The agencies must love this - a talented pool of excellent photographers who don't need to be paid western rates.  No wonder Shutterstock is advertising there.

Good.  Maybe this will convince people in various forums to stop putting up "How to Make Money in Microstock" pages, and contantly yapping about how wonderfully successful and number 1 they are.

Also out of the other big (6) IS is days or even a week or so behind the rest when it comes to offering up new images.  Why would a designer buy a subscription at IS knowing he or she isn�t seeing the latest the photogs have to offer?

Are you serious?  Like 7 days is a life changing amount of time?  What commercial image could be so important that it isn't just as useful a week later?

Why would a designer want to buy a sub at from a IS when they could have 500,000 more images to choose from at SS?

Why would you want to buy SS when you have 500,000 exclusive images at iStock?

I�ve been in the photography business for over 30 years and I have never seen anything like IS make it for very long as a driving force.

Ah, there it is.

I think the main fish is pretty good, but the rests of it just looks like a bunch of stuff slapped together.  There's no coherence.  I wouldn't submit this one yet.

At least Dan isn't hiding behind an alias.

People who post criticizing the inspection process for rejecting for keywords, are more than likely, about to have the rest of their images' keywords scrutinized as well. 

"I'm obviously right!  I know how things are done!"

"Ok, well here's 10 examples of how you're wrong.  Get it now?"

You are right, .35 would be considerably below expectations and might benefit istock with some more exclusive contributors...

That sounds like a threat! 

I don't think putting up your own logo for your own definition of what's fair is going to impress anyone.  Sorry.

Yes, it's something like a 1 or 3 or 6 month or something subscription.  You get your credit everyday, and if you don't use it, they don't roll over.

Yes I am, and I have complimented him more than once, in a few places, for his sales volume and number of photos. I respect that and I'm impressed. Someone who worked hard and is getting the rewards for his efforts. No complaints!

Thanks!

You answered the question. He's an IS exclusive. That's what I was wondering. He seems to be very defensive about anything critical of IS and the new program. (which actually looks good to me on paper)

I think you'll find my opinions on IS varied depending on the topic.

What set me off was someone pointing out the IS was shorting themselves on new photos by limiting submissions, to 15 a week. Sjlocke basically came back and suggested that it kept people from uploading crap and filling the que with junk. Not very nice and it doesn't address the point.

Well, I didn't say it exactly like that, but that is part of the equation, I'm sure.

Which brings us full circle. The question was, why doesn't IS have ftp uploads and why do they limit people, who aren't exclusive, to 15 photos a week? It does appear counter intuitive to have less product to sell and therefore make less profit? I might be wrong.

To entice them to become exclusive.

If you're not going to put a lot of time and effort into it these, days, it probably isn't work the trouble.

Unbelievable.  hatman was right   Thank goodness.

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=67685

Forecasting, and efficient use of time are very important to businesses as well as accounting means for determining price structure.  As is right now when per photo purchases are made by the design firm, it has to accounted to an individual project as part of the project price.  Initial cost estimating for the project is more difficult somewhat as well as the project cost tracking.  Anything that takes more time raises the cost of the image to the firm more than simply the purchase price.  Accounting and estimating time is not cheap.  Then also consider the photo acquisition process.  Per photo sales transactions take longer to complete for the buyer than simply downloading on a subscription plan.  Again, time is money, and the downloader's time is worth more than the person that could be doing the paying.

That's all just semantics.  You could have an automatic plan that buys X credits a month (that don't expire for a year), and it's just as simple.  Purchasing the photo, you're still going to do it per photo.  I see no difference whether you purchase a standard amount of normal credits each month, or have a "subscription" plan where you purchase a standard amount of credits per day (essentially).  Except that the company benefits when you let those daily ones expire.

Funny to read IS forums with most of the people going "Thank you IS!" while nobody knows what subs will bring.

It is hardly "most".