Anyone joined yet?  I'm about to.  Getting a little tired of the microstock "smiling business blonde with laptop & cell-phone on white" cookie-cutter carousel.  On this one it doesn't seem you have to worry about noise/artifacts/etc, just provide images with good artistic themes.  In other words, it seems like they let you actually be yourself.

Quote from: jsnover on October 08, 2007, 17:14
I just received (this morning) a payout requested Sept 27th.

I contacted support last Thursday - after waiting one week - and the reply said the usual "sorry for the inconvenience" and that payouts typically take 2 weeks.

Perhaps that's their new norm, but it's pretty sad if that's the case. In the past it has varied widely from same day to 10 days, but never 2 weeks. I guess I'm supposed to feel happy that my payment today was "early"?!

It's the new-and-improved V2, remember?  Much better than before.....

8 days for me.  Haven't contacted support, but I will if it goes to 10 days.  Not that contacting FT support will do any good, but they may try to help eventually.

Thanks for the work, Freezing!  Great article and very interesting.

I'm still not sure about going exclusive (Hatman's reference to Enron hits close to home for me).  One advantage I see is that the time saved in uploading to all the other sites can be spent shooting more pictures, thus increasing your portfolio more quickly and possibly your earnings as well.  Maybe, I guess.  But being "chained" to one site just isn't my cup of tea right now.

Quote from: Pixart on September 28, 2007, 20:26
I'm so encouraged that yet another site values its own contributors enough to give away their body of work for nothing.

Well said.     Amen.

Ugghh... This reeks of Fotolia V2 all over again!  It sure doesn't help matters that Getty's stock has been dropping to bargain-basement prices lately.  If they start making cuts, will they make cuts at IS----maybe from the IT dep't??  Hopefully not.

** sigh **

It's a matter of opinion.  Different people do better on some sites than on others.  I don't do well on Bigstock, but I get really good sales at Istock and SS with the same pictures.  If you've made a payout on BS in a short time, then by all means continue uploading there and continue uploading  to all the other sites where you seem to be getting steady sales.  If you have the time available, it's best to upload everywhere you can where you get decent sales.  It's nearly impossible to predict what will sell better at which site---just upload everything everywhere!  Then after a while decide which sites are your best-sellers, which ones will work for you, and stick with them.

Quote from: hatman12 on September 20, 2007, 21:20
Something I was told by Hidesy - "NEVER try to guess what the market will buy; just upload pictures and let the market decide....."

I wish I could remember that.  I've deleted shots that I thought were just "ho-hum" but technically okay, then wake up in the middle of the night wondering why I did that.  Most shots I've thought were sure winners turned out to be poor sellers---others that I thought were rather mediocre and boring took off like a rocket.  I wish I were able to completely shut off my internal second-guesser.

I'm assuming the contributor, in this case Delilah, has to foot the bill for the refund???   Well, if this becomes a trend, it's good-bye to microstock for me......

Tommroch,
In spite of Hatman's hard-hitting, I think he's expressing a valid concern that many of us microstockers share---the desire for this business to be taken much more seriously than it is by many people.  Micro has the potential to earn you a good chunk of money, far more than just some extra spending cash each month.  It depends on your work ethic, business sense, and desire, along with your measure of talent.  Some of the sites are at best questionable in their security of our personal information (Fotolia).  However, others (including IS & SS, which are most folks' 1 & 2 top earners) take security seriously.  Perhaps we can start a thread about which sites seem to have the best security measures.  I don't know how it works in the UK, but in the US, when you are applying for a job you are required to give nearly ALL of your personal information, including scans of your driver's license, which is then stored on computer hard-drives to be used for background checks, tax data, etc.  You can refuse to give that info, but of course you most likely won't be hired.
So, why should microstock be any different with the potential earnings that can be made there?  As Hatman said, these sites are making millions but also making payouts (some small and some very large) to their contributors.  With the potential for fraud, image theft and reselling, etc., the sites who are trying to be as legitimate as possible want to make sure we are who we say we are.

Hatman,
About that last line??  I think you meant to say that Nigerians are definitely welcomed here, just not those who try to weasel their way into our bank accounts!??

I found this on Gary Crabbe's blog, who I guess found it on Photo.net.    Not sure what the original book is, but I'd love to have a copy for my kids!

http://alecsoth.com/blog/careers/index.html#10

The great Yuri Arcurs is there with over 2800 uploads, not very many views, and just a handful of downloads.  Don't even waste your time.

Wow.  Quite a decline!  Perhaps that helps to explain why they are now my lowest earner (tied with LO for last place).  I've already decided to stop uploading at BS; too much of a time-waster, especially with other sites beginning to give me a dramatic increase in earnings.  I knew something had to change when 123 left BS in the dust for me this past month.

Hatman,

Can't tell what you're talking about----can't see any images....

Sounds interesting, though.

(Oops!  This should have a Fotolia subject line and not Dreamstime.  I'm not sure how to change that now that it's posted---sorry.)

Share your opinions of FT's upgrade to V2.  Here are my thoughts from the United States side:

--- Improvements: The only one I have noticed is that sales credits are immediately approved now rather than the original 3-day wait.  Oh, yes, and that hover-your-mouse-over-the-thumbnail enlarged view---wow.

--- Detriments:
     - As slow as or slower than V1.
     - New watermark makes for much easier thievery.
     - As of this writing a couple of my files still have no keywords.
     - The staff seem to be super-hyper-sensitive to any criticism, even worse than Istock, which is hard to imagine.
     - I still get their "floating status bar" which makes it impossible to see portions of my screen.

Overall, not much of an improvement for contributors, I think.  Sales are starting to pick up for me now that vacation-time is drawing to a close, so I hope that at least their search engine has seen a real upgrade.

My sales took about a 70% dip in August.  However, they are starting to pick up the pace slowly these last couple of days, so perhaps the end of summer will bring some good things there.  One thing I have found somewhat discouraging is their subscription sales.  I'm getting 25-cent downloads of large files, but nowhere near the frequency of SS 25c sales.  Granted I get more per-picture sales than subscriptions, but it's still not a great feeling to see large files going for 25c when the same file can sometimes get me $1.50.

Quote from: moori on August 28, 2007, 21:49
4. No review/quality control on uploaded pictures. Yes, you read correctly. None what so ever. I was very sceptical to this at first but I am starting to maybe change my mind about it. "Bad pictures" get low ratings anyway and end up last in searches. What I like about this policy is that the buyers can chose if a picture is right for them or not, It is not based on one reviewers taste. It remains to be seen if this is sucessful or not.

Don't they even check for model/property releases and copyright/logo infringements?  If they don't, they're treading on very dangerous ground.

Quote from: yingyang0 on August 28, 2007, 02:19
My royalties per download have gone up, both after the price changes, and after the going exclusive (obviously). Since royalties are now calculated by net cost of the credits, your images are obviously attracting buyers that buy their credits in large bundles.

You say that royalty amounts for you are slowly decreasing, yet you didn't say how much they have actually decreased. Without using "what their model shows", how much have your royalties per download actually decreased? It's not hard to calculate, go to january and divide royalties by downloads, now do it for August. Has it actually gone down or are you seeing that the exclusive estimator has increased its predictions incorrectly after the price per credit increase?

False alarm on my part, I guess.  I was actually talking about their "Royalty Schedule" figures, where they list the royalty per download, such as XSmall 0.24, Small 0.48, Med 0.96, etc.  When I went back and looked at them again, I noticed for the first time the phrase "the royalties will be as high as...."  I guess that means they won't always be as high as listed.  I had gotten concerned because several of my recent downloads had been paying 30 and 40 cents less than what's listed in their Royalty Schedule.  But overall my royalty/download ratio has gone up over time.

Has anyone else noticed their istock royalty amounts slowly decreasing?  What I mean is, have you noticed your royalties per download shrinking?  For example, I've noticed that my medium downloads lately are usually nearer to 0.80 than istock's predicted 0.96 for non-exclusives.  I had a large sale today for 1.02, much lower than the 1.44 their model shows, and my large sales now seem to be consistently getting around 1.20.  It wasn't like that before, as far as I could tell.  Did I miss an announcement somewhere about decreasing royalties??  Just wondering if anyone knows why this would be happening.  If this is happening to more than just me, is it occurring to exclusives as well?  If so, not much of an incentive to go exclusive.

Howdy, y'all! 

That's the safest way I can welcome you because ich habe ein gros probleme mit alles dieser different linguas, sim?

Anyway, welcome and I think you'll enjoy this neighbourhood.

Excellent discussion you started, hatman.  I think it all boils down to the matter of serious marketing.  It seems like startup site owners have the impression that just because they have a web presence or make a few speeches at special photo business events, that eventually millions of buyers will flock to them.  That doesn't appear to be working too well.   Sure, a site may have many of the same pictures as another site---just as Wal-Mart carries many of the exact same items as Target or Costco, but we live in a very big commercial world and cyberspace is also quite huge, and I would imagine there are new web designers showing up on the design scene every day.  There appears to be a lot of room still.  Plus, several sites do feature exclusive pictures if not exclusive photographers.  However, in spite of all the above, it's that special something (whatever that might be---you name it, je ne sais quoi) that keeps a steady flow of customers coming back.   Lucky Oliver's concept is superb, the imagination and execution behind them is tremendous, but apparently their marketing is not awfully extensive yet.  They do have a special appeal to many designers, just not enough yet I guess.  I and many others are beginning to see an increase in downloads there, so they are getting the word out, but it looks like it's gonna be a long road to the top for them.  Istock OTOH apparently has a tremendous marketing strategy, and yes I know it costs $$$$.  It also happens to bring in the $$$$.  For example, I imagine that a huge number of people inquire into their site during and after an Istockalypse.   I don't pretend to be an expert about what would constitute an effective marketing technique or campaign---it's probably as unique to each company as their staffs are unique, but they should try hard to find people who can lead them in the right direction.  I do believe that if a site manager/owner just hangs an "Open for Business" sign in their window, then just sits back or goes and concentrates on another job and expects the world to beat a path to their door, that just ain't gonna happen these days.  I really hope this business doesn't dwindle down to just 2 sites.      Just some more thoughts.....

I don't think the post even deserves a reply. His emotional ranting speaks for itself. I did have an idea, though, after looking over their site. It looks like it would be a great place to dump your MS rejected shots if you have no other use for them, as long as you sold under a different name of course.  From what I saw, the rejects of many folks on this site would put their stuff to shame. You might actually make a $ or 2.
Well, I gotta mosey outta here and check on my "miserable earnings."  Y'all "cynical redneck" microstockers have a nice day!

Wow!  Curiouser and curiouser.....  Paul Melcher is the same guy who wrote the blog-article which was the subject of this recent thread here, the one about lords and serfs on microstock:

http://www.microstockgroup.com/index.php?topic=2145.0

He probably wasn't aware of that thread.  This may get interesting.....or maybe not.

There must be a "start your own microstock" instructional course out there that teaches one of the things to do to increase traffic is to promote your site on forums like this one but portray yourself as a submitter.  After all, the photographers on forums like this are eager to join any new MS sites that come on the scene and will dump loads of pictures there just on the recommendation of an actual contributor like Goony & Gusty here.  Yes sir, just sit back and watch the flood of new members joining up---but watch out, you may not be able to handle the huge numbers!!

Quote from: dehooks on August 07, 2007, 21:27
I have more sales at BigStock, but it is much easier to upload to 123rf.  On a side note, I requested payment from 7 sites on Aug. 1.  Six of them have been processed.  Still waiting on 123rf.  BigStock processed same day.  I was surprised. 

123 pays automatically around the 15th of the month after the month in which you reached the payout minimum, so if you reached payout by 31 July then you should get paid around 15 Aug.  You don't have to request payment & requesting it won't speed up the process. But make sure your account profile states what payment method you want, because cheque payment is minimum $200 and doesn't go out until the end of the payment month (Paypal is $50 and I think Moneybookers is $100 and both go out mid-month).