Quote from: massman on September 23, 2009, 14:40

Quote from: designalldone on September 23, 2009, 14:01
Wow, with all these announcements, this is a great time to be an independent microstocker.

Just out of interest (having never signed up to bigstock), do they have a tie-in period for contributors images?

Yes, 90 days.

Thanks for that, shame they have a tie-in (that was the only reason I left dreamstime).
Regardless, it will still be very interesting to see if people on BigStock report increasing sales over the next few months.

How can a reduction in competition be good for contributors?  This shakeout is part of the commoditization of stock imagery. When everyone is selling the exact same products in shops essentlially next door to each other, there is nothing left to compete on but price, and soon all the margin is gone.

Evenntually every photo is available on every site.  For 10 cents.

Tell me why I'm wrong.

Quote from: rmarinello on September 23, 2009, 15:32
Hi all,
If they will invest in marketing and infrastructure, it could be good for BigStock's contributors... I suggest them to invest also in a restyled home page ;-)
Just an Alexa Rank joke:
istock + stockxpert = 342 + 6239 = 6581
shutter + bigstock = 1208 + 5347 = 6555
Cheers,
     roberto

What is wrong with BSPs home page? I always thought it one of the best and most informative of all the sites.

-Larry

It would be nice to simplify and modernize BigStock's look. Too many clicks to get where you have to go now.

Quote from: stockastic on September 23, 2009, 15:53
How can a reduction in competition be good for contributors? This shakeout is part of the  of stock imagery. When everyone is selling the exact same products in shops essentially next door to each other, there is nothing left to compete on but price, and soon all the margin is gone.

Eventually every photo is available on every site. For 10 cents.

Tell me why I'm wrong.

Competition results in LOWER prices. The LACK of competition results in higher prices!

Example: One gas station in a one hundred mile stretch of highway. = $6.00 per gallon
add 50 more gas stations to the same highway = $3.50 per gallon.

I wish about 20 RF sites would dry up and fade away now. Start on the list at the right of this page work your way up from the bottom.

-Larry

Quote from: Lcjtripod on September 23, 2009, 15:55
What is wrong with BSPs home page? I always thought it one of the best and most informative of all the sites.

-Larry

To me it looks cluttered, ugly and is not particularly intuitive. The sort-order options are simply bizarre too, if a buyer gets that far which I suspect most don't.

Quote from: disorderly on September 23, 2009, 15:29
I'm optimistic that this will work in our favor.  Both agencies have treated me well, with few if any moments of what? decision making.  The only problem with BigStock is the revenue it generates; a serious marketing effort could make all the difference.  If they see synergy, I'm happy to sit back and watch them, ummmm, synergies.

I would hold the 'yippee's' for a while, for the existing BigStock contributors the flood of new artists migrating from SS will only dilute the revenue far greater than any new marketing can generate 'new sales', as there are limited new markets this move could be just a way to use the SS brand to try to attract Customers from the other 'Credits' agencies existing markets, costs can be reduced to increase profits by bringing both server farms, inspection and administration to SS, when companies are aquired it is not often that the suppliers benefit from the deal.

This move will consolidate SS in the market but will not really benefit the existing BigStock artists that have helped to build the brand, IS and SS both grew thier models as pioneeers in microstock the growth has now peaked and consolidation by aqusition is the new direction.

David (sorry to pee on the fire)

What I estimate will have the most impact to photographers will be whether the images from Bigstockphoto will be integrated into Shutterstock's database for subscription sales and whether or not Shuttterstock's images will be offered for credit sales using BigStock's model ....

-Mark

Quote from: Lcjtripod on September 23, 2009, 15:55

What is wrong with BSPs home page? I always thought it one of the best and most informative of all the sites.

-Larry

Hi Larry, it's just my opinion of course... too full, too many links and images.
  Cheers
        -roberto

With 931 images on SS and 1,030 on BigStock, I'm curious to see how this shakes out. I'd REALLY like to see more credit sales on SS! I guess we'll have to wait and see...

Quote from: Lcjtripod on September 23, 2009, 15:55
What is wrong with BSPs home page? I always thought it one of the best and most informative of all the sites.
-Larry

Hi larry,
I blogged recently about Microstock and Image Diversity and the BigStock search engine was the 'worst bar stock expert' for returning relevent images, improvements in this area could generate much better sales, so it is not all bad!

David

It's at least slightly ironic that the company that started the dreaded subscription-based sales model buys the only "Big 6" site without subs.  That might very well mean that BigStock will continue to be the only "Big 6" without subs, as what would be the point for SS to add subs to a second site?

But I agree with those who say, it's much too early to decide what this will really mean for us. Come back in a year, and we'll all know. 

Quote from: Lcjtripod on September 23, 2009, 16:02

Example: One gas station in a one hundred mile stretch of highway. = $6.00 per gallon
add 50 more gas stations to the same highway = $3.50 per gallon.

I wish about 20 RF sites would dry up and fade away now. Start on the list at the right of this page work your way up from the bottom.

-Larry

Then instead of making $10 per hour working for a gas station, they offer you $2.50 and of course welcome you to go elsewhere if you don't like it.

I like this move, as long as the don't tinker a whole lot this could be a win win for all parties.

Oh boy, hope BigStock is hiring some new reviewers to deal with the deluge of migrating SS submitters.

The news is indeed big but I simply can't understand why SS has done that.

With both sites being non-exclusive I don't expect BigStock to add big (if any) value to SS collection.

Speaking about credit-based sales I can't believe that buying an existing established business and integrating it with the SS is any cheaper than to design a piece of interface at SS.

Customer base? But it must be several times smaller in BSB than what SS has...

So what's the catch?

So they did not buy Cutcaster, Crestock or FeaturePics which would be much cheaper than one of big 6. I guess it's not about technology cause BigStock got one of the worse sites they should take CS for that. It's probably not about customers cause they already got more than mentioned sites combined. This leaves with eliminating competition option. BigStock become store front for SS. One thing left is, maybe they want to move it up to premium area so they can have a playground for competing with Getty without harming their core business.

Quote from: MikLav on September 23, 2009, 17:57
The news is indeed big but I simply can't understand why SS has done that.

With both sites being non-exclusive I don't expect BigStock to add big (if any) value to SS collection.

Speaking about credit-based sales I can't believe that buying an existing established business and integrating it with the SS is any cheaper than to design a piece of interface at SS.

Customer base? But it must be several times smaller in BSB than what SS has...

So what's the catch?

I was going to point out that BigStock already has a decent customer base __ but then, after a quick check of the numbers, I've realised that I actually make 2-3x more per month from OD sales at SS than I do from BigStock. If the OD sales at SS were a seperate agency then they'd already be more than twice the size of BigStock.

What I think it happening is that sites are consolidating to increase their margins and revenues.  Its part of an industry that starts to mature to find an equilibrium thats worth it.  I wouldn't be surprised if 4 main big sites compete with each other and try to differentiate their product offerings to be able to charge a higher price.  Wait and see I guess, but its not shocking at all that this has happened.  It would be interesting to see if DT and FT woudl consider a merge to fight off the SS and IS market eating machine

And to think that I was just about to cancel my account with BigStock after the 90 day wait because the sales were so marginal.  Now instead I'll make a point of uploading there again and see what happens.Just for fun, they could go with a name amalgamation and have something like "Big Shutterstock Photo" just like Istock and Stockxpert could go with "IstockXpert".

PLEASE-O-PLEASE import Big Stock Photos upload system into Shutterstocks site!!! Shutterstock uploading is so arcane compared to all the other agencies.

no the latest version of BigStock upload is really horrible.
SS system isn't perfect but is much more time efficient.

maybe this will solve tax for users from non treaty counties 

Hopefully they redesign that god awful website. 

Quote from: cardmaverick on September 23, 2009, 18:53
PLEASE-O-PLEASE import Big Stock Photos upload system into Shutterstocks site!!! Shutterstock uploading is so arcane compared to all the other agencies.

You are joking __ right?