Also Wirestock V 2.0 (this reply was in July, I don't know if they read metadata yet or not, I haven't uploaded in months) You will have the chance to upload your photos with metadata with the new Wirestock 2.0 version.

Yes they do read metadata now, although their interface remains quite buggy and I'm still missing the portfolio search functionality and feedback on whether files were accepted by an agency or not.

All of the earlier mentioned remarks are true. Their own keywording tends to be very generic or even wrong, and their collection contains a lot of garbage.

That said, I like using WireStock as an aggregator for low earning agencies like DT, DP 123RF and Pond5 giving me faster payout.
Additionally, I admit being guilty of adding generic garbage-like images too. You know, the kind of images which you usually don't upload to your personal agency accounts as keywording all these images isn't worth the time. So I let Wirestock deal with the keywording, and take whatever sales these images make. (which they, to my own surprise, do. Every now and then).

or they aren't paying contributors what they ought to be paying them. How do we find out anyway? Unlike SS, where there's a quarterly circus where you know how much they made and how little they paid you, all of DT's sales statistics are under wraps.

People would find their images being used, online or in the real world, without seeing the sales reflected in their Dreamstime dashboard.
And that didn't happen until now, I think they play that quite fair.

Ethics and morals aside, no business would accept heavy criticism or promotion for competitors on their own platform. Either they put more effort (and thus money) in moderating the place, or shut it down. They chose the latter, without any communication or explanation, and it says a lot how they treat the hands that feed them.

As I see it, based on their behavior of the last past months, they want to demotivate and eventually get rid of amateur and hobbyist contributors as they are too much hassle.

And maybe that's where the microstock industry is heading to, the next coming years.
Smaller and community based agencies with independent contributors providing quirky content for a niche market versus big corporations fed by professional studio's producing generic content for the masses. 

I assume Microsoft customers buy the advertisement package, image licensing included. So Microsoft would have to pay Shutterstock, and Shutterstock their contributors.

I just learned about Eyeem and i'm very interested.    My question is about getting a quantity of photo's up.  Have you submitted many?   since most of my iphone photo's are no longer on my iphone, what's the best way to get them from my pc hard drive to eyeem? Do i have to reload them back to my iphone, then upload?   is there a way to upload from the pc?    and then, can i use photos that were taken by my dslr?   sorry if these are simple questions, but they're not clear from what i've read so far about eyeem.   thanks

Yes you can upload them directly via their website using your laptop. EXIF data like title and keywords are copied, and keyword suggestions are made. They have an app for as well Android as iOS and it offers more functionality than their website. If your image is selected for the partner program, you'll have to complete the submission process via the app. It's all pretty easy and straightforward, except for reviewing the partner program content.

That said, I don't know how many sales you can expect. I uploaded a few hundred images three weeks back. Most of them were selected for their market, and half of them for the partner program. Until now, not a single sale.

For what it's worth, the keywording is as bad as the images. For one of the scrumpled pieces of paper we have:

abstract backdrop background blank card computer design document empty grunge grungy image letter note notebook office page paper pen rough scrapbook sheet space stained surface texture wallpaper web website white

The upside down maple leaves use the keyword flag. The plastic bottle has healthy lifestyle & fitness. The speed limit sign has car, business, automobile, green. I could go on but you get the idea.

That's what you get when IA keyworders talk to AI reviewers. The only thing those images need are AI buyers.

As far as quality goes, don't forget these stock garbage trucks like Wirestock are also dumping these images on other agencies, and I know a few who'll definitely accept (talking to you DT and P5)

I was going to lay back and enjoy this forum as a reader instead of a poster but after reading your post I wanted to give an update of my view on the current situation.

You are right about the stock market not being affected at all by our actions.
Too many contributors are still ok with this change. They complain but are still uploading while others that can afford to deactivate their portfolio don't. This will never work anyway if they can continue to sell our work so even though it's impossible for many of us our portfolio's should be in fact be deactivated because stopping uploads isn't going to change much. Their buyers don't seem to have any intention to shop elsewhere and that is because they can still get what they want with so much on offer.

Then we have other agencies who do not seem to be eager to take their place. My best sellers at SS (with one over 9k downloads) are now dead since they never took off at other agencies and it looks like they never will.
I have picked up a lot on uploading to Adobe but they don't move an inch so I don't think Adobe is the solution. This seems to be the case for many others btw. I was a bit overenthousiastic about Adobe in the past. This is also probably the reason Mat still has a port on SS. Adobe is not a performer, on the contrary they seem to be going down after deactivating my portfolio at SS. It's as if the competition is afraid of SS and hey, maybe they are!

So if contributors don't care, buyers don't care and other agencies don't care?

With that I have re-activated my portfolio and will take what is left from Microstock instead of letting my deactivated best sellers do nothing but collect dust.
I might deactivate my port again in the near future because SS might have decided to screw those who have deactivated their ports even more and obviously I won't be sending them my new work.
Eventually SS might start lacking new content and maybe then we can see some movement but by that time most of us have probably moved out of Microstock.
I will continue uploading new work to Adobe and Pond5 just to see if there is even a slight uptick but this is wishful thinking.

To me Shutterstock is the creator and destroyer of the Microstock market!

So back to hiding for me. Again my apologies if I have offended anyone in my previous posts and my apologies to those who are taking a stand for no longer joining them in this battle. Well I still am for not uploading new work but that's not going to to have much effect I'm afraid.

Good luck to all my fellow contributors!

Most of us go through the Kubler Ross curve here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model#/media/File:K%C3%BCbler_Ross_grieving_curve_(edited).png)

Each on their own, and at their own pace.

Most of us will re-enable portfolio's and even resume uploading.

Kudos to the ones like Farbled who decided to step out. It's either that or just accepting the new reality, there's no real in-between because indeed, you are right Snow, SS started the complete demolition of microstock.

So I suppose Adobe, pond5, Alamy, Dreamstime will become agencies for good quality content.

SS will still have the content from the stock factories, butgood quality localized and niche content will be forced to go elsewhere.

Well, I sure hope you are right, but I'm afraid people will continue uploading to SS, also their high quality content.
Keywording is done for other agencies anyhow, and ticking an additional checkbox in whatever uploading system they are using is dead easy.
In addition, aggregators like Wirestock make it even more easy to upload to different agencies, with contributors profiting from the higher earning tiers.

Sure, some people will stay away from SS because they don't agree with the earning- and commission structure, but the majority won't and just take the money.
I don't agree with DT and P5 becoming agencies with good content. They basically take everything, there's plenty of junk in their databases too.
Additionally, everybody dumping their catalogue on other platforms right now makes it even more difficult to sell something there, as there is an increase in content, but not an increase in buyers.

And the problem with localized and niche content is that ... well it doesn't sell that frequently.
Some assets may experience a short burst in sales due to an event, but most of it will never be looked at or only sell very occasionally.

SS will continue to grow and receive content. Maybe not as much as they used to have, but enough to cover the commercial relevant topics and satisfy their buyers.

As you said, it's a self regulating system, and as it looks right now, SS is not really suffering or on the verge of running dry due to the boycott from a minority of the contributors.

I have a few photos that rank at the top of searches that I would like to disable.  However, I'm concerned about losing my ranking once the photos are enabled again.  Does anyone know what would happen?  Thanks.

If your intention from the beginning on was only a temporarily deactivation of your portfolio, better reactivate immediately, and accept selling the majority of your work at 10$c.
These few weeks of boycot aren't gonna change anything. This is the new normal at SS.

As I see it, there are two options: accept it and take the pennies, or quit them and don't look back.

Quote from: NeonRobot on June 16, 2020, 04:16

Quote from: miketravels on June 16, 2020, 03:50

Btw when/if we re-enable our port/image sales down the line do all our previous images come back? In catelog manager I can only see 300 images now whilst I had over 6k before.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk

Their servers are overruned by turning off procedure of angry slaves;)
Wait a bit and your pictures will return with ability to sale for 0.05$ in the nearest future!

Could it really block their servers?
We all agree to reactivate our portfolios at the same time (we decide on a GMT time that is convenient for most of us - 17.00 GMT [?])
Then two days later we deactivate our portfolios in the same way.
And we continue like this every two days�

If they got their things set up right, I don't think it will block their servers. The system is probably just working the queue of disabled / enabled profiles at available processing capacity, and capacity can be added pretty fast and easy nowadays.

I can imagine it disrupts the customer experience somehow, with images being available/unavailable intermittently, but we're talking about a fraction of the complete database which is disabled/enabled, and that database is loaded with plenty of assets covering the same subject. Chances are pretty high a buyer will find something that fits the need anyhow.

One thing to add: Hovering over the question mark in the account settings menu mentions that images can only be disabled in very rare cases, such as waiting for an exclusivity clause with another party. They remain pretty vague about the circumstances when to use the option of disabling your images, but I can imagine that playing around with it too much can be seen as a violation of their TOS.

Yes, sales are slow on Adobe the last 10 days...quite unusual. What is going on?

Increased competition because everyone is dumping their library on Shutterstock's competitors?

At the same time the money we get via getty dropped drastically. We still occasionally got some unsually high rewards, 30,60, 200 dollars, sometimes for very, very quirky files.

But the majority of my downloads was more in the range of 15 - 45 cents. A few even also below 10 cents. Other sales around a dollar.

Last month I had 53 sales and got 60 dollars. But only because of one larger sale for 35 dollars was the average around a dollar.

Interesting to see the Eyeem collection on Getty seems to get far better RPD than when selling them via iStock directly. Definitely taking into account that also Eyeem takes it's 50% share.

Which makes me wonder - if customers can so easily buy eyeem files for even below micro prices - why would anyone buy from eyeem.

Wondered the same. Their best images are selected for the partner program, and available there at a potentially cheaper price. The Eyeem market is filled with images that do not meet quality standards or have the commercial value to be selected for the partner program, but they try to sell them anyhow for premium prices. Doesn't make much sense.

My assumption is that your image has to be selected by the curators and end up in their editor's choice list or get labeled as premium, to get some exposure to buyers. 

In the end, it just became a filler agency for Getty.

500px d�ja-vu. Sad to see how platforms start out with good intentions, and when the money runs dry, end up being sucked into the microstock vortex.

I really loved that place, but I must focus my attention elsewhere and maybe just share a few flowers and sunsets to stay in touch with the people from my network. Also only shoot from iphone, no post processing.

The flowers will be exclusive of course.

Well, flowers sell, some people say ;-)