Hey Laura,
Thanks for your review – the decision to make Symbiostock a plugin that works in conjunction with WooCommerce is actually something you should look at as a benefit rather than detractor.
The reason for this decision was the previous version of Symbiostock was, as you recommended, a fully standalone product. The problem with this then is that any functions that work with SEO, ecommerce, taxation, or anything extra needed to be hand coded by the Symbiostock team in order to be implemented.
The streamlined new Symbiostock removes all that reliance and focuses entirely on the media portion of the engine, and lets WooCommerce deal with the ecommerce. As WooCommerce is very popular, you then get the best of both worlds. Here is an example of the multitude of extensions that you can now use to extend your Symbiostock store through WooCommerce:
http://www.woothemes.com/product-category/woocommerce-extensions/
If you’d like, I can explain these benefits more to you via our forum at:
http://www.symbiostock.org/forums/
Another option is for you to give it a try yourself for free through our PLUS system to see what I mean:
http://symbiostock.com/
Either way, I am sure that if you gave it a try, you’d see these isolated plugins working together as a really good thing rather than a detractor. I’d love to personally assist you in that if you’d like.
Take care!
Thank you for your reply. Not many developers put the extra time into replying on the WP forum.
I’m still fuddling around with my images, creating a larger cache of them and deciding about watermarking, etc. As I’ve been working on all of this I have been wondering about all the extras like image theft, distribution, taxation (which you mentioned). It may be a lot more than I want to deal with.
I’ve tried, and continue to try to make Symbiostock as whole as possible in regards to minimizing the artist’s workload. Watermarking, image theft and taxation are all bundled within the system (which WooCommerce helps a lot with). For example, all your uploaded images are placed in a secure directory that cannot be accessed by the public. Watermarking is completely automated, and you can personalize your watermark whenever you’d like.
It is undeniable there is work involved in setting your store up, but in my own case, as a photographer, once I have it up and running I literally just have to upload files and everything is taken care of.
I use our PLUS system which has the added bonus of distributing all my images to agencies such as Shutterstock and Fotolia (now Adobe Stock) automatically.
What you can do, if you’d like, is try out the system for free here:
http://symbiostock.com/
Once you sign up and log in, you will see a link to a 3 minute setup guide which will allow you to get an image for sale within a couple of moves. If you like what you see, you can then download and install it on your own system, or stick with our PLUS hosting if you don’t want to deal with setup yourself.
Either way, I appreciate your feedback and will continue to assist you in whatever capacity I can. Good luck with your fuddling!
I just want to say that I have found this exchange very helpful and encouraging.
Thank you Symbiostock!
Thanks for the feedback debtb – hope to see you on the forums (http://www.symbiostock.org/forums/) soon!
