It is really slow, typical for summer.

I believe the backed up que is more about an increase in the number of contributors, there are more and more people joining the different sites. A lot of these people are hobbiest who need to learn the tricks of the trade. The increased number of contributers run into he one bottleneck on any site which is the inspection process. This is because that is the one place that is people intensive, there is no computer program than can decide if a photo meets the standards.

We are in some respects victims of our own success. More contributors, many who need have go through the learning curve, means a bottleneck that I suspect will not go away for a long time. More contributors also mean more rejections.

Bigstock is really a steady performer for me and I like the low payout of $30. I think canstock will hang around because I suspect their overhead is low.

The small players like geckostock, USphoto seem like the next to go.

Slightly better than average for me. I am hoping for a big uptick after subs start.

307

I am $3.40 from a payout! When I hit that I will consider dumping a real slowwwwwww performer. This other piece is that I use a some photo management software that uploads to multiple sites so there is not a lot of effort. I process once and send them on.

It is always my best performer, I do OK on others and I am not ready to dump them yet. I don't think new players are going to make a dent now. The big ones are established and there is little room for growth.

Around Easter is not a great sales month for any site so I would not panic yet.

No sales yet, but I like the prices and the overall site setup.

As on long time member of canstock I hope these changes work.

There are some big changes coming to the site. Check out the post by Duncun:

Several weeks ago I mentioned that we have some big changes coming soon. Several of them are still in the works and several are ready to be implemented this week.


3rd Party Licensing
We are opening up our library to outside authorized agencies. Put quite simply, we will be allowing other stock photography agencies and outside vendors to sell images on our behalf. Using our own API, these agencies will be able to gain full access to our library and search functions, and sell our images as if they were their own.

How it works:
1) All images will automatically be included in this program. However, photographers can choose to opt out completely, or exclude individual images.

2) Photographers will receive half of Can Stock Photo�s negotiated commission with the company. So say we negotiate a 75% commission with an agency. If an image sells for $2 through the agency � we will get $0.75 and you will get $0.75. The selling price and negotiated commission will depend on the individual agency.

3) You will retain complete control of your images. If you delete an image here, it will instantly be removed for sale from all distributers. We control all image files. All files are managed and served up directly from the CanStockPhoto servers.

4) You will be credited with sales instantly, as you are here.

5) All buyers must agree to our current licensing contracts, or equivalent. The same terms as we use here.

I expect this to become live sometime over the next month. We have a large agency onboard that will be carrying our entire library, however for the time being I can not reveal who it is. Other agencies can be added pending negotiations. This is great for photographers, as it allows you to market your images through other agencies � all from one spot. This will greatly increase the reach of your work.


Highly Tightened Submission Standards & Criteria
�Quality Over Quantity�
Starting very shortly we will be drastically changing how many images we accept, and what standards we hold them to. We will be only accepting the best of the best. For comparisons sake, our image standards will similar to some rights-managed agencies. We will be very selective and will only accept the highest quality images. All photos should appear to be shot in a professional environment, with professional equipment.

To allow a fair playing ground, we will be hiding the photographer�s name and status from our inspection screens. So image inspectors will be unaware of whose image they are evaluating � this will remove the risk of any accidental bias or favoritism. The images will be judged purely for their own quality.

Upload limits will be changed. Photographers with under a 50% approval rating will not be able to upload images. Other photographers may see large reductions in their upload limits. This is to encourage people to be selective in what they submit, instead of simply �dumping and running�.


Library Audit
Nobody likes audits, but sometimes they are necessary. Starting very soon we will be aggressively re-reviewing every image in our active collection. We will be removing all images that do not meet our updated submission standards. Images that have been online for a while and have no downloads and/or little views will be automatically deleted. Images that are of mediocre quality, plain, boring, or not original will all be deleted. We want to prune our library so we are left with only the highest quality images for our buyers.

Some photographers will not be affected, whereas others will see a large decrease in their portfolio. It all depends on the caliber of images you have online, as judged by our team (and software). We expect to remove 100-250k images. This is a business decision that will ultimately benefit the community as a whole.


New Keyword Handling
Starting very soon our system will only be ranking images based on the first 15 keywords listed. We have an ongoing problem of people abusing the system with keyword diarrhea. Some images are submitted with 50-75 keywords. This causes a mass dilution of the search results, and hurts everybody involved.

Please note this is not a �limit�. You can submit as many keywords as you want and do not have to do any special editing. However, our system will simply ignore every keyword after the 15th one. Although they will all remain in the image details, they will not all actively be used by our search engine.


Site Changes
Over the next little bit we will be making a number of site changes. All changes are designed to create a more buyer-friendly environment.

1) Front Page � we will be removing the statistics, announcements and discussion sections. Our forums will still be accessible from the link at the top of the site, but the main page will be updated to have more focus on the images.

2) Faster Search � we are completely re-tooling our search engine to provide much faster search results. We expect a 2-4x increase in search speed. We will also add more advanced search options.

3) Revised Site � we will be making some longer term changes to the site to further enhance its usability for buyers. This will involve more features in some areas, and redesigns in others.


Questions, comments?

Duncan

I love to hear people crack on microstock. What micro did was open photography to everybody. I love taking pictures but I have day job and never would have thought about selling pictures without micro.

Micro lets me have some fun and buy new equipment every now then. That said, there are too many sites and I suspect that we will see some contraction in the future. The list on the right has to many players.

When will they get an FTP loading system?