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That is a really good article Steve. Really points to the benefit of autonomy when it comes to publishing your media.
We found that there was a delay when it was converted in MP4 and played live – it may have to do with the HTML5 implementation of the video player.
Nevertheless, we are planning to slightly overhaul the player so that it looks a bit better and/or functions a bit better, and will likely switch to MP4 with the next release. As with everything we do, it will be retroactive and will automatically convert all your FLVs to MP4.
We’ll also look into the keywords issue – there seems to be an issue with keywords and videos for some reason where it only saves one keyword.
Thanks for letting us know.
The easiest way to ever find out what CSS you need to edit is to use Chrome or Firefox and right click and click on ‘inspect element’. With some quick digging you can easily find the classes you need to override.
So for the first thing, it appears to be:
.sse_product_license_table
with the background-color tag.
For the second thing, it appears to be:
.sf-menu ul
with the background tag.
Rather than change the source, it would be better to add it as custom css and add the !important tag so that it overrides the original:
https://css-tricks.com/when-using-important-is-the-right-choice/
Created a new Symzio article on Shutterstock’s new EL change and tweeted about it.
Shutterstock reduces contributor revenue https://t.co/CAcq01HUx8 via @symzio pic.twitter.com/ToAoSj9IcZ
— Symbiostock (@symbiostock) January 23, 2016
Forget google images:
https://www.google.com/search?q=lonesome+bengal+cat
We’re #1, out ranking even Shutterstock. And Symzio isn’t even deep indexed yet.
I have to stay diplomatic, both because I am dependent on SS for living income and because of my position within the project, but I think it’s really ‘unfortunate’. It feels as if this was one area that was discovered as a plausible way to retain more revenue without creating too large of a wave in the contributor base because, well, we’re already being paid through tiers via non EL purchases.
There’s a lot more I want to say, and have written and deleted. Suffice to say, the most diplomatic thing I can say is: Go Symzio.
Speaking of which, just got this from Shutterstock:
At Shutterstock, one of our most important goals is to drive our contributor’s success by continuously delivering new earnings opportunities to you, our partners. Our enhanced license provides a great opportunity to license your content at a higher price point. Over the past year, we have been testing ways to better communicate the value of this premium license to our customers.
We have determined that a fixed rate payment for enhanced licences limits our ability to continually drive more downloads. Therefore, effective January 25th 2016 the enhanced license payout will move from a fixed rate of $28 to a tiered percentage model, similar to our custom image license. To help simplify the earnings schedule, your enhanced license payout will now be determined by your earnings tier.In other words, they are reducing the amount of money contributors make on ELs.
It’s very important that we prep for the future by falling into a steady pace of constant self-promotion. Things will move slow here and there, but there is no other option if we plan to keep being self-employed photographers/vector artists. The whole reason we’re such a tight knit group to begin with is that we all understand the inherently unsustainable business model the agencies have created. Anyone already not worried is fooling themselves into thinking that if they just take more pictures they’ll be able to out-pace the floor that’s loosening underneath them.
For my part, I feel I’ve put a great deal of effort and work into this entire thing and now really depend on everyone else to take a step forward too. I always knew marketing would be both daunting and unpredictable, but also something that we could work on as a community.
The entire point is to get on solid ground as independents before this all comes crumbling down. I’ve actually seen this happen before – I used to run a very successful website prior to the dot-com bust, and trust me, when it happens, it doesn’t happen slow. It actually feels like there’s this massive abundance of money and then pop, everything just stops. Back then I saw it coming and saved up – this time I saw a way through it, so that’s what we’ve built here.
It may come quick, it may come slow, but it won’t come at all if we don’t keep at it. Write blogs. Post on social media. Link to each other. Create more media.
And you may not realize it, because we’re starting gradually, but what we’re doing is really working:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Bad+Mergentheim+in+Germany+stock+photo&tbm=isch
https://www.google.com/search?q=Lincoln+Diner+stock+photo&tbm=isch
https://www.google.com/search?q=Moda+Calida+stock+photo&tbm=isch
About a month in, specialized niches, and Symzio is already on the first page. We have about 5% of the images that other agencies do, and we’re already competing with them on a global level for niche keywords. This is extremely positive. Cross linking works tremendously. I had mentioned earlier in 2015 when we first released the Symzio widget that we’re looking for that ‘critical mass’ – with every new active contributor, I feel we’re getting closer to that point.
Just keep on keeping on and we’ll see our way through this.
The slowness Redneck is talking about is as a result of the way jQuery works – most jQuery commands are parsed after the page is loaded. With images, specifically, since Masonry requires that they ‘fade in’, a lot of the time it actually has to wait until all the images are loaded in order to create the grid.
This has 0 to do with Symbiostock or WooCommerce.
As for buying a theme from us – you can do that, or you can get any third party theme that works with WooCommerce. Even the built in themes that come with WordPress work with WooCommerce and Symbiostock, but they don’t look that great.
Hey Zoe,
Symbiostock does not involve itself in the front end very much at all and basically operates through WooCommerce. So if your theme is compatible with WooCommerce, then it will work fantastic with Symbiostock.
Worst case you can try it out and see how it goes.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the many years I’ve been in the web marketing industry, it’s that you keep trying, fiddling with this thing or that, tweaking this and that, and each little move creates a certain increase in your traffic circulation. As you keep working on it, they start accumulating and opportunities start opening up.
You’ll get backlinks you never asked for. People will contact you for reviews. You’ll get followers and likes. You’ll get sales on Symzio and your own site. Etc, etc. Just keep making blog posts, posting on social media, contacting this blog here, that person there, create new media for sale, etc.
We’re getting new contributors almost daily on Symzio now. We’ve actually had to reject a number of applicants because the images seemed sub-par. Even affiliates.
The end goal, of course, is sales – but having a popular blog is also has its monetary value. So we’re trying to do everything we can to expand our reach as independents – and truly self employed entrepreneurs.
However, once you add, create, or change any of the licenses, they don’t apply to products automatically. You need to either re-save the products you want updated, or click on the ‘update licenses’ or ‘update prices’ checkbox on the license edit screen.
We always catch up eventually and will post an update whenever that happens. We do not recommend upgrading on your live server until that happens.
Hi Tom – take a look at the documentation here:
http://www.symbiostock.org/docs/category/2-media-licensing/
The three licenses you mentioned come as a default. You can edit these to whatever you’d like – rename them, change the pricing, all that. You can also create as many new ones as you want.
However, once you add, create, or change any of the licenses, they don’t apply to products automatically. You need to either re-save the products you want updated, or click on the ‘update licenses’ or ‘update prices’ checkbox on the license edit screen.
If you want a license to apply to images, you need to ensure that under the filtering section of the license edit screen you pick ‘raster’. If you want it to apply to vectors, check the associated box as well. This is basically how the licensing system works.
You should generally not edit the licensing manually by editing product variations.