MicrostockGroup Sponsors


Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - louoates

Pages: 1 [2] 3 4 5 6 7 ... 31
26
No mention of compensation is telling in itself. Coupled with no notice to image owners is frightening. Look at the comments on the link and you'll see how the free-images-all-the-time mentality is floating to the top of the excrement pile. I do Google image searches all the time and see huge numbers of images show up from all the micro-stock sites. The Google search engine seems to me to be superior that many of the sites I contribute to even though they appear, for now, alongside lots of really bad images. I can image a scenario where Google improves it's search to the point where it becomes the dominate image search engine for everybody.

It reads to me as if they've cut a deal with one or more micro-stock sites using contributor agreements in their most liberal of interpretations. If so, I can see many more struggling sites jumping on board and many more contributors getting left out. The end game, in my opinion,  is to claim "rights" to any image that can be searched for on Google.

27
For my Mac Firefox 12.0, under preferences, you go to Tools/Addons/Extensions to find Search by Image 1.0.6

Be warned: If you search the web for uses of your images you will find pirated uses. Lots of them. This will not make you feel good. Theft of copyrighted images is so prevalent it has almost become a "right" for the uninformed and/or criminal. Save yourself a world of frustration by not using this feature. I sell hundreds of images each month through various stock sites and I'd guess the illegal uses far outnumber those.

29
General Stock Discussion / Re: If I had a time machine
« on: July 30, 2012, 14:44 »
SERIOUS WARNING!!

If you are shooting digitally make sure you don't tamper with your IPTC data's "Date Created" field. That could serious disrupt the space-time continuum. It's quite possible that when you return you may find Obama won a second term.

30
General Stock Discussion / Re: If I had a time machine
« on: July 28, 2012, 10:07 »
You are all wrong!

If I had a time machine i sure wouldn't be in microstock because i would have won every lottery jackpot in every State since they started the lottery and i would be a Billionaire if not a trillionaire without ever having to work again nor would any of my Children or my Children's Children.

You people think small.

And with the taxes you would have paid on those winnings you would have wiped out some of the U.S. national debt.

31
General Stock Discussion / Re: future microstock
« on: July 23, 2012, 10:03 »
I'll side with sharpshot on this one. One man's trash...etc. But I would certainly vote to delete any image that hasn't sold after one year on a top tier site, and two years on a middle or low earner site.

32
One of the reasons I no longer upload is the haphazard rejections from one site to another. For a six month period FT rejected EVERY upload while IS and SS and DT accepted 90%. And, yes, they sold on those other sites. Take any span of time and one site or another will reject a high number of uploads. What is consistant is the puzzling logic of reject reasons. It's as if inspectors had one button to push for rejections and the computer selected the reasons on a random basis.

33
General Stock Discussion / Re: Using stock photos on youtube
« on: July 17, 2012, 16:52 »
I'm not sure which license you would need or what the fee would be for your use. Each microstock site is a bit different and most would have the fee structure and use permit descriptions listed on their site.

34
I'd sign it, especially if I were getting the fee I wanted. If I were the publisher I'd ask for it as well, as it protects me from seeing the same image(s) in a competing venture. Just good business.

35
General Stock Discussion / Re: future microstock
« on: July 14, 2012, 07:52 »
I think the correct way to look at microstock earnings is considering the return of our investment over time. In other words the cumulative earnings of a given image with no additional work on our part after the upload.
It's been over a year since I've uploaded anything. Yet I continue to draw income from my remaining sites IS, DT, SS, and to a much lesser degree, Veer. So whatever hourly or per-image rate of return I've seen discussed in this group I haven't seen any calculation based on continuing income with no additional time spent. I've also seen a gradual lowering of the rate of sales on my lesser popular images but very little reduction on the most popular, some of which has been on those sites for 4-5 years. So that's the sunny side of the equation that hasn't received much attention.

36
I forgot to add the idea of a pet photo contest to the amateur/pro photographers whereby the winners and all selected photos are added to the site and have the potential for earning future money for the entrants.

I'm also thinking about classic "Can you draw this?" contests that sold drawing lessons. Why not "Is your pet photograph better than this?" If so send us...

37
I applaud your entrepreneurship in this market. I've said many times that specialization with excellent exclusive content --plus a superior search engine (such as Google) is the only way that will prove successful in the long run. Keep the image quality and creativeness top notch along with marketing you can afford as you grow and I think you've got a good shot at success.

I love the name "GlamourCritters" (Hope you've got it trademarked) and can envision various site image based products to sell such as paper/canvas prints, coffee mugs, greeting cards, etc. both to image contributors and the general public.

Great idea to solicit known animal photographers. I'd add to that critter clubs and animal lover sites that might be a good source of candid shots particularly in the humor department. It sounds like you have some in-house Photoshop expertise that could "rescue' some of the extraordinary images from non-pros that normally would be rejected.

Good Luck!

38
Let me warn you against having multiple folders with the same name. That is made for disaster from one folder overwriting another. I've lost many valuable files with later edits that way.

39
General Stock Discussion / Re: Common refund reason?
« on: July 09, 2012, 09:27 »
You could always contact the design winner and ask. I can't see how these "contests" can amount to much loss of revenue. I'd look at it as just another petty theft made possible by easy access to images and not many scruples in the morals department.

40
General Stock Discussion / Re: imagebrief.com
« on: July 07, 2012, 15:55 »
Have you ever heard of Working on Spec? This is just a dressed up form of that.

More like worked on spec. Interesting concept except I didn't see a way to search for keywords. Maybe I missed it but it looks like you have to read all the requests to find one of interest that matches your existing portfolio.

41
At last! A site with even lower standards than any of the Low Earners. No longer will contributors be faced with snarly rejections or that pesky lack of model releases. And better yet -- financed by the taxpayers of Sweden! So we are witnessing the worst of two worlds. Government bureaucracy oversight and absolutely rock bottom image quality.

This site may be one of first sites to openly ignore all copyright protections whatsoever. The good news is that whomever wastes time uploading has no clue about copyright and couldn't care less about whatever legal verbiage they have to agree to in order to post images there. The site's agreement effectively denies any responsibility whatever for whatever happens to anyone or anything at any time. Subject only the the laws of Sweden -- sort of.

All that remains is entertainment value for those who will enjoy watching this one slither through the gutter.

42
General Stock Discussion / Re: Oseeris - Stock Images Search
« on: June 28, 2012, 14:02 »
I found some of my key images there through Media Bakery with attribution to my name. I presume it's one of those partner arrangements with IS, SS or DT.

43
New Sites - General / Re: Photokore
« on: June 22, 2012, 20:38 »
They are still sending out emails to possible contributors. I got mine today. But I'll pass. Especially after the woeful results listed by others. My policy is not to upload to any site out of (my) top three. IS, SS, DT

44
Let's not forget Yotola's basic intent: Get lots of free images to fuel click-through and display ad revenue from their advertisers. It is not to compete with microstock agencies. It is to supply low quality images for low quality uses by unsophisticated users who value "free" over any other feature. And with low quality images (brilliant quality in their minds) suppliers will be satisfied with any payment no matter how low. It's more about recognition than renumeration.

I would think that they will get millions of solicited poorly composed images with little commercial value, most with auto key words added by Yotola to at least make some basic searches possible.

I've also re-thought their payment method and revised my prediction of payment per image downloaded. I forgot than way back in our history and British history there was a unit of currency called the pence with a value of about 100 to the penny. Google "pence"  if you must. I think that Yotola will find a way to resurrect such a denomination for contributor payment. If it were me I'd call that unit  a "Credit". With 1,000 Credits equaling $10 U.S. The video holds out the hope that even images rejected by micro sites will still yield tens of thousand of downloads on a free download basis. So I think that, yes, it will be possible to earn less than .01 per image.

45
Disclaimer: My apologies for this post. I am violating my own vow not to spend any more brain time on Yotola. A smart admin would delete this opinion.

I'm thinking that there is a huge group out there of wanna-be photographers who are unable to get accepted by the major or even minor stock sites. They've heard stories of vast riches being denied them even though in their mind they've been rejected unfairly. Yotola to the rescue! Yotola feels your pain. Yotola will give you your chance to shine. Yotola will never reject you. Yotola confirms that your hand-shaking, sunset,  and flower pictures will yield big dividends and that the other stock sites are ignorant and will rue the day they rejected you. How much will Yotola pay you? [SLAP UPSIDE THE HEAD!] You'll take whatever Yotola will pay you!

Yotola is communicating that the traditional micro stock sites ignore or avoid images that Yotola will prove to be successful sellers. Sweet music to those wounded by rejection. Yotola will provide proof in dollars that your resentments are well-founded.

My conclusion is that many in the rejected crowd will respond to Yotola's strategy. Enough to make a profit for Yotola? I would think not, unless they can also tap into the vast Facebook photographer market where the remainder of the clueless reside.

46
I didn't see anything illegal on their site and while I thought there were lots of unanswered questions I wouldn't have used the scam word myself. I can see the point of removing the Scam? word by the moderator simply to avoid hassles. In fairness, there are so many intentionally misleading pitches on the internet, this one only reaches my category of mildly offensive. 
I think the sensitivity on this subject stems from the irritation of having someone else changing one's words that were used in good faith.

47
General Stock Discussion / Re: Yotola (Scam?)
« on: June 16, 2012, 13:56 »
That video is one of the biggest loads of nonsense I've seen.  I wish I had the time to make fun of it piece by piece.

I think the video is effectively made to cater to the level of photographers who would participate.

48
General Stock Discussion / Re: Yotola (Scam?)
« on: June 15, 2012, 14:27 »
I still don't think this is a scam. The different method is indeed different and worthy of keeping tabs on, mostly for entertainment value. Since the information they are giving is so sketchy I'd avoid wasting any more time on them.

I am also puzzled with their responses to some of the comments posted here. They obviously have little experience in this market and have a curiously low opinion of those who do this for a living.

Their pitches have more appeal to beginners who have been rejected as contributors and/or are experiencing high image rejection rates. How else can you explain the wildly preposterous comparisons of the best selling microstock images with what a contributor to Yotola might expect?

49
General Stock Discussion / Re: Yotola (Scam?)
« on: June 14, 2012, 21:43 »
I don't believe this is a scam. I foresaw this concept a few years ago so the pitch is no surprise. The question is will it be worthwhile to upload. The income projections were vague to say the least but I image the payment to photographers will be in the .01 to .02 per download. No idea what the payout amount will be.
I'm no longer uploading to any of my current sites, mainly due to spending my computer time on my more artistic interests. But I'd love to keep track of Yotola to see what happens.
Not sure what we'll call this new concept. Maxi-Mini Microstock?

50
General Stock Discussion / Re: Photocase?
« on: May 30, 2012, 15:28 »
Look at the right side of the site list. It's called Microstock Poll Results. See that Photocase is on the "Low Earner" list with a zero Earnings Rating. That should tell you all you need to know.

Pages: 1 [2] 3 4 5 6 7 ... 31

Sponsors

Mega Bundle of 5,900+ Professional Lightroom Presets

Microstock Poll Results

Sponsors