Update 31 Dec 09: Zymmetrical has closed:
This morning I received a 'final payment' from zymmetrical, and subsequently found a brief statement on microstockgroup explaining that the site has closed:
"It is with deep regret we must announce Zymmetrical is closed. The stock industry and the economy in general are a hard situation these days, and we have made the difficult decision to close the operation, preserving our health and future potential." full thread on microstockgroup. [5]
Comment:
I think zymmentrical never really got over the technicalities and logistics of dealing with volumes of image uploads and review. They seemed to be dogged by issues with their upload system.
...thats zymmetrical.com with 2 m's not zymetrical.com
To my eye the site has a bit of an identity complex, it looks like a place where photographers sell photos for use as art prints, links such as 'buy art'. Look A little deeper and you'll see it is very much microstock.
In a recent tie up with AdByNet (marketing spin ?), their CEO described: "Zymmetrical has the most balanced offering of high quality stock photos, graphics, fonts and videos at very affordable prices. Thanks to its crowd sourcing approach, our clients are always guaranteed fresh and pertinent content for the ads we create, place, and track for them.” So in plain English, it's a microstock site.
Image Pricing is variable, set by contributor. I've taken a typical 6-10 dollar image for calculations
The sites' functionality is up there with the major players in the market but the 'describe' process is somewhat tedious and slow after submitting changes. There is a very comprehensive profile page maker (very comprehensive...) File upload is slick but reviewing for submission has things that need optimisation. Review time for photos might be slower than average.
The camera icon they use on their site to identify a photo upload made me smile, it's one which I have also used on one of my sites, it available from a competitors microstock site - istockphoto lol.
As soon as I have collected some results I will provide a full review. I'd suggest that zymmetrical is a 'potential site' if you have time to spare then try uploading (the submitting system is a little painful with lots of drop downs that are too long, it looks good but I'd rather it were more functional). I have noticed a couple of improvements over the past couple of months, at least you can now delete/cancel uploads that you have made in error or have partially failed.
October 2009 Update
After taking a break from zymmetrical I have resumed uploads, the site is still developing and they seem to be ticking all the right boxes where it comes to affiliate marketing (driving sales) and improving the upload workflow, usability etc. not great, but "improving" which is important.
It's quiet in here!