I’m very interested to hear that they’ve increased their profit by moving in this direction – they clearly know what they’re doing! But they’re certainly leaving the back door open for a new iStock to emerge.

I’m a case in point: as someone who produces a lot of compound images for the web where the raw image quality is not as important, I found them invaluable for many years. However, they lost me about six months ago to sites that hold more to the original ethos.

“The key to growth is around developing robust and innovative ways to retrieve and display results.”

You’re right. And if you knew anything about UX, you’d know that solution of putting the most ‘relevant’ results in the middle of the page with zero point of reference is a huge FAIL.

BrightQube, (www.brightqube.com) has created an innovative visual search platform to solve this problem. With over 3 million images and growing, from $1 images from Dreamstime to high end images from leading stock brands, BrightQube focuses on delivering superior visual search through an online display engine that saves image buyers time in getting in front of the right image quicker than ever before.

The key to growth is around developing robust and innovative ways to retrieve and display results. Then all participants have a greater shot at equality and e-commerce.

Fotolia also has that weird algorithm that makes more popular files pricier, so XS files on Fotolia can be 2-3x as much as iStock.

Although I must say their prices are getting increasingly steep, but still you pay for what you get.

Most of this is because Fotolia is selling really expensive images from Image Source (I think that’s who it was). Interesting, cause they don’t seem that good. Certainly not worth the $500 they’re asking for some of them. Maybe they are Image Source seconds or something. After a quick look at iStock’s new collection, it looks much stronger than what’s being sold on Fotolia for $500