Hi,
We�re joining the Black Friday frenzy with a special offer!

90 day (3 Month) FREE trial on the PicturEngine RM or RM/RF platform!

Register before midnight Cyber Monday using the link on our front page. http://www.picturengine.com/

The full platform will launch very soon so here�s your chance to get started before our official public launch.  I am so very excited for the future of our industry and what we can do together.

Stay ahead of the curve,
JB

ps. Tell your friends!

easy integration with ktools and cmsaccount could make this a big hit

Select More Options tab and enter the path /FTPimage in the advanced settings.

there is no path/folder with that name, shall we upload to the test one?

Justin Brinson replied:
Hi Louis,
We have a server scheduled to make the FTPimage folder in your account. This process is automated and usually takes about 6 hrs from registration (we do it 4 times a day). We are in the process of speeding that up. Our servers are a little taxed right now from the Black Friday special.

If you are wanting to get photos online ASAP, I suggest the desktop app, as this uses your local resources to process your images and is not effected by our slower than usual server speed today. When you use the FTP function, your images are queued and processed on our end. The FTP may take some time to process this weekend as we are receiving record traffic right now.

We truly hope you enjoy our platform and are here to help. Please feel free to send us suggestions and anything else that you feel may need to be fixed or improved upon.


Best,
JB

I had a look again at the prices and realized that if I wanted to host a royalty free portfolio on your site I have to buy the most expensive monthly option, including RM which I'm not interested in. I think the 90 day trial is a good idea, but I'm not optimistic that you could generate enough monthly sales - let's say greater than $100 a month - to make sense out of paying you $40 as commission. Especially so as I'd imagine it'd take many months for traffic to build and sales to follow, months during which I'd end up in the hole if sales were below $40.

If I see tons of people here reporting great sales via Picture Engine, there'll be plenty of opportunity to sign up later. $500 a year is a big ask for a site with no track record yet.

Took the words right out of my mouth.  Wile microstock commissions shrink everywhere, adding new images at varying production costs with little revenue growth to show for that investment, it would take a lot reporting history to convince me to join.

Isnt paying 500 dollar for a service to get 100% of the sales price, the same as submitting to an agency and get a % commission?

is the offer of free trial still on?

So it is like a search engine that search with submitted portfolio? like something to bring traffic to your site?

Quote from: Poncke on November 24, 2012, 04:46

Isnt paying 500 dollar for a service to get 100% of the sales price, the same as submitting to an agency and get a % commission?

I like the fact that it's a flat rate.  They're not taking a percentage (and a huge one) of every sale.  The $480 might seem like a lot, but if you're receiving 100% of the sales, it shouldn't take long to break even.

Assuming the site brings in sales, of course.  And the biggest bottleneck for all startups is customers.

Isnt paying 500 dollar for a service to get 100% of the sales price, the same as submitting to an agency and get a % commission?

Not really. The hope would be to convert them to return or regular customers for your site. It's really not much different than running an advertisement.

Quote from: cthoman on November 24, 2012, 11:16

Quote from: Poncke on November 24, 2012, 04:46

Isnt paying 500 dollar for a service to get 100% of the sales price, the same as submitting to an agency and get a % commission?

Not really. The hope would be to convert them to return or regular customers for your site. It's really not much different than running an advertisement.

Well it is, up to some level.

If I make 750 dollars and pay 500 dollars, I only get 33.3%

That's a least twice what you would make at Istock.

Quote from: Poncke on November 24, 2012, 11:47

Quote from: cthoman on November 24, 2012, 11:16

Quote from: Poncke on November 24, 2012, 04:46

Isnt paying 500 dollar for a service to get 100% of the sales price, the same as submitting to an agency and get a % commission?

Not really. The hope would be to convert them to return or regular customers for your site. It's really not much different than running an advertisement.

Well it is, up to some level.

If I make 750 dollars and pay 500 dollars, I only get 33.3%

That's a least twice what you would make at Istock.

I am not with istock

Isnt paying 500 dollar for a service to get 100% of the sales price, the same as submitting to an agency and get a % commission?

No it isn't the same:

At Picture Engine you pay $500 for a 100% commission but this might stilll result in 0 sales due to being new in the industry.

But uploading a good portfolio to SS could easily pay you$2000-$5000 a month even after with a %35 commission...

Hi MSG,
Please submit fixes to our support team for faster service.  Our support team is not monitoring user groups for bug or fix requests, only our support channels.  http://support.picturengine.com/ and [email protected]

Answers to your questions on this forum:

Sharpshot,
�Wouldn't accept my UK post code�
--- Now Fixed

�Can I use the UK version of Rackspace?�
--- Absolutely, you sign up for cloud storage through Rackspace in the country you live (or nearest to you).  Rackspace should auto detect your country when you are on their site.  You can always look in the upper right corner of the page (on Rackspace) and verify the country selection, look for the flag.  On our Rackspace registration page you should also see Rackspace support numbers in various countries and languages.

Luis
Where is the FTPimage folder?
--- We are now creating the FTP folders instantly instead of scheduling them every 6 hours.

Mtkang
Is the offer of free trial still on?
--YES until Monday, 12 Midnight, Central Standard Time

Sharpshot,
"Hopefully it wont take much time to upload around 1,000"
--Depending upon your upload speed, you can make 1,000 images live easily with only a few clicks (100 images at a time).  These directions are explained on the site once you login.

1. Fill in your account info completely.  (We embed and update this info in your images� metadata when licensed, if it�s not already present.  Make sure to keep this info current.)

2. Set your price(s).  (We provide examples and crowdsourced site data to help.  After launch, we�ll add actual crowdsourced sales data.)

If all of your images are already keyworded, captioned, etc. --

3. Make one image live to set your default preferences (price, copyright, year - your preferences are set by the last image you made live).  Select �View 100 Images� at a time (bottom of the page) and click �Make All Live.�  The page will refresh after your images are queued, then click the same button 9 more times and they will be live on the site within 2-6 hours depending on traffic at the time.  Images can be viewed and/or modified at any time after finalizing via the Images > View section.  Please allow 2-6 hours for updates to reflect in the main search.

Jsnover Mantis and others,
--I understand your concern about the flat fee prices we charge for our platform.  After studying piles of data including years of operating costs, advertising costs and expenses, we boiled it down to the flat fee per user prices you see on our platform today.  The reason it is common for microstock and RF agencies to take a bigger commission is the simple fact that it costs more to properly market and represent these types of images.  This is the reason we offer 3 levels of participation:
--Advertising Only:  $10 per month for the first 10,000 images and you bring your own sales platform (you�ll spend more than this just to send out a monthly email or to use Adwords to draw traffic to your sales platform).
-- Rights Managed:  $20 per month with unlimited images/sales with no commissions!
--Royalty Free and Rights Managed:  $40 per month with unlimited images/sales with no commissions!


We all know the current path of our industry is unsustainable.  Commission paying agencies are going out of business or being bought up nearly every week now.  I am doing my part to make a positive difference.  Hope you will join me.

Best,
JB

Quote from: Poncke on November 24, 2012, 04:46

Isnt paying 500 dollar for a service to get 100% of the sales price, the same as submitting to an agency and get a % commission?

No it isn't the same:

At Picture Engine you pay $500 for a 100% commission but this might stilll result in 0 sales due to being new in the industry.

But uploading a good portfolio to SS could easily pay you$2000-$5000 a month even after with a %35 commission...

No doubt it's a risk and I agree they are starting off with prices too high for having no track record. They're pricing too many people out from the get go and if prices are raised once the sites out of beta they'll price out even more.  It's a great idea and a model that could really help image creators create a stable sales environment for themselves.  I'm willing to take a risk but at this price if I haven't made enough to cover a renewal by the end of the 1yr there won't be one from me.  The big unknown for me is that I don't know where they are getting their customers from or how they intend to get them.