my vote goes to crestock

With John's attitude and drive to success, I really believe that Cutcaster is here to stay. It's great to hear that it is also already getting some traction with potential customers and agencies.

Best wishes for success!

Let�s argue this objectively. What can a new agency possibly offer a customer that they cannot find at one of the big 6 sites? I often hear the comment that they must spend more money on marketing. �Marketing� - that magic word that can cure everything. What can a new agency advertise in a marketing campaign? �Come to us. We offer you a FRACTION of the images that you can find on all the major sites at the same or higher price point�. 

What an agency needs to succeed are long term, regular, bulk buyers. Unfortunately these buyers are all INFORMED buyers who are not going to fall for these new agencies since they know a new agency can offer them nothing. In this regard the well established agencies are now just too far ahead in terms of contents and reputation and informed buyers will always use one of the more established agencies. At best a new agency may attract an occasional buyer who is not well informed and who may accidentally stumble open the site. These types of buyers are not enough to ensure their long term success.

Unless a new site can come up with something really radically unique FOR THE BUYER, in combination with a fair deal to the photographers, they don�t stand a chance to make it in this industry. Sorry to say but an easy upload system and a good attitude are not enough to ensure success. Of all the new startup sites I would say that Vivozoom appears to be the only new site that maybe onto something new to buyers - warranting that the buyer won't get sued. This is based on a requirement of many potential buyers as established through actual marketing research. Only time will tell if this strategy will be enough to attract bulk buyers.

John has also mentioned that they have enough money to run for a year at least, so that gives some security too...

I am not sure how new logo will help sales. If they said one of the big thing we are doing is increasing our marketing budget I would be happier.

I agree with "Louoates" although I feel that the black gives a classy look to the site it makes my eyes bleed after a while! Maybe I would add faster transfer of files from the ftp folder (like stockexpert) to the list

Quote from: stormchaser on November 12, 2008, 00:57

With recent economic stress and recent closure of PhotoShelter and demise of Dig Railroad...

Kind of funny how there's an ad for DRR in the November issue of Communication Arts, basically mocking microstock. The sub-headline reads, "Not microstock - standout stock. Find it at DRR.NET"

Wait, who just shut down? And who is still up and running?

 

The irony of that is both sad and funny at the same time. But also kind of pathetic. I don;t know how the deadline dates for pulls in in CA magazine, but when I used to work in industrial advertising, I could pull an ad sometimes as little as 30 days before shelf date, sometimes even less time with a smaller circulation. As an advertiser though, your still liable to honor the insertion contract whether the ad runs or not, so maybe they just said . with it. Even so, the professionals involved with it should be embarrassed. Looks like the rug was pulled out from under very quickly.

I forgot to mention that I hate that muddy mustard color on the "Most" logo. Throw a dart on the color wheel and you'll find a better color to use.

ah yes, but if you play darts, you know there's only two colours to choose 

Viva la revolucion!!  Maybe not a revolution, but I have started to put files up on DT and FT exclusively since the new IS best match.  I would never have considered that before a few months ago but things and Istock is becoming less and less important to me.

I remember reading something that went "Pride goes before the fall".  Did that mean IS is in their Autimn or they would fall flat on their but ome day? 

With Getty picking up Jupiter it does leave me wondering how StockXpert will fit into the grand scheme after all is said and done. If they end up a casualty of mergers then who would be the next in line to fill out the "Big 6"?

generally I think that the next one to fail is the one that gives me a high percentage of rejections on my latest batch of images.    of course when the following batch goes through with few rejections they get reallocated to the site that is going places