I'm going to go through my images tonight to check all the titles. It won't be fun, but it's necessary.

The "Image Gallery Stats" page allow people to review 20 image titles at a time. I think I can go through it in an hour or 2.

They're going after spammers like these:

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-432284371/stock-vector-message-icon-message-icon-eps-message-icon-vector-message-icon-eps-message-icon-jpg-message.html

Most of us are caught in the crossfire.

That lifestyle portfolio is very nice (if a bit repetitive), but that's irrelevant to the point that some of us were making. Downloads are not decreasing - it's the money that is. Money change has nothing to do with increased competition.

On a slight tangent, some contributors are apparently getting desperate to boost sales:

I noticed something today which is either the entrepreneurial spirit in full bloom, or the sad abdication of any long term care over their library by Shutterstock: A vector contributor has started adding "Good Vector", "Best Vector Ever", "Best Seller", and "Exeptional Vector" icons to the uploaded work. And that's the contributor's spelling, not my typo.

It seems to me completely unfair to customers that they have to remove this trash from their vectors prior to using them. It's not much work, admittedly, but it's still rude behavior and I don't think SS should permit this type of stuff.

Not to mention labeling many vectors in your portfolio "Best Vector Ever" suggests you don't really understand what you've written.

I won't post a link, but if you search for "carrot flat organic ripe" in vectors, you'll see one example of a "Best Vector Ever"

And if you do a search for "camera dslr hipster flat icon photographic" in vectors, you'll see two examples of another contributor's work with the text "FREE VECTOR" at the top. In that person's portfolio, there's page after page with that label on them.

This isn't placeholder text and at the very least it's misleading buyers (who might think this vector was part of the weekly giveaway SS does).

It's pretty depressing to see SS just let itself go like that.

While the OP wasn't specific, I believe his decline is related to both revenue and download numbers. It seems like there are more and more subscriptions, which leads to lower overall OD/SOD downloads for some contributors. If download numbers are going down, it's likely has to do with competition.

I've seen a lot of those type of vectors you mentioned. I don't believe his "free vectors" are getting much downloads since they're clumped together in his portfolio. SS should enforce them a bit, but at the same time, the contributor is doing a disservice to himself by making his work look cheap.

Being exclusive doesn't mean you'll get better placement. It just means that you get paid more per download and they'll highlight you a bit more if the opportunities arises.

In addition, it's actually not logical for them to put exclusive images on top. They get paid less per download and Getty need every penny it can get. Everyone plays by the same rules, so you better give it your best when it comes to composition, commercial value and keywording.

is anyone with increase in sales?

I'm on pace to having a slight increase in downloads, and a slight decrease in revenue. But who knows, we still have 4 full days ahead of us before the month is over.

The UK will be fine as they have been for centuries. When a country like Britain have to the will and determination to be succeed, they will find a way to work things out.

The UK look at Switzerland as a model of economic prosperity outside of the EU. They want to have free trade and they want control of their own resources. They don't want regulations holding them back. The only hiccup I see is the EU possibility retaliating against the UK for exit. They'll find a way with their regulations and protectionism to slow down trade between the UK and the EU, but it just means the the UK will have to deal with Asia & the US a bit more.

As for the impact on the MS business, it probably did on Friday. I know that some people were watching the market and worrying about their stock portfolio instead of working. It wasn't a big impact and I see things going back to normal on Monday. Next week will be a slower week than usual because of Independence Day in the US.

I don't see how anyone who wants out of the EU is stupid or racist. It's a silly accusation that stems from emotion and less from logic.

I can see why the UK wants out of the EU and it makes a lot of sense. The EU is not exactly transparent on its policies and it's not very democratic. Some countries are shackled to their policies and they feel that they don't have a say. If Greece wasn't in the EU, they may be in a different position than they are today.

The EU has so much influence, it's almost scary. Heavy regulation, lack of transparency,  anti-competition, protectionism and divvying up resources for its members. It works great for certain countries, but not great for countries who has certain things taken away. Britain sees the EU as a controlling empire that takes more than it gives back. Sure, Britain will suffer in the beginning, but in the long run, they'll learn to pick themselves up and sort out the mess.

DT's traffic has been falling recently:

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/dreamstime.com

Bounce rate is incredibly high at 59.3%, with page views at 2.93 (My personal site is 3.00, which goes to show how pathetic the DT page views are). Time on site is 2:32, which again is quite pathetic.

I believe they had a redesign for the public facing site recently, but it could be better and should have been done sooner. Once the user is logged in, the user experience is poor and confusing. DT has a lot of problems and I don't know if they can fix them before it's too late.

We need a reasonably priced laptop with good graphics power and RAM to do animation, 3D, etc. Anyone have a suggestion?

If you don't mind the non-portability of it, I also recommend a 5K iMac. More affordable than a MacBook Pro and more powerful.

did your month started well??? mine did and i was quite pleased after a slow may,
but last week till now it slowed to a trickle and quite a number of zero days.

is this attack thing something a site like ss cannot prevent???
why is it that for some sites you get this warning for downloading too many,
and yet ss cannot put up something to warn itself if a hacker is flooding them with useless data.

can't they have some sort of red flag to stop you and ask you to reboot or something?
i'm old-school so i don't know how this hacker attacks works, but surely you think a #1 stock site would
already have some preventive measure so we don't suffer too many of these zero days due to
eff-ups like that.

DDOS attacks are fairly common. It's basically flooding the site with more traffic than it can handle. There are people who threaten websites all the time, like protection rackets. Ask them to pay x amount or else they get DDOS attacked. Information is not compromised, but nobody can access the site. There are sites that helps it like CloudFlare, but it's expensive.

They've expanded their Spark product to include video and what seem like presentations. Their initial product is similar to canva, but they're more focused on social design postings which has very little money in it.

Canva on the other hand has expanded their offerings, which includes the buying of credits on their app for purchasing images for their designs. Adobe is trying to sell cloud storage through the apps, which makes very little money. It looks like a bad corporate decision to expand their cloud storage business, but Adobe Spark can be so much more.

If Adobe were to integrate Adobe Stock into Adobe Spark, a natural coupling... Adobe Stock could see some nice growth and Adobe Spark can become more useful. A win win for both products. And contributors can see a bump in Adobe Stock/FT income. Apple taking a 30% cut of the IAP credits may be what's causing Adobe to be hesitant, but they just may have to bite that bullet on that one.

I wouldn't do it. It's not worth it. You may own the photographs, but the designer own the designs, even if it's a bit generic.

I usually ask for 50% up front before doing any job for small players. I can trust a company who has a reputation to keep to pay me, but never trust an independent.