First the pope now the king of iStock!?!?

Sunsets can sell well.  Even if its not good for microstock, there's always Zazzle, FAA, Red Bubble etc.  I came to the conclusion a long time ago that it doesn't really matter what you photograph, buyers will be interested if you do it right.  And it might be better to avoid some of the subjects that the sites say are popular with buyers because so many people will be doing them.

Or you could just enjoy the beautiful sunset and take a picture of it to remember it. 

In my case it's almost 8.5 years. What really ticks me off is that it didn't have to be this way.

I agree. It really didn't have to be this way, and it burns me up knowing how much money is being left on the table. Realistically, most of us should have made 2 to 3 times more than we made over the years. But, apparently, that wasn't enough because these companies that we built seem to all want more.

Quote from: SC on February 08, 2013, 13:42

...That is almost verbatim the same e-mail I got in reply to my questions / concerns.

At least they're not wasting time and money writing individual responses - quick cut and paste will do fine for these peons.

Gotta love it

There seems to be a bit of irony in Bigstock thinking we are peons (if they think that). I thought about writing something to them too, then I said... Oh wait, it's Bigstock. I don't really give a... 

Let's keep in mind we built iStock, we can do it again and even better this time this is not starting from scratch, yes it will take some time but we can do it!

I think that is true, but it is definitely a different environment now. Other agencies already exist. Anybody can build a site with off the shelf parts. I would think it would be harder to build a giant micro site now. Stockfresh definitely didn't blow the doors off out of the gate.

I don't know what they have in mind for this, but I would think it would definitely be easier to build a small agency with less artists. Especially since they are a co-op. That insinuates that they have an obligation to the contributors they let in. So, they want to keep their members fat and happy. The most obvious solution to that is to keep their competition, other contributors, out.

It will be interesting to see what they come up with, and it could be a model for other sites. We'll see.

Anyone who thinks SS or Jon Oringer are the second coming of J-e-s-u-s  C-h-r-i-s-t is in for a very, very rude awakening.

LOL. I just hope this and the referral thing open some eyes. Maybe hurtling towards the Sun at a million miles an hour like a space monkey on the rocket ship SS isn't the best course.

It definitely has me thinking of pulling my port too. I'm not very interested in more sub sites (less subs sites would be nice).

Oops. This came out wrong. I meant to say Shutterstock is the best. They love us all.   

The Great Pumpkin is finally here! 

I hope he puts something good together, but I have trouble not being a little skeptical.

We have experienced the same massive drop in traffic at Warmpicture.

The honest truth is, if this continues we will not be able to survive much longer. It is a travesty. We went cash flow positive just a few months ago, and now this. Over and over, it always seems to be Google which is responsible for throwing roadblocks in our way.

In the end, I guarantee that the antitrust suits which eventually slam Google will make Microsoft's look like a fun day at the beach. And when it happens, F them. They are the ultimate in predatory companies, and they now have the power to cause any business to flourish or wither and die just by how they rank them. No company should have this type of power, and this is coming from a free market advocate. Google's power is running unchecked, and it is causing a future destabilization to the world's economy imo.

I cannot stress how huge this is. The traffic drop is certainly being seen everywhere. We will all be affected, and no more so than contributors who have decided to sell on their own. Expect your agency subscription sales to continue...people already associated with long term plans don't search the internet for images. But expect your single image sales to take a huge hit. It is inevitable.

Use alternative search engines. The more you use Google, the more you encourage their behavior.

My traffic is down as well, and I definitely have concerns about how this will affect things. But, I'm going to reserve judgement until I see how sales go. So far, things seem fairly normal this month (as far as normal goes for my site). Sales are still happening though. New customers are still finding the site. Hopefully, this continues, and it doesn't end up affecting sales. I definitely don't want to go backwards either.

I always just assumed it was because I stopped uploading. Buyers just didn't have a reason to show up anymore. 

I just did a search for one of my bestsellers - it's mind-boggling how many unlicensed uses already.... It's being offered as "free wallpaper" on many sites (with no copyright or contact info of course). Ability to easily find those is not necessarily a bad thing - I could hire a "copyright troll" company and make sure all these are taken down or the right license purchased. Copyright trolls usually work for percentage of the gain, I don't think you have to pay them upfront. Maybe this is where all the latest developments are heading, with Getty and Google and such. They'll make the content easily obtainable and then they'd go after the infringements since it's also very easy to do. Smells a bit like entrapment but not really illegal. Adding transparency to the internet is not a bad thing but one needs to adapt to changing rules.
About "less traffic - less sales" - sure there will be less traffic from people looking for freebies, but that will affect *all* stock sites, so really the overall positioning shouldn't change.  Search results for someone looking for a "stock photo" will be the same.

LOL. I've often wondered if there was more money in lawsuits than making the artwork and selling it. I guess I could always switch my focus.

Here's an interesting thought.... if someone actually intends to license an image, why on earth would they go to google images instead of just going directly to an agency. I think a lot of people here are getting all cheesed off over a non-existent problem.

While I agree with you for the most part, the majority of my walk-in traffic and new buyers are from Google. I would suspect most agencies would probably say the same. So, it definitely has the potential to be damaging. Whether it is or not is hard to say right now.

I'm hoping that by reducing the referral system they can pay more out to contributors instead because they're the people that are actually doing the work and generating the content.

I don't think it's fair to say referrers don't do any work. It can be a lot of work to run a well read blog or website. Plus, they bring in buyers, contributors and links. Those are things that grow sites like SS to the size they are today. That said, I think SS's referral program was pretty generous, so it isn't surprising to see it scaled back.