For a very, very young and small port (March #'s, month 2 overall, trending is recent performance)

SS - 1  Declining (even with daily uploading, first goose egg ever yesterday)
IS - 0.16 Strong growth
DT - 0.14 Moderate/Strong growth
FT - 0.12 Flatlining.  Adding images does nothing
BigStock - 0.04 Growing

Can't get in to StockXpert, no sales yet at 123RF, port too small to yet bother with the little sites.

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Waldo, your posts are really interesting reading.  You obviously understand economics and business very thoroughly.  Would love to know what you do for your (other) day job.

Earlier, I was thinking the exact same thing!

I am a civil/structural/aviation engineer.  Got my start as the on-site construction engineer for air traffic control towers (did the 3 big ones, ATL, MCO, MIA), now I design radio and visual Navaids for runways and airports, primary the VOR/DVORs that create the superhighways in the sky for commercial aircraft.  I always wanted to engineer skyscrapers, got my fill with the towers, a very high stress and political environment (ATL is the pinnacle of tower construction, probably will never build one bigger in the western hemisphere),  nowadays Navaids are much more laid back, the and the politics of it is completely changed.  Though my job is almost 100% the implementation of what is commonly referred to as "pork" (all federal construction projects are).  It is quite humorous to listen to political candidates talk about budget issues when you are directly connected to it and know how federal funding really works.

IMO the two companies that could benefit the most from a foray into MS are either Google or Yahoo.  Google could tie a MS site catalogs into Google images and make boatloads of cash, they could more than double the customer base of the industry overnight, Yahoo could overhaul Flickr and have it loosely tied into a MS business.  If they could prevent downloading of non-CC images at Flickr and direct people to an MS site and promote it at Flickr as well as on Yahoo, they too could completely change the industry and double the customer base.  Right now google images and Flickr are a very primary source of blog photos, tapping that market and offering people images for a buck for their blogs at a very high traffic site would completely change everything.

A lot of industries, as they more from infancy to maturity, act very similar to the ways that star systems form.  At first there is just a big pool of matter (customers), over time clumping points form (companies that cater to them) and the mass begins to collect.  As these points begin to grow they develop gravity to attract more matter to them.  As more and more matter is brought in to the system a collection of random mid-size bodies begins to take shape.  This is a very unstable system so given more time and/or more mass it will morph into a stable system. 

These stable systems follow 3 primary forms, single system can develop (like ours) with one large company and several smaller ones (video games in the 80's and 90's are a prime example).  Binary systems can develop with large bodies and several smaller ones (Coke/Pepsi and GM/Ford prior to the 90's), or one body gets too large and it becomes a black hole and swallows up all matter (US Steel, Microsoft). 

Once a market reaches a certain size and matures, almost surely a few of the top companies swallow up all of the competition, all that is left is a few minor players that are different enough from the giants to remain stable and separate.

The auto industry in America is a great example.  Started with a bunch of different little companies, but then Ford made a market play that devoured customers.  To combat a few of the other companies banded together and formed GM, it it became a very stable system for a long time.  The few other auto makers that existed in America afterwards were very minor players compared to them.  Global trade has changed the dynamic completely though and it is right now a fairly unstable system.

IS has begun their major power play, in the end IMO we will end up with either an IS centric system with a few other unique minor players, a system with IS and a conglomerate and a few minor players, or IS winning out and devouring everything.  They are going to start * mass (customers/photographers) from the other companies with this move, the only way to stop them from from becoming overly dominant is for another big mass gobbler to step to the forefront, and this is typically done in the marketplace by the competition banding together.

Not yet, but if IS grows too much more this market is ripe for some investors to come in and merge a few companies into major competition for them.  If IS steals too many customers, and profits elsewhere fall, owners would be much more willing to sell out to a major investor and cut and run with their profits.  And we'd be left with a stable system of the big 2.

I doubt that their largest contributers withhold much of anything from them, they would then have to find a way to take photos more efficiently to upload more since I suspect that their time is already maxed out.  For the top level contributers, I highly doubt (and Yuri's post backs this up) that SS makes up a very significant portion of their income. 

It will be interesting to see the aftermath of what becomes of IS's subscription plan.  To my eyes they are leveling a two pronged all out assault on the market in a major power grab; a direct attack by offering a favorable pricing plan for the most lucrative customers in the industry, attempting to lure them away from the competition, and outflanking their competition by stealing some of their best photographers.  Just like a battle, these two facets are mutually beneficial, more customers = more earnings for contributers, more earnings = more exclusives, more exclusives = competition's photo catalog hurt at the highest level (IS wouldn't be stealing noobs, they'd be stealing some of the best and most established photographers that contribute many of the premier photos in a collection), hurt the opponents photo catalog = more customers and the cycle continues.

IMO SS has to do something drastic, they will be harmed the most by IS's power grab, and I don't think that the tiered approach to payments is the answer, they have to find something else.  It is not the super top level earners that are the problem, it is the step below.  These guys I suspect is where the bulk of their broad quality comes from.  Higher quality than the noobs, not quite as much a the super top guys, but there are lot more of them than the super top guys.  These are the people that IS will be stealing.  The problem for SS is that losing these people will spread the earnings,that was concentrated in these mid level guys to the lowest people, more than shifting it to the super top, their customer base is already established in their areas of expertise.  This will make the ascension up the tiers more rapid for their lowest level contributers, who there are lot more of.  At first it wouldn't be significant, probably good for them actually, but over time as more and more ascend up the ranks, the payout per file would increase.

For example (using wild guesses for #'s, just to illustrate my point):
Currently:
50% sold at higher rate
50% sold at lower rate

Lose a bunch to exclusives, even though they gave a good raise to the top group and the situation becomes:
40% sold at higher rate
60% sold at lower rate

Because of the nature of tiers, concentrating more money in the lower tiers will rapidly become:
60% sold at the highest rate
40% sold at the lowest rate

Now this is assuming that IS can steal a bunch of exclusives, but the nature of SS leads to the fact the they have to out do both whatever the increase at IS will be, plus the multiplier for going exclusive.  As is (as I gather from all my reading here and elsewhere and personal experience), income growth at SS is rather stagnant, adding more is necessary just to maintain a level, which is not true elsewhere, adding more grows income.  Now you can increase the submission rate to SS to grow income, but the midlevel guys in the crosshairs are probably maxed out in their submission rate, they have the time and experience that their shooting efficiency is at a peak.  For these guys to see significant income growth at SS, the only way to accomplish it is via a big raise.

SS can only give so big of a raise to these mid level guys and remain solvent, they lack powerful financial backing unless they are currently running at a very excessive profit level.  IS has the financial backing an corporate stability to operate strategically in or near the red for a short period of time in an effort to offer a more lucrative deal to these mid level guys.  If income growth shows acceleration at IS, there will be takers for the exclusivity option, the more takers the worse the situation becomes over the long term for SS, as the acceleration up the tiers for their lowest level guys would begin.

Do I have an answer for what SS can do strategically?  No, I can't see one.  On a whole as a business their talent pool of photographers will swing increasingly more toward the beginners in the industry, and IS will steal some of their customers that follow the quality photos.  In many ways SS today reminds me of AOL in the mid 90's.  Their buisiness model allowed rapid ascension to near the top of the industry, but as both their customers and contributers grow into the young industry they find that there are better options available once established.  At first AOL was the internet for everybody, but over time they increasingly became the internet for beginners, eventually there reached a point where there were no beginners left.  I don't see that happening in this industry, there will always be beginners, but the dropping from a place for everybody to contribute to the place for beginners to contribute could very well happen, offering a tiered based raise would do little to solve this. 

SS needs to find a way with their buisiness model to maintain linear or near linear earnings growth for a mature port with continued contributions, something that is not occurring, the models at other sites that create the near linear growth for mid sized ports become more and more lucrative over time, and SS does not have the financial ability to make up this difference with a tier based pay system, since they would have to continually raise prices, and continually give larger and larger raises to the mid level contributers just to keep up with the competition for their services.

If my thinking is correct and the power grab by IS is successful, the potential is strong for a major merger looming on the horizon between SS and one of the per photo big players like DT, offering a good exclusivity option of their own, forming a binary system of major players before IS can take over market dominance.

Very informative. I keep thinking about getting a new PC, and I think maybe I should do it while I can still buy XP Pro. MS will stop selling it someday and make us all buy Vista on new PCs.

So how do you like your new system so far? Did you put it together yourself have custom order it somewhere like Puget?

I love my new system.   Just put it together last week when my old MB crapped out.  I built it myself (it is really easy to do, just time consuming, especially with SATA drives that don't require jumpers, not a single jumper needed to be set on my new system).

I reused some parts from my old computer (2 x 500 GB drives, optical drive, internal card reader, XP).  All I bought was the case, power supply, MB, chip, ram, graphics cards, and 4 drives (2x 500GB, 2 x 80 GB Raptors), cost me about $1400 total.  I didn't need a new case, but I splurged on a nicety, didn't want to put my new hot rod back in my old case. 

Quote from: Waldo4 on April 10, 2008, 13:24

Quote from: Vonkara on April 10, 2008, 12:54

Quote from: graficallyminded on April 10, 2008, 12:30

If anyone here sees an EF-S 18-55 IS for around $150, I want it.  Please, someone sell me theirs.

I would not take the 18-55 while it's a fair lens but a standard one. I would look for a 17-85 or even the 17-55 but then you talk about

The 18-55 IS lens is a much better lens than the standard 18-55.
Here is the review for it.  MTF #'s are better then the 17-85, and there are less CA's.
http://www.photozone.de/Reviews/Canon%20EOS%20Lens%20Tests/45-canon-eos-aps-c/181-canon-ef-s-18-55mm-f35-56-is-test-report--review

I totally agree, but do you see the huge distortion, chromatic aberration and vignetting. That's just not professional or even semi-pro if you see what I mean. But I agree that they have make a medium standard lens a great one in term of sharpness

Still better than the 17-85 though.  Of course the 17-55 IS is the best, but is it worth 5x as much as the 18-55 IS when you could get a 17-40L + a 50mm f/1.4 for less $$ than the 17-55 IS, both of which are FF lenses and have fantastic IQ.  Distortion , vignetting, and CA's can easily be corrected with software, resolution cannot be.

Quote from: graficallyminded on April 10, 2008, 12:30

If anyone here sees an EF-S 18-55 IS for around $150, I want it.  Please, someone sell me theirs.

I would not take the 18-55 while it's a fair lens but a standard one. I would look for a 17-85 or even the 17-55 but then you talk about

The 18-55 IS lens is a much better lens than the standard 18-55.
Here is the review for it.  MTF #'s are better then the 17-85, and there are less CA's.
http://www.photozone.de/Reviews/Canon%20EOS%20Lens%20Tests/45-canon-eos-aps-c/181-canon-ef-s-18-55mm-f35-56-is-test-report--review

LOL @ Miz

That woman is in every test shot - how kind of her to pose for such a scientific look at camera and lens quality.  I praise her, and her photographer.

If anyone here sees an EF-S 18-55 IS for around $150, I want it.  Please, someone sell me theirs.

If you live in a relatively populated area, keep an eye on Craig's List as soon as the new cam hits the shelves.  Prices vary pretty widely but you can generally find better deals than ebay.  I know here that I could basically get any popular L lens that I was looking for for about a $100 used discount if I kept up a diligent watch for a week or two, and the kit lenses are pretty prevalent too.

Most of my rejections on IS are for artifacts. What can you do to take a photo with out artifacts? Is it the quality of the camera or the lense or the way you're taking the photo?  I have a canon 20d and canon L series lense and take all my photos in raw. What am I doing wrong?

Artifacts have me completely mystified.  Sometimes I can find what they are talking about ( generally 1 pixel wide super light fringing only visible at 2-300%), other times though I am thoroughly mystified, even though I can resubmit, I have absolutely no idea of what to do.

One shot of mine of a skylight had a couple of dirt spots/bugs on the glass and the window caulking wasn't perfectly straight everywhere.  I cleaned up that and it was accepted, though I don't see how that is "artifacts." 

Birds in the sky have been called "dust spots."

Other than that I'm clueless on artifacts.  I don't sharpen images (anymore).  If the .jpeg artifacts are the problem, the only remedy is to accept .tiff files or .psd files, how can there be less .jpeg artifacts than the very last steps being a 16-8 bit downsample then saving as a quality 12 .jpeg?

Often I think that they are seeing something in the image that they think is an artifact, but is in fact part of the scene, in which case I have no idea how to identify what they are talking about.

There is the robustness of the camera itself from physical damage, but there is also the robustness of the shutter.  No matter how much you baby your camera, it will eventually fail.  FF cameras on average (or the step up APS-C models like the 40D) are rated to significantly more shutter cycles than the rebel series, anything between 2x to 6x.  To me this is extremely important.  My Rebel xT is rated to 50,000 cycles.  At the shooting rate that I maintain, it will take me less than a year and a half to hit 50,000 shots with a body.  Just based on this alone, a camera with a longer life shutter is worth that much more to me. (the new 5D replacement is supposed to have a 300000 cycle shutter, compared to just 100000 for the new rebel, this alone makes it worth 3x as much, any other differences notwithstanding). 

With the bigger, more expensive cameras, comes much better exposure metering, and much better focusing, two things that are very important to taking quality high quality shots (it sucks when you take the money shot but come to find out later on the computer that the AF was off a little or the exposure meter missed by a mile and there are overexposed parts).  The viewfinder is brighter on a FF camera, allowing easier shot composition and easier recognition of focus, and the higher end cameras are designed and layed out for people that shoot in manual, and not for people that shoot in auto.  A rebel can be operated manually, but the layout is quite clumsy for it compared to the bigger bodies (I can not tell you how many good shots that I have missed because I hit the timer button at the same time as the aperture button). 

Not to mention a Rebel is essentially useless for stock above 100 ISO, whereas 200 ISO is still quite safe on a FF, even 400, which opens up a lot of shooting possibilities that just aren't there with a Rebel.

And if you put a lot of money into good glass, especially telephoto lenses, they are absolutely ridiculous on a Rebel.  A 70-200 f/2.8 IS looks and feels very, very wrong on a Rebel, the lens is gigantic compared to the little camera, and lenses get much bigger than that (I'd love to see a picture of a Bigma mounted to a Rebel, that would be hilarious).

I've never had the similar problem, but the type rejection has thus far destroyed my port there.  My sales a FT are crap, about equal to BigStock (well behind DT, IS and SS, BigStock is beating them this month too), and I think that a big reason is that 7 of my top 10 overall best selling images across all sites were rejected for type of photo.  In my tracking spreadsheet, when I sort by earnings FT is the only one with any significant amount of red (meaning rejection) near the top.

Even though may sales elsewhere are better, DT is the only one that is very accurate at predicting the performance of my port overall, hardly any of my shots that have sold anywhere have been rejected by them, the bulk of shots they have rejected have not sold anywhere, which tells me that their reviewers are the best at understanding shot saleability, whereas FT is simply awful at it.

I did a lot of digging on this because I take a lot of architecture shots (there is no good single source that I have found, this is kind of a hodgepodge of what I have learned and the rules that I follow):

Basically the gist of what I understand (the way it should be in an ideal world, not always followed though, some sites are stricter than others, but these rules will always be acceptable because legally it is acceptable, as well as morally):

Buildings that need a release are:
1) Privately owned
2) Recognizable
3) Not part of a greater skyline

Exemptions are:
1) Publicly owned buildings that do not specifically prohibit photography
2) Details of buildings that are not recognizable (common to many structures), and taken while on public property
3) Part of a cityscape skyline shot where the skyline of the city and not the building in particular is the subject.

Fuzzy detail:
An interior detail shot that isn't recognizable of a private building may be acceptable without a release, but in many places actually taking the shot is illegal without the owners permission (trespassing).  For snapshots of friends nobody really cares, but many (most) places object when you walk in with a big SLR and start snapping away at the building, and it is well within their right to call up the cops and have you arrested.   Taking architecture shots is tough legally, you have to be perfectly clear on your legal rights, even then prepared to be hassled by rent-a-cops and police constantly (the true cops generally know the laws decently and are friendly if you are (and forgiving), there are exceptions though).  Just remember that only a judge can legally force you to erase a shot from a card.

While it is perfectly legal to take and publish photos of many buildings, taken from public space, owners may object to the sales on a stock site so many sites go above and beyond the law and require a release.  In particular are residential properties.  Whereas a large multiuse building will be accepted by many sites without a release, almost all will reject homes without one.  Morally it is kinda rude to take pictures of a house and sell them without the owners knowledge.  The same should apply to larger buildings.  IMO when the building itself is the subject (not a small part of the building) and it is not a publicly owned building, a release should be sought. 

One exception to the detail rule though is architecturally famous buildings that are privately owned.  The Chrysler building is a prime example, though here where I live in Atlanta there are two quite famous hotels that I would consider to be off limits without a release, even tiny little details (I've got a ton of spectacular shots, but won't be uploading any, though I might seek a release with one eventually). 

For me it is really site dependent.  Sat and Sunday combined are a little less than an average Friday on SS, FT seems to be completely unaffected by weekends, and the rest are almost completely dead on weekends.