For your information:

TechCrunch: "Patrick Lor, co-founder of iStockphoto, a Getty owned-online marketplace for microstock photography and video, has joined rival Fotolia as the President of Fotolia North America. iStockphoto and and Fotolia, which were both launched around the same time and serve the same purpose, have a long standing competition in the microstock photography space for the best images, the most talented contributors and customers. Lor retired shortly after Getty Images, one of the leaders in stock photography, purchased iStockphoto in 2006 for $50 million.

According to Lor, his non-compete contract expired with Getty recently, which left him available to get back into the stock photography business. iStockphoto was initially launched to democratize photography and let all people use images, Lor says. He was disappointed to hear of iStockphoto�s aggressive price increases following the Getty acquisition and maintains that Fotolia�s prices are much more fair for consumers. Lor says that Fotolia has a lot of potential for growth, which may be true. According to ComScore, Fotolia reached 3.7 million unique visitors worldwide in March, up from 2.3 million in January. iStockphoto had around 5 million unique visitors in March, dropping slightly from 5.2 unique visitors in January. Lor hopes to launch some new services in the future but won�t reveal what those are just yet.

In February, Fotolia reached its one millionth registered member and has 5 million stock images for sale, for as little as 14 cents, and typically a dollar or two. Images at iStockPhoto start at $1.50 per image and go up from there. Fotolia says it is registering new members at a rate of 3,000 per day (86,800 per month). Fotolia also started recently selling stock video (something iStockphoto has been doing for a while)."
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/06/co-founder-of-istockphoto-joins-rival-fotolia-as-new-ceo/ [nofollow]

Ominous for IS! Amazing timing too.

Interesting...  Maybe he can do something to increase their bandwidth, decrease the long review times and fix a number of bugs on the site.

Quote from: sjlocke on May 06, 2009, 13:44

Wowzers!

Ditto!  This is really big news!  

And good news IMO.  If things on istock go south with this new photos.com/jupiter deal there may be some exclusives looking for a new home...

I'm not sure if spending most of first quarter giving the shaft to contributors by lowering vector prices and royalty percentages is going to entice a lot of exclusives.

TechCrunch:  He was disappointed to hear of iStockphoto�s aggressive price increases following the Getty acquisition and maintains that Fotolia�s prices are much more fair for consumers.

He might wanna reconsider this after current events on IS

... Amazing timing too.

Yeah, really amazing timing.  One starts to get the impression that there are a whole lot of machinations going on behind the scenes at the moment on all these sites. 

As contributors relying on forums and official notices we are probably only seeing the tip of the iceberg. 

What is that Chinese curse?  "May you live in interesting times"

Well these are certainly interesting times in microstock.  Lets just hope it turns out to be more of a blessing than a curse

I'm not sure if spending most of first quarter giving the shaft to contributors by lowering vector prices and royalty percentages is going to entice a lot of exclusives.

Not to mention changing the ranking levels which significantly affected the incomes of many (without going to all the trouble of actually informing us __ we had to write to them to check if it was a glitch).

Maybe Patrick can employ someone who can write stuff like emails, announcements and things? Now that would be 'a major step forward'.

Very interesting! With lots of unhappy istock exclusives and a whole load of anti Getty sentiment, istock needs this like a whole in the head.

Every day it becomes more obvious why Bruce left as more of the behind the scenes goings on come to light! I wonder whether his own anti-compete terms mean he'll be free to do the same in a few years!

Patrick Lor Selected as Fotolia President, North America


View imageFormer iStockPhoto Co-Founder Tapped to Head Up Rival Microstock Agency’s Operations in USNEW YORK – May 6, 2009 – Today, Fotolia (http://www.fotolia.com), one of the world’s leading sources for high quality microstock imagery and video, announced the expansion of its executive team with the hire of Patrick Lor, co-founder of rival firm iStockPhoto, as the company’s new President for North America. The hire will bring Lor out of retirement, after his company sold to Getty Images in 2006.

“Fotolia has continued to be an innovative pioneer in the microstock space. They continue to democratize the microstock industry, keeping stock imagery affordable for small business owners, non-profit organizations, and other groups that would otherwise not be able to afford the costs of licensing imagery associated with other companies,” says Lor, of his decision to join the team. “They also continue to make it possible for talented photographers to connect with an audience of potential buyers, without the hurdles and costs of traditional stock firms. It’s a pleasure to join such a talented global team, and I look forward to working with them on bringing the company even more success as we continue to expand and enter new ventures.”

Lor will be overseeing North American operations for Fotolia, which currently has a presence in 10 countries worldwide. He will be working with co-founder and CEO Oleg Tscheltzoff on continued expansion strategies for the company, which has nearly 4 million monthly unique visitors (comScore), more than five million images available for license and more than 1 million members worldwide.

“Patrick had tremendous success with his work at iStockPhoto, and I’ve always admired his talent and what he was able to achieve,” explains Fotolia co-founder and CEO Oleg Tscheltzoff, “Fotolia has seen a tremendous amount of growth over the past years, and we’ve continued to expand both our physical presence globally and our service offerings. We have a number of exciting projects in the pipeline and are thrilled to have Patrick on board to help us bring Fotolia to the next level of success.”

The hire announcement comes on the heels of Fotolia’s expansion into the microstock video market, which was announced on April 28.

Since its launch in November, 2005, Fotolia has grown to offer one of the world’s largest libraries of legal, micro-priced images on the Web, offering professional and amateur photographers the ability to connect with more than 500,000 media buyers worldwide – from small businesses and design firms to some of the world’s most recognizable brands. With the launch of its stock video offering, Fotolia continues to expand its reach into new markets, satisfying the needs of videographers and video buyers worldwide by providing high-quality, low-cost alternatives to traditional stock video offerings.

About Fotolia
Fotolia.com is one of the world's leading providers of affordable stock imagery, with a database of over five million images and over one million international members. With web sites in 10 languages, Fotolia, LLC is based in New York and has offices in 11 countries. In 2007, Fotolia became the first independent microstock agency to enter the traditional stock marketplace with the launch of Fotolia Infinite Collections. For more information, please visit www.fotolia.com.

Press Contact:
Michael Conner
Director of Communications
Fotolia, LLC
P: 541-704-0800
[email protected]
www.fotolia.com
   
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http://blog.fotolia.com/us/news/fotolia/fotolia-_pat_lor-_president-_s.html

Maybe Patrick can employ someone who can write stuff like emails, announcements and things? Now that would be 'a major step forward'.

Too funny!

Is Patrick that good that all get so excited? I do not know this guy. Funny that that happened after just recently iStock hired one of the guys who ran Fotolia Germany 

I don't know Patrick Lor (not long enough in this business), so maybe I am missing a point of the positive news here.
But what I read is that the main statement in that press release is that Istock is too expensive (and Mr. Lor is disappointed about that) and that Fotolia is cheaper.
(Not to mention that the numbers quoted show a completely wrong picture).

So we are all happy to have more focus on price war, more emphasis on being the cheapest?

At least that part worries me a bit...

I hope he steals one idea from IS to FT.  Not the CV, but the more decent credits subs plan!

What do you not like about the CV ?

It's very time-consuming and many words don't have certain meanings.  I sent suggestion about these, with dictionary texts - so I am not "creating" meanings - and I haven't seen any of these suggestions accepted yet. 

I don't know Patrick Lor (not long enough in this business), so maybe I am missing a point of the positive news here.
But what I read is that the main statement in that press release is that Istock is too expensive (and Mr. Lor is disappointed about that) and that Fotolia is cheaper.
(Not to mention that the numbers quoted show a completely wrong picture).

So we are all happy to have more focus on price war, more emphasis on being the cheapest?

At least that part worries me a bit...

Fotolia's prices are indeed cheaper, but their royalties are significantly higher to non-exclusives - which is most of their contributor base.  They start you at 30%, I believe.  As an emerald (roughly equivalent to istock's diamond) get 38% plus was able to double my prices. 

So ITLR for most people the RPI is higher at Fotolia then IS, even with the lower prices.  My RPI on istock is 1.10 and 1.55 on Fotolia.  For a Fotolia exclusive the payout starts at 41% for white level and goes up to 61% for diamond level. 

And yes, they do have subscriptions, and yes that sucks.  But at least I get a guaranteed .35/DL and they count 1/4 toward new levels.

I was more concerned with the main message of that statement being who is cheaper.

The whole of the statement and especially the part about Fotolia being cheaper is aimed at any potential buyers who may read it, I don't think there's any hidden agenda to be read into it.

Think logically about how a buyer might read the statement - so a guy moved from one company to another so what, what difference would that make to any buyer out there, however add the little comment about the other place being cheaper and now they have a reason to look.

Fotolia's prices are indeed cheaper, but their royalties are significantly higher to non-exclusives - which is most of their contributor base.  They start you at 30%, I believe.  As an emerald (roughly equivalent to istock's diamond) get 38% plus was able to double my prices. 

So ITLR for most people the RPI is higher at Fotolia then IS, even with the lower prices.  My RPI on istock is 1.10 and 1.55 on Fotolia.  For a Fotolia exclusive the payout starts at 41% for white level and goes up to 61% for diamond level. 

And yes, they do have subscriptions, and yes that sucks.  But at least I get a guaranteed .35/DL and they count 1/4 toward new levels.

Besides this, FL pays in Euros to me which is a big advantage with the weak dollar.

Still, I consider FL the least trustworthy micro as they make unilateral changes, many of which against the interests and opinion of contributors, and especially do not announce anything, which implies bad faith in their intentions. In the least it's extremely unprofessional and disrespectful for contributors.

I make some money with them (my 3rd micro) but hardly trust them.

What do you not like about the CV ?

Everything.

Oh me oh mine, the captain has joined another ship. The titanic is sinking ! the titanic is sinking !