RedUser Stock Footage (HiveImage.com) [Archive]

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PaulClements

09-03-2007, 01:25 PM

http://www.hiveimage.com/images/red_stock_footage_468.gif
Hi all,

So it's my 1000th post and I thought I would make it a good one. I would like to present a project I've been working on for a while now: www.hiveimage.com

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About HiveImage

I've been posting here for ages and met some great individuals and counted myself lucky to witness the development and release of Red's first camera. A few months ago, inspired by the input by individuals such as Curt, Evin, Eric(Birger), Brook and many others, who have given to the community in one way or another, I thought I would do something myself.

Hive Image is a Stock Footage company that I have begun which is aimed specifically at the sale of Stock Footage created on Red Cameras and perhaps more importantly for you, specifically aimed at RedUsers! It started out as a project for personal use; a means by which to host stock footage and sell it directly through an intuitive website. But I realised there were obviously other RedUsers who would like a direct and simple means of selling their own stock footage, have another source of income with their camera and I hope deal with someone in myself that they know and trust.

I also saw a potential for the RedUser community to spread the word and therefore encourage more and more people globally to purchase theirs and others stock footage from HiveImage and so I setup what is possibly the most generous affiliate program on the net to reward those that are interested in doing so.

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How RedUsers can earn commission

Submitting Stock Footage
By submitting a volume(s) of stock footage and having customers buy your volume.

Affiliate Program
The affiliate program (http://www.hiveimage.com/affiliate_affiliate.php) is available only to RedUsers! By signing up to the affiliate program you can post links on the web and in emails. Any customers that signup to Hive Image having clicked on your links will be linked to your affiliate account and you will earn 10% of any and all purchases those customers make. So if one of your customers purchases $995 worth of Stock footage you would earn $99.50. The affiliate program is up and running so feel free to signup. I've included a $50 voucher in order to entice customers to create an account during Pre-Launch. If they don't signup, a cookie with your affiliate number will be saved on their computer for 12 months so at any point in the next year they DO signup the affiliate number would be applied to their account still (N.B. Many people turn cookies off or delete so there is no guarantee). Anyone that clicks on your links and signs up will receive an email once volumes go live.

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Shooters Guide

I've produced a quick Shooters Guide (http://www.hiveimage.com/shooters_guide.php) for RedUsers to equate themselves with HiveImage. You will find links to the affiliate program (http://www.hiveimage.com/affiliate_affiliate.php), earnings (http://www.hiveimage.com/shooters_earnings.php) and some tips (http://www.hiveimage.com/shooters_tips.php)(Please note the tips are a bit rubbish at the moment, I'm hoping to develop them soon). You should also just checkout the homepage (http://www.hiveimage.com) as pretty much everything is easily understandable.

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'Hive Grant' & 'Reward Scheme'

Both the Hive Grant and Reward Scheme are entirely dependent on the success of HiveImage. The Hive Grant will essentially be a competition. RedUsers will be invited to submit ideas for a stock footage shoot. Perhaps a trip to the North Pole or down the Amazon. The winner will then be given a grant to go and shoot that stock footage with their RedOne Camera Crew and Equipment. As I say it is entirely dependent on the success of HiveImage so nothing is set in stone as yet. The stock footage would only be allowed to be sold via HiveImage but the shooter would still claim the owner percentage.

The Reward Scheme is far simpler. Again depending on success I hope to give what are essentially prizes to the best affiliates and best volume submissions. The prizes will be Red related so think RedOne accessories.

More information will be available in the coming months. I hope that both will take place during the second half of 2008.

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Beta Testing

I encourage you to signup and make a purchase, play with the account settings etc. Please include the word 'test' in the first name of any accounts you create that are purely speculative and not actual accounts you intend to use. This way I can delete them and keep an accurate account of actual customers. You can test the affiliate program by signing up, creating links, clicking on them and then make purchases by registering as a normal client. When you return to your affiliate account you should be able to see the commission for that purchase. If you spot a problem or think something could be made better please submit your feedback using the contact us (http://www.hiveimage.com/contact_us.php) form.

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At first glance it might not look like much but trust me it's a complex website and something I've spent a long time producing. I hope that some people here can get involved and see potential (Worse case scenario is that I simply sell my own footage on it!). I've tried to make it potentially beneficial for all involved but please bear in mind my admin, marketing and tech costs when looking into it. There are a tonne of things I could talk about but I'll open it up to questions and comments.

Anyway I hope you like it.

Cheers

Paul

Ken Corben

09-03-2007, 01:30 PM

Paul,

Are Gibby and I excluded from entering the Hive Grant contest :-)

Great concept and post. Let me know how I can help.

Sharky

PaulClements

09-03-2007, 01:33 PM

Absolutely not Ken! :)

Like i say the whole thing is entirely to do with the success of it. It's my desire that I'd be able to put out a lot of grants for projects but until I have an idea for the potential earnings of the company I can't be sure of how much it will be able to afford.

Thanks for the kind words and offer of help.

Cheers

Paul

Johnny Friday

09-03-2007, 01:35 PM

.....you guys will be too busy to shoot stock footage! so, let the little guys pick up the scraps....he he he he.....

edit: that was not a shot at anyone by the way. purely meant for fun...
count me in....that's all i do these days.

Johnny Friday

09-03-2007, 01:45 PM

registeed and bought $475 worth of images Paul.

By the way....nice vision. I'll submit some drama from the underwater world as I'm sure there are at least a half dozen other talented folks i've run into on this board...that I'm sure will do the same. Nice thing is we are all in different regions with such different animals to shoot.

I smell success here. have some ideas to share as well.
best,
johnny

PaulClements

09-03-2007, 02:04 PM

Hmm, seems a shame this got moved to Off topic, I kind of thought this was something that was quite Red orientated.

PaulClements

09-03-2007, 03:23 PM

Joel Kaye

09-03-2007, 03:40 PM

Hmm, seems a shame this got moved to Off topic, I kind of thought this was something that was quite Red orientated.

I'd say any business opportunity is off topic. I'd guess most business opportunities probably get deleted.

Two questions - I don't understand the volume thing at all. Are shooters earning less per unit for every additional unit? If so, that baffles me. It should be the opposite - they should be rewarded for selling more. The people who produce the most popular footage should be your highest paid shooters both in gross dollar and commission percentage. Sales Management 101. Reward the outperformers.

Or I'm confused and that's already what you're doing and the web page just isn't very easy to follow.

The second thing is it would be smart to add a "seller sells his own stuff" consideration. ie - I refer someone to your site to buy MY footage. You should take a nominal fee in that case or I bet a lot of people will just sell their own footage on their own site. I'm certainly not going to pay you $100+ commission on my own customer. Maybe others will though.

I'm assuming you're not asking for exclusive rights to stock footage submitted.

Jeremy Teman

09-03-2007, 03:53 PM

It sounds like a good idea and it may be useful to some people with some extra stock footage that didn't really have any use for it. Although, I think 10% is rather low for paid royalty. You may get a lot more interest from people if you raise the price you pay out.

If I wasn't already doing my own stock footage site and you payed better I would be in..

Michael Schrengohst

09-03-2007, 04:16 PM

Jeremy Teman

09-03-2007, 04:27 PM

Ok, I kind of skimmed through the whole thing.

I still agree with joelnet's post

Michael Schrengohst

09-03-2007, 04:32 PM

Joel Kaye

09-03-2007, 04:48 PM

The biggest consideration any stock agency
must consider is advertising and exposure.
Without that you are not going to sell anything,
no matter how great it is.

The other thing to consider is that REDUSER - being the hub of all things RED could be all the advertising anyone needs for their 4K stock. 4K stock is such a unique product that anyone purchasing it would have to know about RED.

If RED, REDUSER.NET or anyone associated to it creates a low cost searchable fulfillment solution like say... rocketindie.com then that could bring like 90+% of the profit back to the creator. The way it should be.

Frankly, if I'm Jim I'd set all that up and offer it as a benefit of being a RED owner. "You buy our camera, we'll help you make money with it." Talk about staying 5 steps ahead of the competition. If you're going to have a Redvolution you may as well go all the way.

Apple should have done something similar a year ago with FCP and iTunes to allow their users to profit from iTunes.

Johnny Friday

09-03-2007, 04:58 PM

I think the 10% is for the affiliate program. Selling the volumes
you get 50% which is pretty standard. I am assuming that means
Hive will edit and produce the volume and do all the marketing,
packaging and shipping for it's 50%? What about single downloads?
I know Artbeats.com does it both ways.

....where did you find info for sellers/providers of stock footage. I was on the site and did not find that nor in the FAQ. can you provide that link?
Thanks,
Johnny

Michael Schrengohst

09-03-2007, 07:12 PM

http://www.hiveimage.com/shooters_guide.php

Ralph Oshiro

09-03-2007, 09:33 PM

I'd say any business opportunity is off topic. I'd guess most business opportunities probably get deleted.Why would this be off-topic? Sure, if Paul where hawking Amway products or vitamins, I'd say get the f*ck out. But a RED-oriented site? C'mon!

Paul:

The site looks GREAT! Very slick. I sent you a stupid e-mail asking where this thread is . . . duh. Sorry. Anyway, look forward to your site launch! We'll talk more as things progress.

Ralph Oshiro

Joel Kaye

09-03-2007, 10:05 PM

Why would this be off-topic? Sure, if Paul where hawking Amway products or vitamins, I'd say get the f*ck out. But a RED-oriented site? C'mon!

I guess my interpretation of what's on topic is anything that fits into a current subforum.

If there was a business opportunities subforum and then I'd think it was on topic. I'm not a moderator though... they decide what's on topic.

PaulClements

09-04-2007, 08:58 AM

Sorry only just been able to get on to RedUser to answer questions.

Two questions - I don't understand the volume thing at all. Are shooters earning less per unit for every additional unit? If so, that baffles me. It should be the opposite - they should be rewarded for selling more. The people who produce the most popular footage should be your highest paid shooters both in gross dollar and commission percentage. Sales Management 101. Reward the outperformers.

Or I'm confused and that's already what you're doing and the web page just isn't very easy to follow.
If a customer purchases more than one volume they will get a discount, since the shooter is paid 50% flat then they will in turn get less. BUT what you have to think about is the customer is more likely to buy mulitple volumes, therefore as a shooter if you are the owner of 2 volumes out of 40 volumes listed then your chances of selling volumes is greatly increased. So yes the more volumes that are sold the lower the amount the shooter gets paid. That's the way of the bulk sales world I'm afraid - The upside being that you're more likely to sell more of your volumes.

The second thing is it would be smart to add a "seller sells his own stuff" consideration. ie - I refer someone to your site to buy MY footage. You should take a nominal fee in that case or I bet a lot of people will just sell their own footage on their own site. I'm certainly not going to pay you $100+ commission on my own customer. Maybe others will though.

I'm assuming you're not asking for exclusive rights to stock footage submitted.

The affiliate program does pretty much that, but again you have to think of the upside that if you direct someone to HiveImage to purchase one of your 2 out of 40 volumes they may not purchase your one but instead pick up 5 of someone elses, you don't get paid for your own volume because they don't buy it but you still earn 10% commission on other peoples work. And no I'm not asking for exclusive rights.

If you want to sell your footage on your own website yourself then by all means go ahead. Don't forget your overheads for the dedicated server to host those massive GB files, nor the admin or marketting time, let alone putting together the backend to manage everything - The worst part is though that if you are selling your own volumes you might only have 2 or 3 a year to put up there - Unless shooting stock is your primary purpose, perhaps you might have more in that case. The point is however that if there were 10 other RedUsers uploading their footage we already have a huge collection of stock footage for potential customers to browse.

Hivebank.com is the delivery method for downloading the footage once you have purchased and it has been built in such a way that it's entirely scalable. So as more and more volumes get put online more dedicated servers can be built into it to meet supply and demand.

I've tried to be fair with the pricing, on each sale 60% to the shooter and affiliate will likely go. That leaves 40% to cover everything else. Fair enough some of that is going to be profit, but like any business if it doesn't generate profit then it won't maintain itself and succeed. In order to offset any RedUser being concerned about that profit margin I've included the Grant and Reward scheme in order to generate a greater desire for all involved to succeed. Of course I could say that 10% of the sale goes to the affiliate, 75% goes to the shooter and the remaining 15% would be used to cover costs. But that'd be a heck of a lot of work for little return. Most businesses work on a minimum of 35% return. Hive Image is actually under that when completely costed. I bet a lot of other stock footage companies couldn't say that.

Cheers

Paul

PaulClements

09-04-2007, 09:10 AM

PaulClements

09-04-2007, 09:16 AM

The other thing to consider is that REDUSER - being the hub of all things RED could be all the advertising anyone needs for their 4K stock. 4K stock is such a unique product that anyone purchasing it would have to know about RED.

If RED, REDUSER.NET or anyone associated to it creates a low cost searchable fulfillment solution like say... rocketindie.com then that could bring like 90+% of the profit back to the creator. The way it should be.

Frankly, if I'm Jim I'd set all that up and offer it as a benefit of being a RED owner. "You buy our camera, we'll help you make money with it." Talk about staying 5 steps ahead of the competition. If you're going to have a Redvolution you may as well go all the way.

Apple should have done something similar a year ago with FCP and iTunes to allow their users to profit from iTunes.

Well the intention was that the website be a kind of RedUser Stock Footage site. 90%+ would be impossible for me to goto I'd be working my finger to the bone for the benefit of everyone else and I value my health and mentalilty far too much. Fair enough i haven't got the Red Seal of approval, but I like to believe that my involvment here in the community, meeting members and being a Red customer qualifies me to some degree to give something back. Perhaps I was wrong to think that and should just keep my money grabbing ideas to myself in the future then lol :ninja:

Jaime Vallés

09-04-2007, 09:19 AM

This sounds like a fantastic idea, Paul. Thanks for setting it up. I know I won't have time or resources to sell my footage directly, so partnering with something like this will be very beneficial for me. I'm sure I'll be taking part in this when I get my RED #791 in December. Please keep us updated!

Jeremy Teman

09-04-2007, 11:41 AM

Hey Jeremy,
nice site...
So are you only going to shoot Bike stock
or other stuff as well?
The biggest consideration any stock agency
must consider is advertising and exposure.
Without that you are not going to sell anything,
no matter how great it is.

Thanks Red Guy

No, I probably wont have very much bike footage on the site. It is a small market to begin with, I don't think enough people would be interested in it.

We decided to make a site because we frequently are asked about old stock from previous shoots and it would be much more convenient to have a client be able to go to the site and find out right away if what we have is what they are looking for. We don’t plan on making a business out of selling stock footage on the website, it’s just a better way to make it available.

Michael Schrengohst

09-04-2007, 11:57 AM

I actually have a lot of clients looking for stock for spots.
We have bought stock from everywhere. Mostly sports
related stuff.

Jeremy Teman

09-04-2007, 12:15 PM

The type of calls we recieve for mountian biking are people wanting to buy crash footage for TV shows, random shots for commercials, and shots for people oganizing events.

We plan on having mountain biking stock on the site, but it generally is not the type of sport stock that sells very well. Other than mountian bike films, it isn't on TV much unless it's a crash.