I have like 700+ files sitting on their FTP unused, unprocessed. Many of them back since March. It is a half year now!!!! I am completely unmotivated to upload anything new and they do not respond to my messages. Does anyone else experiencing the same? Are they off or what?

I keep trying it since hours now on a hundred of different ways but I am going to a conclusion that it is broken. It never accepts my CSV even if it is EXACTLY in the format they describe. When it accepts my file just nothing happens, my tags are not added to the clips. Does anyone use it?

WOW, I have found the perfect use for 'GETTY IMAGES'!  This is the ultimate word to make your models smile. 'CHEEEEEESE' is the past ask them to say: 'GETTY IMAGEEEEEES'.

here is no watermark on 500px???
Is that possible? I just joined... not to sell photos, no way, just for the community life. But as I checked there are no official watermarks on the images and people also do not add their own. Am I wrong?
In what size should I upload my photos then? Do people upload full size 20+Mix images just as they would do on a stock site?

During the years all big agencies gone down except SS. In the last few month SS is also falling badly. October was my worst month of the last 5 years while october is usually the strongest month of the year. Last week sales were down to 50% of the usual. WHAT THE ..... IS HAPPENING? I am getting worried.

My portfolio has over 24k images at FTL. I am still uploading new images every week but my income is decreasing since years now. While it is not the case with other agencies which are still be able to occasionally reach a BME.
I don't know what is the problem with Fotolia - any idea? My earnings are back to the level of mid 2008. That time I had 2-3k images online while now I have nearly 10 times more.

Anyway, there is a psychological level (a certain amount of monthly income) when my income falls below that I'll stop uploading to FTL for ever. I am very close to this. If the tendecy visible on the attached chart continues I will reach it this year.

Does anyone have an idea why is this?

When I try to upload a file via their site I get an error message stats my browser couldn't connect to upload.istockphoto.com.
When I try DeepMeta my keywords are not imported from IPTC since DeepMeta can't reach the IS keyword database.

Does anyone else facing the same problem?

Yes, after cheking my earnings this month and making some test searches with top keywords I made my decision. I'll not upload to iStock anymore. The recent changes in best match was a complete disater for me, it already halved my contantly decreasing sales while uploading the new files requires the most effort in the industry. When I checked the current best match results I saw plenty of mediocre or bad images in front only from exclusives and from their so called agency collection. IS doesn't give space for independets anymore so I do not see the point why should I waste my time there? I leave my files online and will check back once or twice a month to pick up my income - but that's the all, good bye.

After closing this month I took a look at the long-term graphs. I saw some interesting tendecies (during the last 3 years):

1. Number of downloads are increasing at every agencies except IS where it is going to be less and less every month.
2. 3 years ago the income at IS was 1,5 times higher then SS or FTL, now it less then the half of FTL and the third of SS.
3. 3 years ago RPI at IS was 3 times bigger then SS or FTL now they are nearly the same (even if added like 10+k images to SS and FTL and only 2K to IS) I predict IS will lose its throne in PRI very soon.
4. In RPD FTL pesistently leads during the whole 3 years long period, IS follows closely and SS is way behind.

Any oppinion? Similar experiences or different?

Every months in a year is different so it is pretty difficult to compare them to each other and make a judgement of how your things are progressing. But I like to compare the same month of consecutive years - from this you can see how your microstock business goes. There is a trend I realized about a year ago: IS is falling... well... other agencies are growing while IS doesn't or slightly even decreasing. There is the graph that tells you everything.



I am steadily uploading to each of these sites and my portfolio is growing and growing. SS and FTL is clearly rewarding it, but on IS I am having less downloads then two years ago even if I doubled or quadrupled my portfolio. This is interesting... worrying... well, I know IS doesn't care. What is bad. I liked them.

Raise of income from january to february...

Overall income is up by 7,5% (second BME)

IS is up by 4%
SS is up by 23% (BME)
DT is up by 3%
FT is up by 16% (BME)
123RF is up by 46% (BME while last month was much below avarage)

I have two conclusions:
1. The closure of StockXpert is not hurting my income as mush as I thought. It seems buyers have gone to other agencies with no problem.

2. It looks to me they haven't joined to IS as Getty hoped instead they have gone to FTL and SS. Well, my StockXpert images are still not up on ThinkStock so maybe Getty is selling there like crazy while I can't measure it.

What is your experience?

I am shocked. I got these images rejected at SS by Limited Commercial Value. What?!!!

My source is a hungarian news portal (ORIGO.HU). They made a public interview with the former owners of StockXpert. Here are some lines from the article - you may find it interesting:

SXC (a popular free stockimage library) was started in 2001 by two hungarian guys.

In 2005 they also started StockXpert - the site we all know. This new site became poppular because of the high commision they paid and because of their advertismement strategy: they shuffled the paid images into the free ones on the extremly popular sister site (SXC).

Back to 2006 Jupiter bought 49,7% and one year later they bought 90% share of both products.

In 2008 Getty took this 90% as part of the acquisition of Jupiter

This december (2009) Getty bought the remaining 10% from the hungarian co-owners. So SXC and StockXpert are now wholy owned by Getty.

Other infos:

Since this summer Getty is advertising its own iStock collection on SXC instead of the former StockXpert collecion.

Since this summer the operation of SXC and the servers were moved from Hungary to Calgary, Canada.

The founders who were responsible for development and community management in the last 9 years told they are not responsible for anything anymore regarding SXC and StockXpert. They do not think Getty will choke SXC because it has a great advertising value for them, on SXC Getty can redirect a lot of potential image buyers to the paid (iStock) collections.
On the other hand they (the founders) are uncertain about the future of StockXpert.

Ok, this is what I read on a public site, I do not want to comment it or make any speculation.

According to my last year of earings there are no BIG6 anymore. What I see it a BIG3+2.
IS, SS, FTL are the real BIG ones while DT and StockXpert are the +2. The 3 are close to each other in monthly earnings, DT and StockXpert are 1/3 of any of them. All the others are out of the map. Do you see the same picture?

I am getting more and more rejections stating that I attached too many releases to a photo. TOO MANY! Usually we attach as many releases as many people are seen on that particular photo. Regardless of how much recognizable they are... it is always questionable who is recognizable and who is not... so this is an extra security we use. But DT is rejecting these images. Why . do they need to reject images for this reason? I do not see the point.
Just an example from the VERY SAME batch - images linked from FTL:
http://eu.fotolia.com/id/16499125
We attached releases for both models - DT rejected the submission stating too many releases attached.

http://eu.fotolia.com/id/15929182
We attached only one release - DT rejected the photo and requiring both releases.

Uhh, so what? In the past I had not only one occasion when they rejected an image with this stupid too many releases message. We uploaded the image again and removed the questionable release... this time they rejected it because of the missing release.

Well, we are uploading a lot of images on daily bases so I don't really care if some of them are missing from DT. Usually we do not reupload images because it slows down the workflow too much. But I must say that this kind of inconsistency - even in the very same batch - is a bit annoying.