Hi there!
Like you may have seen in the subject line I just joined the team at RSI (Raw-Stock-Images)
To avoid confusion I registered a second time on the forum, this time with a RSI related user name and avatar. This allows me to make clear if I speak as a private person (hospitalera with the dog as an avatar) or if I speak for and on behalf of RSI.
First a short history of RSI: The site started of as the private web site of a photographer (Richard Clark) who was soon joined by other photographic friends who wanted that he represents them on his site. Recently the site opened up to all photographers who want to contribute. This explains why at the beginning there was no approval process in place and other minor hiccups of the site.
I joined the site shortly after it opened up and got in contact with Richard C., making suggestions about several things I had noticed and thought they should be improved. I was impressed how responsive RSI was to contributor suggestions and ideas and together we decided that it would be good to have me permanently working for them. A second Richard (Richard H.) joined the team at roughly the same time as I did and will be mainly, but not exclusively, responsible for the technical part of the site. Other reviewers and investors have chosen not to make their names public on forums etc.
So, what I am doing at RSI?
I joined the team of reviewers (yes, there is now an approval process in place!)
I do
PR for them, for example writing on forums and answering questions in forums, by pm or email.
Contributor care: I am in regular contact by email and phone with Richard, the site owner (we live in the same country, UK, but not in the same city) and the rest of the team to whom I will forward all suggestion, ideas etc. from the forums or from pms/ emails I have received. This has the advantage that Richard gets only one email with a summary from me instead of dozens of emails from different contributors. But if somebody prefers to contact him directly, no problem, he is always happy to listen and answer questions and concerns.
Head Hunting: We are rather ambitious in our goals and want to increase the number of quality images as quick as possible. My job in this aspect is to contact top (stock)photographers I know off and encourage them to sign up and submit their images to RSI. So, it might well be that one of you gets soon an email from me regarding RSI!
What distinguishes RSI from other sites?
1.RSI is passionate about taking the contributors suggestions seriously and to implement them asap in the site. Take for example the upload process: In the beginning it was an absolute nightmare, now it is one of the fastest upload process I know of (ftp, no categories, batch processing into the approval queue etc)
2. RSI offers you the possibility to organize your images into galleries, so that a potential buyer can for example browse all your food related images easily.
3. RSI?s guidelines for image review boil down to ?highest technical image quality, but openness regarding image subjects? Rarely you will get an rejection email from us stating that your image isn?t ?stock worthy?. This decision we leave to the buyers.
4. Buyer friendliness. We aim to offer potential buyers only images that are relevant to their search. This means we review keywords together with the image itself and monitor them after the initial approval is done.
5. No, we don't have a lot of sales at the moment - but it would be stupid from a business point of view to invest money to attract buyers before we have enough images to choose from. But when we have a wider selection for the buyer to choose from we will start our marketing campaign and yes, we'll get sales!
Why should you upload at RSI:
Joining RSI at this point of time has two main advantages: You can help to shape the site towards the ideal micro stock site for contributors and buyers, getting actively involved with your suggestions and ideas and be part of the wider team!
When we start our full marketing campaign you're already on line with your images.
OK, I could write much more but I think now it is time to listen what you have to say
Always glad to hear from you,
SY
Just joined the team at RSI (Raw-Stock-Images)
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