Albumo over 100,000 images

Rumour has it that Albumo is now over 100,000 images and the marketing campaign for buyers is going to start once they have reached 200,000.

This company that has come from nowhere appears to be making all the right moves. They offered a great upload facillity (ftp and iptc). they offer a good commission (50%). they are offering incentives to get photogs in when there is no buyers as yet (incentive of $25 for first 250 images and more incentives for those who make the 100 club - the first 100 to have 1000 images).

Basically Albumo is doing everything right wereas Corbis has done everything wrong with Snapvillage.

In the long term, sales are what matter so it will be interesting to compare these two sites in 6 months, 1 year, etc since they both started at the exactly the same time with differing strategies.

Dreamstime hits 1,500,000 images

Dreamstime has just announces they have hit the 1,500,000 image mark. Unfortunately I didn't win the ipod they had on offer for being the lucky person to upload that image. Think about it - not only do you get an ipod but you get alot of publicity on that image too.

Oh well. I will just have to try harder for Dreamstimes next milestone.

[mid month update: Sales appear to be a bit down at Dreamstime this month. mmm. Not sure why?]

Update on some sites - Fotolia, Snapvillage, Albumo

I thought I would give a mid month update on a few sites:

Fotolia:

Their site is still a mess after their V2 upgrade. The search function for buyers is having major issues and pulling up zero results in popular searchs. Many people, including myself have seen significantly less sales than pre v2. However, uploads seem to be working again. Whether it is worth it or whether the site is destined for the scrap heap is a different matter.

Recommendation: I am uploading again. Fotolia was one of my first sites so has a special pull. I am also going on a long holiday soon so want my photos on line before I go.

Fotolia link



Snapvillage:

Progress is very slow on their site and they are still very much a Beta (if not an Alpha). They still have no IPTC and no FTP which are crutial. They have advised in their blog that they are they will have IPTC (when they launch it (very helpful thank you)) soon.

Recommendation: Hold back until they offer both FTP and IPTC. Before that it is a waste of time as once they offer these, everyone will upload and all the time you spent will seem like a waste of time. Many people are taking this approach so you wont miss out.

Snapvillage link



Albumo:

Well I haven't heard much that is happening here. However, people are uploading and they are already at over 70,000 images. They have done this very quick and is no doubt due to them paying $25 for your first 250 photos uploading (and more if you upload more than 1000). They also have a "100 club" which means that when you get when you upload 1000 photos (called 100 because only 100 are going to be given this status) you earn 10c per upload and a higher commission (60% rather than 50%). A few big names including AndreR have joined this club so that is has some support. Still no reports of sales though.

Recommendation: Personally I would still hold off - but (to go against my own recommendation) I have started uploading. Why, I want the $25 for uploading and since I am going on holiday shortly, I might miss out on this offer by the time I get back. I assume they will offer this deal until the 100club is full and since they only have about 30-40 members at the moment, you still have a bit of time to uplaod and still get the deal. If you want to go for the 100Club though,I would start now.

Albumo link

PDN news

The lastest stock news from PDN. I have extracted the microstock news and a full link is at the bottom:

Stock Tips: News From Photo Agencies
The latest on the stock photo business

ShutterStock CEO Not Sweating SnapVillage Pricing
In the crowded arena of micropayment stock photography,Shutterstock has differentiated itself – and won some respect, in fact – by standing by its unique pricing scheme. Rather than selling images one at a time, ShutterStock uses a subscription model. A one-month subscription costs $199 for 25 downloads a day, up to 750 images total.

So when Corbis's micropayment site SnapVillage went live last week, it was obvious where it looked for inspiration for its subscription pricing. Its monthly subscription is identical to Shutterstock  in every detail: $199 for 30 days, 25 downloads a day, up to 750 images totalShutterstock CEO Jon Oringer sounds diplomatic about his rival's lack of originality in their subscription pricing model. "I guess they realize it was a successful one," Oringer says.

Transparency Cuts Both Ways For Fotolia
Mircopayment stock sites pride themselves on having open community forums where contributors can talk about their work and the site. It's great when things are running well, but when things go wrong...

Take a look at Fotolia. On June 18 Fotolia;relaunched its Web site as FotoliaV2, sprucing up the site to improve performance and user experience.

Unfortunately, the upgrade was marred by serious bugs. One problem disabled the site's image upload feature for several days (as detailed on the Fotolia blog). Another problem shut down the site's system of paying photographers.

The whole ugly ordeal played out on the company's own publicly accessible message boards. Photographers took to the boards en masse to vent their frustrations. Fotolia staff tried to keep order. It was clear nerves were fraying.

"I have probably deleted around 300 posts from this thread," wrote one Fotolia moderator, referring to duplicate or irrelevant posts. "If I have deleted this many, just think how many more posts Support are getting and having to try to deal with every day on top of their usual workloads and please try and be patient whilst you wait for a response."

Sounds like a headache for all involved.

More deals, launches and upgrades

Getty Images's iStockphoto undertook a significant site upgrade this month, adding support for additional video formats and six new languages: Japanese, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Italian, Polish and Russian. The site also improved its advanced search tool.

Fotolia announced a partnership with everystockphoto.com, a search engine that searches free images. Fotolia's paid images will now be available through the site. Fotolia says it hopes to forge more partnerships through its public Application Programming Interface

Link

New Sites: Snapvillage, Geckostock and albumo

I am not sure why but there has been a few new entries into the market in the past month:



I have already blogged about Snapvillage here and here. It is definately most anticipated of the new entries but also the most disappointing. No FTP, No IPTC and only 30% commission. It is only Beta so expect things to get better there.

Recommedation: Hold off for now till they at least offer FTP and IPTC.



Albumu: Weird name (better than Snapvillage though) but they do have FTP, IPTC and commissions of 50% or more.

In addition, they are trying to get critical mass of photos so they are giving contributors $25 if they upload 250 or more photos.

Recommendation: Uncertain but the initial offering of $25 for 250 makes it tempt it.
Link



Geckostock: This technically isn't a new site as it is a rebranding of Raw Stock Images (RSI) which never really started. They also offer FTP, IPTC and 50% commission.

Recommendation: Uncertain but they are offering 50% so may be worth supporting.
Link

Microstock photo results for June 2007

June was a good month and an interesting month. First of all Fotolia relaunched a new version of its site which has had major issues (this is why I haven't reviewed the new version yet). Sales are down significnatly since the change over but just prior, I had an Extended License sale which means it was a better than average month there. I also uploaded a few photos finally starting onthe backlog of photos to edit. This has has positive results for shutterstock which always does well after new photos go online. It has also seen the launch of SnapVillage, Corbis new entry into the microstock market. Have a lot at my previous blogs to see why I am not that happy with it.

Below are percentages for the month to show how I have been going:

32% shutterstock BEM
15% dreamtime
12% Fotolia
13% istockphoto
7% bigstockphoto
7% 123RF
11% StockXpert
3% Featurepics
0% Canstock
0% Galastock
2% LuckyOliver

I am looking forward to another good month as I continue to get more photos on line. Then I am gonig on holiday for a while which means that uploads will stop completely for a few months.