Just wanted to put an official THANK YOU MICROSTOCKGROUP thread up. 

Thanks for taking a chance on including the new forums for Symbiostock as experimental as it was. Thank you for tolerating the huge amount of threads that exploded, most of them troubleshooting threads. Also a big thanks to the non-symbiostock users who tolerated navigating around all these threads to find what they are actually looking for.

The best way to thank to MSG would be to keep the credit link to their site functioning on your install. The other best way -

Before you start a new Symbiostock thread see if you can use an existing one. Maybe we can also decide on which symbiostock forum categories (if possible?) can be kept off the main page. Like the troubleshooting ones which tend to get the most attention and is least relevant to the microstock industry.

Also a big thank you to all the people who helped. I figured its a good time to post this - after tomorrow I'll be disappearing for two weeks.

Thanks MSG.

But i still don't have a full idea what is this symbiostock..

my understanding is, it is a plugin for wordpress? so we can use with wordpress stuff?

I didn't go through all those endless thread ha...because i think i still will get confused, why not Leo make an official thread to introduce it?

mtkang - you did get an answer from Leo in the last post in the thread you started about Symbiostock.  If you feel you are unable to read some of the threads to work it out try looking at this thread http://www.microstockgroup.com/symbiostock-network-building/actively-working-on-your-symbiostock-powered-site/ where you will see some of the sites listed that have started working with the theme

or - this is a post I put in the business section of a photo forum I am on which might help you

A guy called Leo Blanchette has developed/is developing a wordpress theme called Symbiostock. I don't think it is available via wordpress yet as a group of us have been helping iron out the bugs and it is just about ready to use now.

The idea of it is a symbiotic group of independent microstock/stock sellers each having their own sites but being searchable from others as this gives customers a wide base to search from and will bring in more potential customers than being totally individual (which is also possible with this theme if you do not wish to network)

For instance I have a site and in my networking page I have five (current limit) other peoples sites listed. Someone searches for a "green tree" on my site and my results show, if others in my network also have green trees theirs will show up as well so if the searcher does not like mine they can click on one of my competitors/network member's images to see if they want that. Of the five people I link to some or none may link back to me but link to others, one of whom may be linked to me.

Or you can have a closed network where up to six people can each link to each other and no outside sites.

I have a link to my test site now in my signature if you would like some idea of what I am talking about. This site is constantly evolving so don't be surprised if things that are there one minute change the next.

If anyone does consider this (and I am picking my words carefully so please don't take offence) be very sure that your images are of a quality that would be acceptably by the stock sites so that you, and any potential network members do not get a reputation for out of focus or poor images as they have to look good at 100%, not just tiny

As far as I am aware none of the sites are actually live yet as we all want to get a good selection of images up first but it is a really interesting and promising idea for those who want to go independent.


PS - thanks Leaf for a forum that evolves with its members needs and interests