So people want to know personal experiences with Symbiostock. Here is mine.

A week or two ago I decided it was time to investigate further. I�m not one to take people�s word for what they know nothing about. Any bitchin� and complainin� didn�t scare me off once I saw the potential in it. I asked some questions (right here on Microstock Group actually), I got some good answers, and I took the plunge. I didn�t land in anything more than shallow, lukewarm water.

Is it hard to set up? No. It�s not! I did go with Bluehost not because I have shares in the company. I did it to minimise complications on things I know very little about. Before my site I only knew that WordPress should be spelt with two words

After setting my site up I STILL don�t know much about PHP and I even did a 2 day course years back. Am I brave? No, not really. I just played it on the safe side, went with the recommendations and to my surprise... one click setups did a lot of the work for me. I knew that Leo had knowledge about Bluehost and if there were any problems, I could turn to those that knew more than me, which at that point was everyone!

I am also running the beta version of Symbiostock. Shock! Horror! I�m lazy! I didn�t want to redo my thingamawidgets and bobs when the beta went live! I understand if you WON�T stand up at the front of the row to get your beta testing badge but there is a stable version you can play safe with.

Shortly this Beta version will in fact be the �Final� version. Are there bugs with the Beta version? Yip! They are relatively small in my opinion. I�ve worked with Leo to squish some of them as have other members.

I can�t tell you about sales as I�m only now ready to launch. I can tell you that 2 days after I registered with Bluehost, my domain was indexed with Google (much to my shock by not being ready and pleasant surprise) on the second page when I typed �Stock Image�. Within 2 or 3 days 2 or 3 strangers found the site and registered.

Selling Stock is more about promotion and choosing the right domains and making sure you get indexed. It might sound a little harsh but if you don�t make some sales through a setup like Symbiostock then the fault lies elsewhere. High prices, low visibility, Meta Tags not done adequately, etc.

You don�t need to be a web developer to open up a Symbiostock site. You just need a little faith in your abilities as an artist. I�m there now and when I do know the answer to something, I�ll provide it.

This is what you can set up with minimal knowledge after 5 days� http://stockyimage.com/

I only have images on the site that are currently available on iAgencies. The rest will take time. Your site will be as successful as the amount of faith and effort you put into it. There is a forum and we all help each other there.

Leo has a great setup help page that guides you step by step. The rest just ask in the forum! I did!

Hope this helps. I�m tired of the Bash the Symbio over the head. It might not be for everyone but I personally think it is a great platform that will go places. Set your destination.

I think SY has great potential and is a great alternative to the agencies. Said it before and will say it again.


But just because things go smoothly for one person, you cant make a blanket statement and say that everything is coming up roses for everyone. Its simply not true. People are being called names because they disagree and share their tales of problems.


Right now my site is running smoothly, but there are still some things that dont work correctly. Not because plugins are conflicting, or my host has messed things up, or because i have tinkered with code and screwed things up. They dont work because they havent worked since 2.6.5 was released. Things like twitter not posting when it should. I had nothing to do with writing the code. It has a bug or a conflict or whatever other whitewashed name you want to give it, but it's broken.


To represent the product fairly, no one person can say definitively that SY is easy. Everybodys experience is going to be different.


Let the arguments continue... :-)

I can definitely say Symbiostock is easy.

:-) you're so funny!

My experience so far is that I'm really amazed at the amount of work that's been done by so many people to get Symbiostock up and running and user-friendly.

I was surprised to find step-by-step instructions, which, when I followed them (I didn't always, and that's when I grew frustrated) were clear and easy to implement.

I was surprised that someone took the time to set up templates you could download to create your logo, header, etc., which made designing all that stuff to fit perfectly so much easier.

I was surprised how helpful people on the forums were...my questions were answered VERY quickly. And how they much they were willing to share/help. I kind of had this idea that I'd be struggling to figure things out on my own, which was very far from the truth.

I'm purposely keeping my site very simple, so the vast majority of time I've put into it has been spent designing a slideshow and my logo and writing copy, but most of all, uploading.

I sort of look at it as being slightly more involved at the beginning than submitting to a new micro agency, where there's a learning curve about the upload process, what inspectors like, what keywords they accept, how long you wait for files to be approved, etc.

I'm planning to launch Monday with about 10% of my portfolio�with a little advertising blitz, thanks to the $50 in free Facebook advertising that comes with hosting the site on Bluehost. And I'll be keeping my fingers crossed.

Quote from: JoRodrigues on October 10, 2013, 11:15

I�m tired of the Bash the Symbio over the head.

That seems a disingenuous description of identifying a potential bug or incompatibility. My site worked pretty well for about four months before I ran into BH or SY issues. I'm hardly bashing. Honestly I don't see anyone on MSG bashing this theme.

I was reminded when I saw your little football player avatar. If you want me to look at the issues you've noted on your site please let me know. I'm fixing all the remaining issues for the final 2.7-2.8 release. Just mention them on www.symbiostock.org so I don't lose track: http://www.symbiostock.org/topic/13/remaining-symbiostock-cleanup-suggestions/

Quote from: djpadavona on October 10, 2013, 11:33

Quote from: JoRodrigues on October 10, 2013, 11:15

I�m tired of the Bash the Symbio over the head.

That seems a disingenuous description of identifying a potential bug or incompatibility. My site worked pretty well for about four months before I ran into BH or SY issues. I'm hardly bashing. Honestly I don't see anyone on MSG bashing this theme.

My apologies if it appeared I was singling you out. It was not my intention.

Fair enough. Could you please provide an example on MSG where members are bashing Symbiostock?

one of my favorite words (from long ago gaming days)

A bashi-bazouk or bashibazouk (Turkish başıbozuk, or delibaş, literally "damaged head", meaning "free headed", "leaderless", "disorderly") was an irregular soldier of the Ottoman army. They were particularly noted for their lack of discipline.   (wiki)

......
 Unfortunately, even the posts themselves are a mess. As I have previously stated, the blog page of posts does not work and Leo has acknowledged that it does not work. .........

Dan, to come back to this. I just noticed the same. The reader menu settings in the WP menu are not taking effect. I have 10 blog posts, and when setting the reader menu to show only 5 and summaries only, it doesnt work here http://semmickphoto.com/blog/ I agree with you that that will become (or is) a mess. I will take this up with Leo.

As for the image previews. It could be related to the watermark. The watermark location seem to have changed with 2.6.5 (not 100% sure about that tho) but when the watermark cant be found, the images wont show a preview. I got this from Leo the other day, it might work.

Upload watermark through here :
http://yoursite.com/wp-admin/media-new.php

You simply place the location referenced in that media page to here, into the settings area where you assign your watermark.

http://yoursite.com/wp-admin/admin.php?page=symbiostock-control-options&tab=2settings

Then upload and process an image and see what happens.

That sounds promising. I will take a look at it once I take care of some work this morning. Do you know off-hand where the original watermark is stored in the SY zip file? It's been a long time since I looked at the watermark files.

I think they would normally sit here /www/wp-content/themes/symbiostock/inc/classes/image-processor

I am not sure why that is no longer working.

Hope its the fix you need.

Eureka, you were correct Ron. The settings panel appeared to be pointing toward the correct location of the original watermark, but once I uploaded a second watermark and changed the setting to point at it, images processed with full previews. Excellent work, and +1 many times for finally solving this for me. It's been over a month of banging my head against a desk.

I'll need to create a proper watermark but at least I know it is functional. I can't remember the names of the other MSG members who had the same problem (Neilr was one but there were a few others), but hopefully it's the same watermark issue for them.

Credit comes to Leo, he fixed an issue for me, all I did was I link it to your issue. Man, thats exciting, haha.

Now, if we can get the blog page to be fixed, we are getting close to perfection

Fair enough. Could you please provide an example on MSG where members are bashing Symbiostock?

Honestly, I don't have the time to go through 1000s of posts where people may call it buggy, or simply a pointless exercise, or it will never compete with iAgencies. We all know people are entitled to their opinion just as I may tire of hearing it. You just appear to be taking this personally even though it isn't. You are, however, more than welcome to do your own research into the matter and prove me wrong.

If you feel that my "Bashing" line is out of order, then feel free to continue the discussion without me. If you feel that it is too harsh then my apologies. I�m sorry that you do not agree with my evaluation of the issue but that is beyond my control and it is simply not worth getting into a squabble over.

I really do have other things that require my attention. I feel that I have made myself clear enough and my time can be better spent elsewhere... oh let's see like... helping someone or if I had some time, taking photographs, or drawing up a new vector.


Jo

Honestly enough though I think the last thing remaining for the Symbiostock community is unlearning "reactivity" and simply being happy. Microstock has left us bitter (its reflected in many forums) and its a hard habit to break. I'd love to see a happy, fun, humorous, and forward moving community when everything is finally done.

Leo, I am getting there, the fun part. It was fun and exciting to start up with Symbiostock, then it became a stable version and I was just uploading, and now with the latest version, I am really excited again. Man this latest version is so much fun. The Professional plugin combined with 2.7.4 is just fun. I love creating collections, customising the site with live preview, every thing is so pretty now, and so many cool features.

So yes, the fun is definitely coming back. And I am sure once the final version is out, we will see the fun come back to all of us. You did a great job man. Thanks a lot.