Hi,

We are in the process of launching a new micro stock photo site.

I'd like to welcome any photographers to sign up.

www.stockriot.com

But more importantly I'd like to know what features you all would be looking for in a stock site. Is there anything missing from any of the big sites that you would like to see or make your life easier.

Hi StockRiot,

Thanks for checking in with photographers...

Here are some of the things I look for.

Sales and income is key. However, as new site, you won't be able to offer that right away. In the past I've worked with new sites on occasion, and many of them haven't sold even one image. Most of those I will drop. I don't take my images down, I just stop uploading and being active. I know other folks will go and pull their images down.

That doesn't mean that I won't support a new site. I have a few sites I actively upload to that really don't sell much or any. Since you are new, you would likely fall into that category. So, since you aren't ShutterStock or DreamsTime or IStock, here are the sorts of things that make me stick with a less productive site.

1. Do they seem like they MIGHT make it big. The interface is important and I look to see if they are advertising. So, are the representing my photos in a professional manner. I think Lucky Oliver is a great example of this. I have sold very few images through LO...but they seem to be aggressive and they seem like they might crack it. So I stick with them.

2. Is it easy to upload (FTP is a must) and easy to submit. I have a couple sites that I upload my keyworded images with other IPTC info in place and I'm done. They stick them in categories and sell them. They don't always sell many...but it doesn't matter because they are SO easy to upload to that I can make a few bucks here and there and be fine. The submission process elsewhere is daunting...particularly when you spread your images among 20 or more sites, like I do. I don't want to add more work. So keep the submission process very, very easy and fast.

3. Do I like them. This may sound a little odd in the impersonal world of crowd sourcing...but there are a few sites out there with my images simply because they respond to the occasional email, they are friendly in their communications and they seem like good people that I want to help. I figure if I'm going to put my work out there to help me and to help someone else make money...I might as well like that someone else.

4. They promote me. One site I can think of has featured me as a photographer several times. A couple others often have one of my images on their home page. How can I refuse? It's good Internet PR for me even if the images don't sell well there. As part of my overall presence online, it's great.

So those are my four criteria for the smaller sites. The big 5 or 10 or however you count sites get most of us because they consistently deliver sales. Since you're new, that will be harder for a while.

I dropped by your site. I like the interface. It's cool and professional. Maybe slightly conservative given the name...but that's a business decision. It looks like you're in picture acquisition mode. I went to "people" and found only about 40 images. For someone like me, getting in on the ground floor can be attractive. I have several hundred people shots that already sell well. It really becomes a cost (in time) vs. benefit equation. If you make it easy to upload and submit. I'm there...and I suspect a lot of others will be, too.

I hope that helps...

I'd love to hear from you.

Cheers,

Scott

I have just sarted submitting to StockRiot as I think they may have some potential.

I would like to 2nd everything said by Creatista and add a couple of additional comments:
The upload now is not bad IF your images all fall in the same category.
More often than not I prefer to upload a mix of images to (hopefully) cover the sales bases. So the ability for FTP and the ability to add categories after the upload would be great. Personally I like the SS upload (if you are not a member I can send a screen shot).

This one may sound silly, but I think it works:
A users forum.
It makes people feel part of the community and gets a dialog going.
I think that is why a great deal of people keep going back to LO even though the sales are low. It's simply a fun place to go. The SS forums are a blast and quite informative.

You need to be careful NOT to over monitor like Dreamestime does ,and the iStock forum almost seems a little elitist.(but then again I suppose at iStock if your not exclusive you aint nuttin )

I have stopped uploading to some non-sellers - the interesting thing I noticed is that none of them had forums.


While I'm only 6 months into this game (and thus no Uri) , I did see quite a few images up there with questionably marketability (flowers, snapshots etc). Don't go down that path just to get images. Be VERY critical of commercial marketability now, so that you don't loose credibility later. In other words set a precedent and be strict on the images now.

VC

Thank you very much for the feedback. I really appreciate you taking the time to answer my question.

We are working on FTP access now (Thanks to your encouragement). In the meantime we can give any photographer FTP Access if they send us an email.

As for the Forum, I was thinking about that originally, but I then was thinking that unless we were a huge site it would look like a bit of a baron wasteland, and I thought that would be more of a turn off than having one.

Does anybody else have thoughts on a forum?

I agree with all the added comments from VC. Thanks for filling in what I left out.

I've noticed some of the newer sites use 3rd Party forums...so I'm guessing it might not be too hard, or too much of a chore for you for getting started.

Funny how the community makes a big difference (just like here) but it does. I would very much suggest a forum AND as the owner/manager/whatever of the site...post to it yourself often so people know what's going on. The bigger sites are pretty good about that.

StockRiot...I'll send you an email in the next few days to get that FTP info and give you a shot.

Well I have taken your advice and added a forum. For security we did not want it running on the same server as our stock site. I made the mistake of hosting it on Godaddy.

It was fine on the weekend, but now it is as slow as molasses. I did a reverse DNS lookup & found they have 3200 other sites running on the same server. :shock:

I am going to set it up on a new server this coming weekend. No point in having it if it takes so long to load.