From my experience in the technology business:

When a big company buys a smaller company, there's enormous pressure to make it pay off immediately.  The people who pushed the deal inside the big company are on the spot to show that it was a good idea. And their rivals are circling like vultures, hoping it fails.  So it's just about impossible to resist the temptation to do things that make quick profits, and forget about the future. All that talk about "synergy" and "a perfect fit" goes out the window pretty quick, and the only goal is to generate cash, right away.

And the big company people don't really know how the small company works. They don't have the history or the deep knowledge of the small company's business.  Under pressure to produce quick profits, they forget about  enhancing and fine-tuning the small company, and start looking at how to pull more money out of its existing assets and products.  The people who made the small company successful get disillusioned and leave.  The end result is all too predictable. 

Sorry if these seems like a complete downer, but it's my experience, so I'm tossing it in.   Of course, every business situation is unique and things could go in a totally different direction.  My own prediction though is that Getty is going to leave the microstock business in a shambles.

SS is the only one that's done anything for me.  DT, FT are way behind and IS has been a flop.  StockXpert is in trouble - may contributors (including myself) found that submissions after February of this year were getting no views. This issue is unresolved.

So at this point there is no big 4 for me.  SS, DT and FT are the only ones worth submitting to  - and only SS has generated any money - and that was almost all from subscriptions.

For a while on the StockXpert forum, an Admin was saying the '0 views' problem was a mystery that was being looked into.  Weeks went by and there was no resolution.  Currently, forum posts on the subject get no official response.   So if this is somehow related to the Getty takeover, someone has been less than forthcoming about that on their forum.

D@mn funny way to run a railroad.

Exactly what Xalanx said.


I'm thrilled that StockXpert is spending time hunting for old NASA images instead of fixing this problem.   

I too am done with StockXpert.  I started in January and it's been a complete waste of time.

These first-round microstocks are starting to regret the way the raced each other to  "X million images", and all the money they saved by making the contributors do their own keywording. 

   

NitorPhoto, that's a very funny example of a shot that has absolutely no value, yet still meets all the acceptance criteria at a microstock. 

I think I agree about exclusivity.  A lot of buyers will probably find an image on CC, then do a search for the title/description on other sites and end up getting it for a lot less.  In my dreams, I'm exclusive on CC and once in a while, sell a photo for $10.   Well like the song says, you gotta have a dream.

Warren, if I saw just one sale, I'd probably let the algorithm continue to set prices.  I do get some views, so I'm thinking the price is too high and buyers can't be bothered with the time it takes to make a bid and have me respond. 

My expectations are low. Right now I see CC as just a prototype of a possible way out of Subscription Hell.     

Rockefeller makes some valid though rather obvious points.  Increased regulation of "the internet" - however you define that term today - is inevitable.  But most of these politicians have such a limited understanding of the issue that they're not likely to accomplish much.  Any bills they pass will be impossible to implement, or completely ineffective.  No one is going to stop commerce on the internet.   Given the lobbying money that would be deployed against you, you might as well lay down in front of a freight train. 

Ok then lisafx, in your experience what exactly are the referring to when they say "artifacting"?

I could believe that IS has the best collection, has been the most selective and has the sharpest reviewers. I would just like to see some objective evidence for those statements.   Certainly some microstocks have taken in way too much junk in the past; however it seems like right now, they're all trying to change and have upped their standards considerably. 

I'd been burned by IS in the past and recently I tried again. I submitted some images that been recently accepted by SS, DT, FT and 123RF.  IS rejected what I considered 2 spotless images for "artifacts".   There is only so much time I can spend on this, unless they started to show me some sales, which so far they have not.

Like I said, I think a lot of this is due to subject matter.  But I also think they may be obsessing over things which would never matter unless you're printing it 10 feet high.

iStock reviewers are definitely the best trained of all, so they do spot things that others do not.

What is your basis for that statement? I'm sure IS would claim it's true, but I wonder if SS would agree.