We also have a "feedback@" email address for wishes, rants, or general feedback about features (insert bigstock.com to the end of that).   We do read those emails and take all of your feedback under consideration.  Of course, feedback@ isn't the place to send support requests when something's broken.  It's the email address to use when you're keywording photos and something is making you less efficient and you want to let us know.  

Thanks for your continued support.  Everyone has seen the exciting updates we've made in the past few months and there are many more things to come.

Best,

Scott
Product Manager
Bigstock

Hello,

We'll be announcing the tax center and the new reporting features later today in a blog post and newsletter.  New features are often released prior to the announcement to make sure there are no site issues introduced with the release.  We are, however, approving tax profiles and forms already.

You'll find a Tax Center FAQ in your "Commissions" area, as well as a contact form for the Bigstock Support team if you have any questions.  Unfortunately, we do not monitor this forum for support requests. For that reason, we encourage everyone to contact our support team when they have questions.  The form in the tax center itself goes to specific recipients, so it's best to use that form for questions related to the tax center itself.   

We realize that tax-related responsibilities are never fun, but we've provided some new charts and tools with the release and hope that you find them useful.  We've also endeavored to make the process fairly straightforward.

Thanks and Regards,

Scott
Product Manager
Bigstock