Designers use them.  Since designers are our primary customers, we should keep the categories.

I also think that categories should be optional.  If someone doesn't want to use them, then why force them?

But I also think that the microsites should continue to keep the category system and expand on it.  Some of the category systems out there really suck, but some are quite good.

The main problem with microstock photography is that your images are competing with hundreds and possibly thousands of other images.  And if your image can't be found, then it gets lost in the ocean of other images.  You might have a great image, but if it is on page 53, then nobody (or very few people) will ever see it.  The sites that allow you to dice and slice up the images in different manners allow a buyer to see images using different criteria.

For example, Shutterstock currently only allows a buyer to sort images by date, downloads, and randomly.  So there are only three chances that your image will show up on the first few pages.  This is the main reason why people constantly complain about sales dropping on Shutterstock and why you need to constantly upload more photos to them.

Other sites allow buyers to sort by views, by photographer, by rating, by # of comments, by best match, by size, by title, etc.  This gives your images more chances of being viewed.

In the same respect, categories gives your images even more chances of being viewed.  So I am all for them, but do think that they should be optional.

I see you point but as the categories are quite wide, wouldn't designers just use keywords, and therefore if designers only use keywords, then all the categorisation that is done is completely in vain.

Two points:

1. Some sites have wide categories, others do not.

iStockphoto for example, has quite an extensive categorization system (even though it is not ready for primetime yet).  And it seems that they will allow buyers to use the categories like keywords.  That is, buyers will be able to pick multiple categories to satisfy their search.  For example a buyer will be able to search on "Emotional Concepts > Love" + "Settings > Seasons > Summer" + "Life > Relationships > Couples" + "Locations > Natural Areas > Beaches" to find a photo of "a couple that is in love on the beach in the summer".

Other sites that have few categories need to refine them.  Having a few dozen categories for a few hundred thousand images is just plain ridiculous.  Sites with a small amount of categories definitely need to add a lot more.

2. For buyers that ONLY use keywords, the categories do absolutely nothing.  But there are a few designers that do use categories.  And as the category system gets better, then more and more buyers will start to use them.  IMHO, the more options you give buyers, the better.

For your example for iStock, why not use keywords?� the answer is that people are more likily to spam keywords but not categories so that would make a search like your example more accurate?

A photographer COULD use keywords in my example.  Using a category system is an alternative that gives buyers another way of looking at the images and helping them to potentially find the image (or images) that they need.

As you stated, keywords have many problems as well.  People misspell keywords.  People spam keywords.  People live in different cultures and use different words (for example, subway (New York City), train, Metro (Washington, DC), Tube (London), etc).  People spell words differently around the world (for example, color and colour).  So categories that are set up like a keyword system could be very useful for buyers.

Like I stated before, I believe that giving buyers more options will end up in more sales.

Maybe some sites use a combination of keywords and categories to sort images by relevance.  This is only a guess, as categories are limited (except on iStock) and keywords can be spammed.  So if someone looks for "money" then the images that have money in the keywords but do not belong to the "Finance" category (example) would appear after those that have this category.  The reasoning is that, as categories are limited normally to three, people pick the really more relevant ones. 

As I said, is only a guess, and in many cases it may not help.

Regards,
Adelaide

Sorry to bring up an old thread.

I was just submitting to Featurepics and noticed they had done away with categories completely (it was always optional).  When was this??