Has anyone noticed it already ....Albumo is starting a clean up.....
Double/similar pictures/illustrations etc (I don't know how they get there but I checked and indeed I have some double images in my port .....strange)

I also uploaded an image twice and yesterday I received an email from them that my double picture was deleted. They would pay more attention to the long review times than searching foru double or similar images.

Someone still works at Albumo?  This is the most life I've heard of in months over there.

so far it doesn't look good for some of us contributors at CC.My portfolio doesn't get many views.I've been with them since 6/17/08 and a lot  of my work with 0 views. No sales very little traffic.

Quote from: Pixart on February 09, 2009, 14:40

Someone still works at Albumo?  This is the most life I've heard of in months over there.

Same time next year (or sooner) we can read the same messages about Yay and Pixmac? 

Ignore them, don't make eye contact... and maybe they will go away. 

Thank you for those kind words ;-)
Vitezslav, Pixmac's CEO

Some news from www.pixmac.com
- Languages: Czech, Russian, Spanish, German, Italian
- 4,4 Milion of pictures (three sources)
- 700K celebrity prictures (Editorial Upload in progress)
- Vectors and other "extended formats" in progress
- Subscription for Pixmac collection (you can be there too) & celebrity pics (100+700K)
- Usable ZOOM to 100% (surely watermarked, and behaving like google maps)
- We're on shortlisted on Internet Effectiveness Awards 09
  as seen here: http://blog.pixmac.com/2009/06/02/pixmac-has-been-shortlisted-for-iea-2009/

Same time next year (or sooner) we can read the same messages about Yay and Pixmac? 

I have regular sales at YAY now. Not much but there is some slow progress.

Just because I feel like being a contrarian, I'd suggest you read this 2007 by John Dvorak explaining why Apple was about to get its teeth kicked in by existing mobile phone providers.  He was of course dead wrong, both for his conclusions and the reasoning that got him there.  Even in what seems a stable market there's opportunity for an innovative player.  Heck, stable markets are the best ones for an innovator, assuming they have enough backing and enough innovation.  I'd argue that both are required to change an existing game.

Just because I feel like being a contrarian, I'd suggest you read this 2007 by John Dvorak explaining why Apple was about to get its teeth kicked in by existing mobile phone providers.  He was of course dead wrong, both for his conclusions and the reasoning that got him there.  Even in what seems a stable market there's opportunity for an innovative player.  Heck, stable markets are the best ones for an innovator, assuming they have enough backing and enough innovation.  I'd argue that both are required to change an existing game.

Apple is not a Mobile Phone Service provider. There is always room for innovation and new ideas in the marketplace. Yet another new, me too, we'll do it like the rest, microstock site, is not the answer. Vivozoom has a different approach to guaranteed rights and sales, but Yay, Pixmac and Ablumo and the others offer nothing special that I can see. Newest entry to the site of the month club is from David and ProStockMaster. If I'm reading his notes right, they are going more towards mid-stock than micro.

The reason Burger King and Hardie's do well in some locations, is because they are close to a McDonald's and offer a shorter line or some other choices. A microstock site that offers virtually the same photos from the same contributors at the same prices, offers nothing of interest to buyers. So far IS with the exclusive program has the market edge on unique photos. SS has the subscription market covered. Not to be totally negative, which it will be, the rest are just "the rest" and a diluted version of IS or SS offerings.

Quote from: RacePhoto on June 29, 2009, 13:53

Apple is not a Mobile Phone Service provider. There is always room for innovation and new ideas in the marketplace.

I'm guessing you didn't read the article I linked.  Dvorak's point was that the customer device makers have to please is the service provider, not the end user, and that Apple couldn't offer the provider anything the other makers couldn't.  He was wrong because he assumed that, in the words of jeepers, "As it was in the beginning so shall it be in the end."  Apple bet otherwise, and appears to have been right.

There are ways to change the game, perhaps in how you deal with contributors but more likely in how you appeal to buyers.  I'd argue that appealing to contributors has possibilities if it attracts those who can produce valuable content but who are not involved with microstock today, or even if it gets them to produce work they aren't producing today.  Imagine for example a micro that helps to subsidize the cost of more sophisticated shoots, or helps to arrange them, or makes available equipment or settings in exchange for exclusivity on the resulting images.  How many of us would shoot and submit to such a site?  I'd certainly look hard at them.

And then there was someone who said, stick with the middle four because who knows someday they might be the big two. Right? And suddenly Bert's burger chain will pass up McDonald's.  Maybe someday, someone will come up with a new site and find something different and interesting to buyers, but so far, it's nothing new, business as usual, we want a piece of the pie and we're willing to sell out the contributors, give lower commissions, discount prices, offer cheap subscriptions and oh yes... sell you the identical photos from the same sources as everyone else.

I wasn't really disagreeing with you, just pointing out that I said Service Provider and you went off on a quote about Mac Phones and some other tangent and an article. I'll repeat myself and say I don't disagree with your point, it's just not what I had written.

Cellular Service Provider is not someone who makes cell phones.  That's what I stated was a bad new business. At this point the big fish are eating the small fish and we are headed the same direction with cellular service as Cable. Not as bad, but it's down to 4 maybe 5 viable service providers. They all offer the essentially same contracts, same prices, same text charges, same minutes plans. Isn't that a co-incidence?

Now back on topic. Best big cleanup for All-Bum-O would be to clean their site off the web. 

The days of starting a microstock site and selling out to one of the big ones are also passing or have passed. They don't need the little sites with all the same photos and photographers anymore. Especially old low resolution, sub-standard collections from P&S cameras. What the size requirements go up again soon. Why do we need to shoot a 12MP image some someone can put it up 320x240 on a website? Why do they inspect for every speck of dust and any noise? The whole thing seems odd.

Epixx I thought it was a comet not some fish. 

Keep in mind that there were hundreds of car makers, maybe thousands. GM didn't become Buick, Oldsmobile, Chevy, Cadillac, Pontiac, and a truck Mfg. because they invented all those brands. They absorbed them or bought them out. Same for Chrysler and Ford. Last to go were Studebaker, Rambler (American Motors) and Jeep. According to some people, now would be a good time to start a new American car company making large cars with V-8s and poor fuel economy. I don't think so. 

Same for the microstock agencies. The little ones will die off and there will be ten that survive, of those probably 3 or 4 will be worth investing in, by submitting photos. It's the way of the business world. Getty, Corbis and some big established agencies will buy the good ones and will eventually own the biggest share of the market. Then there will be some smaller independents. Imitating failure isn't a good way to create a thriving business.

It's not a growing industry it's a consolidating industry. The rapid growth phase is over. Now it's weeding out and survival.

Corbis has never mad money. I doubt they ever will. Can Getty survive the change of pace? They try to do that by buying the piranhas and changing them into their own mold. Although they may be partly successful in doing that, their success will never become the sum of their total acquisitions. The world simply isn't slow enough for that anymore.

The only certain thing is that there will be changes, that there will be new markets developing and new ways to use images. Were you on Facebook five years ago? Could you send and receive emails and photos on your mobile phone ten years ago? Did you use internet 20 years ago? What will come tomorrow may or may not build upon what was created yesterday. Maybe we're all safe with SS, IS and DT, but there's no rule saying that they will be the most important players in five years. Five years ago, they hardly existed.

Generally the ones at the top will stay at the top, and someone new with something different, will break into the market and take away customers. Simply put, copying the others and a pack of similar sites, offering the same photos from the same people, isn't really different, nor does it compel customers to join their site and buy from them.

In 1988? I was running a dial-up four line BBS which was part of FidoNet. I may have been on the internet from the office, I don't recall when Prodigy Internet went live.  I did manage an Internet special interest community, content, BB and website. Let me put it another way. I bought my first modem, which was an internal Hayes 300 baud card for my Apple IIe, which was a couple years before the IIc came onto the market. That's old!

Yes, I agree, the only thing that we can count on for sure is change.