Here's another Symbiostock network promotion article I put together this morning, with a focus on sources of food photography -

http://dpstockphotos.com/pictures-of-food-3-tasty-websites/

I encourage more people to start writing quick posts like this. It took me no more than 20 minutes to put together. Start by promoting your work, then mix in the work of a few network friends, and create a post that might be helpful to designers/bloggers looking for affordable photos in a category. And once you've written it, make sure you post it to a few social networks to get it some attention.

Other topics can include hot-button topics such as the way X agency treats its contributors...and by the way here are 5 artist direct download sites so you can support your fellow artists rather than X agency. Whatever encourages you to write, go for it.

As always my door is open if anyone has questions on writing promo pieces like this. Just shoot me a PM or post a reply here.

If I am not mistaken, I believe it arrived at the time of the Image Rank and Rating implementation (2.4.8 or 2.4.9?). I think the randomness is a good idea if it can be made to work once per query. But if not, just kill it. I agree it is confusing for buyers.

Been there a few months, and yes I have experienced numerous outages.

Where can I download awesome baseball images? Well, this article will tell you -

http://dpstockphotos.com/baseball-images/

It must be a DT misprint. You can only find those images at iStockphoto.

As a seller who experienced both ways, I do not see any difference in customer behavior to be honest.. similar number of visits results in similar number of sales.. registration or not..

That hasn't been my experience. At Warmpicture, we had an abandoned cart rate of about 65% when we first started. I made some design changes to the checkout screen to keep people from being "distracted" by other stuff, and the abandoned cart rate dropped to around 50% which is below industry average.

However the abandoned cart rate with my Symbiostock site is 100%. The only big difference between the two sites is Symbiostock interrupts the sales process, forces the user to register, then they have to wait for an email, then they have to come back to the site, and then *hopefully they are still willing to make a purchase. I'm an impatient person, so I can tell you that I probably would abandon the process completely and go buy an image elsewhere. And then the other Symbiostock sites all require their own registrations...geesh. Why would I support this network as a consumer?

Leo's work is phenomenal. I'm fully in support of his efforts. But I feel the forced registration is a big limiting issue. We aren't signing up long term buyers through Google Images. We are selling one-off. I just think we are asking for too much commitment just to make a single image purchase. Make it optional, and let's compare results.

Do a right click on the "Download" button to get the URL. Search for that URL within Google Analytics by looking at page traffic, but ignore all instances where the Download page is the Landing page. In the latter case, you are almost surely looking at bots.

Sad to say it, but I think this is right.  D-Day was a great idea, but didn't turn out to accomplish anything. 

I need to respectfully disagree with you here, Lisa. You are correct that we probably can't do anything to change the ways of the agencies which treat us poorly. But you accomplish 100% of what you wish to accomplish when you take your business elsewhere. I deleted my images Fotolia a few years ago after the repeated "goal post movements" and their aggressive threats on independent forums to punish anyone who questioned them.

The result? I gave up my income with Fotolia immediately, but also gave up all the headaches which came with working with them. I have never once regretted it. Nor would I consider uploading there unless there was a complete sale of the company which brought in 100% new leadership. I don't trust them. I eventually replaced my Fotolia income by finding other outlets within stock, and other ventures which have nothing to do with photography.

The worst thing we can continue to do is to accept poor treatment. How do we feel about ourselves as people, when we allow others to treat us this way? This has nothing to do with the agency, and everything to do with us.

Changing the subject back to the original topic....

Does anyone know people in the National Association of Photoshop Professionals - the producer of that glossy magazine Photoshop User? They often use stock photos in their various articles and tutorials (from Fotolia and iStock normally). If we could both get them interested in using Symbiostock for their example files (give them for free) and do an article about us - that would give a lot of visibility to the design community.

I'll volunteer to write the article (and I could just send it to the editor (Scott Kelby), I guess...)

Steve

That's a great idea Steve. Scott and I took a class together from Lou Manna several years ago. I doubt he'd remember me, but we were the only Tampa Bay Bucs fans there.

Look at all of the people giving their work away as Creative Commons. Tell them, "hey not only will we let you give your work away, we'll even pay you 10 or 15 cents for ever download!" And I guarantee there will be a ton of people who think it is a great deal. Ever lower commissions for higher standards, just for the privilege of possibly having one of your images used in an advertisement someday. How exciting! 

That's where I think microstock is headed, and why I've decided I really want no part of it except for a few companies (and those few companies will probably jump the shark eventually too).

I'm putting the Over/Under on 18 months before Shutterstock implements a Bigstock inspired commission structure, and most of us go back to 25-29 cents per sub sale. Why not? We already accept it at Bigstock, Canstock, and 123RF. It's inevitable, and it will be a great way to show investors how they raised margins substantially year over year.

I think JM has hit the nail on the head Tom. Different sites outperforms others for different people's ports. This is probably due to the difference in customer base of the agencies as well as their specific selection of your images

Absolutely true. Spend enough time on this board and you will meet many people who do great or horrible at DT. I feel it comes down to the customer base they serve, and how your images fit in with them. The same can be said for FT and even IS.

I used to do so well at DT that I almost chose them for exclusivity over IS. They seem to inspire a lot of emotion from microstockers due to the 6 month lock, and the similar images policy. It seems we either love them or hate them. I consider them one of the only agencies I still enjoy working with. DT and Alamy are the only two which give me a combination of fair commission structure plus performance.

I wonder at what point a large contributor will set a deadline for receipt of PP sales, and if it is not met, sue iStock/Getty for withholding earnings? Two months is pretty extreme. Can't imagine my employer not acknowledging my hours worked from 2 months ago and blaming it on a system error.

You can believe in free lunch if you like, your choice. I believe in business models...

What I believe in is not walking into someone's home and immediately insulting their ethics just to prove whatever point it is that you have. You invalidate all of your points by choosing to be accusatory and aggravating when there is need for neither. Typical of people who hide behind the anonymity of internet message forum user names.