There was a site called "Odd Ditty" that had some great freebie items,  but it seems to give me a 404 error now.

Does anyone know what happened to this site?

i am pretty sure that store and site are defunct

I think we're finally seeing the shake out of poser content products. There are too few buyers, way too many people producing content, and tons of quality free items out there now.

Smaller stores are fading away, and bigger stores are doing back to back sales, and prices are spiralling downwards, even though sales volume is also going down, while quality workmanship is going up.

While that sounds great (short term) from a consumer standpoint, the reality it some quality artists can no longer afford to do this for a living , and have left, or moved up to higher end applications doing prefessional work.

Others have fallen into the "churn out th V4 skimpy outfit of the week" mentality, only producing items that still sell in numbers. Producing nitch items can be a killer now, unless its as a freebie release.

Some have moved on to other more profitable 3d content catagories,

Odds are, the pendulum will swing like this for the next year or so, and once the ranks have thinned out enough, it will swing back the other way.

Quote - I think we're finally seeing the shake out of poser content products. There are too few buyers, way too many people producing content, and tons of quality free items out there now.

Smaller stores are fading away, and bigger stores are doing back to back sales, and prices are spiralling downwards, even though sales volume is also going down, while quality workmanship is going up.

Agreed somewhat.

There are lots of folks who buy stuff still (DAZ has been doing near-constant sales for eons now; just on different stuff).

Quote - While that sounds great (short term) from a consumer standpoint, the reality it some quality artists can no longer afford to do this for a living , and have left, or moved up to higher end applications doing prefessional work.

It all depends on a couple of things:

1. Your business model. I've said it a zillion times before (and promptly got yelled at for it) - you cannot --by and large-- expect to pay the rent with this hobby, esp. with only a couple of adverts on Rendo's banner rotation.

2. Features, Features, Features. Any fool can make and sell a "dress". Any fool can make hair. Any fool can make and sell "textures for (product)". The ones who do well can make a dress with not only body morphs, but movement morphs and a lot of detail (w/o pumping out a zillion-poly .obj file, either). Hair is a biggie in this regard - if you can give it simple but powerful movement and modification controls, and make it look good, you own the joint.

3. Uniqueness. I bet you have at least half a dozen underwear packages for V4 in the RMP right now. But, how many people build a clothing set that is as functional as much as it is (at least superficially) pretty?

Quote - Others have fallen into the "churn out th V4 skimpy outfit of the week" mentality, only producing items that still sell in numbers. Producing nitch items can be a killer now, unless its as a freebie release.

Not necessarily - If it's something with some flexibility to it - say, a more generic 'room' with different styles of furniture in it, with different MAT files for wallpapers and paint options, and etc, it'll likely sell more than just a fixed set-piece victorian era master bedroom that's usable at only one camera angle, y'know?

Quote - Odds are, the pendulum will swing like this for the next year or so, and once the ranks have thinned out enough, it will swing back the other way.

True.

/P

poser users have extremely deep pockets, but unaffiliated sites may have trouble holding customers. there are more customers for poser items every day. the key to sales is peer pressure, in the form of forum and gallery images here and at the other main poser sites that have the standard set-up of marketplace, gallery, forum, chat et al. one other form of peer pressure that's equally effective is when shills post notices here about items for sale at competing websites. I dunno if odd ditty had a marketplace, but I don't recall anybody mentioning the site ere now. any kind of publicity helps, whether good or bad.

Do we know for sure that Odd Ditty is gone?

Weren't they the ones that had the morphing dandelion prop?  I was semi-interested in buying that one........someday..........

ODF is down for now, while it's owner, ynsaen, looks for permanent work and home.   From what I know from talking with her elsewhere, she plans on having it back up as soon as she's stable.  That's all I know ;)

Hope and wish that Ynsaen returns to these parts soon.  I miss her
poetic muse, and miss her as a source of Python ideas!

I haven't seen her online for some time, so I think see is busy looking for work - as JenX said.

yeah, I remember her. she sent me an IM some time ago about her absence. hopefully we'll hear more as time progresses.

Hope so, I liked the state of Poser survey she did... Don't know that anyone used it, but I thought it a step in the right direction.

genericly, you can use the Wayback Machine, as long as you have the original URL. It can't supply files, but does do pictures. It also gives you snapshots of when the site was up, usually giving a rough idea of when they joined 'club 404'.  Since we heard that the site's coming back, that's good, but in the future...I use it from time to time...

JenX is right ODF is down, for now, but will be back. I talked with Ynsaen most recently last night. She is concentrating on getting stable work so that she can return to writing and modeling. Right now her only online access is from various WiFi hotspots near where she lives but that should change within the next few weeks. When I talk to her next I will let her know of this thread. I know that the fact that she and ODF are missed will bring a smile to her.

Hope the store goes back someday... Even though with some kind of database failure my GCs there went to trash :(

I think the comments about the Poser market deserve wider discussion. A new thread, perhaps? I'm working towards making some for-sale content: at the moment RL is biting. No, i don't expect to pay the rent, but I'm not aiming for the "glamour" market.

Antonia: if you can hit with something really popular, its worthwhile, but if its something of a specialty item, you might not even make minimum wage creating it.

Something that always springs to mind, is dark Whisper, a VERY popular "successful" contnet creator's comments:

He no longer persued the heavies type figures, because sales numbers dwindled down with each successive release.

Sal A. Manda was voted the most popular toon figure in his poll, yet was also one of the lowest unit selling figured he'd done.

Ugh! was made free after a year's release. Why? He only sold a total of 50 units!

Now you figure DW probably spent 2-3 full time weeks creating Ugh!. So let's say 100 hours.

Ugh sold for $10, and as on sale for $8 I believe.. and 1/2 of that monmey went to RDNA, so he made maybe $4 on each sale.
So DW made about $200 on Ugh!, for two and a half week's work!

So he made somewhere between $2 and $2.50 and HOUR creating Ugh!

There's this huge "sales" mentality going on in th eposerverse.. Daz has been running back to back "Quick, buy NOW!" sales for months now, with no end in sight. (They have a month long PC club celebration coming up next month.)

Daz makes it's money based on volume. PAs (or content creators) have FAR fewer items available for slae, so they have to make thier money up based on volume AND profitabiliy. 

In the above example, if DW had been making $15 yer unit himself, Ugh! would have been worthwhile creating. As it came out though, the volume numbers didn't balance out low profit numbers, so the product no longer even became worthwhile creating.

I've had a few stinkers myself. Sal Adventurers, and the Funcat sets both have slod less then 50 units in a year's time, so that means probably a month or more's work was done for free or for ungodly low wages.

Imagine loosing an entire month's paycheck. its a little liek gambling.. yes, you COULD hit with something very popular, but you could also release a total dud.

yup... we can quite easily make more money flipping burgers than making poser content...

Quote - Daz makes it's money based on volume. PAs (or content creators) have FAR fewer items available for slae, so they have to make thier money up based on volume AND profitabiliy. 

DAZ has the traffic, too... much higher than Rendo's, and most folks go there with the intention of buying something. Makes a huge diff. Content Paradise was originally created with the intention of unseating DAZ (prolly in response to D|S being built). As for Steve (Dark Whisper)? I remember when he sold his first item way the hell back when... I think the reason he's been hating it for sales is two-fold: 1) his site was in South Africa (still is, IIRC), a place which has always had lag problems overall... not his specific host's fault, but the whole nation is kinda bottlenecked, infrastructure-wise. 2) his site ain't as widely marketed or well-known as DAZ. Rendo, CP, etc. In short - even though I like the independent spirit he'd shown in doing it, he prolly should've stuck with consignment (or at he could've at least put more effort into marketing the site). His items were pretty revolutionary for the time, polished, unique, and they simply worked as advertised. I don't disagree that niche figures don't sell as well, but I've never heard of Ugh! until I saw you mention it... which could be part of the problem. /P

Quote - Imagine loosing an entire month's paycheck. its a little liek gambling.. yes, you COULD hit with something very popular, but you could also release a total dud.

Welcome to business in general ;) /P

Except Ug! was at RDNA, not DW's own site.

Quote - JenX is right ODF is down, for now, but will be back. I talked with Ynsaen most recently last night. She is concentrating on getting stable work so that she can return to writing and modeling. Right now her only online access is from various WiFi hotspots near where she lives but that should change within the next few weeks. When I talk to her next I will let her know of this thread. I know that the fact that she and ODF are missed will bring a smile to her.

That's great news!

Quote - > Quote - Imagine loosing an entire month's paycheck. its a little liek gambling.. yes, you COULD hit with something very popular, but you could also release a total dud.

Welcome to business in general ;) /P

Well, not if you are working a regular job. Producing items is one thing, but just doing a 9 to 5 gig somewhere pretty much guarentees you a paycheck in a week or two.

I must be getting cynical, because I find myself agreeing with you more and more.. LOL!

Actually, DAZ's traffic & Rendo's traffic are roughly equivalent over time, with periods of ups and downs for both sites.  DAZ sees a large spike when they do something like release a new version of D|S, or other similar events (personally, I like their on-going sales -- although I've been spending so much of the 3D budget on software & hardware lately that I haven't had much left over for content).

Ya know -- it's difficult to regard the various Poser-related sites as being directly in competition with one another -- as they all sell things which strongly support the other site's products.  And they all support one another in other ways, as well.  So the "competition" isn't as cutthroat as some would have us to believe.  The underlying infrastructure of Poserdom is simply too interconnected & interdependent for that.  Some might not like that situation: but there it is.

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - Imagine loosing an entire month's paycheck. its a little liek gambling.. yes, you COULD hit with something very popular, but you could also release a total dud.

Welcome to business in general ;) /P

 

Well, not if you are working a regular job. Producing items is one thing, but just doing a 9 to 5 gig somewhere pretty much guarentees you a paycheck in a week or two.

I must be getting cynical, because I find myself agreeing with you more and more.. LOL!

Even if you personally work 9-to-5, somebody at the top of the structure still has to concern themselves with making the entire business work.  The money for that 9-to-5 paycheck has to come from somewhere.

Well imagine that...

http://www.quantcast.com/

Found some pretty interesting info here (and all of it save for CP and r'otica seems to be just base estimates):

daz3d.com pulls in ~31,000 unique visitors a month US-only stats; 11% passers-by, 47% regulars, the rest "addicts" (as a percentage of all visits, not just uniques)

renderosity.com pulls in ~30k uniques a month US-only stats; 9% passers-by, 33% regulars, and the rest "addicts" (ditto )

contentparadise.com? here's the surprise*: ~112k uniques a month globally,  31% passers-by, 52% regulars, and 18% "addicts" (again, ditto)

• If Poser 5/6/7 pings CP whenever it starts or whenever the "Content" tab is opened and there's a clear Internet connection (which is likely - I can't remember offhand if it does or not), then the results are liable to be skewed here.

renderotica.com pulls in ~15,800 uniques per month; 11% passers-by, 32% regulars, and 57% "addicts"

Now for the low-end:

runtimedna.com gets ~4700 uniques a month (US-only); 13% passers-by, 87% regulars. No addicts here.

3dcommune.com grabs ~5100 uniques per month; same stats as RDNA.

raunchyminds.com gets less than 2,000 uniques a month (not sure how much less); 48% passers-by, the rest regulars.

3duniverse.co.za gets less than 2000 as well... not sure what percentage are regulars, newbies, etc.

Kinda interesting overall...

/P

Amazing statistics discovery, Pengy!

Daz doesn't even share info like that with PAs.

Ya gotta really respect someone who can dig up info like that on the web. and here I thought I was the google engine search king!

I set my crown at yer feet...

Hey Pengy... didja also find Poserpros there as well, or is that daz traffic slipt between daz and poser pros?

As I indicated: roughly equal.

Precise traffic numbers across the web are a matter of vigorous -- sometimes verbally violent -- debate.  About the only place that's likely to have exact numbers are the websites themselves (and possibly the NSA and/or MI5).  But when you are dealing with ballpark figures anyway, it's all well within the 'margin of error'.

Who's addicted?  Not me..............:m_wink:

Quote - Amazing statistics discovery, Pengy!

Daz doesn't even share info like that with PAs.

Ya gotta really respect someone who can dig up info like that on the web. and here I thought I was the google engine search king!

I set my crown at yer feet...

There are a number of web traffic services.  Alexa being one.  The figures usually show a rough parity -- with occasional flips & spikes.

Khai wrote

'yup... we can quite easily make more money flipping burgers than making poser content...'

Possibly. But how much fun is flipping burgers compared to making content?

I work all sorts of weird hours, pull my hair out over making multiple versions of products for DS & Poser, scream aloud when things go pear-shaped, turn the air blue with oaths and curses when I'm making promo pics, and at some point doing aproduct cycle, usually want to throw my PC out the window and become a Buddhist monk. And none of that guarantees that a product will actually sell.

But on the other hand, I work at home, I set my own hours, I answer to no one, and when I make a successful product, I get a real buzz out it. If I had to flip burgers for a living, I'd be a walking zombie for most of the day, then go home at night and stare at soaps until bedtime.

You pays yer money an you takes yer choice.

mac

hey Pengy... some people are seeing much different traffic statistics with Alexa... can you do the same, and see what you come up with based on th einfo you used at quantcast?

Quote - hey Pengy... some people are seeing much different traffic statistics with Alexa... can you do the same, and see what you come up with based on th einfo you used at quantcast?

If you google around the web, you'll see blogs / forums / articles where internet traffic stats are hot debate topics.  It can get nasty.  I've seen blogs denouncing Alexa -- and others.

My own conviction is that it's all ballpark -- and that's about the best that anyone can come up with.  Outside of the people who actually run the site -- and can measure the activity on their own servers.  Which is information that they aren't likely to share with any outsiders.

Quote - But on the other hand, I work at home, I set my own hours, I answer to no one, and when I make a successful product, I get a real buzz out it. If I had to flip burgers for a living, I'd be a walking zombie for most of the day, then go home at night and stare at soaps until bedtime.

You pays yer money an you takes yer choice.

mac

There's a LOT to be said for being your own boss.  Not all compensations are strictly monetary.  In fact: some of the best compensations which lead to true satisfaction & contentment have nothing to do with money.

Although admittedly: money doesn't hurt.  And eating is a necessity. 

(Plus you've got to pay for all of that hardware & software somehow.)

Quote - Hey Pengy... didja also find Poserpros there as well, or is that daz traffic slipt between daz and poser pros?

Actually, yep - since Poserpros resolves to "poserpros.daz3d.com", it's counted as DAZ traffic and listed there. > Quote - hey Pengy... some people are seeing much different traffic statistics with Alexa... can you do the same, and see what you come up with based on th einfo you used at quantcast?

Dunno - I hadn't looked beyond the two sites (I liked how quantcast broke their numbers down, which is why I pointed at them). Here's what Alexa coughs up for... DAZ Renderosity Content Paradise (Again - simply using Poser.exe may influence this). The search field at the center-top of the page can take you everywhere else. -- > Quote - Precise traffic numbers across the web are a matter of vigorous -- sometimes verbally violent -- debate

Indeed - and it's a very imprecise science. The QuantCast numbers seem pretty solid from experience, though I suspect that those sites which participate in it directly tend to get "better" numbers (since there would be less statistical extrapolation involved). OTOH, those sites which participate can also 'tweak' their scripts to get bigger numbers as well. They do however mate up with Alexa's stats fairly well. It gives me an idea, though... :) /P

Thanks!

I'm grinning, but that's as much as I'll let my ego get involved there, lol.

Yes, I'm looking for something to pay the basic bills of my life because I have some medical costs associated with my life at present that I need to pay for over the next year.

Once I've got that (which, until this medical stuff kicked in, Poser work was paying for), ODF will be back, including all the products I had made for it, which is why products of ODF's that are currently elsewhere are still available aren't "exclusives".

ODF isn't down because the market was tough.  I want to make that quite clear.  ODF did really well.  It kept a roof over my head and put food in my belly -- which is good enough for me. It wasn't giving me a lot of extra's, mind you, and one has to be obsessive about the business and the art of it to really make a go of it, as well as find a balance between the popular and personal, the consigned and brokered and held tightly.

The market is tough -- but ODF's going down was because I'm having a tough time of it myself -- and once I'm back online, you can bet that ODF will be back as well -- so look to get ditty with it again soon.

One of the most important things one can do in this biz is to keep going -- you need to have two to three new items a week, consistently and consecutively, in order to stay in the game.  By managing and balancing your projects -- which I didn't always do as well as I should have, especially when the bills got big or I got sick -- you can make a decent little income, if you are dedicated enough to it.

You won't get rich unlessw you are as prolific and genius heavy as some of the incredible creators out there, but it doesn't matter if you sell through DAZ, through Rendo, Through PP, or on your own -- like anything else, if you learn all there is to learn about your craft and pursue it with passion and competence, you'll make it.

Oh, and, just before I went into the program last year, ODF was getting 6K unique's from the US market (and another 3 K from outside), which given we didn't sell the "typical" super hot stuff should give an idea.  And about a third of my sales (personally) were from people outside the community.

Lastly, regarding the survey, it will return again -- I'm still committed to the open sharing of information and kinowledge for the betterment of everyone.

So hugs to all, raspberries to some, and evil grins to others from a coffee shop in Phoenix. Been a pretty wild ride so far and it's only gonna get more interesting :D

:) ohh I was laughing when I saw my replied mail that ynsaen had posted an reply to this topic. I was just waiting for her to say something. 
Good to see you hun. And you know I'm in for any wild ride you starts.

Good to see ya as well, Yns.. hope it all works out well for you!

Peng - why aren't you using SEOChat? http://www.seochat.com/' had some good results w that based on ranking and g-analytics ~s