Quote from: madelaide on May 26, 2009, 00:11I don't see a significant reduction of sales for images that increase levels.

I had a quick look at my sales. In the last 20, there are 11 images with the lowest level, all others have a higher level. What are others' percentages?

Quote from: stockastic on May 25, 2009, 17:33I'm no mathematician but it isn't hard to see that as the archives get bigger, new images will have less and less of a chance, unless there's a ratings boost for new images.  And it seems that on one site after another, the boost for new images is going away.

Yes I mention your Mathew effect often. I'm watching the DT search results closely and since March, they keep changing it all the time. They are obviously trying to find a compromise between downloads as a boost in search (favoring older pictures), and relevancy (favoring also newer pictures).
I also noticed that the only "newer" image (uploaded in 2009) I sold on DT has the search terms n/a - which means it was found by buyers wandering off in my port and reverting to visual search.

Quote from: airphoto.gr on May 26, 2009, 00:33We're listening...

"We"? Speak for yourself. 

Quote from: lisafx on May 25, 2009, 14:32In addition to reselling the data acquired, perhaps their ultimate goal is to get a list of people who need low cost images and market Fotolia to them.  Could this be a way of opening up new buyer markets?  If so it would make more sense to offer the three images and then link to Fotolia if they want more. 

That makes sense.

Quote from: Freezingpictures on May 25, 2009, 09:23Sounds great, but I have a problem committing my images to an agency for three years. In the fast changing world of stock photography, this is much to long.

They aren't locked in. You can delete them any time. It's not Pixmac 

You'll get mostly referrals by starting a blog.

QuoteWhat the world needs now,
Is blogs, more blogs,
It's the only thing that there's just too little of.
No, not just for some but for everyone.

Lord, we don't need another stock site,
There are stock sites and startups enough to upload,
There are forums and tutorials enough to read,
Enough to last 'til the end of Crestock.

What the world needs now,
Is blogs, more blogs.

I'm going to start one too soon. My first post will be: "How to get rich quick by selling your photos online starting a blog about how to get rich quick by collecting referrals." 

Quote from: lisafx on May 24, 2009, 22:26Yeah, it definitely takes a lot of detective work or research to verify it.  The sites aren't talking.

You can't hide a lighthouse on a hill, for those who can see 
Doing searches yourself can tell a lot. Exploring the port of the best sellers of top contributors too.

Quote from: WarrenPrice on May 24, 2009, 19:55My point is that NOONE will share the information.  I wan't being critical at DT ... at least I did not think I was being critical.  I'm just being quizzical.  How do people find out about changes in the search engine?  Does DT notify the upper echelon contributors?  Is there a special forum where such things are shared?  I'm just being curious.  I have no idea how DT search engine works.  Therefore, I have no idea what to change to take advantage of searchs.  But, I sure would like to get educated.   

I made a couple of posts recently on the DT forum about these issues and they were confirmed by Achilles. All info is in the open, you just have to find/read it. It's quite obvious that site forums are tightly watched. They reflect on Google and they can be bad marketing-wise. Microstock sites are our partners, not our enemies. The same is true for iStock and Fotolia. For critical posts, there is always the MSG, but watch out, your posts are noticed.

The name of the game on DT is image level, just like on SS it is image recency. That's why it's important on DT not to compete with yourself with similar images, or worse, duplicates. If your downloads are split over images, none of them wil reach a higher image level. Images with a high level will not only earn you (a bit) more, but they will have a boost in the search engine. The consequence is that images on DT will only start to sell after months or even years, as they gather momentum with time. DT is like a wine cellar where the good stuff has to mature for a while. SS is Beaujolais Nouveau. DT is St.Pétrus Grand Cru.

The second issue is relevancy. Since all keywords have the same weight, DT (like BigStock) use repeat words from title and description to identify the most relevant keywords. I also have the feeling that irrelevant keywords in excess are not neutral, but will degrade your ranking, as DT probably dilutes the relevancy of keywords by the number of it. I've seen some very strong sellers of the top contributors with only 10-15 keywords.

Quote from: leaf on May 24, 2009, 20:04same here.  I just had 100 Euro dumped in my account from the same third party deal.

Is that "third party" secret? 

Nothing suggests it's a scam or fraudulent. Yes you will get free images (3), and if you want "more", well, you have to give your cellphone number. It's clearly stated in their TOS they can commercialize this content (your personal data) through "subsidiaries". These "subsidiaries" are just what they are. There is no guarantee at all they are related to photography. It can  be a real estate "bargain" company selling beach property in Nevada.

This "fine print" trick is a very well established procedure outside the net too, and it works with (a small?) percentage of gullible people that fail to read that "fine print". Many travel and luggage insurance contracts have a small clause at the back that laptops, jewelry, cash, cameras etc... are not covered by the contract.
Is that scam? No, since those clauses are there to read for all. They even make some sense, since not only big bad companies are after our money, but there are many consumer-sharks around too. It's all too easy to walk to a police station and claim your laptop has been "stolen", then cash in. In Europe, it was estimated that about 10% of the reported "theft" of luxury cars was insurance fraud.

It seems that PhotoXpress is just a clever way to monetize content on the outskirts of the Internet. For instance are "domain snatchers" sharks? Not really because they operate within the rules and regulations of the system in a very creative and slick way. A lot of money on the net is made by these players, but it's not scam.

For those interested how these clever players / soft sharks work, this story about awsurveys is quite instructive. It catched my attention since my collaborator here spent half a day writing reviews for them, "earning" 27$ quickly, then I googled on them... and he found out he wasted half a day.

Although perfectly legal, no serious company that is built on trust, like a microstock site, would take the risk being associated with these gray practices. It's still not understandable why Fotolia did it.
As Deep Throat said: follow the money. If PhotoXpress paid a lot of money for those images (as Matt claims) and they have no ads on the site and they give away their content for free, there must be a catch or the business model doesn't work. Will anybody with a better explanation than data mining  please stand up.

Quote from: mjp on May 24, 2009, 11:39There is sales, we just get our first payout (over 100 euros) with about +1500 images. We will definetly upload more images there on the future.

Off topic: what a wonderful port!

About YAY, they were quite open about what happened. To start, they had a fantastic coder that developed all from scratch, a true genius. Compare to all new (and even older) sites to realize what great job he did.
But he ran off with the code a bit in disarray. That's always the danger when the IT manager/project leader and the coder are the same person. A project like a stock site should be documented and managed tightly, and implemented in such a way that coders can come and go, but the project stays intact.

The new guy had to spend a lot of time dismantling and rebuilding the code, and some mistakes have been made. When he finally was in the position to extend the functionality, he had a car accident that knocked him out for a while. Now he's back on track but he still has to address the heart of any site: the search engine.

Sales are very slowly taking off, true, but there is some improvement over time. In general, me thinks that sites with very easy and fast upload should be given a chance, unless they are complete morons like Albumo or Crestock. It took time to upload, what's the point of deleting a port? In the worst case, there will be no sales and nothing is lost. In the best case, you might reach payout. 60$ = 60$. Port deleted = 0$.

Quote from: Magnum on May 23, 2009, 17:17It´s not the outside that matters. It´s the inside.    Show a photo of your guts

Happy? 

Quote from: Maui on May 24, 2009, 17:54There is an iMac, too, of course 

iReally? I thought that was just an iBox with fancy iCons around a PC inside. 

Quote from: averil on May 23, 2009, 00:22Not a cult maybe, but close...

A sect? A religion? Everything that starts with an "I", like iPod and iPhone is a sect. Except the Mac, that starts with an "M". That's why it's a religion and not a sect. 
Istockalypse Now: I love the smell of rejections in the morning. 

Quote from: MatHayward on May 24, 2009, 04:00If there are 350,000 images available that means they paid $175,000 for them.  I can't help but think there must be some thought that has gone into this as to a tangible return.

Harvesting and monetizing personal data?

I just registered, under an anti scam and anti spam disposable email address of course. There is a total absence of any privacy statement on the site as to email and personal data. In other words, your data can (and probably will) be sold to "subsidiaries", included spammers and obnoxious "advantage" sites. PhotoXpress qualifies itself by this practice as a borderline personal data harvesting site.

QuoteBy using this Website you acknowledge and agree that PhotoXpress may, in its sole discretion, preserve or disclose your personal information to its subsidiaries and/or parent companies for commercial purpose

You will get "free photos", yeah right. Three to be exact. Then you have to fill in your personal data (which can be faked) but you will have to fill in your cellphone number to receive the activation code and to have the chance to obtain "more" pictures (how many? 3? 2? 1?). Right.

(not a problem here where you can buy off the shelf anonymous sim cards from any small convenience store for 0.10$ - but how can they protect the authors by such a scheme?)

This actually looks like a shark site that will harvest your data and pass those to "subsidiaries" that can be anything, included more sharks. The authors are the prime victims. I would urge nobody to give his real cellphone number since I have been victimized before by telecom sharks that drained my simcard dry (luckily it was a prepaid card) by sending unwanted SMS that were 0.5euro every time. And no way to stop them.

I can't imagine that a serious site like Fotolia and a cofounder of iStock lend themselves to such a sharkish scheme. Are they that desperate?

Now the funny news:
They can terminate your account at their sole discretion (keeping your data), but

QuoteTermination of this Agreement shall not relieve you from any payment obligations that may have arisen prior to such termination, or any other obligations pursuant to any other agreement that has not been specifically terminated, such as a Content Upload Agreement or Content Download Agreement. The provisions of Sections 8, 10, 11, 13 and 15 shall survive the termination of this Agreement.

Payment obligations? I thought the site was "FREE". 

Quote from: RT on March 23, 2009, 23:59Dreamstime don't come anywhere near that of iS, SS, FT, StockXpert for me, in fact I've stopped uploading there and am looking to get out, too many things on the site that I don't agree with from my perspective.

Such as?
It's difficult to judge without any port link. For instance is it illustrations or photos?
There is a serious issue with keywords on DT, far too much irrelevant and wrong keywords especially from contributors east of Berlin. I have been buying lately, not contributing, and the "relevancy" criterion is miserable. iStock is much better with the new best match.

Quote from: stock shooter on May 22, 2009, 23:47Thanks. Maybe the better question is, what is an affordable video cam suitable for stock footage.

The Canon HV30? If you want pans, zooms and travelings, the equipment will be a multiple of that price.

Quote from: LSD72 on May 23, 2009, 05:40So..what would you say to him?

Whatever 

Quote from: Phil on May 23, 2009, 07:10just went and had a look, yep there is some bad ones, but there is plenty of half decent stuff.

Sure, I just found my grandpa reading the Hiphop Gazette with a sixties transistor radio in the back. It was on the front page. The Marie Tussaud's wax museum pose doesn't bother me that much, but I feel that the lighting is not totally optimal.   

After 3 sales in a row last February, nothing more. I get that Unluckyoliver or Featurepics feeling everytime I check. The road to failure is paved with very nice people. The proof of the pudding however, is in the dollars. I moved it in the list of sites to check every September 32 for now... 

Quote from: ichiro17 on May 22, 2009, 13:38Yet no one mentions the garbage that is on the SS forum.

You're barely on iStock after yelling like a drama queen over all other sites that didn't let you go, and you already got the "right" istock attitude. Congrats, but I think I'll ploink you. Yack.

My best seller (rank 4 or so) on DT (which was sold this morning for 5$ again) rated 32.9/100.
This one was rated 90.1/100.

So professor Falcon, how about a nice game of chess? 

I just had this crazy idea. As the Independent Photographers Collective seems to die softly, why not start a common site with a site name like Free Masters where we put up our decent (not crap) leftovers or LCVs for free?
Every thumb should have the clickable name of the artist to a page on the site where the links to her/his port can be found on the microstock sites, along with some thumbs of linked images on that site.

A modified Coppermine install would do the trick.

Benefits: we control the ads and the links ourselves, no fuzz with paypal etc..., no accountancy, free SEO, no messing with thumbnails, size 550px: large enough for school projects and small bloggers. We can keep the same free images on sites that treat them well, like DT, so the initiative is not competitive with our established agents and they will get increased exposure.

Just a thought...

100,000 post with an average of 10/mins per post, included reading, that's 1,000,000 minutes or 16,666 hours, 694 days, almost 2 years, or 6 years if you assume a working day of 8 hours. Paid 35,000$ per year that means 210,000$.

Assuming the production of a photo for stock takes 1hr, included planning, taking, postprocessing, uploading and nagging about it when it doesn't sell well, that's a loss of over 16,000 photos for stock.

Adding the indirect effect of unemployed girls with headsets, the lower sales of headsets as props, the CO2 footprint and the energy bill, it's clear who caused the economy crisis. 

Quote from: photohome on May 22, 2009, 03:17I guess we'll see how this plays out. I donated those images to the 'free collection' with the seemingly incorrect assumption that images would be given for free in return for links to my profile or my other paid works

Very dirty trick. I don't have free images, not on Fotolia and not on other sites. If I give away images for free, it will be on a site under my control where I can set the ads and the links.