Thank you, Loop!

Now... back to Getty and the dust eating. 

I think it's time to dust of my old draft post titled 'Microstock for the Mainstream Press'.  Maybe an industry timeline to accompany it - good idea.

A graphic timeline would be fantastic and most instructive. I loved the graphic timeline in the Economist or WSJ of the banking crisis last year. It was very instructive to see who toppled who and when. You could also represent the agencies by bars according to # pictures online as measure for their size. The Wayback machine can help.

Some of the errors I noticed in Smart Money's article:

"The stock-photo industry has two main branches. There�s the royalty-paying segment, for distinctive copyrighted photos like ..." I assume they're struggling to describe rights managed licensing

You 'assume' do you? That's hardly a 'factual error' is it?

"Then there is the less arty, rights-free segment for ordinary images..." I assume they mean royalty-free. I've never seen the term "rights-free" used anywhere else.

You 'assume' again. No factual error.

"He also used the Internet to do �crowdsourcing��making an open call for content. " Shutterstock was not open to anyone back when it was founded in 2003, it was only in October 2004 when it became clear he needed more volume that SS was opened for outsiders to submit. You can read a quote from SS about this in this article if you want more than my word for it. I joined SS in late October 2004 after reading that article.

He did use crowdsourcing from Oct 2004. The article does not give a timescale so no 'factual error'

"While Shutterstock and other so-called microstock houses like iStockphoto and Fotolia stole market share..." This makes it sound as though all this was happening at the same time, which isn't so. IS was around before SS and FT didn't start accepting submissions until the fall of 2005 and it didn't really start to gain any traction until Spring 2006.

The article does not mention who started first and it is certainly true that all 3 agencies were operating together so again no 'factual error'

"But Shutterstock�s technological head start helped it to build a thriving business..." This is misleading. SS didn't invent stock subscriptions, Photos.com was there several years earlier. SS didn't invent microstock, it tried to find a way to compete with IS and found subscriptions were the way to do that. SS had very primitive technology at the beginning (I was uploading while they tried to get FTP working; it was painful, although they get kudos for offering FTP and later, stored model releases). FT was the real leader in breaking into the non-English speaking market.

What's misleading? Once again you're attempting to claim that the article states facts that it clearly does not __ you're simply using your own misleading interpretations to make judgements. No factual error.

I wouldn't argue that SS is a thriving business, but I don't think it's got squat to do with a technological head start.

And as far as your snide comments on Smart Money's site about the objections coming from IS exclusives who have a vested interest, that's just unpleasant. I was an independent until last August and I objected because I was around for most of this and the story got it wrong. Impugning my motives is just a weak argument to make in rebutting any criticism.

Hardly. If anyone's being 'snide' then it has to be those who are making wild, inaccurate claims that they cannot validate __ whilst not happening to mention that they've got a strong vested interest in another agency.

I don't see that you've identified a single 'factual error' so far __ let alone 'bucketloads'. They could probably sue you for libel for making such absurd accusations and, if that's the best you can come up with, you wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

The article isn't a PhD thesis on the entire history of microstock __ it's a brief, newsy interview with one of the guys at the foremost of the microstock industry. It's also written for a general financial-oriented readership, not microstock photographers, so naturally they have to give light explainations of the different types of license, etc. I think they did quite well.

This post now takes on the likes of the useless Canon vs. Nikon debates on another well known forum. The pro SS crowd vs. the pro IS crowd, along the lines of my daddy have a bigger, faster car than your daddy. All we now need is to involve some of the active Alamy forum members that despise microstock in all its forms to demonstrate to us with �facts� how microstock has killed the stock industry. 

I think it is time to lock this ridiculous discussion.

ironic , i just came from another topic and gostwyck was there too.
gost, are you and whatalife some Istock mafia always coming in here to cyberbully another who disagrees with IS?

oh, attaching wiki's cyberbullying..http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber-bullying

I see you're brand new here. This is called a 'forum' __ it's a place where folk come to discuss issues and sometimes they might have opposing views to each other. That's OK. Here's a Wki link for you being as you seem to like them so much;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_forum

If you'd actually this thread then you would be aware that I'm anything but an 'Istock mafia' __ as an indepedent contributor I'm quite the reverse in fact.

Have you any views regarding the topics of the threads on which you have added your irrelevant Wiki links?

It's interesting to me that when anyone dares to suggest that increasing prices might also correlate with decreasing sales that some people get so personally offended and feel the need to resort to attacks on the messenger. Are they afraid deep down that there might be some truth to this?

Or, back to the original topic, that some perceived "inaccuracies" in an article is a deliberate slight to iStock.

I'm also wondering how many people would be selling photos if it wasn't for all the small time designers who made microstock what it is today. Or is everyone also a contributor to Jupiter, Getty, and the like?

And one final point...without inexpensive imagery, designers could still design. They've been doing it long before microstock came along. But without designers, would there be enough people to sustain your sales?