Quote from: cathyslife stockphotos.com on February 11, 2014, 13:39

Too bad you guys cant round up sales data on the effectiveness of the networking feature and seo as it relates to actual sales of images, the way you are rounding up bashers.



Too bad when an anonymous poll was put up on the SY forum (its probably gone by now because anything negative gets deleted) only 42 people responded and the majority of the respondents of that poll only had one or two sales so far.


Too bad the people who actually are selling wont share data, even when the sharing is anonymous. Let me make a prediction...that sales poll is going to skyrocket here in the next week or so!


Too bad it wasnt explained to those of us who were first builders of sites that in order for the networking to be effective at all, we would have to build second, third, fourth sites to realize any kind of seo benefit from that networking link. If anyone expects to get any benefit from just building a site and networking, why then they must be unprofessional, ignorant, lazy people who have crap images (images of course that sell well on other sites).


Thats my recap. 

Sorry Cathy, but thats the biggest rubbish I have read in a while.

Of course it is! It wasnt a few weeks back when you thought the same thing, but now you have kissed and made up and all is well.


Maybe you could explain what you think is rubbish and why, rather than just saying its rubbish. I would really like to know specifically which part is rubbish.


 

Quote from: cathyslife stockphotos.com on February 11, 2014, 13:39

Too bad when an anonymous poll was put up on the SY forum (its probably gone by now because anything negative gets deleted) only 42 people responded and the majority of the respondents of that poll only had one or two sales so far.

FYI, the poll is still available @ http://www.symbiostock.org/community/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=973

Cool!

Thanks chromaco & farbled for the clarification.

I'm patient and I know I'll have to build...

I'll add a +1 to Jo's post - and note that my own experience has been that I have had a few sales (of which I get everything but the PayPal fees) and I have only been working on my site since September.

I had a bit of a learning curve with WordPress because I wanted to customize how things looked a bit and I am still uploading images (because I want to work on the SEO with such things as avoiding duplicate titles and cleaning up keywords where I now know better than I did when I first processed the files). I've been trying to understand things like Google authorship (which I wrote a blog about) because I think that clearly associating our names with our work is important and something the agencies don't take any interest in (obviously!)

I didn't have to do all these other things - beyond installing WordPress, getting PayPal hooked up and uploading images - but I wanted to because I very much want an alternative to the agencies. I was part of WarmPicture (Dan Padovana's collective) which was a good site (built on kTools which I wouldn't consider for my own site based on the WarmPicture experience) but which wasn't able to get any traction - although I did get sales and Dan worked incredibly hard to get things off the ground.

If the agencies hadn't turned from being partners to basically exploiting contributors as soon as the agencies got big enough I probably wouldn't be considering my own site, but I have to play in the sandbox I am in, not the one I wish I were in I think that some flavor of independence is the way to get a truly sustainable business and believe that Symbiostock has a great shot at being that. Like so many startups, you keep your day job while you build the new thing - so I haven't left Shutterstock and dreamstime, 123rf, PhotoDune, etc. just yet.

I'm not building more sites than my own; the sales post on the Symbiostock forums has not been deleted - people can obviously delete their own posts but I've no idea where this "anything negative gets deleted" comes from; I honestly pay little attention to the MSG sales poll as it doesn't tell me much beyond what I already know - Shutterstock sells more than Dreamstime.

Everyone's experience with Symbiostock will be a little different - that's part of what makes this work. It's not a one size fits all setup and the looseness of the association is what allows site owners to make each site their own - how it looks, what prices to charge, what works to make exclusive (or even just to promote as some do with their Alamy or Stocksy work). As an open source WordPress project, you have access to everything that has built your site so you or anyone else can work on it if you chose to.

For the most part the tempest in a tea cup is just that. If you're ready to start a Symbiostock site, now's a fine time

Thanks for the link, Ron!  I know you did it to be a smarta$$ tho. 

Everyone's experience with Symbiostock will be a little different

Given what I have read over the past couple of weeks I have completely changed my mind about Symbiostock. And I have been involved with previous Open Source projects.

I predict that it will end up orphaned. The reason being that it has too few users and too few potential users - and therefore many too few developers. Partly because there is no substantial business to be built around it the way it currently exists.

Sorry to say that. I know that this post will get voted down out of existence for me saying this. Hey - I hope I am wrong but Open Source projects need more than good will to survive and prosper.

The way to stop its inevitable decline would be to address the glaring issues. Particularly in terms of the way in which the software is developed, how it seems to users and the lack of legal safeguards.

Too bad you guys cant round up sales data on the effectiveness of the networking feature and seo as it relates to actual sales of images, the way you are rounding up bashers.

To reduce Symbiostock to the networking feature is not only of incredible shortsightedness but shows how you're acting in bad faith.

The common search engine feature alone reduces to nothing the relevancy of the networking. THAT is something completely original when compared to the networking and an incredibly powerful tool.

Plus, we're having in our site much better results with google than we had during several years with Smugmug and Zenfolio and we still have a fraction of the images we had there and spent a fraction of what those solutions have cost us..

Is this it because the networking? Is it because other reasons that could be accomplished with other themes and plugins? I don't know and I don't care because none of the options have a centralized search engine, and none were meant and dedicated to stock photographers. Especially because none of them have as an objective to try and change something in this industry.

Your questions have been answered multiple times. I now believe that you're consciously set to destroy Symbiostock and damage all the work hundreds of people have done in their sites. You should be ashamed of what you're trying to do.

Quote from: bunhill on February 11, 2014, 15:38

The way to stop its inevitable decline would be to address the glaring issues. Particularly in terms of the way in which the software is developed, how it seems to users and the lack of legal safeguards.

Please explain which legal issues you mean? I write my own terms and conditions and my own rf contract. Do you mean that someone else should?

Symbiostock is no different from running Smugmug or Zenfolio or Ktools when it comes down to legal issues. People fail to understand that. Unless they get a symbiostock site you will have these comments from people looking outside in, instead of inside out

I'm pulling the plug on my site as I write this (running a final backup then putting up a "temporarily down" page). I have no idea what I'm going to do with the site, but right now it's not fully functional after HostMonster torpedoed it with a PHP upgrade that broke the whole site. I got it back up and running but with errors all over the place.

It's too much work and trouble for not enough gain. I've been down this road before with self-hosted sites, they end up * up more time than they're worth.

The legal side of the network in general (the sites typically explicitly state that they are part of a joint network) has not been worked out or explored. Symbiostock does not employ any sort of legal team to research these sorts of potential issues. It seems as if nobody legal or financial has gone over the whole thing to look for potential legal or fiscal mutual issues. Most Open Source projects employ at least some sort of legal and financial advice.

Symbiostock presents itself as a single thing. But all of the sites have different T&C. And some of the sites do not conform to international tax law. For example there are sites which do not collect TVA/VAT from EU buyers - or explain their policy. Or they do not issue proper tax receipts detailing whether or not TVA has been deducted. Legitimate buyers need those receipts at end of year.

Many of the sites are running on self written contracts. Nobody does that in business. Are you responsible if a search from your site links to content on another site which is not doing the tax right ? What if the site your search links to is selling stolen content ?

The whole thing is a great big legal question mark. Because nobody has bothered to put up any money to pay for it. OK the software is free. But there is always much more to any thing than one aspect of it being free.

It's a great project but it needs funding and it needs to be properly established otherwise potential buyers need to treat it with caution.

I would think that the legal side would be Leo stating that the platform is open sourced and is, as they say, buyer (or in this case user) beware. If there are tax issues on a single site, that's completely up to the site owner, not the network. Much like any other WP theme.

As far as people saying they network together, really I don't see how anything else is needed.  I think most Sym sites use the term "network" in the same paragraph that they mostly say "independent". I'm unsure what issues could arise where there is liability to someone hosting a "network hub" kind of site. It really just displays links and search results for the most part.

Re: linking to other sites. I specifically research and choose which sites I link to. Does google guarantee what turns up in their search results? I do see what you mean, but I don't agree. If people want to run a business from their website, it is up to them to do so responsibly and follow the laws of their country. Not the creator of the software or a search aggregator-style site. I can't really control what ads appear in my adwords for example.

Should the Symbiostock (network) turn into an agency-style kind of place, where it solicits buyers, does it's own marketing etc, then yes, I could see where, when it makes money for itself, then legal stuff would be necessary for it to cover itself from liability. I.e if they took a commission for membership/sales, etc.

I agree with you that there is a lot of potential for people to create whatever they see as a perfect opportunity (site, network, agency, etc). That's the beauty of open source. They are all possible, separate or in conjunction with each other.

And in the middle of all of this we've just made our first sale.

Someone came to our site from google and after some browsing licensed a image in the small size giving us 4.99usd.

No it's not a fortune but we were found through google and if the image was downloaded from a microstock site we would have won from 1 to 3usd.

I'm not going to convince myself that we'll be able to cut loose the agencies any time soon, if at any time at all but this shows that Symbiostock has the goods to work with cooperation, more members and commitment.

Congratulations!

Quote from: farbled on February 11, 2014, 16:49

If people want to run a business from their website, it is up to them to do so responsibly and follow the laws of their country.

For it to be safe for buyers to use they (the site owners) also need to ensure that the site conforms with the laws which exist where the buyer is based.

Every site which is not doing stuff right undermines  every other site when those sites are part of a network. When you all say that you are a part of a thing the reputation of the whole thing depends upon the reputation of each constituent part. I cannot think of another way of trying to express this.

The tax thing is just one example.

ETA: I think this is potentially a great project. I find it bizarre that some people seem to be so negative  about setting it up on a proper financial and legal footing.

Non of what you say has anything to do specificity with Symbiostock or even WP, that goes for every single site that is being created on the internet. Symbiostock is no different from that. So I find it bizarre that you keep hammering on it, when people have explained it a few times.

Quote from: StockPhotosArt on February 11, 2014, 16:50

And in the middle of all of this we've just made our first sale.

Someone came to our site from google and after some browsing licensed a image in the small size giving us 4.99usd.

No it's not a fortune but we were found through google and if the image was downloaded from a microstock site we would have won from 1 to 3usd.

I'm not going to convince myself that we'll be able to cut loose the agencies any time soon, if at any time at all but this shows that Symbiostock has the goods to work with cooperation, more members and commitment.

Congratulations!

Thanks! We have done no marketing at all. No adds, no mailing, no FB or G+ activity or any other type of promotion. Since we are at a third of our portfolio we did not spend any effort on that front.

Having a simple site, relatively good looking, with a competitive pricing and visible to google seems to work.

Tomorrow I'll probably send a mail to the buyer thanking and directing him to the Symbiostock search engine. He may or may not find other images he needs there, but if instead of +200 sites there were 400 or 500 the chances that he would return would be greater. That's why it's important to increase the offer of images and number of participants.

And in the middle of all of this we've just made our first sale.

Someone came to our site from google and after some browsing licensed a image in the small size giving us 4.99usd.

No it's not a fortune but we were found through google and if the image was downloaded from a microstock site we would have won from 1 to 3usd.

I'm not going to convince myself that we'll be able to cut loose the agencies any time soon, if at any time at all but this shows that Symbiostock has the goods to work with cooperation, more members and commitment.

You bolded google. Your sale came from a google search, not an SY search. True you have a SY site but unless you can attribute the sale as coming directly from networking with a SY site, you just as easily could have gotten that sale from using other software.


The pattern of sales i noticed for most people was that 1 or 2 sales came early on, then stopped. Notice i said most. Not all. 


I would love to see real, verifiable data that could predict trends, etc. for sales, but i understand that takes work. Seems like something could have been accomplished in that regard over the past 10 months. That would be the biggest endorsement for the success of SY. And so that opens a door for one of you all to say why didnt i do it? The answer is because i dont have access to those figures. Since leo has stated on several occasions something like, "well, the people that are selling dont want to come forward for fear of being ripped, but i can tell you that some people are selling on a regular, daily basis." No, not his exact words, but the same drift.


Not exactly useful data for anyone trying to decide if its worth it.


The sale i made did not come from a search of the network, but from google also. My inclination was to skip the networking, get rid of the theme hassles Like Ember Mike mentioned, and just keep it simpler. I think catering to what google wants to see is a better way to go. (As much as i hate that thought, too.)