Honestly, I can't recommend it because there's no sales tracking.  The only way I know what sold is to hold on to the emails.

You are probably one of the very few who actually has to even worry about that. Most others never make more than a few sales. 

Hi guys,
I read somewhere  that the project was abandoned? is it true?
 I'd love to hear your opinion about the pros, the cons.. anything that can help.
thank you

--- Quoted from other board, so nicely blocked and sealed by the New-Symbio Police out there... --

-----
Quote from: shotupdave on May 06, 2015, 14:11

    Quote from: cascoly on May 05, 2015, 13:14

        Quote from: shotupdave on May 05, 2015, 04:55


            ....
            3. You killing Symbiostock by claiming Symbiostock is a trademark in your property.

            That is is a claim that you have to prove. And if Leo gave him the rights to the name, it is his right to do so.

            ....


        get your basic facts right ----

        it's Robin who must prove his claim, since he makes it such a prominent part of his offerings --

        Leo sold Robin the rights to the new version of symbiostock, but no rights to anything related to the original symbiostock

        Leo COULD NOT have given robin the trademark robin claims, since Leo NEVER TRADEMARKED the word symbiostock.   Leo SPECIFICALLY made symbiostock a brand that ANYONE could use, and said so EXPLICITLY in this and other forums, many times.  Leo ENCOURAGED anyone interested to register domain names that included symbiostock, such as symbiostock.info and symbiostock-network.com -- that made symbiostock difficult if not impossible to ever trademark due to common law and prior usage



    Again you show nothing but ignorance, first you made the claim the robin did not register it, now you are saying leo did not. having a website with the name symbiostock has nothing to do with the product. we do not use common law in us federal laws. so agin you are wrong.



 what I said was correct:
   Robin has not registered a trademark for symbiostock
  Leo did not register a trademark EITHER

the US most definitely considers common law usage as part of trademark law - a simple google search turns up many sites top explain it for you
eg
http://www.bitlaw.com/trademark/common.html

----- end qoute -----


@cascoly:  +1
--> ...I liked that one -- and soon these clowns will also try and tell us that in the U. S. they don't speak English -- but "only" American :)))

People are freaking out because they know their long term income is f##>ed. Self hosting won't save it.

Quote from: Dragomir Nikolov on May 09, 2015, 13:34

Yep, Symbiostock was a BIG waste of time. I am curious why Leo begin new project for illustrators. Is it the same plan to make a platform , to sell some theme and then to abandon the project? I had a symbiostock site, upgraded theme for nothing!

100% agree.

Leo now creates a pseudo elite closed platform for illustrators (forgetting about dozens of photographers who paid $100 for Pro plugin and other stuff). What will be next when Leo abandons this project ? Vrfx - a platform only for videographers ?

As far as selling direct goes - I am getting way better money without having the store, cart, set-up prices etc on my website. I have just a beautiful gallery with clear information that if someone is interested in licensing my picture they can just contact me. Then the money I get from a single picture usually vary from $100 to $1000 (it comes with with nice personal contact or even a new business partnership). I recommend zenfolio, smugmug, squarespace and many more professional and solid companies - just the opposite of symbiostock, grfx and derivatives.

admin edit - modified for content.

Leo has not created an pseudo elite closed platform and he has not abandoned the old theme. Your money has not been wasted either. Leo has made a post on his new board about your pro plug ins.

Grfx can sell anything that you can upload. Robin and Leo have an agreement as far as hosting goes. Robin will host photographers and Leo will host illustrators. What you sell on your own site, and with which plug in is your choice.

What you sell on your own site, and with which plug in is your choice.

And there's the true gist of the current situation. I'm a photographer, but I'm probably going to migrate to grfx because I know Leo and trust him.

Same here. Fortunately, my old symbio site continues to work just fine. I hope I can just wait a few months until all dust has settled and decide then which route to go. I actually like choices and also notice already a hint of "competition is good for business". 

Same here regarding my "old sym" site.

And I agree: settling dust and vigorous competition should do some good for both the "new sym" and for grfx.

Leo has sold Symbiostock to Mr. Murarka.

Whohoo!!! Can we now actually attach a last name to the mysterious "Robin"?

Can someone move this to the symbiostock section of the forum.

Quote from: r2d2 on May 14, 2015, 14:35

Quote from: marthamarks on May 14, 2015, 12:00

Quote from: JoRodrigues on May 14, 2015, 10:32

What you sell on your own site, and with which plug in is your choice.

And there's the true gist of the current situation. I'm a photographer, but I'm probably going to migrate to grfx because I know Leo and trust him.

I can understood this but on the other hand Leo has sold Symbiostock to Mr. Murarka. Thats it. Than grfx and the blocking Robin blabla.

In german i would like to say "Kindergarten". 

For me its quite clear that i dont work with one of this platforms.

that's where the confusion is -- robin has rights to moving on with symbiostock -- but he does not have exclusive rights to the name, or the original software or anything to do with existing sites.

and robin is further muddying waters by actively pushing his symbio-plus etc to illustrators, despite a supposed agreement to split

I think what will happen is the 'new' symbiostock will wither  away when people realize how much robin is planning to charge for 'plus' and global search, and older symbiostock sites will be able to migrate smoothly to grfx

that would be the market solution in an ideal world, indeed! (And I do believe in free markets as they are on record to have solved most any problems adequately throughout all of history. Curiously never governments or Super-Elites like the US-Feds or detached Brussels Eurocrats -- as an aside here.)

As just one actor in that entire scenario, I will move in Leo's direction and go for the far superior grfx Plugin.

Hey Sharpshot - you should consider using the new Symbiostock, even as a test run to see if it works for you. Having your independent site going definitely takes work, but with the development and growth we've seen in a short while, along with the networking components that will be released soon, it may breathe fresh air into the independent arena.

You can give it a try for free here: http://symbiostock.com/

You can even import all your legacy stuff into the new site. Of course, there are no guarantees of sales as the independent market is still a new concept, but keep in touch. Once it gets more traction, don't hesitate to try it out.

Back to the topic: Do you recommend Symbiostock?

NO!

It's important to distinguish between legacy Symbiostock (which many people have had different experiences with) and the new one.

Thus far the new Symbiostock is having no issues and moving along speedily (over 100 happy contributors in a month). If you are a user of the new Symbiostock and have any problems, do let me know.

your own symbiostock forum shows MULTIPLE issues people have had  w the new version -- bugs are to be expected with any new release and these seem to be getting fixed, but it's misleading to say there have been NO issues

can you provide links to some of these 100 sites? 

what happened to the 'artist network'?  "Here we showcase the plethora of artists who make up our Symbiostock community."   with 100 sites there are still no links here???