Автор Тема: crestock (international)  (Прочитано 73564 раз)

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Syates

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crestock (international)
« : Ноября 27, 2007, 12:06:12 am »
As they appeared on the market they were so bad (reviews/ sales) that I actually cancelled my account there, but I re-joined some months ago after Andresr encouraged me and sales are picking up, not stellar, but better, how is your experience, SY
« Последнее редактирование: Марта 02, 2008, 05:54:27 pm от dolgachov »

Оффлайн Forgiss

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Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
« Ответ #1 : Ноября 27, 2007, 12:15:37 am »
Aaargh!!

One day when I have bandwidth to blow... I'll send them stuff again!

Оффлайн realdealphoto

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Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
« Ответ #2 : Ноября 27, 2007, 11:03:13 am »
A handful of sales a day but nothing to write home about. Horribly picky about what they accept but I really don't worry to much about that, In this game every sale adds up and with no more effort then it take to upload there I just add them as I have a chance.

Syates

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Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
« Ответ #3 : Ноября 28, 2007, 05:01:43 pm »
Yes, it is true their upload system got really much better and easier to use, SY

Оффлайн josh_crestock

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Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
« Ответ #4 : Ноября 28, 2007, 06:51:17 pm »

Hi to you all,

Thanks Lev for the invitation. And, to the moderators of this board, all the best guys, hope your forum becomes a great place for open discussion.

For those of you who haven't had contact with me before, I'm the Director for Photographer Relations and Inspections at Crestock. This is since April this year. I'm here to encourage all photographers to get involved with Crestock and really help maintain its steady growth.

The future at Crestock is looking better and better (Yeah we had some growing pains.) Sales have doubled in almost a month, and from the experience of last January we expect it to double again in the first month of 2008. Anyone (Forgiss, you're the only microstocker here that I'm aware of who doesn't regularly upload to Crestock, not to mention names ;)) who would like to get on board in the next month or 2 with a larger portfolio, let me know. I can get the inspection team onto it, giving it priority.

The inspection team is one of the things that have changed at Crestock. We now use a mixture of in-house inspectors and also Crestock contributors (all fantastic photographers) from all around the globe. We're about 20 inspectors now, most of whom inspect every day. The inspectors are taught to maintain a high standard of quality (this is important for any stock site wishing to develop a solid customer base), but not too much at the expense of good stock images.

Theres a range of new developments on their way at Crestock, all of these will hopefully become apparent in the near future.

Look forward to getting to know you all, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Josh

Syates

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Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
« Ответ #5 : Ноября 28, 2007, 07:01:30 pm »
Hello Josh, welcome from me also! I am always in favor that site admins/ owners/ managers/ creative directors etc join the forums and be active in them. It helps everybody to see "both of the sides of a coin" so to speak. I would also encourage you not only to write in this board but also be active in the other ones. We are all in the same business and the broader the group is that discusses this business the more information and understanding will everybody gain from it. Which, in the end will be beneficial to all, so again, welcome and let Lev or me know when we can help you with something! SY

Оффлайн khz

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Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
« Ответ #6 : Ноября 29, 2007, 10:14:30 am »
Hi Josh,
welcome to the board,

i tried to ul when crestock first come out, i had big hopes when i started, then i was discouraged with the previous ul system and very low acceptance ratio. that's whey i get out from there, but since i do this micro stock business as my main job, it really annoys me to quit a stock site forever.

so if the things are going better for both photographers and crestock, may be i should give it a second try?
regards
bora

Оффлайн Forgiss

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Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
« Ответ #7 : Ноября 29, 2007, 12:31:05 pm »
Hi Josh  ;D

Like I have mentioned before, business is business, and if a site is working, I will sell there. When I quite Crestock, I honestly did not have the bandwidth to waste on arbitrary rejections (I believe one of the forum posts said " ...we don't want images that sell elsewhere, we want exceptional images... "

All good and well, but if you can't supply the basics, why would visitors come? wouldn't they just go to the place that can supply them everything they need in one go? (well, that's my logic) Also, nobody on your team could give me any indication of what "exceptional" images are. The last point that drove me away was simply that everytime I asked a question, my comments were deleted from the forum...

So... if any of this has changed, then sure... I will upload there again...

Оффлайн Forgiss

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Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
« Ответ #8 : Ноября 29, 2007, 01:47:34 pm »
Hi Josh...

Tried to upload a file, got this:

    *   couple211007-01.jpg: Out of memory.
      System.OutOfMemoryException: Out of memory. at System.Drawing.Graphics.CheckErrorStatus(Int32 status) at System.Drawing.Graphics.DrawImage(Image image, Rectangle destRect, Rectangle srcRect, GraphicsUnit srcUnit) at CustomToolsV2.ImageResizer.ConstrainProportions(Image imgPhoto, Int32 Size, Dimensions Dimension) at standard.LagreThumbnails(Int32 id, String path, Int32 typeid) at standard.ImportImages()   Delete

Оффлайн josh_crestock

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Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
« Ответ #9 : Ноября 29, 2007, 02:07:35 pm »
Thanks for the comments guys,

Its nice to be getting some constructive feedback, its unbelievably helpful.

First off, Forgiss, I agree with everything you said. Its already been proven to us over time that the more established microstock photographers can supply to basis to our collection and can in themselves attract a lot of customers. These photographers upload to a lot of different sites and have a good knowledge of the industry, so we don't want to waste too much of their time with arbitrary rejections or long pending times. I see it as being in our best interests to get those images up as quickly as possible, and to really promote the good ones.

Accepting only 'exceptional images', whilst, to me, is obviously unsustainable for a stock site starting off, it is typical of that we need to be offering a slightly different service to the rest of the industry. Since i've started, we've had relatively high approval rates, which I think we can afford to do while we continue to build our libraries up. Sales are increasing constantly and if we continue this way we might achieve sales comparative to a site like Dreamstime. To do better than this, though, somewhere along the line, we'll have to do something differently. We've got a few ideas though nothing set in concrete yet. Other sites just seem to make it more and more difficult to achieve approvals and to get exposure on queue results, I'm not convinced this is a real solution. Certainly not a good one for photographers.

Best Regards,

Josh


Оффлайн josh_crestock

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Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
« Ответ #10 : Ноября 29, 2007, 02:11:45 pm »
In regards to the error message:

There are isolated cases of this happening and I believe its due to hardware upgrades that are happening over the next week or so. A few people say that they've tried a second time and then it has worked. Sorry for the temporary inconvenience and that I can't give you a better solution than that.

Оффлайн Forgiss

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Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
« Ответ #11 : Ноября 29, 2007, 03:38:39 pm »
Accepting only 'exceptional images', whilst, to me, is obviously unsustainable for a stock site starting off, it is typical of that we need to be offering a slightly different service to the rest of the industry. Since i've started, we've had relatively high approval rates, which I think we can afford to do while we continue to build our libraries up. Sales are increasing constantly and if we continue this way we might achieve sales comparative to a site like Dreamstime. To do better than this, though, somewhere along the line, we'll have to do something differently.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. and on a micro level (inside a "micro" industry) I try and do just that in my own portfolio to create sustainability, so even though my "business" type images are more than 25% of my gallery, it compromises less than 4% of my earnings. And my focus is on other image types where gaps exist

I do, however, maintain, that unless you are a "niche market" site, you will have to supply both the rudimentary images as well as the "exceptional" because that is the demand. Sure, my stapeler images is nothing special, but... the client that is paying the money needs one today, and if they miss it on one stock site, they will search on another, so if they allready have one transaction on another site, why not simply see if the rest isn't also available there...

The new buyers are fickle, brand loyalty is something that is fast disolving. Buyers that is e-commerce savy will not think twice to switch between sites to get what they need today (and that is also why I will never go exclusive either)

As I mentioned before, I defended Crestock's rejections and (as I still am) feel that a site has the right to accept and reject images according to their business strategy, but what I would like is for the business to respect me as well and at least give me a guideline according to submit. I do this for a living, and don't have time or resources to waste on the whim of a reviewer who reviews without definite guidelines. (case in point: tourist related images of London rejected when Crestock had only 5 images with a "london" keyword, of which one was a photograph of a map)

At Crestock (a year or so ago) Technical quality flew out the window and acceptance/rejection was on the "gut feel" of the reviewer. And the only reason I left was because nobody could give me those guidelines. If they are in place today, I will gladly move all my images up.


Syates

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Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
« Ответ #12 : Ноября 29, 2007, 04:32:03 pm »
As somebody that submits, again, regularly to Crestock, I must say, reviews are far more consistent these days and Josh is always approachable if you feel a reviewer made a mistake. Sales wise it is also picking up as I said before, SY

Оффлайн Forgiss

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Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
« Ответ #13 : Ноября 29, 2007, 05:00:00 pm »
Yep. I do not wish to hash old problems, so I will try and submit again, and see where it goes.

Will wait until next week though and see if the upload problems can be sorted

Оффлайн sshaw75

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Re: How is Crestock doing for everybody?
« Ответ #14 : Декабря 03, 2007, 05:54:10 am »
Hmm hadn't heard of this site before, signed up an account tonight, now the pain of uploading lol.  Hopefully it'll pan out as well as some of the others.