Not sure about more on this but it was a joke for a few years, and then someone in NY registered the name. I did the faux whine about how I wanted that site and now it was too late.

Some people here took off on that and said, "well you should have registered it." 
Then I got an email from the lady who had registered it for an art project and she had decided on some other direction. We negotiated and I took over the site name.

So that's how humor turns into reality. Creation Date: 28-may-2011 (which by the way is before some of the people who object sternly to the name had heard of Microstock and before one of them owned a camera.) But I'm the evil troll who did this just to upset people.

OK No I didn't!

I did it for a joke. I did it to mock some of the CrapStock that people produce and try to sell. I did it to protest the 20,000 sliced vegetable photos, isolated on white, business handshake, girl with a headset, and the copies of every popular image, that some lemmings create in an effort to cash in on someone else's creative success.  And I did it with the intention of making a site with what I considered good images, that agencies had rejected. In fact it was going to be 100% rejected images, to prove a point.

But you don't want to know the rest of the story. The threats, the ignores, the accusations and criticism from some people with no sense of humor and who want to tell others how to run their lives. And what I should call my own website?

There will never be a real site, it's a Mock Site! I hope that explains it for anyone else who was terribly offended by me making fun of myself and the industry garbage that some sites and some people try to pass off as stock. I could add the Instagram fad, but I'm hoping that, like 3D TV, it will run it's course naturally and head back into the shadows. 

Now back on topic. I don't think that stockphoto.com has the value it might have, five years ago. All the people seem to think the name stock and photo are needed to make yourself noticed. I think rather, it's how to get buried in the weeds with all the other sites with similar names. Loss of identity anyone?

How does istock get away with "i" anything when Apple seems to own that? Maybe it's overlooked or because it's been around since before the Apple "i" everything phase?

And phone number? I've had one of them, since 1972, it ends 2277 which is? (what would you have thought?) CARS    Home phone, private line at work and eventually ported to my cell phone. True,  easy phone numbers aren't what they once were either. We all carry phone books in our devices and don't need to remember easy numbers. People who I've know for 40 years have said what's your cell phone number and I say, same as it's always been, my home number. And if they don't have it in their phone, they don't remember?

What did Google mean, before Google.com? Hardly anyone but math people and science types had heard of a google or googleplex. What was a Yahoo? Twitter? WiKi? The Amazon is a natural place not a marketplace. eBay? But ask anyone and they know what these are. What the heck is a Zazzle or a Etsy? Maybe not giant killers, but well known and accepted.

Type in "Stock Photo Downloads" (BING) and what do you get? Dreamstime #1.

The name doesn't make the place, the content and public recognition makes the name! Call your next site BluePossum and it will be more memorable than all the stock or photo names in the world.

Quote from: tickstock on December 10, 2013, 16:13

...
Right now I've got my money on crapstock.com over stockphotos .com in the next few years....

That domain's already taken - a photographer here with a sense of humor is setting up a site on it as we speak

Hi everyone,

I'm Jon and I'm the one that bought the 'Stockphoto.com' domain via the Flippa marketplace.

Appreciate the kind comments but I also acknowledge all questions (and doubts). All concerns raised are reasonable and valid - I would have done the same.

I am the first to admit that you would have to be at least a little bit mad to pay that much money for a mere domain name. But I can assure you that the Flippa article was written to provide a tongue-in-cheek overview and as such, it does gloss over many details of my plan for the business - a long-term plan.

However, I'm not a stock photographer and so an important part of my day-to-day routine is to make sure I stay as up-to-date as I can on what works/doesn't work for you, via industry blogs and forums such as Tyler's here.

I surmise that there are two main avenues for the the stock photographer to market his/her portfolio. Firstly through marketplaces like SS, iStock, Stocksy etc. And the second, directly via a personal site. Both have their own strengths and weaknesses (documented extensively in this forum).

It is my hope that Stockphoto.com bridges the gap a little between the perceived lack of control experienced at the established marketplaces (commission rates, submissions etc), and the problem of attracting profitable amounts of targeted traffic at the personal website end of the spectrum.

Stockphoto.com's sole asset is its ability to consistently attract targeted web traffic. I've owned the domain for a year now and unless Google Analytics is lying to me, I know this to be a fact. With a test portfolio of 57,000 images also marketed at established marketplaces, priced at the same levels as that at those marketplaces, I have been able to validate that we are indeed able to attract visitors as well as getting them to buy (for a given level of quality and price). I even have a little profit left over after paying commissions, webhosting and all other expenses in running the business.

So I'm now slowly kicking on with growing the small amount of inventory I have.

I absolutely agree with the following sentiments:
- it's the ugliest website this side of the www
- it's so clunky (too many steps from search to download)
- it's got zero functionality like lightboxes etc
- this guy is not a stock photographer and lacks the perspective and understanding of one
- it's only got one contributor (...for the moment)

I'm working on it It's, still, practically a test site.

Again, thanks to Tyler for allowing me to be a member of this community (I've been happily lurking here for almost a year now). I'm very pleased to be here and look forward to learning the ropes from all of you.

Cheers,
Jon