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only one keyword box in new contrib tools


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No, this is not a proposal which I posted in the wrong forum, but apparently a fact.

 

 

In the MSG Alamy forum, Alamy disclosed today that in the new contributor tools, which will roll out "soon", there will only be one keyword field remaining.

 

 

Source: http://www.microstockgroup.com/alamy-com/alamy-search-doesn't-work-well/msg470146/#msg470146

 

 

I personally don't like it. Sure, it makes keywording easier, and more than once I wished the essential keyword field had 51 characters. But on the other hand the elaborate keywording system prevented people from just dumping whole picture libraries here. I don't think it's a coincidence that here in the Alamy forum the current keywording system is quite accepted, while the MSG forum is full of complaints about it. Microstockers are waiting for the flood gates to open.

 

 

 

BTW, a pity that, as often, Alamy shares news rather in the MSG forum than here.

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Stand by to be shafted by Alamy once again folks! All that precious time (your time and work) to key-word in appropriate sections etc.

 

Same as on Stockimo where, initially, it was stated that the minimum sale would be $5 gross. We now see, routinely, sales of $0.28 gross - without any consultation with the contributor. And don't give me the "It's in the terms and conditions" nonsense. 

 

The point is clear. Alamy has enough contributors now to entirely ignore any grievances we may have. Alamy would be profitable with the number of images available if they licensed them for $2 a piece.

 

I, for one, really object to giving Rupert Murdoch a ten month interest-free loan on images his publications used and decided not to pay for until, well, they thought they had too. So, screw you the creator of the work!!

 

Now then. Enough already! Where's that bottle of wine gone!

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This is something I have feared. I'm pretty much convinced that I am making my images appear higher in searches by careful keywording and paying attention to the weight of the different boxes. Perhaps I shouldn't be discouraged but the wildlife field is so difficult and I fear I will no longer be able to compete.

 

Paulette

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Well Alamy can’t be all things to all people, but I think it means a step backward.

 
One keyword box. Does this mean abandonment of the 3 importance levels for keywords?
 
Will I have to re keyword all of my 12,999 Alamy images? I wasted time on re keywording Alamy “” and [] features, that were never implemented, for 8,000 images . I have better things to do today than trim keywords for 12,999 images.
 
The fact that Alamy news is now announced FIRST in a microstock forum is really, really, troubling.
 
I hear the BIG PRESTIGE COMPANY THAT CANNOT BE NAMED is reorganizing along microstock lines as well.
 
Microstock looks better and better. If you can’t beat them, might as well join them.
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This is something I have feared. I'm pretty much convinced that I am making my images appear higher in searches by careful keywording and paying attention to the weight of the different boxes. 

 

Paulette

 

+1

 

I too was dreading this as having the present system gives those of us who can be bothered some advantage over the rest.  The tiered boxes also make it possible to order images to some extent.

 

Pearl

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Think I might just give it all up if Alamy goes Microstock as it seems some of the other big players are heading that way.

 

I'd be better off working in McDonalds. No equipment expenses and a NICE uniform to boot! 

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Think I might just give it all up if Alamy goes Microstock as it seems some of the other big players are heading that way.

 

I'd be better off working in McDonalds. No equipment expenses and a NICE uniform to boot! 

 

Is there a McDonalds in Ardara or will that mean a commute?

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Think I might just give it all up if Alamy goes Microstock as it seems some of the other big players are heading that way.

 

I'd be better off working in McDonalds. No equipment expenses and a NICE uniform to boot! 

 

Is there a McDonalds in Ardara or will that mean a commute?

 

 

Ha Ha.... No fortunately (unfortunately??) not. Nearest is 40km away. Big commute on my bicycle.

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You could leave your images on Alamy. 

 
If you have to re keyword Alamy images to microstock standards, then you might as well put the same re keyworded images on all the many microstock sites.
 
Lets see, my 13,000 Alamy images also each on 5 different microstock sites. Thats 78,000 images available for sale. With a wider new microstock distribution, I should end up making more money than I am with Alamy only.
 
Lots of uploading, may have to sign on for a higher speed service provider.
 
Look for the silver lining in every cloud, and act accordingly.
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Think I might just give it all up if Alamy goes Microstock as it seems some of the other big players are heading that way.

 

I'd be better off working in McDonalds. No equipment expenses and a NICE uniform to boot! 

 

Is there a McDonalds in Ardara or will that mean a commute?

 

 

Ha Ha.... No fortunately (unfortunately??) not. Nearest is 40km away. Big commute on my bicycle.

 

Fortunately in my opinion. It's quite a few years since I've been to Ardara (on a geological field trip). My memories are of a nice, quiet Donegal village where a McDonalds would seem a bit out of place.

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Think I might just give it all up if Alamy goes Microstock as it seems some of the other big players are heading that way.

 

I'd be better off working in McDonalds. No equipment expenses and a NICE uniform to boot! 

 

Is there a McDonalds in Ardara or will that mean a commute?

 

 

Ha Ha.... No fortunately (unfortunately??) not. Nearest is 40km away. Big commute on my bicycle.

 

Fortunately in my opinion. It's quite a few years since I've been to Ardara (on a geological field trip). My memories are of a nice, quiet Donegal village where a McDonalds would seem a bit out of place.

 

 

True enough. Still the same quiet village - won the "Best Village to live in Ireland" competition a couple of years back - run by the Irish Times. Busy enough in summer with tourists but dead quiet at this time of year. 

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I would hope that the first keywords used in that single field would be weighted in order of importance like the essential field. If so, then careful arrangement of them shouldn't change the search results.

 

I'll wait and see before I stomp my foot. It just might be something that saves us a lot of time, by not having to move them into boxes.

It's been so long, but wasn't one box the way it used to be 9-10 years ago? Possibly one main box then the location box? Seems like when Alamy changed to the 3 boxes, there was a lot of hair pulling and gnashing of teeth then because of the extra time it took.

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This doesn't worry me a great deal as I have always had the same keywords in all boxes and still get regular sales and zooms.  Obviously the main words are in the Essential Box but they also appear in the next two boxes along with other relevant keywords.  

 

So... in a way, I been working as if there was only one box anyway.

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I guess this was inevitable. Hopefully, we'll hear more about how our keywords will be ingested by the new system and about what, if any, changes will be made to the search engine.

 

Most images coming from microstock agencies are inadequately captioned and keyworded, so they may not pose a huge threat. The floodgates will undoubtedly open even wider, though..

 

Time to start building an ark? B)

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Folks:).... I would just wait and relax. When itd finally arrive it will maybe take all you worries away. Its like at my work with the new accounting programms. Many didnt like the change but after a while they loved it. :)

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What disturbs me the most is the way Alamy have posted this on another forum first before informing their contributors directly. Not a good way to treat us!

 

Similar things have happened before, with Alamy keeping developments close to their chest and their contributors in the dark until the change has gone live. Remember the image stacking change..., the creative collection change..., the failure to actually utilise square brackets added to keywords, lack of info on commission rates for print sales via art.com. 

 

Come on Alamy, please keep us more informed. 

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What disturbs me the most is the way Alamy have posted this on another forum first before informing their contributors directly. Not a good way to treat us!

 

Similar things have happened before, with Alamy keeping developments close to their chest and their contributors in the dark until the change has gone live. Remember the image stacking change..., the creative collection change..., the failure to actually utilise square brackets added to keywords, lack of info on commission rates for print sales via art.com. 

 

Come on Alamy, please keep us more informed.

 

Agree with each of your points, Mark. I want my blindfold taken off.
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Hi everyone,

 

We've made no secret about wanting to make things simpler for contributors to get their images online and reducing the number of mandaotry fields (particularly the three tier keyword system) has been one of the most requested features from our photographers for years.

 

In terms of keeping our contributors involved, we've been asking you what you want to see from the start and updating you with details along the way where possible. We've also been testing throughout the process with a range of Alamy contributors. We're currently not looking for any more testers.

 

We've planned a blog post to go live next week that will share further details and also give you an idea of the roll-out schedule. 

 

With regards to the single keyword field, this is going to make your life a lot easier and mean you can get images up for sale quicker than ever before. Further details next week but don't worry, your previous work on essential keywords etc will not go unrewarded and those willing to put in the extra time will get the benefit. There are less mandatory fields but extra info can be added if you so wish.

 

Everyone will be informed of the changes and full support and help will be on hand if you need it. 

 

The new tools are going to be great for existing and new contributors alike and we're really excited to be able to share more info with you next week.

 

Cheers

 

Alamy

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I hope the rerank will happen before the new tools. This has been a good year for me and I expect to rise a bit. Of course, there are no guarantees but I'll feel better able to cope with something new if I have a better position.

 

Paulette

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thanks for the update Alamy. I have no objection to site changes, but a little respect for contributors is always appreciated. If you are changing the requirements on keywording letting us know asap would really help. Right now I am uploading images, but I do have to wonder whether I am wasting time keywording to current guidelines. What date will the new tools be released? How exactly will the new keywording field work? How are you going to migrate existing keywords to the new field? Is it going to be best to just not upload until we see the new tools? Having spent a lot of time going back over old images to fulfil site changes in the past, this is not something I want to have to do again -

"those willing to put in the extra time will get the benefit. There are less mandatory fields but extra info can be added if you so wish." will this be necessary for existing images?

I certainly hope your planned blog post and further details for next week will be within the next few days and will answer all these questions and any others people post here.

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Something unusual happened with my last uploads which passed QC. I typically enter the description in Lightroom and if I go over 128 characters, I rework it when I am keywording. My batch contained a couple of images with over 140 characters in the description field, yet they were accepted in full, not truncated at 128 characters as they usually would be. Moreover, even though I had not sorted out my keywords into essential etc, these images immediately showed up as ready, even with a blank essential keywords field. I wondered if they really were ready and whether they would show up as being on sale in this state when the database was next updated, so I did no more to them; sure enough, next day they were on sale with blank essential keywords and the over 128 character descriptions (at which point I arranged the keywords into their three fields as I normally would, but left the extended descriptions). Maybe this is just a one-off glitch, but perhaps it is an indication of how things will work in future, which somehow was implemented early for these images: I don't know and am just guessing, but it is unusual that this new behaviour appeared in my last upload batch a few days ago.

 

Graham

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Alamy, many thanks for the quick update.

 

It's just a shame that someone Alamy (inadvertently?) published one of the specific details "prematurely".... on a Micro-stock forum of all places....

 

Reading between the lines of your posting suggests that three keyword fields may still be there (albeit renamed), but it won't be mandatory to fill them all in.

 

Looking forward to your blog post.

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Folks:).... I would just wait and relax. When itd finally arrive it will maybe take all you worries away. Its like at my work with the new accounting programms. Many didnt like the change but after a while they loved it. :)

 

Sounds like you've been one of the testers of the new Alamy system. ;)

 

Maybe that's how you got 24,000 images keyworded in just over 2 years??  :).

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I hope the rerank will happen before the new tools. This has been a good year for me and I expect to rise a bit. Of course, there are no guarantees but I'll feel better able to cope with something new if I have a better position.

 

Paulette

 

I suspect they will make the re-rank coincide with the new tools so that we can't see how the latter damages/helps our positioning.  I hope I'm wrong.

 

Pearl

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