ouch HughstoneIan...Not going anywhere ;-)

Things have actually been going well and we are growing a lot.  I hope others on here will describe their experience so you can see and judge for yourself.  Please be harsh if you haven't been treated well or don't like the site.  It will help us improve.

Like you said we are a young company and just ramping up.  I am by no means in a position to compare myself to the big 6 and you shouldn't expect that out of my company but I can promise you that I won't stop working until I can and you will always have someone who will get back to you right away and listen to you to help you sell more photos.  I want to sell photos and vectors as much as you guys do.  We have all invested time and money into making this work so I am asking you for a chance and to be patient as I build up this "force" to compete with the bigger sites out there.  It will happen but I am NOTHING without your content and I know that. 

Yep everything is 100% backed up and backed up everyday so no need to worry about that.  Let me know if you didn't get the email but the site is back up now.  There was something in the area where we were updating the keywords for people so we could release our new search engine and it was crashing one of the media upload tables.  ugh.  I hate little bugs but we have it back up and are still digging around.  Check your studio now.

Thanks

You will get a serious kick out of this.  The Nigerian/Ivory coast scam hit us at Cutcaster.  Mrs. Joyce.

http://cutcaster.blogspot.com/2008/09/site-spammer-joyce-orizu-bad-bad-girl.html

AHAHHAHAHAHAH

Hahaha.  I said when I started and made a pledge to always be available and not hide behind a PO box or [email protected] email. 

You can see that pledge on the contact us page at Cutcaster.  http://www.cutcaster.com/info/contact

If you guys are going to trust me with your hard work, I am going to be there to provide feedback and work my butt off to sell your images.

Yeah that was fixed.  Had to clean up some of the javascript on the homepage which was giving an error.  Sorry about that.  You won't see that again.

wow those are amazing stories and thanks for sharing.  the red cross really is an inspiring organization that does a lot of good.  that is why i give to them.  i couldn't even imagine what that is like to go through and hope i never do.

How did someone use their 100 dollar payout from Cutcaster?

http://cutcaster.blogspot.com/2008/09/testimonial-from-user-on-how-they-used.html

I thought I would share this seeing as it is almost surreal and send out my thoughts and prayers to anyone affected by Hurricane Ike.

the download page is now working and is registering vectors too.  thanks

yep just updating that page today so vectors are represented on it as well as images.  i will have that back up by the end of the weekend.  sorry for that but vectors are almost ready to go. 

here are types of images that are selling according to our records. 

its a bit dated by a month but here goes.

http://cutcaster.blogspot.com/2008/08/top-14-selling-categories-for-last-two.html

yep.  you will get an email notification for each bid you receive.  we are working on some measures to make it so you will not have to respond and the process is more automated.  i'm excited to roll it out in the coming weeks. 

I should have maybe explained some more.

i think the quality of microstock is good at most levels, its just the direction of pricing which scares me and why I referred to a "race to the bottom."  This is where you keep devaluing your content and agencies will compete with one another by offering the cheapest deal to attract buyers.  This is a death spiral and one that can be changed.  This is really bad for mass of photographers who supply the agencies with their material.   I also understand the supply argument which others may use against this.

You said, "I cannot control this market it is worth multi millions of dollars and this cannot be stopped by photographers. When RF came on the scene the RM shooters said the same thing. Don't add to the problem you will destroy the market. Well the market exploded and more money was made by stock than ever before."

I think that photographers can definitely change the direction that microstock is taking i.e. 30c EL and 20/25c per download.  This might be a hokey comparision but it is like someone who contributes to a political campaign either their time, money or vote.  If you think you can't change things, then nothing will change.  If you believe you can mobilize people and make change, you will and people will have to take notice.  Someone in another post wrote, I believe that we are all pebbles but together we are a mountain.  I couldn't agree more. MOBILIZE AND MAKE CHANGE.  As a photographer, you have ALL the power you need.  You decide what you want to shoot, where you want to upload, who you want to work with and how much you want to get paid for your work.  You should be in control.  I think that is CRAZY to accept the really low payouts but I could be wrong.  Maybe the excitement of seeing a couple of downloads of your images on a site that pays you 25c is worth more than the actual work it went into producing.  Even if you are selling 500 bucks worth a month you are still devaluing your hard work and making it tougher on others and thus leading to a race to the bottom for everyone. 

I think micro has been good for the industry.  i think it is the licensing agencies who keep undercutting themselves to attract buyers at your expense are not good for it.  Not to bring it back to Cutcaster, but that is why we are trying to place the control back in the sellers hands at Cutcaster. 

I think you can fix it by mobilizing and realizing that you and your friends have a ton of power to make changes.  You make the decisions at the end of the day and can define the change.  Buyers will go to where there are relevant, fresh and authentic photos. These guys have large budgets.  They are getting a free lunch at some of these other places at your expense and time. 

I know I am just one opinion and still learning.  Iam not right and you are not wrong but I think we can both agree that there is a ton of change to come. I hope I can help change it for the better with you and others. Lets figure out a way to mobilize people together.

For those of you who are interested in the developments of Cutcaster I thought I would share some.  Here is our August newsletter.

Dear Cutcaster Family,

There are a number of episodes that have shocked me lately; The opening ceremonies of the Olympics, the fact that it is the middle of August (where has the summer gone?!), and the way that Cutcaster has quadrupled since the last time I sent out a newsletter just a month and a half ago.

What a crazy and exciting time! A number of our users are now getting sales on the site and also receiving bids from interested buyers.  If you haven�t had a sale yet, don�t worry; we are planning a big marketing push for the months of September and October so it is a good time to get more content into the marketplace or organize your old content.

We just passed 38,000 image files uploaded and have had over 15,000 files uploaded since the start of August.  That doesn�t even include all the video files we are going to release when we bring back video footage. We announced that our goal was to have 100,000 quality uploads by the end of the year.  You can bet on the year-end total amount by submitting what you think will be the year-end tally on our blog http://cutcaster.blogspot.com/2008/08/cutcaster-year-end-goal-your-help.html (www.cutcaster.com/blog) to win a cool prize. 100,000 files is a very doable goal and we are well on our way to accomplishing it!

Since the number of files is growing and we are still a small group of people running www.Cutcaster.com from behind the scenes, we need everyone�s help titling, describing and keywording their content. Take a quick moment to check out your keywords and make sure that your keywords accurately describe each image. If you need help let us know so we can target your content and organize it better.

Our move over to Amazon�s web services platform is complete and I am happy to say that we have increased the speed of the site so things are running much faster at Cutcaster. You will notice a difference when you check out the homepage, and it will only get faster as we continue to work on more ways to speed it up.

Here are a number of new features that we have rolled out over the last month:

1.   Must faster and streamlined FTP and http uploading process that parses out IPTC data and doesn't drag you down uploading for hours.
2.   We added the ability to �friend� contacts on Cutcaster; send site messages to other people who are members of Cutcaster and post comments to each other�s pages. 
3.   We added similar image results to the media details pages so you can find similar content without having to go back to the search areas.  This should help buyers find a variety of similar images without having to do multiple searches.
4.   Public clipfolders are now available on the site and are our version of lightboxes, which you may have seen on other sites. We added a featured clipfolder to the homepage to help get contributors more exposure and sales.
5.   We have added free images to the homepage to attract more buyers to the site and get your work more exposure. Free images at Cutcaster
6.   Exclusive spotlight on the homepage.  We need exclusive content and will pay out more for it.  Ask us about it.  If you have images that you want to test out on our site make them exclusive, you will earn more for them.
7.    The Cutcaster Forum www.cutcaster.com/forum is here and ramping up. Go there and say hello and join in the conversation. 
8.    We now offer vectors and you can upload and set your prices for your vector illustrations.

We are always listening, so please keep the feedback coming! 

In addition, if you want your images and illustrations to be seen by more people, you should read this little post we wrote about getting more interested traffic. 

Also submit/add your studio link to search engines like Google and Yahoo, which is a great idea for getting traffic, or you can link to them from your MySpace, Flickr or personal webpage. Remember to use your referral links as well so you get paid more.


Here are some write-ups on content we want:

Top 14 Best selling categories at Cutcaster http://cutcaster.blogspot.com/2008/08/top-14-selling-categories-for-last-two.html

Smaller and Popular categories we need http://cutcaster.blogspot.com/2008/08/smaller-and-popular-categories-we-need.html

We have been asked for these types of images http://cutcaster.blogspot.com/2008/07/we-have-been-asked-for-these-type-of.html

Desired content we need http://www.cutcaster.com/info/contents

If you need specific content please let us know and we will put out a request for you.

Hope the rest of August goes as slow as possible and you all enjoy the last bits of summer.   

Best,

The Cutcaster Team