Author Topic: MostPhotos Reaches 1 million photos! (Read 10994 times)

RacePhoto · « **on:** August 11, 2010, 18:03 »

August 14th 2010 - In three days.

* Photos total:979 403
* New photos today:6 678
* Photographers:20 712

There was a discussion about buyers searching Google Images and how traditional Microstock (is Micro now traditional?) offered plans and subs and programs, but made individual buys kind of difficult.

I thought it was interesting that Mostphotos offered a nice area for individual photographers to place their work without the usual review system. And buyers can find whatever they want and deal for single images.

But I don't see buyers or sales?

All of these except one (the neolithic building 35mm film originally) were refused by Micro. The building is on StockXpert/ThinkStock and has one sale in 3-4 years, 25c sub, so it really doesn't count. Point is, they aren't horrible shots, just not micro material. The usual refusal reasons, lighting.

I confess that a few are over shopped, but not impossible to have some interest? The druid circle above Inverness is sepia from a 35mm negative.

http://www.mostphotos.com/Klinger/albums?ref=2382

Does anyone have repeat and consistent sales from MostPhotos or is it just a place to put my rejects for a fun album?

Why don't the buyers who want to be free of agencies and contracts come shopping there?

I have hundreds of shots from a Scotland trip all 35mm slides and negatives, and can't decide if I want to start scanning and editing them. Alamy might be the only other outlet, but MostPhotos will take 5MP versions which may make them more marketable?

Phil · « **Reply #1 on:** August 11, 2010, 18:40 »

I would have given up on them but I have always liked the site and its unbelievably fast to upload. But I've had no sales since a single one I got in January, and even been quick its about time I gave up on them.

djpadavona · « **Reply #2 on:** August 11, 2010, 22:12 »

1 million photos is great, but how many sales do they make?

What I remember about MP was the open invitation to upload anything and everything without review, and then the open invitation for other contributors to sabotage each others' portfolios by handing out poor ratings on files. Of all the ridiculous ideas we've seen in microstock, this one remains entrenched in my mind as by far the most ridiculous of them all.

I remember uploading one of my most successful images at SS and IS, a sports shot. It quickly went to the first page of their search position, and I was hopeful I might actually see a sale. The next day I checked again and noticed my image was suddenly several pages back in the search. And then I noticed someone had handed me a horrible rating and claimed that there was "a bug on the front of my lens which messed up the shot." Of course at 200mm infinity focus, there could be an entire hornet's nest on the front of my lens and you wouldn't be able to see it. Which shows you what a total amateur the "reviewer" was.

Registered a complaint about it on their boards. Got no response. Sent support an email. Got no response. Closed the portfolio a few weeks later and never bothered with their agency again.

Please tell me they don't still allow photographers to snipe review each other.

RacePhoto · « **Reply #3 on:** August 11, 2010, 23:50 »

Pretty amusing story. Actually all I see is a lot of positive reviews from most people, compliments and comments. Maybe they changed the negative part. I think I remember something about ratings and how many posts people had in the forum counting for rank. (was that the same place?) Yes that was a dumb idea to make it a social site that people could sabotage others or get a group of friends and boost each others ranks. There's a crappy photo forum that has monthly contests. I watched for a few of them and it's the same thing. A group of people with five accounts vote for each other and win with some really junk shots.

As for the search rank and display, it's gamed. The site knows who you are when you are logged in and your images show higher on the pages. If you look at new images, yours will always be near the front like we are showing to other people. Go to the site without logging in and everything looks different. As you discovered your image will always show up front when it's new, even on best matches, then slowly be moved down with age. New uploads get better placement to entice people to upload.

But on to the question. Yours is the same as mine. 1 million photos, but do people buy there?

Part of this was an offshoot of the other thread where people want to sell their images independent of agency QC and want to market for a better price, no subs. Plus buyers don't have to subscribe or buy credit packages. Seems to be many things that are asked for from buyers and sellers. But I don't see sales or buyers. Maybe the theory and what people want, isn't what works in the real world?

Quote from: djpadavona on August 11, 2010, 22:12

1 million photos is great, but how many sales do they make?

What I remember about MP was the open invitation to upload anything and everything without review, and then the open invitation for other contributors to sabotage each others' portfolios by handing out poor ratings on files. Of all the ridiculous ideas we've seen in microstock, this one remains entrenched in my mind as by far the most ridiculous of them all.

I remember uploading one of my most successful images at SS and IS, a sports shot. It quickly went to the first page of their search position, and I was hopeful I might actually see a sale. The next day I checked again and noticed my image was suddenly several pages back in the search. And then I noticed someone had handed me a horrible rating and claimed that there was "a bug on the front of my lens which messed up the shot." Of course at 200mm infinity focus, there could be an entire hornet's nest on the front of my lens and you wouldn't be able to see it. Which shows you what a total amateur the "reviewer" was.

Registered a complaint about it on their boards. Got no response. Sent support an email. Got no response. Closed the portfolio a few weeks later and never bothered with their agency again.

Please tell me they don't still allow photographers to snipe review each other.

djpadavona · « **Reply #4 on:** August 12, 2010, 00:32 »

That's hilarious Racephoto. Now that you bring up the forum posting and number of times signed on counting toward your search position, I remember this. Talk about a cavalcade of stupid ideas. Amazing this agency never made it...Two years and they still don't register among the Low Earners here.

Even though I am exclusive to IS, for my money the #1 search engine of all the microstock sites was, and probably still is, Shutterstock. Downloads divided by time online. Period. Or at least that is the vast majority of the formula as Jon hinted to us on the boards once, and could be verified by anyone with a portfolio of selling images. No secret formula based on exclusivity or independent status, no Views/DL ratio (which can also be exploited by constantly viewing competing portfolios), no search placement based on Image approval/rejection ratios, no goofy file ratings from other contributors, etc.

SS has it right. Buyers purchase images they like, and avoid images they don't. That seems to me to be all a search engine needs to consider when ranking by Popularity, Best Match, or whatever you want to call it. The rest is noise.

FD · « **Reply #5 on:** August 12, 2010, 01:08 »

- Mostphotos is a great extra free backup (don't count on it - they might go out of business any time).
- It is a great place to browse the portfolio of known photogs since their content is unfiltered by the QC and questionable LCV criteria of stock agencies.
- There seems to be less garbage than on stock agencies, amazingly.
- I had several sales the first year they started. Unlike they said, sales don't count in the search engine. Only the yay's of other photogs do. This is the major flaw.
- It's a free replacement for Photoshelter and Smugmug.
- Their image SEO sucks: I never saw one of their images in Google Images.
- While all new RF stock agencies offer more of the same, MP has unique content and that's their USP.

sharpshot · « **Reply #6 on:** August 12, 2010, 02:55 »

I think I sold 13 there but none since November 2009. A big disappointment, as several of the other higher priced sites that I have tried have sold more. Zymmetrical was doing much better and they are gone, what chance does mostphotos have? It must be costing them money storing all our images for free. From my experience with other sites, they will find it very hard to get sales going after all this time.

sharpshot · « **Reply #7 on:** August 12, 2010, 03:02 »

Quote from: FD-regular on August 12, 2010, 01:08

- There seems to be less garbage than on stock agencies, amazingly.

The web size images can look good but zoom in and they turn to noise, artifacts or film grain. They should of graded every upload, so that buyers could filter them out if they want something to print big. I can see a lot of buyers being put off by this.

RacePhoto · « **Reply #8 on:** August 12, 2010, 14:41 »

Thursday the 12th Numbers:

   * Photos total: 981,534
   * New photos today: 9,101
   * Photographers: 20,723

What's going on, the weekend or are people trying to be photo number one million?

Oh wait, the number says 9,101 new photos, but the total only went up 2,131 something is fishy here?

Maybe I should add a photo tomorrow Noon just for the fun of it.

Hmmm, Friday morning 00:30 and here's what the front page says.

Photos total:981 690
New photos today:2 615
Photographers:20 729

Why do I think something is fishy here? 2,615 new photos but the total only increased 426.

Friday Noon: Photos total: 983 909

Wonder who this is?

Country Danmark Nr of images 31783 Registered 2009-12-04 Last active 9 hours ago

I spotted the distinctive style on the latest images page.

FD · « **Reply #9 on:** August 12, 2010, 20:19 »

Quote from: sharpshot on August 12, 2010, 03:02

The web size images can look good but zoom in and they turn to noise, artifacts or film grain.

Yes but at least you can zoom 100% and look for yourself. I don't know any site where you can zoom at 100%.

RacePhoto · « **Reply #10 on:** August 15, 2010, 00:41 »

I'm guessing that Mostphotos is playing games with the stats the same as they do with the new images ranking, depending on if you are logged in (where your photos will be ranked much higher) or if you are just someone anonymous looking at the images. I can assume that the search will have the same adjustments depending on what their servers view as who's looking.

It has been days, some of them show 9,000 new photos, some 6,000 new photos, and the total? It's gone up a much smaller amount.

August 15th:

   * Photos total:984 577
   * New photos today:646
   * Photographers:20 747

That's 5,174 new images in four days.

Now, someone could argue that there were thousands of new images and at the same time, people had removed thousands of images, creating a smaller net gain. Possible but I find that scenario a stretch of plausible reasons.

I was skeptical of MPs claims and their smooth talk of marketing when some goal or level was reached. Promises and hope, we see it all over the Microstock industry. I'm not happy with the playing games with people and using hope to lure in new people or hold on to the artists who find the promises of some agencies a bit empty.

Whatever it is, I'll keep watching Mostphotos and see how many new images they really have and how long it takes to really reach 1 million.

Sorry for the false alarm on the announcement, I was duped!

August 17th Update:

   * Photos total:985 478
   * New photos today:355
   * Photographers:20 778

New photo numbers are starting to look real. 901 new photos in two days.

I'm adding updates instead of new messages, to keep the topic from showing new, every time I add some insignificant comment.

RacePhoto · « **Reply #11 on:** August 31, 2010, 00:39 »

That was fun. I was out working on the road and missed the turnover. Just making a note that they are now at 1 million.

* Photos total:1 005 013
* New photos today:1 787
* Photographers:21 208

microstockphoto.co.uk · « **Reply #12 on:** August 31, 2010, 09:42 »

now that they have one million photos, they may try selling some instead of keeping all for themselves

RacePhoto · « **Reply #13 on:** September 02, 2010, 01:39 »

Quote from: microstockphoto.co.uk on August 31, 2010, 09:42

now that they have one million photos, they may try selling some instead of keeping all for themselves

I'm all for that. Of course we don't know if it's really 1 million, because the numbers on the front page appear to be random. One minute it says 6000 new uploads and a day later the total would go up 900. Then it would say 1,700 and the total would go up 700.

If anyone is bored, look at the newest uploads. Someone will do a wedding or air show and flood the site with an unmarketable giant series of similar images. I thought that Flickr was for that kind of exposure?

Heck I think I have almost a dozen Micro rejects on Mostphotos now? Yeah, I don't think I'll be selling anything soon, it's just that I liked the pictures, SS and IS refused them and they are too small for Alamy. Thus, I get to play on MP and have them up in that gallery.

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Author Topic: MostPhotos Reaches 1 million photos! (Read 10994 times)

RacePhoto

Phil

djpadavona

RacePhoto

djpadavona

FD

sharpshot

sharpshot

RacePhoto

FD

RacePhoto

RacePhoto

microstockphoto.co.uk

RacePhoto

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