http://blog.nihilogic.dk/2008/05/reading-exif-data-with-javascript.html

It's a nice ajax app but it doesn't do IPTC, only EXIF.

What you get elsewhere... 0.35$

I get quite some 0.19$ at iStock, and the least I have at DT is 0.35$.  But OK, as an exclusive that would be 0.40$. I almost never get L or above at IS. Thanks GW by the way for the analysis.

There is a point I never saw mentioned here, and that goes for all exclusivity. I couldn't live with the idea that part of my images, after all the work, would be buried forever. You can't even offer your rejects for free, and that excludes Flickr. Although lately I have 100% acceptance on my overwhite model shots on IS, there are some more deviant images that get rejected, not for technical reasons, but for concept.

An example that was rejected for concept on IS just today is here. Now this kind of image might sink into oblivion, or sell well, you'll never know in advance. But at least give it a chance. The SS buyers kindof liked it, the week that it has been online.

More important, some of my travel/landscape shots are part of myself and I couldn't bear that they would be darkened forever. This is not purely emotional, since some cities/places are amongst my best sellers both on DT and on SS. But I don't think those were accepted on IS for "distortion" (it was an OLY 300 cam). Of course, I could sell them as RM Editorial not cloning some distant faces out, but still.

I don't care if my studio shots are rejected. I can easily reshoot the concept with another model. I'm not emotionally connected with those shots. They feel more like "work".

It is yet another argument in favor of IS exclusivity, IMO. On a comforting note, my sales at Canstock (the lowest priced agency listed) are still dismal.  If they don't raise their prices to be more competitive, I may have to pull the plug there.  I already dropped Veer and Crestock.   

1. IMHO, correct diagnosis, wrong therapy. Why exclusive at IS? If they change their policy overnight, or their best match, you're done. They are obviously (over)ruled by "managers", a corporate breed that runs away with loads of bonuses just before their enlightened decisions turn out sour, off to ruin another great company.
IS was run by photographers before. Shutterstock and Dreamstime are run by photographers, and it shows.

2. CanStockPhoto totally died, after ELs last year. Upload is easy though.

3. Crestock, YAY, Veer, Snaphamlet, LO, I dumped in time. ZYM and SX failed me. I was uploading till the last days and I lost time on them. There is not much left. DT is still my favorite, not for earnings, but for respect.

(If I recall correctly, the deal is that iStock dumps slow sellers onto Thinkphoto.)

I spent an hour at thinkstock, looking as a buyer, and also looking into my niche. The things I saw from iStock are really subpar. I can't find anything from the big players and top photographers. Thinkstock is very incomplete, and in all, the search results give a very snapshot-like miskeyworded collection. I would never consider buying from there (but I'm not a subscriber, merely a buy-by-credit person). If I were subscriber, ShutterStock gives me much more bang for the buck, with many top artists there.

Even DepositPhotos has a much better collection. I saw some great stuff there. The buyer will decide and at the moment, it doesn't look good for Thinkstock.

Non-exclusives will earn $0.25 per download.

No pasaran! (well at least not for me).
DT is 0.35$ for level 1-2 images, and SS is 0.36$. Even a new site like DP gives 0.30$. Getty can stick its stinkstock where the sun doesn't shine.  

Ok thanks - let me know if yours show up.  I often have long file names with characters like _ in them which some sites do not like and they get sifted out on some sites - so I was wondering if it could be that.  I'll be patient for now though.

They arrived after an hour. File names are no issue since I have weird characters (; - _ whitespace, nowhitespace) that made LO, Zymm and FP choke in the begin. DP takes it all.

Well, if you're looking for comfort of the negative kind, Jan was my worst month on SS since October 2008.  The beast is hungry, and I haven't been feeding it.

Feeding doesn't help apparently, if you're not a new contributor.

Start selling my commercial stuff then I will share my editorial.

Warren, don't be too judgmental. Commercial RF is totally different from Editorial, market-wise. 123RF is pretty late entering Editorial, so let's see how they handle and market it. Just give it a try. All my editorials were accepted. I still think the place for it is RM, but some shots might be generic enough to attract RF buyers, especially if you're in a niche.

http://sierramc.com/zoomloon/

Fantastic! (there is a Wall-mart shopping bag at the extreme right  )

OK, it makes no sense to do any statistics on small numbers and over a short period of time because of the sample error being much larger than any effect. You also have to weigh sales against portfolio size.

I'm uploading on BigStock since August 2005 and I made an analysis from begin 2006 till now. Since my full port is on BigStock (almost no rejections) and the current # is somewhat over 1200, I figure that a sales analysis over time can smooth out part of the sample error and indicate trends (if any).

I plotted earnings per month (blue line) against estimated portfolio size (pink line), and I did a moving average smoothing on the earnings (yellow line). This is the result:



Notwithstanding the large fluctuations that are inherent to small number of sales on BigStock in general, one can see two trends. The first one till March 2008 (included) that roughly follows port size, and a breakdown after that.

There is a deep dip in Q4 of 2008, most probably reflecting the outbreak of the credit crunch, but the trend already reversed near the end of Q1/2008.

After a weak rebound in Q1/2009 (just continuing the downward trend), the trend goes down and down till now, despite portfolio increase. It's an educated guess that around that time T&D entered into the red zone and started looking for a buyer before the potential (and the price) of BigStock went too low.

The fact that SS owns the site for a few months doesn't seem to have any effect on the BigStock sales till now. Thanks for your attention.

All slightly up compared to December 2009, except Dreamstime that tumbled down. WMY at DT. The small gain compared to December is totally due to the "small" sites. I guess this chart looks like one of a real independent. No motivation to go exclusive anywhere.

Is there a lock in period for the approved images.?..

6 months, very favorable compared to the initial offer of pixmac that was 2 years, now 1 year. If you're on DT, it won't make any difference. I only got sub sales for now: 0.30$. You've got my referral link in a PM.

Obviously, I don't think I'm harmed by the IS prices

Could you, by any chance (I beg your majesty pardon), bear a splendid iCrown?  
Not that I care that much, but I have to do my own accounting. My RPD at IS is simply lower than at SS, given the not too infrequent ELs that SS throws in my undeserving wallet. They happen to be 28$ for a squeezed down image. Oooo, how do I feel guilty it's only worth 6MP of pixels, while IS is offered 12MP generously, but fails to sell that quantity most miserably. Blessed be iStock, since iStock is a honorable site.

Probably it's because I shoot crap, no doubt. I'm just happy and humbled that SS takes my crap and sells it. If that's "subscription", hail subscription. And if I'm not mistaken, that was the question of the OP: does subscription kill us? If so, it's a sweet death in the arms (disambiguated: human body parts instruments to afflicht harm) of SS.

My recent stuff doesn't sell at all at IS. Just my old subpar images do, and I don't grasp why (we amateur shrimps have tiny brains). Probably they escaped the well-tuned best match that giveth and taketh. Should I join rating clubs or throw some clever hail IS posts on the forum? Should I reciprocate ratings? Should I send one of their short-sighted reviewers (that can't read the fonts well on their own f*ng MRFs) some reading glasses? No clue. No time to wonder too. The minimum at the damned crap-swallowing subscription site is 0.36$ (or 0.35$ on DT) and on IS it's a whopping 0.19$. And that makes me wonder, as a simple promiscuous slave that fails to see the benefits of IS's marvelous chastity, why PayAsYouGo Xs on God's gift to Stock should ruin the business less than subscriptions on the swallow-all site.

Accept, oh crowned head, my humble answer to the OP's musings.  

As to cheap subscriptions, why did Getty (but Getty is a honorable company) took away the 0.30$ photos.com JIU subs at StockXpert and offers them, most generously, for just 0.25$ at one of their new serf-sites? Ain't that cheap?