perharps i should stop saying StockXpert is the best, as ever since i did that,
my review time has expanded to become almost like IS,
ie. from almost instantly to the same day, to now being over a week 

where are your reviewers Steve?

You should send them a site mail, I uploaded a batch yesterday and they were approved overnight all except one file which was corrupted, I reuploaded it this morning and it's been approved already.

I got mine today after a 7 day wait (again) and like Lisa just did another request, it's a PITA

It will be good to have you at Alamy!! We need competition. RT needs FIERCE competition.

Thanks Christian, now where's my nearest oil refinery 

Lisa,

Firstly I don't think you should upload to Alamy at all, but if you are going to insist on trying to take some of my sales away my advice would be not to worry how many you upload in what size batches, your work is more than up to quality for Alamy.
But in answering your question yes they select random batches and dip check some of the images, the more you upload and the more batches you get passed the less they check as time goes by.
The real point you should consider is the time factor involved once they pass QC, because in order to succeed on Alamy you need to manage your images correctly and the way they're keyworded, and that takes a fair bit of time.
Good luck and I hope you don't sell anything 

Yaymicro is showing no sign of life at all!

I just asked on their forum for Linda to expand on her statement of "we are marketing the site", I have a horrible feeling that their marketing in being done in the same vein as LuckyOlivers was i.e. 'pretend marketing' (networking, attending seminars, blogs etc), in which case they aint ever going to get any customers, it's a shame because I like the site layout, but then again I liked LO's.

Whether she replies or not waits to be seen, either way if I don't see or hear of any real marketing being done by Christmas I'll pull the few images I stupidly uploaded there and they can keep the few euros I've earned.

As far as I can tell Formcourt have just under 10,000 images on Alamy out of which 57 are not Yuri's.

I'm wondering if it is an agency?

In the past a mix up over image licensing has happened many times, and if requested Alamy member services have dealt with the matter within hours, so if Yuri really wants those images removed it shouldn't be too much trouble.

I'm sure it was a genuine mistake.

Maybe a few less, if everyone would stop blogging about their month by month money stream and how to succeed in microstock, and all that.

But some like to prey on the 'lemmings' out there who read all that crap and then go and view all the images in that persons portfolio thereby increasing the files popularity and putting it ahead of the 'lemmings' images in the search results which in turn decreases the 'lemmings' income.

The downside is that the 'lemmings' copy the bloggers/writers images, which in turn the blogger/writer then moans about in another blog/thread.

The upside is that the 'lemmings' start their own blogs/threads about the success of the original blogger/writer which again helps in the success of the original blogger/writer and helps to keep them ahead of the 'lemmings'.



 

Hi Keith and Paul,

The blog hasn't got me fired up, far from it, some parts of it I agree with, what made me laugh was when I found out who the author was, I must be honest I'm surprised for such a strong opinion from somebody heading up a stock agency.

You are right about the "gentlemens club" persona that some want to maintain, but it's my experience that these are not the one's that pose a threat to anybody other than themselves.

I do think though that your tone will offend many very professional pro photographers that have been aware of microstock and have been contributing for a long time, I also think your stance on those that shoot stock because they can't get clients is way way off track and in a lot of cases the opposite is true.

I am intrigued as to what the intention of the blog was and whether you think it may have backfired a bit.

Either way you've certainly got a few fired up on the Alamy forum which in itself is always good for a laugh.

Steve,

Nothing personal against you because I appreciate you may just be the messenger but your latest reply just goes to show how contributors are thought of within JI, and as a result I've also opted out of subscriptions and Partner Licensing.

C'mon, why not publish all this info? 

Why not make it easy for the copiers to know who to target...? 

I don't think it would make much of a difference, we all copy you anyway 

I haven't voted because to be honest I don't think any site has or can have a search engine that brings the 'best match' results that any buyer could want.

As a buyer when I search for an image I want the best image that matches what I'm searching for, I don't care whether it's been downloaded once, fifty, or a thousand times, I don't care when it was uploaded or how succesful the contributor is on that particular site, because to a buyer all that information is irrelevent and as a buyer I and only I can make the decision as to whether the image is the 'best match' for the purpose I want.
I'm also not bothered whether an image is exclusive to a particular site because for RF exclusivity is irrelevant.

With that in mind there is no search engine or site that can possibly determine what is 'best match'.

And as a buyer I am aware of this and I'm also aware that if I really want the best match I'm going to have to do it the old fashioned way and go through the pages of results.

Personally I'd like to see more time spent working on making sure that the images that come back as a search result are actually relevant to the search terms, iStock with all the will in the world have tried to do that but to be honest the result is a disaster because their CV is useless and doesn't recognise nearly enough search terms, so if I want an image now I go to another site and search the old fashioned way.

And 98% of my time is as an contributor, for a full time buyer it must be hell.

Got the email, and after reading this thread I checked my paypal account and the payment was there.

Steve,

Maybe you could answer my question here as it's been avoided on the StockXpert forum, are StockXpert going to set the same maximum resolution for subscription sales on JIU as they do on photos.com, selling an image as XL for 30cents is not something I'm happy about.