Isn't it much harder for people with big portfolios to maintain sales growth each year?  I am sure that applies equally to macro, I remember them mentioning it with alamy.  There are lots of reasons I can think of why that would be the case.  It gets harder to come up with original ideas when you have a big portfolio, motivation can fall when you are already earning a decent amount, some people get bored and move on to do other work.  Buyers aren't going to go through all the images in a big portfolio.  People copy the highest selling images, diluting their earnings.  How do you take out all the other possibilities when you are just looking at the top 5% of portfolios?  There are also the upload limits with istock that hold back earnings for non-exclusives.

As to calculating from public data, I can be done -- at least to get a ballpark -- but it is a little harder if you tried to start today than if you started before June 2009. In May 2009 I started recording the total downloads for my 198 photographers at the beginning of each month. At that time the actual number of downloads was listed on the photographer's page on iStock and on istockcharts.multimedia.de. After June 2009 iStock changed the game and is only reporting ranges.

I do not believe that you can usefully extrapolate total sales from your 198 (or any other incomplete sample). For starters you are assuming that x% of images = some factor of x% of sales. That seems logical at first sight but there is no way of determining whether this assumption stands up to scrutiny. It's an unknown.

The more contributors (even if they only have one great image) the more they potentially divide everyone's sales. This is part of what people mean when they talk about crowd sourcing contents and the long tale. As more and more people contribute to the total sell individual portfolios become less significant.

When you say that the industry has reached a plateau - well from what perspective ? The actual number of images sold may well still be increasing. Your 198 cannot tell you that. Profits at the companies may be increasing as the model matures. We have no way of knowing. Your 198 cannot tell you that. The amount which photographers get per sale may be increasing. Mine is. Your 198 does not reflect this.

In short - we do not know how many images are being sold and we do not know how profitable the business is.

I think it's a bit silly to state that a particular industry has reached its peak while we're in the middle of one of the worst global enconomic recessions in recent history.  Buyers have scaled back their purchases in ALL areas, including microstock.  Yes, large companies and ad agencies have gone from macro to micro to cut costs, but consider the case of small businesses, which have taken the biggest hit during the recession.  They have scaled back to survival levels, cutting marketing and advertising completely, or have gone out of business altogether.  Considering all this, it's shocking that microstock isn't completely in the toilet.

Now think about a global economic recovery, which will happen someday, hopefully soon.  Companies large and small will ramp up their communication efforts very quickly, and as their budgets return, they'll have learned from the lean times to spend it very wisely.  Microstock will be the big beneficiary from this. 

No, microstock has not already reached its plateau.  Tomorrow people will still need images to help their businesses communicate, and they'll want to pay as little as possible for those images.   For the forseeable future, until another business model emerges that makes sense to contributors (free? that's an argument for another thread) microstock will prosper, and will become much larger than it is today.

Is the decline in sales due to the recession, or other factors? When the economy recovers will the use of images in print recover? I don�t think so. Newspapers and magazines are getting smaller and failing. Direct mail is declining because postage is too expensive and in many cases customers can be better targeted using the Internet. In five to ten years, textbooks (big users of photos) are likely to be a thing of the past as all instruction goes to the Internet, iPads and powerpoint presentation on whiteboards. A surprising number of those images you license are used on some type of printed product. I think were seeing a paradigm shift in the need for printed products that will not recover with the economy.

OK, but the answer of many is �everyone is going to the Internet and that is where microstock is strong.� But, the Internet is a video deliver system. How long will it be before people who want visuals to use on the Internet stop looking for still images and only want video?

OK, but the answer of many is �everyone is going to the Internet and that is where microstock is strong.� But, the Internet is a video deliver system. How long will it be before people who want visuals to use on the Internet stop looking for still images and only want video?

Ha! Sean just beat me to it.

Ditto on hating the video on the internet. For some things OK. For most things, takes way too much time to sit and listen and glean whatever information I am trying to get out of the video. I want it in print. A supplemental video for those who have nothing better to do is OK, but I at least want a choice.

Truly busy people trying to make money want to get on the internet, get to the site, get the information they are looking for, and get out and back to business.

Quote from: Pickerell on July 13, 2010, 08:27

How long will it be before people who want visuals to use on the Internet stop looking for still images and only want video?

Never.  I hate video on the internet.  It's a waste of time.  I prefer imagery and text.  For instance, Leaf did a video here on photoshop shortcuts.  Why would I waste 60 seconds watching it, when a text listing would do?  And skipping through longer videos trying to find the important parts wastes even more time.

Printed imagery will be strong for many years, imo.  This is not the world of Minority Report.

One thing this macro photographer has learned is to Never say Never. Glad to hear you hate video on the Internet. Simon Krzic, leading videographer is probably glad to hear that because that means less competition for him. In about 4 years he has produced 15,000 clips for iStock and 3,500 clips for Getty. Many of the clips that are on iStock Getty would not accept.  At one point 10% of the clips on iStock were his. Now, his ratio is about 5%. Currently, his earnings from iStock are 4 to 5 times what he receives from Getty on a monthly basis, despite the fact when Getty sells a clip it is for a much higher price. It sure looks like the Internet customers want something they can�t find on Getty and that there is �some� Internet demand for video.

You could have read about this at http://www.photolicensingoptions.com/ViewArticle.aspx?code=JHP2217. If you ever get interested in video you might want to take a look at www.turnhere.com and you can read more about it at http://www.photolicensingoptions.com/ViewArticle.aspx?code=JHP2203.

Goodby for now. I've got to do some work.

I didn't say I hated making video, although it isn't my favorite.  I said I hated watching it.  As a consumer sentiment, that shouldn't excite your friend too much.

This went all Andy Rooney pretty quick. Mark me down for not being a big fan of video over text too. It's just easier to read. Plus, I done learnt how to does it.

One thing this macro photographer has learned is to Never say Never. Glad to hear you hate video on the Internet. Simon Krzic, leading videographer is probably glad to hear that because that means less competition for him. In about 4 years he has produced 15,000 clips for iStock and 3,500 clips for Getty. Many of the clips that are on iStock Getty would not accept.  At one point 10% of the clips on iStock were his. Now, his ratio is about 5%. Currently, his earnings from iStock are 4 to 5 times what he receives from Getty on a monthly basis, despite the fact when Getty sells a clip it is for a much higher price. It sure looks like the Internet customers want something they can�t find on Getty and that there is �some� Internet demand for video.

It doesn't necessarily mean that the sites buying the videos are successful though.

I was asked to give my opinion on a site that is selling a service whereby you create your own video or slideshow using stock images. The site itself is great, nice design. But the how-to on how to build the videos/slideshows/galleries were buried in videos, there was NO text that I could easily read to understand how to create the product. Plus, I couldn't determine how much it was going to cost. Again, the info might have been buried in a video but I didn't have time to sit and watch all the videos. I can only surmise that there was cost involved because there was a cart icon at the top of the page. I emailed the person with my constructive criticism and have not heard a word back from him.

I just don't see sites based solely on video as being very successful. And yes, I am sure anyone here can post a site that IS successful using videos...my point is that I don't think most sites will be successful this way. Pictures and words...

And one more Andy Rooney point...I really hate when I click on a news story and it goes to a video and I have to sit and watch commercials before I can find out what the story is about! Fortunately they put a little movie icon next to it now so I can surf and find a written story about it.

@Pickerell, you are basing your assumptions on the idea that sales on the site in general are proportionate to the sales of the artists you are tracking - ie that the site can be measured against the sales of the best selling artists. Though their portfolios are inevitably growing very much slower than the collection in total. Your argument seems to be based on the fact that these artists are market leaders and that their images represent some percentage of the total number of images. Though all of the other images in the collection is a much larger sample.

There is no evidence to support the assumption that the site can be measured against their sales since there may be other factors involved. There may be, for example, another lesser but perhaps larger league of artists coming up behind them who are statistically now more significant but less obvious. Indeed there may be yet another a group even behind them who, en masse, are equally or more significant to the numbers.

This is a subtle mathematical argument I am making. The point is that the top of the market may not be the best place to look for trends. You have no way of knowing.

we are evolving into a society with a shorter attention span... the only videos i click on the internet are from trusted sources like friends on facebook... who wants to click through video advertisement if they have to?

Great.  Just what we need is a couple of "industry leaders" messing it up for the crowd.

That's exactly how microstock started 7 years ago.

Quote from: sjlocke on July 12, 2010, 13:49

Great.  Just what we need is a couple of "industry leaders" messing it up for the crowd.

That's exactly how microstock started 7 years ago.

Ha!  I wouldn't call Bruce an industry leader of anything at the time.

Quote from: cardmaverick on July 13, 2010, 17:38

Having worked as a DP, I can think of many online and non-online uses for stock video. It's an interesting market, there are places like istock where you get canned ham footage in a compressed format thats already locked of as far as colors and contrast are concerned... Then there are the boutiques that are selling .r3d files from Red Ones, and soon Red Epics which can be used for virtually anything from internet use to major motion pictures.

I'm certainly not saying there isn't a market for video.  I'm just saying I think people overestimated the interest of the public a year ago when everyone started spouting "shoot video, shoot video or die!".

I understand what you mean. I think the big issue for submitters is that they have no real clue about what the market actually demands. Many of these photographers who suddenly try to become video pro's have no real background in the business, so they just flounder.