By request: I'll keep posting updates at the bottom of this opening post.

Lets talk open source, and unofficial. Lets talk about selling your own images for free.  I mean, a free means to sell your images. 100% commission.

I've been working on a WordPress theme which does this:

• Receives uploads
• Processes images (reading meta data)
• Creates image page
• Sells to customer
• Gives download to customer

Automatically. Set it and forget it. Its very low maintenance.

Plus a lot of other neat things, including all the functionality inherent in WordPress. Its extendable and sky is the limit.

I've been running this on my own website for a very long time now. It makes lots of money. Its my little ace in the hole which keeps me from panicking every time something happens like... well... you know.

While I love love love this little theme I've created, it still needs to be professionalized a bit. Its hard to be a one-man-band.

What do I suggest?


This is literally an open source platform. I want help. I want to create a community. I'm also tired, so I can't do it all. Fact is, I can help on all core functions involving php and up. I just want a few helpers and maybe a community to start.

Goal: Create an open source sell-from-your-website platform which is completely your own stock photo content management system.
This is not speculative - I already have one. What we're doing is professionalizing, modularizing, and monetizing it for the community.

What do I get out of it? I have no idea. Thats why I haven't released it yet. Its an open source platform. So why don't you developers and contributors chime in and let me know how contributors AND developers alike can profit on this open-source theme for selling your own images. Zero investment. 100% profit on your images.

Check out my images on clipartillustration.com. It gets great sales. I get 100%. I think I need to start sharing. You don't need huge agents and complicated legalities which end up in...well...you know.

This thread is for two things:

Developers: contact me on www.clipartillustration.com. Whether design or coding, let me know what you have to offer. Mention insights below.

Contributors: I want your ideas and feedback.

A community fueled project like this would hit the stars very quickly. Its the way it works.

The theme / core website is called SYMBIOSTOCK. Literally has to do with developers/contributors working in symbiosis to make a living as we always try to.

One of the core aspects of Symbiostock will be to easily create networks with your fellow contributors websites and share traffic, offering vast arrays of options while maintaining your own audience. Also, you can sell alternative files (psd, 3d types) through it as well. Most importantly the customer realizes that a human being produced their design solutions, and they deal directly with that human. Future work.

Enough from me - I claim no great business sense. But apparently open source can be made to work. But I am a contributor who's had to adapt and learned some tricks. Now I'd like to help everyone get there too.

Wanted:

Developers and designers: PHP, Javascript (jQuery), html, css, SEO insights. Knowledgable or willing to learn Wordpress CMS.

Well Developed UELA: Which allows a significant amount of use. Or a modular one which can be constructed per image, per options on submit. Simple. Contributor/Customer readable.

Contributors: Who want to get involved, make wish lists, be guinea pigs, etc.

Our goal is to create a new and unique way to sell images and dignify your work.

See clipartillustration.com as a rough-well proven example.

Depending on response, I'll open up www.symbiostock.com for continued development.

Thanks.

Leo


PROGRESS UPDATE 2/5/2013

1. Bare-bones visual design complete. Its basic and non-distracting. Site-owner-ability to change branding / design will be available as purchasable plugin. Its been built around a responsive framework which is good for devices, is strongly SEO'd and most modern wordpress features.

2. The "IMAGE" custom post type is done, and can be edited as a typical wordpress post along with image pricing and other options.

3. The "Admin" area for managing networks, site default values for images/author info, etc, foundation laid. Works beautifully.

4. The image processing system, which user initiates after upload is finished. It creates previews, extracts/works with meta data, creates the initial "image post" along with valuable SEO considerations. This was the biggest and most important part of project, and is finished and working.

5. Image uploader finished. Works great, live progress report. Based off of plupload open source script: http://www.plupload.com/

FEATURES YET TO IMPLEMENT

I would like to keep the "initial" release simple, so we can clean it up and make it easy for a group of coders to work together. Here are the major things yet for me to do:

1. Working on Product (image) page at this time.

2. Cart/paypal system. The initial package will only be compatible with paypal.

3. The network "engine" for integrating with other sites. This need only be copied from my existing site.

4. A "Licensing Options" system for constructing license defaults for entire site, which can be changed per image if desired, to be consistent with various licensing models / prices.

5. The cart/customer system. I may decide to use an existing cart system to maximize features, or I may make a custom symbiostock cart with all of our unique needs. I intend to keep it very simple and straightforward.

PROGRESS UPDATE: 2/10/13

Many thanks to Maurizio of faberfoto.com, for coming up with this beautiful logo. I love it. The interwoven "S" icon depicts symbiosis very well. Awesome awesome awesome.



Main product page is almost done, and the cart itself is well along.

PROGRESS UPDATE: 2/14/13

Marveling at how fast time passes... The figures and faces I've drawn in my cave seem to be talking to me now...

Oh wait... a progress update.

Same as last - Main product page is almost done, and the cart itself is well along, and moving on to paypal IPN.

Here are some videos on general workflow, still being polished up a bit. Pay no attention to front-end. Still has work to be done:

Upload-to-image:

http://www.clipartillustration.com/freefiles/2013-02-14_1817.swf

Some other general features :

http://www.clipartillustration.com/freefiles/2013-02-14_1823.swf

PROGRESS UPDATE: 2/15/13

Took a small detour to make sure image deletion works properly and without leaving a mess. . When you delete an image product, it cleans up files/data related to it. Good housekeeping!

Cleaned up a few more "gotchas" in image upload for unexpected scenarios.

PROGRESS UPDATE: 2/17/13

A small update:

The cart is done! Its very simple, only uses paypal. As mentioned in opening comments, you can apply a unique price to each image at any time, as well as discounts. The cart takes all of this into consideration. It works smoothly without page refreshes. Without a doubt it needs to be improved slightly in bugs and other features. But right now it can "Sell stuff" which is what we want to start with.

Next I will be working on search results and the "symbiostock network" feature.


PROGRESS UPDATE: 2/19/13

The search results engine is well along. It fuels both the "network" aspect of symbiostock and local search results. Once this is done its just a few details left and some minor refinements.

PROGRESS UPDATE: 2/23/13

For the last few days I've been solving some pretty deep puzzles in getting the communicator to work properly. In essence it has to switch between xml and human viewable results depending on if the requester is a network machine or person! And all if this while playing nicely with wordpress. Happily, I got the remaining issues solved yesterday . Now I'm getting into the "just details" phase where I can start wrapping thigs up.

PROGRESS UPDATE: 2/25/13

Almost done search results. They are quite interactive with lots of bling and hover stuff going on, custom controls for admins and customers...modal windows. Looks nice too.

www.clipartillustration.com/freefiles/exampleofsearch.swf - note this is only a rough example without a lot of styling.

Pretty soon I'll post web hosting packages you could use based on people's suggestions here.