If it's image exclusive, is it RF-type of exclusivity and can you sell the same image as prints and posters on third-party sites?
AFAIK iStock exclusives are able to do so, because the exclusivity is limited only to (RF) licensing.

Might as well go for something the other sites haven't and that trendy look has been around for years but http://www.photocase.com/ got there first.

I'd say photocase is more "low-fi". Stocksy seems more "artsy", at least in my humble opinion.

Quote from: nailiaschwarz on March 17, 2013, 14:12

Hi Steve,

I sold a few flowers there, but most sales are from Still-Life images.
...
Nailia

Naila, these are such super, imaginative images.
Hopefully you'll get many more sales.

Yes. Also the technical execution is brilliant. Excellent.
 

Quote from: qwerty on March 16, 2013, 15:47

Quote from: Noedelhap on March 16, 2013, 10:23

I mainly sell in North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. More specifically, I sell in Zimbabwe, Germany, Turkey, China, Japan, New-Zealand, Chad, Pakistan, Mexico, Chile, Afghanistan Canada, Cape Verde, Hungary, Ireland, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Laos, Cambodja, Vietnam, Liechtenstein and Portugal. Occasionally in Qatar, Norway, Vatican City, Turkmenistan, Swaziland, Wales and Solomon Islands. But most of my images are sold in the Western Sahara, Antarctica, Easter Islands and the Bermuda Triangle.

Right now I'm looking into expanding my customer base to Mars and Jupiter.

The solar system is so 2012 I'm working on expanding into the next galaxy.

I beat you to it. I've been targeting my images on the nearest galaxy to our Milky Way, the Canis Major Dwarf, which I'm disappointed to find, isn't actually listed in the poll.

Galaxies are so 21st Century. Our Universe is relatively small and the market is limited. I have established myself in several parallel universes. The Multiverse is the way to go.
I don't limit myself to spatial dimensions, I also stream my files into the past. This is a real gold mine.

Quote from: Pilens on March 01, 2013, 18:39

Quote from: cthoman on March 01, 2013, 13:41

Update: New Wordpress installed on my localhost. Ready for testing. 

How did you that? Can you point me to some instructions? I want to be ready for testing, too.   

If you're running on a Windows machine, go to http://www.wampserver.com/en/ and install the WAMP server. This gives you a local Web server to test on, not normally accessible from outside your home network. You can install Wordpress from http://wordpress.org and you're ready to go.

If you're using a Mac, then I believe http://www.mamp.info/en/index.html will do the same for you.

I used Wamp in the past when I was learning Drupal, but now Bitnami seems to be a better option for beginners. You just need to download bitnami with the Wordpress stack and the installation couldn't be simpler:
http://bitnami.org/stacks
It's basically a one click installation of Wordpress (or other CMS with other stacks) on your local machine.

My opinion ? they will expect contributors to bring buyers into Stocksy, which is a "viral marketing" concept not too far from what the PoD sites do already, see FAA, Zazzle, RedBubble, etc
Unfortunately it's never easy to live just on buyers coming via word of mouth, Stocksy could be a booming success or a complete disaster.

You cannot compare POD with stock. A typical POD customer would buy just 1 thing or at most several products to decorate their home. A stock customer who is a designer will have a constant demand for images, depending on their business volume.

Also, there is a group of contributors who are also media buyers. I think most of these buyers would switch entirely to a co-op site once it has a sufficient library for their needs.

The Bigstock team has two goals.  The first is to continue to grow the business by providing customer-friendly purchase options.  The second -- the goal for the new royalty model -- is to stay competitive and fair while avoiding royalty adjustments in the future.  This product is targeted at Bigstock customers and this is the first time subscriptions will appear on the Bigstock site.  The team is going to be monitoring how customers respond to subscriptions and they'll be sensitive to contributor earnings at the same time. 

Hello Scott,
For the life of me I cannot understand why you didn't turn Bigstock into something innovative, for example a site with premium images (like iStock's Vetta collection). Instead you chose to play only in the lower-end segment of the market, compete with yourselves for the same type of customers, set up a hamster wheel for contributors, etc. Boring! To my mind Bigstock is a weird site, I don't think it offers anything significant that Shutterstock doesn't, it is just some kind of (distorting) mirror. I don't think anybody would have a problem if it suddenly ceased to exist, that's why if I were in your shoes I would try to turn BS into something completely different from SS and attract a different kind of customers.

If you do a similar thing with royalties on SS I will quit microstock or if the stocksy site goes online and accepts me I will move my images there (they would be exclusive). At the moment I must say I am disappointed with Shutterstock. It seems like you have run out of creative ideas.
Setting up a hamster wheel for contributors is not innovative at all. Istock was the first to come up with this and look where it got them.

My hunch would be that the guy who plays Lobo will probably not want to play the role for much longer. Perhaps I'm wrong.

Well, if he bans almost everybody and scares the rest, then I am afraid his position as a moderator may become unsustainable... What's the point in moderating cbarnes's soliloquies?

I think in one year there will be no Mr. Lobo at istock. Either he quits or  they close the forums or he'll become unsustainable...

But you are right, perhaps he is a good guy outside of istock, who knows...

I guess it is time to look for an alternative occupation. I don't think there is any future in this business.

Co-op is an interesting idea but it has been discussed here countless times and nothing ever came.
I think an "iStock replacement site" has better chances of success. I described my idea in this thread:
http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/time-for-an-istock-replacement-site/msg290872/#msg290872

The main points are:
- Not a co-op, but a commercial enterprise started by several top-exclusives. The founders would invest their time, skills and money so they should reap future rewards
- Strong community aspect, a network of multimedia creators and buyers
- Several top iStock exclusives would draw many other iStock contributors to the site
- Gradual migration of iStock content, contributors and buyers to a new location
- Strong exclusivity program but very open to non-exclusives

Why do I think such a site could be successful if many other sites were not? Well, the agencies can employ very good people, no doubt. But if you gather the right group of top artists their collective brainpower and creative talents would be massive and very hard to beat and they should be able to create a good alternative to the existing top-sites. Co-ops are very good but I believe in this business you need a strong leadership with a vision.
Why do I think top-artists would want to create such a site? Well, if they want to continue to make meaningful money in this business, they pretty much don't have a choice. In 1-2 years from today the iStock as we know it today might simply no longer exist. And non-exclusivity for everybody is not a solution, in fact it would be an Armaggedon for all stock artists.

I just enter a single dot: .
Anything else is a waste of time and pixels, IMHO.
Mr. Klein should do a brainstorming session with Ms. Rockefellar and iStockLawyer followed by 10 hours of meditation if they want to discover the hidden meaning in my profound statement and achieve enlightment.

1. The value of an argument does not depend on the identity of the poster. 2 + 2 equals 4, whether it is written by a 5-year old, a science professor or a complete moron. The whole discussion about anonymous/nonanonymous users is a waste of time, it is a logical fallacy. The identity of the poster may only change your personal, subjective perception but not the value of the argument.

2. There is a huge difference between calling rude names and the use of satire as a rhetorical device.

This was also to strengthen Blends position and relations with the largest distributor of imagery in the world, and that it did. In the end of the day you have to ask yourself " am I happy with what my agency is doing for me and if not is there someone else that could do better ".

I am surprised that such an intelligent person as you Jonathan could write such a nonsense post.

In my day job I work as key account manager and area sales manager for a company manufacturing tangible goods. In my job I encounter several types of business partners and I always adapt my style of conducting business to their type. There are for example "pals" with whom I can chat on the phone about everything and who can forgive almost any mess that we cause. There are also the "perfectionists", who require a very formal style. When we overdeliver goods, the perfectionist would send me a note "You overdelivered this item. We decided to keep the overdelivered quantity. Please invoice us". Then of course there are the "ruthless ones" who take advantage of your every weakness and the smallest mistake. Thankfully none of my current customers falls into this category but Getty Images is exactly this type of "business partner".

How to deal with such people? In my first job many years ago, we had a toxic boss who was a real pain for the employees. I was quite new there and one morning he started to make stupid remarks at me. I am a quiet person but by 11 my anger accumulated, I lost my temper and shouted at him in front of the whole sales team to p*ss off and leave me in peace. My shout was extremely loud and even our colleagues in the warehouse could hear it. They were sure I was a goner. I also thought that he would kick me out but I simply could not stand it anymore. Apparently I was too valuable to him and he just called me to his private room, told me I shouldn't have embarrassed him in front of the team, that he had just been "TESTING" me and bla bla. I said that I could not tolerate this kind of treatment. He did not fire me. For 2 weeks he didn't say a single word to me. After 2 weeks he invited me to a restaurant for a Sunday dinner. Afterwards I became his most respected advisor.
On the other hand, a female co-worker who cried after he mobbed her, was fired.

Why am I telling this? In this whole Getty-Google mess there is only one person who "strengthened their position" with that distributor of imagery, as you say. But that person is Sean, not Blend. Sean did the same thing that I did many years ago. By publishing the list he adapted to the type of his "business partner" and hit the bully between the eyes - the only way to gain respect from the bully.
And Blend? Well, Blend should change their name to BEND IMAGES, because that must be their new nickname at Getty. Just like my former boss "tested" me, Getty "tested" Blend and Blend failed the �test�. Probably Getty categorizes their business partners into groups, like I do with mine. Sean would fall there into the category of �clever and tough players�. And Blend? I guess that could be the category of �not-so-clever wussies�. They gave up territory and received peanuts in return. I can imagine a dialogue at Getty: �Hey, these guys at BEND think they strengthened their position when we made them donate a few dozen images�, �Yeah, they should be made to donate like 50 thousand images so that they think they are the emperors of the f*****g stock universe�.

I repeat Jonathan, the only person who �strengthened their position� is Sean.
Of course I sympathize with him because he was scammed and his sales may suffer as even more buyers leave iStock. But if you are talking about "positions" he is the winner.