Quote from: lagereek on April 30, 2012, 01:49

Quote from: oxman on April 30, 2012, 01:32

Quote from: lagereek on April 30, 2012, 00:55

[Micro came along, for better or worse and made it possible for millions, the monopoly was broken, add to that, todays buyers are not your AD, at an advertising agency and that todays buyers are far from quality conscious with very little money in the pockets.

In your opinion...what is the profile of today's buyers?

I recon its made up of smaller one-man band designer operations, webb, homepages, non creative buyers, etc. They dont need to spend hundereds or thousands on a shot, what for? here, Micro came along and made it possible for the little guy to get a picky, which really is a good thing I suppose.

I mean, if you take the big sites, like, SS, IS, DT, FT, we do scream and complain when things arent going our way but they are actually providing a nice and healthy side-income, arent they.

I would add to that, all the small boutique design firms and advertising agencies which make up the majority of creative web, print and branding design in small  towns and many major cities. The large firms with big-budget national accounts of course will hire the specialized professional photographer (who hates microstock). Also, the marcom and product managers at mid-sized tech and manufacturing companies ($10 million plus annual billing) are fully hip to iStock and ShutterStock from my experience. They cringe at buying from Corbis of Getty due to the high prices, and licensing issues. Macro stock is an antiquated business model now that microstock has matured and gained mind share. The perceived value proposition cannot be denied. Over the past 15 years, I have had only one of my branding clients purchase a photo from Getty when they could not find an image at IS or SS.

lagereeek - interesting. i thought Getty RM was tanking as an industry because of the response from most all of my design clients over the past 10 years or so. I don't doubt what you said... but wonder how you know that Getty RM is doing well. I just priced a simple tennis shot for a web site at a small size - $750 for one year. None of my clients would ever spring for that. I can see Getty editorial doing well... but really surprised that RM is still rolling along.

ox