Cutcaster updated their list of image needs, thought it 'betta' that their premium collection be called crescendo and hired a new creative director. Cutcaster also announced improvements to their search system, providing good search is more complex than it first appears and is one of the many differentiators between the leading microstock sites and the many turn-key start-ups.

Picscout released something interestingly vague about expanding their tracking solution into monetization, but at first it did sound somewhat similar to what they already have at picapp.com as there was little detail in the release, a week or so after the release microstockdiaries explained all...

Lookstat published some interesting analysis of aggregated sales results across all their users on their blog, some of it was no surprise / confirmation of what we can already see, but the upward trend in earnings per download is indeed nice to behold.

Crestock launched a their 'freebie images' wordpress plugin to insert watermarked images into blogs free of charge. Images come from crestock contributors who opted-in to the service in return for a 5% increase in royalties on images sold. The plugin can be obtained from freebieimages.com. It's good marketing for all crestock contributors if it attracts new buyers to the site, I'm not certain that it's the best implementation. Unlike similar services (like picapp as mentioned above) the image is downloaded and hosted on the end users blog, leaving them free (against the terms of use of course) to remove the hyperlink and the text credit from the image leaving just the watermark in place, hence defeating the goal to direct customers to crestock via direct clicks and search engine ranking. Something more like the tools tab at dreamstime that provides cut-and-paste code (watermarked and not designed for the same purpose I admit) would afford the agency more control over it's media, and I think would be a lot easier for all to use. Wordpress is popular but certainly not the only blogging platform, keeping the image hosted at the agencies site is a more expensive option but allows better control if that image needs to be removed for any reason, and allows users of any platform or forum to post images. It's an interesting marketing approach, clearly picapp think they can make a viable business from it (with ad support). Fotolia have also been recruiting top bloggers to use their images as part of a marketing campaign, which you can read a case study about. Community opinion about crestock freebieimages on microstockgroup.

I removed albumo from our listings, it seems to have gone to microstock heaven sometime around the end of last month, but as I wasn't uploading to them so I didn't notice the exact date.

More Plugins: Fotolia made it easier for buyers to access stock images directly from within Microsoft Powerpoint 2007 and Word 2007 with a ribbon add-in. news release. More information from fotolia and download the 'ribbon'.

Fotolia must have taken some PR delight in welcoming photographer Jim DeLillo into their fold after he cancelled his istock exclusivity press release.

Dreamstime announced they would be doing some database cleaning. Images over 3 or 4 years old without sales would at the choice of the contributor be either removed, offered for re-keywording or placed into the free section. dreamstime forum.

Shutterstock joined iStock and vivozoom in offering buyers a legal guarantee for images purchased from their site, press release. Shutterstock indemnify users for $10,000 legal expenses.

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