Anyone who thinks that istock is going to continue to pay those $2.50 subs commissions is living in a dreamworld.  With gross financial revenue having declined significantly, and no evidence (yet) of any growth following the price changes made in Sept 2014 and the redesigned UI, they are going to use whatever means possible to sustain or improve profits.  And the prime contender is those $2.50 subs.  Why would they willingly make those payments when there are perfectly good ordinary exclusive files that pay $0.75 or even non-exclusive files that pay only 28c (approximately one-tenth).  No, what they really want is to get as many customers as possible on the premium subscription, then gradually reduce the exposure given to those $2.50 files.  For exclusives, subs sales might rise, but subs income will not rise at the same pace (or might even decline).

Duplicate post

They said many months ago that the mixed up order of keywords in the new UI was simply a 'display issue' and that the 'correct' keyword order could be seen by switching to the old UI.  Unfortunately that was a long time ago and nothing appears to have been done to solve the problem.  One would have thought that if it was just a 'display issue' it would have been a relatively simple thing to resolve.

If the search actually changes to the 'new' keyword order, then that will probably be disastrous for sales as the order shown in the new UI appears to be nonsense.

If, as ShadySue implies, the similars thing is based on the new keyword order then that of course would explain why that function also seems unable to work properly.

Unfortunately all of this is 'par for the course' at istock.  Their technology people appear to be incapable of completing tasks without screwing lots of things up, which usually results in a negative impact on sales.

It really is quite extraordinary that they cannot implement a similars display.  Nearly all retail web sites do it in some form, yet here we are (again) with istock seemingly incapable of introducing a function that should be quite straightforward.  They just don't seem to be prepared to spend money on good technology people (or they are not allowed to because the money has to be given to the venture capitalists).

Edit:  well I think I need to stand corrected on this one.  I've just looked at my last five sales, and the keyword order shown on both old and new UIs is the same.  So it looks like that problem has been solved, at least for those few files.  If it's still screwed up for other files, perhaps it is something that will be gradually implemented.

Also, the similars links appear to be reasonable.  Not perfect, but not outrageously poor.  Some files have a 'same series' display, others don't.

In Lee's interview with Stocksy's CEO she says that their top photographers are now making $100,000 per annum:

http://www.microstockdiaries.com/interview-with-stocksy-united-ceo-brianna-wettlaufer.html

I've had about 250 files removed from my portfolio over the last couple of weeks, so I'm in the same camp as most others here.

The last batch I uploaded hasn't been reviewed, although admittedly it's only been there a few days.

I've got another batch of new files to upload (which I think will be entirely suited to Canva for their purposes) but to be honest I'm holding off because I'm unsure of what to do.  All these file removals and lack of communication from Canva make me feel uncertain about their plans.

Sales are still rising (and I'm pleased about that) but if they continue to remove files eventually sales will fall.

Let's hope that Lee (or somone else from Canva) will be able to pop in here with an update so we can all be made aware of what exactly is happening.

In my opinion it is likely that the Greeks will vote YES, the reason being that the past week has been a shock to them and they will be fearful of things getting even worse on a NO vote.  They'll likely vote YES out of fear, and in hope that a YES vote will bring the current crisis to an end and allow banks to reopen, pensions and wages to be paid, and international transactions to begin again (which they won't).

Unfortunately all this will do is kick the can down the road, and within a few weeks or months the crisis will return again when it becomes evident that reforms aren't being implemented and the recession continues even worse as tourists avoid the country and their major source of income and employment dwindles.

Greece is like a person who has maxed out debt on multiple credit cards and blames everyone except himself.  Greece has borrowed, borrowed, borrowed, spent, spent, spent, without the national income needed to support the spending and borrowing.  Now they are blaming everyone except themselves.  They continue to pay generous pensions even though they don't have the national income to justify those payments.  They refuse to increase taxes, reduce pensions and government expenditure, and just keep blaming the Germans.  They are bankrupt but refuse to accept that it is their own fault.  They want to continue spending and borrowing and have the EU community pay for it.  They have no intention of ever repaying the loans, and for some reason they believe it is their God given right to have the rest of Europe subsidise their lifestyles without making any effort to change.

Greece is basically a third world Country of just 11 million people living above their means.  There is little industry, little willingness to work, and avoidance of taxes appears to be a national sport.

The ECB, IMF and Germany have now said 'enough is enough'. "We are not going to continue to lend you money unless you make an effort to balance your books, collect taxes, and run the Country with a budget surplus so that loans can be repaid".  Greece has refused to do this, as it just expects Europe to keep paying, paying, paying and lending, lending, lending.

Greece is a bankrupt Country, it refuses to stop spending, collect taxes properly and increase VAT to balance the budget deficits, and the sooner it is kicked out of Europe the better the European finances will be.  Enough is enough.  Goodbye Greece - get out of Europe and stop wasting away the money made by hard working people in other European Countries.

When I went independent a few months ago I had Colourbox on my list of potential agencies.  They looked professional and seemed to be able to demonstrate fast growth.  I started to upload there but quickly became disillusioned due to very low sales and commissions.  I decided to search the internet to see if I could find some financial information about them, and found their official accounts from 2012/13.  Yes, they have grown fast, about doubling from the year before, but their overall gross revenue is very small - somewhere in the region of 4 million Euros (that's for 2012).  They have assets of less than 1 million Euros.  Although they are well respected, they are very, very small.

On reflection, their commissions payable to suppliers are way too small, at 20% for credit sales and 20 Euro cents for subs.  That's actually insultingly small for such a small operation with low sales, and much less than most medium size operations pay (such as 123, Big, DP etc).

Following my research, and the realisation that they have very low sales I stopped uploading and I'll most likely close my account.

They are well respected, honest, professional, and growing fast.  But sales are still very low and the low commissions they offer are really quite insulting.

They might of course become much larger in the years ahead, but if they succeed bear in mind they'll have done so by paying amongst the lowest commissions in the business.  Not something I want to support.

What Shutterstock has done here by allowing this nonsense portfolio is a complete insult to hard working stock photographers who submit high quality work in the hope of earning a decent living.  A complete insult.  Absolutely unacceptable.

Seems you can now update keywords for existing images - isn't that new and improved?

No, keywords can't be edited.  You'll get an error message if you try.  In fact nothing can be changed except prices.  Shame, because I think having the facility to REDUCE the number of keywords would be good, particularly as they say that fewer keywords increases relevancy,  I can understand why they would want to stop people adding extra words though.

@tavi, you've got a portfolio of 3250 images, and you didn't sell a single thing?  Not even a sub?

I've noticed the number of views at Fotolia climbing rapidly over the last couple of weeks.  Initially I thought this was due to new uploads, but then I noticed others commenting on it in the FT forum.

Anyone else seeing a rapid rise in views at Fotolia?  Anyone know why? (go to your statistics page to see the views history)

Edit:  we're talking here about views suddenly climbing by 50% to 100% ie. a significant and very strong change.