Jools Elliott Posted July 17, 2014 Share Posted July 17, 2014 Morning all I suspect by now a few people have watched the latest installment of Ask James. Is anyone else disappointed by the latest video? The previous installments have been good and it seems like some good has come out of them but this latest one is almost like watching paint dry. Not sure what others asked but I wanted to see a better system for video upload. Other sites out there are streets ahead of Alamy in this respect and so I posed the question "what are you doing to facilitate this growing area of stock?" It seems to me that as a business this is one area that Alamy is severely falling behind in and I have no idea why. A number of contributors have expressed an interest in but if it is not made easier to submit content online why bother with Alamy? Anyone else's thoughts on this and in general? PS I have to say though that at least James does stick his head above the castle walls and for that he should be commended. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duncan_Andison Posted July 17, 2014 Share Posted July 17, 2014 Morning all I suspect by now a few people have watched the latest installment of Ask James. Is anyone else disappointed by the latest video? The previous installments have been good and it seems like some good has come out of them but this latest one is almost like watching paint dry. Not sure what others asked but I wanted to see a better system for video upload. Other sites out there are streets ahead of Alamy in this respect and so I posed the question "what are you doing to facilitate this growing area of stock?" It seems to me that as a business this is one area that Alamy is severely falling behind in and I have no idea why. A number of contributors have expressed an interest in but if it is not made easier to submit content online why bother with Alamy? Anyone else's thoughts on this and in general? PS I have to say though that at least James does stick his head above the castle walls and for that he should be commended. I would also be interested in the video clip side of things. I intend to kick off a collection this year and as it stands, it will be with a micro competitor. As internet speeds increase and high speed is available to more and more people, the use of video will also increase. So if they look in here, it would be nice to hear from them about this.... I would love to think Alamy will be a place I can supply Video Clip content! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jools Elliott Posted July 17, 2014 Author Share Posted July 17, 2014 +1 Duncan but right now Alamy are lagging behind. This is a very important side of the stock business that is being woefully forgotten. As you quite rightly say, internet speeds are easily there for video uploads. I have some, not great, clips at some of the micros and have had some sales from there. Alamy, James, come on let's be 'avin you!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Callie Posted July 17, 2014 Share Posted July 17, 2014 Agreed on the video clip side of things. I only started last year looking at this and have just a small number of clips with a competitor and have made a few sales. I would much rather place the clips with Alamy though. Haven't watched James video yet, is there a nice readable transcript anywhere? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panthera tigris Posted July 17, 2014 Share Posted July 17, 2014 Where can we find it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panthera tigris Posted July 17, 2014 Share Posted July 17, 2014 ah found it http://www.alamy.com/Blog/contributor/archive/2014/07/16/5661.aspx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alamy Posted July 17, 2014 Share Posted July 17, 2014 Just a note on video - If you have over 250 clips available and the content is high quality, you can submit an application to become a video contributor via the My Alamy dashboard under the additional revenue opportunities tab. Online upload is currently not available. We'd love to be able to enhance the upload process to allow for video but it's a big project and currently other developments within the business take priority. James Allsworth Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jools Elliott Posted July 17, 2014 Author Share Posted July 17, 2014 Sorry James but you are making it difficult. Why should we have to have 250 videos or more? Talking to an agency I'm with they said NOW is the time to be doing this. I would have thought Alamy as a business that is looking to make money would take this avenue of stock more seriously than it is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alamy Posted July 17, 2014 Share Posted July 17, 2014 Sorry James but you are making it difficult. Why should we have to have 250 videos or more? Talking to an agency I'm with they said NOW is the time to be doing this. I would have thought Alamy as a business that is looking to make money would take this avenue of stock more seriously than it is. Resources for the video side of our business are limited, so we are only looking to take on well established, high quality collections. As much as we would like to be able to take on smaller collections and allow online upload, it's just not feasible for us within our current set-up. We'll continue to add thousands of new videos per month and provide an avenue for submission for established collections. We receive several applications per day and we're constantly approving new video contributors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duncan_Andison Posted July 17, 2014 Share Posted July 17, 2014 Sorry James but you are making it difficult. Why should we have to have 250 videos or more? Talking to an agency I'm with they said NOW is the time to be doing this. I would have thought Alamy as a business that is looking to make money would take this avenue of stock more seriously than it is. As it stands, I take video clips while shooting stills and submit a handful at a time... nowhere near 250 so on that basis, they will just have to go elsewhere! As well as being used online, I could quite easily see clips being used within digital books etc in the future. Even bigger libraries only consist of 1-2 million so it is the dawn of this type of media and could well be the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joseph Clemson Posted July 17, 2014 Share Posted July 17, 2014 I too have been longing to use Alamy as an outlet for my video. I have many hundreds of clips and I am forced to make them available at agencies based overseas, simply because Alamy haven't made it possible for me to sell them here. My b-roll editorial clips cry out to be placed with a British based agency where they would feel more relevant. Is there no demand for an agency where British producers know they could find a collection of b-roll clips with a wide variety of subjects that couldn't be found anywhere else, very akin to the Alamy still image collection? As a bonus, with my editorial clips would come the occasional creative stuff I also do, which I know is what Alamy really want at the moment. I'm sure I'm not alone in being in this position and its a disappointment that Alamy hasn't made the most of their opportunity in the video market. I had high hopes for Alamy video when it was announced over three years ago, but even then I wondered if they had missed the boat. Has that boat sailed over the horizon and gone forever? I still hope not, and judging by the number of newbies still joining video submissions at other agencies, there is still growth and innovation to be found in this field. It puzzles me that an investment is made in Stockimo which, for the most part, simply duplicates in an inferior form, that which is already available at Alamy and elsewhere, while so little investment is made in Alamy video, a market which is commonly seen as a significant growth area as print content declines and moving visual content delivered via the internet increases exponentially. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Brook Posted July 17, 2014 Share Posted July 17, 2014 Once bitten twice shy. Maybe Alamy is now learning about the virtues of selection and discrimination. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted July 17, 2014 Share Posted July 17, 2014 I too think that James deserves kudos for sticking his head out above the castle walls. Not many CEO's would be brave enough to do that. However, I was disappointed that apparent questions about Alamy's punitive QC policy were not addressed -- see the well framed comment #5 following the video. I feel very hesitant to mention this topic since it has become something of a red herring, and I don't really expect a response at this point or want to start yet another debate. But, hey, the OP did ask about being disappointed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alamy Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 I too think that James deserves kudos for sticking his head out above the castle walls. Not many CEO's would be brave enough to do that. However, I was disappointed that apparent questions about Alamy's punitive QC policy were not addressed -- see the well framed comment #5 following the video. I feel very hesitant to mention this topic since it has become something of a red herring, and I don't really expect a response at this point or want to start yet another debate. But, hey, the OP did ask about being disappointed. James didn't address the QC questions because they have been absolutely done to death in the past and nothing has changed. Our system works. We add more images daily than anyone else. The consequences when you fail might seem punitive, but it leads to us having a pass-rate of well over 90% month after month. Alamy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jools Elliott Posted July 18, 2014 Author Share Posted July 18, 2014 Alamy, although I agree with what you say about QC I do feel that you could actually deal with it a little better. If someone has failed, just tell them and lock the account for a certain period of time. I'm sure that the coding for that would be done fairly easily. What a lot of people don't like is that they submit images and then they go into the ether while they wonder if they have failed or not. By doing the above you would get rid of a lot of forum posts each month that say "I submitted images on X date but I'm still waiting..." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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