I dont think its neccessarily a bad thing to have longer shelf life for your files

Is anyone  uploading to thinkstock directly or is everyone going through istock or are there other sites to submit from? Are you submitting all your new images too and have you seen a substantial sales growth the last 3 months?

Sorry if I wasn't clear.  I was not making the point specifically about DT and people uploading there.  That was just an example. 
The point I am making (again) is that all the top people you mentioned have WAY LESS IMAGES on Istock than they do on other top sites. 
Even accounting for IS upload limits they should all have larger portfolios on IS than they do unless the highest selling independents just aren't bothering with Istock anymore.

And the above, to repeat myself for the sake of clarity, is to support my opinion that IS doesn't necessarily have all the best of the best images anymore and shouldn't be considered the ONLY professional quality site. 

Maybe the top independants upload more to other sites because they have less competition at those other sites and thus sell more and make more money. At istock, you have many exclusives with similiar content with a more favorable best match position that is as good as the top independants.
On another note, I would be worried in the coming months if i were an independant at istock with the inclusion E+. I would say that besides the few spectacular selling images, all other images will take another hit and go further down the pages.

True!  but youre talking about a meager 5% of buyers ( according to all stats)  how are 20 micros going to cash in on that? in this Micro world, its the little ordinary guy thats need looking after, hes the one putting food on your table.

Excuse my ignorance but what stats are you referring to? I'm exclusive at istock so i cant say much for the other agencies and their buyers habits. I feel that a good chunk of the macro market has gone into the micro market (at least in istock) so they are used to seeing much higher prices and dont mind these higher prices especially with the E+ prices.  With this price hike, i believe Getty is trying to herd the mom and pop shoppers to thinkstock which is troublesome.

finally, some action on these boards

I know a guy who was struggling to be accepted as vector artist at IS. When he finally made it, he started to upload hundreds of his vectors, but IS started to send him warnings that he is gonna be banned from Istock because his vectors were copycats of already existing work at Istock. So, he replied that problematic vectors are actually his original work, copied by other artists and uploaded to IS. He also gave few examples of his vectors, uploaded to StockXpert even before similar vectors from other artists appeared in IS database, but he was finally banned from Istock.
Now, who was right...IS or the artist, I don't know. It's possible they both had right at some degree.

I would tend to think he was most likely the copycat by your statement. If he was any good, he wouldn't have a problem getting accepted by IS. People usually copy other peoples work because they are usually in the dark for what makes an image a hot seller. This is a combination of skills and a general knowledge of stock industry. This guy abviously doesnt have the skills to get accepted into the IS library and without the skills, i would bet no knowledge of the industry either.

crap, i just got in and seeing istock isnt up... how long has this problem been going on? wonder if they lost a million in revenue today due to this

Google leaves china after hacks. Got me thinking on how vulnerable our money is on these sites? I have no clue and is curious to hear from people from the it backgrounds on this issue
What kind of systems are in place at the top microstock sites? Is it comparable to Banking systems? It should be top of the line imo since millions are going in and out...
How hard would it be for a potential hacker to write some code and penetrate these systems to extract pennies per transaction with various contributors, reminds of of that movie office space.
I think istock has been buggy for awhile now...

Quote from: Artemis on March 12, 2010, 16:48

Quote from: Digital66 on March 12, 2010, 14:28

Quote from: VB inc on March 12, 2010, 04:23

... For all the contributors in the imaging industry, we need this site to FAIL MISERABLY. It is GETTY trying to get away with their ridiculous 20% payouts. The more you make on this site, the more you eventually lose because you made it the status quo. We need to stop this "Yes sir, may i have another" mentality.

Ditto!

Wish every stock photographer could understand it. 

Double yep!!! Of course everyone is free to submit wherever they want but i cringe everytime i see someone opted in/submitting there... we're digging our own grave with submitting to this one.

Let me quote another site "Neither Time or istockphoto.com can be blamed for this situation; photographers who go down the micro stock path do so with no regard for the value of photography and are responsible for driving prices down."

Paraphrased to fit your view, "photographers who go down the subscription micro stock path do so with no regard for the value of photography and are responsible for driving prices down." 

http://www.blackshadow.com.au/2009/07/how-microstock-is-ruining-the-business-of-photography/

You can sell photos for peanuts or a dollar, but if someone undercuts your prices they are digging their own grave. Selling micro for peanuts compared to traditional stock is justified, but anybody undercutting you is out of line. 

Writing the blog above doesn't change anything. Writing dittos here criticising people who sell subs, doesn't change anything. It does prove that some people are hypocrites. If you steal sales from a traditional stock agency its just business the new market and change. If someone undersells subs they are stupid.

The funny thing is photography is my hobby... im an exclusive vector contributor on istock with minimal photos on my portfolio. I've been making a substantial income from istock recently due to more involvement on producing for istock. my average return per download is over $5 and i get lots in a day so i am nervous when i see some really good vectors showing up on thinkstock. I now have a vested interest in the stock photo market as a whole and wonder where its headed. it is a very uncertain time.

Microstock isn't ruining the business of photography... it's technology with its double edged sword. Technology has allowed cameras cheap enough for the masses to produce quality pictures. The internet and its ability to draw a large mass of buyers to buy an image for a buck trampled on the closed doors/mentality of the established agencies. IMO, capitalism at its core is unsustainable and it eats away at itself until there's nothing left.

IMO with thinkstock, Getty is really going about it the wrong way with their outdated 20% mentallity that they cling to. It might have worked with photographers getting $400 on a $2000 overpriced picture but we're talking cents here. That site really should be for hobbyists and it hurts to see great stuff on that site. For every awesome picture on that site, it robs a sale from a decent payout site imo. I don't get the logic of getting 20 cents for an illustration that took you 8 plus hours to do.

Hmm... 120 sales from an account that I had been trying to close. I'm not sure how I should feel about that.

You should feel worried... For all the contributors in the imaging industry, we need this site to FAIL MISERABLY. It is GETTY trying to get away with their ridiculous 20% payouts. The more you make on this site, the more you eventually lose because you made it the status quo. We need to stop this "Yes sir, may i have another" mentality.

at least thats what i got from an email from ce.
"Please realize that we have approximately 85,000 contributors currently, many of which use our CE email as a resource for their concerns."

Thats a lot more than what the istockcharts is showing in their figures...

Quote from: VB inc on March 03, 2010, 18:37

given that more and more images are available, and buyers are spending more and more time searching for the right image, is it possible in the near future to have 3rd party vendors that will do the actual searching for the buyer? Is that service available now or is this plain stupid idea... 

Picture researchers have been around for years, not sure the costs involved would warrant something like that in microstock though. Out of interest how do you know buyers are spending more time searching for the right images.

Maybe they're not.  I should have wrote that IMO, in the future, buyers might spend more time sifting through a library with 5 times more images than we have currently. They can also find images faster through more choices and smarter algorithms but its just one point. no need to dissect it.