I'm wondering how any of these new sites are going to steal the buyers away from the sites we are already uploading to? If the bottom of the big 6-7 are barely worth uploading to, how is a new player going to be worthwhile? Snap Village has been a big disappointment and look at their backing. Is it already to late for anyone else? Has anyone broke into the market since 123 or whoever was last?

I enjoy Miz's posts.  I actually search then out.

Of course I have been married for a lot of years

I enjoy all these guys posts   its all info and entertainment. Miz- for the pure entertainment, and stirring the pot all the time. Rinder- for the great info. Sjlocke- for always dropping the hammer on everyone. Thanks for the entertainment, place would be the same without. Everyone has their shortcomings. No need to hate.

It looks like this does shave some time off of the six months. I just deleted 30% of my newest files and now it says I can start deleting again on 10/17 ..where before deletion, six months would have been up on 12/01. So, looks like I was able to shave a month and a half off the waiting period.

Quote from: cdwheatley on June 23, 2008, 17:23

Right! does sound a little fishy. Looks like I am out an EL sale. After my third try with support they gave me the same fraud information that was on the forum. A lot of issues with that site lately. Five more months and I won't have to worry about it.

I can't see why someone using a stolen Credit Card would buy an EL.  That's kind of stupid.

Seriously if you're stealing images you'd probably try to download as many as you can without getting too much attention...

Agree, why would a thief, savvy enough to hack the system go for the max purchase. But its kinda hard to point fingers without actually knowing what is really going on. If in fact someone did return my file or buy it fraudulently, there should be a better system in place to keep us in the loop. Probably a lot of contributers with suspicious minds right now.

I have been complaining in the past about credits not adding for sales.  Always got some canned answer from admins.
Contacted Chad, no response... and today, again sales that are not added properly.
A 4 credit sale only added 1 credit.

What do we have to do so that fotolia finally will admit there is a problem.?...
Advice needed. I'm loosing money....

Patrick H.

I'm waiting for response on a missing extended license sale. I would like to believe it is a bug. If I don't get paid, I'm pulling my port. Not that it will make a bit of difference to them, but it does to me. I can't work like that, and don't want to waste time watching/wondering if the numbers are adding up. Something from the admin would be nice like a "we are aware of the problem and we are working to resolve it, hang tight"

Quote from: cdwheatley on June 21, 2008, 11:00

Quote from: niserin on June 21, 2008, 05:19

As in subject. Does it infuence in any case search engine?
It a lot of work to reorder keywords in my 1500 photos' portfolio, that's why I ask.
Thanks

After all the talk about the "relevance" search on fotolia I did a little experiment. I uploaded 2 images almost the same, one portrait and one landscape. I used 8 keywords on one and 30-40 keywords on the other. The one with 8 keywords got placed at the top of the search. This explains why there was one certain photographer whose images were dominating the searches. He only had a few keywords on each image. Anyone else try this?

I just checked out your experiment and indeed it works but when you click on the downloads preference most of the top images dissappear. I guess this means that yes your image might appear near the top on relevance but customers are not influenced by the results and are willing to dig a bit deeper in the search. Also by only putting 8 search words it does cut down the amount of words that they can be found by and thus appearing in less searches...swings and round abouts!

I Agree that some customers will dig deeper but, I have yet to see one of my images on page 5 outsell an image on page 1 even if it is a much better image. I have seen some pretty mediocre images sell like crazy because they are sitting on the first line of best match, relevance. I have no plans to start using 8 keywords, just wanted to get to the bottom of why one particular photographer was dominating the entire search after the relevance change about a month ago. The funny thing is my image with 8 keywords that got good placement is outselling the other so far, views and sales. The image with 30-40 keywords is a better image.

It happened again - my sales count just rolled back by one file and my $$ balance by 37 cents (what I get for one XS sale). I have a screen capture of the before and after, and the sold files list for today is unchanged (i.e. no removed entry in that list).

I guess I'll write to support, just so I can say I have, even though it appears that no one else has gotten anywhere with these complaints.

They've got a bug in there somewhere...

Good job on the screen capture 

Right, something going on there. I would not have noticed except it was a big sale. Support gave me a canned response and closed the session     The rest of sales from today are there, just the one missing.

I hope you guys are right as well. The fact is, no one knows for sure what will happen in the future. If 10 years ago you were to tell the big 5 of the music industry, that they would be selling tracks for a dollar on a internet company called itunes. They would surely have laughed in your face. Just a thought.

I would love to see all of microstock charge by the usage. I think alamy has a good idea with that, especially after the mixed feelings the "Time cover" brought up.

As others have mentioned, we all signed up for microstock and hopefully knew what we were getting into. The image only has this great value because Time magazine used it. Tomorrow maybe some guy with a startup diaper website will use the image, who knows? My point is, if the image is selling for macro prices your not going to get the diaper sale.
I see my images in magazines all the time, so what. I still get my money's worth when all the other people that are not going to publish it, buy the image. If your stuff is that valuable to you, then sell at macro prices, then you can feel satisfied when the big dollar sale rolls in. Then the image will go back on the shelf for another 6 months waiting for the next guy who is willing to part with a thousand bucks for your image.

I can't go anywhere without seeing one of Yuri's pics somewhere. I wonder if he gets all worked up everytime he see's one of his images in print? I think its a big honor to have your image on the cover of Time Magazine, would happily donate one for the cover anytime. Money isn't everything.

It just seems to me micro/macro are going in 2 different directions. Time will tell.

Quote from: cdwheatley on June 06, 2008, 22:45

I just uploaded a few images today (Friday) in hopes they would be approved by sunday and live on Monday.
...

Yeah, me too. This sudden image approval surge at SS has thrown off my routine a bit.

Just when you think you have it figured out...surprise surprise 

The nice thing about microstock is you pretty much have freedom to do whatever you want. No clients, No boss, very few rules. If you want to try and do what other successful people are doing, feel free. If you want to be artistic you can do that as well. If you want to shoot only what you love then have at it. The choice is yours, try to have a good time because life is short and at the end of the day there are only memories. I feel fortunate to be doing stock.

Quote from: Lizard on June 02, 2008, 13:23

That depends on how much they pay as I'm concerned.

If this industry goes in the direction where they continue to compete who will give our work for less , and if their profit will target to get  as many images as they can get even if they earn 2 cents on a download and offer us 1 cent some day in future , just because they can , then giving my whole portfolio that is now more than 5000 images for free (but not on their sites) would make sense , just because I can. The only question is what is the price that would draw the line. 

I know for fact that there are many people thinking the same , so if we have to go down , what a hell , lets go down with style.

Guess  I am not one of those "many people".  If the bottom falls out of the micro industry then I will have to look harder for other lucrative outlets for my portfolio.  Frankly, I would rather see my portfolio sitting on my hard drive gathering dust (figuratively) than to give it away. 

Totally agree. I would hope there are not to many people that have invested their time and money in equipment, props, models, locations, willing to give away their material for free..turns my stomach to think about it