Two predictions...

1.  People will continue to buy the images they value, as long as the prices are right.  Some people who focus on subjects that a hobbyist can capture almost as well with snapshots will face stiffer competition from the free sites, but those creating unique content will continue to find demand for their art, and people willing to pay because this content won't be available for free.

2.  I agree that the means for buying and selling these images will continue to evolve.  Tomorrow's successful microstock artists will be the ones who are first to see these changes coming and move their ports to where tomorrow's buyers will be.

The things I.M.H.O. that are lacking are correctly sized images for the web, with a pay-per-download service at the point of delivery, visiting a website to get an image should not be the only option, anything I need for my WordPress blog I can get via a plug-in, these services should be falling over to provide a pay per download plug-in for all types of applications.

The above is a great idea!  It makes a lot of sense that getting pictures in front of people on sites they may want to use them for and allowing sales from within the sites, or the design programs, or whatever would be a great way to make additional sales. 

I think this may be what some of the sites have in mind with all their "partners" and "affiliates". 

I know there are lots of images bundled for free with Microsoft Office, for example.  It would be much better if people only had the thumbnails and could pay to use the images through the software.  A much larger selection could be available to the buyer that way, and of course the contributor would be compensated.

If this does develop, I would hope it is pursued by the current sites, rather than having to upload yet another place. 

With all the flux and constant changes and new offerings going on with most sites, it seems like Shutterstock is holding quietly steady.  No major shifts or changes going on there recently, price increases, commission decreases, major site overhauls, etc, or am I mistaken?  My earnings there have never dipped drastically, only gone up very slowly but very steadily with my very slow and steady portfolio growth over 3 years.
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Stability is a good thing, and as you point out the growth has reached a peak and levelled, this is where I think some sites will start to panic, as their business plan has a forecast of growth values that they cannot reach, this will make any venture capitalist partners re-consider the next investment leg and maybe cut their losses, this is what happened at PhotoShelter with their collection.

Other sites under pressure will look at the revenue stream and may cut commission and adjust sales prices trying to grab a bit more of the existing market, instead of looking at the delivery of the assets, there are millions of other widgets and plug-in's, the stocksite's growth was so good they missed this web and blogging market, now they are looking at it as another avenue of growth, but they need to sort out delivery, this could be as simple as adding affiliate, ecommerce and Pay-per-Download to the API via and the viral marketing Could happen without much effort on their part.

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I know there are lots of images bundled for free with Microsoft Office, for example.  It would be much better if people only had the thumbnails and could pay to use the images through the software.  A much larger selection could be available to the buyer that way, and of course the contributor would be compensated.

If this does develop, I would hope it is pursued by the current sites, rather than having to upload yet another place.

I agree that the current sites need to think about this and partner with the website and software producers, I did think about this type of service and look at how it could work, to set it up from new has a very large costs, to work as a partner with the existing API's is not an option as the buyer has to visit the website to register,  but an existing websites could provide an API and service from existing images, this would require a new or changed API, a plug-in for contributors own websites, 'WordPress' and 'Live Writer' to start off.

It would only require a small sidebar search widget about 200 x 500 which showed a search box and scrolling thumbnails, delivery would be images sized and priced for the web 200, 400, 600px width maximum, panoramas 800px, headers 900px, small Icons for add to cart and checkout, on checkout a small asp, flash or php pop-up insead of a web page, as payments would be through PayPal verified accounts (Instant Payment Notification) no need to register at the website, but the need for an email address and password for the sale, then the choice for instant download of a zip file with the images and license or an email sent with a 5 day expiring link, not that I have really though about this.    

If things took off then banners and header graphics could be included later, as a lot of images have copyspace which is not required, a site could even allow contributors to crop and upload prepared medium resolution web images just for this collection, this would give an outlet for some rejected images that may have a section that looks great at smaller cropped sizes but does not quite cut it overall as a whole image, one full image may have the potential to crop into several usable web images, portrait, square, panorama and header graphic.


David      

In the UK we have a TV program called Dragons Den where entrepreneurs pitch for investment from millionaires, one pitch recently was for seamless audio track merging software, and the entrepreneur said they were after 1% of the iTunes market, one of the dragons said they would be lucky to take 0.001% of an existing established market, another said they would be better licensing the software to iTunes, the entrepreneur said they would sell downloads through the website, but a few months on they have signed a deal to license through iTunes.

The moral of this is simple, this is no longer a new and growing market, and new offering thinking they will steal a share of the existing market from established sites are just wrong, the only new services that will survive will be niche or offer a new service that is not available through the established websites.       

David 

Yes I saw this. I was quite surprised to see the market they achieved 'success' in and the market share they had got, not to mention the revenue. A bit of lateral thinking and some marketing $$ can go a long way. It may not necessarily been the agencies that need to look around, individual artists need to get off their arse, stop moaning about this and that, and find the new markets for their assets themselves.

Thanks for the reminder, I do remember now they first went after iTunes with no luck, but by sheer luck found a new market supplying licenced tracks to Gym and fitness instructors, who can visit the website select the tracks and download a compiled fully licensed audio track to use, but it still remains the same analysis for any new offerings, they will not break into the existing markets and have to create a new market for their products.

David