http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-81p1.html

Is this Jon's Port? Are you sure?

Down almost 40% in 8 months. Increase in portfolio size is proportionally as always. I get a lot of 404 and 504's. (Error pages). Fotolia needs a new platform. I just don't understand it. I track error pages on peopleimages.com like a maniac and google reported 3 out of 80000 doing the last couple of months, which basically means "never". I just don't get why this is not a concern to them.

I agree. 16 is not a bad shot at all. That is actually a pretty good conceptual shot! Misplaced on the list.

Quote from: Suljo on October 11, 2012, 01:18
01 title is> We are just ThingStock, my daddy/greddy is just a thing...
03 gee hubby, I just find new dildo
06 Hallo! You farting bean recipe works well
09 I will be retired/naive young
11 Grandma why you have such big blind eyes...
13 I just lubricate my dck and Paris Hilton just didnt came
15 Just imagine how big seller will this crap of image will bee in 1000x versions of christian churches if Jesus is on my tongue
16 Dont pewee against the wind, just crap in you child potty
18 Drink milk and you will become such as this white toast in my hand
19 I am H&M brother who kill daddy Getty who once sleep here and now I am the boss. Next year You ALL will be on 10% of royalty because of unsustainability of my greedness 
21 Iam Mike Ledray photo factory, visit my store for 50000 like this
30 Daddy Getty spoke to you
32 Cmon kitty this carrot came fresh from my but
37 New idea to Mike Ledray how to use Bichon Frise dog as noncomercial value
blahhh
I to tired to coment other crap for now....

Yuri when you will hire me as you master description master for you photos 

HAHAHAHA. You're mad!

Hehehe. Can't stop launghing. Let's make a game. Let's battle coming up with good titles for these images:
I'll start:

35: "tight pink tongs for men; so you don't have to worry about where it's at....it's tight...it's stabile....it's just right"

Leaf. Delete my post if you think it is a duplicate, but for those of you that did not get a chance to see this, its worth 30sec:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/60-completely-unusable-stock-photos

That is probably the biggest laugh I have had this month. OMG. That's how you hit 10mil images! I'm suddenly happy only to have 80000 on peopleimages.com. CRAZY

this release works everywhere expect...Dreamstime... Which is a bit strange.
We still use it as it is considered industry standard now.

Quote from: Michael Lancaster on October 01, 2012, 12:13
I remember this thread as well about Yuri's pic with the pill on Shutterstock

http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/abt47975-0-asc-0.html

Yes. I remember that one too. We had a good laugh at our office about that post.

Quote from: MetaStocker on September 26, 2012, 14:05

Quote from: Yuri_Arcurs on September 24, 2012, 11:18
Read this thread...

Correct me if i'm wrong but years ago Yuri has been accused from the start by RM photographers to do copycats of the best selling RM business and lifestyle images.

Really? I find that highly amusing as the total time I have spent in my entire life looking at "best selling RM image" is probably in the minuts. I don't even know where to go to find such images ranked by "best selling". How does one obtain this information MetaStocker? As far as I know RM is not even ranked by sales... Very strange comment.

We have to draw the line somewhere. This post shows intent to systematic duplication and advocates other to do so as well.
The keywords here are "systematic", "clear intention" and trying to "get others on board". If this is something we should just dismiss, then there is no grounds for any claims against plagiarism in microstock and we collectively accept all plagiarism attempts as "OK". I think this contributor clearly crosses the line for what we actually should accept.

HEHEHE. Getting interesting.
Where to draw the line in determining what is plagiarism and what is not must first start with a consideration of the content. Is the content original? As in... never done before? If that is the case it is quite easy to draw the line. For concepts that are generic or so simple that they simply arrive naturally from engaging with subject you are dealing with, it is VERY hard to claim that they are unique enough to be the subject of plagiarism.

Consider the subject of the jumping goldfish and see this result from google.
https://www.google.dk/search?q=jumping+goldfish&hl=en&tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:1/1/2004,cd_max:12/31/2005&prmd=imvns&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=1otgULjAHcbzsgbO1ICACQ&sqi=2&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1782&bih=1188

Hardly a unique subject and most definitively not all "invented" by one artist from istock. No in fact, these kind of images arrive naturally from engagement with the concept of shooting goldfish. We even have a saying about "moving to new waters" so shooting goldfish..that come in a bowl... Not exactly a unique idea. The jumping goldfish is a classic.
However. I think the post I am refering to in this thread is a clear intention of systematic efforts to copy. That is different. That is a whole different league and in my eyes not just "naive" or something a newbie would do and we can forgive. This is different entirely.

Read this thread...
http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_32460

With over 6000 Images in traditional RF (macro)... Through four different channels...
Definitively no increase in sales over the last 6 months. Sorry to say that.

Shutterstock is winning big time on it's subscription model and has always had a very restrictive commission policy. Cleaver business model, but problematic when it succeeds... For us...

Canon Medium format...Hmm. A very nice little rumor

Quote from: StockBottom on August 09, 2012, 16:47

Quote from: digitalexpression on August 09, 2012, 16:31
I refuse to believe you can't run a microstock agency profitably and still allow everyone to win. Shutterstock, like most of the others is simply trying to take the whole pie. Greed isn't a viable business plan.

even facebook, youtube, yahoo, zynga, are losing money or struggling to stay afloat, no matter if they have zillions of free users, paying users, huge advertising deals, sponsors, and whatever in between.

i never hear anybody here talking about how much is the cost to acquire a customer for instance.
that would be a good start but no, only endless rants about greedy agencies.

what do you guys know exactly ? they can easily spend 10$ to acquire a client that buys 5$ in credits and later dumps them off to buy on cheaper agencies.

let me remind you if your images were so precious and unique they would sell like hotcaked on art galleries or at least on Getty and Corbis rather than for a pittance on micros.

SS might have its greedy plans but no one forces you to join them, it's up to you.
considering they're the only agency left who's really delivering i've nothing against them eating up 80% of a sale that me alone could never possibly make on my own without a substantial and risky investment.

It's true. This kind of forum tend to get very one-sided and not consider the agency's point of view. Valid point

JoeBoy and others...Do you really think it would matter if I had a million more? Or even five or ten? Would my life change?
I truly enjoy teaching. I enjoy life with my students and the experiences we have and perhaps... in three years... I have ten great photographers. They can leave my company, but hopefully the stock market will be stable enough for me to hire them, which I certainly plan to.
I enjoy re-living photography basics, being amazed again. It's an inspirational thing to teach and to see people grow. I could have made many choices in my business life that would have given much more profit, but why? That's not happiness. More money?

Quote from: sjlocke on August 09, 2012, 12:22

Quote from: cgartist on August 09, 2012, 11:52
can we sell images/vectors in your site...?
give us fare commision though and allow us to sell in your site

Sure, you'll get %15 and he keeps all the forgotten credits .

Interesting info.  Perhaps people have forgotten credits heir credits because they decided they aren't satisfied and haven't come back?  Although, I don't think in three months you can claim that they have been abandoned.  Maybe after a year?  Or are you talking about some subscription type credit scheme per week?

Upload limits are good for the majority of contributors, as it keeps factories, like your company, from overwhelming the limited agency resources, as well as giving everyone a chance to prosper.  That might be a bit socialist, but whatever.  As we say to my daughter, "It's not all about you".

Sometimes people bite back, and you have been criticizing me endlessly during the last couple of years. So let's look at your arguments, Sean.
Factories like mine feed the mouths of more than 100 people and have internships and educational programs with the purpose of giving back to the community (https://peopleimages.com/more). How many interns do you have? How many mouths are fed from your success besides your own? How much charity do you do, if any? How much do you share, Sean? Give back? In fact, I seem to find quite a lot of posts in here from you advocating "not sharing", keeping costs low, being conservative...I'm not sure the "right" socialist thing is to support the "small guys" like you and not "factories" like mine.
You seem to use popular socialistic "small guy" arguments against me from time to time, but at the same time act and support completely opposite values. Perhaps showing more of your true colors, than that of the "socialist" you claim to be - when appropriate... Your profit margin is way above mine for sure, Sean. What iStock is getting in supporting you is a person that gives little back to the community, shoots cheap because spending money on shoots would be less profitable, and takes the low hanging fruit because they are very accessible while making sure that he gets the biggest piece of the pie for himself.

Last three months:
I have spent my time completely rewriting peopleimages.com's landing, checkout, image view and sign-up pages (based on the user feedback we received during the first month). These are the cornerstones of a website so they take a little time to complete.
The good news: The website is fast, customers are surprisingly happy and uptime as been 100% since we launched.

Uploading.
DT: We see the biggest drop in income from Dreamstime primarily because of the upload limit they impose. It is hard to quite understand why an agency would put an upload limit on it's top content providers. DT is getting images that are quite old while the other sites have the most recent and fresh content. Of course this matters and as we can see on their Alexa rank, new agencies like DepositPhotos will probably overtake them in rank in the upcoming years.
iStock: We have a serious problem with their commissions and upload limits for non-exclusives. We stopped uploading primarily based on that. We are still in doubt off what to do here.
Shutterstock: When commissions became public due to Shutterstock's IPO they where staggering low. The net payout to the contributors was surprisingly below 20%. I like Jon a lot, but it's time for a raise!

Income from Micro and PeopleImages.com
The only income we have from a microtock channel that continues to increase is from our own site. The income/file from all microstock agencies we submit images to seem to be shrinking. My income from peopleimages.com is growing slowly but steadily with about 30% per month and sometimes more. It is still low, but not for long at this growth rate. One thing I have noticed, and which I did not know about before, is that a lot of people buy more credit than they spend. Who receives all the money for these credits? Well, the majority of the credits are lost, never spent and forgotten by users. So to my big surprise you don't get a 100% commission rate from having your own site, you actually get closer to 200-300% because you also get to keep the lost credits that nobody uses or just stays on their accounts. A major income that we, as contributors, currently receive no share of through the agencies. But the agencies receive this money only because of our images being on their site. Food for thought!

Quote from: antistock on July 16, 2012, 07:35
i'm sure he knows the score and his investment is not too much ambititious but just in line with his possibilities.

i just wonder why he setup his biz in south africa, of all places ?

plenty of cheaper places in europe without going too far .. portugal .. greece .. croatia .. cyprus .. and what about Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines ?

Good Q. (Actually)
South africa has so much mixed culture from immigration that you can find very competent support/hotline staff that speaks almost all European languages perfectly. Also. The primary language of South Africa is English which is great. Besides that it is a country in development and probably soon will be doing better than many European countries. I believe we will see a reversed migration in the coming years. South park is right: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_of_the_Meheecans

Quote from: cidepix on July 16, 2012, 17:24
in the last few days, every time I try to visit microstockgroup, I get redirected to "yuri forum"..

anyone knows how to fix this bug?

HAHAHA. Me too. It must be a virus of some sort!

www.peopleimages.com is the result of agencies constantly trying to push commissions down. At some point this happens and they got themselves a competitor instead. If commissions where as high as other platforms (iTunes pays out 70% to their content providers) I would never have dreamed about venturing into this.
This site is purely because of low commissions.

I was never in it for the simple life and the million dollar income. I could stop tomorrow and never have to work a day in my life, but then why do I keep going?
To be honest, the only thing I really care about is creating content that is mind-blowing and give buyers a "wow" experience. I want the most consistent, perfect, excellently executed collection everywhere I sell my images. I also want it to be available on the simplest, most intuitive and fastest platform thinkable. If I cared only for the income, I would not have students, neither would I do conferences nor interviews. I would only go for the "low hanging fruits" kind of images (and I know what they are)...
You can claim it naïve, obsessed, or even stupid (as done here), but you cannot deny that if you were to spend your own money buying images, you would care a lot about these qualities. We are at a turning point, rather you like it or not or perhaps have not even seen it coming.
In the midst of the masses of microstock, there is a growing frustration being built up, and it will not be solved by us just adding more content. Passion will prevail!

Guys. You are so angry! Relax! It's only a forum post.

Quote from: sjlocke on June 22, 2012, 20:59

Quote from: gostwyck on June 22, 2012, 20:44
Why is Yuri wearing a massive ID badge around his neck ... inside his own studio?

Maybe I should make myself one for when I'm sitting in front of my PC at home. It just looks more 'professional'.

You wouldn't need a mag card if you had a cutting edge biometric retinal scanner access system on the door to your computer room.

HAHAHA! Obviously a must have for any proper computer room!!!!

I sent the person a personal thank you letter and treated him with the highest degree of respect. It's still a funny story and I am 100% sure that he does not mind me sharing it here. After all, sending socks are done in a humorous attempt, in the very same was as it was used in my post here. So harm done for sure.