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12/19/2007: Improved Autosuggest, Submissions Manager | (Published by Keith Tuomi) | 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.
| | 12/13/2007: Confession | (Published by Keith Tuomi) | 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.
| | 12/10/2007: New servers online | (Published by Keith Tuomi) | | 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. | | 12/5/2007: New Servers for Xmas | (Published by Keith Tuomi) | In response to the increasing participation on the sites, Santa has brought us some of the latest in Dual Quad Core X- whatever web servers and will be dropping them down the chimney on Xmas.
We will be offline for several hours to a day on the 26th, so if you just figure out then how much you've spent over the holidays and rush to our site to see if you've made any stock photo funny money, you may be denied for a bit.
We will be switching our main IP Addresses to the new, faster datacenter, so there'll be definitely some fireworks in the new year! | |  |
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