Not a big barrier to me going exclusive... they denied my application because of my personal flickr and photo.net. I can understand flickr, but photo.net I don't use either account that much, but it would be fairly simple to recreate the accounts with aliases so they couldn't find them... can someone tell me what the concern is with photo.net?

Excuse me if this has been covered before, but I can't find a short description of what I need to do to go exclusive on iStock.  I'm at the silver level and my other sites don't nearly generate the same money. I need to shut down my accounts on Dreamstime and Shutterstock. Do I need to wait until they are no longer active to apply at iStock for exclusivity?

Are they fiddling with the search engine again at IS? I'm seeing a bunch of downloads from my older images. It seems like every six months or so they have to fiddle with the search engine... maybe it's just me though...

OK, I don't mean to pick on anyone in particular (sorry adamdodd you have some great images, but really...), but I just saw this image come across the latest approved images and I couldn't believe it. Take a look: http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup.php?id=5307738

If I ever tried to take a picture of dirt, and not even an interesting one it would be rejected so fast...

Do you guys see this as evidence of exclusives having a lower bar for approvals? I think I could give a hundred examples of such images...

Anyone doing the Photoshelter Collection? I just had my initial four images approved there without any problem. It seems like a professionally run organization, but the upload/keywording process is very cumbersome. I'm willing to put up with a little pain, but this seems ridiculous compared to micro-stock sites...

I just got an email for a new site called Mooch Travel Photography. I searched the archives here and there were not hits. Anyone know anything?

http://www.moochimages.com/index.php

As an oversight on my part, I had never turn on referral earnings on my IS account until a couple of weeks ago. Now I don't advertise my account any where and I don't send out emails with my referral link as my tag line. So, in the last couple of weeks I've had three referrals netting $30! Is this typical? Can I expect a couple of random referrals every month without even trying?

I'm getting back on the Alamy horse again after about a year... what's the current Q like these days? I just uploaded a batch and they said can be up to 25 days! I sure hope not...

I've just discovered Apophysis and I'm amazed at some of the images it can produce. I've uploaded some of them to IS and SS. iStock has rejected everyone while SS has accepted everyone (only five so far). IS gave the generic "Thanks, but no thanks". My question is: can you make any money selling fractals at SS? I haven't tried DT yet, are they friendly to fractals?

What's going on this month at IS? We've barely half way into the month and I'm closing in on the amount I earned in all of November. I'm getting downloads from all over my portfolio like people are discovering some of my slackers... anyone else noticing this? Did they change best match again?

Anyone else following the discussion over at IS about the Best Match search engine. http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=60039&page=1

Try typing in "christmas tree" into the search and use Best Match. Looks like a couple of uploaders hit the jackpot!

Also, Sean Locke mentions the "ratings gangs" that you all dismissed as not having an effect on the best match searches.

I'm just curious what the rest of you think the most important things you can do for your portfolio to get downloads,  besides quality and volume. Does participation in the forums help? public Lightboxes? rating other peoples images? Inquiring minds would like to know...

OK, I've been around the block on this Microstock thing over the past 3+ years, but I can't remember a time when IS review times were 8-9 days. It's been a constant point of irritation that they have the slowest review times out there. How is it that Dreamstime and Shutterstock can keep review times so low??? I'm just venting...

Wow! I've been spending more time uploading to iStockphoto and Dreamstime for the last year because they make way more money for me than SS. I felt that my portfolio had been neglected on SS, so I decided to spruce it up and uploaded about 30 images that had already been approved at IS or DT. Wow! is all I can say to the inspectors at SS. They have really clamped down on the "Too many of the same subject" and "composition". When I first started out three years ago, they pretty much too everything I through at them and IS and especially DT were the ones that were hard... golly gee  Not sure how much more I'll upload to them, considering that IS and DT both sell double or triple on nearly the same amount of uploads (around 300 each)...

In a former life, about three years ago, I was working as a database engineer on very large database system using SQL Server and Oracle and I had about 20 years experience with database systems. Things haven't changed that much in three years and I am flabbergasted by the fact that IS trying to run a computer system as large and complex as they are off of MySQL!!! Oracle, Microsoft and IBM all have systems that could easily handle the load they describe without a hiccup... IS spend a little money (well, OK a lot of money) and upgrade to some real software!!! sorry for the vent... back to your normal programming