thanks

but my point was that the whole article is well crafted propaganda piece of the worst kind.

there's no mention whatsoever of iStock and not a word about the microstock industry, even the word "microstock" isn't present in the article !

to top it off anyone reading this article would get the impression that Oringer actually invented microstock by mistake while trying to sell his photos as a hobby !

this is not journalism, this is rubbish.

How Jon Oringer became Silicon Alley's first billionaire
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23469410



hmm ... is it me or the whole article smells of sh-it ?

is it still running ? in the Discussions page it seems to be frozen since 18 months.

Wasn't that the concept behind something called "PocketStock" a year or so ago? Anybody know what happened to that effort? Did it ever go anywhere? Is it still alive?

they all fail for the same reason anyone failed to make big money selling articles and user-generated-content :

- whatever digital product you do, it must be properly keyworded, edited, and being evaluated in a QC scenario.
- the e-commerce site must be rock solid and reliable
- most importantly, there must be a demand for what you're trying to sell at a specific price-range.


what we see instead is :

- nobody is willing to buy cr-appy articles written by bloggers so they're only monetized with ads and they still make a pittance.
- photo sharing sites like Flickr can barely stay afloat with advertising and some premium services.
- newspapers and magazines have a hard time too to sell any kind of premium access or PDF versions or whatever, pay walls seems to be fine only if you're the NYT.
- while designers are happy to buy micro images anyone else is not and sticks to piracy.
- music and ebooks and mobile apps are sold by the truckload for 0.99$ and there's still people complaining it's "too expensive", besides 80% of the top downloads are free apps and on android it's probably more than 90%.



i mean, this should give us a better perspective of the supposed wonders of selling on the internet.
too many are fooled by the huge number of potential buyers reachable with a few clicks but when it's time to pay the bills they quickly disappear.

if you've a site with a conversion-rate of 1-2% (best scenario, many have just 0.5% !) it means for each sale you need from 50 to 200 clicks on advertising banners that are going to cost you at least 0.05$ each .. that means 5-10$ to acquire a new customer .. doesnt look cheap to me unless you know what you're doing and the customers will remain loyal and it could easily backfire if your product costs just 0.99$ and is already sold anywhere else or there are similar products for free.

it's hard, very hard to sell nowadays, no matter if the product is priced as low as 0.99% !
it's the final result of an evil spiral to death which started in the '90s and now the game is over .. music .. photos .. videos .. movies .. books .. we're literally flooded by multimedia products that have never been as cheap as today but because of oversupply the value has been killed.

those thinking that killing distributors would have opened a new era without middlemen eating all the earnings failed big time .. now nobody is earning much apart Apple and Amazon.

everyone agree on that, but so far nobody managed to succeed, even google has its Google Checkout but how many are using it ? as far as i see only c/c and paypal are accepted universally and that's a disgrace.

my feeling is if something's gonna chance it can only start from mobile/smartphones, not on the desktop.

however, there are too many different laws even inside the EU and the USA, they will never find a compromise, too much money at stake and too many middlemen to feed.

now they're scared by the rise of virtual currencies like BitCoin, well i say this could be a good alternative for digital products at least and also for a few service like buying hosting or domains etc

the stock business is broken irreparably now, the games are over for most of the small agencies anyway.

what we will see is eventually the integration of mobile cr-ap but i can't see any radical change in the way they operate and in what they sell.

cheaper prices - lower sales -"Only from IStock" -I have never seen such a self-destructive energy - in my life

cheaper prices are another obvious sign of desperation, and that's exactly what BlackBerry and Microsoft did recently with their mobile products having disappointing sales !

so how long before IS fully acknoledges its own downfall ?  i would say another couple quarters (6 months) and you can bet they many heads will roll, a new leadership team will be announced with more mumbo jumbo and talks of past grandeur but it's too late now, the game is over for IS unless they do something radical, but what ? slashing prices even more ?

here's an example of what's selling on 500px.com :

http://500px.com/market/just_sold


basically the same stuff sold on PoD sites, with less focus on dogs and cats and more on HDR landscape and architecture.

i think the whole page contains the entire sales made in the last 2-3 months as i remember a few in the bottom of the pages from my last check long time ago.

my opinion, not a place for stockers but good potential for Flickrs.

i don't see many sales from the same guys, guess they're lucky to make ONE single sale at all.

I'll take as much help on this as anyone is willing to give me. Here's the deal: The other day I walked into the Bed Bath and Beyond (BBB) in Madison, WI (no eye rolls please...we really needed a shower curtain). And there hanging on the wall as a canvas wrap for sale were several copies of my HDR stock image of the state capital building here in Madison. I looked back through the sites I sell images on and saw that the particular capital image had been sold on SS, Deposit Photos, and Graphic Leftovers. I have read through the license agreements at these sites and as best as I can tell, direct reproduction for resale is a no-no. Not to take myself too seriously but that particular image has been a money maker for me as a fine art piece here in town- the university purchases several signed prints every semester for graduating medicine fellows. I only mention that because it seems like the draw of a piece from a local artist could be effected by the same image for sale at Bed, Bath and Beyond. Anyway, first of all I'm happy to report that my wife and I did in fact find the perfect shower curtain but now I'm wondering how to proceed. I think I need to first find out who is selling the images to BBB but then what? Any suggestions would really be appreciated. Thanks in advance! Andy

to me it looks like there's ground for a lawsuit but it all depends on how much the judge thinks the damage you had is worth it in actual dollars, as it could backfire once they see the image is on sale for 1-2$.

the maximum amount for copyright infringement is 150,000$ if i'm not wrong, but i've never heard of photographers getting more than a few 1000s, in your case they could decide 100$ is more than enough considering the photo is sold for a pittance, who knows, anything goes in these cases unless there are expert IP lawyers involved.

and the shop of course will say they know nothing and they will blame the manufacturer.

Isn't sticking a stipple placed link into an editorial image using the image for commercial purposes?

gray area.
and it differs from country to country.

i wonder, is wildlife photography so lucrative ? i know nothing about it but if the lenses are so expensive the photos will have to be priced accordingly ?

I remember seeing a system like this suggested in a movie once. I wish I could remember.

It was a line that went something like "Imagine a child sees a toy on a picture. He can click the picture and buy the toy..."

I'm wracking my brain here. Anyone remember?

what about : imagine random bloggers and leechers seeking for images to steal for their blogs, they can click the image and BUY IT from the legitimate author ...

that would be a big step forward but it ain't gonna happen, the guys at google are takers not givers.

so they claim to have a full blown Copyright Team ??

that's laughable, before the AOL sellout most of their cr-ap was made of stolen images, stolen videos, and lots of articles made up to 80% from "quotes" taken from NYT and other mainstream papers.

as for TED, AOL was very clear and even arrogant about their policy of not paying bloggers, so what do they expect if they don't pay a dime ?