Wow it looks like I've stirred up a hornets nest here, Dreamstime is a popular site amongst contributors no doubt, however my view on sites are not how nicey touchy they are, I do this for a living and I'm very successful at it, I appreciate that many replies here are from those who are looking to make a few bucks each month and as such the friendly side of a site is important, however in business the base line is the only thing that counts I couldn't care less how friendly the management are it's nett profit that is the only important thing for me.

Re FTP - search their forum, just because something isn't happening to you doesn't mean you should dismiss others opinions, there is a problem with FTP there - for some, unfortunately the management at DT take the same dismissive approach as many here.

Re Ellen - Whatever your opinion of her, the fact remains she was brought in because of her reputation in the industry, Dreamstime are a tiny drop in the stock industry ocean, without a 'name' behind them I'm wondering whether they will suffer.

Re the breach - iStock were the only agency professional enough to admit it happened and publicly announced it, full credit to them it's what sets them apart. They weren't the only agency who were targeted and this has been going on for a couple of weeks.

Re the editor - As a professional I want my work reviewed to a high standard, obviously a site like Dreamstime is going to struggle to get a decent reviewer to work for them, if someone knows what they're doing they'll be out there doing it, so I accept reviewers might not be great photographers but what I don't want to see is lack of knowledge of the industry, Dreamstime have employed this guy and I ask what that says about their standards.

As for sales figures, I'm basing my views on a strong growth margin at nearly every site except Dreamstime, for some of you making 10,20 or 50 dollars a month a low percentage drop is not significant, when it gets into hundreds at a time every other site is steadily growing at a time of worldwide recession you'll understand why I said what I did.

As for being anonymous, if you don't understand why then you need a bit more experience in the industry.

For the record I think the folk at DT are nice too, I think the folk at iS are complete a**holes but they are the market leaders, guess which site I prefer 

 

I now know who you are.

That sounds like a threat

I didn't put two and two together. 

Clearly not because if you had you could have just clicked on his portfolio link which is under his comments here.

I never visit the Fotolia forum because of the way you moderate, you are a moderator and you are there to make sure people behave in a proper and respectful way, that does not mean you should lock threads because you don't like peoples opinions.

I also feel that as you've taken the role of being a moderator on Fotolia albeit for little or no pay that you should not take part in any topics there concerning contributor relations, your view of the matter is clearly biased.

There's a huge difference between being a moderator and acting like a corporate whipping boy, and no you don't know who I am but rest assured I'm no newbie.

Whether you like or dislike Ken Rockwell doesn't get away from the fact that this Laurin Rinder guy has tried to use him to bump up his books profile, which then backfired.

The result is that this Ken Rockwell has based his opinions of everybody concerned in microstock and the stock industry in general on what some amatuer snapper has fed him.

At least his book review was honest!

I don't think the OP's blog is going to be a threat to anybody for a couple of reasons:

Firstly he's encouraging people to shoot dirt, if anybody is stupid enough to believe they are going to make any real money with the advice he's giving then let them try.

Secondly as he keeps telling everyone he is a administrator/reviewer, there's only one reason that anybody would want to sit in front of their computer for hours on end looking at other peoples photos for the lowest wage on the planet !!

People that have the talent to make money in this industry are out there doing it, not making blogs, trying to get referrals and certainly not by being a reviewer.