Hmm. Didn't even bother to change his name after joining the other big micro forum and immediately began promoting this new site on a DT-problems thread.  Sheesh!

Double for me too, but I'd rather see double uploads than none at all.

I read that other thread you mentioned---a lot of really nasty bitter and definitely uncalled-for comments full of hatred. Yeesh!   Well, I do enjoy LO's site, and very slowly but surely, I'm beginning to see sales.  I had my first ever and so far only EL sale there. I think their website is the best of all the micro's, & their upload process is one of the easiest & most flexible.   I joined as a long-term investment, not being simple-minded enough to assume that as a start-up they would be pulling in huge profits after a year or even 3 years.  But I have seen my earnings there increase at a much faster percentage than several of the older sites I've been on, so apparently they're doing something right even though this market is a difficult one to grow in. Are they in the business to make money? Silly question. I hope they make a lot of money. The good thing is, they're going about it with their contributors in mind, which is a far far cry from most if not all the others. Unless you want results tomorrow, it seems the wiser course is to give this seedling some time to get its roots down deep and the fruit will come later.

Achilles,
Thanks so much for making the effort to give us prompt updates. That is greatly appreciated.

Perhaps DT could hold a Disaster Recovery workshop and invite FT to be their first student

Quote from: Achilles on August 02, 2007, 07:04
... serious hardware crash..... data...permanently affected.....disaster......the most severe accident.....

Thanks, Achilles, but YIKES!!

Quote from: helix7 on July 31, 2007, 03:43
I think that was one of the most flawed articles on microstock I've ever read.

This one's even worse! Although it did make me feel to good to know that I am actually rich. I was not aware of that before I read his article.

Wow! If what the writer says is true, then it's time some micro-hobbits stepped up to help deliver us from the hands of the evil dark lords of Royalty-Free-Land. 

BS has started selling much more regular for me, while 123 is still at the bottom of my list (I'm almost at payout after nearly a year and that is with their lowered payout limit!).
On the subject of Bigstock, anyone have an educated guess as to why their reviews are taking so long??

I really don't want FT to close their doors, since they've sold well for me and many others.  But all this reminds me of the Titanic---the band plays on while the ship sinks; the "band" being Chad et al who have no choice but to keep reporting that IT are "working on it."  Maybe they'll end up being unsinkable, but unless someone has given them tons of money to stay afloat how can they survive this disaster???

Quote from: rosta on July 06, 2007, 13:50
Hi, this morning I received two emails from FT, both identicle and both rejecting an image I hadn't even uploaded.  Nor, based on the image name would it had been one of mine sent in error on my part.  I responded and received an answer back in French.  Both original emails had been in English.

Judy

Wow!!  I'm still signed up with FT, biding the time until they finally get their act together if that day ever comes.  However, posts like this one make me wonder whether I should stay with them at all! They just don't seem to get it, or at least their IT dep't has little or no solid support or supervision from above.  It seems like they're just being given a job to do and miniscule resources/guidance as to how to get it done.  A crying shame.

Good to know. Bring on part 2!

Quote from: leaf on July 02, 2007, 16:45
wow, this thread just made it into the record books having received the most replys of any thread on the site ...... ouch.

Very sad..........

It's disturbing to note how many IT or former-IT people have been commenting on how bad the management of this upgrade was and is.  Now FT is holding back payments from their contributors, who are 1/2 of their lifeblood, the other 1/2 being the buyers whose money I'm sure they're accepting quite happily and very quickly . The skies over FT seem to be darkening with each day that passes rather than clearing up. Does anyone know if their top managers have had anything to say lately???

Quote from: hatman12 on June 23, 2007, 02:26
I've realised that this morning I haven't bothered to check FT.  Usually the first thing I do is check all the agencies for sales, approvals etc.  I did that this morning and now realise that I didn't bother to check FT......

Wow! You too? 

Unfortunately, in articles like the NY Times' and even in the marketing of the micro-sites themselves, one thing they never seem to give you the sense of is that this really and truly does require a dirty 4-letter word......W-O-R-K !!  They make it sound like, "Hey, just grab some of those old pictures that are gathering dust, upload them, and bam! you've got lots of cash rolling in!."  But that is far, far, far from the truth. It is a real investment, and like any investment you will get out of it what you put into it over time, even if it doesn't seem like that at first. You raised an interesting question about how many photog's might venture into stock because of the Times article. Well, if that number's 1K or 100K, it doesn't really matter; if they're not going to put the work in that this field requires they won't hang around very long. One other thing they don't tell you is that it really, and I mean REALLY, helps to have a good understanding of photography before you get too involved in this business (the photo end of it, not talking about illustrations).  If you already know photography, good. If not, it's a wise thing to start now to learn all you can about photography and implement it every chance you get.  Believe it or not, you CAN make money at this, but you have to make the decision for yourself whether you want to stick with it or not  .

Wow! After several months of almost no sales at LO since I joined, this past week I've doubled my total downloads to 6. So the dl's seem to be starting to trickle in, for me at least. I sure hope they pick up momentum because I've gotten to like LO---to me they're the most fun site to visit, although it would be even more fun if there were a lot of sales. And they also got me my first EL ever    They definitely make me feel like I and my contributions are actually worth something to them, unlike several other sites that don't .

Also, I'm not sure how a site like this would work as far as trademarks in photos, but check out these:

http://freerangestock.com/details.php?gid=&sgid=&pid=321

http://freerangestock.com/details.php?gid=&sgid=&pid=990

Quite a few others, but I've got no more time to waste digging there.
Perhaps because they're free images, it doesn't matter??

Have you heard about this site:  freerangestock.com ?   You donate your pictures to their site and make money by visitors clicking on advertising banners when they view your pictures. Right.  Here's an unedited quote directly from their photog terms: "First, make sure that you understand that the photos you upload will be given away and can be downloaded for commercial or non-commercial use."  The owner is apparently making the rounds soliciting photog's to join.  I guess if you are so desperate that you just want to have your pictures viewed and used by the world for basically free, then this site is for you.

The first half of June was extremely slow for me as well. However, this week has really picked up quickly and is back on track as normal.  It looks like they're tweaking the search engine again or tweaking something anyway.  At our expense, of course 

Maybe a year....

A definite uptick this week, a huge spike yesterday, but overall this month is down about 20%.

After this fiasco I can't see many serious buyers taking Fotolia seriously again.  FT obviously don't think very highly of either their contributers OR their buyers!  Well, maybe I'll visit them again after a year to see how things have shaped up.  Maybe some giant will bail them out and buy them for a bargain price .

I'm in USA and my last payment from them took 8 days using Paypal (and of course the site says it should take only 3 days ). I contacted support on the 7th day and had my payment the next day but I don't know if my contact had anything to do with it, maybe it was just their payment cycle.

Quote from: hatman12 on June 16, 2007, 22:43
I'm no techie, but it seems to me that if I had been managing this changeover I would've got the site up and running on the new servers, copied over all the required information, checked and triple checked, put the site out to a few hundred trusted customers for beta testing, then, when everything is confirmed as okay I'd press a 'switchover' button.

Hmm. Now why didn't FT think of that? As for the rest of your post, I believe you are far closer to the truth than they would want to even think about admitting.