The Pixmac microstock agency is proud to announce that we now offer 7 million stock photos for our customers. Only a few competitors can say the same. Our collection consists of 3 sources. Two are creative and one editorial called “Celebrity”. Pixmac is the fastest way to get a stock photo or illustration for your design for a price that might surprise you.

When the pink company launched its marketplace in September 2008 it might have seemed like just another microstock company that is trying to make it. But look how much we have grown in a year! Pixmac has partners in 9 major markets and its sales are growing faster than expected.

Our company is  growing faster than other competitors in the microstock market according to respected site Alexa.com and  the amount of pictures grows with it. Not only that, Pixmac invented the “One Stop Shopping” way to get inexpensive quality photos in a matter of seconds without need of registration. Lee Torrens, a well known microstock blogger, says: “I LOVE your one-stop-shopping idea! It has always been a missing element of microstock agencies…” Yes, Pixmac focuses on speed and user friendliness.

Pixmac offers a lot now and has more in the oven to offer our customers. For example, Pixmac is working with a University on a project that will change your searching abilities and will make searching quicker and easier. We are also adding another few million photos to the database soon and working on some nice stock photo searching tweaks.

This week we’re launching a new updated website together with features such as Moneybookers payment method which added with payments by PayPal and/or  Credit Card. Also we have included a popular feature that sorts search results by downloads or date.

Vitezslav Valka (CEO) comments: “I’m always thrilled to see our customers happy with the user interface. Everybody deserves an easy tool that just works. I’m watching everything that happens in the company and believe me, it’s better than Red Bull and Duracell together!”

And one last thing for insiders. Watch our Twitter for special offers!

Many of you searching for photos were confused with credits, our virtual currency. Pixmac has solved that now for you. You don’t have to learn what credit is and you even don’t have to register at Pixmac if you need just one picture.

This idea came up from our research that most buyers are searching for just one picture first. Usually they realise later that Pixmac is so easy that they can use it twice or more times! The second thing is most users don’t have time. When they’re in a hurry and they don’t have time to learn how the credit system works. Or perhaps they don’t have the time to register at Pixmac. And finally they don’t wanna purchase more credits just because they may not use them in the future.

Our solution? One Stop Shopping.

You can just search for picture you need, click the download button, pay the price and that’s it! Your project and your life is saved. We’ve saved some electricity, you can take more time to watch the wildlife out of your office window. And if you want a better price, then credits are there for you!

Lee Torrens says: “I LOVE your one-stop-shopping idea! It has always been a missing element of microstock agencies so I’m very glad to see you leading the way with this. I imagine there’s a minor loss of leads through not collecting email addresses, but as the market reaches further toward less sophisticated buyers, I expect this easy transaction style will be particularly handy. Great work!” – More about Lee at Microstock Diaries

It is as easy as 1-2-3

You’ll need 3 minutes to have the picture on your disk.

1. Search for the desired picture in the Pixmac stock photo gallery and click on it.
2. Choose the required size and click on Download.
3. Pay for the picture via PayPal or Credit Card. That is it!

Pixmac will be unavailable on Thursday, 28th May 2009 from 1pm to 1.30pm GMT (7am to 7.30am EST). We are upgrading our hardware and unfortunately that will interrupt the service.

We apologize for the inconvience and we will be back up and running as soon as possible. Thank you for visiting Pixmac and we hope to see you back again soon.

Pixmac is growing rapidly. Thanks to our development team and interpreters we have extended the range of language versions to be serve our growing customer base. Pixmac is now available in Czech, Russian and in beta in German, Italian and Spanish. In the near future we are going to launch French, Polish and Brasilian versions.

Also, we haven’t forgot to update our current English version of Pixmac. A lot of things were polished and enhanced for easier customer use.

Zoom pictures
Our zooming system is really cool now. The displaying of 100% quality pictures takes just split seconds.

Using PayPal to pay by credit card
We have added the possibility to pay by credit card using PayPal.

Search for similar pictures
Pixmac has a new tool which could be very helpful for searching pictures. How does it work? Choose pictures which you like and add them to the lightbox. Open the lightbox and mark images which you want to search for similar pictures. Choose “Search for similar pictures“ from “Action“ select box and Pixmac will find similar photos.

We receive many emails from you. Thanks for your comments and suggestions which will help us better serve our customers. Many customers have emailed that it would be helpful if they could upload editorial photos on Pixmac. So, listen carefully! In a few weeks it will be possible to upload editorial content to the Pixmac celebrity section.

Two months ago we started our cheapest subscription rate ever. We are very happy to report it is going very well and Pixmac is growing.

In the near future we are planning many new functions and improvements. Stay connected for further updates on how Pixmac is working to be the best site for your photo needs. Pixmac is now on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Our portfolio is growing pretty fast! We have now launched editorial content at Pixmac. If you ever need fresh photos of famous singers or actors, just jump on Pixmac! The celebrity section at Pixmac already has 300,000 pictures to download from $2 each. They’re ready for your blog, postcard, print, etc. And you know what’s better? Every day more than 10,000 new photos added!

We’re also participating in developing a new celebrity portal. Want to know what Paris Hilton or Brad Pitt did yesterday? Read Everyceleb.com every day!

We’ve also added great new functions for you! So now Pixmac is even easier for you to use.

Multiple operations

We’ve improved multiple operations for photographers. Now it’s really simple to work with multiple photos, add releases or a title to them.

Public lightboxes

Have you found beautiful photos and you want to show them to your friends? We’ve made public lightboxes for you. How does it work? It’s easy. Create a new lightbox and add your favorite pictures to it. Choose the “Show lightbox URL” option. Copy the URL and send it to your friends.

Zoom photos

Now you can zoom photos from Pixmac collection. Just click on the photo to zoom to 100%. Perfect for those who want to check the quality of the original.

Czech version

Pixmac launches Pixmac in Czech this week. In the near future we are planning to launch also other language versions. Almost done is Russian, German, Spanish, Portugese, Italian.

And one last thing. Because of our contract with Fotolia we had to lower the commision for non-exclusive rights to 30% and to 40% for exclusive rights for new photographers coming to Pixmac.

Pixmac announces its first giveaway! Just post your affiliate link in comments. After we reach 200 comments, we will give 50 credits to one of you. Its that easy! Anyway, why should you get gifts only on Christmas and maybe birthday?

Taking part in this giveaway is pretty easy. We’re happy when seeing a lot of comments here. And you can be happy if we reach at least 200 comments in this post with the affliliate link! Its your turn now! Spread the word and help yourself! Its Jackpot time right after we reach 200 or more comments!

Example:

Hi there! I’m Jane from New York and my link is: #Jane

Remeber: If you don’t win now, it may make sense for you to watch our blog via RSS. In the future more giveaways may be coming! Anyway, thank you for participation!

Rules: Credit wins one of the customers or photographers who add their Affiliate code (number or nick with the “#” symbol) into this post. The deadline for giving the 50 credits to one of you is 200 comments. Then we will post the name of the randomly chosen winner here in the post. The winner gets $50 equivalent in Pixmac credits. This credit can be used for photos, illustrations and other graphics from Pixmac collection.

We’ve just finished and polished many functions on Pixmac. In the last few weeks we have made Pixmac even easier, faster and more comprehensive for you – the user.

There are plenty of new things at Pixmac and even more bug fixes. We’ve also had some great records in sales. So lets go ahead with the functions and other news.

Collections

We are now separating our collections. From now on you can choose to search within the Pixmac or Fotolia collection or both. We know this will make the life easier for you. We’re also working on some additions, and we’ll let you know the details in a few weeks.

Better Advanced Search

We’ve made improvements to advanced search. Now you can look for new pictures or pictures from a particular author more easily. For easier browsing of the results you can now turn the Dynamic preview on or off, which is great if you don’t want to be distracted while searching for the best shot.

Easier tools for Photographers

You may know that we expanded our collection with a lot of new pictures in the last month. That proved our team and also our technology. We’re happy to tell you that the website is about 3 times faster. But for photographers, the tools to manage your collection are easier and more comprehensive. We believe this will encourage those who care about their time to stay at Pixmac.

2.3 Million pictures at Pixmac

We haven’t been around as long as our competitors, but even so you can already choose from 2.3 million pictures at Pixmac. That’s because we have two collections. We’re still the first and only agency in microstock to provide two microstock collections on one site for one registration.

1000 new users per month

More than a thousand new users joined Pixmac last month. That means more than 36 per day! Isn’t that great?

Our Dream Team would like to thank you for this great success!

27th January 2009 – Prague, Czech Republic, EU – Celebrate the speed of Pixmac’s increasing users and photographers by guessing one number. You can win an iPhone or credits for free.

Starting today, we are running a Hit the Jackpot contest, open for everyone. Guess the number of pictures available on Pixmac on 1st March 2009 and win an iPhone! Or, if yours is one of the closest 1000 guesses, you could win a share of $10,000 bonus credits. And more – if any of your affiliates win, you’re a winner too.

As you may know, we are one of the youngest agencies in the Microstock market, but despite the crisis we are the most active one. Our picture database currently has 1.7 million pictures and we are working hard to expand this number to 3 millions in near future.

But we know that quantity is not the measure, so we are improving Pixmac every day, and it works! Let’s see some statistics: Alexa, the valued visitor statistics tool, shows that we’re growing faster than Yaymicro, Moodboard or Snapvillage (owned by Corbis). So stay tuned and be prepared for a change.

Don’t wait to be the one who wins the iPhone! Or if you’re just looking for the best partner to deliver low-budget pictures, choose Pixmac. You’ll get an easy-to-use interface, smart search with advanced features, partner program and more.

And, one more secret for you. If you know how to find promo codes on the net, maybe you’ll find some Pixmac discounts.

Pixmac will be unavailable on Saturday, 24th January 2009 from 5am to 6am GMT (Midnight to 1am EST). We are upgrading our hardware and unfortunately that will interrupt service. We apologize for the inconvience and we will be back up and running as soon as possible. Thank you for visiting Pixmac and we hope to see you back again soon.

There were some small agencies that already are not with us. Lucky Oliver is one of them. Is the field is actually getting crowded? Or those companies were not healthy? Lets dig deeper in it.

The first thing everybody should know is that the reader actually is a possible buyer. So the user interface and its feeling of speed is the crucial thing to have in mind. Then, the photographer.

The Photographer is in totally different position. He or she knows much more about the field, is curious about what’s happening inside the agency, because it’s his pictures what’s selling. And that is something what every agency should keep in mind. Pixmac, as a young alternative to big elephants, is making this true.

The other thing is the target groups. Most buyers, as we have been researching, are small companies or even individuals. Usually entrepreneurs or freelance designers who know a bit about on-line services. They know it’s easier way to get pictures than negotiate with some old-fashioned agencies. The other thing is, that these electronic pictures usually remain there between ones and zeros. Most users are putting this into website designs or as a desktop backgrounds. Some are using them for print or jut for a decoration of their home.

Pixmac tries harder

Because we already know that microstock field is getting a bit crowded we try harder. We’re paying people to do the keywording for free for our photographers. We are thinking about the user interface as a tool that should be fast and easy. No marketing “blah blah” around. And the last thing we do is listening. We reply to every email that falls into our mailboxes. And we actually do the change if there is something that is not working well for the users – usually within hours.

Pixmac is also friendly to buyers. As far as I know, we are first agency who acquires photographers and in the same time sells pictures from other agencies. That is why we already have more than a million of pictures for the buyers. For the short time we’re here its great news for the buyers.

The Microstock phenomenon

The difference between regular photo agency and a Microstock agency is price. Most of the traditional agencies depend on a small group of their photographers. Pixmac depends on a growing community of freelancers and photo enthusiasts. And the digital era brings better prices to everybody. That is why Pixmac can offer more for better price.