I know about the 4th of July, but that's on Monday. Are ppl taking vacations earlier? 'cause yanks don't be buyin' sheat . Europe, as always is kickin a$$, but today even south America bought more from me, I got a single DL from the USA :s

Maybe they heard about how much you dislike them.

If you are working with clients and they are expecting images that wont be used in their same industry, Royalty-Free is not the proper license type. You should be licensing Rights-Managed images for such clients. For rights managed images I recommend working directly with the artist or the following sites.

Well, that would be great, but none of my clients can afford RM prices. They are all just small businesses. They don't "expect" anything, but I do what I can for them by trying to find them images that have low download numbers to decrease the chance for duplication, for my own piece of mind. There is enough selection in microstock that this is usually possible. And sometimes I do work directly with artists and photographers.

However, the issue I was addressing was the limitations of ClipartOf's library to the same downloads for all their customers by excluding fresh work from new contributors. I'm not trying to rip anyone. I'm just stating a fact. Without new content in the genres, it would only be the same stuff constantly being offered to all customers, right? Or am I missing something? Also, wouldn't some of the stuff become dated after a while?

I'm very curious from the customer's point of view, but I do understand it both ways; from our customer's (that have reported to me on this issue) and from an artist's point of view.

Well, I'm strictly a buyer. While I appreciate your business model and limiting your library for your contributors sake, I think it limits your business. By excluding new artists, your library will eventually lack variety in genres and you will only be offering the same art to all your customers. I don't want that for my clients. I like a lot of variety, even within genres. I tend to look for images that have fewer downloads, because I don't want one of my customers to open up a magazine or find an ad online that has the exact same stock images as a competitor (it has happened to me and to other designers I know). So when I know that those are all the illustrations that will ever be offered on your site in any particular genre by the same artists, I will go somewhere where I know there is fresher content.

The other thing I notice is that I can get helix7's illustrations right off his own site for considerably less than you would be offering them on yours. Interesting.

What was the bug the customer was referring to?

You dont MOVE the SLIDER!  you click on the dots! 

Okay, I finally figured it out. You can click on the dots OR you have to move the top slider down to see the cheaper stuff (or bottom slider up if you want to just see the more expensive stuff). That is not at all clear, IMO.

Well, it already seems to be broken. I moved the slider down to the first dot and what is on the first page? All Vetta and Agency. Way to go iStock!  

EDIT: It seems you have to click the dot rather than move the slider. Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of using a slider?

And people are talking about a bottom slider? What bottom slider?

They have really killed any fun those forums used to be. I notice they aren't nearly active as they used to be. And all the thread locking certainly doesn't give a great impression of the site anymore, either. There are six locked threads out of fifteen (that are not stickeys) in the Discussion forum. Off-topic forum is dead except for the race threads. Designer forum has been dead for a long time now. Logo forum is dead and beaten a few times too. And on and on...

Also note that the new summer "Woo-Yay" thread has a total of zero posts so far.

Just posted today:

Just another voice asking that iStock make it possible to filter on some type of price measure. I LOVE iStock and try to use it exclusively, but I'm already starting to use other sites just because I can't afford to spend a lot of time finding images only to find they are Vetta and consequently not usable for me at that price. Very frustrating to spend a lot time pulling together a lightbox and then having to go through manually one by one and eliminate the high priced images. I'm hanging in there, but it won't be for much longer.

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=330636&page=3

Quote from: Mantis on June 18, 2011, 07:27

What continues to be disturbing is the silence from Istock....almost admitting they could care less about bailing buyers. Very strange.

Looks more to me as though they couldn't care less.
I suspect they have got target buyers, with larger budgets.
If I go into Debenham's (or Macy's) with an own-brand budget, how much would the designer departments care if I said, "Yours are the only clothes that I like, but I can't afford them"?
The weird thing is that they (iStock, not Debenham's or Macy's) seem to be hiking up the prices to squeeze out small buyers, then offering the big buyers huge, unadvertised discounts.

It's a really silly - and dare I say it, unsustainable - strategy, IMO. In essence they are putting all their eggs in this big-buyer basket. A smarter strategy would be to keep the smaller buyers happy while still courting the big buyers. Sure, if a small buyer leaves they won't feel the impact (until enough of them do), but if a big buyer leaves it will immediately make a much bigger dent in their bottom line. And we all know how loyal big corporations are, so that scenario can happen at any time if someone offers them a better deal somewhere else.

For my own business, I like the small budget customers as well as the bigger budget projects. It keeps the income stream a lot more consistent than just relying on the bigger buyer (who may only make a purchase only once or twice a year).

This one too, from the same thread. Ouch.

For my one-off project, Vetta were the only photos that met my criteria. However, I did not buy because of the pricing. 30 credits would be just fine, but I can buy only 26 ($39.50) or 38 (26 + 12 for $58) or 50 ($75).

Every Vetta photo seemed to start at 30 credits, so why isn't there a 30-credit option?

I got the feeling that I was being manipulated into buying more credits than I needed and more than I would likely use, which pissed me off. So I didn't buy anything.

iStock try to manipulate buyers? Noooo. 

Talk about a nanny state. Sheesh.

one thing is certain....some of you know nothing about airplanes.... but the comments are amusing.....

Why don't you share your expert knowledge then?