Author Topic: Symzio is now LIVE (Read 67674 times)

Redneck · « **Reply #50 on:** January 02, 2016, 14:11 »

Quote from: marthamarks on January 02, 2016, 13:33

I still have my original Symbiostock (SYS) site, although with a new layout of my own choosing (Elegant Themes' Divi) and Woo Commerce (using Leo's grfx setup): http://bestnaturestock.com/

When Robin came out with "new SYS," I understood I couldn't migrate the text I'd written for each image in "old SYS" and would have to redo it all. With 2,000 images/pages of text, that was a deal-breaker for me then, and it still would be.

So I'll ask now: is that still the case or is it now possible to migrate the descriptive text that accompanies each of my images?

Overall, I'm happy with the look and feel of my site, but as a sole proprietor I don't get any benefit from being part of a group. I could see switching if the text carried over.

And I appreciate from Redneck and others I got to know in the early-SYS days. It's good to hear you're happy with the new SYS.

Hi Martha,
I d on't have a quick answer for you because I'm not familiar with grfx. I know that titles, captions, keywords, release statuses are included in the migration process from old Sysmbiostock theme to the new plugin.
However I believe your case is a little different since you're asking to migrate from grfx.

Two things I'd suggest.
1. I don't know if grfx is a plugin. If so, you could temporarily disable it and then install the Symbiostock plugin to see if it works the way you want it. You can keep your theme.
2. Head over to the Symbiostock forums if you need help or have questions. In fact head over there anyway because there's every day something to learn and to get tips and help, even individual support by Robin or other Symbiostockers. http://www.symbiostock.org/forums/

Redneck · « **Reply #51 on:** January 02, 2016, 14:23 »

Quote from: Shelma1 on January 02, 2016, 14:09

The trick is getting eyeballs to the sites, and I don't see anything here that's any different than old Symbiostock, other than asking people to do more marketing work while giving you a cut.

Very important facts are different now.
1. Symzio is acting as a central hub agency fed by individual Symbiostock sites. It's a completely different solution than anything we had before. It's not just a search engine that lists images from/to individual sites. It's a complete agency without the pain of traditional agencies (subscriptions, credits, registrations etc).
2. The Symzio widget which any Symbiostocker may use creates highly relevant outgoing text and image links to Symzio which in return will link back to your site from any contributors profile page. Relevancy is the key here. Example: http://picturebreeze.com/stock/photos/image/baby-dog-christmas-tree/ . Look at the links automatically and dynamically created by the Symzio plugin at the bottom. It doesn't get much more relevant. That's what search engines dig. And you even earn affiliate money if the customer finds one of the Symzio widget images more suitable for his project.

marthamarks · « **Reply #52 on:** January 02, 2016, 15:02 »

Quote from: Microstockphoto on January 02, 2016, 13:50

marthamarks, i assume youra graphic designer and how are your sales using the graphic designer plugin?

Nope. Not a graphic designer in any way, shape, or form. I'm a wildlife/nature photographer, and I'm not connected in any way to the grfx network.

My only sales through this site have come since I migrated it to its current format. Not great for sure, but better than zero, which is what I had before.

marthamarks · « **Reply #53 on:** January 02, 2016, 15:12 »

Quote from: Redneck on January 02, 2016, 14:11

Hi Martha,
I d on't have a quick answer for you because I'm not familiar with grfx. I know that titles, captions, keywords, release statuses are included in the migration process from old Sysmbiostock theme to the new plugin.
However I believe your case is a little different since you're asking to migrate from grfx.

Two things I'd suggest.
1. I don't know if grfx is a plugin. If so, you could temporarily disable it and then install the Symbiostock plugin to see if it works the way you want it. You can keep your theme.
2. Head over to the Symbiostock forums if you need help or have questions. In fact head over there anyway because there's every day something to learn and to get tips and help, even individual support by Robin or other Symbiostockers. http://www.symbiostock.org/forums/

Hi Redneck, and thanks for your response. It's great to chat with you again!

I'm not itching to make any moves with my site right now, but if Robin were to tell me the text for each image could transfer to "new SYS," I'd look more seriously at that.

Robin?

steheap · « **Reply #54 on:** January 02, 2016, 15:30 »

Hi Martha

When you talk about the extra words you put in, do you mean the changes you made to the description in the old site? I transferred all my 4000 or so images from the old Symbio to new, and the bold fonts and also the reference to a graphic about editorial use made its way seamlessly to the new. The transfer was very smooth - it just happened and all my titles, descriptions, categories and keywords came across.

Here is one example of a font change I made in the old site that is now on the new one:
http://www.backyardstockphotos.com/image/martin-luther-king-monument-dc-3/

Steve

marthamarks · « **Reply #55 on:** January 02, 2016, 15:35 »

Quote from: steheap on January 02, 2016, 15:30

Hi Martha

When you talk about the extra words you put in, do you mean the changes you made to the description in the old site? I transferred all my 4000 or so images from the old Symbio to new, and the bold fonts and also the reference to a graphic about editorial use made its way seamlessly to the new. The transfer was very smooth - it just happened and all my titles, descriptions, categories and keywords came across.

Steve

Steve, thanks for that info. It's great to know you were able to move all your descriptions, keywords, etc, to the new SYS format.

I could consider making this move at some point if it doesn't involve rewriting thousands of descriptions (which is what I was concerned about before).

cascoly · « **Reply #57 on:** January 02, 2016, 16:39 »

Quote from: steheap on January 02, 2016, 15:30

Hi Martha

When you talk about the extra words you put in, do you mean the changes you made to the description in the old site? I transferred all my 4000 or so images from the old Symbio to new, and the bold fonts and also the reference to a graphic about editorial use made its way seamlessly to the new. The transfer was very smooth - it just happened and all my titles, descriptions, categories and keywords came across.

....

when you make the transfer can the old symbio site stay active? for me the biggest problem is thousands of links from my travel website to my legacy site that wouldn't be active anymore

cascoly · « **Reply #58 on:** January 02, 2016, 16:54 »

from symzio faq

Quote

Unique work - we have a zero tolerance policy towards duplicates, and are restrictive when it comes to numerous images that are the same subject taken from excessive angles. If contributors notice duplicates in their collections, they should try to purge them immediately. Contributors should pick only the best images from any single setup and disregard the rest.

what does 'zero tolerance' mean? strict definition says 1 strike & you're out! is it like the editorial policy where 2 arbitrary faults can cause deletion from symzio? who decides? current small set of images on symzio already displays many similar (eg, search 'travel')

since symzio crawls the photog's site this means you're restricted in what you can display on your own site? this is much more restrictive than most agencies

lima · « **Reply #59 on:** January 02, 2016, 17:02 »

Thankyou Robin for all the help you bring me with my site and use me us an example

, symbiostock and symzio is new for me and i think is a great tool that give trafic to your website.

let see what happend with sales!!!

Quote from: Robin@Symbiostock on January 02, 2016, 16:36

Case in point: Ana, who, since the inception of this thread decided to go independent, successfully launched her Symbiostock site and joined Symzio:

http://www.symzio.com/contributor-16320.html

And now her beautiful illustrations are already being promoted by every other Symzio member:

http://picturebreeze.com/stock/photos/image/young-woman-riding-boat/

The system has been designed to use every member's site as an extension of every other member's media. This way, we, in essence, all share in the cumulative traffic and media that the entire system is connected to. As soon as you join Symzio, your stuff is immediately seen by any customer that is looking for it on any other member's site.

Multiply this effect by a thousand, and you see what I mean when I say "cumulatively, our organic footprint would effectively dwarf the agencies".

cascoly · « **Reply #60 on:** January 02, 2016, 17:06 »

earlier robin posts:

Quote

Symzio, along with Symbiostock, provides contributors a complete independent solution: you can host and sell all your media on your own site, and syndicate it with everyone else in Symzio. Best of all, this is all 100% free. Symbiostock costs nothing, and Symzio costs nothing.

however, buried in the symzio FAQ is this little timebomb:

Quote

Once the Symzio BETA is over, we will consider charging a nominal Stock Inclusion Fee (SIF) based on the number of images a contributor includes in Symzio as a means of self-regulating quality control. The implementation and pricing of any potential SIF will depend on market conditions when the BETA is complete.

of course agencies can change the TOS too, but none charge by # of images. if you don't agree, you can just leave that agency. the big difference here is that symzio is touted as a major advantage of the system, and a photog can devote considerable time to setting up a personal site, only to be bit by a rule change

Microstockphoto · « **Reply #61 on:** January 02, 2016, 17:20 »

wow thanks for digging that up

Micro4 · « **Reply #62 on:** January 02, 2016, 17:30 »

Quote from: cascoly on January 02, 2016, 17:06

earlier robin posts:

. . . buried in the symzio FAQ is this little timebomb:

Quote
Once the Symzio BETA is over, we will consider charging a nominal Stock Inclusion Fee (SIF) based on the number of images a contributor includes in Symzio as a means of self-regulating quality control. The implementation and pricing of any potential SIF will depend on market conditions when the BETA is complete.

of course agencies can change the TOS too, but none charge by # of images. if you don't agree, you can just leave that agency. the big difference here is that symzio is touted as a major advantage of the system, and a photog can devote considerable time to setting up a personal site, only to be bit by a rule change

Well spotted Cascoly !

That is not good at all.

dianajo · « **Reply #63 on:** January 02, 2016, 17:50 »

I'm a Legacy Symbiostock Pro user. Greatly neglected my site for a long time (no sales, but I host so many sites, the cost to host my own is negligible to me). I installed a test version of the "new & improved" and unlike the old version, it's not compatible with my web host who uses magikwand instead of imagick.

Ironically, the OLD Symbiostock works just fine on the host. I feel like I lose a LOT of functionality with the new version. No more collections that I can see. No more setting my own pricing. No ability to upload zip files. I uploaded new content (eps, jpg) to my legacy site and it works. Is it perfect? No. But I do have a lot of options with it.

Problems I see with the new version:

1. There is no way to address a user repeatedly using an image. I mean really, prove it?! By one use does that mean one campaign? One client? One product? One print run? Etc.

2. Symzio seems to do a lot of interference for a contributor run project. I'll decide what is editorial and what isn't for my business. It's my liability. I don't want another entity deciding for me.

3. Perceived value is reduced. If I have to pay $20 for an image at Agency X but I can get it for $2 at Symzio, it's only worth $2 for me. And don't kid yourself, designers (most anyhow) do a reverse image search to find the best prices. Many downloaded images are only used once by a downloader, at least in my experience as a designer.

4. I want to control my pricing. I don't want 'set' values or to have to put custom pricing on every image. That's a time waster.

I'll be doing some site tweaking (Currently have a *terrible* slideshow) and then I might do some test AdWords campaigns, some additional FB promotion, some cross promotion, etc.

dianajo · « **Reply #64 on:** January 02, 2016, 17:54 »

Quote from: cascoly on January 02, 2016, 17:06

earlier robin posts:

Quote
Symzio, along with Symbiostock, provides contributors a complete independent solution: you can host and sell all your media on your own site, and syndicate it with everyone else in Symzio. Best of all, this is all 100% free. Symbiostock costs nothing, and Symzio costs nothing.

however, buried in the symzio FAQ is this little timebomb:

Quote
Once the Symzio BETA is over, we will consider charging a nominal Stock Inclusion Fee (SIF) based on the number of images a contributor includes in Symzio as a means of self-regulating quality control. The implementation and pricing of any potential SIF will depend on market conditions when the BETA is complete.

of course agencies can change the TOS too, but none charge by # of images. if you don't agree, you can just leave that agency. the big difference here is that symzio is touted as a major advantage of the system, and a photog can devote considerable time to setting up a personal site, only to be bit by a rule change

That is a nasty little bomb. I'm in this to make money, not to lose it to yet another "agency". If it's not an agency and instead is a contributor network, then these terms are definitely more restrictive than I expect when I do the bulk of the marketing, pay for the hosting, etc.

gsheldon · « **Reply #65 on:** January 02, 2016, 19:47 »

Quote from: Robin@Symbiostock on January 02, 2016, 13:36

Hi Shelma:

1) I just timed myself - it took me 10 minutes to setup a new Symbiostock site on a fresh server. This includes uploading an image, titling it as my store, and choosing a free WooCommerce compatible theme. WordPress already installed, however. It really is that easy.

Yep, it really is that easy! I just did it - on a Standalone installation with hosting at GoDaddy. Took me about 15 minutes total to do the install and get it working.

steheap · « **Reply #66 on:** January 02, 2016, 19:48 »

Hi Dianajo

You have misunderstood the pricing. All pricing and licensing on an individual's site is up to the individual. You can charge one time license or RF, you can make things editorial or not as you see fit. You can avoid having anything to do with Symzio if you want. You can display the Symzio images as an affiliate if you want and not include any of your own images in that system.

Symzio is an optional extra - we are currently debating how best to handle that editorial question on our forum and things change as the community works things out. Pricing on Symzio has one common component - the small web size download at $1.99, but the larger size is priced by the contributor - no control of that price. I chose $49.99 for mine, for instance.

What is different to Leo's efforts is that there is more standardization. If you can't support Imagemagick, then it does support GD, but why should the developer try to meet every possible variant? It diverts attention from other things. So if it doesn't work for you, stay where you are with the old version.

Steve

cathyslife · « **Reply #67 on:** January 03, 2016, 00:38 »

Quote from: gsheldon on January 02, 2016, 19:47

Yep, it really is that easy! I just did it - on a Standalone installation with hosting at GoDaddy. Took me about 15 minutes total to do the install and get it working.

Yes, most wordpress themes are easy to install and don't take much time. What takes the time is customizing a site with brand logos, colors, and copy, not to mention the uploading of all of one's photos, seo, etc. And all of that takes WAY more time than 15 minutes. And marketing one's site after all of that setting up also takes a lot of time. Let's be realistic...

marthamarks · « **Reply #68 on:** January 03, 2016, 00:47 »

Quote from: cathyslife on January 03, 2016, 00:38

Yes, most wordpress themes are easy to install and don't take much time. What takes the time is customizing a site with brand logos, colors, and copy, not to mention the uploading of all of one's photos, seo, etc. And all of that takes WAY more time than 15 minutes. And marketing one's site after all of that setting up also takes a lot of time. Let's be realistic...

Amen, Cathy. Well said!

Microstockphoto · « **Reply #69 on:** January 03, 2016, 02:38 »

steheap how big is that community? last time i checked i saw tumbleweed

gsheldon · « **Reply #70 on:** January 03, 2016, 08:04 »

[quote author=cathyslife

Yes, most wordpress themes are easy to install and don't take much time. What takes the time is customizing a site with brand logos, colors, and copy, not to mention the uploading of all of one's photos, seo, etc. And all of that takes WAY more time than 15 minutes. And marketing one's site after all of that setting up also takes a lot of time. Let's be realistic...
[/quote]

Yes, I agree... it is a big commitment of your time. And it is not for everyone. You could hire someone to do the customizing or do it yourself.

After I got the plugin working, I decided I didn't like my theme, so I bought a new one. I opted for Symbiostock Express. I like it much better than what I had, but it does have a learning curve.

You are right - we need to be realistic. This is not a 15 minute exercise to achieve a PayPal account running over with cash. It does involve work. And commitment. Setting up the plugins was the easy part. Doing all you describe is the real work.

Photobomb · « **Reply #71 on:** January 03, 2016, 11:38 »

Quote from: Microstockphoto on January 03, 2016, 02:38

steheap how big is that community? last time i checked i saw tumbleweed

Despite Robins claims, from this abbreviated post in September, the network doesn't seem to be growing by leaps and bounds.

Quote from: Robin@Symbiostock on September 14, 2015, 01:14

.... That being said, we are well over 200+ strong. New members are joining the Symzio network on a daily basis....

I was doing some checking, using the Symzio search and found there are about 8 contributors whose results come up when using popular and pretty broad keywords. Between them, they have around 13,500 images. With portfolios ranging from 14 to 4300 images. I only searched Images - not Video or Vectors.
Keywords I searched were: businessman, business, people, food, drink, dog, cat, bird, flower, nature, travel

Symzio as an agency without hundreds of thousands of images, at minimum, will not attract anybody.

Until there are a lot more big name contributors joining the new Symbiostock and reporting substantial and consistent sales this is not going to amount to anything more than the original did.

Redneck · « **Reply #73 on:** January 03, 2016, 13:22 »

Everybody is entitled to his opinion.
However, waiting until many others have joined and pushed it, and have reported frequent sales is basically the laziest and most cowardly attitude anyone can have toward a new enterprise.
Well, that was my opinion.

Microstockphoto · « **Reply #74 on:** January 03, 2016, 13:25 »

how many images and contributors does the agency have now?

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Author Topic: Symzio is now LIVE (Read 67674 times)

Redneck

Redneck

marthamarks

marthamarks

steheap

marthamarks

Symbiostock Official

cascoly

cascoly

lima

cascoly

Microstockphoto

Micro4

dianajo

dianajo

gsheldon

steheap

cathyslife

marthamarks

Microstockphoto

gsheldon

Photobomb

Symbiostock Official

Redneck

Microstockphoto

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