Google.ru celebrates 60th anniversary of Stanislaw Lem first book

The Astronauts (in Polish Astronauci) is the first science fiction novel by Polish writer Stanisław Lem published as a book, in 1951. Today Google.ru published a doodle to celebrate this date.

[caption id="attachment_907" align="aligncenter" width="411" caption="60th anniversary of Stanislaw Lem first book"][/caption]

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July 2011 Earnings Breakdown

After almost record last month I did not expect much from current result. Still it was 4^th best month overall and 3^rd best on SS. DT bounced back from the bottom, it was best month for them this year. 123RF was on the other hand having 2nd worst month of this year. FT was also down and IS almost repeated result from last four months. SXP continues to disappoint and it was beaten by CSP. Veer and BS added few sales this month.

Jully 2011	July	July/June	RPD
SS	61.40%	96.50%	0.65
DT	12.11%	180.15%	0.69
123RF	9.64%	40.60%	0.59
FT	4.81%	67.92%	0.43
IS	4.77%	94.47%	1.03
CSP	3.14%		0.95
SXP	2.08%	89.29%	0.25
Veer	0.93%		0.93
BS	0.63%	95.00%	0.63
YM	0.33%		1.00
FP	0.17%		0.50
		90.95%	0.63

 

[caption id="attachment_880" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="2011 July Microstock"][/caption]

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Extended license on Shutterstock - NYC

This is probably going to be my best selling image after another extended license sold today.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="NYC"][/caption]

I have noticed that this image was used on Amazon.com for Sylvania SYTAB10MT 10-Inch Magni Tablet

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Sylvania SYTAB10MT 10-Inch Magni Tablet"][/caption]

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June 2011 earnings breakdown

With couple more dollars it would be the best month of this year thanks to strong performance from SS and 123RF. For the later one it was actually best month this year. These two delivered almost 80% of total revenue. Rest of the top 5 was around 15% and way below last month’s results. SXP is slowly falling into non-existence. ThinkStock earning are roughly 20% of what SXP used to be.

Comparing RPD we again see increase at SS and 123RF and drop on 4 other top agencies. Since on most of the sites I do not have enough volume to properly judge these numbers I can only talk about trend here. Also I am trying to get out from partner programs on IS which immediately caused huge jump in RPD there since subs from ThinkStock are no longer reported for them.

May 2011	May	May/Apr	RPD
SS	57.87%	132.17%	0.65
123RF	21.59%	134.67%	1.49
FT	6.44%	95.86%	0.50
DT	6.12%	71.68%	0.81
IS	4.59%	90.05%	1.01
SXP	2.11%	84.85%	0.25
CS	0.69%	300.0%	1.13
		97.58%	0.72

[caption id="attachment_870" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="June 2011 Microstock"][/caption]

Extended license on Shutterstock - San Jose City Hall

First day of the month brought me nice surprise, extended license sale on Shutterstock. I have been selling quite a few images from San Jose, California recently so it must by something going on :-)

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="450" caption="San Jose City Hall"][/caption]

The current City Hall of San José California was opened to the public on October 15, 2005, and is located at 200 East Santa Clara Street, San José, California. It was designed by Richard Meier.

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May 2011 earnings breakdown

My total earning from all agencies went up 30% in comparison to April which I did not report here because of my trip to my homeland. It was quite a surprise to find out that it was also best month overall this year. It was mostly because unexpected extended licenses from Veer. It also shows how week are my sales at other agencies. It is so easy to grab second spot if there are extended licenses sold. SS was first as usual but it is quite interesting how others are trending. 123RF keeps going up every month and this one was actually best in current year. FT peaked in April and May was slightly worse but still way better than at the beginning of this year. DT also had best month this year. SXP is just so unpredictable. I am not even sure if they are able to count sales properly since every month when it is time to report they post and change result couple times. On other fronts I see almost no movements, I can sell a few photos a month or none.

 

May 2011	May	May/Apr	RPD
SS	42.72%	90.84%	0.53
Veer	16.81%	16300.00%	11.41
123RF	15.64%	165.17%	0.76
DT	8.33%	183.68%	0.86
FT	6.55%	88.61%	0.60
IS	4.97%	116.74%	1.30
SXP	2.43%	117.86%	0.25
CSP	1.19%	1350.00%	1.25
BS	0.74%	125.00%	0.63
MSP	0.38%	100.00%	065
CS	0.22%		0.25
		130.20%	0.71

 

[caption id="attachment_862" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Microstock 2011-05"][/caption]

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First extended lincense sold on Veer

After long time of no activity I finally I got 3 sales on one image. Two of them where extended license. Apparently somebody bought image first for normal price then purchased additional licenses: Unlimited reproduction and Multi-user.

It was one of my travel shots I took in Balboa Park in San Diego.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Balboa Park"][/caption]

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Another extended license on Carlsbad Caverns photo

I sold EL for this photo in March and now I got another one.  Surprising development because usually nature photos are not big sellers.

Carlsbad Caverns

Carlsbad Caverns National Park is a United States National Park located in the Guadalupe Mountains in southeastern New Mexico.The primary attraction of the park for most visitors is the show cave, Carlsbad Caverns. Visitors to the cave can hike in on their own via the natural entrance, or take the elevator (the exit for everyone) directly to the Underground Lunchroom some 750 feet (230 m) below.

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March 2011 earnings breakdown

Total earning went down 13% comparing to record breaking last month so I would say it is not bad at all. Usual leader SS also got less than in February but it is much better than at the beginning of this year. Most surprising are results from DT and FT. FT got 62% better results and DT 16% better. If I look back, last month, DT was 109% better than in previous month and FT was 50% better. It looks like both are growing. 123RF on the other hand is slowly declining. For a first time in many months it is not on a second place. When I look at further positions there is very little going on. IS is declining because of lower number of subscriptions sold on ThinkStock.  I still do not have many hopes about SXP and CSP with few sales per entire month. Conclusion is similar to the one I got month ago, stick to top agencies.

March 2011	March	Mar/Feb	RPD
SS	59.56%	83.61%	0.58
DT	10.27%	116.55%	0.63
FT	8.69%	162.28%	0.56
123RF	8.37%	83.43%	0.60
IS	4.53%	48.73%	0.94
SXP	2.86%	33.70%	0.25
CSP	2.31%	403.23%	1.25
BS	1.29%	140.00%	1.17
Veer	1.29%		3.50
YM	0.74%		1.00
CS	0.09%	125.00%	0.25
		87.12%

 

[caption id="attachment_840" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="2011 March Microstock"][/caption]

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First extended license in March

A little surprise at the end of month was selling one of my oldest photos on Shutterstock.  In 2005 I spent a week in New Mexico and one of the places I visited was Carlsbad Caverns.  It is a biggest cave I have ever seen.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="450" caption="Carlsbad Caverns"][/caption]

Carlsbad Caverns National Park is a United States National Park located in the Guadalupe Mountains in southeastern New Mexico.The primary attraction of the park for most visitors is the show cave, Carlsbad Caverns. Visitors to the cave can hike in on their own via the natural entrance, or take the elevator (the exit for everyone) directly to the Underground Lunchroom some 750 feet (230 m) below.

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February 2011 earnings breakdown

My total earning from all agencies went up 53%, that great when you do not compare how each agency performed. Also comparing to January which was pretty bad start of the year means that it is only coming back to normal levels. SS as usual was number one with second best month ever. DT and FT rebound from very low results I have been observing for last couple months. 123RF is still slightly below average which is enough to score second place. IS is again showing its aspirations to claim fifth spot which was grabbed by SXP combined results from last 3 months showing as earned in February. Mentioned partner program on IS and SXP seems to be a total disaster. Not only they are always behind the schedule but also numbers are not looking too good. Accounting error again? Maybe they simple cannot provide volume of subscriptions comparable to SS. I opted out on IS and I will watch it only on SXP (no other option is possible). RPD is slightly up but again not as good as in couple last months of last year. What about others? I got nothing to say here. Everything below top 6 is just statistical error. I am uploading only to agencies that produce some result every month.

February 2011	February	Feb/Jan	RPD
SS	64.87%	182.58%	0.80
123RF	9.13%	74.43%	0.66
DT	8.02%	209.85%	0.70
SXP	7.73%		0.25
FT	4.88%	150.57%	0.60
IS	3.94%	73.66%	1.17
BS	0.84%	500.00%	0.63
CSP	0.52%	67.39%	0.52
CS	0.07%	7.69%	0.20
		153.54%	0.66

 

[caption id="attachment_830" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Microstock 2011 FEB"][/caption]

 

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Third extended license this month.

This time it is a picture of my daughter playing on the beach. I wonder who/where it going to be used.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Playing on the beach"][/caption]

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January 2011 earnings breakdown

It looks like this year’s start was quite slow. All top 5 agencies results, besides 123RF, were below expectations. My total earning went down 25% from December. Unfortunately IS partner program result are always late so I might be missing half of earnings there. It’s interesting that IS got usually one of the highest RPD when only earning reported are from main site when I add lots of 25 cents subscriptions from ThinkStock RPD drops to one of the lowest. SXP failed to post results from November, I guess I have report them in February. We got huge mess here. I can only hope Veer would generate more to cover losses I got at SXP. I do not have many expectations for any other sites. Results are at most random to see any potential.

[caption id="attachment_822" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="2011 JAN Microstock"][/caption]

January 2011	January	Jan/Dec	RPD
SS	55.15%	83.26%	0.46
123RF	19.05%	148.27%	0.81
IS	8.30%	65.72%	1.33
DT	5.93%	50.99%	0.60
FT	5.03%	101.26%	0.74
Veer	2.37%	433.33%	1.52
CS	1.36%	1040.00%	1.30
CUT	1.35%		1.29
CSP	1.20%	5.45%	0.58
BS	0.26%	25.00%	0.50
		74.97%

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December 2010 earnings breakdown

December is one of this "shorter" months, because people are just too busy with holidays all over the world so I expected lower than usual sales. It was just 96% of November results so I consider it pretty successful. As usual SS is over 50% of my earnings and 123RF would be second if I did not score one extended sale at CSP. All my other typical top 5 agencies continue to slide down with earnings. FT continue to have a hiccup, one month they do well next one it is very bad. DT barely made average result and IS was below expectations. Anything else is just a statistical error and makes me thinking about focusing only on my top 5 agencies. SXP got an accident this month, first they reported that they sold 10x more than in in the rest of the year this month, then they shut down the site and wiped out results to prevent people from cashing their money. Until now no results from November has been not posted.
[caption id="attachment_794" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="2010 December Microstock"][/caption]

Reviewers were very busy with cleaning their backlogs which must be explanation of much higher then usual rejection rates across the board. RPD was up everywhere so it makes me think that it is inversely proportional to number of downloads :-)

[caption id="attachment_795" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="2010 December Microstock Trend"][/caption]


Dec Dec/Nov RPD
SS 52.00% 92.94% 0.58
CSP 17.29% 14066.67% 3.52
123RF 10.08% 111.51% 0.72
DT 9.14% 94.69% 0.77
IS 5.21% 41.31% 0.91
FT 3.90% 53.04% 0.58
YM 1.02% 2.50
Veer 0.43% 13.04% 1.05
BS 0.82% 57.14% 2.00
CS 0.10% 50.00% 0.25
Total 96.57%


November 2010 earnings breakdown

After records in October I was expecting worse result next month. It was not that bad overall. Actually it was 6th best month this year and second in this half of the year. Previous month was very bad for FT and it looks like they recovered in November. Everybody in top 5 made around their average so SS have only 56% of total earning. SXP keeps getting less than it was before but Veer returns are now almost at the same level so I hope it will replace it in future.
[caption id="attachment_781" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Microstock November 2010"][/caption]
Portfolio size increased mostly on Veer, SS and FT. DT keeps rejecting most of my submitted images. RPD went down almost on every single site except IS but I have not got Thinkstock results yet. After adding plenty of subs from there IS RPD would drop dramatically. Also I have had a single extended license anywhere.
[caption id="attachment_782" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="2010 Microstock Trend"][/caption]

Nov Nov/Oct RPD
SS 56.14% 56.31% 0.52
DT 9.68% 90.82% 0.74
123RF 9.07% 50.28% 0.48
IS 8.75% 105.40% 1.42
FT 7.37% 208.97% 0.58
SXP 3.91% 111.76% 0.25
Veer 3.31% 115.00% 2.01
BS 1.44% 140.00% 0.88
CS 0.21% 100.00% 0.25
CSP 0.12% 7.89% 0.30
Total 66.74%


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New contributor page on Shutterstock - Beta

This "closed beta" test of new landing page packed full of new statistics, a new header and footer and a messaging center. I have been invited to participate in this beta I feel great about this page and new improvements.

Lets take a a quick look at what new.

Pros:
1. Latest Downloads with geographic location of image buyers.
2. Earning statistics
3. Current earning and number of downloads on a top of the page
4. Expandable Message Center below page header


Cons:
1. Page does not fit one screen in resolution 1600x1200
2. According to feedback survey we can see Acceptance Rate, I do not see it.
3. Smallest period for stats is 3 months, I wish to see monthly stats.
4. I wish for more statistics like Return per Download.

[caption id="attachment_769" align="aligncenter" width="214" caption="New Shutterstock Contributor Page"][/caption]

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Another Flickr image accepted by Getty Images

Couple days ago I got site mail on Flickr informing me that Getty Images picked one of my photos. It was a photo from our vacations in Poland. I guess I will have to keep posting and see what happens.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="507" caption="Mother and daughter walking with a stroller"][/caption]

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October 2010 earnings breakdown

It was best month ever since I started my adventure with microstock 2.5 years ago. It was BME for SS and totally but mostly because my best earning agency scored 67% of royalties. I am also happy with results form 123RF and DT, both earning more than average. For others I do not have anything positive to report. FT clearly got worst results this year while SXP never recovered to previous levels after acquisition. Thanks to their poor performance they both were passed by IS.

Oct Oct/Sep RPD
SS 67.37% 206.15% 0.80
123RF 12.19% 203.86% 0.54
DT 7.20% 102.82% 0.81
IS 4.36% 86.77% 0.98
FT 2.38% 42.35% 0.61
SXP 2.36% 100.00% 0.25
Veer 1.94% 20.00% 3.50
CSP 1.06% 100.00% 1.27
BS 0.69% 166.67% 0.83
CUT 0.29% #DIV/0! 1.06
CS 0.14% 14.29% 0.25
Total 133.02%


Portfolio size increase is much slower now. Most of the sites reject much more images recently but still it is less than at the peak which was this summer. Surprisingly Veer accepted largest number of images this month so maybe I can see some sales there. At the moment I see most growth on 123RF and FT. Number of downloads has grown on many sites but still I got 5 times more from SS than any other site. I am also obesrving increase of numbers from SXP and IS but this means mostly 25 cents subs from ThinkStock. Return per Download (RPD) usually is better on the sites which are low earners for me. In other words I sell mostly subs. Extended licenses are extremely rare and so far I got them only on SS, CSP and 123RF.



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5D Mark II Firmware 2.0.8 Available

This firmware update (Version 2.0.8) incorporates the following changes and fixes.

• Fixes a phenomenon in which movies are not taken at the shooting mode registered in the user’s settings if a shooting mode Aperture priority (or Shutter priority) is registered in any of the camera’s user settings (C1, C2, C3) and the user attempts to shoot a movie.


• Fixes a phenomenon in which the shutter will not release when pressing the shutter button when the auto power off function is set to “on”.


• Fixes a phenomenon in which overexposure occurs when shooting a Live View shooting simulation with the ISO speed set to L.


• Fixes a phenomenon in which the settings of the Speedlite transmitter ST-E2 revert to the default settings when both the camera and the ST-E2 are set to auto power off.


• Fixes a phenomenon in which the Macro Ring Lite (MR-14EX, MT-24EX) and slave flash do not sync while shooting wirelessly.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="200" caption="5Dmk2 firmware update"][/caption]

The Version 2.0.8 firmware being released this time is for cameras with firmware up to Version 2.0.7. If the camera's firmware is already Version 2.0.8, it is not necessary to update the firmware.[ad#adsense-1]

Reception problems with Verizon

Couple months ago I moved from Cupertino to Mountain View. In my new apartment I could not make a phone call so I decided to change cell carrier from AT&T to Verizon. It seems like instead of zero bars I got one. So making calls is not possible either. I am stuck with them for next two years so I had to by their Network Extender so we can use our phones at home. Just in case of emergency I also got us land line, you need internet and electricity to make calls so it would not not work if we got some disaster. Land line should have higher survival potential :-)

The second part of the story is my workplace reception. AT&T worked great there, while it is a dead zone for Verizon. I can barely send text message. I was wondering why all other carries could work in this area while "nation's most reliable" network is completely dead. It looks like Verizon got only 2 cell towers in whole South Bay. Wonderful, even T-Mobile got more :-(

[caption id="attachment_739" align="aligncenter" width="560" caption="Verizon Cell Towers in SF Bay Area"][/caption]

You can visit CellReception site to check what are locations of cell towers in your area.

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