I had a thread here called "gradual slowdown?" and it got locked because sometimes people don't play nice.  But the concern is legitimate, and no doubt it can be approached in reasonable way.

I'm a creative guy, and finding solutions is always a bit of an adventure for me.

Million dollar companies who sell products that are nothing more than a compilation of 1's and 0's have little to worry about in terms of profiting tomorrow. Or maybe they do...

But from the contributor's standpoint, there is a bit to consider when images competing with yours grow by thousands a month. Its nobody's sin, its just the way it works.

Professional illustrators and photographers will not waste their efforts when it becomes apparent that microstock is flooded out and profit is harder to come by. This is a simple matter of supply and demand you don't have to go to school to understand.

But there are solutions, and they are fun to find. Perhaps the above mentioned thing isn't so  much a consideration for those Stock Photo companies as much as it is for those contributing.

Solutions -- I'd love to know some.

Here's a thought I had:

Personally, I think the cream tends to float to the top in imaging searches. This is good. But we don't need to hold on to low selling images for the reason that "it might sell". Maybe some images do a better job of getting in the way in searches than solving a customer's design problem.

Let the dross settle to the bottom, and then sift it out. Get rid of it. More high quality imaging, less to crowd out searches. Or at least let it go to a sister company of some sort that sells them at lower prices with higher limit of uses. I say this because even if they don't sell, they are still taking up space that new and higher quality images might occupy.

I find people are quick to point out problems, but fearful to point out solutions. Lets play nice and not discourage anyone from finding ways to protect tomorrow's living.

Oh ok. I might be totally off in thinking that 4 or 5 million images to choose from might make it harder for individuals to stand out.

It's all about the quality of the search engine and the results. Spam is an issue here - and getting rid of irrelevant search results is important - but not the total size of the collection.

You want a wide variety of relevant options and plenty of ways to slice and dice the results - perhaps, in addition to age and dowloads, buyers should be able to search by "hot this month" (lots of downloads in the last month), "oldies but goodies" (lots of downloads, but none in the last 3-6 months), "hidden treasures" (files with at least one download but fewer than 25). Search refinements based on image picks - more like this (selecting one image as the sample), or zap any like this (excluding based on a sample).

I'd like to see CoolIris (PicLens) or one of the several visual image browser startups that have very interesting interfaces for sorting through huge piles of images integrated into the major stock sites. I think if you did these kinds of things and keep your acceptance standards high, it doesn't matter how big the collection grows.

Some really excellent ideas IMO.

Leo, I think this is a good idea for a thread. Certainly, we can depend on the microstock sites themselves to continue to come up with new improved ways to serve their markets, but we stockers necessarily have a different perspective, and one which could provide some new ideas to make the maretplace for our images better. And creativity is one of the traits of a good stocker, right?

Let the dross settle to the bottom, and then sift it out. Get rid of it. More high quality imaging, less to crowd out searches. Or at least let it go to a sister company of some sort that sells them at lower prices with higher limit of uses. I say this because even if they don't sell, they are still taking up space that new and higher quality images might occupy.

That would eliminate many 'niche'-images, which by definition are only important to a small number of people. Just because an image doesn't sell within a year or two doesn't mean it is bad. It may simply be waiting for someone who needs it. Throwing them out reduces variety.

Quote from: Leo Blanchette on September 07, 2008, 14:40

Let the dross settle to the bottom, and then sift it out. Get rid of it. More high quality imaging, less to crowd out searches. Or at least let it go to a sister company of some sort that sells them at lower prices with higher limit of uses. I say this because even if they don't sell, they are still taking up space that new and higher quality images might occupy.

That would eliminate many 'niche'-images, which by definition are only important to a small number of people. Just because an image doesn't sell within a year or two doesn't mean it is bad. It may simply be waiting for someone who needs it. Throwing them out reduces variety.

if you have niche images that you only expect 1 or 2 buyers per year, you should upload them to midstock or macrostock.  Microstock is built upon the mindset that the image can possibly get 100's of downloads each year.  If all one can expect is 1 or 2 downloads it is simply not worth it.

I agree that this would be an excellent solution!

It's all about the quality of the search engine and the results. Spam is an issue here - and getting rid of irrelevant search results is important - but not the total size of the collection.

You want a wide variety of relevant options and plenty of ways to slice and dice the results - perhaps, in addition to age and dowloads, buyers should be able to search by "hot this month" (lots of downloads in the last month), "oldies but goodies" (lots of downloads, but none in the last 3-6 months), "hidden treasures" (files with at least one download but fewer than 25). Search refinements based on image picks - more like this (selecting one image as the sample), or zap any like this (excluding based on a sample).

I'd like to see CoolIris (PicLens) or one of the several visual image browser startups that have very interesting interfaces for sorting through huge piles of images integrated into the major stock sites. I think if you did these kinds of things and keep your acceptance standards high, it doesn't matter how big the collection grows.

why the different sites that already have the resources - customer searches, don't apply, as part of the review process, correct keywording service that will cut a great deal of spam, while still letting the photographers suggest their own keywords.

Because the micros accept hundreds of thousands of images that the trads wouldn't accept, and the effort to keyword that many possibly non-selling images would not pay back on the cost it took to keyword them.

Microstock is a crowdsourcing model, and not basically designed for professionals to make a good (and protected) income.