What happened to iStock started the day the changed the royalty system.  The other agencies just took advantage of Getty/iStock bad decisions.

Change was coming anyhow. The main issue today is over-supply. The availability of thing determines it's price.  Plus the small business which once used microstock use Facebook today instead of having a website.

The smaller curated sites can, of course, offer a much better experience. They have lovely content presented in a way which makes it accessible. But that isn't microstock.

Kelly Thompson is a good guy who worked his ... off to move istock forward and earned us all a lot of money before getty brought istock down.

He made some stupid comments on the forums, yes, but to me he is one of the best istock had.

So this is good news.

Please give me a proper upload process with automatic downsizing and watermarks. I really would like to try 500pix.

Hi Jasmin,

This is already available on 500px. There are check boxes for to put watermark and also another for to be put on sale in Prime. I upload all images in bulk(in high resolution) and all is done automatically on the site after that.

Do they have a real watermark, or is it still the tiny thing?

Quote from: Deyan Georgiev on November 21, 2015, 02:17

I upload all images in bulk(in high resolution) and all is done automatically on the site after that.

   Is "Marketplace" the same as "Prime"? 

Originally the marketplace was called Prime. Then 500px created two collections in their shop, the core and prime collection, and changed the name of the shop to Marketplace to avoid ambiguity. But many user still call the shop "Prime", and it is possible that Prime is still used at some place on the website instead of Marketplace.

Things move fast at 500px marketplace, they are still searching the best formula, experimenting, it seems, and it is not always easy to follow. For the moment, it is always for the best to my opinion and I have confidence in them. I hope this will not change as they try to develop the marketplace.

Quote from: Deyan Georgiev on November 21, 2015, 02:17

I upload all images in bulk(in high resolution) and all is done automatically on the site after that.

How on earth do you manage a bulk upload??   

I just tried my first 20 images and I have to
(1) first manually remove keywords over 30  (one by one!)
(2) manually check the boxes for watermark and marketplace.   Is "Marketplace" the same as "Prime"? 
I can't call that "automatically" .... 

Click on "Upload", then "Browse photos", then select all photos you have and wait to be uploaded. Then select all photos with the mouse(click and hold and pulling the mouse to to cover all photos). When you have all photos selected you can just with one click to select to be watermarked and to go on sale in Prime. On the same way you can select categories to group of images.

My English is not so good, sorry

Do they have a real watermark, or is it still the tiny thing?

They have not addressed the Watermark problem yet.

It is worth to waste the time uploading to 500px? Sales, as far as I know, are an exceptional event, with or without mr Thompson

I was quite happy with 500pix. I guess the honeymoon is over now.
No uploading anymore..

Quote from: jjneff on November 19, 2015, 20:47

...In all honesty I am not sure it's all his fault at iStock. Getty likes to blame him but my guess is they tied his hands.

It absolutely isn't all Kelly Thompson's fault - there's lots of blame to go around. However,...

He handled the initial 2010 cash grab badly, and then when it blew up in the contributor community he tried to smooth it over and was so inept at that and clueless as to what he was dealing with that he made it much worse instead of better. Jonathan Klein's scorched earth policies and greed caught up with him in the end, but Kelly was just so out of his depth it wasn't funny. Prior to that, during 2009 when the site was in one of its many stages of being broken because they'd tried to "improve" it, he seemed completely out of touch with what a mess things were (this from a Q&A at the iStockalypse in Calgary). I don't know what he was supposed to be good at - other than being Bruce Livingstone's friend I don't know why he was there

i don't know about Kelly. but i know that Bruce Livingstone was the one who made all the money when he sold istock. wiki : 2006, Livingstone sold iStockphoto to Getty Images for $50 million
whether Kelly was his mouthpiece or getty's whipping boy, it seems many are not forgiving about Kelly.
if Kelly was BL's friend, why did Kelly not leave with BL??? anyway,
still, it's ironic how no one said the same thing about Livingstone and his new dream agency 

if you were ever in a position where you were paid to be the whipping boy (eg. management to fire
the employees,etc) you will know that it is not your buddy the upper management
who is the one who fired you in the lower management. it is the owner or the people
who kept most of the money , and never did any of the dirty work.

my only thing i don't like about 500 is whether they want to be a social-media with thumbs up and
great work, come visit me  ppl over there.
once they decide they want to be another ss of the old fame, then i will take them seriously,
Kelly or not.

OMG, please fire Kelly before it is too late.
Maybe he is not the only one responsible of iStock's decline but he was an active actor.
He doesn't understand micro/macro stock business model, or at least contributors' part of it. He thinks that all contributors are happy to invest thousands in equipments and shots and getting nothing in return.

so you really believe that everything is did was Kelly's idea???
Kelly was just a chess piece in the whole game...
he never got a share of the profit; just a choice between saying what the owner wants him to say
or a pink slip.
when he moves to 500, he probably took the pink slip after preparing his departure.

Edited.

Quote from: etudiante_rapide on November 21, 2015, 18:12

Quote from: rene on November 21, 2015, 17:56

OMG, please fire Kelly before it is too late.
Maybe he is not the only one responsible of iStock's decline but he was an active actor.
He doesn't understand micro/macro stock business model, or at least contributors' part of it. He thinks that all contributors are happy to invest thousands in equipments and shots and getting nothing in return.

so you really believe that everything is did was Kelly's idea???
Kelly was just a chess piece in the whole game...

I don't think it was his idea but it was a bad idea and it was his job to say it.
He was not a simple employee but the iStock's CEO. I am sure that his former boss (Klein) today is regretting the stupid idea and Kelly's 'obedience'.

And I am sure that 'Money will not make you happy' communication was Mr Thompson's personal touch - for me it's enough to doubt in his capacity to make 500px successful.

ok, as i said i don't know who he is, but as you informed me, he was not just management
but CEO. that changes everything.. yes, then, he wasn't just "following orders"...
he made them.

now, my decision with 500 changes too with that insight from you. i will not bother joining them even  if 500 decides to be an agency rather than just another fb. 

thx rene for clarifying . saves me the trouble to prepare for 500
another one bites the dust !!!