MicrostockGroup

Been doing and testing a few of the agencies in the low tier and I am amazed with the quality, the hi-tech and layouts of some of them and frankly one wonders WHY they are in the low-tier in the first place.

As usual what lets them down is their Search-engine. Many of them are "old fashioned"  showing what the top agencies promoted some three, four years back, just too much generic stuff and isolations-on-white, etc  and they are doing this on the first, two, three pages!  where instead you should flaunt originals, variety and some of the best youve got.
If you take Zoonar and Cutcaster for example,  brillant interfaces, hi quality, etc, but far, far too many generics and isolations on premiere pages. I did a search in my own fields, Typed "oil-industry"  and up comes ofcourse the stereotyped shot of industry shot with a telephoto and sunset, which there are millions of. Todays buyer ar more aware, they are not interested in distant industry anymore, they want pics of whats going on inside the industry and preferably with workers. Typically, all my really big sellers at IS, with blue flames and at SS, DT and FT, are of Engineers working inside industry. Also did a search on "tools"  good grief! all isolations-on-white, etc.
Todays buyers, designers and with the latest tools in PS, etc,  prefer to isolate and crop pics thermselves and they do a lot better job and quicker then any photographer,  its their job.

I do feel that if they dont "modernise" their searches a bit more, well?  they might never move from the low-tier at all.

This is in no way meant to critize but its a pitty to see really well run agencies, just to find that the actual search-mechanism, shall we say, is a bit out of date.

yes there are, but just have a look at our Dans Warmpicture.com, GL, Zoonar, even the new Stockfresh,  great quality, every bit as good as the big ones and THATS why its important that the search actually show this, or else whats the point.

Hi!

Sure I know and your right, its one of the backbones of this industry BUT on a search-engines premiere pages you also have to impress, show variety, like Orson-Wells, once said: " keep the interest going and amaze"  I mean you cant really say, isolations, amaze?  but they are the bread and butter, no doubt.

I remember Tony-Stone and Simon, when we trying to, in those days to just make large, glossy catalouges,  it was imperative to show that we had photographers that actually could get in everywhere, even into NASA, space-centers and other really so called " closed shops" and these pics sold like mad ofcourse.

I dont expect my oil, gas, fuel, nuclear, technology, engineering shots to get more coverage then any other but in one search I found the oil-industry mixed up with olive-oil being poured over pasta and lasagne and then it gets a bit much.

It would be interesting if the sites could come up with a few more search methods - like "artsy", "simple", "insider access", etc. etc. It would be a real pain in the butt to set them up though. Seeing what shows up in the top of the searches for a subject you are familiar with is often pretty painful. That doesn't even touch the spam - on purpose or otherwise. IS tried to fix a lot of these problems w/ the CV etc, but we all know how that worked out.

I am guessing most people just search on the best match and with a keyword or 2 and if they don't see what they want in the first few pages then they have to get more creative. Simple and isolated is often what they are looking for.

Whatever the reasons they are low earners, what's the point? They'll either get it right or they'll be gone. Either way I wouldn't upload to or waste any time on any of them.

Possibly because they dont have the traffic, not enough buyers. Its a pity because you can tell that many have really worked hard to get a nice and well run site.

If the upload process is fast and easy and % is fair (as on CutCaster) why not uploading?
Without expecting too much too soon, but in the long run it's better to have our port at many sites, given how fast this industry is changing.

I like Cutcaster too. But they simply reject most of what I send them. When they launched the new site this year, I started to upload to them again and maybe the reviewers were in good mood as they were accepting my images, but since then it is an extremely high rejection rate for me.

I can't support sites if I can't get my images online with them. Believe me, I'm not uploading for my own benefit here, I actually would like Cutcaster to make it. Why would I spend time uploading to a site which hasn't given me a sale since 2009, I know I have a small port. but it's not for the want of trying. A lot of my rejected images, especially the editorial ones are sitting on ss, getting sales everyday.

Anyway, rant over.

"its pointless agencies are accepting images if theyre not going to sell or if the subject-matter doesnt fit the bill."

I love it when newer agencies portray that they are different to the other agencies. They probably know that they will never catch up to agencies which currently have 10 to 15 million images and have to go for 'our agency is smaller but better' line. I am a very small buyer myself, 2-5 images a month and I know I need variety. I used to be able to find what I wanted, at least most of the time on Polylooks and I can easily find what I want on Deposit photos. The choice is very limited on Cutcaster, so as a buyer why would I go there. As a seller, I'm confused at the high rejection rate, when I personally think they need images. Anyway, so long as my photos continue to fit the bill at Shutterstock, Dreamstime and 123rf, I'm not that bothered, I just find it strange.