Author Topic: New stock agency - FAA / Pixels.com (Read 42491 times)

DF_Studios · « **Reply #125 on:** March 24, 2014, 07:49 »

this interview says FAA does 5 million a year with three employees:

http://www.sramanamitra.com/2012/03/22/doing-5m-a-year-with-3-employees-fineartamerica-ceo-sean-broihier-part-1/

luissantos84 · « **Reply #126 on:** March 24, 2014, 07:56 »

Quote from: DF_Studios on March 24, 2014, 07:49

this interview says FAA does 5 million a year with three employees:

http://www.sramanamitra.com/2012/03/22/doing-5m-a-year-with-3-employees-fineartamerica-ceo-sean-broihier-part-1/

and that was 2 years ago!

thanks for sharing

Ron · « **Reply #127 on:** March 24, 2014, 08:31 »

Quote

We do quality control at the time of sale because of the sheer volume of images uploaded to the site. We are getting close to 10,000 uploads per day. It is humanly impossible to have someone look at 10,000 images a day and check them for quality.

Its humanly impossible for one person, not for a team of persons. But hey, you need to maximise your profits, so you need to do away with quality control.

DF_Studios · « **Reply #128 on:** March 24, 2014, 09:08 »

Quality control is basically boosting selling images in the search. Theory is - if it sold before it must be good quality.

Other sites like Society6 and 500px use voting. On FAA at some point the people with crummy images figured this out and created voting groups, so now voting doesn't goose up the images.

Just having a large image size requirement would get rid of a lot of point and shoot crap.

He runs the model as if more contributors is better. maybe most of the profit is in people buying their own images.

luissantos84 · « **Reply #129 on:** March 24, 2014, 09:22 »

Quote from: DF_Studios on March 24, 2014, 09:08

As if the $30 premium fee is where the money is.

not so sure about that, there are exactly 5k artists with profile picture, lets say half of those pay membership so its only 75k $

still a few $ to get to the 5 Million

DF_Studios · « **Reply #130 on:** March 24, 2014, 09:30 »

exactly so its to their benefit to cut out the crap somehow. But then again, all of the wannabees are contributing to the site traffic, sending their relatives to their gallery.

DF_Studios · « **Reply #131 on:** March 24, 2014, 09:37 »

I enjoy Dilbert cartoons as much as the next person

stockastic · « **Reply #132 on:** March 24, 2014, 09:39 »

Thought about this some more and came to these conclusions:

1. All McDunn said was that he wanted to try some image licensing with a few volunteers. He doesn't really deserve all the criticism that followed.

2. Based on what he's outlined so far, I'm not interested so I've stopped reading about it.

3. As a print seller, FAA really needs competition. Someone should come along with updated concepts and better site design, and be selective in what they accept.

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #133 on:** March 24, 2014, 09:43 »

Quote from: Mantis on March 23, 2014, 18:29

what i want to know is why did sales from faa fall off the face of the planet.

At one point they had an agreement for the images to appear in Amazon searches but I gather that was discontinued a few months ago. I think that may have had an impact. Of course, there is also the inflation in the size of the collection, just the same as with all the stock sites.

luissantos84 · « **Reply #134 on:** March 24, 2014, 09:44 »

Quote from: stockastic on March 24, 2014, 09:39

Thought about this some more and came to these conclusions:

1. All McDunn said was that he wanted to try some image licensing with a few volunteers. He doesn't really deserve all the criticism that followed.

2. Based on what he's outlined so far, I'm not interested so I've stopped reading about it.

3. As a print seller, FAA really needs competition. Someone should come along with updated concepts and better site design, and be selective in what they accept.

well said!

DF_Studios · « **Reply #135 on:** March 24, 2014, 09:47 »

832 new members today.

With these numbers its mathematical certainty that participants will see diminishing returns. More and more hopefuls, more and more disappointments when they can't get their work seen through all of the clutter.

I wonder what percentage of members have less than 25 images up.

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #136 on:** March 24, 2014, 09:53 »

Quote from: stockastic on March 24, 2014, 09:39

3. As a print seller, FAA really needs competition. Someone should come along with updated concepts and better site design, and be selective in what they accept.

Who knows how it will play out, but Getty's planning to turn photos.com into a print site. A huge portion of what's on FAA wouldn't get accepted by Getty, so I don't know if it will effectively be a competitor for FAA - turn your noses up at it, but a lot of that stuff on FAA sells (if you ever look at the recent sales lists, some if it is surprising)

stockastic · « **Reply #137 on:** March 24, 2014, 10:00 »

There's good and not-so-good on FAA. I've sold a few prints via keyword search. But the ranking is all based on previous sales so at this point a new contributor has little chance. I might do better on a new site just because it's new; and if they were at least somewhat selective, that would help too.

A POD that requires getting in with Getty doesn't interest me. I can imagine what their TOS would look like.

I think the right thing to do would be to initially accept a contributor based on a portfolio sample, but not inspect or reject after that. I'm not interested in a site that cherry-picks the 'art' they think will sell. Because they don't know.

luissantos84 · « **Reply #138 on:** March 24, 2014, 10:09 »

Quote from: DF_Studios on March 24, 2014, 09:47

832 new members today.

I would say that 1% of those will buy membership, 90% won't even upload a single picture

Uncle Pete · « **Reply #139 on:** March 24, 2014, 10:13 »

Are you asking, how many are the Free FAA memberships? I wonder if they get buried inthe searches to encourage people to buy views?

Which brings the question. Does someone have to be a paid FAA member to join Pixels.com?

Also you made a good point with the views and groups and selling to relatives.

I'd use it for print fulfillment, if I was selling prints. I take the shot... Upload: Have the buyer place the order, drop ship directly to them, and it's done. Everyone is happy.

Quote from: DF_Studios on March 24, 2014, 09:47

832 new members today.

With these numbers its mathematical certainty that participants will see diminishing returns. More and more hopefuls, more and more disappointments when they can't get their work seen through all of the clutter.

I wonder what percentage of members have less than 25 images up.

DF_Studios · « **Reply #140 on:** March 24, 2014, 10:17 »

A small percentage even participate in the forums. Sean only has a small percentage of the overall FAA community even aware of this licensing idea.

rimglow · « **Reply #141 on:** March 24, 2014, 10:19 »

That's it for now.

This discussion was just to invite "beta testers". It turned into a big Q&A primarily because I haven't provided enough information yet. We'll do the big Q&A when the program is formally launched.

To put your mind at ease - think of this as "art licensing" instead of "microstock". We're launching a marketplace to license high-end images from the world's greatest living artists and photographers, and we're allowing the world's greatest living artists and photographers to set their own prices and control exactly how their images are licensed.

Sean
This discussion is closed.

Ron · « **Reply #142 on:** March 24, 2014, 10:19 »

Quote from: stockastic on March 24, 2014, 09:39

Thought about this some more and came to these conclusions:

1. All McDunn said was that he wanted to try some image licensing with a few volunteers. He doesn't really deserve all the criticism that followed.

McDunn said he was going to disrupt the stock market. Sounds different from he was just going to run a test with a few people.

LesPalenik · « **Reply #143 on:** March 24, 2014, 12:22 »

Quote

With these numbers its mathematical certainty that participants will see diminishing returns. More and more hopefuls, more and more disappointments when they can't get their work seen through all of the clutter.

I agree. Very similar phenomenon as in the stock world.
And since in most cases they sell simple wall art, some people will discover that they can take their own images to Costco or Walmart and make inexpensively their own "fine art". So I don't see the drop in sales as a cyclical change, but more as a sign of gradual decline.

DF_Studios · « **Reply #144 on:** March 24, 2014, 13:07 »

DF_Studios · « **Reply #145 on:** March 24, 2014, 13:21 »

Boy, this is going to be a looooong beta test since there are no buyers to test it.

ShadySue · « **Reply #146 on:** March 24, 2014, 15:56 »

Quote from: DF_Studios on March 24, 2014, 07:49

this interview says FAA does 5 million a year with three employees:

http://www.sramanamitra.com/2012/03/22/doing-5m-a-year-with-3-employees-fineartamerica-ceo-sean-broihier-part-1/

They also emphasise on page two that they "sell artwork by living artists", though I regularly see sales coming through for classic images (some sold by museums) and Frida Kahlo's work sells well ...

Ron · « **Reply #147 on:** March 24, 2014, 15:58 »

Quote from: DF_Studios on March 24, 2014, 13:21

Boy, this is going to be a looooong beta test since there are no buyers to test it.

lol

ShadySue · « **Reply #148 on:** March 24, 2014, 16:02 »

Make very sure you put watermarks, such as they are, on everything.
I just did a check on bee-eater and my name, and sure FAA turns up in various positions at the top of the search, but I found this page, "powered by Fine Art America" inviting people to download my image at 900x749
http://chinabirdphotography.com/green-bee-eater/178036-little-green-bee-eater-merops-orien.html
Off to file a DMCA to be ignored, probably [1]; and to note it on the FAA discussion board.

[1] Oh, when I scrolled down, I found, "All pictures are copyrighted to their respective owners. If you own the copyright of any image contact us and we will remove it! "
We shall see!!

DF_Studios · « **Reply #149 on:** March 24, 2014, 16:04 »

Good grief. Can you imagine when the actual files get out there on the free market?

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Author Topic: New stock agency - FAA / Pixels.com (Read 42491 times)

DF_Studios

luissantos84

Ron

DF_Studios

luissantos84

DF_Studios

DF_Studios

stockastic

BaldricksTrousers

luissantos84

DF_Studios

Jo Ann Snover

stockastic

luissantos84

Uncle Pete

DF_Studios

rimglow

Ron

LesPalenik

DF_Studios

DF_Studios

ShadySue

Ron

ShadySue

DF_Studios

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