Bummer, I am going to Minneapolis for the week and you are going to release this when I am gone aren't you?   

I really like the "open network" idea.  I'm not sure about the 5 in your network - It would be great for people with same size portfolios, but who is going to want to network with my tiny niche site(s)...  But on the other hand - someone who has several niches could link their own sites together.  LOL, this may become a popularity contest.  Symbiostock Survivor!

Pixart,I might be willing to network with your niche site.  Finding 5 people willing to network with me has been one of my concerns since I tend to lurk here and don't have vast connections.  We need an "orphans" list of people looking for network friends. 

I have a small portfolio that is heavy on food images and no images with people. I'm trying to understand what might be the best balance in the best type of network to have.  For instance, LisaFx has food images on her own website but heavy on shots with people.  That could be complimentary because a search for a food-related keyword could lead to my portfolio or her portfolio and (if I understand this right) would show related pics from networked sites.  If my friend network was filled with portfolios that had a lot of travel, landscape, business, etc. would it be less likely that related images would pop up to link over to network portfolios? 

Leo - will there be a tracking option that shows a report to analyze how one's friend network is working out with regard to inbound and outbound traffic?  It seems that it will be critical in fine-tuning the network.  If I see that I am not getting any inbound traffic from someone that has me as a friend or I see that I'm not giving any outbound traffic to one of my friends it would be time to consider updating one's friend network to benefit each other better.

I am just now reading about this.  Sounds very interesting.  From my limited understanding, this is something I would definitely try. 

I don't quite understand why it has to be limited to 5 other sites to network with.  I would rather see all indie sellers networked together.   But either way,  would be happy to participate.  I don't know squat about coding though, so someone would have to help with that if anything's required on my end...

And Karen, you are better known than you think.  I would be happy to network with you

I think if I had to pick 5 sites to network with, I'd look for slightly different but complimentary themes. I have a niche market in rare earth minerals, metals and gemstones so I'd be looking for industrial, people at work, and/or jewelry themed niches to network with, preferably with similar price ranges.

Maybe people could list their niches or subject matter and see who would be best to network with?

I'm still exclusive. I'm thinking a lot about kick it off and free my soul. I'm a illustrator and i hope i find other five illustrators dudes to share links. It's a bit weird share links with photo guys, but i have no prejudices. 

I'm really happy to see everyone so excited over this!

I'm hoping on the Symbiostock main site information is available on different networks and what they offer...which will allow you to hunt down people better. But thats a ways away at this rate.

If I opt in the networking thing, definitely, Leo's site is one of them.

I would try to go solo as well to test things.

Thank you for the thought. I was going to put a set of credit links which you can activate or deactivate: Microstockgroup.com, ClipArtof.com, ClipArtIllustration.com.

But regarding network, I'll be launching clipartillustrations.com (note the "s') brand new and starting it from scratch. It will allow me to continuously see it from the perspective you guys will be at [edit: so I can remember what its like to start from scratch, see issues of a new site, etc.]. At that site any network inclusions would be very appreciated.

Also I'd like to thank everyone for their support on this project.

1. Two way links only happen if your friend also adds you to network. You can search his/her site and verify they've added you when you see your search results included.

2. 5 network contacts is the limit for included results right now, until I see how everything plays out. When you add a network member, you include their results. When they add you, they include yours.

3. How far away does the search reach? 1 site right now. Literally, your friend's site is as far as it goes. Your friend will have you, and 4 others (or possibly share a few network contacts with you) and thus you have the way the network extends itself.

Its worth mentioning again, this is a lilly-pad-jumping system, not a typical search. In fact, thinking of it as high-end "browsing" might help your expectations a bit.

Sounds nice and functional. People could also plan second links with friends, like this: Site A would link to B,C,D,E,F and these people are selling associated concepts, but there are more people who want in the "daisy" (or Lilly or whatever someone calls it) So B makes friends with 1,2,3,4,5, and C links to 6,7,8,9,10,  D 11-15... and so on. New people are friends off the hub, one step away from the center.

If someone wanted to close the loop a little, 5-10-15-20 and 25 could all link to each other, forming a back loop to the second tier. (maybe I need to make a little diagram?)

Now what we need is a Match Making Service for Hubs, friends and sub hubs?  For the people with similar interests who wanted to be with similar, then they could find their group, all be around one site, and build out adding new people who wanted to belong to the Similar To "X" group.

For people who wanted different materials, they could associate with a "diversity" center HUB person, and then all of them build out adding only people directly who are different, based on their own idea of what associates to have.

Yes I like the idea of SEO link on everyone's page somewhere, to Kona's site, to pay back for all the efforts.

If I ever get the software running and I can understand it (some days?) and there's anyone else interested in Sports Editorial as a group, that would be my target. Hey Warren, Motorcycles would be perfect, I'll take cars, someone else can do soccer, that way we share and are similar, but non-competing most of the time.

Yes i would like to try also ! But i have already a blog working with wordpress, I guess I have to start from a fresh wordpress install.

still trying to think of ways to get around the 5 links limit, realizing why it was there

right now it's hard to tell who's linking to whom & would be nice t be able to access more than 5 sites.  one possibility would be to allow more than 5  but, each time a search is needed, select ONLY 5 randomly

would also be nice to allow a display somewhere of which sites are being linked, without having to do a search

this should be simple [php has to have a random number generator somewhere]

a more involved approach would be to have each site particapte in a database that lists their interests and then have symbio pick 5 from the database [this would be a simple db call that leo could use at the start of an extended search]  in both these cases of course, each site owner could decide whether to participate or not

If you REALLY REALLY want to get more than five people included in your search results, you can alter the amount allowed directly in the code. I have it set up so one fine day I can make the amount a variable set in the options. For now, in testing, 5 is card-coded in.

Random - easy. But you sacrifice the SEO value because link-power is built up based on perminant links. However it might benefit humans more ... so many factors. But keep having ideas because the time will come when I can get full-on into the network again.

i was aiming to have a DIFFERENT set of 5 each time - so we would still list say 10 sites, but your search each time would select only 5 of them (if processing time is a concern)

thus a random selection of 5 each time, but the SEO effects would be the same - so it's 2 different problems - SEO effect from backlinks and additional links thru searches.  for me, the latter seems more important right now

one big problem right now is knowing who to link to - and as we have more people added, those with smaller portfolios might not get many network links.   what's needed is a way to go to each site and scrape  data -
   the number of images in the portfolio,
    the network that the site owner has set up. 
       quick desc or tags by the owner of what their site offers
     what they look for in network partners - either same content, any content or different content. 


 if Leo can provide such a hidden report,  i could then write a program that recovers this data and displays it as a table we can all access


eventually this could provide the input to the search itself