Pure Reviews

Dreamstime is tweaking their credits for the 2010 year. Over all a slight increase in costs for buyers on most levels, but not major...I think this is good news for everyone The above gray numbers are the old credits and black is the new ones. Also DT is now in the top 800 websites in the world, has over 10 million visitors month, 2 million users, 80 thousand contributors, and over 7 million images.

So I pose the question is the New Dark Room closing? They have never been a great seller or a big player on any scale, but they continue to truck along trying to carve their piece of pie out of the stock world. When arrive at their homepage though, you see new updates from 2008 with that last item posted on their FRONT page in May of 2009. That is a long time for not touching your site. But this is not all the has me wondering. Recently they closed my account...which is fine sense I have never sold an image. But here is the kicker, my images still show up. But before you freak out, they do say "This photo isn't available for sale". Either way, I thought it is best to email Devin (the owner/admin guy) about the issue. Well the only way to get a hold of them is through their own contact address on their page...which is not a valid email address. All this brings me back to the question, did the New Dark Room turn out the lights? If you still have images up, let me

The3dStudio is trucking along with several more updates as they try to improve their site to compete with more standard stock photography sites. The3dStudio was known for selling its textures and 3d models before it entered the stock photography realm. First update is a larger preview box, allowing you to see images at 600x600 pixels. Also profile pictures have gotten super-sized as they are now viewed at 350x350 pixels. While you are checking out these two improvements run on over to the reporting tool and see the new columns and look. The finial thing you may have noticed at the site is a cleaner and crisper look as the guys at 3d update their main pages for that ever lasting stream line look. This last update still needs some work in my eyes as the page still looks a little cluttered and is not a great welcome mat.

HUGE updates are coming your way for contributors and customers alike over at the iStockPhoto guys. You can expect to see several new features rolling out threw the first of next year. First up on Jan. 7th you will see the pricing credit system getting an overhaul (see below for new charts). A new subscription based site will be launched (like Jupiter Unlimited) later in 2010. Finally, they are changing the number of sales for their "canister" levels. Currently I am at the basic level, so this does not affect me no matter what, but if you are higher up they will grandfather your current position. Check out all the details below from kkthompson 2010 Priorities We put a lot of time and effort into research in 2009 and we learned an amazing amount about our customers. And unanimously they said, “You have lots of pictures, now help me find the right ones quickly.” On other topics however, customers were divided. We have one group of higher-end picture buyers who tell us the

A very short lived program over at Dreamstime was the adding of selling canvas prints and posters via a third party company. This program started up in October and is already being dropped due to having troubles with the third party. See the quick post below We decided to remove the prints program announced here . The logistical hassle and dependence on third party services made us reconsider the future of this program. It is also the reason why you didn't see too many updates. This program wasn't able to take off properly. It's the first time we had to remove a product since our inception, 5 years ago. No matter how difficult is to withdraw features that required a lot of work, I consider such move wiser than supporting a program that proved neither able to compete with our core model nor able to help it grow. New programs need to be disruptive in order to compete with core models. Furthermore, our customers experienced significant inconveniences and shipping

Calling all graphic and web designers....Alamy is holding a $3000 competition to redesign their front web page. I think this is a great competition to get yourself a page that looks good and is not cluttered, I personally have never liked Alamy web page layout or even the layout of their account log-in page. If your interested click here for all the requirements and facts.

More upgrades and improvements to iSyndica . They add a new client, Catooh, to there list of channels along with the new stock audio beta feature. Check out the comments below. Catooh: Newest Photo & Video Channel on iSyndica Welcome to Catooh our newest distribution channel . Catooh is available for Photos, Videos (and soon Audio). With this addition to footage, we now support 8 stock footage agencies, 6 promotional channels and an unlimited amount with our Generic Video Connector. For photos, even more. Log in now to add Catooh as a channel. Participate in Our Stock Audio Beta Test Do you sell stock audio? Join our stock audio beta test. We've been busy building this new category and now invite you to join our private beta. If you are interested or know someone who is, reply to this email and we'll set you up. iSyndica Continues to Improve Our continued dialogue with you helps us identify bugs and features to improve. One of the biggest complaint we've been readi

I would like to give a warm welcome to our news Stock Photography member with their site launched a few months ago... Deposit Photos . Over the coming weeks and months you will see blog post from my about their performance, updates, and all other happy go luck info I my come across. For now lets get you up to date on who they are and advantages of their service. Contributor Strengths: Get a $0.20 bonus per image accepted for the first 500 image (must sign up for the program after you are accepted) Convenient uploading and attributing (uploading will be addressed in next blog) Commissions start at 44% and can go as high as 60% Payout starting at $50, includes .20 bonus program Quick payment via Paypal, Moneybookers, and Webmoney Statistics on images, sales, views, etc....very nice Customer Features: Credit based system Subscription options SMS payment options A on the going promotion of "second image free deal" - Contributors get paid if your image is the free one

So above is the breakdown of November sales. Enjoy, sorry on the delay...but it has been crazy busy here. However, we are having a snow day in Houston...do blogging here I come. Dreamstime Shutterstock BigStockPhoto

Rest In Peace to our friends or lack of at Image Catalog . They have officially closed their doors as of this week. I don't have anything besides that, not reasons why...my guess no sales and poor service. I know I was kicked out of their club for submitting to many images at one time, I guess I over whelmed them. If you where a member of Image Catalog let me know if you got a letter before the closed up shop...also let me know if you got paid as that is always an ongoing question when someone closes their doors. Later today will be my sales numbers for November.