You chastise people for posting here, Leo, and yet here you are inundating the board with lots of new threads. 


In my travels while upgrading my SY theme, i ran across many backlinks to a few peoples sites. It explains why a few people are and have been making good sales all along. Because those backlinks, multiplied many times over by each person who has a site and each new person that creates an SY site, ensures that those few people continue to make good sales. Meanwhile, the promise that the networking of SY will bring sales to everyone goes largely unfulfilled.


One only has to look at the massive amount of links the top few people have to your site in Webmaster Tools to see what is going on.


Some people are ecstatic that they have sold a couple of images in months. As growth of new sites takes place, there should be some increase accordingly in individuals sales. That isnt happening. 1 sale in 8 months isnt good enough for me, especially since about 200 new sites have been added since that one sale. If networking were working for me, i should have seen what, maybe one more sale? Or maybe way more, i think?


I have no doubt SY will be successful for a few people. For the most of the people who build, photography is their profession and its about selling photos, not about blogging, social media, and building additional websites with massive amounts of cross-linking.


As far as the basic SY theme goes, there are basic things that photographers need to have included. Some of those things still dont work correctly. After dozens of updates or upgrades, they still dont work correctly.


There is lots of proposing of how all SYers can push SY. Each one of those pushes adds lots of juice to the few who are doing well, but does hardly anything for the people doing the pushing.


It sounds an awful lot like just another internet scheme...get a whole bunch of people to do your selling for you so you can live off their backs. That isnt why i built an SY site. I built it so you could live off my back and i could live off yours. You can see that half of the equation is missing.


When i say "you", i mean anyone who has benefitted in a big way from this. You know who you are.


For these reasons, i am calling SY an epic fail for me and i am out.

I'm not sure about the whole conspiracy theory thing, but I was wondering about why there is a cap on 10 links. I wouldn't mind having a larger link exchange page. It seems like something that would be advantageous, but maybe there was a reason for having only ten that I was missing.

I am on the sidelines now and will continue to be so until I see a better and clearer vision...

You chastise people for posting here, Leo, and yet here you are inundating the board with lots of new threads. 

Um, when did I chastise anyone for posting in MSG? I've always felt it was the other way around. And I was gone for at least 4 months, fatigued from Symbiostock. I come back in one day, and I "inundate" Symbiostock board with threads. The Symbiostock board is ignored by half of MSG because in its early days, there were lots of threads due to popularity. I don't think its as you say.

In my travels while upgrading my SY theme, i ran across many backlinks to a few peoples sites. It explains why a few people are and have been making good sales all along. Because those backlinks, multiplied many times over by each person who has a site and each new person that creates an SY site, ensures that those few people continue to make good sales. Meanwhile, the promise that the networking of SY will bring sales to everyone goes largely unfulfilled.

Cathy, I'm going to try to be kind to you here. Back when I was solo my site did about 1700 visits a day. I did thousands on it between the sales of collections, images, and custom work requests.

Since I started Symbiostock, I've neglected my site, and now I'm down to 200 visits a day, still doing daily sales. I could go on, but I suspect it would not be heard anyway.

One only has to look at the massive amount of links the top few people have to your site in Webmaster Tools to see what is going on.

This is really funny, but prior to Symbiostock I already had a massive amount of backlinks. And Symbiostock was a response to the Google/Getty deal. But now I see why Lobo exists. I owe the man an apology.

Some people are ecstatic that they have sold a couple of images in months. As growth of new sites takes place, there should be some increase accordingly in individuals sales. That isnt happening. 1 sale in 8 months isnt good enough for me, especially since about 200 new sites have been added since that one sale. If networking were working for me, i should have seen what, maybe one more sale? Or maybe way more, i think?

Did, maybe, you ever think there is more to selling an image than a page and traffic?

I have no doubt SY will be successful for a few people. For the most of the people who build, photography is their profession and its about selling photos, not about blogging, social media, and building additional websites with massive amounts of cross-linking.

Again, I could respond, but really... what can I say? Look at the people who do well.

As far as the basic SY theme goes, there are basic things that photographers need to have included. Some of those things still dont work correctly. After dozens of updates or upgrades, they still dont work correctly.

Believe it or not, the few complaints I have always carry more weight than the people who don't complain. Its why finally I crashed for 4 months. Absolute stress and fatigue. I wanted very much to go back to my previous world of Illustration. But anyway, I'm here again for a while and many of your complaints have been taken care of. Or not, I don't have the long checklist of your complaints.

There is lots of proposing of how all SYers can push SY. Each one of those pushes adds lots of juice to the few who are doing well, but does hardly anything for the people doing the pushing.

Speculative, and wrong again. Besides, at this time I'm setting up even more on a global search...but I suspect that might be a  mistake, increasing an unhealthy sense of dependence and entitlement, when I could just be free of all this anyway and go back to illustration and marketing and programming for my own site.

It sounds an awful lot like just another internet scheme...get a whole bunch of people to do your selling for you so you can live off their backs. That isnt why i built an SY site. I built it so you could live off my back and i could live off yours. You can see that half of the equation is missing.

You have so many ignorant statements in this post its astounding. Symbiostock gives me very little income in comparison to my days as an illustrator. This is humbling and eye-opening for me, as well, seeing that I'm a contributor seeing what its like, in a way, to be an agent. I'm not an agent, but this situation is enough to see what its like to be one. I'm only hanging onto this because there are 160 sites depending on it still going.

When i say "you", i mean anyone who has benefitted in a big way from this. You know who you are.

For these reasons, i am calling SY an epic fail for me and i am out.

If you wish, but I've spoken my side, and its not the conspiracy you say. If Symbiostock sells images, its successful.

Now I might also say I'm humbled in another regard too. The many people who have good sales expressed fear for posting their stories. They said it would get a negative reaction.

I know what I should do... I should give away the premium upgrade. Then I'd be blameless.

I'm not sure about the whole conspiracy theory thing, but I was wondering about why there is a cap on 10 links. I wouldn't mind having a larger link exchange page. It seems like something that would be advantageous, but maybe there was a reason for having only ten that I was missing.

Theres a cap because it takes time for a symbiostock site to call all those sites. You generally don't notice because Symbiostock is programmed to let search engine spiders do the waiting in advance, so users don't have to. Our humble unsung hero AJT devised that method.

The cap is for performance...I could remove it, but it was a consideration to the network.

I am on the sidelines now and will continue to be so until I see a better and clearer vision...

Partly cloudy with a chance of tornadoes. Get underground quick.

I am not going to get into a whole big rigamarole about what is and what isnt going on. My opinion is that the networking did me no good. I dont want to rebuild my site every time an update comes along.

.....

 

yet another of your mis-statements ---  updates to sym do not require any rebuilding of an existing site (unless you've changed the internal code for the theme, which is true of ANY WP theme)

I wonder how much money that person made before she disappeared. Did anyone get refunded? If not, its a disgrace. What happened to Syxtra? People paid for that? Discontinued as well.

There is a difference. Software tends to keep working when you have a version, you dont have to update. This piece of software stopped working altogether, some people used it for a few months and that was it.

Its probably my Dutch culture, turning every dime before its spend, and bringing our own snacks to a cinema, that doesnt understand this practice.

Quote from: cathyslife stockphotos.com on January 28, 2014, 07:10

....Meanwhile, the promise that the networking of SY will bring sales to everyone goes largely unfulfilled.





As far as the basic SY theme goes, there are basic things that photographers need to have included. Some of those things still dont work correctly. After dozens of updates or upgrades, they still dont work correctly. ......

For these reasons, i am calling SY an epic fail for me and i am out.

while you're certainly entitled to your opinion, your complaints are disingenuous -- YOU opted out of networking many months ago which is why you are not listed in the global searches, so your comments about your not benefiting from networking are irrelevant -- you do however continue to get benefits from several sym sites that don't realize this and who still link to you.

I expect both both you and Leo to be the ones to try and discount my feelings because you have the most to lose.


Actually i have never disconnected from the network until 2 or 3 weeks ago. I was connected to ten people for a few months. Then i was only connected to ajts search engine. Then i was back to being connected to 10 people again. None of it mattered.


Last i looked, a week or so ago, i was still in the global search. I knew that sooner or later someone would out me. And by the way, i sent emails to every single person who had me in their network telling them my feelings. That was a couple of days after i decided to change themes. If they didnt have any contact info on their site, of course i couldnt. As far as benefitting...there have been no benefits! I made one sale! How many have you made? Im guessing you are one of the ones who wont say.


And this is exactly the drama i am done with. Good luck, wishing you all SYers the best. Even Martha, who thinks i am a turkey. (Wonder why people have to resort to name calling when someone disagrees?) 


Onward and upward.

Thanks Leo for starting something that many wanted but didn�t have the skill set to pull off.

I signed up for this for the long haul, this project is still in it�s infancy, some of you people need to relax.

Frankly there are a lot of good points in Chromaco�s post.
What I think most contributors fail to realize is that we are providing a commodity.
Stock photography changed with the birth of microstock. Sites popped up all over the place. Prices went down. There isn�t one segment - be it buyers, suppliers or the sites that are to blame, it is just an evolution made possible by digital technology.
 
Too many contributors think of themselves as �artists� and are too naive to realize that what they do is not that special. There isn�t a single one of us whose portfolio would be missed by the microstock world if it disappeared today.

Take note people your images aren�t worth what they used to be. And it�s not likely to get any better.

Chromaco�s simple approach is probably the route we should all be taking. Instead of multiple licenses - one simple license. Buy it - Use it - don�t resell it! Genius.

One template for all the sites - Leo you�ve been too accommodating to the numerous requests for customization.
One Template - Download it - Use it -  Genius.
And if you don�t like it - don�t be part of it, and don�t demand it be something it isn�t.

I wonder what Leo would have accomplished for Symbiostock had it not been for all the pissers and moaners.

I am so sick of reading negative posts. To the quitters - see ya - don�t let the door hit you in the arse on the way out. If you�re not a member shut-the-eff-up and move on to something else.

And as for this message board - I could put 90% of you on ignore and not miss anything that matters. The avalanche of drivel posted is mind-blowing

To everyone with a symbio Site - get off you butts and upload your images. I am tired of seeing the people in my network with the same amount of images month after month. If you want this thing to take off help it grow.

Disclaimer:
All opinions are mine alone. I have a Symbio Site but have nothing to do with the operation, planning, or creation of Symbiostock.

I removed your name from the thread - I should have thought to do that

Anyway, your story inspired me. I want to be an illustrator