News highlights from the past couple of months:
Agency Milestones
Shutterstock became the first agency to reach the 20 million images [3] milestone. Fotolia look set to be the next to make it to 20 million. Depositphotos announced [4] they had reached 8 million images adding 'new' lightbox operating features to their site.
Industry News
Dreamstime announced [5] the launch of timelineimages [6] - 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 [7] on a round table they held with key industry figures.
Finance Company KKR Completed its acquisition of Fotolia [8], 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 [9].
A multi-indexing tool [10] from Fotolia enhances file management options for your portfolio.
Microstocktime has a replacement for istockcharts [11]
Microstockdiaries pointed the spotlight on a couple of important contributor royalty related stories. Are You Selling Extended License Rights for Subscription-Level Royalties? [12] and This is How Microstock Agencies REALLY Calculate Your Royalties [13]. The second story and a subsequent follow up [14] started me thinking (see comments), leading me to delve into microstock royalties and commissions, where does the money go? [15].
Photocase [16] 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 [17]). The back story [18] to the new site launch, an interview on hunchmag [19] and retouching more than 2000 files in 24 hours [20]
Microstock posts asked if it was worth submitting editorial images to microstock agencies [21]. (my thoughts on editorial microstock [22])
Are there positive indications for growth in the stock photo market [23]? Jim Pickerell on the Microstockgroup blog.
Shutterstock announced [24] a new 'image discovery' feature called Shutterstock instant. try it at Shuttertock labs [25]
It's quiet in here!