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Friday, August 08, 2008
Three stock sites I am unsure about
These are a few sites I recently joined up with (within the last month) so I don't know much about them or how well we will work together.
The first site is SnapVillage which was recently re-designed and now out of beta. It's run by Corbis which is owned by Bill Gates. They have a reasonable upload interface which allows you to upload up to 5 images at a time as well as create "sets" for series of images. They accept most of my images and you can set your own price for each from $1 to $50 for per image sales. They have an opt in/opt out subscription offering which gives contributors $.30 per image on downloads. The review time is very good, within 24 hours. They have forums which seem friendly and helpful, if not a bit sparse. I'm not sure anyone has made a sale there yet but the site does have Corbis backing it up, so maybe as it becomes better known.
This is a fairly young site and I think as they grow and get more popular they will become more stringent with their acceptance. It's nice to be able to set your own price for images but pretty much useless if they don't sell. We shall see how it all works out.
The next site I've recently joined is 123rf. Like SnapVillage they accept nearly everything I have submitted. They have many upload interface options and there is no limit on how many images you can upload at a time. That is a very nice feature. Review is lightening fast, with hours. The forums are pretty active and but not much interaction between contributors yet. Judging from some of the posts some people have made sales and there are some good images on this site.
Again it's young and no sales for me so far, but we shall see how it goes.
The last site in today's review is one that I am probably going to pull my images from, it's called UnlistedImages. There are no forums, there is no way to see where or if your images have been used. There is no interface between your upload account and the site(s) that are selling them. They are allegedly connected to several sites which provide CDs of image collections. It's damn near impossible to navigate those sites in hopes of seeing if your images are on them. Review time is good and I don't think they've rejected anything that was within their image size requirements. I did email to ask how to tell where my images might be used and got a quick but unsatisfactory response of "we're working on it".
I might leave one or two images up there to test and see if they ever finish "working on it" but as of right now, I'm not impressed.
dolly's world: the fine art of bitchcraft
The first site is SnapVillage which was recently re-designed and now out of beta. It's run by Corbis which is owned by Bill Gates. They have a reasonable upload interface which allows you to upload up to 5 images at a time as well as create "sets" for series of images. They accept most of my images and you can set your own price for each from $1 to $50 for per image sales. They have an opt in/opt out subscription offering which gives contributors $.30 per image on downloads. The review time is very good, within 24 hours. They have forums which seem friendly and helpful, if not a bit sparse. I'm not sure anyone has made a sale there yet but the site does have Corbis backing it up, so maybe as it becomes better known.
This is a fairly young site and I think as they grow and get more popular they will become more stringent with their acceptance. It's nice to be able to set your own price for images but pretty much useless if they don't sell. We shall see how it all works out.
The next site I've recently joined is 123rf. Like SnapVillage they accept nearly everything I have submitted. They have many upload interface options and there is no limit on how many images you can upload at a time. That is a very nice feature. Review is lightening fast, with hours. The forums are pretty active and but not much interaction between contributors yet. Judging from some of the posts some people have made sales and there are some good images on this site.
Again it's young and no sales for me so far, but we shall see how it goes.
The last site in today's review is one that I am probably going to pull my images from, it's called UnlistedImages. There are no forums, there is no way to see where or if your images have been used. There is no interface between your upload account and the site(s) that are selling them. They are allegedly connected to several sites which provide CDs of image collections. It's damn near impossible to navigate those sites in hopes of seeing if your images are on them. Review time is good and I don't think they've rejected anything that was within their image size requirements. I did email to ask how to tell where my images might be used and got a quick but unsatisfactory response of "we're working on it".
I might leave one or two images up there to test and see if they ever finish "working on it" but as of right now, I'm not impressed.
Labels: Microstock image site review, the upstarts
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