Author Topic: Symbiostock Version 2.0 Previews (Read 11565 times)

jsfoto · « **Reply #25 on:** May 16, 2013, 11:35 »

Leo, I just created a new "playground" for testing: photosyouneed.com. You should already have received the password for your admin-account ... at least I hope you have. I gonna upload more images in the next hours ... feel free to do whatever is necessary on this site

I hope it helps.

quailrunphoto · « **Reply #26 on:** May 16, 2013, 14:22 »

Leo, you should have gotten an email with your id and password for my test site.

I am loading images now. Let me know if you need anything else.

David

Leo Blanchette · « **Reply #27 on:** May 16, 2013, 15:33 »

Thanks guys. Thats plenty to start with.

topol · « **Reply #28 on:** May 17, 2013, 03:12 »

Quote from: Leo on May 15, 2013, 16:11

That idea is partially addressed in the plugin I'm making which creates a "hub" site - which in turn creates a central search area for a number of network sites.

The problem with a central database is what you see now - overly centralized systems create imbalances and a lot of unhealthy (and often unfair) competition.

Nature tends to have things right - although nature has plenty of "super-societies" they generally balance out and fragment when they get too big. They are also made up of smaller worker units all of which are perfectly self-sufficient in their own right. Symbiostock attempts to emulate those sorts of relationships because they tend to be foolproof and actually supply everyone in a balanced way. So really its not even my idea ...its just an honest look at nature's success.

People tend to create overly-centralized systems with a lot of overly-dependent workers and subsystems and pretend it somehow emulates nautures design (as they say, survival of the fittest, eat or be eaten! Get big, take territory...that nonsense). Those systems "break" easy when problems come up. They are top-heavy, expensive, eat up resources (often from the bottom-line workers). Also the search engines most agents use must find a way to take 10,000,000 images (or products) and give them a place in the first 20 pages of a given keyphrase...and minding the attention span of the average human probably does not make it to page 20...its an impossible game and everyone just loves playing it for some reason.

But there will be a "network hub" plugin which creates a sort of central farmer's market for quite a few network sites. Also hub plugins will be able to aggregate other hub sites as well...combining hubs... so this idea of doing the impossible (making a huge central database) is really up for grabs for whoever has the time but I don't think overly centralized systems are ever really able to be successful in the long-run. At least not when they are responsible for providing in a balanced way.

Its not possible to explain all this stuff in just a few lines, but at least it gives you an idea of where things *may* be headed as long as they are successful.

I understand some may feel like the 'previous system' is creeping back into this project if they create a central search site, but that's not the case. The main search site wouldn't change anything at all in the way ppl run their own site, it would be just an addition on top of everything else. Anyone can get their own traffic and sell on their own site separately from the main search, as if it didn't even exist. As for competition on prices / merchandise.... well, it's just always there anyway. I don't insist this being implemented in the symbio system, but I think it would help this project compete with / kill the big sites... and there's very little doubt in my mind that we need to show that we can go for killing the big sites, or you will see your work handed out for free based on 'ad-space revenue'. Just look at getty connect.

cascoly · « **Reply #29 on:** May 17, 2013, 17:07 »

one thing a central site could do is aggregate information and serve as a first stop -- if we're all pointing TO that site it should do better in attracting buyers than any individual site. then a search by keyword would look at a db of which sites best fit that search and display them as a list the user can choose from

the next release should have some hooks that let this be done independently of the theme itself

Leo Blanchette · « **Reply #30 on:** May 17, 2013, 17:35 »

The more people start using Symbiostock I have a pretty good feeling these things will almost "make themselves" since this is an open-source project. Inevitably people will want a central promoter. The sort of ideas that people like you come up with is what will end up shaping it

plrang · « **Reply #31 on:** May 17, 2013, 17:44 »

except that if I want to buy 10 files from 10 different people I need to register 10 times;)
correct me if I am wrong, or maybe Leo has some secret weapon on this

Leo Blanchette · « **Reply #32 on:** May 17, 2013, 17:57 »

One of the things a hub site could do is manage carts remotely (in effect it creates and manages users remotely).

The downside is you would:

Have to trust whoever is running the hub site.
Have to trust whoever is running the hub site.
Most likely have to pay a monthly marketing fee (or worse) a fraction of your sale.

So keep in mind whoever runs a hub site needs a reason for doing it! Unless someone just enjoys it as a hobby. A hub host would need a good reason to manage all that.

Thats why it will have to be given much thought. Keep in mind you already take on a huge chunk of responsability by working on your own site, paying your own hosting...once you start centralizing, paying fees, asking for traffic...you almost give away your power. So we really have to think about this.

I think the first priority in the idea of "the hub site" is figuring out how you'd make the webmaster benefit without re-inventing the whole problem of microstock all over again.

mattdixon · « **Reply #33 on:** May 17, 2013, 18:45 »

Quote from: Leo on May 17, 2013, 17:57

I think the first priority in the idea of "the hub site" is figuring out how you'd make the webmaster benefit without re-inventing the whole problem of microstock all over again.

Centralised cart - not sure how you could securely send the payments on to the individual artists.

One search result with equal distribution in the results for each of the linked members / artists - so you could create the illusion of a big stock library.

The only reason I can think of why you would want to run a hub site is if you were a artist collective wanting to create a bigger library and pool marketing efforts to attract customers. It would have to run on a certain level of trust just like any company, as long as the payment distribution was secure and the search results fair for each artist I'm sure it would self manage.

It would be quite spectacular if you could develop a 'hub theme' that appeared like a stock site from the outside, libraries could easy hit 100k with 20 to 30 members.

Leo Blanchette · « **Reply #34 on:** May 18, 2013, 00:09 »

The higher-network functions are starting to emerge from their little cocoon for you to see!

I don't even know where to start!

Lets make it a story...

Someone has joined the Symbiostock network and set up their website. For example purposes, its : http://www.clipartillustrations.com/

Brand new site...webmaster wants traffic and backlinks from complementary (or just friendly) sites. So he/she browses around and eventually comes to these sites (note these are testing sites I chose because their Symbiocards were fairly complete) and downloads their Symbiocards from their easy-to-find author pages:

http://tulip.kerioak.com/author/indi/

http://fotostocki.pl/symbiotest/author/admin/

http://ajotte.com/symbiotest/author/admin/

After saving their Symbiocards, they went to their Admin area and uploaded them, fully populating their site with their new network friends. (When this is done, this action will cause your site to email your newfound network buddy that you've added them, and hopefully they would do the same.

Now you can see that everyone's Symbiocard is LOADED with useful stuff. Because nobody has resaved their Symbiocard for this latest version yet, you can see this example: http://www.clipartillustrations.com/author/leo-blanchette/

All of that info (categories, etc) will show up on everyone's sites your Symbiocard has migrated to.

Now when someone searches a network site, this is what they see:

http://www.clipartillustrations.com/search-images/animal/

You can see the Symbiocard in action here too! (the dropdown on each network results)

Note that instead of 5 results, there are 24 on a slider per page. This will solve a certain 404 problem as well.

If you follow the link to the person's "network" you can see the Symbiocard's of each one on my site...if your a customer, this is very interesting. If your a search engine, this is very helpful.

http://www.clipartillustrations.com/symbiostock-network/

There are now some "featured images" and "latest images" sliders which can be used in parts of your site, like in the "gallery" page you can now officially link to in your Symbiocard. The widgets can use either thumbnail size or preview size images. They can also be used via shortags, so you can place them anywhere in your content you wish.

[ss-slider id=my-preview-slider size=preview action=latest] — Type: Latest, Size: Preview

[ss-slider id=my-preview-slider size=preview action=featured] — Type: Featured, Size: Preview

[ss-slider id=my-preview-slider size=minipic action=latest] — Type: Latest, Size: Minipic

[ss-slider id=my-preview-slider size=minipic action=featured] — Type: Featured, Size: Minipic

There are plenty of upgrades on this theme too.

You can now update the theme by pushing a button instead of having to re-upload. It updates just like a wordpress.org theme.

The BIGGEST thing new webmasters struggle with (at least small startups) is backlinks. With Symbiostock your backlink-rich right out of the box.

Here is a list of test sites so you can watch things progress among them as they update / play:

http://cascoly-images.com/symbiotest/

www.9livesillustrations.com/arctium/

http://tulip.kerioak.com/

http://ajotte.com/symbiotest/

http://fotostocki.pl/symbiotest/

http://symbiostock.glennspecht.com/wp/

http://www.photosyouneed.com/

http://quailrunphoto.com/symbiotest/wp-admin/themes.php

cascoly · « **Reply #35 on:** May 18, 2013, 01:32 »

Quote from: Leo on May 17, 2013, 17:57

.......
Thats why it will have to be given much thought. Keep in mind you already take on a huge chunk of responsability by working on your own site, paying your own hosting...once you start centralizing, paying fees, asking for traffic...you almost give away your power. So we really have to think about this.

I think the first priority in the idea of "the hub site" is figuring out how you'd make the webmaster benefit without re-inventing the whole problem of microstock all over again.

if we keep the search & payment separate that isn't too demanding - we already have the hosting. i'm planning on setting up some testing anyway, and while income would be nice, managing this for the moment would be part of contributing to the overall project. I've already got many functioning databases online, so it's largely a matter of hacking already existing code

in addition, any files that are stored should be available (easiest as csv) to anyone else who wants to play with them

cascoly · « **Reply #36 on:** May 18, 2013, 02:49 »

ok, here's a quick example of collecting the symbiocards in a db then generating reports

http://cascoly.com/symbio/testsymbio.asp

Leo Blanchette · « **Reply #37 on:** May 18, 2013, 03:04 »

Quote from: cascoly on May 18, 2013, 02:49

ok, here's a quick example of collecting the symbiocards in a db then generating reports

http://cascoly.com/symbio/testsymbio.asp

Thats REALLY cool!

Oh just an FYI - the sites also produce an image listing for hub (and other agency) aggregation - http://www.clipartillustrations.com/symbiostock_image_info.csv

That might be useful to you as well.

Leo Blanchette · « **Reply #38 on:** May 18, 2013, 03:28 »

Oh almost forgot - the green download button everyone was asking for - http://www.clipartillustrations.com/image/orange-man-with-coffee-cup-and-coffee-bag/

Ok, gnight.

Beach Bum · « **Reply #39 on:** May 18, 2013, 03:47 »

Quote from: Leo on May 18, 2013, 03:28

Oh almost forgot - the green download button everyone was asking for - http://www.clipartillustrations.com/image/orange-man-with-coffee-cup-and-coffee-bag/

Ok, gnight.

Great! Love that.

ajt · « **Reply #40 on:** May 18, 2013, 04:27 »

And now, when all test sites became public, it's better to go to root folder and put robots.txt file with

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

to avoid indexing and mess in Google results

Kerioak~Christine · « **Reply #41 on:** May 18, 2013, 05:13 »

I have added everyone else's test sites to my network.

The searches are sooo much faster and I like the sliding for network members images. It would be nice to have a slower version of that or an option to show more pictures per page for original site (I added mostly dogs with a few other random items) so you can see what I mean

My green button is purple

plrang · « **Reply #42 on:** May 18, 2013, 05:55 »

Leo, problems

1.
search field on my site redirects to
http://fotostocki.pl/symbiotest/?s=animal&submit=Search&post_type=image

while
http://fotostocki.pl/symbiotest/search-images/animal/ is ok

2.
I had a page /symbiostock-network created before

so that one Leo, you have on your site - doesn-t exist
http://www.clipartillustrations.com/symbiostock-network/

3. I couldn't process uploaded images, they disappeared (but maybe you're doing some tests)

Another SUGGESTION is to change the SELECT to TICK in "Specialty"

click_click · « **Reply #43 on:** May 18, 2013, 09:20 »

It's been hard to keep track of all the developments but I still have another thing I'm struggling with:

I don't use a child theme for Symbiostock and I had to modify "page-home1.php" to insert an image slider and "searchform_symbiostock.php" to remove the pulldown of the search function (to remove the search option for blog/pictures).

1. Leo, is it possible to create an option in the admin panel that allows the user to turn on/off that search option pulldown menu?

2. Is my question above too rude because I should be using a child theme to prevent site design hiccups when updating to newer Symbiostocks versions?

I've disabled the search pulldown a while ago and after re-inserting the code manually a few times whenever I updated Symbiostock I got tired of it.

3. If I do use a child theme and Symbiostock constantly gets updated, I don't have to worry about the up-to-dateness of my child them ever? Would be great then, just wanted to make sure.

If, as so often, I have asked questions that have been answered a long time ago in another thread, feel free to bash me and send me the link to the thread.

Thanks

cascoly · « **Reply #44 on:** May 18, 2013, 14:41 »

Quote from: Leo on May 18, 2013, 03:04

Quote from: cascoly on May 18, 2013, 02:49
ok, here's a quick example of collecting the symbiocards in a db then generating reports

http://cascoly.com/symbio/testsymbio.asp

Thats REALLY cool!

Oh just an FYI - the sites also produce an image listing for hub (and other agency) aggregation - http://www.clipartillustrations.com/symbiostock_image_info.csv

That might be useful to you as well.

more than useful! i was just about to ask for something like that in reply to the other external files we've been talking about! can you add category to that csv?

meanwhile - one of the things I've been doing is manually running smugmug RSS thru a non-sym WP plugin, then taking the results and displaying them from my other website, thus creating pages of libks to the smugmug images. eg http://cascoly.com/photo/backgrounds-patterns-mosaics.asp

this makes the whole process simpler - I can write a simple online script that can take anyone's image csv and create html pages that can be posted anywhere

cascoly · « **Reply #45 on:** May 18, 2013, 14:46 »

Quote from: click_click on May 18, 2013, 09:20

3. If I do use a child theme and Symbiostock constantly gets updated, I don't have to worry about the up-to-dateness of my child them ever? Would be great then, just wanted to make sure.

If, as so often, I have asked questions that have been answered a long time ago in another thread, feel free to bash me and send me the link to the thread.

Thanks

right - that's a main reason most of us are using the child theme

as far as previous answers, the threads are so long now it's often easier to re-answer - or put them in the separate symbio FAQ that we're developing

http://cascoly-images.com/pix/faq-frequently-asked-questions-about-symbiostock/

quailrunphoto · « **Reply #46 on:** May 18, 2013, 14:57 »

I have updated the test site with new information and profiles. I have installed the latest plug ins.

1. Some of my previous issues with Symbiostock 1.x have been resolved, plugins conflicting with each other.
2. I have defined a page Symbiostock Network, for some reason everything appears on the right side of the page. I have tried different page templates with no effect.
3. I am currently unable to process new images. The process screen completes without error, but the images are not available.
4. I am not sure if I have completed the Symbiocard information correctly. Not sure how to verify that it is working properly.

That is all for now.

Leo Blanchette · « **Reply #47 on:** May 18, 2013, 15:26 »

Thanks. For some odd reason images have trouble on this one. I'm sure its just a small detail. I hope to address it today and update all the test sites.

cascoly · « **Reply #48 on:** May 18, 2013, 18:58 »

http://cascoly.com/symbio/testsymbio.asp

now does a search for keywords across several sites (fixed keywords right now since the limited test data doesn't have a lot of keywords in common)

Leo Blanchette · « **Reply #49 on:** May 18, 2013, 19:08 »

Thats pretty amazing. How are you doing that?

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Author Topic: Symbiostock Version 2.0 Previews (Read 11565 times)

jsfoto

quailrunphoto

Leo Blanchette

topol

cascoly

Leo Blanchette

plrang

Leo Blanchette

mattdixon

Leo Blanchette

cascoly

cascoly

Leo Blanchette

Leo Blanchette

Beach Bum

ajt

Kerioak~Christine

plrang

click_click

cascoly

cascoly

quailrunphoto

Leo Blanchette

cascoly

Leo Blanchette

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