MicrostockGroup

I think the idea is a great one, however from what I've seen so far the collection seems to be made up of some very creative images and a lot of standard run of the mill stuff that can be found on any microstock site, I cannot see the appeal to a buyer if the type of images in this collection don't excel that which is on offer at the regular price or on every other microstock site for less.

If I were exclusive and had images I felt were worthing of the Vetta collection I wouldn't be too pleased seeing them alongside a snapshot of a puppy dog in the garden and others like that!

Time will tell and like I said I think it's a good idea.

I like the idea of recognising that some images have additional value too but the selection method and pricing does seem a bit arbitrary.

I think they could learn from DT's Level 1-5 system in which placement/price is earned either through sales on an increasing scale or through being an assignment acceptance.

It just seems a bit odd to escalate the price of one particular image with no sales to suddenly being 4x the worth of other images that have notched up 1000's of sales.

Istock (and the artists) would probably make far more money by increasing the price of proven exclusive best-sellers than arbitrarily-awarded 'nice' images. Ultimately this is all about stock usefulness and saleability, not art. If an image hardly sells then increasing it's price by 4x is probably not going to help it much.

Congrats to istock on implementing this.  Hope it goes well for them and raises the price of premium imagery everywhere.

I am not delighted with the new Uploads page though.  Lots of real estate given to Vetta, which for me, is totally wasted, and stats I actually use like total DL's, total Royalties, etc. crammed over on the right hand side.  It's pretty hard to discipher.    I'd have been happy to lose the massive "comments" column in the middle in order to make more room for relevant stats.

Thanks for heads-up, Sean!

I have to admit the shots on the front page flash slide show are freaking awesome!

However, when I clicked on the 'view Vetta' button there were only illustrations. After 60 plus pages of vector graphics, I stopped looking.

How does one search for Photographs only, in the Vetta collection?
Is there a way to do it in the advanced search page?

No, they would sell them for .25-.38 on Photos.com and JIU.  Uncredited and no link to rest of portfolio.

Absolutely.  It seems to have worked out well for the other sites that have already been doing it such as DT, Fotolia, Etc.

Jury's still out on the long term effect on contributors though.

For exclusives only? That's lame!
Come on non-exclusives, let's start a vendetta-collection! 

hmm, the new search results are 'very brave'

Just searched for our favourite stock cliche 'apple' and of the results in best match, only at image 51 did I get to an isolated picture of an apple, ALL of the previous images were vetta images, including "Man spraying insecticide in apple orchard", "Fruity Girl with an apple in a hat" and "Inteligent - a photo of a bulldog wearing spectacles?". A search for apple used to reveal a whole page of every different sort of isolated apple photo you could imagine.

perhaps that's just a glitch in the search results, clearly they want to promote their more expensive images, but sacrificing search quality? yes they are all nice photos now instead of boring apples on white backdrops but will those results not scare away a lot of the $1-$5 customers? from the first page results you could be forgiven for thinking that every photo on the site costed 20-40 credits. Of course you can click on advanced and turn them off but only if you know to.

As non-exclusive, we are going to be non searchable because we aren't in it.
Besides, the search result of that collection isn't working decent yet, because they added all the images in one day, and the last they added will end up higher at first.

Oh wait, you guys mean the search engine overall, not only within that Vetta collection!
Yeah now I see, the search result are pretty messed up by all those Vetta images.
Now I understand why all those Vetta- exclusives have so many sales allready.

…well good idea, and why should i give a "best" image not to an macro agency? They pay more?
Just an idear... of a rookie.


Ups...and not to forget: just as an idea of an humbleness rookie who never ever would like to lift his head over anyone like lisa or puravida, who are the rulers here.

Having so many Vetta images at the front of the search is going to put new customers off.  If they are browsing and look at the prices of the first few images they will be put off and assume that all images are that price. I think it really isn't a good idea.