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Hi all,
So I posted today to microstock group talking about how terribly slow my site has become when doing a search and I was pointed to this thread. I must have missed a few things because I didn’t even know this place was alive. Last I heard it was read only.
Anyway, my site is SLOOOOW. Sometimes it’s faster, sometimes it’s slower but it’s always slow. Don’t remember having any issues prior to the last couple of updates. I first realized the problem in my admin area as it was timing out trying to bring up wordpress.com stats 90% of the time and trying to get around to different pages or posts is very difficult. The lag time is huge. Then I realized on the customer end of things that the search was bogging down badly enough that it was probably driving customers away.
I used a plugin called P3 (Plugin Performance Profiler) to scan my site. The plugin shows what components of your site are taking the most resources and causing the site to be slow. It showed me that the theme itself was the problem. Sounds like Leo has an idea of the issue but it’s been a week since the last post in this thread. Any updates?
Bryan
@ezeepics wrote:
My first sale today at Stockphotos.ezeepics.com, this image: http://stockphotos.ezeepics.com/image/christmas-gifts/
I’m happy for this!
Awesome! Nice image!
@christine wrote:
I did not actually say how much my sale was last month but we definitely do not need to use micro prices. My large sized images are £30, then extended for that size was £150. I did give a discount because they had to ring me from Switzerland to get the image but that problem is now sorted out (I used html instead of xhtml or something in the licence pop-up). It was my fifth outside sale (I am not including purchases from other symbiostock members although maybe I should
)Nice! Great to hear!
@fantasticstock wrote:
Just had my first 2 sales this morning after going live for a month!!!
Congratulations on your sales!
I also wanted to report that we had a $50 sale yesterday for front page website use by a major international hotel chain. Which I think goes to show that you don’t have to compete on price with the micros. Technically, everything went smoothly. I was also able to have a nice email exchange with the buyer which may lead to future sales.
Here’s one more: http://crackerclips.com/feed/
Hey Leo – I missed the last couple of updates and didn’t realize this had been solved. So it was solved and broken again before I even knew it was fixed
The only other problem is one I mentioned yesterday in another thread. I’ve changed the standard size names (bloggee, medium, etc.) to custom names and the little link you can click next to the licenses still shows the original names in the popup window.Otherwise, looking good!
Bryan
I’m in…feel free to include our site!
@crackerclips wrote:
I didn’t do 3.1.1 bit I see that 3.1.2 is now available. Is it safe to update if I’m on PHP 5.3?
I updated and all is well as far as I can tell.
Thanks! I updated to 3.1.2 and all seems to be working well.
I didn’t do 3.1.1 bit I see that 3.1.2 is now available. Is it safe to update if I’m on PHP 5.3?
@cidepix wrote:
I think I am figuring it out now.. one thing I don’t like though, is that I can’t change the “license URL”
I want all my licenses to point to my existing license page where I explain all licenses in a single page..
Leo, is it possible for us to set the URL to anything we want.. It’s crucial for me.. I don’t want seperate pages with seperate license explanations..
That’s the same way I do it. One license agreement that covers all licenses.
@cascoly wrote:
both good suggestions – the thumbnails would probably be fairly easy (always easy to add to leo’s task list), don’t know what would be involved with the other. for now, i’m busy trying to get more of my pond5 video portfolio over to my sym site
separate question for all — in author settings, under focus, we currently have photography, vectors, 3d design and digital paintings choices — if we were to add another, should we call it ‘video’ or ‘footage’? I’ve created a video category but use both words in my promoted keywords
I’ve given this one quite a bit of thought over the years as I’ve tried to rank the footage related websites I’ve had. When you do a search for “video” on google you get a huge array of all sorts of stuff returned in the search results that don’t apply to stock footage. For instance, if you search google with the term “stock video” you get a bunch of videos about the financial stock market returned. Using the term “footage” is much more clear as to what we’re talking about. Many agencies also use the keyword “Motion”. I’ve never used that one so I’m not sure if anyone searches for “motion” or not.
I’ve also used the words “video” and “footage” in my promoted keywords. Since there isn’t a built in way to search for just video in our portfolios, I’ve added both of these as keywords to each clip itself. I intend to explain somewhere on my site that if a buyer is just searching for footage they should add either the keyword “video” or “footage” to their search term such as “nature footage” or “city skyline video”.
Would it be possible to have a simple check box on the image detail page when uploading that if checked would move the content section up above the still preview on a case by case basis? Simple for me to write here but maybe much harder to actually implement. I’d also like to see something on the thumbnails when searching that indicates a thumb represents a video. Something like the “exclusive” tag we have now.
cascoly – Cool…nice to see some more video on board! Many times I do have identical shots taken with a proper stills camera but other times not. Also, video’s just a different beast and in general I compose a video shot differently than I would a still so I end up with a different product.
I removed the price from the unavailable large size. In the preview the large size is still showing but now without a price so I think it will require a programming fix to correct.
Interesting points. Thank you jsnover for taking a look!
Yes, on the Mount Rushmore clip I’m not offering a still for that one because I have a similar still at an exclusive agency. As for the prices on the preview they are not completely correct. There is no large available. I’ve listed the large size as “unavailable” in the back end but it is still showing a price for it. This looks like a programming issue that affects all previews where there is a size marked as unavailable but there is still a price listed. I’ll try removing the price for the large size and see if that fixes things.
As for footage sizes, the clips are only being offered in full HD size. I’ve found over the years that probably 85-90% of my video sales are for the full HD size. While a low res still image works well for the web a low res or standard definition footage clip doesn’t work as well for two reasons. Generally the clips aren’t used as a one off like a picture may be. It’s integrated with other clips to complete the whole project, so it almost always makes sense for the buyer to create the advertisement or movie at the highest resolution possible because if they decide later that they need their finished product bigger it’s a real hassle. Secondly, with today’s high def monitors and retina displays, HD actually looks better even if downsized to use smaller. For years I though Pond5 was missing out by not resizing clips but now I don’t think it’s necessary to be successful and they have always been my number one or two distributor.
I like your idea of having the video on top of the still (as it’s the primary item I’m selling) but I don’t know of a way to do that. The video embed code goes into the content section while the still image preview always appears on top of whatever is in the content section. As far as I know that would have to be a change in the symbiostock programming.
I’m glad everything loaded quickly for you. Another benefit of embedding the preview from elsewhere is that the video will play on phones and tablets.
Thanks again for taking a look.
I’ve finally gotten a little time to play with video on our site and here’s what I’ve come up with so far using Marks’ basic idea:
http://crackerclips.com/?s=footage&post_type=image
-I’ve got the video preview embedded from vimeo which provides all the playback controls but avoids my site having bandwidth issues.
-I decided to offer a still frame of the video for sale in addition to the footage clip itself. Nice quality for web use and small prints.
-I had previously purchased a video sitemap from yoast (for another purpose that didn’t work out) and realized I could use it here (which is good because it was expensive). In addition to the video sitemap, it automatically displays a video thumbnail along with the snippet in google search results. http://yoast.com/wordpress/video-seo/Before I get too far down the path, I’d love to hear any feedback anyone has that may improve things or make anything more clear for the buyers.
Cheers, Bryan
