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!

There are always some photographers  who are not quite satisfied with their microstock agency. The same thing seems to be happening at Apple App Store. Why does that happen? How to avoid it or fix it? After almost a year of Pixmac  service  being up and running, I’ll try to find answers.

First things first. Be sure I want to have Pixmac as a social responsible company. We are nothing like a bank or large burger chain that seems like a black box that just takes your money and does nothing with it. No! Not when I’m here. Sure, the company has to generate revenue, sure it must satisfy its investors. But why  push it to the edge? Why to cut affiliate programs in half, when the company believes it will be no pain?

I went over several threads at Microstock Group and found out that there is always people posting that some (in fact any) agency is the worst and they will delete their portfolio right away. Usually the agency owner doesn’t even read it and if they do they propably don’t take it seriously. I think that this is not the right way for our users(customers?). We’re all on a same boat, we’re here to help people that need pictures and we’re here to feed ourselves – together. So, let’s talk about the pain and find a cure!

Pixmac after a year of service

Pixmac is still a newcomer to microstock. Since our start in September 2008, we have had a few bumps in the road, and we’ve made some mistakes. We’re learning from them.  But I am proud to report that we made a huge jump forward since  Pixmac was started. But believe me, we have always kept our customers in mind every step of the way.

Good news

I’m really proud to sum up what we’ve achieved in last 11 months. And I’m looking forward what we can do in the future. There will be some challenging times ahead, but I am confident that I and the Pixmac team will be ready to face them.

Better sales every month

We are still growing! No matter in what season, no matter during a time of  crisis, and  no matter if CEO is on honeymoon! Pixmac proves that fast and user-friendly interface is the right choice for serving your needs. Tell your friends, tell your family, spread the word over Twitter and Facebook! There is still place for some more figures in the gross sales number. We do banners, promos, articles, contests to attract buyers. But it’s the word of mouth that makes the difference.

Low subscription prices

We know that  trying to beat the competitors with a rock bottom price was not the right choice. So we took down the advertisement on that in the first place. We pushed the prices of subscription to a  higher  rate. Still, we know it is not ideal. But trust me, there are some bright new ideas in the oven already.

Nice revenues from bonus credits

When we’re giving bonus credits to contests or on any other occasions, we have to set their price somehow. We used the subscription prices as a measure before. But I thought it’s time to reward you when  you spend time uploading to Pixmac. So now we’ve set the price of a bonus credit to $0,9 (as same as in the $500 credit pack). So you should get noticeably more if some user comes to your portfolio to buy a picture.

Slow/bad approving process

Fixed already, but worth noting. In the early months there was a lot to fix. Even when we came up with the idea to pay you for just uploading  as your first agency. Now it should be faster (matter of hours to few days) more positive and easier to use. We’ve also added a dispute option to the process. So you can always complain if some of your recent uploads were not approved and we will get back to you as fast as possible.

Lock-in time

If anybody remembers this. We started with 2 year lock-in. But, in February 2009, we’ve changed this to 1 year after a discussion with photographers. Sure it can be less and it will be. It just needs time to convince the owners, that they will not loose anything if they open the system a bit. Believe me, I am looking for a way to satisfy both sides.

Sliding commision without explanation

This is our fault. I’ve explained this issue on Microstock Group, so I’ll do the same here. Basically it’s about splitting the earned money into a few parts. First is the photographer, then from the rest something goes to affiliate and rest to Pixmac. Sure, the time of registration matters, because the options change as time goes by, so if you’ve registered today, your contract is the same for a lifetime unless you request a change (if the offer becomes better than what you have).

More features for buyers

We want the users to be happy, that is our way to satisfy photographers in the long term. For example, our latest great feature is  the similarity search. Even now we’re still working on improving, every result as an icon, which finds similar images. The user  doesn’t even have to know the keywords! Another  thing  worth mentioning is the eg. Facebook App that shows your stats to others;  A widget that can be used in several ways to promote your portfolio or any theme etc.

New languages and local people in team

This is my personal favorite. Pixmac has been translated into 6 languages already: English, German, Russian, Czech, Spanish and Finnish. Dutch, Italian, Brasilian Portugese, French and Polish are in the progress these days. And not just that! We have people in those regions that take care about the customers, preparing marketing strategies and are in everyday contact with  our headquarters in Prague.

Upcoming partnerships

We’re doing a lot in this field. Stay tuned and we hope you’ll be impressed. Pixmac should be much more than just another microstock site. I’m doing my best and the rest of the team  is too. By the way, have you tried Ginipic tool?

Yes, we can do more. And we will. Vitezslav “Zager” Valka, CEO of Pixmac

We were talking with Erik from Imagery Majestic this weekend about questions popping up in communities and forums about the approval process. And we want to be fair and clear about this. For clarification of the issue, read more below.

Why were the all pictures rejected at once on Friday 3th April?

Vitezslav Valka, CEO: “Our approval system was under heavy development over the last few weeks. We’ve finally made a number of crucial improvements there. As you may know, the process was slow but we have found a solution to fix it. I would like to walk you through the process as it was on Pixmac until the end of last week. I’ll also go over the new one, which will be more effective and clear to our contributors.”

Old approval process

• picture is uploaded and sent to approval
• reviewer inspects the photo and sends it to editors (team coordinated by Denisa Haveldova)
• editor verifies the decision and finally sends it to web or to rejected pictures
• user gets an email per photo (lots of emails sometime)

New approval process

• picture is uploaded and sent to approval
• reviewer inspects the photo and sends it directly to web or to rejected pictures
• user gets an email once a day
• user can dispute (complain about the rejection) up to 30 decisions per week until a month from rejection
• disputes go to editor in chief (Denisa) and she makes final decision

The approval process is unclear to us. Solution?

Vitezslav Valka, CEO: “This should be much clearer now. When we were slow with our reviews, we decided to review (review again by Editor) the approved pictures first. The reason for this is simple: Get the pictures online and selling as soon as possible. That is why some of you were getting a few accepted and a few rejected pictures in last few weeks. Friday’s big rejection was a result of the dispute option being implemented. So from that moment, we don’t have to wait for the Editor’s final decision. The process is now pretty fast and I hope it is clear to everybody.”

Why is the rejection rate sometimes about 50% ?

Denisa Haveldova, Content: “The approval rate may sometimes be different from other agencies. Remember that we don’t have any upload limits, we’re happy that contributors upload a lot to Pixmac. Unfortunately we’ve experienced that a huge number of very similar pictures from one shoot will be uploaded, without any review from the photographer. We’ve also found that some contributors don’t check images in Actual size (Zoom to 100%) before uploading. So pictures that seem to be great at first, unfortunately don’t meet our criteria for the technical quaility, sharpness etc.

As to the reasons of refusal: Please keep in mind, that the text of the reasons for refusal is automatic. It aims to fit to the particular picture as much as possible, but of course each picture is individual, and from time to time it can happen that it will not explain the problem of the picture exactly.”

If somebody has 498 pictures approved and needs 500: We’ve seen some contributors who are only a few pictures short of the “500 accepted” goal from February. This is mainly caused by uploading a little more than 500 pictures to Pixmac without keeping in mind that some of them could be rejected. But everybody makes mistakes, so we have decided to pay the $500 or $100 even for 480 pictures.

Contact us if you have an individual problem!

If you have any questions about this issue, contact us via comments below, or send us an email. We’re here for you! Denisa Haveldova is the head of approving/editing team and she knows everything about our content. You can contact her directly: denisa.haveldova@pixmac.com. If you have a question regarding a particular image, the best thing is to mention the ID or put a link to it in the email body. Other technical issues are under the control of Vitezslav Valka, the CEO of Pixmac. Anything else can be solved by Contacting us directly.

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.

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.

Prague, Czech Republic – Pixmac, the sharpshooter among young microstock picture agencies, announces the reach of 1 000 000 picture Milestone.The content makes a unique collection of high quality life style pictures available on Pixmac exclusively. Beside this, the collection contains a broad range of pictures of different subjects.

Moreover, offering free keywording for contributors, Pixmac aims to have professionaly keyworded pictures enabling to provide its customers not only high volume but especially easy search and relevant search results.