Author Topic: Legacy Symbiostock updates (Read 28497 times)

marthamarks · « **Reply #50 on:** April 27, 2015, 12:57 »

I signed on with Symbiostock pretty early on. Not at the absolute beginning, but by June 2013 I had a rough-looking site up and running. It felt good to be part an indie community with a fine, supportive, and growing network of photographers and illustrators, each building our own, interrelated sites.

For almost a year, it seemed like something outstanding was happening. With the help of Leo, Jo Ann and others, I learned to customize my site and get the bugs out of it. Thanks to talented Shelma, I soon had a lovely new logo and watermark.

Then everything blew up. Whew! Nasty stuff. Some people dropped out, but many of us kept our sites going. Mine is still working fine and even produces sales for me.

At this stage of the game, I feel I know Leo. He has helped me several times, hands-on, with my site, and every time what he did was just fine. I trusted him before, and I continue to trust him.

Robin, on the other hand, is nobody to me. Came out of nowhere a few months back as "Leo's voice" on this forum. I don't know a single thing about him or her. (Is "Robin" a man or a woman???) That doesn't matter, of course, except to point how how very little I know about this person who without explanation has suddenly declared him/herself as the "sole owner" or "primary dude" or "first lady" of Symbiostock.

I tend to trust people who I know as individuals and whose work and support I know I can count on. In this case, that is Leo. For sure, it is not this mysterious, new-arrival, non-entity (to me) named "Robin".

For whatever time remains for my involvement with the beautiful thing that once was Symbiostock, I'm sticking with Leo.

r2d2 · « **Reply #51 on:** April 27, 2015, 15:19 »

Of course we dont know who is Robin.

But we know somthing about the "previous developer":
Blackouts, and shut downs in the past. Then Introducing Robin and relaunching a new Symbiostock.

And now Symbiostock is sold to a unknown trademark holder?

Sorry iam not interested in a next (grfx) adventure.

PixelBytes · « **Reply #52 on:** April 27, 2015, 15:45 »

Quote from: Monty-m-gue on April 25, 2015, 04:31

I'd really like to start selling direct and as a consequence I've seriously considered having a Symbiostock website. However, I've watched the Symbiostock shenanigans as an outsider all these months and, to be perfectly honest, the whole thing looks like a bit of a shambles. I may be wrong, but it appears that the developers are a brittle, bickering bunch who change direction at the drop of a hat and leave their user base high and dry at a moments notice.

Given this history, you'd really struggle to get me to sign up to Symbiostock. Stability and consistency are basic requirements from any potential business partner and I really don't see much evidence of that with Symbiostock. I'm afraid any enthusiasm or confidence I had in Symbiostock has pretty much evaporated.

Forgive me if I have misinterpreted what I've read here and elsewhere - and please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

Well said. I've been thinking exactly the same thing. Boy am I glad I didn't invest the time and money to build a Symbiostock site when I was seriously considering doing it. This thing looks like a fiasco, and it's disgraceful to just leave 'legacy sites', meaning early adopters who trusted you and invested in your efforts high and dry. Now you're chasing illustrators, but any illustrator with half a brain should look at your abandonment of photographers and steer clear.

farbled · « **Reply #53 on:** April 27, 2015, 16:08 »

Quote from: marthamarks on April 27, 2015, 12:57

I signed on with Symbiostock pretty early on. Not at the absolute beginning, but by June 2013 I had a rough-looking site up and running. It felt good to be part an indie community with a fine, supportive, and growing network of photographers and illustrators, each building our own, interrelated sites.

For almost a year, it seemed like something outstanding was happening. With the help of Leo, Jo Ann and others, I learned to customize my site and get the bugs out of it. Thanks to talented Shelma, I soon had a lovely new logo and watermark.

Then everything blew up. Whew! Nasty stuff. Some people dropped out, but many of us, including me, kept our sites going. Mine is still working fine and even produces sales for me.

At this stage of the game, I feel I know Leo. He has helped me several times, hands-on, with my site, and every time what he did was just fine. I trusted him before, and I continue to trust him.

Robin, on the other hand, is nobody to me. Came out of nowhere a few months back as "Leo's voice" on this forum. I don't know a single thing about him or her. (Is "Robin" a man or a woman???) That doesn't matter, of course, except to point how how very little I know about this person who without explanation has suddenly declared him/herself as the "sole owner" or "primary dude" or "first lady" of Symbiostock.

I tend to trust people who I know as individuals and whose work and support I know I can count on. In this case, that is Leo. For sure, it is not this mysterious, new-arrival, non-entity (to me) named "Robin".

For whatever time remains for my involvement with the beautiful thing that once was Symbiostock, I'm sticking with Leo.

Same here, I had fun doing it and since I already had webspace, it cost me nothing but time to try. I'm happy to switch and stick with Leo's new venture, since at the end of the day there was/is nothing wrong with the code or the idea. I kept my Sym site up and running since the beginning, and truthfully I like the GRFX one better since I can choose themes easier and Woocommerce has a tonne of plugins as well.

cascoly · « **Reply #54 on:** April 27, 2015, 20:03 »

Quote from: R2D2 on April 27, 2015, 15:19

And now Symbiostock is sold to a unknown trademark holder?

robin does NOT hold the trademark for symbiostock, since there IS NO REGISTERED trademark. he CLAIMS that, and his ridiculous eula and trademark licenses try to make the claim but as of now he has no legal standing for that claim

robin had a wonderful chance to take on the abandoned symbiostock project but his refusal to provide even a minimum of information, combined with a total lack of history with the symbiostock project (he doesnt even have a legacy symbiostock site!) have left him with a very steep hi;; to climb to credibility - it's still p[possible, but his every move shows he's only in it to try to make some money off the project - he's eliminated the files that allowed open sharing of information, and has declared a new global search for a future project, but with no indication that this will be a free service

cascoly · « **Reply #55 on:** April 27, 2015, 20:11 »

Quote from: PixelBytes on April 27, 2015, 15:45

Given this history, you'd really struggle to get me to sign up to Symbiostock. Stability and consistency are basic requirements from any potential business partner and I really don't see much evidence of that with Symbiostock. I'm afraid any enthusiasm or confidence I had in Symbiostock has pretty much evaporated.

Forgive me if I have misinterpreted what I've read here and elsewhere - and please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

Quote

Well said. I've been thinking exactly the same thing. Boy am I glad I didn't invest the time and money to build a Symbiostock site when I was seriously considering doing it. This thing looks like a fiasco, and it's disgraceful to just leave 'legacy sites', meaning early adopters who trusted you and invested in your efforts high and dry. Now you're chasing illustrators, but any illustrator with half a brain should look at your abandonment of photographers and steer clear.

I can certainly understand a wariness on the part of newcomers - but at this time, the symbiostock theme has been proven to be solid after 2 years of testing. it is still the easiest (and cheapest ) way of adding your own stock site and has the advantage of the symbiostock network of global searches run by ajt and me -- the 'new' symbiostock is unproven and does NOT have a global search, networking function

it requires a small amount of work, but no $ invested, unlike other solutions like ktools, etc, so should still be considered by those wanting to test the waters. and there are still plenty of symbiostock community willing to help newcomers get started

in addition, if you start a symbiostock site and later decide to move elsewhere, you will have full access to the database of your images, iptc data, etc that you have created, and that might help migrate to another solution

r2d2 · « **Reply #56 on:** April 28, 2015, 03:13 »

Quote from: cascoly on April 27, 2015, 20:11

I can certainly understand a wariness on the part of newcomers - but at this time, the symbiostock theme has been proven to be solid after 2 years of testing. it is still the easiest (and cheapest ) way of adding your own stock site and has the advantage of the symbiostock network of global searches run by ajt and me -- the 'new' symbiostock is unproven and does NOT have a global search, networking function

Yes its unproven but its normal because it new.
We should naturally observe exactly what makes Robin with Symbiostock.

But the old Symbiostock lost a complete year with stagnation instability and blackouts. And i dont know why?

Symbistock.info/old Symbiostock does not bring buyers no wonder it is not at all appealing enough for buyers to be able to keep up with agencies.
I do not need a hobby photosite i want a alternative to the big agencies!
Symbiostock.info/old Symbiostock needs to be further developed. But that does not happen.

So whats better proven stagnation or a new Symbiostock relaunch with a chance to attract buyers?

For me, the developer of the old Symbiostock have demonstrated that they have no idea of marketing or how to address customer/buyers.

I can not judge Robin's up with Symbiostock yet but I will look at it at least.

Semmick Photo · « **Reply #57 on:** April 28, 2015, 03:22 »

Robin needs to come clean before I even consider trusting him. He needs to start answering some questions to begin with. Before that happens I distrust him.

r2d2 · « **Reply #58 on:** April 28, 2015, 03:25 »

Quote from: Semmick Photo on April 28, 2015, 03:22

Robin needs to come clean before I even consider trusting him. He needs to start answering some questions to begin with. Before that happens I distrust him.

Totally agree that he should do quickly.

cascoly · « **Reply #59 on:** April 28, 2015, 13:18 »

Quote from: R2D2 on April 28, 2015, 03:13

...
But the old Symbiostock lost a complete year with stagnation instability and blackouts. And i dont know why?

Symbistock.info/old Symbiostock does not bring buyers no wonder it is not at all appealing enough for buyers to be able to keep up with agencies.
For me, the developer of the old Symbiostock have demonstrated that they have no idea of marketing or how to address customer/buyers.

...

symbiostock has been stable for more than a year - most of the sites from a year ago are still active

symbiostock is a tool -- it was ever intended to compete with agencies by marketing itself - instead it is up to individual site owners, separately or collectively, to provide marketing for their sites

as an aside, symbiostock.info is owned & operated completely separately from the symbiostock wordpress theme/plugin, and as such is an example of working together that was intended in the original symbiostock. that will not be possible under the new product since robin has said he is not making available the info needed. robin does say he will (eventually) provide a new search but whether that will be free like the established global searches remains to be seen (and according to the new eula, even an initially free search can be changed to a costly one at any time without warning)

marquixHD · « **Reply #60 on:** April 28, 2015, 14:57 »

Quote from: cascoly on April 28, 2015, 13:18

Quote from: R2D2 on April 28, 2015, 03:13
...
But the old Symbiostock lost a complete year with stagnation instability and blackouts. And i dont know why?

Symbistock.info/old Symbiostock does not bring buyers no wonder it is not at all appealing enough for buyers to be able to keep up with agencies.
For me, the developer of the old Symbiostock have demonstrated that they have no idea of marketing or how to address customer/buyers.

...

symbiostock has been stable for more than a year - most of the sites from a year ago are still active

symbiostock is a tool -- it was ever intended to compete with agencies by marketing itself - instead it is up to individual site owners, separately or collectively, to provide marketing for their sites

as an aside, symbiostock.info is owned & operated completely separately from the symbiostock wordpress theme/plugin, and as such is an example of working together that was intended in the original symbiostock. that will not be possible under the new product since robin has said he is not making available the info needed. robin does say he will (eventually) provide a new search but whether that will be free like the established global searches remains to be seen (and according to the new eula, even an initially free search can be changed to a costly one at any time without warning)

It is pretty clear at this point that the new guy (gal) has come in to make a profit, and it doesn't look like he (she, it...) will be overly considerate with existing users' matters.

Looking at "terms & conditions" (or reading the small print) always is a good indication of whether or not a business is trustworthy: in that ballpark, we have Robin's EULA and that doesn't look so good. So, yeah, me too would like to have a statement of that Robin-thing out there -- and fast!

Symbiostock (old-Dev!) is still a great thing, and I hope we can go forward with it "as usual" at some point.

EDIT:

After some downtime, the "symbiostock.org" URL is showing some content again. The quote below is part of it, I liked the "wonderful legacy user" part best...

Anyone seen this puke yet:

"If you’re a wonderful legacy Symbiostock user and are eagerly awaiting the new release, don’t jump the gun when you see an update available for your website. We no longer have control over the update feature connected to the legacy Symbiostock software which departed with a previous developer.

To keep up to date with the new release, subscribe to our forums or keep track of everything through our blog."

...and where everything is shoved down your throats -- even if you'd rather go for that "departed developer" there

Ouch. That Robin-character out there must himself be *very seriously departed* (deranged) and appears even less trustworthy now!

marthamarks · « **Reply #61 on:** April 28, 2015, 18:55 »

Quote from: chromaco on April 25, 2015, 08:00

Obviously Leo wanted out bad enough that he was willing to give up 3 years worth of branding and relationships.

Sounds like yet another reason to steer clear of anything being "owned" or "led" by this mysterious entity named "Robin."

MicrostockGroup Sponsors

Author Topic: Legacy Symbiostock updates (Read 28497 times)

marthamarks

r2d2

PixelBytes

farbled

cascoly

cascoly

r2d2

Semmick Photo

r2d2

cascoly

marquixHD

marthamarks

Related Topics

Sponsors

Microstock Poll Results

Sponsors