Home › News

News

 
Microstock News

Veer Made Simple

By Steve GibsonThu, 01/28/2010 - 02:09

Leave a comment

Veer have announced some exciting plans to integrate their marketplace microstock collection with the rest of their website making the marketplace "front and center" in their search results. Veer marketplace currently resides in a separate tab on veer.com, and results are displayed in a separate sidebar along with the main search.

The changes (planned for Q2) will include a new interface and also see the removal of veers Rights Managed collection to a new site (yet to be announced) which will target "more traditional and sophisticated customers".

Veer also promise to "substantially increase our marketing activities to spread the word about our simple web site and affordable offering to a much bigger audience" once the changes have been implemented.

Continue Reading

Looking Back, Looking Forward

By Steve GibsonWed, 01/06/2010 - 13:00

5 comments

Less than a week in yet that hang-over seems so long ago! I submitted 170 images last year, that's nothing like the number I was planning 12 months ago, that's despite upload being easier than ever. Thinking back 12 months and things felt very different, as I'm sure they will in 12 months time. Good news being that my earnings are up.

Continue Reading

December News Digest

By Steve GibsonMon, 12/28/2009 - 09:05

Leave a comment

Slightly longer than usual since my last news digest - it's slow on news over the holidays...

Fotolia launched a 'tax centre' in their account control panel, all contributors are required to complete tax forms before payments are made. This practice is in line with shutterstock and veer. For individuals in many countries it's a reasonably simple process of reading some documentation and filling out a form online. Contributors have until January 1 2010 to complete their forms.

Veer introduced 10,000 USD customer protection to images purchased in their marketplace.

Continue Reading

Comparison of Popular Search Keywords

By Steve GibsonTue, 12/01/2009 - 07:50

1 comment

A couple of days ago there was a post on the lookstat blog titled top search keywords for energy, it compared search terms in Google in an attempt to estimate popularity of energy images on microstock sites. Earlier this year I did something similar in a post about seasonal stock images, and at the time I made the point that I wasn't exactly sure how well Google search terms related to searches on microstock sites.

So that set me thinking... (yes, be very afraid) Just exactly how much of a match is google trends/adwords data to what people are searching for at microstock sites? Clearly there will be some relationship, but I'd also guess that there are lots of popular terms that will not have a proportionate number of microstock searches. It's difficult to know how similar the two are. Is it reasonable to assume that popular keywords in Google are more likely to lead to more microstock sales as those keywords make popular subjects hence there will be related businesses in need of such images? As they say "assume makes an ass out of u and me".

Continue Reading

November News Digest

By Steve GibsonFri, 11/20/2009 - 02:39

2 comments

The Last 30 Days in Microstock - Bite Sized:

Lookstat added a new 'collections' feature which allows you to analyse sales on arbitrary groups of your images, then continued their series of anonymous analytics from their contributors with a very interesting look at portrait v landscape v square images, followed by an analysis of beer v wine stock images and Easter photos. The results rhyme with those from google analtyics found in microstock submission calendar.

Continue Reading

Pixmac now reselling Dreamstime images

By Steve GibsonWed, 10/28/2009 - 08:25

6 comments

Microstock agency Pixmac have announced that they are now reselling Dreamstime images and have added a new 'luxury' collection of macrostock priced content from image source. This in addition to their own microstock collection, celebrity images and reselling of images from Fotolia.

The site now features a series of tabs that allows buyers to easily select from the various collections.

Continue Reading

Fotolia Want More Photographers - "Operation Level Ground"

By Steve GibsonFri, 10/23/2009 - 00:35

Leave a comment

Fotolia have announced the launch of their 'operation level ground' to attract new photographers. The program is open to both existing contributors at other microstock agencies (e.g. quit your istock exclusivity and come join us) and also to photographers who are currently outside of microstock selling their work elsewhere i.e. macrostock prices.

Continue Reading

October News Digest

By Steve GibsonWed, 10/21/2009 - 04:28

6 comments

Cutcaster updated their list of image needs, thought it 'betta' that their premium collection be called crescendo and hired a new creative director. Cutcaster also announced improvements to their search system, providing good search is more complex than it first appears and is one of the many differentiators between the leading microstock sites and the many turn-key start-ups.

Continue Reading

Measuring My Self Promotion Results

By Steve Gibson
Written 29 September 2009
Revised 02 January 2010

2 comments

Coinciding with iSyndica's announcement of the official launch of their 'promotion service' I thought it was time to share a few preliminary results of my investigation into promotion with 'free stock photos'. Even before I wrote the article microstock photos for free I've had been redistributing some of my images for free on various websites with somewhat inconclusive results.

The following table shows the sites I have uploaded images to, the number of images, image views recorded by those sites and the number of times someone clicked a link to my website. Measurements for the first 4 weeks of September 2009.

Continue Reading

September News Digest

By Steve GibsonWed, 09/23/2009 - 23:13

2 comments

Theres been plenty going on since my last new round-up, here's a few news stories that caught my eye:

Continue Reading

Popular content