MicrostockGroup

From the latest "Artist's contact sheet"

Hopefully, they don't mess up fall sales too bad with all the bugs.

You people are scaring me, since I am exclusive there. 
Lucky I still have a day job... for now.

Two months of nonsense F5 posts.  I can't wait.... 

What's not to be concerned about?  The "new improved best match" or the "changed lightboxes"

Designer's actually use lightboxes.  If a file isn't selling but it's in a lot of private lightboxes, I know it's a winner.  It will just take time.

As for the best match, I could have sworn they said E* files got a boost so I put a file that had decent views into the collection and views stopped dead in the water?  Um, yeah.

I think it's probably time to redesign the site with all the social networking and mobile devices that have come into play in the past few years, but that doesn't mean it doesn't make me very nervous.

Seriously.  Hope my halved sales (over last year) don't drop down even more.

Wasn't BM2 with weighted keywords supposed to solve the best match problems? I haven't heard any serious complaints about the best match since it was implemented.  The ups and downs are much more gradual than before.  What's to improve?

Nobody at IS seems to be familiar with the saying "if it ain't broke don't fix it"

So do you seriously think buyers are purchasing stock photos from their phones? Personally, I think there are WAY more important things to spend their money on...like mirror sites so when there is a snowstorm in Canada, the site still works.

Or is the streamlined mobile version you are anxious for only for your personal use? 

I'm surprised to see this announcement at a time when they still quite significant problems going on like the footage processing that was hugely announcement not too long ago.

They redesigned their FTP upload process allowing clips in HD, PAL and NTSC, metadata, preview thumb and model releases to be uploaded all at the same time. That sounds almost too good to be true and so it was.

The system still isn't working, and correctly uploaded clips keep getting kicked out of the inspection queue although they should be moved into the "Pending Executive" until the problem has been solved.

It's frustrating enough when you have to re-upload an image for various reasons but doing so with footage starts to become a real pain especially for unnecessary deletion of clips due to their faulty processing software which leads to rejection decisions of inspectors.

I want more kittens on the front page 

Your are right, and why not purchase the picture while on the train and send the final lightbox via Mail to the Designers which are already at work......

"Somebody" is already working on one.... the question is if the agencies will support it or not.

I just went and read the whole of Kelly's announcement.  It actually sounds promising.  

I don't get the idea that it is the best match algorithm that's changing, but more just the interface.  If they simplify things for the buyers that would be a good thing.  As it stands now Istock is the only site that tries to re-educate buyers to search their way instead of having a site that delivers top results when buyers search how they are used to doing it.  

KISS (keep it simple, stupid) is always the way to go.  Hope the programmers at IS keep that in mind this time around.  

I really, sincerely hope that August will be enough time to get the bugs out before the busy buying season of Sept through Nov.  If they keep to the KISS mantra then maybe there won't be too many bugs... fingers crossed on that one

I'm not sure any mention of a best match algorithm change would be included in their wooyay speech. I hope your take on his PR is correct, though. A better site for the buyers is always good.

So it looks like they have started the changeover...and as far as I can tell, I can no longer see how many downloads an image has. Anyone else seeing changes?