Quite a bit has happened since I last wrote, two conferences and a few changes to royalties and pricing at some agencies.

Probably the big event for me was the microstockexpo which took place last weekend in Berlin, I'd like to thank everyone I meet and all those who made it possible - you know who you are! A full report is comming soon!

Crestock have anounced a tiered commission structure, the previous offer was 20% then 30% after 100 downloads. The new pricing is 20-40% as per the table below:

This change brings crestock inline with the big 4 agencies who all operate some form of tiered royalty structure (comparison of royalties across all agencies). Crestock also announced that images from their collection would be available via masterfile.com, photographers will earn their same commission rate on masterfile sales i.e. 20-40% of sale.

Microstockdiaries reported on the stock in russia event which took place in at the end of September - just after my last post.

istockphoto launched feast, it all looks exciting (and dare I say a little bit 'veer'). It remains to be seen what actually happens, istockphoto have a strong tradition of teaching and empowering contributors through their various 'lypses. I'm a strong beiever in mentoring. Although istock state feast is for all types of creative it appears to be predominantly for image buyers.

Shutterstock launched their new catalog tool which you can use to monitor groups of photos, create custom lightboxes and landing pages to drive traffic to. Sutterstock also launched a great looking ipad app. The app is for viewing and organising only, you can later downoad via a computer from a shutterstock account) 

Stockfesh anounced they had reached 1 million images.

Depositphotos announced a change to their pricing structure to further reward their top photographers (they already have tiered commission rates). Pricing of images now varies with their photographer levels as per the table below:

Deposit photos rankings are based on total number of sales by photographer, bronze 500+, silver 5000+ platinum 150,000+. See Details.

Deposit photos also announced that their SMS payment option would be available in more countries including Panama, Hong Kong and New Zealand, with Italy to be added soon (presumably that's assuming that Italy has not drowned in Euro debit)

Other posts that caught my eye:

The picniche blog took a look at a mature microstock industry with some interesting youtube video presentations.

Microstockposts took in a preview of the stock performer analytics tool.

Mystockphoto took a look at the changes to depositphotos pay-as-you-go pricing.

Sales have tanked - a rather epic thread on microstockgroup that was weaved it's way through some interesting (and not so interesting) issues.

• Printer Version
• PDF version