MicrostockGroup

Ha! I thought the exact same thing.

Well, it's been discussed recently, that early-in equals better sales.  ie, once the "first in"s start racking up sales (if any), the 'regulars' tend to get 2nd hand scraps.  Due to search engines, and sorting and such.  So it really does suck to be 'regular'.  Probably why the same group tends to jump at the chance to load up new sites with their catalog.

+1

I will repeat my question, which may be so simple-minded that no one thought it necessary to reply: why don't the really big stock producers sell their images directly, from their own sites?  It's obviously possible, and many buyers probably already know their names.  

Maybe it isn't practical, yet, for reasons I'm sure someone will enumerate.  But it will become practical at some point.  Maybe all it will take is a little help from Google - some enhancements to their image search, to let people search for purchasable/licensable images only.   

What happens to today's microstocks if the really big portfolios start to disappear?  

Have these producers signed contracts with the big microstocks, promising not to go direct, in exchange for... well who knows... preferential search ranking? Higher commissions?  

not scum, just regular eheh ordinary!

I will repeat my answer...of course they are going to get the big guns up first. But then they should not have advertised here in this forum that they were ready for everyone to contribute! And I would like to think that I have lots of other very sellable photos, besides my brick walls and cats. 

I would think that - unless you are exclusive - it's ok to sell pictures both on other microstock sites and own web site, isn't it?

although I read somewhere - sorry I can't remember where and I'm not even sure it's true - that some agencies are not willing to have you as a photographer if you start your own microstock site

monkeybusinessimages sells their own from their site.

How would I know?

My entire portfolio is brick walls with one cat. 

Okay so maybe they should have been more clear. "We would like images from all of you minus most of you."

"regular" sounds like the "small people" BP supposedly cares so much about

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20007944-503544.html

When we met at CEPIC conference in Dublin a couple weeks ago Yuri Arcurs said he is preparing to launch direct sales from his own site. Andres said he has similar plans (seems to be less developed though than Yuri's)

Yes Jonathan did launch his own site, but that's a different story. He didn't setup a site to sell his own portfolio. He did setup a niche collection that specializes on human-impacted spaces without human in the picture; and he is open for other contributors. And his primary sales objective is to focus on non-exclusive multiple distribution channels rather than direct sales from his own site. Agencies like Corbis and others are to sell that collection.