Microstock Diaries

After the Shutterstock buys BigStockphoto bombshell of last month, October was full of relatively modest news updates. Here’s the highlights: Dreamstime Starts Selling Prints Top tier microstock agency Dreamstime added prints to their available purchasing options. ...

New York City was the place to be for photographers last week. Mediabistro’s Business of Microstock panel, PDN’s PhotoPlus Expo and a host of other related events took place in what is becoming known as ‘Photo Week’. Here’s...

I don’t know how long these things take to put together, but this is awfully soon after iStockphoto started providing their guarantee. Today, Shutterstock have announced that all images and footage licensed from this day forward is covered by a guarantee. ...

PicScout has made waves in the stock photo industry this week with the announcement of a collection of new services. Designed to help buyers connect with the owner and license source of images they find online, the system actually has many more wide reaching benefits for the stock photo industry...

The Business of Microstock panel is fast approaching. Many industry people have let me know they’ll be attending. It’s shaping up to be quite a networking opportunity. This is the list of those who’ve confirmed to me they’re attending so far. Let me know if I’ve missed anyone off the list. Andre...

Not too much excitement in this month’s earning reports. Everything is going up, but slowly, and I’m bracing for the slide down to my traditional December low. Jack’s Results The microstock portfolios of Jack Hollingsworth had mild growth in both earnings and portfolio size this month. His ...

The big news of the month was Shutterstock’s acquisition of BigStockphoto. Contributor response to the announcement has been entirely positive and we’re all looking forward to seeing how BigStockPhoto improves their site and sales performance. Pa...

Market leading microstock agency Shutterstock have today announced their acquisition of rival agency BigStockPhoto...

Have you noticed iStockphoto recently cleaning up the older photos in your portfolio too? I’ve had old images deleted for not having a model release or having possibly trademarked designs (like cars) as the primary subject of the photo. This cleanup is not just about tightening up the collection. ...

Most microstockers figure out the relationship between quality and quantity early in their careers. All microstock superstars certainly did...

August was a slow news month in microstock. Business as usual for most. Getty Images had the biggest microstock news in August. They made their most bold move towards competing for buyers “similar” to microstock buyers to date. In...

August is typically one of the slower months of the microstock calendar. But this year a lot of microstockers are reporting a very solid month, particularly a few iStockphoto exclusive contributors I spoke with. My own earnings were up on last month but lower than August last year...

As the microstock market moves further away from its hobbyist origins, the traditional sector of the stock photo market is adapting to microstock as a business. But getting people experienced with both sectors of the market together in the same room to talk about the opportunities is not easy...

iSyndica burst onto the microstock scene earlier this year with a bold promise of making it easier for photographers, illustrators and videographers to distribute their content to multiple microstock agencies. After just a few short months they’re already achieving that promise. ...