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Author Topic: AvidImages - your own library site, the easy way  (Read 29517 times)

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« Reply #25 on: November 01, 2010, 11:51 »
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...and I have to pay you to upload ??? NO THANKS!...let me know when it changes the other way around... ;)

This is a silly comment and completely unfair. You're paying for a website, basically, that is your own, and a photo selling solution that would be expensive to create and maintain on your own.


« Reply #26 on: February 14, 2011, 08:09 »
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Well we have been working hard lately, many upgrades to the system:

Firstly we moved to avidimages.com (.net still works)
Rebuilt our upload system, if your images are IPTC or XMP tagged - it will import these for you, much easier to keyword stuff in Bridge for example than on the web!
Many technical improvements, such as caching for rapid loading of pages and SEO urls, thumbnail navigation on image pages, widgets you can paste on blogs and many, many more.
Completely rebuilt search system, best available technology, needless to say it is fast and accurate

We also let people search all our client's websites from the main avidimages.com site -
our vision is that with time people will turn up and be able to search avidimages like they do iStock (or any other traditional stock library)
but instead of then buying the images from iStock they will be able to buy images direct from the actual clients! In short a co-operative stock library.
Its a chicken and egg situation as to attract traffic to the coop we need people to add images for visitors to browse and buy.
So with that in mind we have added a free tier to our pricing, you can host a small library of 100 images for free, forever.

Once we have a good user base our plan is to change the main site (avidimages.com) to be more of a search destination for image buyers rather than for image sellers.
I would love to hear people's thoughts on the idea or any feedback they might have,
as always i am available here to answer any questions you might have.
« Last Edit: February 14, 2011, 08:15 by QR8Design »

redwater

  • retro stock illustrations
« Reply #27 on: February 14, 2011, 17:18 »
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that's a good concept. i've signed up for the free site and will probably use this to sell and promote my niche images.

« Reply #28 on: February 14, 2011, 18:52 »
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is this like the clustershot model?

We bring in the buyers?
or
do you guys market it and bring in the buyers?

velocicarpo

« Reply #29 on: February 14, 2011, 19:04 »
0
+ Bookmark
A nice option! But only offering paypal is a nogo for me ...

« Reply #30 on: February 15, 2011, 06:46 »
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...and I have to pay you to upload ??? NO THANKS!...let me know when it changes the other way around... ;)
Its not a stock library like iStock, you get your own store, you set the prices and you get paid 100% of the sales. You pay us for storage, bandwidth, processing power and maintaining the software. Sign up for a day, have a play around, see how you like it and then cancel it - there is nothing to lose.

sorry, but what about licensing? I can't find any RF agreement, terms & conditions for buying images and permitted usage. Which agreement buyers are going to accept before downloading a picture?
Besides, I signed up out of curiosity and I had to fill just a few fields....no address, country, no ID card, basically you will never know who I am!! Now, does this apply to buyers as well? There are frauds going on everyday on big agencies that I would be very concerned to sell my photos through a website that collects no data from people. Since you are not acting as a traditional agency, I wonder what happens in case a buyer misuse our images?? 

« Reply #31 on: February 15, 2011, 07:05 »
0
is this like the clustershot model?

We bring in the buyers?
or
do you guys market it and bring in the buyers?
Its a hybrid of something like KTools and Clustershot.
If you imaging having your own library site (like KTools store for example) where you set the prices, customise its appearance etc. and get paid direct for any sales.
Now imaging if this store integrated with an overarching search engine (ala Clustershot), so customres could search all the stores from one place.
Having found an image they want - they would go to your site and purchase it direct from you.
So we would bring people through the search engine bit and you can bring people in direct to your store (we provide tools for this).
As per my previous post, we are trying to get bigger and more varied amount of stock on the site - so that any people we do bring to the search engine have a good chance of finding what they want.
And this will shift to bringing in image buyers when we get there.

« Reply #32 on: February 15, 2011, 07:12 »
0
+ Bookmark
A nice option! But only offering paypal is a nogo for me ...
With time we are planing to add more payment options, what would you like to see as a payment gateway?
The closest other payment system in terms of providing the service we require is Google Checkout, trouble is they do not support subscriptions.

« Reply #33 on: February 15, 2011, 07:25 »
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...and I have to pay you to upload ??? NO THANKS!...let me know when it changes the other way around... ;)
Its not a stock library like iStock, you get your own store, you set the prices and you get paid 100% of the sales. You pay us for storage, bandwidth, processing power and maintaining the software. Sign up for a day, have a play around, see how you like it and then cancel it - there is nothing to lose.

sorry, but what about licensing? I can't find any RF agreement, terms & conditions for buying images and permitted usage. Which agreement buyers are going to accept before downloading a picture?
Besides, I signed up out of curiosity and I had to fill just a few fields....no address, country, no ID card, basically you will never know who I am!! Now, does this apply to buyers as well? There are frauds going on everyday on big agencies that I would be very concerned to sell my photos through a website that collects no data from people. Since you are not acting as a traditional agency, I wonder what happens in case a buyer misuse our images?? 

Each store has its own licensing agreement, we provide the starting point which each store owner can change or replace. That is the agreement buyers accept as the transaction is between them and the store owner direct - we just provide the software to do so.
We dont really need to know your details, we are not planing on sending you mail or calling you. All we need is a way to contact you (your email) if we wish to discuss anything.
The buyers have a choice of giving you their contact details with the purchase, in any case you do get their email address (paypal address) and all the transaction details you need will be in your paypal control panel.
Seeing as buyers are subject to license agreement of the seller, you have the same legal framework to enforce the use of images bought as you would in any other case.

« Reply #34 on: February 15, 2011, 07:47 »
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I like the idea, but with no vector upload I'm not signing up right away. Any plans to implement this in the future?

« Reply #35 on: February 15, 2011, 07:54 »
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I like the idea, but with no vector upload I'm not signing up right away. Any plans to implement this in the future?
Yes actually, we are not far.
Internally the system already has support for importing eps, ai and pdf files - but it will try and sell these out at 3 raster sizes at the moment rather than the original vector.

« Reply #36 on: February 15, 2011, 08:32 »
0
I like the idea, but with no vector upload I'm not signing up right away. Any plans to implement this in the future?
Yes actually, we are not far.
Internally the system already has support for importing eps, ai and pdf files - but it will try and sell these out at 3 raster sizes at the moment rather than the original vector.

Very cool :) Looking forward to trying it

« Reply #37 on: February 15, 2011, 09:05 »
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Each store has its own licensing agreement, we provide the starting point which each store owner can change or replace. That is the agreement buyers accept as the transaction is between them and the store owner direct - we just provide the software to do so.

Unfortunately I expect that buyers will get really confused by this approach.

The idea behind your site is not bad, but having a common framework for licensing (either RF or RM) saves time to people. What if a buyer is looking only for RF images? this very basic search is not possible on your website.
And even if he finds a bunch of RF images, then he should read all terms&conditions on each store because each artist may have changed the agreement and restrict some usages.
For instance, I've seen an image of a laptop computer with the windows logo on it. There is no mention if it's RM or RF. The title on the page states "royalty free image", but this is really confusing since there is no info about release!

Sorry to say it, but I feel that if something is not clear and easy to understand, people will shop elsewhere.

« Reply #38 on: February 15, 2011, 10:08 »
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Each store has its own licensing agreement, we provide the starting point which each store owner can change or replace. That is the agreement buyers accept as the transaction is between them and the store owner direct - we just provide the software to do so.

Unfortunately I expect that buyers will get really confused by this approach.

The idea behind your site is not bad, but having a common framework for licensing (either RF or RM) saves time to people. What if a buyer is looking only for RF images? this very basic search is not possible on your website.
And even if he finds a bunch of RF images, then he should read all terms&conditions on each store because each artist may have changed the agreement and restrict some usages.
For instance, I've seen an image of a laptop computer with the windows logo on it. There is no mention if it's RM or RF. The title on the page states "royalty free image", but this is really confusing since there is no info about release!

Sorry to say it, but I feel that if something is not clear and easy to understand, people will shop elsewhere.
It is an RF system, there is no use model or exclusivity given on purchase and our starting point for the license agreement is catered for such.
We are yet to see anyone change the license agreement beyond adding their name in.
Since this is a collection of user's own sites connected by a common search system - its not realistic to make everyone use prescribed license agreement to their buyers,
at that point it would cease to be of value to people looking to do their own thing and therefore kill the revenue stream for us.
Since we take no cut in the sales, that kind of business model would not work out.

« Reply #39 on: February 15, 2011, 10:21 »
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Each store has its own licensing agreement, we provide the starting point which each store owner can change or replace. That is the agreement buyers accept as the transaction is between them and the store owner direct - we just provide the software to do so.

Unfortunately I expect that buyers will get really confused by this approach.

The idea behind your site is not bad, but having a common framework for licensing (either RF or RM) saves time to people. What if a buyer is looking only for RF images? this very basic search is not possible on your website.
And even if he finds a bunch of RF images, then he should read all terms&conditions on each store because each artist may have changed the agreement and restrict some usages.
For instance, I've seen an image of a laptop computer with the windows logo on it. There is no mention if it's RM or RF. The title on the page states "royalty free image", but this is really confusing since there is no info about release!

Sorry to say it, but I feel that if something is not clear and easy to understand, people will shop elsewhere.

Yes, thats what i was thinking also. One lic aggrement or two, one rm and one rf, standard. this would keep the buyer confusion to a min.

Thanks or answering my questions above.
I belive you said that you will market it iwith the search engin of google? im not to clear on the responce.

one more question: if i bring a buyer to my site and they then search for "...cow smoking a cigar, will results be for just my images of for the entire site?

« Reply #40 on: February 15, 2011, 10:28 »
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Yes, thats what i was thinking also. One lic aggrement or two, one rm and one rf, standard. this would keep the buyer confusion to a min.

Thanks or answering my questions above.
I belive you said that you will market it iwith the search engin of google? im not to clear on the responce.

one more question: if i bring a buyer to my site and they then search for "...cow smoking a cigar, will results be for just my images of for the entire site?

We will market the site to image buyers, once we get enough stock.
The search engine reference was about our site (letting visitors search though images on avidimages) rather than any particular internet search engine.
Any search on your site is through your images only, its very much your own store!

« Reply #41 on: February 15, 2011, 11:57 »
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Thanks again for the answers!

Looking foward to giving the free trial a shot for right now.

I like having my foot in the door in as many interesting outlets as possible.

Wishing you/us great sucess,
Nick

« Reply #42 on: February 15, 2011, 13:00 »
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Thanks again for the answers!

Looking foward to giving the free trial a shot for right now.

I like having my foot in the door in as many interesting outlets as possible.

Wishing you/us great sucess,
Nick
Thanks Nick!

« Reply #43 on: February 15, 2011, 13:17 »
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I have a Ktools store, but I don't see any reason not to test out a free store of this when you get the vector part up and running.

redwater

  • retro stock illustrations
« Reply #44 on: February 15, 2011, 20:20 »
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Ive been trying out and playing around with the free site and it it looks good so far and very easy to navigate. Are we able to change the banner/header? i tried uploading my own banner (940 wide), but it doesn't seem to work.

« Reply #45 on: February 16, 2011, 09:02 »
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Ive been trying out and playing around with the free site and it it looks good so far and very easy to navigate. Are we able to change the banner/header? i tried uploading my own banner (940 wide), but it doesn't seem to work.
You need to refresh the cache your browser has, press Ctrl+F5 when you are viewing your site on a PC and i think its Command + R on a Mac.

« Reply #46 on: February 16, 2011, 09:45 »
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Very impressed...easy to set up. I've already seen my images on the home page. I will wait to see how sales go before upgrading. Very promising...thanks

redwater

  • retro stock illustrations
« Reply #47 on: February 16, 2011, 15:31 »
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Ive been trying out and playing around with the free site and it it looks good so far and very easy to navigate. Are we able to change the banner/header? i tried uploading my own banner (940 wide), but it doesn't seem to work.
You need to refresh the cache your browser has, press Ctrl+F5 when you are viewing your site on a PC and i think its Command + R on a Mac.

Thanks for the quick response. So far, this site is giving me good impressions with a clean layout and very easy to navigate.

redwater

  • retro stock illustrations
« Reply #48 on: February 17, 2011, 16:56 »
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I've just finished uploading my library of niche illustrations in my own free site at avidimages. I have also changed it to point to my own domain name. The process is just so easy and the layout is clean and simple yet so professional.

« Reply #49 on: February 17, 2011, 19:03 »
0
I am very pleased with the response so far, glad to know all the effort we put into avidimages is appreciated.
And its only going to get better, thank you guys!
« Last Edit: February 17, 2011, 19:07 by QR8Design »


 

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