MicrostockInsider - News

Shutterstock Acquires Envato

Steve Gibson — Mon, 06 May 2024 00:55:41 +0000

Founders of Envato (Photodune) are to exit the industry following an acquisition by Shutterstock

Read more on this story at StockPhotoSecrets

also see:

Envato founders exit in 373 million deal

Shutterstock Growth : One Billion in Payouts and Slowing

Steve Gibson — Wed, 11 Dec 2019 00:20:50 +0000

Shutterstock have announced reaching 1 billion dollars paid out to contrubutors. The figure is calculated across all sites in the shutterstock network, bigstock and offset, and includes both royalties and referral commissions.

The graph shown in their blog post immediately caught my interest - not sure why but graphs with dodgy axis always scream out at me... (this was indeed quite inconvenient when watching Al Gore on his scissor lift)

The numbers plotted out on a linear scale are shown below, a distinct slow down in payouts since 2015 is revealed.

Recently on this same subject Shutterstock enterprise grown is gone on seekingalpha (investment website, cached version of this still to be found on google) points the slowdown at shutterstock having exhausted growth through their enterprise customers.

From a contributors perspective, assuming you submit to both shutterstock and also adobe stock/ex fotolia then I think there is little to be concerned with in the short-medium term.

14 Years of iStock Sales

Steve Gibson — Wed, 25 Jan 2017 10:11:51 +0000

If you're an istock contributor you will already be aware of the new Getty images "ESP" submission platform coming soon and the closure of the existing submission system at istockphoto (aka "xnet"). Somewhat annoyingly the powers that be have decided not to migrate data from the old platform; said platform has been somewhat hobbled for the past couple of months anyway, but now is an excellent time to take a look at the stats over the years before they're gone for good!

I started uploading to iStockphoto in 2003. A lot has changed - I’m not even 100% certain I wasn't still on dial up in the UK, if not I was certainly on my first cable modem with 600Kbits/s symmetric (and wow did I think that was the dogs dangalies back then...)

Uploads over the years - growing portfolio

Total is cumulative and the upper line (sorry about the colours here). This graph is mostly for reference and useful when looking at the next graphs. There's not really much to say here, I’ve been adding images at a sporadic but linear-ish rate (I did upload more than average in 2016).

Downloads (sales)

Before 2009 "file downloads" were all there was. Since then we can see individual file sales decreasing, made up for in volume by sales from partner program and subscriptions

Revenue (Total Royalties)

Overall, averaged out over the years revenue is on the way up. I'd hope so considering I'm uploading more images! More images in the portfolio means we need to look at RPI...

Revenue Per Image

RPI is going down, but not as much as I was expecting, nonetheless it's approx. half to 1/3 of what it was for 2009 and before.

But, there is a big problem with looking at RPI, especially over long time frames, it's capable of being diluted by old images in my portfolio. I don't curate my portfolio once uploaded (to make the playing field level for all agencies to compare).

I don't have an easy way of calculating RPI for a rolling window of images uploaded in the previous 3 or 5 years, I think that might be a more useful statistic and less prone to error.

Hopefully there is something here to compare your own results with. Certainly not as gloomy as I thought things might have been; especially industry wide considering how much ground istock have lost to shutterstock.

Notes:

For clarity ELs not included in the graphs.
If you are playing along at home with your own stats, as of 2011 the stats show deactivations as negative numbers, they were positive numbers before that, I’ve taken absolute values of all years (and yes I would like a vodka please).
2003 was 5 months of a year and hence is "statistically flawed"
Results for December 2016 are missing and hence values will be approx. 1/12th higher than shown - December in my portfolio is more or less on par with other average months. Sep-Nov are good months for me as is commonly seen in the industry. I think this is actually quite important as it could make the RPI at istock constant over the past 3 years.

Shutterstock: Sustainable Profits?

Steve Gibson — Tue, 26 Jan 2016 08:47:08 +0000

At the end of last week Shutterstock announced it was about to change its royalty rates for Extended Licenses. You can read the details of the changes on microstockdiaries. Announcing the change would take place and then letting us wait a few days for the change to appear on the payouts page was uncharacteristically limp-wristed for Shutterstock.

Simplification to a Flawed Model

It's still beyond me how a flat rate is less simple than a series of payment tiers based on previous earnings (apart from an obvious attempt to sugar-coat the bad news). What is interesting is that it's a choice that places Shutterstock further into a tiered payment model that istock claimed was simply unsustainable when making major changes to the royalty structure back in 2010.

The change itself I don't see as that significant as it stands (I'm sure some of you will be upset, and I hear you all saying it's easy in your position with a small pay rise). But it's alarming when combined with the other little slices that Shutterstock have taken in the past couple of years, it seems pretty obvious there is more to come if a near 30% growth in revenue is to be maintained.

It was only a matter of time before the spotlight fell onto photographer royalties, we don't really know what happens inside the machine, we're just able to spot patterns in what we see on the outside. While wearing one of my other hats I earn money referring buyers to stock agencies like Shutterstock, some of the changes that spring to mind are related to referrals not directly to photographers or buyers:

Cuts to Photographer Referral Lifetime (shutterstock forum, Feb 2013)

Reduction in entry standards (to the presumable end of improving the "number of images" or some other metric)

I'm also watching buyer referral payouts dwindle:

I'm not too sure what to make of it. Shutterstock was once a strong earner for me, last years results were less than pleasing (to the point of my now sending buyers to depositphotos).

[Background on the graph above: traffic, page views, visitor sources, etc at the website these stats relate to were level across the year, nothing changed in layout of the site or traffic from search etc. Other than site visitors potentially being 'saturated' with Shutterstock subscriptions, I really don't know what's happening here, and I'm interested to hear from anyone else working in the market.]

For what is worth, my income as a photographer is going up (or at the very least standing still when viewed pro-rata with images I'm adding to my portfolio, considering the growth of the image collection at Shutterstock that can't be ignored as a counterpoint to this.

Is the Shutterstock Bubble about to Burst?

The alarming paragraph title is perhaps not so warranted, we have been there before with iStock; it took several years for the 'clear market leader' to lose their shine, there probably won't be a burst. We should also note that iStock also made numerous business decisions I felt to be "completely surreal" before it became noticeable that they had lost so much ground the downturn was irrevocable. Shutterstock not made such dreadful choices so far (you might argue this is one), but they are definitely now heading down a similar path. That path might have been inevitable from the day they floated.

Minimum Viable Payout Rate

The big question for Shutterstock is how to find that payout rate. Cut the rate too much and contributors will leave, make it too high and the shareholders will want blood. Leaving it alone is also a cut in real terms.

As contributors in mainstream microstock we have little choice at all in the matter, but to get paid the market rate or leave it. That rate is complex, it's spread across multiple agencies and is dependent on the success of that agency, minimum quality of content buyers expect and more.

Like paying an employee the right salary, the choice can't be simply made by reducing until the employee leaves: they might not be happy to come back when offered a tiny bit more than what they felt was not enough.

With the recent Getty / Corbis collection deal, Fotolia + Adobe + Subscription in the Creative cloud, and several convincing looking start-ups vying to take their own little slice of subscriptions market, the future looks decidedly "dynamic".

2015 Microstock Earnings Comparison

Steve Gibson — Fri, 11 Sep 2015 08:36:10 +0000

It's been a good while since I shared any detailed analysis of my microstock earnings, there has been plenty going on over the past couple of years in changing royalties. Putting all the change, discussion, boycotts, rates and price structures to one side then probably the most important consideration for any photographer is what's happening to my revenue?

Agency Earnings Compared

Last time I shared a look at comparative revenue was back at the start of 2012, for the 12 months of Jan to Dec 2011, as an update I've looked at the 12 months to July 2015. A gap of 2.5 years, and a long time in microstock!

My earnings are up at almost all agencies, approximately 50% up on average, this despite me not uploading many images during the past 4 years (less than 15% portfolio increase). The main reason for the increase is an increase in revenue per sale i.e. prices to buyers are going up.

Shutterstock have taken out an astonishing lead, the graph below has it's Shutterstock bar chopped in half so that the rest of the graph is more readable - their bar is huge compared to the others, they bring me around 5x that of each of the next two agencies (canstock and istock) and are not too far from earning me the same as all the other agencies combined.

Earnings Comparison Graph: Since 2006 I have uploaded the same portfolio of images to all agencies, new agencies receive the back catalogue of images and are then included in all future uploads. (the only exceptions: photocase, alamy). Each agency has chosen to accept and reject whatever images they want - that's fine, they can curate their collections as they please I'm only interested in comparing aggregate earnings from image sales at each agency. You should group together agencies ranked below 15 as they would be prone to statistical error, earnings from those sites were very low.

Rankings Compared to 2011

Current Rank	Agency	Rank-2011	Change
1	shutterstock	1	0
2	canstock (inc fotosearch)	5	3
3	istock	3	0
4	fotolia	4	0
5	dreamstime	2	-3
6	depositphotos	10	4
7	bigstock	6	-1
8	photodune	9	1
9	123rf	7	-2
10	panther	8	-2
11	mostphotos	14	3
12	veer	11	-1
13	colourbox	New
14	pond 5	New
15	stockfresh	15	0
16	zoonar	16	0
17	featurepix	19	2
18	photocase	New
19	crestock	18	-1
20	cutcaster	17	-3
21	yaymicro	12	-9

There is a surprising amount of stability, notable exceptions being yaymicro disappearing out of the back door. Canstock continue to quietly climb their way up the table (quite a dark horse that agency) but climbing from 5 to 2 and overtaking istock, dreamstime and fotolia has been driven in most part by syndicated sales from fotosearch rather than direct sales on their own site. I'm opted-in to all syndication/reseller options and these earnings are included in the comparison (except for Fotolia and DCP where I was opted out).

Depositphotos is the highest climber, these figures are from before their recent pricing and royalty changes.

There is pretty clear evidence for me that we are not in a race to the bottom with prices to buyers. Prices for individual images are up quite sharply over the past 4 or so years (dollar photo club excepted), likewise the gap between agency revenue and contributor payout is also growing - agency keeps more, the photographer gets a smaller share.

Pricing Changes

In the past couple of years we have seen plenty of "price re-alignments". Flat rate pricing (istockphoto), new subscription offers with high resolutions for a fraction of the price of a buying the same images on a credit based process; new subscriptions that don't really lock the buyer in to anything! Because it’s a subscription payment the royalty can also be a suitable "fraction" to photographers, and for photographers that now rather withered and dried up carrot has been dangled out again: “there will be higher volumes of sales because….”.

Regardless of whether or not those agencies are cannibalising their own credit based purchases to sell a subscription to the same customer, all I see is somewhat less sales but much more revenue. This all seems counterintuitive but I've checked my numbers. Can my small portfolio of 'simple images' be so different from everyone else? Am I earning more at the expense of those whose photos had higher production values? Do images in older portfolios earn more? I don't think so.

Of course everyone's portfolio is different, but I'm not seeing any doom and gloom here. The doom and gloom comes from agency announcements and forums. Have we all become so negative when reading those announcements or is it just me looking at the world through cold blue coloured glasses?

The Obfuscated Royalty Rate Cuts

We've only seen direct royalty cuts from depositphotos in the past year, and that combined with an increase in price to the end user. Looking at their numbers it brings them more in line with the other agencies. DP have grown their market share, and their library to 30 million images, so the incentive of a higher rate for "new" photographers is no longer needed, likewise cheap prices to attract new buyers (a gamble perhaps)

Instead of direct cuts a new trend has emerged. Agencies now offer ‘new’ subscription systems and regular 'new' pricing schemes...streamlining and bringing us 'good news', divide credits 5:1 and round up... some perversely describe this as simplification.

Like rationalisation is a euphemistic way of describing job-cuts, I think there is a risk that ‘simplification’ is becoming a synonym of royalty-cuts AND customer price increases. Seems that no agency dare mention cutting royalty rates directly, like everything political we have to go all-round-the-houses first.

We reached a spectacular low last July with depositphotos 3% royalty on a subscription sale (monthly subscription). A 'daily subscription' that offered 5 images a day over a month @ $79, with a high resolution pay-as-you go download on DP costing 10 credits, and each credit costing ~$1 (at the time) any customer downloading more than 8 high res images a month will be in the market to switch to a subscription, that's great for DP: those daily subscription sales results in at worst 56% payout to the contributors if all images are downloaded (rare!), the pay-as-you-go sales would mean a payout of 44%-60%. More likely the scenario that e.g. 23% of revenue paid out if half the allowance is used. DP later 'reconsidered' the offer.

It does seem that recent complaints and boycotts from the photographer community did have some effect, forcing agencies to provide opt-outs, and in some cases to send individual emails to ex-contributors incentivising them back after they deleted their portfolios or opted-out.

Pricing subscriptions is not easy. We know from Shutterstock who lose money if a subscriber downloads all images they could each day/month, buyers do not normally use up all of their entitlement in a subscription. Much fairer is iStocks minimum payout solution where photographers earn more if a buyer uses only use part of their entitlement.

The details of how and in what way a subscription is offered is not what I have issue with here, it's the introduction of subscriptions and changes to them in an veiled attempt by some agencies to increase the numbers of download but keep more revenue for themselves. However If I'm earning more each month I'm not complaining, and that seems to be what's happening.

So what about DollarPhotoClub, Fotolia and Adobe

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, the launch of DollarPhotoClub (DPC) sounded like the end of the world to many contributors, but now the future for DPC looks bleak, the site is closed to new members. We can only speculate on the reasons:

Not the business that Fotolias new owners Adobe want to be associated with?
A model not compatible with attracting the best images to Fotolia and in turn to Adobe stock?
A model that turned out to be a financial disaster or at not earning enough to stay viable long term?

We'll probably never know. I'm fairly sure the buyers that used it were pretty happy with the site. As an ex-subscriber myself (it was by far the best value way to buy photos!!!) I found it to be a well executed product, although the marketing and customer communication was (perhaps suitably so) somewhat trashy and overzealous.

The Bottom Line

Subscriptions seem to be the new way to obfuscate royalty rates by making it really hard to compare one agency to with another - it has the same effect for buyers. A subscription is a simple number of images provided in a fixed time for a fixed price, that bit is "simplification". Working out what will save buyers money or generate more revenue to photographers is much harder.

Despite changes to rates and sale prices here, there, and everywhere: my income is up and I'm off to upload some more photos ;)

New istock offer: michaeljayfoto.com/agency-news/the-new-istock-offer

Lack of inspection spells doom microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/istocks-lack-of-inspection-standards-spell-more-doom

Changes at 123rf microstockgroup.com/123royaltyfree-com/royalties-on-%27download-pack%27-aren%27t-at-your-level (this thread really makes things much clearer..... ummm)

Envato lay the foundations to install smoke and mirrors in the future microstockgroup.com/photodune/a-more-balanced-envato-market/

Changes to prices at depositphotos microstockdiaries.com/depositphotos-raises-prices-and-lowers-royalties.html

Fotolia D-Day (Deactivation Day) May 1st

Steve Gibson — Thu, 01 May 2014 08:01:13 +0000

A somewhat brief article as unfortunately I have not left myself enough time to write a proper commentary on the subject: Microstock contributors are probably already aware of the thread at microstock group and 'movement' organized by boycottfotolia.org

The issue stems from photographer sentiment that devaluing of their work by Fotolias launch of 'dollar photo club' is something of a 'last straw' considering the license terms, image resolution etc provided. I can't really say I blame them considering Fotolias track record on transparency (or lack thereof).

Fotolia have now provided an opt-out from syndication of your Fotolia port on dollar photo club, 'DPC'. The option can be found by editing your profile on Fotolia and selecting the "contributor parameters" tab, there is a modify link next to "Sell my files on DPC".

I think that today (May 1st) should be a day for sending a signal of a mass opt-out rather than deleting portfolio or images. I know that opinion may undermine the pledge that some contributors made on the boycottfotolia site but I feel a middle ground has been reached (ideally it would be an opt-in). Overall it's up to each contributor to read all the information and make their own decisions where and where-not to sell.

March 2014 Microstock Update

Steve Gibson — Sun, 16 Mar 2014 06:51:01 +0000

Time flies! It's been ages since the microstockexpo (videos here) definitely time for a round-up of recent microstock news:

MicrostockExpo (Very) Mini Review

Last Novembers microstockexpo was another great event to attend like the first expo. A lot of companies were the promoting their latest 'mobile babies'. I can't help but feel most of the attendees were not all that interested in mobile (perhaps not such a surprise). A common theme across many of the speakers was 'authentic' photography - images that look unstaged and natural. Yuri's keynote was surprisingly open with lots of info on how he manages his business; there was a conflicting message in there which struck a chord with me - At one point he was showcasing some of his photos including highly polished / processed images a few minutes later extolling the virtues of candid and natural looking (I so want to drop the word 'authentic' a second time). I feel that sounds exactly like where we are in microstock, a crossroad between 'cut out on white' (arguably 'safe') and the more creative work we are starting to see on Stocksy, Offset, and indeed from Yuri. The two different image styles in Yuri's keynote mirrors the sentiment I made here regarding shooting simple stuff and also creative at the same time, I appreciate that simple and creative mean different things to different people anyway!

While on the subject of trends:

Shutterstock published a rather nice design trends infographic.

Trends this year: things on wooden backgrounds, lens flares, things that look like they just fell like that, business being done in a conversion, It's all about the story

iStocksubscription

istock announced a new subscription option would be launched in early April, from a post on shutterstock it looks like istocks photographers might have been off looking for pastures greener.

This follows on from Getty announcing that it was closing the photos.com subscription site with customers migrated to thinkstock. Punchchstock and jupiterimages also being closed and re-direted to gettyimages (inspirestock went from Punchstock to 123rf).

It didn't work for Picapp, will it work for Getty?

As you probably already know, Getty have announced that you can use 35 million (40 million?) of their images for free online if you use them via an embedded widget. The widget displays their images along with some advertising on your site. The idea is certainly nothing new, various companies have had a crack at it over the years, picapp (defunct) being the most developed option I ever saw, syndicating "millions" of professional celebrity, sports and tourism images (ideal candidates for bloggers I think) for free in return for you using their code and them getting a chance to show their ads in a popup if a user clicked on the image. Why will this work for Getty? I'm skeptical. Oringer sounded a little on the defensive - i've no idea why felt the need to (is that what shareholders need?). His comment about 99.9% of business being commercial is perhaps not the exact figure plucked from the top of his head but probably not far away from it.

I think by far the most interesting part of this story is Getty getting to grips with what is commercial and non-commercial use. Traditionally anything that was only available for non-commercial use had VERY limited scope for actually being used. Looking a online use only, it's difficult to find any popular website that is not earning some kind revenue from advertising or referrals. These might not be profitable businesses but earning money from adverting is commercial even if it is not covering costs. The definition of commercial has always been woolly (and still is) but Getty have opened to door to their 'non-commercial' use license including blogs that have things like Google adsense on them.

Plenty of discussion on this topic:

BJP Online - Getty Images makes 35 million images free in fight against copyright infringement

MichaelJayFoto - Why Getty decided to offer images for free

PDN Pulse - Why free images are good for photographers

Don't bet on Getty the downside of free

Other things

Best of the Best - Picworkflow did some further analysis based on a blog post and presentation at microstock expo by stockperformer.

Symbiostock stopped or went on hold, and then carried on the same; and oh I don't know anymore! I don't want to make any possibly damaging comments about something that is developing in the way that it is.

Microstockgroup 2013 annual survey results, looks like a fair bit of optimism and plenty of stability to me.

Shutterstock adding 200,000 images in a week via microstockgroup

Depositphotos shows us how syndication is great for making more sales but allows more people take a share of the pie... sometimes the lions share of it.

Shutterstock acquired webDAM cloud digital asset management platform

Picmac announced they were closing - amen to that

Disruptive Change or Passing Summer Storm?

Steve Gibson — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 08:16:16 +0000

August and September may have been quiet months on the microstock news front, but there was certainly no shortage of 'excitement' in the months before. It now seems a long time ago but to understand the "Yuri has spoken" post fully (if you have not already read it!) it's good to know the related events leading up to it, and so a...

Timeline of Events:

18th May - Yuri Goes Exclusive with Getty

After some speculation Yuri Arcurs posted a message on microstockgroup announcing he was to start working exclusively with getty images (what he actually says is Getty are a good distribution partner and he's removing his images from other agencies).

Sometime around here:

istock start accepting way more images than they normally do, something in the order of "all images including crap that might have been better deleted in camera". I thought it might just be me at first, but no, lots of other people noticed it too.

16 July - iStock Press Release:

After what seemed at the time to be a rather long delay, getty/istock dropped a press release: announcing Yuri as an exclusive photographer:

prnewswire.com/news-releases/istockphoto-announces-exclusive-deal-with-worlds-top-selling-stock-photographer----and-lowers-pricing-on-half-its-library-215622511.html

Couple of thoughts on the release: sounds like rather a lot of spin that istock has exclusive access to "The Arcurs Collection" "only available at istock", which of course is correct, and means pretty much nothing. "The Arcurs Collection" can be an arbitrary title that could be applied to anything (a premium Yuri collection available at another source within the Getty fold for example).

istocks prices have certainly NOT halved: Read between the lines there and you can see that half of the iStock collection is now more expensive - the cost of credits has gone up 25% for me 1.53 up to 2.06 per credit (AUD) and I don't think that can be explained away as a change of US exchange rate, Sean Locke has seen other problems with the pricing and has been keeping a close eye on what changes are being made in a series of blog posts.

"An effortless search experience"? Nice that someone has taken the time to notice and fix it, but it might have been good to make the search work properly 3 years back. Buyers were not "born yesterday" and can spot images with questionable relevancy that have been given prime location simply due to premium price or some other strategic reason known only to istock.

I personally applaud the attempts to simplify what had become a ridiculous plethora of different collections and pricing structures; notwithstanding the fact that istock actually drove themselves towards such a mire in the first place. I can see how plenty of people would be upset at the changes to a "familiar istock": seanlockephotography.com/2013/06/26/istockphoto-angers-contributors-confuses-buyers and a follow up seanlockephotography.com/2013/09/20/buyers-upset-at-constant-istock-changes.

Around the same time (Late June)

There were some comments on whether or not the Shutterstock share prices is or was too high, stemming from the story of Jon Oringer being the first Silicon Alley billionaire due to the share valuation. forbes.com/sites/edwindurgy/2013/06/28/oh-snap-shutterstock-founder-jon-oringer-is-a-billionaire

seekingalpha.com/article/1545712-shutterstock-valuation-makes-me-shudder (that post now in a private archive, parts can still be found at microstockgroup.com/shutterstock-com/shutterstock-valuation-makes-me-shudder/)

If the share price looked high in July wait till you see what it is now! - scroll down for a graph.

16th July - Scoopshot
Press release reveals that Yuri has invested 1.2 (or 1.4) million into scoopshot http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/16/scoopshot. This was followed by various other "phonestock" agencies in various states of maturity posting me-to releases (but none quite like the on-demand angle that scoopshot is taking).

25th July - "Yuri Speaks"
arcurs.com/2013/07/microstock-sees-its-first-major-setback-in-6-years-and-here-is-why

So what do I think:

I can't help but feel that peoplephotos has been less than sparkling. Peoplephotos v2 I have to admit seems very much on message; and looks the business - significant improvement from what was a perfectly functional but not the least bit inspiring v1 website. At the time peoplephotos was launched I wondered if it was a bargaining chip (but surely too elaborate and expensive to just use as leverage).

So far everything Yuri has done seems to have been successful; hard to argue with that considering where he currently stands. Careful and methodical are words that spring to mind, Yuri has lead the way. Peoplephotos was quite some time in the planning and I'd begun to wonder if it was 'bluff ware" - when it actually launched it surprised me a little, but I thought if anyone person can pull it off then it's Yuri. So I found the news of investing in something related to "mobile phone stock" very.... ~~scary~~, ~~incredible~~, noticeable!

On reflection you'll notice there mixed signals, on one hand "moving to somewhere that pays him more" and on the other "investing in something that pays much less". I look at that as someone hedging their bets, and in Yuri's position that is probably the wisest thing to do.

Shutterstock share price: well it might have taken a slight downturn at the time Yuri wrote his post. With the benefit of hindsight, by the time we reach early-September the share price is looking higher than ever (there was surge mid-September onwards because of a share sale bringing the stock to an all time high).

(graph c/o yahoo finance)

I have lots of thoughts on "Mobile photography, a serious threat to stock photography?" Which I hope to bring you in the coming post - I'm also looking forward hearing from the mobile stock panel at microstockexpo.

May 2013 Microstock Update

Steve Gibson — Tue, 28 May 2013 06:10:57 +0000

A couple of months between posts always leaves time for a few big stories - no exception here!

There's usually a common thread in these news posts, and in trying to make sense of the last few of months there are a couple of (somewhat vague) common elements to most of the things that have happened:

Increasing Quality: Both the Yuri "quit" story, new collections and new agencies have all boasted premium or increased quality images and / or prices.
Pulling in all directions at once (aka a lack of a trend). Microstock continues to merge into what was called Traditional Stock, to a point where neither business really fits the description from just a few years ago. In fact I'm getting weary of the somewhat unstable tags of Traditional Stock and Macrostock. Microstock is still FAR from being "Mainstream Stock" and arguably never will be; the day that happens it probably won't be open to "anyone with a camera". (from a different point of view microstock became mainstream the day it sold more volume that macro)

All that said: The industry has felt like it is tearing apart and at the same time increasing quality while blurring into macrostock for the past 5 years (at least); people have ranted on forums, and dumped agencies, joined new ones, launched their own. So in essence this last few months news has a common thread... It's Microstock Business as Usual.

Yuri Quits Microstock

My first thought is that Yuri Arcurs stopped being a microstock photographer years ago when he became a production company; agreed that as a production company he was selling on microstock sites but the majority of microstockers are not really in the same class (even many of the full time ones).

Secondly, the headline I think is really misleading, Yuri has gone exclusive with Getty (and so iStockphoto), and I don't see it as quitting microstock. I'm not 100% on the details here but looking at his portfolio on iStock I can see 13k images (far less than his full portfolio); looking at the pricing slider, all but around 100 are available at the standard exclusive contributor prices. I'd call that microstock. (There's plenty more of his work which I assume is now only available at a premium price, including perhaps all the new work). Today peopleimages.com is selling xlarge images (3822x3063px) for $5; they seem to be running a special.

New Collections

Shutterstock announced plans for a new image collection called Offset. Offset is available via individual image licenses, not via a subscription, from offset.com (currently invitation preview). Shutterstocks existing contributors are not being used as a source for the images, many are sourced according to shutterstock from "dedicated assignment photographers and illustrators who have never licensed their images as stock before". The two sites will operate completely separately.

In the previous news post I mentioned stocksy the new venture from iStock founder Bruce Livingstone, since then the site has launched at stocksy.com. A couple of related blog posts throw a little more light on the site and what it stands for:

Techcrunch: istock founder returns to stock photography

A few glimpses into Stocksy through a Jim Pickerell Interview on Microstockgroup

Reminder

There are just a couple of days left to take advantage of the early bird pricing in addition to the bonus 20% discount for MicrostockExpo using the code "MSI2013" (Early bird ends 31 May)

Microstock Expo 2013

Steve Gibson — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 11:17:32 +0000

Registrations have opened for MicrostockExpo 2013 to be held on November 16-17th in Berlin.

Bruce Livingstone has been announced as the Keynote speaker at the conference. Bruce was founder of istockphoto and is CEO of the new photographers co-op stocksy. This year's event will feature separate tracks for photographers, illustration and video masterclasses, all tailored for "serious contributors".

Tickets are available now for 249 Euros + VAT (Early bird price before June 1st. ). You can register, subscribe for updates as they are announced and find full details on the official website at microstockexpo.com

Use promotion code MSI2013 to get an extra 20% off your ticket price
microstockexpo.com/register

Feb 2013 Microstock News Digest

Steve Gibson — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 06:10:02 +0000

It's certainly been an interesting start to the year. The period from Jan to March has often been the time when agencies announce changes to commission structures and pricing, often choosing a nice time in amongst some other controversy to quietly slip a press release out. Note: even if you only skim over the threads and blog posts linked to here, this post will take a long time to get through!

D-Day a.k.a. Deactivation Day

Unless you've been a long way away from civilization (and yes it does happen... life often gets in the way of the blogosphere!) you will probably already be aware of the events surrounding iStockphoto and Google docs, here's a recap:

In August last year Google announced a scheme where users of Google docs could browse for images on the Gettyimages site thinkstock.com for a stock image that they would like to use in their Google docs presentations for free (explanation via the istock forum). Google docs users could request that those images be added to a collection of images that were freely available to use by all users of Google docs. I heard this story several times - as I recall it was peddled by all involved on various occasions and I (feeling rather guilty about this now) completely dismissed it as "marketing waffle"; not the first story like this. I assumed there must be strings on the image use, or that the photographers involved would be fairly compensated (noting that you could request images to be added rather than any guarantee of getting a specific chosen image).

In early January the story came to the attention of the wider microstock community. A post from Sean Locke on his blog sums up the story quite well at that time with some good links to related posts.

Microstockers organised themselves en-masse to demonstrate their upset by deactivating the images they had on istockphoto on the 2nd of Feb. People talked of 'revolt', although I thought it was perhaps a bit far to describe it as the "Getty/IS/Google atrocities", but I do understand the upset.

So what happened as a result?

Initially it was all a bit like the feeling you get the day after a big party. MicrostockPosts wrote a review of it all. At that stage there was not really a conclusion; neither 'side' had much to say.

About a week later Sean Locke and several others were unceremoniously ousted from the istock ranks with a 30 day notice of termination (link to Sean Lockes blog). There has been fair representation in the comments on many sites about this event from both pro- and (quite a lot of) anti-microstock.

Regardless of whether you sit in the "serves you all right don't bite the hand that feeds" or "I can't believe they did that to you Sean", I can't see a benefit for either party in this besides some corporate muscle flexing and perhaps a new creative direction for the contributors involved, nobody won anything:

The winner, if there is one, might, out of all of this be the fortuitously timed project from iStock founder Bruce Livingstone stocksy.com. Very little is publicly known about this photographer co-operative start-up but it's probably the most exciting start-up prospect since depositphotos entered the industry throwing money at everyone.

To take away from all this?

Getty have signalled that they are willing to loose huge numbers of stock photos, and all the sales from one of their top-five selling photographers rather than bend to the opinion of their contributors.

Shutterstock Referrals and Bigstock Subscriptions

Shutterstock have been 'tweaking' their referral system. The process started last year when they announced they were closing their in-house buyer referral system (pdf file) at affiliate.shutterstock.com; to all those who were not also Shutterstock contributors. Those with contributor accounts were unaffected so Shutterstock are still tracking buyer leads with their own in-house system. In almost fifteen years of making money via referral marketing I've never seen any good come from a company that outsourced what was a perfectly operational in-house managed program; to me it makes little sense to outsource when you have already built a working platform that you still plan to run (for the time being at least). It took me the best part of a month to get in touch with someone at shutterstock. Their previous referral marketing manager had left the company; no one was checking his or his assistants shutterstock emails, no replies to the form on the affiliate.shutterstock.com or emails to the address listed. I do now have a direct contact with someone at shutterstock, but if everyone else was in the same position surely a lot of work has been done to undo the network of affiliate websites the previous manager had drawn into the shutterstock fold.

You might be asking what all this means to you as a photographer, and while you can draw your own conclusions, to me this is a bad news sign for all involved with Shutterstock. iStock appeared to all but destroy then own buyer referral system a couple of years back by needlessly breaking/changing links, and by adding another outsourced system to confuse things some more. At the time some people suggested that istock had achieved exactly what they intended to do by making the system so inconvenient and so unlikely to pay out that few people would actually need to be paid anything.

To chase this up Shutterstock then went on to announce changes to their in-house photographer referral system. Contributors were paid a small commission on downloads from each photographer they referred, for life. (perhaps it was too good to be true) those commissions will now end after two years. A admit that this does bring Shutterstock into line with the other top agencies who have in many cases simply closed their photographer referral interests. The single benefactor here being Shutterstock, they no longer have to pay as much money.

Finally, and perhaps the most disturbing considering the ownership of Bigstock by Shutterstock, an announcement about a new subscription offering at Bigstock. Recalling that it was not so very long ago that Bigstock was a nice complementing site to Shutterstock, SS being primarily subscription and BS being credits/downloads based. What was disturbing was the numbers here: 25c per download, tiered up to 38c if you achieved a (fairly unachievable) 50k downloads in the previous year.

The less cynical among us didn't read too many negative things into the Shutterstock IPO when it was announced "it will all be about the shareholder and profits from now on" etc. I thought the IPO was mostly good news; I might be changing my mind a little. There did seem to be a time when Shutterstock stood out as an example of an agency that got the business model just right; I remember thinking at one time that 38c was not really enough compensation for a high resolution download, but as other agencies dropped their rates Shutterstock started to look more and more attractive. I can't help but have a somewhat uneasy feeling about that 38c figure and any mention of change at an agency whose subscription model has been virtually unchanged for eight years. If 25c works on Bigstock then it might work on other sites too, not a happy prospect.

And Finally...

It almost seems trivial to talk about a new yaymicro ipad app, a roundup of 2013 prices on mystockphoto, or a pond5 review on microstockdiaries

Microstock group did however post a rather interesting infographic, as a taste of the results of their contributors survey.

2012 Independent Microstock Survey

Steve Gibson — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 01:47:45 +0000

It's that time of the year again.... For the fifth year running MicrostockGroup have announced their Independent microstock survey. Last year's survey had well over 700 responses and was quoted in the Shutterstock IPO listing. The survey follows a very similar format to previous years with a little more breakdown for media type (photo, illustration, video, audio). If you have your numbers ready, the entire survey shouldn't take more than 5 minutes to answer. Tyler at microstock group tells us they have tried to keep the survey as short as possible while still gathering enough information for it to be interesting to everyone.

Complete the Survey Now

Analysis of the survey results from previous years is posted on the microstockgroup blog

October-November 2012 Microstock Update

Steve Gibson — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 22:16:09 +0000

A slew of mobile phone microstock stories recently, startups and funding, but a lot of it smelt strongly of press release garbage; some amounting to little more than a new category added or an upload competition. There is clearly interest in mobile phone stock - for now I think it's an interesting niche, and my only concern is that I've underestimated it by all but ignoring it; something I plan to continue doing for the foreseeable future.

What I can say for sure about mobile phone stock:

You can take the same photo, just as discretely or in a place where you can't take a DSLR using even the cheapest of point and shoot camera - the quality will be far superior and shooting will be easier and faster.
There is little doubt that there are times when you only have your mobile phone with you, but given the choice then that would be all the time because nobody really enjoys carting professional cameras around. Professional photographers make photo opportunities by going prepared.
Lower resolution and lower quality limits sales, and low quality is not a synonym for stylish & trendy - you might get the feeling that's the case looking at arty photo sites online, but a quick reality check by looking in the real world reveals a different story.
You can always argue that phone photography is a way of getting out of a creative rut, rekindling your love of photography, broadening your horizons; so is taking a holiday.

What I can't say with any certainty but have fairly strong suspicions about phone stock:

It's a good way for an agency to widen the range of editorial sections without contaminating the main section with low quality images.
Getty got their first with their flickr collection and other agencies before that (regardless of the source the style of image is the same)
You will kick yourself in a few years time looking back at photos wishing you had taken the DSLR with you and added that vignette and motion blur afterwards.
Yuri was right. (wrt "instapundit")
These images are just like the ones that were always available from those agencies that went out of business... you know the ones that printed those lovely catalogue books in monochrome on unbleached paper with embossed bits and fold outs here and there.

Agency Milestones

Dreamstime 15 millionth image

Deposit photos hit 10 million images press release via mystockphoto

YAY micro announced reaching 3 million images

Other Interesting News

Photokore announced plans to target image subscription offers at their markets in Japan and Korea, Offering a different service tailored for each location. Contributors have been given the option to opt-out.

Fotolia launched a new interface for corporate account managers to monitor and consolidate their buying requirements.

123rf opened the doors to audio and launched an ipad browser app for buyers.

Alamy announced that Alamy Blue would drop its commissions from 60% to 50% as they continue to restructure their business. A short video from James West Alamy's CEO explains the changes.

Bigstock (re-?)announced their partner program (microstock resellers API) giving fair rates to photgraphers and offering an opt-out, a few comments on MSG.

On the Web

MicrostockPosts offers some advice for noobs.

Interesting and somewhat rambling thread on microstock group from last month Jon Oringer just sent me an e mail.

A couple of links about dreamstime, looking at converting image misuse rather than sending takedown notices, and another.

istockphoto GDUSA photo survey - (You can ignore the infographic and read the PDF linked at the bottom). Does the omission of any details this year on which agencies designers use confirm istock has lost their market share well and truly? Regardless of that it's still useful and interesting information, and I hope istock continue to sponsor these annual surveys. Regarding what I wrote about phone photos at the start of this post, here is a wise quote from the survey to finish with:

"Provide well-lit, candid style shots in large files sizes. Provide a series of stock shots with same talent/environment (three or more) that can be used in a print or web piece that will provide image continuity.”

Photo Credit: PNetzer / photocase.com

September 2012 Microstock Update

Steve Gibson — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 00:54:09 +0000

September News Digest:

Yuri Arcurs posted "What sells in microstock anno 2012" on his blog. It makes an interesting read; although much of the advice is not exactly new, most of it is well worth re-iterating. The thread in response on microstockgroup kind of sums up my thoughts on it, in particular the sentiments along the lines of "You're dammed if you follow the advice as everyone else will do just the same, and dammed if you don't".

An istockphoto sponsored survey of graphic designers revealed that nothing ground breaking has happened since last year. The designers who are using stock photography (most of them) are using it more often, and 89% of them say that price influences them the most. Noticeably, this year's survey omits to reveal how many designers expressed an istock preference. There is perhaps a slight trend to buyers using more than one agency, but other than that most of the results fall within 3% of each other. Compare with last years survey on mystockphoto.

Sean Locke wrote about istockphotos new Checkout process that allows buyers to purchase images instantly without buying credits. Buying credits still offers frequent buyers the quickest and easiest way to purchase multiple images.

Pond5 announced an Adobe Premier Plugin that affords footage and audio users "Seamless integration" of their collection.

Shutterstock announced the pricing of their IPO, 4.5 million shares at 13-15 dollars a share.

A few posts from microstockdiaries this month, including a review of picworkflow and some tips for the press covering microstock.

Depositphotos announced they were dropping their SMS payment option - more on microstockinfos

Dreamstime published an informative infographic (.pdf) timeline of photography.

August 2012 Microstock Update

Steve Gibson — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 06:15:16 +0000

Picworkflow officially launched of their "in development" retouching service at the start of the month. The service allows photographers to select from a series of processing and retouching options including having each image go through a quality review where retouchers will suggest which services are required or remove services if they feel images are not of sufficient quality. More information via the picworkflow home page. (Read our previous review of the picworkflow distribution and keywording services)

British Journal of Photography reported on the sale of Getty images for 3.3Bn.

Snapixel have announced they will be closing as of 31st Aug, It seems they were the last site to freely host photographers work for sale (payment via commission taken at sale time). Options now are smugmug, photoshelter or a similar services which charge a monthly hosting fee.

Mystockphoto took a look at the Microstockr iPhone App, the app allows contributors to monitor their earnings on 12 agencies.

Panthermedia announced a new pricing structure, the new structure attempts to make the most of popular and "lavishly produced" images while still leaving budget priced images available for price sensitive buyers.

Depositphotos are now accepting video footage, royalty rates as follows: (mouse over to see exclusive rates). More on this at microstockinfos.

June-July 2012 Microstock Update

Steve Gibson — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 02:47:45 +0000

News highlights from the past couple of months:

Agency Milestones

Shutterstock became the first agency to reach the 20 million images milestone. Fotolia look set to be the next to make it to 20 million. Depositphotos announced they had reached 8 million images adding 'new' lightbox operating features to their site.

Industry News

Dreamstime announced the launch of timelineimages - a sales portal providing images from the Dreamstime collection ready cropped for Facebook cover images. No, it's not April 1st.

Alamy published a whitepaper on a round table they held with key industry figures.

Finance Company KKR Completed its acquisition of Fotolia, Fotolia then went on to announce they have expanded into Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Colombia and Australia. "With this recent expansion, Fotolia now provides services to 20 countries in 12 official languages".

Contributor Updates

Sutterstock announced a new nav bar on their contributor dashboard.

A multi-indexing tool from Fotolia enhances file management options for your portfolio.

Microstocktime has a replacement for istockcharts

Microstockdiaries pointed the spotlight on a couple of important contributor royalty related stories. Are You Selling Extended License Rights for Subscription-Level Royalties? and This is How Microstock Agencies REALLY Calculate Your Royalties. The second story and a subsequent follow up started me thinking (see comments), leading me to delve into microstock royalties and commissions, where does the money go?.

Photocase announced they would be increasing prices starting August 1st to 3, 6 and 10 credits for small medium and large respectively.

Other Interesting Stuff...

A trio of posts from and about Yuri Arcurs following the launch of his new site (See April/May Update). The back story to the new site launch, an interview on hunchmag and retouching more than 2000 files in 24 hours

Microstock posts asked if it was worth submitting editorial images to microstock agencies. (my thoughts on editorial microstock)

Are there positive indications for growth in the stock photo market? Jim Pickerell on the Microstockgroup blog.

Shutterstock announced a new 'image discovery' feature called Shutterstock instant. try it at Shuttertock labs

April-May 2012 Microstock News

Steve Gibson — Tue, 29 May 2012 05:29:20 +0000

April was a reasonably quiet month for microstock news, but May was a lot more interesting!

IPOs, Investments and Rumours

There was a trio of microstock finance stories earlier this month starting with the Shutterstock IPO release. Regardless of your opinion on this story the prospectus document makes a really interesting read! Shutterstock plans to raise around $115 million through it's IPO.

This was followed by fiance firm KKR investing US$ 150 million in fotolia in return for a 50% stake in the company, in a "bid to consolidate the fragmented marketplace for licensing online digital images and videos".

Finally rumours of a possible sale or a public offering of Getty images (owners of istockphoto) after reports that the owners have retained bankers Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan.

With the possibility of up to three cash injected major microstock agencies I think we can look forward to seeing some major upcoming acquisitions and mergers. While It's possible, I don't think investment in technology and marketing is all they have in mind...

Yuri's New Site

Microstockdiaries published a detailed review of the new PeopleImages.com website from top microstocker Yuri Arcurs which was launched at the start of May. I think the new site is a spectacular achievement (plus a significant investment, and thinking back to the recruitment Yuri was doing for programmers it's been at least 2 years in the making!)

I personally think it's time to stop thinking of Yuri as microstock photographer; or at least separate the Yuri "a photographer" from Yuri as "Yuri Arcurs productions" a production company. Although Lee (microstockdiaries) keeps referring to Peopleimages as direct sales site I don't actually see it as that: it's not the site of a single photographer, it's multiple photographers under a single umbrella - to me that's "an agency".

In Other News...

Fotolia announced that they are now distributed by AP images.

Crestock dropped the price of their extended licenses.

Shutterstock Introduced us to their new logo.

Dreamstime updated their Image Levels, effectively shifting all images up one level, meaning more credits for each download (apart from level 5) but at the same time cutting commission rates by 5%. This also means higher prices to consumers, but still maintains a selection of budget images (unsold for 24 months).

123rf Put their previously announced new video collection online, the sizes and pricing for 123RF Stock Footage are:-

1080 High Definition - from $44.20.
720 High Definition - from $37.40.
480 Standard Definition - from $27.20.
240 Web Definition - from $10.20.

iStock launched a CS6 plugin to allow designers to download directly into Adobe Creative Suite applications.

Bigstock expanded their API from image search to also include a full reseller product, bringing them into line with what most of the other agencies are offering in terms of API access.

For more posts and stories from the past couple of months have a look at my twitter and facebook feeds.

March 2012 Microstock Update

Steve Gibson — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 05:29:01 +0000

Summary: Nothing sensational to report this month, mostly marketing related stories and milestones.

Photodune announced they had added their 1 millionth image

Crestock had a marketing push offering a special small sized subscription for 3 days only. Bigstock offered some discounts over the April fools weekend.

Yaymicro added some stats features, new reseller partners and increased their minimum filesize to 6mb "Due to increased customer and partner demands". Interesting that those older <6mp images at the long running agencies from the days when 6mp was super expensive professional grade camera still have a value, however that will mean nothing if buyers 'expect' that any images shown will be available in all resolutions; it's inevitable that those images will be further demoted as resolution expectations increase. The new ipad makes 3mp simply the size of a full screen background, never mind making that image square so it can be in either aspect... that would be minimum 4mp without any crop.

Fotolia seem to have some new subscription offerings (as I understand it no effect on sellers rates) I can't find any more info about this but I'm fairly sure they were not offering monthly and daily subscriptions back in Dec/Jan, the monthly offer (what was monthly is now called daily?) is a lower priced entry to subscriptions for less frequent buyers. What I actually thought was interesting was having the subscription operate like a pay-as-you-go mobile phone plan, with unused credits that roll over to the next month.

Zoonar announced Getty images as a distribution partner "As of now you can only submit photos which don’t require a model or property release. We hope to offer you a new release management tool by the middle of 2012". Zoonar also announced a decrease in their partner sales commission "We are also pleased about the number of submitted photos in our partner system. Because of high revenue generated by Getty, AGE, DPP Fotofinder and the other partners we get a lot more submissions now than a few months ago. Unfortunately, our costs for keywording, checking, translating, captioning and deleting photos has risen considerably".

March Links

Earnings ticking along nicely on the MSG March 2012 earnings thread.

10 Ways to spot a dodgy microstock agency on Microstockdiaries.

DT launch their version own version sxc.hu, comment on Microstockgroup.

Something 'nice' from nice monkey (to fill in some background: the UK had panic fuel buying)
Shortage of microstock fuel images.

Microstockblog took a retrospective... from a footage perspective, of 2011.

Shutterstock Catalog Manager Measuring ROI.

Guide to SEO for photographers via the microstockgroup blog.

Jan-Feb 2012 Microstock Update

Steve Gibson — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 05:16:12 +0000

I'm trying hard not to make a habit of rolling two months news into one news post, I'll try to keep things monthly! A few big stories since the New Year, probably the most contentious was 123rf changing their royalty rates.

123rf New commission structure

This story starts back in December when some 123rf users received a message (I didn't find out about that till January when I logged in and there was a message on the log in page) about a new commission rates. A thread on microstock group follows the events. Originally the changes were to affect new users only, with existing accounts being grandfathered:

All existing contributors shall continue to enjoy the current 50% nett commission share ONLY IF they fulfill ALL of the following criteria.:
- Have registered with 123RF.com before February 1, 2012.
- Have at least 150 accepted images in their respective portfolios by January 9, 2012.
- Have had a minimum of 10 paid downloads by January 27, 2012.
All new contributors who start submitting images to 123RF.com AFTER January 27, 2012 OR do not meet all the criteria above shall be enrolled under the new commission structure.
For our veteran contributors who have been supporting us all this while, we thank you for your support and we will try our best to grow the business further in 2012. We will also try our very best to maintain the levels of 50% nett commission to you for as long as possible.

However by February that had changed to affect all users:

50% net value for credits
$0.36 per download for subscriptions

(See the 123rf site for details about how credits are accrued - they are related to resolutions / media types downloaded, e.g. if you sell a lot of high resolution images you will only need to sell 100-200 of them to reach the 3rd tier with 1000 credits in any given previous 12 months.)

My thoughts on all this are:

123rf's original 50% rate was way higher than all the other major agencies.
The new 30% offer (basic) is higher than all the top agencies / compares favorably against dreamstime (see a table of commission rates). The other low tier agencies still offering 50% seem to be "struggling".
The assertions by some stock photographers that they created the images and they "deserve the lions share of the sale price", I personally think is complete rubbish.
Despite rises in prices of images/credit 123rf are still cheap compared to other agencies (middle of the table) about 40% cheaper than IS, SS and DT. Although I placed them 7th in earnings last year - see below (7th is not a bad place to be!)... an increase in price or just a few more sales would easily pop them into 5th place for me.

Other News

Bigstock celebrated 10 million images just after new year (doubling their image collection since June 2010).

Cutcaster Announced they had 1 million images in their collection, it's taken some time to get there.

Shutterstock Posted an interesting infographic on design trends and how they have changed over microstock's short history. If you are a shutterstock member you will likely also be aware of changes to their image use policy regarding sensitive uses, you can opt in or out at any time for making your images available for use in circumstances that would not normally be allowed by their standard license terms (images sold under this license are done so at a premium price point).

2011 Earnings Retrospective

According to my earnings over the past 12 months, it seems that 2011 was the "year of shutterstock". The chart below shows my earnings at 18 agencies for comparison - image sales only, referral income is excluded, also see the notes below the graph.

Notes: canstock would be somewhere ahead of deposit photos if it were not for several high value fotosearch sales (but it seems reasonable to include these in the chart)

Fotolia results are estimated based on number of sales, exact value of sales cannot be separated from affiliate revenue at fotolia.

On Other Blogs and Forums

Shutterstock Forum: Where is microstock headed in 2012

Mystock photo on Crestocks 4 million celebrity image collection

Nil to Mil to close - Matt announced he was moving on to new projects

A long discussion on microstock group about istocks best match system - having had 2 months to look, my sales volume is down on last year but their value is higher (it equates overall to a small drop in income that is perhaps not so surprising due to my lack of fresh uploads over the past 12 months, so far its not as miserable as it looked in the first few weeks of the year).

See our twitter and facebook pages for more regular news updates

December 2011 Microstock News

Steve Gibson — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 04:46:12 +0000

Well the holiday season certainly does compress time doesn't it!

Sadly it I fear that my planned in depth review of the microstockexpo has been a casualty, although a draft post is well under way, I don't think it's going to see the light of day in a reasonably timely manner. To encapsulate it in a nutshell - it was an excellent event, you can watch the videos on the website, and like any conference most of what I learned (and most of the value) was from conversations outside of the organized sessions. Again, thanks to all those who I met who shared their insights with me.

The (New) Istockphoto Referral Program

last month istock announced some changes to their referral program, some rather inconvenient ones. After several weeks of chewing over this I still can't work out what on earth they are thinking...

First point to make clear is that the new program is much better than the old one, (I feel the old one was little more than lip service so that's little consolation)

The new referral scheme offers users a choice of 20 credits, a flat referral fee of $20 or a 20% cut of the first sale of referred buyers with 30 day cookie length. This replaces the previous offer of a flat $10 for referred buyers.

Inconveniently after accepting the new referral program the old referral links no longer operate. I can't see a good reason why the old links could not remain in operation (with the old $10 referral if that's easier).

To confuse the situation istock are also offering an affiliate program via link connector (which I joined earlier in the year) this offers a similar 20% rate for new buyers and also 10% for existing buyers.

I then received a message from istock:

"The Affiliate acknowledges and agrees that, with respect to the promoting of iStockphoto's Services and/or iStockphoto's Site through LinkConnector, the Affiliate may not also: i) be a member of any referral program operated independently by iStockphoto, ii) promote iStockphoto through any affiliate marketing network other than LinkConnector, or iii) be part of or a member of any other organization or entity that agrees to pay, give, distribute, reward or otherwise provide any kind of benefit, in any manner whatsoever, for promoting iStockphoto's Services and/or iStockphoto's Site."

I asked istock why this was:

"Both the affiliate and referral programs are available to any partner wishing to promote iStockphoto. However, we've made a business decision to not pay the same partner more than once for a single sale. We needed to update our terms and conditions both on the affiliate and referral programs to reflect this policy and then leave the choice up to you. Since you are currently enrolled in both programs, you will have 30 days to choose which program to continue promoting iStockphoto by updating your links to those available for that program."

I thought this reply was more of a brush off than an answer. "we've made a business decision". It would be easy to believe that it might be because there is a risk of a double payout. But unless I'm mistaken, if two different sites send a buyer to istock using referral or affiliate links, only one gets paid (usually the most recent to send overwrites the cookie).

The whole thing makes me think of the response I wrote to someones comment about istock earlier in the month: "partially paralyzed by what seems like an internal morass of 'big business'".

To sum up the new programs:

Referral Program (on istockphoto)
New Customer = $20, 20 credits or 20% of the sale

Affiliate Program (link connector)
New Customer = 20% of the sale
Existing Customer = 10% of the sale.

Almost everyone I have met feels that the old istock program was the worst in the industry, most refusing to ever use the links due to the conversion rate.

Over the past couple of years there has been much debate about exactly how much (if any) istock is loosing ground to it's competitors (the results of any one individual always being conveniently obfuscated by differences in exclusives and non-exclusive earnings). Implementing a new referral program to try and match the competition (one that people might actually want to use) is one of the clearest signs of seen so far confirming this. I'm certainly not convinced that buyers will be persuaded, if istock is loosing buyers (perhaps deservedly so) more advertising will bring them back but is not guaranteed to make them stay. Their own sponsored own surveys have shown that most of their customers buy from multiple agencies and have little loyalty.

News from other Agencies

123rf announced they are accepting footage submissions. According to a press release they have approximately 30,000 videos their database and are planning to launch the collection to buyers in January 2012.

Stockfresh published some leaderboards of contributors http://stockfresh.com/artists

Panthermedia announced a relaunch offering 13 million images, 40,000 contributors.

Deposit photos reached 5 million images, adding 1 million in the last three months. Their press release went on to tell us that Yuri has uploaded is latest collection of 17,000 premium microstock images to their site. By virtue of upload so may images Yuri holds the honor of adding the 5 millionth image. Impressive stuff for a agency launched in 2009.

Deposit photos also launched a tax centre to match most of the other major agencies and also announced it was accepting editorial images.

Photodune increased commissions for non-exclusive artists, increasing from 25% up to 33%.

Blog Highlights

Power of the crowd on microstockposts

2011 review infographic from picniche

My Experience creating an industry conference from microstockdiaries

Licensing images in today's market on the microstockgroup blog

Monthly marketplace sales record from envato

2011 Wrap Up

Two things stand out in microstock for me over the past year:

First, the continued homogenisation on the industry. (shutterstock on demand v. veer subscription, and almost everyone offering video, editorial etc). It seems this will move ever further with sites like envato/photodune offering a single place to download a wide range of creative related digital products. The playing field among the big 3/4 microstock agencies seems more level than it ever was.

Second was the contrast in the ways that agencies are managing their 'crowds' of contributors and communicating with them. The larger agencies feel ever more distant. This might be because of an influx of 'new' agencies (deposit photos and others) who, perhaps by virtue of being smaller at present feel 'friendly'. This was for me highlighted in the various pieces of 'bad news' announced over the past 18 months, istock and their commission structure contrasted with veer and their introduction of subscriptions. Both handled in different ways. It might be a little unfair of me to compare the two; one was hard-face profiteering, the other was just plain stupidity(?) and that might account for the differences in response.

It's a little like communist dictators facing civil unrest, either send in the troops and stamp it out callously; or risk showing some weakness and back down to maintain order; essentially the agencies are stuck between a rock and a hard place, and once the crowd gets militant there is little anyone can do to stop it.

If an agency is at the edge of a cliff, then taking a step too far means there is no easy way to take step back...

Wishing you all a creative and fruitful 2012 - Steve.