MicrostockGroup

The situation for me at Fotolia has gone from bad to worse, in the short span of a few weeks. In fact, for me it's turned out to be even worse that at iStock. Everything is going downhill there - first there was the commission cut, then they changed the search function in way that caused a huge drop in downloads for me, and now they are rejecting almost half of what I upload - and they used to accept most of it. I've resumed uploading to iStock - Fotolia is even worse, and I can't afford to stop uploading to both of them. This is really discouraging. Am I alone in this, or are others feeling the pain?

Indeed, less sales and lower RPD too. Only one image in february got me more than US$1.

Sales at FT are reasonably steady for me. Last month might just have been a BME if they had not cut my commissions. Not so good this month though. I've barely had a rejection for the last couple of years. My problem is that new images appear so far down in the default sort order that they have very little time to be noticed before they sink backwards and into obscurity.

^^ My experience as well. Fotolia used to be my clear #1, but now SS is trouncing them

I am seeing steady sales from Fotolia.  No real deviation up or down from what I have been seeing for awhile.  Not sure why this is - maybe the size and scope of my portfolio protects me from some of the wild swings?   

Whatever the reason, it's pretty much steady as she goes.  Thank goodness.  With all the stuff going on elsewhere I don't need any more drama!

About the same, in the last 20 that I have sent in only 3 have made it, the rest have been rejected. Over the last 3 months I average one to two views per photo that gets accepted. So, for me this seems like a going no where site unless I start taking and sending in young females in a studio setting or learn how to do illustrations real fast. With low acceptance, almost no sales and no views and others saying the same thing.....I think that I will just stop sending to them for a few months or maybe longer.

steady downloads, rather more. As interpreted, new constributors at some days what reject everything. Backward i had only to avoid mondays, now i have to find out the new work plan.
But, nearly no downloads on new images .... but reanimation on old ones.
If this concept will establish i can give all new images at other agencies because there's no chance for development at FT. Oh, first i had to tell i gave my images first to FT and only the rejected at all others. I profited from the "exclusive image" concept a lot since i started at micro.
I also believe that this concept was the main reason for FT to come into the first 4...but i know that they don't know why they earned that gift. So, im not very amazed, that they give it away for nothing. FT is managed by nerds, they have no idea what they do or why they do it, they only try to copy IS to make no own decissions and hope to survive at 3 th or 4 th level, what is a lot of profit for beeing in a business what nobody of the CEOs understand. If i were at there position i would cry out every day and hour a big "weaaheaou".
The only problem is, they will never understand what they made big and I expect they will take some day everything away what made them big to the rubbish and fall apart deeply.
That's different from IS...IS is managed by people who knows the business. In my opinion, only subjective, naturaly.

Wow.  I can't believe I just read that.  You actually think the people running ISTOCKPHOTO know what they are doing?  As of March 09, 2011???!!!!

While I have not agreed with every single thing Fotolia has done in the past couple of years, they certainly seem to be thinking for themselves, and are, IMO, extremely aggressive in their marketing efforts.  

They are the newest of the major micros, and yet they have pushed their way into the top tier.  They are consistently my #2 selling agency.  They have partnered with Microsoft to have their image library directly linked into MS Office.  They were the first to establish a significant presence in Europe.  They also have numerous partnerships through which our images are sold.  I know some people are skeptical of partnerships, and that's understandable, but at least they are evidence of resources being directed toward marketing.

I understand why some people have not been happy with Fotolia, but you certainly can't say anyone in Fotolia management is resting on their laurels.  

Oh.  Sorry.  I must have misinterpreted this:  "Fotolia is managed by nerds, they have no idea what they do or why they do it" 

FWIW, I agree with you they should have kept the benefits of image exclusivity.

I can relate. I think it only human to be emotional and frustrated with companies who beat you down like this. I am still amazed at how quickly istock has gone down the toilet. They had SO much going for them. Maybe Charlie Sheen is the CEO. 

 Lisa, I'm curious, do you spend the time to properly keyword for fotolia?

Sorry, I don't understand the question.  What does properly keywording for Fotolia entail? 

I keyword all images the same way in the iptc data.  I automatically put the most relevant words first.  Have done so for years. 

Only place I do anything differently is Istock where I have to add phrases and disambiguate.

 Yeah that was what I meant, is if you keyworded by importance. Just curious since you seem to do so well there.. Some people don't bother with the keyword sorting.. I did it in the website at the beginning, but wised up a few years ago and also sort when I do the keywording on the image..