Quote from: briciola on May 11, 2012, 19:28

...stockfresh is dead in the water...

Totally off-topic, but just wanted to mention, SF is showing signs of life for me. I'm up to $20 earnings so far this month. Still nothing to get excited about, but it's significantly better than where I was with them a month or two back.

Good for you.  I was about to pull my port today. $3 a month ain't cutting it for me with 2500 images. I decided to let it ride solely because there is little risk, tho some.

28 cents here 28 cents there ... it soon adds up to 56 cents.  

.28 is sheit, but I do manage to pull in $175 to $250 a month, so my sales add up more than your 56 cents.

FT has killed me personally.  From $200 a month to $75ish. 

I'm not a buyer, so it doesn't matter for me; but I was thinking more about keyword spamming messing up searches.

For me, other than the voodoo sites play with their search, keywording is the single most important function of an image sale (to be found), aside from it being just what the buyer wants.  Spamming just fks it up for everyone, the buyers and the contributors.  I probably spend more time than I should keywording because over the years I have realized its importance. Some are of the mind that if a site allows 50 KW then I am putting in 50.  I personally only put in what I think is appropriate, somewhere between 8 and 50

Well I'm 52 and I sell more images now than when I was much younger so no __ age is not a factor.

Bwaahhhahahahahahahahaah  Good One!!

To the OP, older files may taper off depending on their current search algorithm.  The sites are always tweaking them to do something new, which may or may not affect older images.  Awhile back your new uploads on SS used to get a HUGE boost and if you uploaded all the time in large volumes you were golden.  That doesn't happen anymore.  It all just depends on the current search logic.

I'm having a very strange experience with that Elena.  I tend to have  one or two sales on new files straight away, and then they just stop and become slow and sporadic, but the older stuff keeps churning out sales at a regular rate.

I had a batch of 40 accepted and the next day I sold one for 18 bucks, then nothing else since...7days.

Quote from: cascoly on May 04, 2012, 17:29

3rd world still retains whiffs of colonialism and condescension  and since the 2nd world has collapsed, it also doesn't make much sense anymore.
 countries like India which might have been called 3rd world now have over 200 million in the middle class and along with china will continue to grow

the G8 countries are now the G20. globalization is real and expanding

so, yes, it is time to retire the phrase; 'emerging nations', 'developing nations' are much more neutral and less patronizing

Isn't 'developing nations' equally condescending and patronizing? It suggests that 'proper countries' have already fully developed and they're sort of marking time in a kindly way whilst waiting for their less capable counterparts to be helped along.

I know of no country that is 'fully developed'. All countries are developing, it's just that some are ahead of others. It is all just snaphots in time. Thailand today, for example, is vastly more developed than any Western country was even 70 years ago. In some ways it is actually more developed than Western nations in the social cohesion, lack of unemployment and low crime rate. As a Westerner who spends much time there I feel we could learn much from them. They may be following us to some degree, but boy are they learning from our mistakes. I'm sure the same could be said of many other 'developing nations', so to speak.

Call it what you want, the experience of a less developed country, for me, has been a joy.  I find that, as a whole, the places I've been have had very friendly natives, warm residents and I've made some lasting friends.  Many years ago in Cairo Egypt I was introduced to * raw oysters by an Egyptian physician.  We sat on the sidewalk of a small diner during the evening, warm but relaxing. I was flying back to the states the next day.  I got such bad food poisoning during my flight I thought I was a dead man.  But Omar the doc and I now laugh about it years later, like 30 years later.  Traveling to countries with varying levels of condition, economically and culturally, is the reward. It can never be replaced and is, to me, worth every dime I spend.

The Depths of the Amazon jungle! Can you imagine the wildlife

Been there and it was nice if you can handle the bugs, and, if you are on a crappy little screen covered live aboard and can handle bilge rats and sweat you are good to go.  Honestly I heard a lot of animals in the trees but couldn't see a lot.  But we did hunt Caiman at night...like small crocs.  Went to photograph pink river dolphins.

Galapagos
Honduras
India
Egypt
Indonesia
Micronesia
Baja
Malaysia

These are a few places I've been but the cost is what you make it and so is the safety.  Good third world trips require planning and knowledge, so it's hard to answer your question.

Quote from: hatman12 on May 03, 2012, 21:31

Well, congratulations to Yuri.  What an excellent web site.  And those full size previews - wow.

My guess is that this is only the first step.  Yuri has seen Bruce get his $50 million, and now Jon getting his $100 million, and Yuri wants his slice of that pie.  I'll guess that gradually Yuri will include work from other photographers, gradually building into the premier agency for people photos.  He could attract a surprising amount of traffic and business.  In about five years or so he'll have an asset that will be worth a lot of money.  Perhaps then he'll sell out to Getty or Shutterstock, or even attempt to become an industry leader and eventually do his own IPO.

One thing is certain - Yuri is a winner who thinks big.  I don't think he'll be satisfied with just a small boutique web site.

Well done Yuri.  What a pleasure to see someone become such a success through their own hard work and entrepreneurship.

I agree!  in this day and age, its not easy to build anything,  most people trying end up at the local shrink. People like Jon, Yuri, even Bruce, has got to be admired.
Yuri built this, surrounded by the big 4 agencies, that alone is full marks.

Completely agree.  Good for him.  Next up???

I think I'll copyright a circle, a square and a straight line and sue anybody who uses one of those.

hahahahhahahah exactly!!

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on April 29, 2012, 04:52

Quote from: Wim on April 29, 2012, 04:30

Suggestion to all big players here, start over from scratch and see how you would fare these days as an "unknown photographer"

errrr.... no thank you.

LOL!  The master of understatement! 

I would never want to have to start this today. Some of us are well aware we started at just the right time.  Would be difficult to impossible to start now and achieve the same success unless you were already an established stock producer (i.e. monkeybusiness). 

After years of doing technical design, travel, etc, I got into MS only 5-6 years ago.  I have done plenty of professional shoots, staging, etc in the days when we''d use Polaroids to test exposure/composition, etc and then shoot the film version. Wish I'd have gotten into MS sooner. All of that experience, with the advent of digital would have made it a lot easier for me to make some money. It's been a hard, challenging five years but I am growing my sales as I grow my port.  But back in the day the standards of acceptable images were based on composition, feel, message, not so much technical standards.  Does the image meet our requirements? Yes.  Cool. Let's pay the photographer his $375 an hour for that two hours.  There was no zooming in at 100 percent, etc.  Once I got in to MS, these criteria were new to me and they are, technically speaking, more stringent than shooting a brochure or magazine image.

Quote from: Mantis on April 29, 2012, 17:24

I have waited to post in this thread, but April will be my biggest month in 6 years, albeit thanks to 10 ELs across three sites. Without the EL's it would have been an average month, not a loss, but about in line with the last 6 months.

Congratulations!  Nice to read some good news

Thank you, Lisa.