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Author Topic: What is the Future for Microstock Agencies and contributors?  (Read 17413 times)

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« on: December 29, 2008, 13:00 »
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Today SS stats show:
5,502,534 royalty-free stock photos
34,510 new stock photos added this week
134,908 photographers

The trend is lower image acceptance rate at most of the Big 6.
Reviewers want Macro quality and Agencies are paying Micro prices. Micro are still accepting new contributors. SS images count is at 5.5 million, DT image count is at 4.5 million. More startup of small microstock companies.

What is the future for our business? What is the limit? Will we see a limit on contributors?

Please comment, I am interested in your thoughts!   
 


helix7

« Reply #1 on: December 29, 2008, 13:12 »
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I think the problem of the ever-growing number of contributors will sort itself out with the higher standards. Current contributors already see increasing difficulty getting images accepted. Imagine just starting out and getting that same onslaught of rejection. That will slow the growth numbers significantly.

For current contributors, though, the race to keep up with increasing standards will require more time and money invested in microstock. The golden days of microstock may very well be over, and I highly doubt that anyone starting out today could reach Yuri or Andres status. The massive growth of a few years ago is over. Sure people can still do very well in this business, but it will be tougher and require more time and effort to do what previously could have been done with much less.


« Reply #2 on: December 29, 2008, 13:51 »
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I think we have gone a full circle in a sense. Because RPI is dropping, most serious and talented microstock photographers are moving towards macro. That's because producing great stock images cost a lot and take time, and with low RPI it makes it an impossible equation.

I think soon the newcomers will also realize that microstock isn't a goldmine (anymore).

« Reply #3 on: December 29, 2008, 14:04 »
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I think the problem of the ever-growing number of contributors will sort itself out with the higher standards. Current contributors already see increasing difficulty getting images accepted. Imagine just starting out and getting that same onslaught of rejection. That will slow the growth numbers significantly.

For current contributors, though, the race to keep up with increasing standards will require more time and money invested in microstock. The golden days of microstock may very well be over, and I highly doubt that anyone starting out today could reach Yuri or Andres status. The massive growth of a few years ago is over. Sure people can still do very well in this business, but it will be tougher and require more time and effort to do what previously could have been done with much less.



 I agree with Helix.. I think that the micros are starting to raise the bar on quality, which will keep out many of the wanna be contributors, which is good.. The only problem I see is that with standards rising and prices staying low micro prices, it will be hard to make the quality and get a decent return on your time/money invested.. There will need to be an equilibrium or there will be problems, as there will be nowhere other than macro to see ruturns on images.. Micros want macro quality but it doesn't come cheap for the production to get that quality.. So it will be harder to get the returns and either micros will need to offset that or contributors will start to shy away from the micros and it will only be amatuers that don't do it for the money that will stay.. I think things will work themselves out though, Micros are businesses and I imagine that the Powers that be notice these things as well and will adjust accordingly.. If they don't they will eventually fade away..

« Reply #4 on: December 29, 2008, 14:10 »
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as tubed said... I think we well see bigger difference in quality (and production value) between micro and macro, and I think it's macrostock imagery that will set the bar higher. There is lots of old junk in macro agencies that isn't quite up to date, but the new stuff will be innovative and great in all ways.

« Reply #5 on: December 30, 2008, 09:06 »
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Thanks for all your opinions!

Will microstock have to raise their prices to entice better image quality?

CCK

« Reply #6 on: December 30, 2008, 09:29 »
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It is definitely getting more difficult to get photos accepted, and the photos that get accepted must compete against more other similar images than ever.

This month I've had a record of 11 rejections at DT, out of 60 uploaded. My first month of double figure rejections ever, and one of the worst ever in terms of acceptance percentage. Compare that to October 2 rejections out of 84 uploads.

I do not expectit to become any easier.

Tuilay

« Reply #7 on: December 30, 2008, 14:04 »
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With the world markets in turmoil and US in recession point,
money will be tight for sure.
To survive, the sites will have to be leaner and stricter. They will also be trying to gain a niche so they will attract a certain clientele.
More rejections for sure, so as to weed out the gamers from the serious contributor. There will be many casualties and tons of whiners and ego deflated
screaming hell ... and the forum like this one will see more crying foul even when their images are truly crap.

In the end, I think those who survive will have a good firmhold of the market,
with less contributors but more quality. And for those of us who are still in,
it will mean more sales because there less garbage to clog up the pages .

That's my optimistic view , though. Who knows? Your guess is as good as mine.
All in all, in short, no, I won't quit my day job...    nor will I waste my hard earned cash to buy one of those new models. A bigger better car is not going to
get me any more mileage, nor will a bigger better Canon.
I'd rather spend the grands on the beach in the tropics !

« Reply #8 on: December 30, 2008, 14:50 »
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From time to time there is a thread like this one, but nothing really changed. World economy crisis affects almost every business, so I think problems we have are temporary, unless economists find the way out of this sh*t. This thing is repeating every 60-80 years. I am sure microstock agencies won't wait the bankrupt just like that. They will find a solution for their business to stay alive, so they will find a solutions for their contributors. Of course, we can't expect everyone to survive, it's never been like that in nature. Strongest will survive, nothing strange in that. The question is how many of us will survive.  I don't see the problem in millions of images and insane competition of similar images. Agencies can, for example, simply decide they don't need images older than 2 years anymore and get rid of old images. I think agencies don't want to limit the number of contributors, why would some agency do that? They would just limit them selves for new fresh ideas this way and they don't want that for sure. 

« Reply #9 on: December 30, 2008, 16:40 »
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I think the future depends a lot on exactly who the buyers are. There are plenty of people who are happy to buy some digital asset at 50 cents a download but not $5, and they're not too fussy about quality. If this market segment is big enough, then when the major agencies raise quality and prices, newcomers will enter at a lower price point and with lower quality images. At the moment most of the sites seem to be trying to woo the big spenders, professional designers and the like, away from the macro sites.

WarrenPrice

« Reply #10 on: December 30, 2008, 17:14 »
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I'm looking at the graphs to the right and noticing a lot of green, up-pointing arrows.  Do those graphs not indicate rising sales?  Maybe I am misreading the chart?

« Reply #11 on: December 30, 2008, 17:29 »
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I'm looking at the graphs to the right and noticing a lot of green, up-pointing arrows.  Do those graphs not indicate rising sales?  Maybe I am misreading the chart?


You are looking at the results of the voluntary monthly poll. I don't place much faith in it because it's overly complicated and too arbitrary. By 'complicated' I mean there are five categories for each site. By 'arbitrary' I mean that a score of '10' might mean $100 per month for one person and $2000 for another. Click on the 'More Poll Results' link at the bottom of the list or here to see what I mean.

The RPI figures are probably a better reflection of earning potential, but there are problems with that poll, too.

PaulieWalnuts

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« Reply #12 on: December 30, 2008, 18:42 »
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I mostly agree with what others have mentioned.

But I think the industry is in a correction period that's going to take a few years to stabilize.

Photographers producing high-cost images are getting to the point where they can no longer afford to produce macro quality stuff at micro prices. So the supply of high-end images at micro prices will begin to dwindle. Or they'll get moved into higher cost premium collections in an attempt for micros to retain higher-end photographers otherwise they'll all head to macro.

Buyers will initially resist paying for "premium micro" but eventually they won't have a choice in a couple of years when the $1-$20 stuff is all similar low production cost isolations and snapshots. The correction will eventually leave a few different price tiers like macro, entry macro, premium micro, and micro.

Getty is already working on this with their Flickr cherrypicking, Istock tiered pricing, and Istock recruiting. Smart move. Unlike some of the other mid/macro companies who rejected micro contributors as evil, Getty was smart enough to know that the best way to get rid of competition is to recruit or buy them.

It's going to be interesting to see how the dust settles over the next few years.

RacePhoto

« Reply #13 on: December 30, 2008, 19:51 »
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The market is still sorting out. Some small agencies will disappear because it costs more to do business than they can make. Inexpensive images are attractive to buyers. With the world economy down, microstock should be getting a boost in sales, not be hurting like higher priced sources. That should continue to push sales up on the established sites. Unfortunatly that means subscriptions will become a bigger attraction.

If the agencies are actually getting tighter on similar images and quality, that just means a better quality product for their customers. I wouldn't be surprised if there's another adjustment in minimum image size coming along. Not that it matters much for websites and house publications, but it would mean improving the overall portfolio quality. The theories that agencies are dividing up their offerings would be nice. Better photos, higher resolution, pay more, lower Res. old P&S files, stay at base Micro prices.

Contrary to what some people have said about "many" photographers going macro, there are drops in the macro market and some of those people are recognizing that they can make money with volume on Microstock.  ;D Swinging door, some leaving some entering. When you see reports of suppliers (photo groups) coming into Microstock because they see the potential for profits, it means, there's nothing wrong around here, except stiffer professional competition.

Helix7 The massive growth of a few years ago is over... Says it all. I see this as nothing more than leveling off, after huge growth. Micro is here to stay as a way to sell photos. So is macro and so will mid-stock. All have their own advantages, customers, and niche to fill in the marketplace.

Keep in mind that most of the micro sites have the same photographers, with all the same images. When buyers figure this out, there's no reason to go anywhere but the top site, which offer more photos and better quality. If reviewer and standards are getting tougher, I welcome it.

New photographers? Jump in the pool, the water is still warm and there's a lot of room for everyone who can shoot something that sells. If you are going to do an inch by inch sequence of vegetables and fruit, being sliced and diced, or back lighted silhouettes of people walking down the street, shot with a motor drive, I hope the agencies put their foot down.

PaulieWalnuts

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« Reply #14 on: December 30, 2008, 22:21 »
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Contrary to what some people have said about "many" photographers going macro, there are drops in the macro market and some of those people are recognizing that they can make money with volume on Microstock.  ;D Swinging door, some leaving some entering. When you see reports of suppliers (photo groups) coming into Microstock because they see the potential for profits, it means, there's nothing wrong around here, except stiffer professional competition.


I don't think "many" people are going to macro. There are a small percentage of contributors that make up a large portion of overall sales that have realized their production costs are outweighing their profits so they're testing the macro waters. They will mostly likely submit high production cost stuff to macro and low production cost stuff to micro. Or they will reduce production costs or just stop doing high cost shoots. Either way, micro is going to start seeing less truly high-end stuff in the $1-$20 range over the next few years.

"Volume" most likely won't help the fact that they will continue to do more high cost shoots and increase image submission but will see diminishing returns. Pricing in micro must go up in order for both agencies and contributors to survive. Or if prices don't go up agencies will start making changes to contributors' agreements that reduce their share of the sales. Psst, Fotolila?

hali

« Reply #15 on: December 30, 2008, 23:05 »
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two points in agreement here...
1)sharply done ... re: polls.
the results  here only represent a portion , perharps a tiny portion  of the contributors, so it cannot be seen as the barometer of the market . only the response of those of us participating in this forum.

2) paulie walnuts...  re: division of contribution between high cost to macro
and low cost snapshots to micro.
it's becoming almost not worth the while to allot too much time to micro if all you get in return is a few pennies via subs.
sure, there will always be the volume contributors ftp-ing tons of images playing the numbers game, and celebrating each time they get a sub dl.
it 's good on their ego too. but for those who have an investment of equipment,
it won't be a carrot anymore, to see only subs in your downloads.

there will also be no doubt a certain reduction in partipaction where contributors look for another way to make money (eg. i personally, along with some of my local photographers are moving into gallery work and co-op to attract  buyers to our framed images via exhibition,etc..), and when this business co-op of ours picks up, we too will quit eventually find micro unattractive, naturally.

« Reply #16 on: December 31, 2008, 00:06 »
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I wonder too if more agencies will be pushing the exclusive envelope as it has been correctly noted that there are literally millions of images out there with many of these images having been submitted to more than one site.  Again, only top sites could pull it off since the sales must remain in order for a contributer to trust a sole MS site with their port.
Some smaller MS sites I see are trying the exclusive route but a contributor will only stick around so long if there's no sales.


DanP68

« Reply #17 on: December 31, 2008, 00:10 »
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Shutterdrop's initial post gets straight to the point:  Agencies now demand macro quality, but offer only micro prices.  The temptation for many submitters to abandon microstock for macro will increase if current trends continue.

If your employer told you that you would now have to work twice as hard, but for less pay due to a massive increase in employees, what would your reaction be?  

First off, I've not seen a single agency make an honest attempt to purge their database of poor images.  We all know agencies accepted virtually anything when they first started to grow their image count, and those images still bog down search.  Rather than raising criteria to macro standards, it would seem far more reasonable to purge non-performing, poor images from the existing database.  Addition by subtraction.  It's a win-win, as the agency will have a higher quality portfolio and more sales due to a lack of poor images showing up in search.  The contributors will see be rewarded due to increased portfolio exposure.

Secondly, if agencies are intent on raising the bar to macro standards, then they should also be pushing for higher prices.  That is not likely to fly in the current economic environment.  At least iStock seems to have a plan in place, and Dreamstime's Levels program is working smoothly too.

« Reply #18 on: December 31, 2008, 06:00 »
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It's amazing when you think about it - the amount of new contributors that come on to agencies each day.
I feel it just can't continue like this, and no doubt about it, it does have an effect on each of us that are already there.

I suppose agencies look at it as a way of getting fresh material, from new contributors that will perhaps have a new take on a specific subject.
But as mentioned above, on a few threads, there is plenty of sub standard work getting through which is clogging up the search pages.

If Micro is trimmed down ( number of contributors) and acceptance rates get higher it will be better for us all in the end.
That is not to say that I discourage new contributors or resent them. If their work is good enough, they will deserve to be there and good luck to them!

It's really up to the agencies - they can make it good for themselves and for us!

Tuilay

« Reply #19 on: December 31, 2008, 10:52 »
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and the improvement of the "search" function for some sites would help too.
lately, i checked on one of my associates work, her new image accepted last week.
guess what? can't find it... using the most obvious keywords.
instead, all i see are pages of single contributors clogging up the first 10 pages
with images that do not even feature the relevant keywords.
then on page 15, or so, aha! her images at last.

it's a mean unjust situation that a site would allow such an abuse of flooding one contributor's images in preference to others who do not have perharps tons of irrelevant images.

would a buyer notice that and get tired of looking?
sure, wouldn't you?  and the one who does no spamming suffers.
where's the justification in all this?


« Reply #20 on: December 31, 2008, 11:51 »
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First off, I've not seen a single agency make an honest attempt to purge their database of poor images.  We all know agencies accepted virtually anything when they first started to grow their image count, and those images still bog down search.  Rather than raising criteria to macro standards, it would seem far more reasonable to purge non-performing, poor images from the existing database.  Addition by subtraction.  It's a win-win, as the agency will have a higher quality portfolio and more sales due to a lack of poor images showing up in search.  The contributors will see be rewarded due to increased portfolio exposure.

I was wondering if you can't reach the same result by simply tweaing the search engine to penalize, say, images older than two years with less than X sales/views (just making an example for the sake of argument). It would achieve the same effect you are describing, give better search results to the buyer and still let the agency boast about numbers. At the end of the day an image in the database that never shows up in broad searches costs only in terms of storage for the agency.

PaulieWalnuts

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« Reply #21 on: December 31, 2008, 13:05 »
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First off, I've not seen a single agency make an honest attempt to purge their database of poor images.  We all know agencies accepted virtually anything when they first started to grow their image count, and those images still bog down search.  Rather than raising criteria to macro standards, it would seem far more reasonable to purge non-performing, poor images from the existing database.  Addition by subtraction.  It's a win-win, as the agency will have a higher quality portfolio and more sales due to a lack of poor images showing up in search.  The contributors will see be rewarded due to increased portfolio exposure.


It looks like Istock is planning to have a more serious go of this starting sometime in Q1. This was kind of the idea behind the dollar bin but it was for exclusives and mostly voluntary. Soon they're supposed to have a high, standard, and low pricing strcuture where stuff that isn't selling by any contributor gets selected by IS employees to go into the low price tier. I would imagine stuff that isn't selling in the low tier gets deactivated.

« Reply #22 on: December 31, 2008, 14:41 »
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and the improvement of the "search" function for some sites would help too.
lately, i checked on one of my associates work, her new image accepted last week.
guess what? can't find it... using the most obvious keywords.
instead, all i see are pages of single contributors clogging up the first 10 pages
with images that do not even feature the relevant keywords.
then on page 15, or so, aha! her images at last.

it's a mean unjust situation that a site would allow such an abuse of flooding one contributor's images in preference to others who do not have perharps tons of irrelevant images.


would a buyer notice that and get tired of looking?
sure, wouldn't you?  and the one who does no spamming suffers.
where's the justification in all this?


Not a very nice observation. I feel it should be all down to the image and not the artist.
Obviously some reason for it!

« Reply #23 on: December 31, 2008, 19:22 »
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I think the future depends a lot on exactly who the buyers are. There are plenty of people who are happy to buy some digital asset at 50 cents a download but not $5, and they're not too fussy about quality. If this market segment is big enough, then when the major agencies raise quality and prices, newcomers will enter at a lower price point and with lower quality images. At the moment most of the sites seem to be trying to woo the big spenders, professional designers and the like, away from the macro sites.
It is natural for us to think about the future of microstock in terms of suppliers, because we are suppliers. However, I think Averil has it right. The future of microstock will  be determined by the market, not the suppliers. Many posters have noted the increase in the number of suppliers, but is that increase greater than or less than the increase in buyers? And, as Averil, wonders, who are those buyers? What do they want and how much will they be willing to pay for it?

Answer those questions and you will know the future of microstock. Unfortunately, the data is not made public.

« Reply #24 on: January 01, 2009, 00:39 »
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I think the future depends a lot on exactly who the buyers are. There are plenty of people who are happy to buy some digital asset at 50 cents a download but not $5, and they're not too fussy about quality. If this market segment is big enough, then when the major agencies raise quality and prices, newcomers will enter at a lower price point and with lower quality images. At the moment most of the sites seem to be trying to woo the big spenders, professional designers and the like, away from the macro sites.
It is natural for us to think about the future of microstock in terms of suppliers, because we are suppliers. However, I think Averil has it right. The future of microstock will  be determined by the market, not the suppliers. Many posters have noted the increase in the number of suppliers, but is that increase greater than or less than the increase in buyers? And, as Averil, wonders, who are those buyers? What do they want and how much will they be willing to pay for it?

Answer those questions and you will know the future of microstock. Unfortunately, the data is not made public.

As a buyer I would say IMHO that Averil and MichaelDB have it exactly right - I believe the low prices are here to stay - for the suppliers it will be all about volume - micro has always been about volume ... is this not the argument that microstock photographers made every time a macro shooter would complain about the low micro prices? How many times have we seen in the past a micro photographer say "I would rather my photo sell 500 times in a year on micro than once every 2 years on macro"? Because of the low costs to entry in this market, there will always be new suppliers ... the bigger question is will there emerge a middle market? Is getty going to lower its macro and raise its micro to create this middle tier? My guess is yes - but it's a risk because micro is not going to disappear and the majority of buyers in micro now will stay there ... companies set yearly budgets and after several years of low image budgeting I find it unlikely that they will be able to argue to their financial directors that they need higher artwork budgets - not at a time when deflation is setting in and belts are tightening .... it's a cycle - today's best micro shooters can join the "new mid-level gettystock" and sell their image at $25 a pop once a month - but their shoes will be rapidly filled (and the micro shooters will rapidly copy their work style) by the next new talented amateur with a good eye who realises that she/he can earn a few bucks on the side and have fun doing it ... that was how micro was born and that is why micro (and micro prices) is here to stay ... this argument about prices being too low has been going on since micro was born ... the macro pros (feeling threatened, and rightfully so) complained that their business was being hurt and that prices were not reflective of the proper value of their work - now many of the micro shooters are arguing the same thing and the shoe is on the other foot - the problem is that the value of work is determined not by the seller but rather by the buyer ... so I would argue that RF macro is largely dying a not so slow death (there will always be a place for rights managed) - is a midlevel market opening up? perhaps - getty and istock are certainly going to try and see .... but micro, of all of them, is now the strongest and will continue to be ... in the longer term, when a commodity/product/service has infinite supply, its price gets driven downward and not upward ... Happy 2009 everyone!!


 

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