I find it interesting that originally, it's all about "what can _we_ _all_ do to show the man we can do it on our own" and how quickly it has become "the elite club".  Not that I would have done it any different as you don't want to fill buyers' eyeballs with non-stock, and it must be hard to turn away those who aren't really good enough to bring in sales.

You're hosting under the ktools site instead of on your own webspace, where you can mod up the scripts to your needs?

That's correct Sean.  But we have x amount of total gigabytes of storage.  We are not at a ceiling now (nowhere close), but with the people we have signed we will be there in months. 

It's not that we are trying to be "elitist."  We have to be different.  In my opinion one important difference is that all our images are produced by accomplished photographers.  No other micro can come close to saying that.  We also want to offer a better buying experience, and I am working hard to ensure we become a partner of designers, rather than just a place they go to buy a picture when they need one.  That means becoming an educational resource, and helping designers become excellent designers.

And yes, it is hard to turn people away.  I hope it isn't "forever."  If we can build enough sales to justify a massive increase in storage and bandwidth, then we will be able to accept more people.  For now, we have to face our own limitations and be as stock worthy as we can possibly be.

If you have any isolated pictures of apples or kiwi, we'd love to have you Sean.   

We're pretty full now.  The only contributors we can accept at this point are very high level contributors with highly downloaded portfolios.  (In particular we could really use someone with excellent tropical images)  We seem to be filling the most downloaded categories.

Donna - Sorry but we only have room for so many images under KTools storage.  A lot of our contributors are diamond or black diamond crowns.  If we had more space I'd take images from smaller contributors, but there just isn't enough GB alloted to us.

Can you please explain how exclusives are allowed to participate ??

^^^ Now that makes more sense. you got me confused:
"A lot of our contributors are diamond or black diamond crowns"

Non exclusives don't have crowns...

Anyways I do wish you the best of luck with your idea, who knows, maybe one day we will join you (as exclusives   ).

BTW there are many contributors who signed up with us but never uploaded a single file.  I know people are busy and I am not going to rush them.  But if they still haven't uploaded after several weeks, we will probably assume they had a change of heart, and fill their spots with other contributors and move on.

I'm one of those. I am going away tomorrow for a week in South Carolina to shoot a wedding though. I'll try and get some up before I go but don't axemurder me!

So - there isn't enough storage space for small portfolios, that's why you're only taking  big ones.

I get that. Absolutely I do.

Maybe now that this 'collective' is full and not accepting new 'members', it should start its own forum.  Up until now MSG has been devoted to agencies that I can actually submit to - not closed, gated communities.  

I question whether this is a 'microstock'.

Quote from: stockastic on April 11, 2011, 11:15

So - there isn't enough storage space for small portfolios, that's why you're only taking  big ones.

I get that. Absolutely I do.

+1

Seriously Blufish.  You have 6 sales at DT.  When you put up the money and start your own site, you can fill your server space with non-stock images.  You have nearly as many people ignoring you on MSG as you have sales.  That's pretty incredible.  Maybe you can start to suggest how I should run a business when you show us that you can make a sale in microstock.

So - there isn't enough storage space for small portfolios, that's why you're only taking  big ones.

I get that. Absolutely I do.

So what you are saying is if you had the initiative to start your own collective, you would fill your server space with contributors who haven't shown the ability to sell images?  I believe that.  Absolutely I do.

Step forward and risk some of your own capital.  

Wow.  Not sure why all the hostility directed at Dan.  He's actually trying to do something positive here.   

Last thing he needs to do is mirror all the content on the micros.  In this oversupplied climate a new site has to differentiate itself.  If his way of differentiating Warmpicture is to be extremely selective and market it as a "premium collection" that makes total sense to me. 

If you are fairly new to microstock, don't be offended.  We all started out where you are.  When I first started in 2005 I thought my first 300 images or so were amazing.  I was so proud of them.  Now, looking back, I realize they would never qualify as good stock by today's standards.  They were still a great learning experience.   Most of them will not be submitted to Warmpicture though, because the quality is just not there. 

Now we get to see in living color what agencies have to deal with.

I like Dan's direct approach instead of sugar-coating it.

Like I said before, the more people Dan filters out the more he is being perceived as "one of them". Now people are ganging up and turning the pitchforks and torches toward him.

naturaly...any good idea is nothing worth without structure, marketing and distribution.
I also declared my regrets.

All I can say from my desk is, this is going to be fun to watch!  

The Us vs Them isn't just the artists and the agencies.

Very Interesting. Please don't take this as a big negative. People talk, someone has done something and started the collective. I wish you the best.

Warmpictures has an attractive design and good images on the front page, well done. I just think there are going to be other issues that haven't been planned for. Things like, looking at how deep the water is, before you dive in, head first.  

http://www.microstockdiaries.com/how-to-evaluate-a-new-microstock-agency.html

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So again, a new site for large fish who probably can negotiate for percentage of earnings with large agencies ...
Deja Vu and nothing new!

P.S.
Please, just change name of this topic " Senior contributor's collective" and then we, "others" will shut up!
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It seems that the "sphere of interest" is again before anything else... Am I right, Lisa!?  
Like similar in near past, when big players were very silent when the IS reduced rates, because of that  enough "biggy players" repeat history again, now in this case...
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Interest above the "critical attitude"!!!

I am not one of the big guns with thousands of images but I was accepted as part of the group; my guess is I offered something different than the usual "grip and grin" images.  I am hoping the collective will grow and accept more talent; I feel it is a great idea that was needed; I appreciate Dan's efforts to get this rolling.