Well I could use another middle tier site but my other middle tier sites accept about 90% of what I upload.  That makes it a easier to build a portfolio large enough to have some sales.

My first submission to Pond5 was all images that had been accepted and been selling well for some time at my best sites (SS, IS, DT.) When less that 50% were accepted at Pond5 it was clear to me that - for whatever reason - I would not be able to build a portfolio there that would have enough sales to justify the effort.

Slow reviewing is acceptable.  Reviewing that is both slow and consistently declines images that sell well elsewhere is not acceptable.

Until I am assured that the reviewing situation has changed I will forgo uploading to Pond5.

fred

That's strange - my acceptance rate there is almost 100% and the few they rejected were reasonable.  I would try them again.  Slow and consistently rejecting good images is what I see at PhotoDune but not P5.

And I'm surprised as well as my approval is 100%.

Mine used to be 100% when they first started with photos, now it is about 50% and there is no rhyme or reason to the refusals.

My informers told me their CEO had been sunning in Brazil for months. It must be nicer there than in NY Soho swanky 30,000 sq ft office. 

I admit, by reading this looong thread one got to agree with Sean,
we all may be in an assisted living home before things get improved. 

btw this free domain gig does have some super cool clips, but we got to pay our bills too. 

I can't even believe that this thread got revived ...

Mostly right now I feel like Pond 5 needs customers ... I visit daily and have a couple sales there but, I feel like they've ramped up on trying to sell footage (for very little as people have noted)

Also, as others have said, that upload process is a bitch ... Honestly, the only reason I keep many of the middle-lower tier sites is that if I'm already uploading I might as well upload everywhere since my internet will be tied up for a minute ... but, when the process becomes a good 2-3 minute questionnaire for every image? It's quite a bit less worth it. ....

and it's none of your * business what software I use Pond 5, the notion seems fun but, fuck off ...

Mine used to be 100% when they first started with photos, now it is about 50% and there is no rhyme or reason to the refusals.

Last files uploaded few days ago, reviewed already, 100% approval of large batch. Nothing wrong in my case again.

I'm selling every single day min two sound effects $10 a pop. And every week min of 2 videos. $50 per clip. December was awesome, so was January. But this last few days have been quiet. And one more thing, upload process? Man, when I canceled exclusivity at IS and started doing my metadata in excel and stuff, I was on the verge of madness. Now? I can't live without it. Every single agency (serious ones) accept CSV/XML files. You upload your clips, upload your metadata sheet and you're done. Plus Pond5 READ FOOTAGE IPTC. So you can enter data in bridge or lightroom and just upload. And you're done. Plus you got templates. I tried those too. And they are great. I have several generic ones (swoosh, whoosh, nature, animals etc... same categories, price, and stuff) and I just click a few clicks when I'm uploading one or ten clips or sounds. But I mostly doing large batches and then I'm sending them day by day to review (curators).

I don't know. I wouldn't change anything at P5 right now except the customers ) I would like more of those. Much, much more. But also, I lowered the prices of my video clips and pumped the ones for sound effects and it makes hell of a difference. For audio that is. For video, not so much, I'm selling almost the same when they were priced $90. There are people that are willing to pay big money (it depends what do guys consider big money). There are photos sold for $500+ last month. Videos for $800!

Pond5, improve you contributors sales and everything will be alright

No idea what "templates" are for there, or why I should worry about them.  Editing uploads requires a pop-up window every time that I have to minimize.  It's just an awkward process.

It is a bit awkward when you do it like that. But you could give those "templates" a test ride. You can pre-fill, if I can write it like that, everything from keywords, description, to camera model, year and all the less relevant stuff and call that template "nature" for example. And every time you upload a photo/video/whatever of nature, just check the photographs and "apply the nature template". And all your photos will have the same info, let's say, generic keywords like green, fresh, foliage, ecology etc... You can do that for the subjects you upload the most. People, landscapes, holidays etc.

It's not much but it beats IS uploading process (excluding deep meta).

Or, how I like to do it, I upload everything I got, I go to P5, I export my CSV with all the names of the clips/sounds I uploaded and I fill them in offline in excel (you get formatted csv file with all the columns of the files you uploaded) and slide it back on the P5 and I'm done. And I get to keep my CSV file with all the keywords, descriptions, original filenames, etc that I can use on other agencies (with some minor modifications).

I think that's really easy. You upload your stuff, Pond5 generate a list of files you've uploaded, you write that data in (I have my main csv file from which I pull the most of my keywords for the similar files so thats neat, you don't have to re-write most of your stuff) and you upload it back on Pond5. Done! Better than doing it one by one.
And you have a list for your new batch that you can use on other agencies (I do mostly sound and footage and 90% of agencies selling those are csv friendly. Dissolve, Dreamstime, 123rf, Pond5, AudioMicro, Productiontrax, MotionElements, Pixta, Shutterstock, Depostiphotos, Revostock).

Also, If you just want to edit something, and you got your metadata on the photos themselves, again, download the csv file, edit the stuff you need, and upload it back to Pond.

Again, those pop-ups are annoying.

"And every time you upload a photo/video/whatever of nature, just check the photographs and "apply the nature template". And all your photos will have the same info, let's say, generic keywords like green, fresh, foliage, ecology etc."

My series don't really tend to have similar themes, and they're all keyworded anyways...

Then, I would use csv. Download it, make the changes, upload it and thats it. If it's worth uploading photos to P5 that is

Improve this: When you upload videos your system does not recognize the file name I gave the video. Since video metadata isn't read, it is a real pain in the butt to upload, say, 20-30 videos and then have to go find the keywords in my Excel file. Uploading and preparing would go a lot faster if your system read the actual assigned title of the video. 

I add the title, keywords, etc., in Bridge and P5 reads them - it is much easier than having to put them all in manually after uploading.  If you have Bridge, try adding the metadata that way.

Awesome. I will give it a try. Thanks.

SALES...invest in sales instead of wasting time and $ into this Public Domain project.

SevArt 30 Jan 2015 12:35
The result with blank search box my first clip (sold 76 times) is in the 1587th place.

What can I add more? after I sold thousands of clips on P5.

What is the result of P5 changes?

For the first time EVER (in years), SS take the 1st place in number of sales per month THIS MONTH!!! with only 28% clips compared with P5.

I never believed but this month happened.

http://www.pond5.com/community?forum=629&thread=39986639&lp=1

Samards, maybe you'd like to show us some rejected files to see what we are talking about?

And I feel like they need a brand new management!!!

They are slowly diving into Low Earners Tier.

How in god's name do you come up with these assumptions?Do you really feel like these are facts or just your own fantasies?
Are we talking about footage or photos anyway?
Do you actually have a footage port at pond5?
Because all you do is troll  (not that you dont make good points in some cases) .