MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => Sites that no longer exist => Zymmetrical.com => Topic started by: totony on January 30, 2009, 13:10
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Oh man, it was worse than being back to my first modem... (not talking V90 here...) I don't know how I even completed the registration. The site was so slow yesterday for my first visit (and registration) that I have big doubts I'll start upload there. Is it usually better ?
After registration, I was so frustrated that I couldn't find their upload page. Could anyone give me the ftp address ? Do we use the same user/pass there as in the site ?
Also, how bad is it to finalize an upload ? Clicking 20 times and going through 4 pages per photo a la IS, or is it faster ?
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that ebing said, don't you appreciate uploading to Fotolia? so quick and the categories so easy to find a fitting one. why can't the others be like that?
StockXpert is cool too.
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Well I guess it's another debate, but I really don't understand why stock photo sites bother with categories. I mean really, do buyers browse using categories ?? My guess is they use search terms.
Time to move on ! In 1995, we were browsing the web by category, with yahoo as a hierarchical starting point. Now in google world, all is about keywording and ranking. We spend time keywording our photos, why do we have to fiddle with categories ?
To my mind, upload should only be ftp, then model release attachment, then select all / submit.
Fotolia is not bad, but not my favorite on that subject.
Sorry for the digression, I still wanna know how to upload on Zym and if it's usable at times, so if you could gime a link or ftp instructions...
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Sorry for any strangeness, we are currently in-process of moving to some new servers. The plan is to do it seamlessly without disabling uploads etc. however murphys law dictates there may be some service interruptions/slowdowns despite our best planning.
As for categories, "hierarchical starting point. Now in google world, all is about keywording and ranking." makes a key point for categorization - Page title, URL keywords, and on-page content form a large part of search engines such as Googles ranking of a given page.
http://www.zymmetrical.com/art/photos/photos-nature-form-color/fileid/zyimgnfc06064/
trumps
http://www.zymmetrical.com/art/photos/fileid/zyimgnfc06064/
I don't have much time right now to dig more into why categories matter, but I can at least say that since it's optional that you assign categories on Zymmetrical (our staff will choose if you don't), you at least don't have to spend time on it if you don't believe in it. :)
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how long does it take for accepted photos to get indexed by the search engine?
I uploaded a few to give it a try. I can see that after some time they disappeared from "pending" and didn't appear in "rejected". However Art Manager is disabled so I can't check them; and when I tried to search using my keywords I wasn't able to find any of my photos.
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Hmm still problems...............sounds no good.................. glad I'm closed my account for multiple issues
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Miklav, it's generally within hours- however at the moment as we are expanding the servers some parts of the 'assembly line' in the system have to be slowed down or put on pause in order to allow the move. I am working on this expansion all weekend with our tech guys - it's a classic work hell weekends but will be worth it.
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My guess is they use search terms.
We can only guess. They make their decisions based on a mountain of data about buyer behavior on their site. They're not stupid, despite how it may seem from the outside at times. If they choose to retain categories, chances are pretty good that it's because they help sell more images. New agencies that "listen to photographers" and don't use categories may not be listening to the most appropriate group.
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I have to admit that after yesterday's very bad impression that Zym let me, the fact that you responded on this thread so fast is impressive and shows that you make effort to stay close to the photographers. Or should I say "artist", as on your site ?
;)
I think I will let the week-end pass and give it a try next week for some uploads.
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I have noticed that it is taking a loooong time to open the sales manager (to check sales).
Regards,
Adelaide
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Totony, yes we prefer to use 'Artist' because generally people are multi-disciplined these days. 'Contributor' sounds like the submitters owe something to the agency, 'Submitter' sounds kinky and 'Uploader' sounds like the person is a piece of software. :)
Should be worth the wait.. we are going to all 64-bit processors, and many of the hard disks on new servers will be this one: http://hothardware.com/Articles/Seagate-Cheetah-X156-Hard-Drive/ (http://hothardware.com/Articles/Seagate-Cheetah-X156-Hard-Drive/) . Now, pretty much everyone here must have a few months of life-time wasted waiting for all those moments when Photoshop is loading an image.. it's a given: you spend X amount of time in your life in the bathroom and X amount waiting for * computers to load stuff. Now imagine a photo agency where we have to plan to be able to process tons of photos at once, through the internet. A bit of a technical challenge, especially when the agency has a relaxed west-coast attitude towards limiting submissions like us. So upgrading to all the latest gear really does make a dent in performance issues.
In our initial tests today I have to say this hard disk in particular is just great.. it may sound geeky but I am really excited to see how the new setup will perform in a live environment. For us it's the agency-level equivalent of going and buying the new Mac/PC workstation most people need every few years. We'll see how it goes. :)
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I have noticed that it is taking a loooong time to open the sales manager (to check sales).
Regards,
Adelaide
Yep too many cooks in the kitchen at the moment. At this point it looks like we may have to go offline in the wee hours to finalize things. Rest assured, sales are picking up in the last days few days despite some of the reports of site usability slowdowns, and of course we send your money on the 15th as expected.
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Well I guess it's another debate, but I really don't understand why stock photo sites bother with categories. I mean really, do buyers browse using categories ?? My guess is they use search terms.
When I asked this question to Stockxpert guys when we met in Moscow last year they said yes, some buyer do browse categories. So I suppose the customers of other agencies do (although it doesn't make much sense to me with so large database of pictures).
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The site was so slow yesterday for my first visit (and registration) that I have big doubts I'll start upload there. Is it usually better ?
No, worse.
Also, how bad is it to finalize an upload ? Clicking 20 times and going through 4 pages per photo a la IS, or is it faster ?
Slower. Zym is like the jungle at night without a torch wading through thick jelly. It's even worse than Vivozoom. Clicking on anything gives that Zen-Nirvana feeling and takes forever. You'll only be saved in this game of goose by hitting square one or "home". It's a site with sales potential that is killed by its programming.
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This dialog reminds me of a saying....
K
I
S
S
....
And for those who'd not familiar with this saying, it stands for:
Keep
It
Simple
S t u p i d
This goes for a lot of thing... Don't overdo the programming.... Keep it in a state where it actually does work... The zymm application is a killer! Sorry to say this, but it really is...
Neither buyers nor contributors benefit from this.. Please just peel of some 80% of the killing software and make it run smoothly... No categories, just keywords... Please let us have a seemless upload and search functionality on keywords alone.. Kill most of the upload preparation workflow...
Please just let it be.... UPLOAD - VERIFY ITPC - SUBMIT !
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Most of the time the site is reasonably fast for me. The upload process is good, once you get the hang of it. The big problem I had was waiting for FTP files to appear on the site but I see they are working on that. Sales were good but I haven't had one for a while now, hopefully that will be fixed soon too :)
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Zymmetrical looks like an agency that knows what needs to be done. Yes, they have some problems now, but I will stick to them. I am into several agencies, and I have nothing to lose while I wait for things to become normal. Keith is a nice person, and I appreciate his effort to do listen to sellers and buyers and to try to fulfill the needs of his clients. I think we all should have some patience, because obviously Zymmetrical is working hard to provide us with good service. In the mean time, I am sure we all have something to do, not just to distract Keith's attention to this forum.
Imagine you are a surgeon, and you are just having an operation, and family of a patient is entering the surgeon room every minute to ask you:"How's going doctor? Are you gonna finish this soon doctor? Doctor, can you do it faster?"
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Miklav, it's generally within hours- however at the moment as we are expanding the servers some parts of the 'assembly line' in the system have to be slowed down or put on pause in order to allow the move. I am working on this expansion all weekend with our tech guys - it's a classic work hell weekends but will be worth it.
ok, apparently I've chosen a wrong time for my trial upload :) Will wait then... (so far my images are still unsearchable).
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Most of the time the site is reasonably fast for me.
You don't have a lot of models in your port. Try attaching a MRF.
The site certainly has sales potential and the midstock price level is great.
That's why it's a shame they are caught up in those design problems.
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You do know we did add multi-select to the MR dropdown, right? :) We're open to any and all UI suggestions.. about the only possible improvements I know of right now would be an 'Apply AND Submit' button, and to somehow increase the number of actions that can be performed before a page refresh is required. Oh and the wait time during refreshes (which should be dramatically shorter after our current systems upgrade).
Some ideas that seem simple, like having a MR dropdown under each photo selected on the page, sound OK but when you try that with 400 photos selected and 40 release forms each, it will cause a slowdown because of all the HTML output. Not to mention the more bulk options you give people, the more likelihood they make a bulk mistake (which thankfully doesn't happen too much it's current form).
I fully agree with KISS but always go back to the TV remote control analogy: theres lot's of buttons on a standard remote control, and many people hardly ever use them.. but they are there for a purpose and cannot simply be removed for the purpose of having a pretty remote control. Yes Ipod has come along and presented a way to clean up the 'buttons and widgets' issue, but there is still the same level of logic in the system as with a standard MP3 player - you still have to provide X amount of options somehow.
Anyways, the Submissions page along with most other custom creations on Zymm are 1st generation and obviously were created in busy times where there were more projects than work-hours available. As we stabilize and continue to grow we can plan the next versions of such systems with a lot less chaos going on.. any ideas you have are always noted.
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site's down...
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Zymmetrical is working hard on improvements, and I believe they have quite a good concept and sales potential. Their very responsive customer service shows that they want to stay close to contributors and listen to their comments. It also doesn't hurt when you see a few dollars in your account from just one sale :) 70% commission is also nothing to complain about. I had one sale there and I believe I will have more in the future.
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Making progress here... The site was much faster yesterday and today. Not lightning fast, but usable (for basic navigation at least, I have no content uploaded for the moment...)
I got my ftp login and password on the site, but tried for two days to connect with error 530 everytime (wrong user/pass). I tried typing the password instead of copy/paste, verified that I was on passive mode. Still 530.
Do I have to wait for a while to have my ftp account activated ?
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Yesterday I contacted them about a problem I found and I got a quick reaction.
They said they are "moving to new, more powerful web servers over this weekend" and that also some problems should be solved then.
I am going to wait until next week to see if things are going faster at that time and if the art manager has coming back.
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Hi Guys,
Well normally weekends are relaxation for most folks.. I have personally for sure been through harder experiences than this one before. This time I think we have at least have come out ahead.
In this case, yes the site went down without even a friendly "Sorry site is down" message at some points. It's poor but that's how it goes. I wish it was as simple as copying a few files from here to there .. I accept full responsibility as chief geek. We still need a day or two to check the submission system and ensure everything is running normally. To the new members, some of whom I know may have been skeptical of us, I am sorry your initial experience has been annoying. I hope you can know that I and several others have been at it literally the whole weekend to finish this upgrade. In the end, it's the same site, maybe only a few blinks of the eye faster, but the long term payoffs will work out to have been worth the effort.
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and the site is still down.
1) somtimes you cant log in
2) no art manager
3) no e-mail notifikation
4) severly slow
5) the changing of keywords seems not to work, as i changed every of my uploaded pictures to english keywords, with the effekt to get a mail that there are a high percentage of german keywording.
6) canīt find the realesed pict with the search engine
7) seems to be the private platform of Lynx (searchengine only find pict of this contributor)
.... and above all the rejections are very high, despite these picts are accepted at every other side i contribute to.
I am a pit astonished to read how fine this site works ...????!!!
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I can understand you would be frustrated from such problems but here is the best answer I can give from the limited descriptions you provided:
1) somtimes you cant log in
Need more info. Cookies enabled (probably if you're posting on a forum like this)? Security settings in browser? Error messages?
2) no art manager (http://2) no art manager)
We release features when we release features- I am taking time out from work on the Art Manager at this moment to write this message to you.
3) no e-mail notifikation
If you would like email notifications or any other new feature please go to http://www.zymmetrical.com/info/labs/ (http://www.zymmetrical.com/info/labs/) and suggest or vote on existing ideas.
4) severly slow
As you are in Austria, try http://www.zymmetrical.de (http://www.zymmetrical.de) - most images will be geo-served from Europe in that case, should improve loading time.
5) the changing of keywords seems not to work, as i changed every of my uploaded pictures to english keywords, with the effekt to get a mail that there are a high percentage of german keywording.
No worries if it hasn't worked out for you with the translation, our Reviewers can also take care of it if for some reason it's missed or gone buggy. We just prefer the native speakers take care of it as there is a higher degree of accuracy, especially as you know your own keywords better than us in most cases.
6) canīt find the realesed pict with the search engine
Don't know what this means exactly but there are always some files being processed - your files may experience a delay between approval and going live on the site. We can only push pixels so fast.
7) ftp dont work, conection failed
Had we not resolved this issue with your account? I am seeing FTP uploads come in at this moment so it shouldn't be a general thing.
8) picts I uploaeded 3 days before dont appear in the descibe area
Definitely not right. Will look into it.
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I don't have a problem logging in, but I have noticed the page loads and sort of refreshes itself, looking like a hiccup.
Regards,
Adelaide
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Hi Maria,
If you mean after clicking the login it does a little refresh, that's the switchover from https: back to normal http: mode (SSL to non-SSL). This means the page is no longer required to be encrypted so we change it back to normal mode for speed.
I have never found this to be much of an annoyance since you don't have to logout from our site unless you want to (as you should when you're on a public terminal or at any other computer where you know someone else nefarious may have access). The average user will be having a computer on their home office desk which can safely stay logged in to the site for extended periods.
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I can understand you would be frustrated from such problems but here is the best answer I can give from the limited descriptions you provided:
1) somtimes you cant log in
Need more info. Cookies enabled (probably if you're posting on a forum like this)? Security settings in browser? Error messages?
2) no art manager ([url]http://2[/url]) no art manager)
We release features when we release features- I am taking time out from work on the Art Manager at this moment to write this message to you.
3) no e-mail notifikation
If you would like email notifications or any other new feature please go to [url]http://www.zymmetrical.com/info/labs/[/url] ([url]http://www.zymmetrical.com/info/labs/[/url]) and suggest or vote on existing ideas.
4) severly slow
As you are in Austria, try [url]http://www.zymmetrical.de[/url] ([url]http://www.zymmetrical.de[/url]) - most images will be geo-served from Europe in that case, should improve loading time.
5) the changing of keywords seems not to work, as i changed every of my uploaded pictures to english keywords, with the effekt to get a mail that there are a high percentage of german keywording.
No worries if it hasn't worked out for you with the translation, our Reviewers can also take care of it if for some reason it's missed or gone buggy. We just prefer the native speakers take care of it as there is a higher degree of accuracy, especially as you know your own keywords better than us in most cases.
6) canīt find the realesed pict with the search engine
Don't know what this means exactly but there are always some files being processed - your files may experience a delay between approval and going live on the site. We can only push pixels so fast.
7) ftp dont work, conection failed
Had we not resolved this issue with your account? I am seeing FTP uploads come in at this moment so it shouldn't be a general thing.
8) picts I uploaeded 3 days before dont appear in the descibe area
Definitely not right. Will look into it.
I am sorry Keith but that way of answering make think whether I need to stay patient, or Zymmetrical is really useless and ignorant. The issue #6 is the same I told you several times and yet you are claiming you don't know what it is about. Issue #3 is something every stock has and you are suggesting to vote for it - and you do that when it could be the only possible workaround to missing Art Manager.
Basically my experience is very similiar to gustyx's and your response doesn't make me optimistic. A few weeks ago I submitted a few pictures to try how Zymmetrical works. What I see is that they're gone! No art manager to me means that I can't check where are my images. I don't care about new features, but when I upload something I expect to have a way to see my uploads. No email notification means the same - my images are gone and I can't see whether they are approved. And I can't find my images via search engine either.
So I don't see a reason to upload to Zymmetrical, and I read your answer above as just "we don't care". Well, I don't care either - I have enough sites to upload my pictures to.
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Well Miklav, I quote you from our earlier Beta days last summer on Lee Torrens blog (in the comments):
http://www.microstockdiaries.com/zymmetrical.html (http://www.microstockdiaries.com/zymmetrical.html)
Mikhail Lavrenov on 2008-08-26 11:17:05
I am not going to bother either. Doubtful business model; slow site and no sales
Stays at the bottom of my list next to mostphotos.
Talking about new sites I have better hopes for YAYmicro - this autumn should show if they are capable to take off.
So, we have professional photographers who want to work with us, and expect a perfect website and perfect service, yet put down the same businesses they wish to work with.. in production mode I can understand some honest criticism but last summer in -beta- you canned us. Can you understand how hard it is to please everyone in these conditions? We work with everyone, from an anonymous username to someone we know is an established pro, on the same level and expect a modicum of decorum in public communications, and not a witchhunt regarding bug reports on public forums.
"useless","ignorant","claimed".. etc. Come on, we are honest and direct about every single issue, whether people call or email us, post it here, or (a real messy one), both at the same time. Karma will banish those who disobey the universal law of tech support "help us help you" to three reincarnations working in Dell tech support. ;)
At any rate.. your 3 uploads have been online for some days now, I apologize for not notifying you directly as I know this was a matter of importance that you verify your uploads worked:
http://www.zymmetrical.com/artists/artist-profile/uid/51882/ (http://www.zymmetrical.com/artists/artist-profile/uid/51882/)
**EDIT as a followup I just wanted to again say, honestly, we -do care-, this is our business and livelihood - I personally have a pain in my chest every time I find something has gone wrong .. but we are trying to fulfill a big role here and it ain't simple or clean all the time, but always improving.
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.... as you donīt like bugs to be published, I sent you another mail (in privat) - Keith, but it doesnīt change the mentioned, please be fair, if there are bugs, there are bugs. And it doesnīt make sense to slag Miklav, or any other user off. Iīm also a new user on your site, I also want to give a trial, which really goes wrong similar to Miklavīs experiences. Seems to me you donīt really belief, that something went wrong.
So we all should keep cool, because it was a trial went wrong for the first time and there will be another chance.
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At any rate.. your 3 uploads have been online for some days now, I apologize for not notifying you directly as I know this was a matter of importance that you verify your uploads worked:
[url]http://www.zymmetrical.com/artists/artist-profile/uid/51882/[/url] ([url]http://www.zymmetrical.com/artists/artist-profile/uid/51882/[/url])
That's very cool indeed but:
a) I uploaded 4 pictures
b) none of the 3 can still be found via the keywords
perhaps it's my bad carma, but I would call it web site bugs.
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Give the guy a break ;D
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You're right, I will not candy-coat it- looking in the database for those files the english version of the keywords are blank. Other languages are ok.
Very strange and of course we process hundreds of photos a day multi-language so it's a mystery at this point but will be patched shortly. That's all we need, just a precise report of what is wrong, preferably not in public for the very last reason that we are trying to hide anything - but it just makes things much more efficient and less dreary for readers of forums like MSG who are really here for juicy stock drama and not boring old bugs.
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That's all we need, just a precise report of what is wrong, preferably not in public
The issue was reported on the 17th of February (here: http://www.microstockgroup.com/zymmetrical-com/can%27t-log-in-7113/msg84456/#msg84456).
The issues are the issues and nothing else, so I don't see why you keep trying to pinprick me. Is it because I hazarded a remark in public? :)
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Yep they don't like to go public .
Had also many issues with Zym. I'm glad I closed my account .
No more frustration about were my images went (several times). Also had some ghost images in my port (several times),keywords gone (several times).
But there is no bug in the system......... they assure me...........................Yeah right.....
I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one with problems............................They made me feel I was the only one with several problems........
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Simply asking to keep things organized. We are all for community communication that's why I and Paul participate here, however it's hard enough to sort out one specific technical issue based on user reports, because users are not system engineers (usually) and vice versa. For example the recent 'site is slow' report had, for one user, nothing to do with page speed but the CSS on a page wasn't getting loaded, which was clear after a screenshot being sent - so the user perceived the page as loading slow. Without specifics, it's just a mess to sort out, and a message forum thread is not the best place for it if you want the issue solved efficiently.
Kaycee - I'm a little bit disappointed you still feel persecuted: we point by point worked with your support requests, and even when it was pointed out there was corrupt IPTC data in some of your JPG's, you wouldn't believe it. We were courteous, quick, and as helpful as possible in your situation - in fact as I recall I was personally trying to fix your issues on Christmas day - but go ahead, you can continue to jump in on every single Zymmetrical thread and vent, that's how it goes.. 'in public'.
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@Zymmetrical.....
I was very thankfull for the quick respons and try to fix the problem and I let you know several times also public..........So no hard feelings regards this issue.......
What was bothering me is that you made me feel that I was the only person with Zymmetrical problems............
Regards the keyword problem I also said your agency was the only one who has had issues of corrupt keywording no other agency has had problems ever regards my keywords proces .............
So................................
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Ok glad to know it's not hard feelings. But really, some of the files uploaded through FTP - unprocessed by us at all. Download and try to open in Photoshop - and it says IPTC is corrupt. I had not seen this error message in 19 years of using Photoshop.. and FTP has been around since the 1970s so it is hard to say there is a problem with our website in that case.
Were there issues, are there issues now, that more than one member experiences - of course, there's no denying it because every computer system is imperfect. A modern ecommerce site is as complicated as a skyscraper's engineering - I am happy we have a solid foundation and it can only be expected there are some problems in the upper floors once in a while as we expand.
I think it might be a little sensationalized because we are always here to answer questions even in a public way, where many other agencies simply keep it to normal private support channels. Every agency gets bug reports and support issues daily - we just happen to have the MSG channel around, and some people choose to use it for questions that maybe would be better asked in a more one-on-one way.
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The Art Manager was live tonight. Stats still coming. Nice to see our info all in one place.
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I sent 20 photos to them, to see how it goes. The interface is nice and idea is really cool, but as far as implementation goes, there are bugs. At least with Opera.
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I have to admit Opera may not have gotten a full run-through lately. Usually it's FF, IE and Safari on Mac and PC that get hammered in testing. Any specific problems reported would be greatly appreciated - browser version and OS info being important. (running to Opera now to try myself)
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I'm into this kind of problem myself too, since my own website doesn't work with Mac + Firefox :D but I don't really care.
However, some info for you:
- Latest version of Opera (9.64)
- Vista 64 Ultimate
- quad core, etc... hardware is very good
- Problems:
- page refreshing sometimes twice, by itself
- page NOT refreshing after apply & submit - in fact it's showing a blank page
- wrong number of files "to be described" and "submitted", but not always.
So you have to submit with Flash (couldn't get it with FTP because there's no folder "PHOTOS" so my files just stay there on FTP and I can't even delete them - I uploaded with Flash in the meantime, same 20 files) and after that to go with Opera through all the steps up to "submitted" state.
Cheers,
Catalin.
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Thanks so much for the info.
- the page refreshes normally come after one of the popup windows (model releases for example) is closed. It's the only practical way to reload the most current info, at least for now. I'm not sure if this is what is falling into the behavior you're describing.
- not refreshing is definitely a new one, will have to try and reproduce that
- without a full page refresh (vs the little cutout loading animation), it may occur some info is slightly out of date.. it's just a tradeoff between doing things without reloading the entire page (a couple seconds of pageload time) vs updating everything instantly.. there should be a way to make those total counts dynamic too though, we will get 'er fixed. :)
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Alright, checking the stuff - I sent in 20 photos, 4 of them appear as approved last night, very fast, 16 are in pending. I can't see the approved ones. On the submission page says "Approved files appear in your art manager."
And Art Manager says "You currently have no uploaded files that are approved and live on the site."
How long it takes for the files to get live? Of course, I'm not in a big hurry but it's a step where you don't really know where your files are. The statistics show them as approved, but they don't appear anywhere. Maybe a new section to submission page would be good to have. Something like "approved, waiting to go live" with a list of those files.
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I logged in yesterday to see my first sale for a few months. The site seems quicker and I uploaded some using firefox with no problems. I hope sales will pick up again now.
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Alright, checking the stuff - I sent in 20 photos, 4 of them appear as approved last night, very fast, 16 are in pending. I can't see the approved ones. On the submission page says "Approved files appear in your art manager."
And Art Manager says "You currently have no uploaded files that are approved and live on the site."
How long it takes for the files to get live? Of course, I'm not in a big hurry but it's a step where you don't really know where your files are. The statistics show them as approved, but they don't appear anywhere. Maybe a new section to submission page would be good to have. Something like "approved, waiting to go live" with a list of those files.
You are right about that, it's just one setting in the database but has been noted, there can be a delay between them being approved and going online, from minutes to hours. We will see if that can be changed, in the meantime the file (if they aren't already) will be shortly. The queued files are reviewed in first-come first-serve order generally but the approved files come online purposefully random to make sure there's always good a mix of content.
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the approved files come online purposefully random to make sure there's always good a mix of content.
That's a very good approach.
I have 1 file online now.
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Just wondering - how long is an average waiting time for images to get reviewed? I still have some of the images I said in the previous post under pending status. 11 accepted, 9 to go for some days.
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I do not know if the thread is appropriate for my question. I guess yes, since the thread is about usability and so is my question.
I uploaded several model releases. Now they are displayed as ID#xyz. Should I guess the correct model release to attach it to a photo? Should I attach all of them just in case? Why is model release management module missing?
My verdict: the site's usability is very shallow.
P.S. Zymmetrical inspectors reject pictures that are being sold very well in other agencies. Rejection reason is something like "The lighting and composition of this image limit its stock value." I can conclude that those inspectors have no idea on stock value >:(
P.P.S. Honestly, I try to love the site and its conceptual model, but I always fail. Too many inconsitencies
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Xalanx- we do not quote review times at present. Usually it's a reasonable amount of time. :)
Nata- Direct from the model release upload screen: "The advanced upload option allows you to upload multiple files and files of large size while also providing transfer status. One limitation of this option is that you will need to add descriptions or other release-related data after the file has been uploaded by by clicking 'Edit' on each file."
- you need to add a description for the release forms. I guess this would be an extra step if you already used descriptive filenames for your release files, but some people don't: we need a way to reference the releases in an organized manner. I will get it on our to-do list to get changed so the original filename is at least referenced in the dropdown, it would be more helpful for sure.
As for rejections, as always, you are encouraged to post any examples you think may have inappropriately reviewed. 'Sold elsewhere' is not a specific review criteria for us.
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Since it becomes customary to report sales on the "low earner" sites, here my most recent sale (2009/03/05) at Zymmetrical. Earnings 18$.
(http://www.zymmetrical.com/Desktopmodules/Portalstore/files/StoreImages/1/PackageImages/Thumbs/mini-mini-ZYIMGPLW09012.jpg)
I had a question about the payout method (PayPal) which apparently is done automatically over 10$. Since Paypal charges fees for payouts from some sites, wouldn't it be better to ask explicitly for payout or put the limit higher?
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Congrats! I'll be following closely with sales, as soon as they finish reviewing my photos since some 5 days ago. ;)
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Congrats! I'll be following closely with sales, as soon as they finish reviewing my photos since some 5 days ago. ;)
The review can take some time. My guess is that reviewers put more time in reviews than on large mass-production sites. Every reject was personal and motivated with some hints on how to improve/correct, if possible.
Zymmetrical and Cutcaster are the only selling midstock sites left after the debacle of LuckyOliver and FeaturePics. Whoever is complaining about the subscription trend should support these sites. My 2 cents.
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Well then let's hope they last. I like the prices they put on my images.
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Me too. They are both sites with a personal touch and good prices. So far I had one sale on each site. I really hope they do well in future.
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Thanks for the nice words.
Currently it's not programmed in but if you simply send a note via the support system to hold payments we would have no problem retaining the funds until you want to get paid.
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..Zymmetrical and Cutcaster are the only selling midstock sites left after the debacle of LuckyOliver and FeaturePics. Whoever is complaining about the subscription trend should support these sites...
I have made more with Mostphotos, Panthermedia and Rodeo, all midstock sites. FeaturePics is slow but still way ahead of Cutcaster. Zymmetrical were doing well but I have only had 1 sale this year, hopefully that will improve.
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I have made more with Mostphotos, Panthermedia and Rodeo, all midstock sites.
I had quite some sales on Mostphotos too, April-May last year, when everybody had about the same rank. Nothing since then, but my rank is still around 50 and yours around 1030. That means you've spent a lot of energy on commenting and stuff. That's no critique by any means but it illustrates the fact that the social networking, grooming and shoulder-tapping aspect there is more important than the intrinsic value of the photos to get on the front page (and sell).
Cutcaster is OK but I feel the few sales there are just random hits by a very limited buyers base.
FeaturePics was very OK till half last year, then came to a sudden stop for me. Like any similar oddity, it probably has to do with the search engine. On some sites, you are the search engine's darling and you don't know why. On others, you just don't get airborne.
Zymmetrical: better than all 4 for me the past year, considering I just uploaded 1/2 of my port. But 2/3 of my sales there are people shots in situation, not (except 1) in studio set-up. It might be portfolio-dependent. Just wait and see who will survive. For them it's as tough as for us to survive in a market with too many suppliers.