| |  | | Zymmetrical goes social | | (Published by pmelcher) 5/12/2008 | After the request of some of our members, we have decided to go social and expand our reach.
Zymmetrical now has an official group on Flickr where anyone with an account can join, compare images, start or comment on a topic or just enjoy being part being part of the fastest growing community of midstock shooters.
You can see and join here : Zymmetrical group on Flickr
We have also created a page on Facebook. Linked to the main site, the Facebook page allows for anyone with an account to subscribe and receive news from within their account. You can become a fan and interact with other members of Zymmetrical who uses Facebook. Click on the link to join the Zymmetrical Facebook page.
We hope to see you there soon !!!
| | | News from our members | | (Published by pmelcher) 5/9/2008 | Often, there is more to our contributors' life then just taking pictures or submitting graphics. Most have another life that is as fulfilling as being being part of our community.
Take Creatista for example. Not only does he take great images and uploads them here ( he is starting to see his sales grow) but he is also a cineast. So much so that he is coming out with a feature documentary called "The Asphalt Gospel". It is about a 2,500 mile walk across America that took 5 months.
"I am a progressive Christian activist" says Creatista, "...meaning that I respect people of other faiths...or no faith...even though they may be on a different path than I am. I don't take the Bible as a literal truth but rather as a book written by humans, believe in the inclusion of people regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation...believe in care for the environment and the meeting of science and spirituality, etc. "
The movie document his thoughts. It will be released in selected theaters this summer in the USA at first and might gain international exposure. If you have a chance, go see it, if only to support Creatista's work.
You can watch a trailer here : The Asphalt Gospel Trailer
We would like to hear from you too if you are involved in any activity that you are proud of and would like to share with us. Send us an email.
| | | News from our editing team | | (Published by pmelcher) 5/8/2008 | We have been busy working as fast as we can to get your images, graphics, video and fonts processed. The editing happens around the clock, 24/7 as we have free-lance editors all around the globe.
It is both a frustrating and captivating task. Frustrating because some images are almost good, but there is dust, a rough composition, an unwanted object or simply poor lighting. You feel that the artist is almost there but not quite yet.
Frustrating because some of you upload with no keywords. Obviously that delays the approval process. Some of you have been using our new editing tool (the 'Edit' button next to your submissions on http://www.zymmetrical.com/account/submissions/) and we really appreciate it.
Please be aware that updating your files with this tool will make your files become priority. A little bit like being upgraded to first class.
It is captivating because of the incredible graphics and photographs we are receiving on a daily basis. Not only from advanced amateurs but from pros who more and more, are joining Zymmetrical. It is captivating to see these images and graphics sell at the price point suggested. And finally, it is captivating to see how most of you do your research and upload files that the market need.
Keep them coming. We can't get enough. Upload one, upload 10 or 100. Send us CD, DVD's if you want. We are not scared. Quite the opposite. And keep those emails, comments and suggestions coming. we love them.
| | | Fair Trade Initiative + Submissions Manager Improvements | | (Published by Keith Tuomi) 4/10/2008 | Fair Trade Initiative
Zymmetrical is committed. So much so,
we have added a “fair trade” logo to our home page. This logo is a
pledge that we stand by our promise to deliver the most value to all
the artists that we proudly represent.
Fair Trade is a
reflection of giving back as much to the creator as is possible. While
other agencies often only split revenues 20% to 50% with their creative
members, we stand firm on 70%, so that most of the money made goes back
to the artist and promotes sustainability. A happy and well-compensated
artist is an one who can continue creating in the long-term.
New submission interface
In order to speed up approval time, we have added a few elements to our Submissions Manager page (www.zymmetrical.com/account/submissions/).
You can now check embedded IPTC keywords and/or add new ones, select
your pricing and the category. We have even added a nifty spell check
to make sure all your keywords are perfect. Once you have done that,
your image will move to the top of the queue.
This does not
guarantee approval, as all submissions must still be inspected by our
professional reviewers for technical and conceptual quality, however it
will certainly help in getting images processed faster.
| | | Interview with Zymmetrical CEO Keith Tuomi Part 1 | | (Published by Keith Tuomi) 3/17/2008 |
Can you present in few words your company and your vision for the
future?
Zymmetrical is an agency done right from the ground up. There is a
constant sideshow in this industry of new technologies, new pricing
models, new audiences - however we truly believe that value for the
Buyer (and return value for the Artist's time, talent, and expenses) is
the neglected factor. The trend of Crowdsourcing has further eroded the
idea that people doing creative photography & design should be
compensated fairly: "If you won't sell your photo for $1, there's ten
others waiting in the wings to take your place" seems to be the
drumbeat.
Zymmetrical is a dynamic marketplace where Artist's can set
their own prices - on it's own not an incredible feat of programming
(Ebay's been allowing it since the days of Netscape Navigator).
However, combined with our personal service and crack editorial staff,
we try to deliver a buying environment that permeates the confidence of
an upscale department store, with the sense of fun of an East Village
vintage clothing store.
Our vision for the future in the short-term: continue multiplying the
smiles as Artist's learn the same files they may sell for a discount on
legacy microstock agencies, can earn them multiple greenbacks instead
of nickels & dimes. In the long-term, aside from leveraging all the
technology stuff that's really only for the geeks to care (distributed
web applications, advanced image recognition algos, copyright
enforcement frameworks), our goal is to simply provide the best agency
in town.
The bars have been lowered for entry into this market due to
web technology continually becoming cheaper and more accessible, but
the expectations of the professional buyers always remain consistent -
we will continue to follow the path that continues to bring us trust
from all involved.
How you would define your leadership style?
One of my favorite business books is 'Good to Great' by Jim Collins. It
has been a pivotal influence on my ideas of what leadership in an
organization is. In it, 28 major corporations are studied over years
and a big volume of data and experience is analyzed, in order to
determine why some companies, even though they have great financial
backing, superb middle management, a good supply chain etc., start from
a comfortable position, and yet go on to ultimately fail.
At the same
time, the study sees mediocre companies starting with a bad hand, but
finally making the transition to greatness and dominating their
industry. The answer in -every- case was the leadership of a key
personality in the firm, a single person who can combine a culture of
discipline with the spirit of entrepreneurship.
In business these days
there is rarely accidental or even easy success, and I know that the
leadership style I exude will continue to be critical to Zymmetrical -
millions of photos in the inventory, ads in every magazine, there will
never be a day when the CEO can hang up his hat and just let the tail
wag the dog.
| | | Interview with Zymmetrical CEO Keith Tuomi Part 2 | | (Published by Keith Tuomi) 3/16/2008 |
In addition to your CEO role, are you
involved in day to day operations (problems solving, organizing,
etc...) ?
I am fundamentally a techie at heart. My schooling is as a System
Engineer and as such, I am responsible for the continued development
and maintenance of the Zymmetrical web application. At present this is
a big job as we are in Beta and every day new features are brought
online. Slowly the tide of critical technical issues is ebbing however,
and I find myself able to brainstorm with Mr. Melcher (our CKO) on
business expansion strategies, editorial policy, and all the other
stuff that needs management. As we bring the application to life, we
gain the freedom to move laterally for business improvements.
Who is (are) the leader(s) you look up to?
At this point the most important leader I look up to is my partner
in this business, Paul Melcher. He's been excelling in the Photography
industry for nearly two decades and his internal leadership in the firm
is worth more than gold. In a general context, I would have to say
some inspiring business leaders for me would be Larry & Sergey of
Google, Colman Mockler of Gillette, Henry Ford, Jeffrey Gitomer (Sales
guru), Kevin Ham.
According to you, what are the top 3 qualities of a leader?
- My father was a Captain in the Canadian Coast Guard, and while
not quite a military experience (no guns for the peaceful Canuck Coast
Guard), I was exposed to a lot of the discipline similar to the
military lifestyle as I was growing up.
I recall being on the big
icebreaker ship and watching my Dad direct 35 guys at once trying to
get a dangerous task done, and to the untrained eye it would be quite
chaotic. This impressed upon me the first great quality of a leader,
that is, Situational Awareness. This is not only having a certain
volume of data about what's going on at any given time, but more
importantly having focused, -useful- information.
Communication is a
general trait of being in any role of an organization, but as a leader
you need to have an oversight of the big picture.
- Persistence in spite of difficult situations
- Adaptability
| | | The Zymmetrical Search Engine Penetration Challenge | | (Published by Keith Tuomi) 2/16/2008 | Some people wonder why Zymmetrical is apparently yet another eternal Beta, low and slow, not rushed to market. The reason: we are doing the job right.
Just to show you we aren't messing around here, try entering the names of some of the higher-volume photogs/designers on Zymm. Any of them, take your pick, very well-known artists who distribute on a wide variety of agencies for many years - let's see who's got the search juice.
The Challenge: Enter any one of these respected artist names in your favourite search engine, be it Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. You will pretty quickly see, a little bit of the reason why Zymm site architecture is -the- most search engine friendly around:
Iofoto
Nicemonkey
Creatista
ElenatheWise
Madelaide
Xeniaii
YawningDog
Flemishdreams
Nialat
Cryssfotos
Oscarcwilliams
ApolloImages
Bluefern
etc.
The results: Not only does Zymmetrical rank first page for pretty much any artist we list on our site, we typically saturate the results due to our international sites. We are putting in the effort from day one, to promote the artists who work with us to the fullest.
Buyers don't typically buy stock based on artist name- we do admit. This little experiment is just intended to demonstrate the power of the site's search engine juice- while many stock searches are made with internal site search engines, you would likely be surprised at the amount of art that can be moved on account of major search engine referrals.
If we can outrank established agencies for well-known artist names before we've even gotten this show on the road, think of the possibilities for art keywords in general. We are covering all the bases in the leadup to site launch, and are very excited to have become the destination for artist-based searches.
| | | Improved Autosuggest, Submissions Manager | | (Published by Keith Tuomi) 12/19/2007 | Well, now that the stress of the server move (which was surprisingly not so much) is pretty much settled down, we're back on the case of rolling out new features.
Latest:
- Autosuggest feature in our main top-right search input has been improved. It is now faster and smarter. It now does smart matching on what you type literally.. so when you type in the letters 'woma' you will get:
woman 430
young woman 52
sexy woman 12
blond woman 10
mid adult woman 8
womans legs 6
elderly woman 5
upscale woman 4
I am pretty happy with this as even the mother-of-all Autosuggests, Google Suggest http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en, which was the first major implementation of this form of search in a web application, still only matches the literal characters you type. Typing in 'woma' there would not return 'young woman'.
Paul had asked me why 'kid' and 'kids' show up as 2 options, and after examining the logic for this, the conclusion is: we ask that you, the artists, input only one form (the most relevant) form of each keyword. If there's three children, then enter 'kids', only one, 'kid'. The autosuggest input will show all plurals and variations that exist literally in the database, but, when you click on any particular version, the search resultspage will return a ranked list of related words. So.. in a nutshell, if you click on 'kids' that doesn't mean your results page will exclude 'kid'. It should, in most cases, match on any variation of a root word. We are still trying to work out synonym functionality.
- Submissions Page I know some of you still have overdue files there, but hey we are moving forward. ;P The Submissions Page (http://www.zymmetrical.com/account/submissions/)has been redone to use a more advanced data grid with filtering and sorting, and (coming tomorrow), a way to upload model releases and use checkboxes to indicate the photos associated with that photo.
It also has a nice little pie chart and some condensed statistics on the bottom for those of you who like to crunch numbers.
| | | Confession | | (Published by pmelcher) 12/13/2007 | I have a confession to make. I like editing your work. We get great art and more and more talent. We see incredible images and some not so good. Here are few tips:
- Keyword your images: Not just with what is in the image, but with concept words like "happy", "fear", "fresh". Look at your image, video or graphic and think about emotion they inspire you. A lot of people search by using these terms
- Shoot vertical : The web loves vertical images, much less horizontal. Do not abandon horizontal, obviously, but do think about usage.
- Simple: Since your image, graphic, video will most likely be used with text or to illustrate something else, it needs to be simple. One or two principle colors, one or two shapes, and that is it. No need to have too much information.
- Be bold and original : Most people think that if an image has been sold, it will sell again. While not entirely wrong, you should leave that to starters. Look at all the images that sell and do something else. People are looking for originality. We are too.
- Surprise us : Show us something we have never, ever seen. Actually, that makes me thing we should have a competition on that topic. More to come.
- Think ahead: Valentines Day is the next big thing. So go shoot or draw love. Even after Valentine, their is always a demand for love. China , as I said before, is looming. The summer Olympics are coming and everyone is going to look for images. You could, for example, illustrate all the events using matches. Just a thought.
- Carry yourself : set a schedule and follow it. 5 images a week, every week, for example. Works like a charm for some.
I could go on with many, many other tips. You could too, if you would like.
We look forward to seing more of your beautiful creations. | | | New servers online | | (Published by Keith Tuomi) 12/10/2007 | | We started to run out of RAM a bit quicker then expected, so the server move had to be fast-tracked over the weekend, instead of done as planned over X-mas.
Looks like everything has worked out really well, and we now have one smoking fast website. As always, please do report in if you run into any weird bugs or error messages, we really appreciate it. | | |
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