I also think SF has a lot of potential. The quality of the collection is really high, the site sleek and simple, communication outstanding and it's fair trade.
(i just wished they'd change the pics on their front page more often; we've seen and know them by now...there's so many other good pics/designs in the collection to show off.)

I don't get how some expect it to be in the top- or middle tier already; theyre around now for what, a good 2 years? It takes quite some time to build a decent collection that can compete with the others and dont think its wise to burn a good chunk of your marketing budget when the collection isnt big enough yet. Growth takes time and i'll start to worry when i dont see improvement in a couple of years.
Pity many of us are in for the short term profit and start pulling portfolio's already...

Big thumbs up from me on Peter and StockFresh. You'll not find anyone with a better track record with such a variety of sites.

Quote from: who on September 15, 2011, 22:08

Quote from: jsnover on September 15, 2011, 14:30

I have ignored whoami, but seeing as Lisa quoted her, I think it's worth pointing out that StockXpert was not sold to Getty but to Jupiter Images. Once Jupiter was purchased by Getty (something Peter had nothing to do with), Getty closed StockXpert.

What difference does that make?  The point was that they sold a good site and sold everyone out.  It was a waste of their time uploading.  (...)  The fact that Peter sold StockXpert says a lot about his attachment and passion for the site.  I'm sure it will the same with StockFresh only this time it won't be worth much.

Just to make things clear: in Jan 2006 we sold 49% of our company to Jupiterimages because we were very new to the microstock game and felt a huge pressure as we didn't want to screw up. That was right at the start of StockXpert by the way, so I guess most people joined an already sold out site. Anyway, we thought they would bring a lot of experience to the table, and the reason why we sold only 49% because we wanted to be careful and didn't want to give up control on our sites. Things went great for a while and they were interested to buy more, so we sold up to 90%, of course still with certain guarantees on control. Nobody knew in advance that in 2008 the whole economy would collapse which would also put their parent company into a difficult financial situation and they would have to sell the entire images department to Getty. After the sale we still had our 10% and tried to work with them, but it was clear that they wanted to do things the opposite way, so we left and sold our remaining share. End of story.

Oh, and Marina, as for attachment and passion, I personally designed and programmed and wrote every single bit of text on SXC, Stockxpert and Stockfresh and I put a tremendous amount of work and dedication into every single one of those sites (way beyond what most people would care to do) and you have absolutely no idea what those sites mean / meant to me. I didn't want to bring this up but you compared yourself a superhero just for starting a flamewar in a forum so this might help putting things in perspective.

Lol how is that any different to what I said? 
You were the major shareholder with control when people were joining.  Despite things going well for the company, Jupiter offered you a sweet deal so you relinquished control and sold everyone out.  You�re in the business of making money, you�re not in the business of running and growing a microstock agency like Serban, Duncan and the two at GL who are passionate about what they do and their business. Contributors might waste their time again uploading on StockFresh and down the track, an investor might flash some dollar bills at you and you�ll probably sell up again.

As for you designing and programming the site, so what.  You're a web developper... that's what you do.  You're saying the sites meant so much to you but you still sold them.... the big wad of money just meant more to you didn't it?  Flame war?  I came here to discuss your vector prices that were ridiculous and had contacted you about it in March.  Despite laying out pages of examples of incorrect vector pricing and comparing your prices to other sites, you were stubborn and wouldn't budge.  Then you threw a hissy fit.  People were leaving your site and I was telling them to hold off because you'll probably come around but you just remained stubborn.  If there was a flame war, then you started it.  I may not have been nice in the end but 'nice' doesn't cut it and after deleting my port and you closing my account, you didn't deserve 'nice'.

Anyway, you sold StockXPert when it was doing well.  Raise your right hand Peter and swear you won't waste everyone's time and sell StockFresh if it ever does well.  I doubt it will anyway.  You had your day in the sun and you sold it.  There are a lot of people hear kissing your arse but there's a whole lot of others out there that believe you sold them out.

I don't think selling StockXpert has anything to do with vector pricing on SF or with general SF performance. Let's stay on topic and not get too irrelevant with flame posts again. StockXpert was sold a very long time ago, it's gone, bye. Get over it. I couldn't care less if Peter sells or not SF, it's just business. And being just business I would be much more interested in how it performs for me, in terms of cash.

great news!  thank you so much, Peter!