MicrostockGroup

August 14th 2010 - In three days. 

    * Photos total:979 403
    * New photos today:6 678
    * Photographers:20 712

There was a discussion about buyers searching Google Images and how traditional Microstock (is Micro now traditional?) offered plans and subs and programs, but made individual buys kind of difficult.

I thought it was interesting that Mostphotos offered a nice area for individual photographers to place their work without the usual review system. And buyers can find whatever they want and deal for single images.

But I don't see buyers or sales?

All of these except one (the neolithic building 35mm film originally) were refused by Micro. The building is on StockXpert/ThinkStock and has one sale in 3-4 years, 25c sub, so it really doesn't count. Point is, they aren't horrible shots, just not micro material. The usual refusal reasons, lighting. I confess that a few are over shopped, but not impossible to have some interest? The druid circle above Inverness is sepia from a 35mm negative.

http://www.mostphotos.com/Klinger/albums?ref=2382

Does anyone have repeat and consistent sales from MostPhotos or is it just a place to put my rejects for a fun album?

Why don't the buyers who want to be free of agencies and contracts come shopping there?

I have hundreds of shots from a Scotland trip all 35mm slides and negatives, and can't decide if I want to start scanning and editing them. Alamy might be the only other outlet, but MostPhotos will take 5MP versions which may make them more marketable?

1 million photos is great, but how many sales do they make?

What I remember about MP was the open invitation to upload anything and everything without review, and then the open invitation for other contributors to sabotage each others' portfolios by handing out poor ratings on files.  Of all the ridiculous ideas we've seen in microstock, this one remains entrenched in my mind as by far the most ridiculous of them all.

I remember uploading one of my most successful images at SS and IS, a sports shot.  It quickly went to the first page of their search position, and I was hopeful I might actually see a sale.  The next day I checked again and noticed my image was suddenly several pages back in the search.  And then I noticed someone had handed me a horrible rating and claimed that there was "a bug on the front of my lens which messed up the shot."  Of course at 200mm infinity focus, there could be an entire hornet's nest on the front of my lens and you wouldn't be able to see it.  Which shows you what a total amateur the "reviewer" was.

Registered a complaint about it on their boards.  Got no response.  Sent support an email.  Got no response.  Closed the portfolio a few weeks later and never bothered with their agency again.

Please tell me they don't still allow photographers to snipe review each other.

That's hilarious Racephoto.  Now that you bring up the forum posting and number of times signed on counting toward your search position, I remember this.  Talk about a cavalcade of stupid ideas.  Amazing this agency never made it...Two years and they still don't register among the Low Earners here.

Even though I am exclusive to IS, for my money the #1 search engine of all the microstock sites was, and probably still is, Shutterstock.  Downloads divided by time online.  Period.  Or at least that is the vast majority of the formula as Jon hinted to us on the boards once, and could be verified by anyone with a portfolio of selling images.  No secret formula based on exclusivity or independent status, no Views/DL ratio (which can also be exploited by constantly viewing competing portfolios), no search placement based on Image approval/rejection ratios, no goofy file ratings from other contributors, etc. 

SS has it right.  Buyers purchase images they like, and avoid images they don't.  That seems to me to be all a search engine needs to consider when ranking by Popularity, Best Match, or whatever you want to call it.  The rest is noise.

I think I sold 13 there but none since November 2009.  A big disappointment, as several of the other higher priced sites that I have tried have sold more.  Zymmetrical was doing much better and they are gone, what chance does mostphotos have?  It must be costing them money storing all our images for free.  From my experience with other sites, they will find it very hard to get sales going after all this time.

Thursday the 12th Numbers:

    * Photos total: 981,534
    * New photos today: 9,101
    * Photographers: 20,723

What's going on, the weekend or are people trying to be photo number one million?   Oh wait, the number says 9,101 new photos, but the total only went up 2,131 something is fishy here?

Maybe I should add a photo tomorrow Noon just for the fun of it.

Hmmm, Friday morning 00:30 and here's what the front page says.

Photos total:981 690
New photos today:2 615
Photographers:20 729

Why do I think something is fishy here? 2,615 new photos but the total only increased 426.

Friday Noon: Photos total: 983 909

Wonder who this is?

Country Danmark Nr of images 31783 Registered 2009-12-04 Last active 9 hours ago   I spotted the distinctive style on the latest images page.

I'm guessing that Mostphotos is playing games with the stats the same as they do with the new images ranking, depending on if you are logged in (where your photos will be ranked much higher) or if you are just someone anonymous looking at the images. I can assume that the search will have the same adjustments depending on what their servers view as who's looking.

It has been days, some of them show 9,000 new photos, some 6,000 new photos, and the total? It's gone up a much smaller amount.

August 15th:

    * Photos total:984 577
    * New photos today:646
    * Photographers:20 747

That's 5,174 new images in four days.

Now, someone could argue that there were thousands of new images and at the same time, people had removed thousands of images, creating a smaller net gain. Possible but I find that scenario a stretch of plausible reasons.

I was skeptical of MPs claims and their smooth talk of marketing when some goal or level was reached. Promises and hope, we see it all over the Microstock industry. I'm not happy with the playing games with people and using hope to lure in new people or hold on to the artists who find the promises of some agencies a bit empty.

Whatever it is, I'll keep watching Mostphotos and see how many new images they really have and how long it takes to really reach 1 million.  

Sorry for the false alarm on the announcement, I was duped!

August 17th Update:

    * Photos total:985 478
    * New photos today:355
    * Photographers:20 778

New photo numbers are starting to look real. 901 new photos in two days.

I'm adding updates instead of new messages, to keep the topic from showing new, every time I add some insignificant comment.  

now that they have one million photos, they may try selling some instead of keeping all for themselves