I remember reading, a few years back, about the largest know living organism in the world. Located under the Oregon forest, it is a 2,200 year old fungus whose fruits, or otherwise known as mushrooms, peek out here and there. Probably because of its un appealing nature, fungi are poorly known and it is estimated that millions of yet unclassified species exist. What has been recently discovered is that they seem to operate as a network inside the forest, communicating information from trees to trees via the moist soil,somewhat informing and organizing the environment it feeds upon

No, we are not turning into botanists here, although it is also a fascinating subject. Rather, it is the first thought that sprung when I discovered Symbiostock: An underground, little known network of related organisms thriving thanks to symbiosis.

Symbiostock is an open source WordPress theme allowing any photographer to create a local stock agency with their images. Up to now, nothing really new. However, it is in its hidden feature that Symbiostock is extremely powerful. Each database is networked to each other so that when an image buyer performs a search on one site, he also gets results from database he didn’t even know existed. Every time a photographer downloads and installs Symbiostock, his database is automatically added to the existing network.

For the image buyer, the experience is seamless. He performs a search on a familiar photographer’s website. The result will show him first the result from that database, along with results from every other attached database. If his choice falls on an image from another database, by clicking on the image, he is brought to the website for purchase. He negotiate the fee with the corresponding photographer and is done.

There are no referral fees. Rather, Symbiostock works on the “pay it forward” premise. If you help another photographer make a sell you will also benefit from another photographer sending you traffic. Thus no need for complicated financial tracking and agreements. If you turn your database off, unhook it from the network so that only your images are displayed on your site, then your images do not appear on other site searches. Deadly simple and efficient.

 Symbiostock is free to download and use. It is open source so that others can contribute to its feature set and expand it furthermore. Users are also evangelists, helping newcomers install, troubleshoot and expand. For the moment, Symbiostock is a small growing network. But here is what makes it so revolutionary.

  • Symbiostock has the potential to disturb the whole photo agency industry by creating a massive searchable database of images as big, if not bigger than any existing stock agency.

  • Because it is not limited by a single point of entry, or a brand, it can quickly reach millions of potential image buyers worldwide with little or no marketing by using the aggregation of every photographer’s clients.

  • Being open source, it can quickly grow in functionality based on user input. ( think Linux)

  • Since there is no sharing of pricing information, competitive bottom pricing between users is useless.

  • It is simple and supported by highly motivated users

  • It works by cooperation rather than competition

  • It is hugely scalable for minimal cost. 

  • It is own,operated, managed by every user who keep 100% control over their images.

Obviously, there are a few obstacles. The most important is noise. Photographers will be tempted to upload every and all kind of images into their database, making the quality of the overall content questionable. If there is too many bad images, buyers will not come. An efficient search algorithm can fix that. Poorly captioned photographs could also make the experience painful. Again, a properly designed search algorithm, one that ignores bad captioning, can fix that too. Last, adoption rate : if the network is not very large and eclectic, it will fail.

http://www.symbiostock.com/ is the most exciting development idea in stock photography in years, offering photographers a cheap and easy way to take control of their sales channel. Without any central command, it allows them to grow as a symbiotic community. And according to what nature has taught us, those can be very successful.

 

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4 Thoughts on “Crowd managed photo agency

  1. I really love your analogy about the mushrooms, it is very fitting on how the network may grow.

    It is still in it’s infancy but, I feel, the future for this is massive. The network does need more artists to help nurture, feed and guide it’s growth.

    My site, on the Symbiostock network is http://stockimages.glennspecht.com/

    Glenn

  2. Kerioak on June 12, 2013 at 6:16 am said:

    Thanks for a great article about Symbiostock and botanical lesson – always interested in learning something new – even if it is 2.200 years old.

    Symbiostock has grown a lot in the month since you wrote this article – we already span the globe, wonder where we will be in a year’s time

    Another symbiostock site
    http://stockimages.kerioak.com

  3. Pingback: Stock Images - Your own stock photography site powered by Symbiostock

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