Bigstock and 123RF redesigns

Posted by mattantonino | Posted in Agencies, photography | Posted on 05-03-2010

2

So by now most of you know that Bigstock is no longer BigstockPhoto and 123RF has also redesigned.? I’m surprised for a few reasons:

* Shutterstock (who owns Bigstock now) said the redesign proves they want to move forward with BSP.? What’s the idea of that?? Just keep stock photo buyers happy?? I like it but I wish they’d let us submit to one place and distribute on both networks.? I have many images on BSP that aren’t on SS – I’d like them combined.

* Both 123RF and Bigstock went for the black/white/grey look.? Very simple, clean, easy designs. I’ll be honest – I like both.? But they look VERY similar now!

I’m glad stuff is where I’m used to finding it, somewhat.? Bigstock’s bulk tool seems to be gone, replaced with a much better one at a time engine.? Still wish it worked more like Canstock or even SS.? Submissions are so much easier at those places without the “delay” of javascript.? I don’t want smooth transitions – I want SPEED.

Bigstock listed a lot of new changes here.? I want to look at a few more closely.

  • A new and enhanced search engine (interesting – will have to search my stuff later)
  • Additional search engine optimizations for Google and others
  • Improvements to the collection: checking metadata and enhancing the search algorithm

I’m interested to see how their changes play out.? I would love for BSP to kick it up a notch and remain a player, even growing.? We just saw IStock kill StockXpert and the contributor side of that pretty much sucked (told you I’d be honest!)? I would be grateful and glad to see Shutterstock market and push Bigstock for one-off downloads.

As far as 123RF, their official twitter (does Alex run this ship?) says “The redesign of 123RF is NOT the END, it’s only the beginning!”? I sure hope so!? I’d like to see the beginning of shorter wait times for reviews, less of the truly bad “poor lighting” rejects and of course more dollars and cents.? PS: Note to 123RF, fix the “Check FTP uploads” screen – it doesn’t scroll right.? It looks a right mess.

What do you think of the changes?? Good, bad, indifferent?


Share this:
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati
  • MySpace
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Google Bookmarks
  • email
  • Reddit

Related posts:

  1. Shutterstock search upgrades Today Shutterstock announced that they are investing aggressively in search...
  2. My (next) shoot? As if wedding season here wasn’t busy enough, we just...
  3. Shutterstock turns 7 (is that dog years?) Shutterstock recently turned 7 years old! Some highlights from Shutterstock’s...
  4. Microstock Agencies – which for me? Now that I am back to work I've also eliminated...
  5. Guest blogger(s) wanted I'm looking for guest bloggers on a couple of topics....

Comments (2)

mystockphoto said on 08-03-2010

Hi Matt,
I have an overall positive feeling about both the restyles.About the old BigStockPhotos… never like its look!
Maybe the black/white/grey look is one of the best way to give relevance to the contents, the images. I’ve immediately realized that also my site has similar colors… so I put a strong orange badge here and there ;-)
If I were 123RF I wouldn’t abandon completely some of the previous orange brush-strokes…
Cheers,
roberto
ArenaCreative said on 12-03-2010

Much improved, and much needed. The logotype is much better on Bigstock than before.

I didn’t have a problem with the old 123rf.com but it does look more fresh now. Roberto is right, the sites for this type of business needs to be clean as to not compete with the content – the images are what they want to focus on.