My SM Stock Photo Site is up running, but I have no sale expectation.

gary718 · June 7, 2007

Please feel free to comment and critique my site http://gary718.smugmug.com/

But I have no expectation on any profit. Under current SM structure and search engine, if you do a keyword search, thousands of snap shots flooded in. All are printable and original downloadable. High quality stock photos (for sale) can never be easily identified.

docwalker · June 8, 2007

Gary,

You misspelled stock in one of your galleries. Or did you intend to have Srock?

Doc

gary718 wrote:

Please feel free to comment and critique my site http://gary718.smugmug.com/

But I have no expectation on any profit. Under current SM structure and search engine, if you do a keyword search, thousands of snap shots flooded in. All are printable and original downloadable. High quality stock photos (for sale) can never be easily identified.

gary718 · June 8, 2007

docwalker wrote:

Gary,

You misspelled stock in one of your galleries. Or did you intend to have Srock?

Doc

Thanks for checking. I corrected. I guess no one making money this way?

Angelo · June 8, 2007

how and where are you initiating your searches?

gary718 · June 8, 2007

Angelo wrote:

how and where are you initiating your searches?

Say search "times square" at SM site, you got 231 galleries and 1000+ photos hits. you can right click most of them and get free download. Why someone still tries to find some photos which charge for download? I do not see a business model to sell stock photo this way.

devbobo · June 8, 2007

gary718 wrote:

Say search "times square" at SM site, you got 231 galleries and 1000+ photos hits. you can right click most of them and get free download. Why someone still tries to find some photos which charge for download? I do not see a business model to sell stock photo this way.

Gary,

Have you read this thread ? This feature is coming soon, with pros being able to set a stock option at the gallery level, for any galleries they want to be made available to sell as stock.

Cheers,

David

Angelo · June 8, 2007

gary718 wrote:

Say search "times square" at SM site, you got 231 galleries and 1000+ photos hits. you can right click most of them and get free download. Why someone still tries to find some photos which charge for download? I do not see a business model to sell stock photo this way.

Gary:

What SM site please? I went to your site and did a search and only come up with YOUR images.

Please be specific.

devbobo · June 8, 2007

Angelo wrote:

Gary:

What SM site please? I went to your site and did a search and only come up with YOUR images.

Please be specific.

Angelo,

He is talking about doing a search from www.smugmug.com

David

gary718 · June 8, 2007

devbobo wrote:

Angelo,

He is talking about doing a search from www.smugmug.com

David

Yes, search from www.smugmug.com. Thanks David. I did read the SM news about selling stock photos. But as I mentioned before, stock photos compete with thousand of free snap shoots (for free download) side-by-side within the same site just not make a business sense.

Dusty Sensiba · June 9, 2007

Car Photos
I really like the car photos.

BeachBill · June 9, 2007

gary718 wrote:

Yes, search from www.smugmug.com. Thanks David. I did read the SM news about selling stock photos. But as I mentioned before, stock photos compete with thousand of free snap shoots (for free download) side-by-side within the same site just not make a business sense.

This can be seen at an even larger scale at http://images.google.com/

With that said a lot of people make good money selling stock.

Andy · June 9, 2007

gary718 wrote:

Yes, search from www.smugmug.com. Thanks David. I did read the SM news about selling stock photos. But as I mentioned before, stock photos compete with thousand of free snap shoots (for free download) side-by-side within the same site just not make a business sense.

Hi - I'm guessing you did not read the part about how we plan on making stock photos NOT compete against the "free snap shots."

gary718 · June 11, 2007

Andy wrote:

Hi - I'm guessing you did not read the part about how we plan on making stock photos NOT compete against the "free snap shots."

Do you mean following? Any actual procedures/details on NOT compete against SM free photos? Sometime money talks. I just have one suggestion below.

Quote:
Originally Posted by onethumb
Yes, they'll be your custom prices.

As for organizing, searching, and browsing, we're still working on all of that stuff, but I believe you'll be able to:

- browse by category
- browse by keywords
- browse by most popular
- browse by geography
- search by words (sorted by popularity or most recent)
- search by words + geography (ditto, likely, on sorting)

I'd like to add browsing/searching by date, as well, but the jury is still out there.

This means that properly categorizing your photos into categories and keywords is even more important. It's also even more important that you gain exposure in the community so that your photos, as a result, gain exposure. The very very best way to do this is to comment on other people's photos at SmugMug because they, and the people viewing those photos, then go browse yours and comment on them, raising your popularity.

Also, you'll have your own "stock catalog" on your site with which you can browse/search and you can send your clients directly there, and your photos will also belong to the "SmugMug stock catalog" which we'll be actively driving traffic and awareness to.

Clear as mud?

Don

Before SM starts the stock photos sale, I think SM should set all SM photos a default choice that all photos in SM can NOT do Right-click download (unless he/she agree to have everyone to do the free download - using a pop-up window to confirm). The stock photos compete with thousand of free snap shoots (for free right-click download) side-by-side within the same site just not make a business sense. Check other Microstock websites - so many comments said: their free photos get thousands of download while it did not bring much sale on their regular stock photos.

Thanks,

Gary

gary718View Public Profile Send a private message to gary718 Send email to gary718 Find More Posts by gary718

Jun-11-2007, 06:42 AM #144 iamback vbmenu_register("postmenu_570960", true);
Grinning back!

Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Amsterdam, NL
Posts: 36

Quote:
Originally Posted by gary718
Before SM starts the stock photos sale, I think SM should set all SM photos a default choice that all photos in SM can NOT do Right-click download (unless he/she agree to have everyone to do the free download - using a pop-up window to confirm). The stock photos compete with thousand of free snap shoots (for free right-click download) side-by-side within the same site just not make a business sense.

Nice idea, but in practice right-click protection is "protection" only against really naive visitors; anyone who really wants a picture can simply turn off JavaScript in their browser once the picture is loaded. Someone who is out to collect pictures online is likely to know, or soon learn, that. Watermarking, especially watermarking that is hard to retouch out, is likely a much better protection.
__________________
Marjolein Katsma
follow me ... on Marjolein's Travel Blog,
look through my eyes on Marjolein's Travel Photos!

ChuckWC · June 11, 2007

gary718 wrote:

Please feel free to comment and critique my site http://gary718.smugmug.com/
...

I took a quick look at your Manhattan gallery (nice pictures!).

I noticed that you're allowing users to view the "Original Size" pictures. You should really turn off access to Original sized images. Otherwise, it's very easy to steal your digital files without ever paying for them! (especially since the Original size images don't have a watermark!)

Even if the images are right-mouse click protected (which I see they are), the image files will be sitting on a user's hard drive. If the person is even a bit knowledgable, they can easily hold onto your full-size images.

I'd actually recommend turning off both "Original" and "Large" sized files (as I do for my own pictures), since "Medium" size is big enough for potential customers to see your images (and yet small enough to discourage prints from being made).

Plus, I'd recommend a larger watermark. The one you're currently using could be very easily "erased", since it doesn't cover much of the image (and, again, the "Original" size file doesn't have the watermark, so for thieves, it'd be easier right now to just grab that and not worry about the watermark at all!)

gary718 · June 12, 2007

Thanks for your comment and suggestion. I really appreciated. I disabled the original size. For watermark, if they know they can get it for a $1.00, why spend time to remove it for web quality image.

My SM Stock Photo Site is up running, but I have no sale expectation.

Comments