FAA pages looking more and more unprofessional

[ShadySue]

Ha, a few days ago I have my first FAA sale in months.

Today I had a look at another image there and underneath it and all other images is a really stupid auto-populated text which reads:

Title is a piece of digital artwork by author which was uploaded on Month, date, year.   The digital art has colors ranging from e.g. ghost white to dim gray and incorporates your first keyword, your second keyword, and your third keyword design themes.

Well, the image concerned had many colours outwith the range of "ghost white to dim grey", e.g. red, yellow and brown (etc).
And the original pic I clicked on apparently  has colors ranging from gainsboro to bole . To how many people will that mean anything at all?

I want MY description to be there (it's still tiny low down the right hand column), and no 'gainsboro' or 'bole' (I didn't even know these were colours!)

The auto text looks so incredibly amateur. They seem be trying to do everything possible to 'downmarket' their site. I bet they think they're "improving SEO". Well look what happened when iS tried that, but at least they only messed up those who had opted in.

[Jo Ann Snover]

They've lost the plot!

From one of my images, the totally useless blurb says "Clouds And Vivid Sunrise Colors Over Boston Harbor is a photograph by Jo Ann Snover which was uploaded on April 24th, 2014.   The photograph has colors ranging from bazaar to dark byzantium and incorporates boston harbor, new england, and boston design themes.

I don't think it incorporates any design themes, but the title says as much as their invented "themes".

Another image of a Mayan ruin has the color range "cinereous to dark jungle green". I think I have a good vocabulary but I had to look up cinereous (it's ash gray). How does putting in colors virtually no customer will have heard of going to sell prints, let alone the other crud they sell?

Increasingly glad I let my paid membership lapse...

[Hildegarde]

The color range is actually important for. people like interior decorators.  It might not be accurate as much as we the artists would like but I do know interior decorators who choose art for their clients.

I care less how FAA looks.  What I care about is how it seems that the website is more geared towards bringing them customers than promoting the artists.  In order to get seen, they expect you to put links on your website  but of course if you do that, it is more about you promoting FAA and other artists because even if you do this, your image is lower and it disappears off the main page of a keyword soon after you do that.  To me, all that looks more scam-like to the artist. 

All my sales there I have brought through my own contacts. Kind of useless other than they make prints for me when my custom lab closed. 

[stockastic]

What I've concluded is that the guy has zero attention span and never finishes anything.  He flits from one big idea to another like a butterfly, and they never go anywhere.  Well over a year ago he announced the new 'customizable' "Artist Web Sites" and today they're still a half-baked mess; I'm redirecting my domain back to the main FAA site and forgetting about my 'personal' site. 

There was a thread on their forum recently about this latest chaos: the auto-generated description and the list of colors supposedly in your photo. The thread went nowhere and nothing got fixed.  Things change from time to time, there's never any explanation and often no sense to it.  It's like someone is just noodling around with the site code with no goals or direction. 

FAA is never going to get any better.   We just really need some serious competitor to show up and I don't mean Crated.com.   


 

[ShadySue]

They seem to have no clear idea of what their market is, though they started off fairly upmarket.
Now their strategy is trashy, but their prices are still super-expensive (by UK standards, maybe not in the US).

[stockastic]

Their forum administrator just came in with this:

"Please remember that for every comment here against, there are people who love the changes and are happy, as is the norm. I'm one who loves it."

[KB]

Their forum administrator just came in with this:

"Please remember that for every comment here against, there are people who love the changes and are happy, as is the norm. I'm one who loves it."

Someone should reply:

"Please remember that for every comment here against, there are 10 others who are also against the changes, but have not posted." 

[Microstockphoto]

the place is notorious for head in the sand behavior and blind followers, anyone flowing against the stream is sabred down