Here we are, taking another step towards our goal of a new and refreshing approach to nursery decoration… striving to create a new style which is whimsical, playful yet elegant and chic in a minimalistic way. So we proudly bring to you our new line of prints, or wall prints, or wall art… what have you… printed on recycled, heavyweight linen paper using high quality archival ink.

Our goal has always been the one of trying and making our customers feel unique, as they really are, so we decided to go beyond the traditional notion of customization. Having your baby’s name on a print is all fine and dandy but yet we felt like that wasn’t enough. For us, commercial font types just wouldn’t cut through the sheer coldness of replicating "just another" Alexander… so the obvious hit us and we decided to add your baby’s name on our prints in a

Like thousands of other iStockPhoto contributors, on September 7 I was made aware of the shocking news of how that particular microstock agency will pay their contributors (funny adjective, since we are talking about the group responsible for the core part of the business) starting January 2011. If you don’t know what the fuss is all about, I urge you to read this informative report from “The Russian Photos Blog”.

iStockPhoto and their contributors are different sides of the same coin. I can see a little merit in the new proposed model from a business management standpoint, but it is far from perfect, just as I can understand the revolt from the vast majority of contributors, though some overly aggressive statements are not really justifiable. Either way, I believe both parts are missing the point in different ways.

First, iStockPhoto should have realized that there are ethical, if not philosophical, issues involved

Let’s refrain from getting tangled up with the new payment structure itself and discuss the base argument, which is “the current microstock business model is unsustainable”. Is it really? As many have argued, if this is true, how come other agencies have been and still are prospering while historically paying significant higher commission rates to their contributors?

The real problem we are facing is not that different from those found in advanced quantum physics experiments. No matter how advanced a mechanism we create to register the most incomprehensible of events, the results will still be reviewed, analyzed and ultimately interpreted within the boundaries of the human mind. In iStockPhoto’s case, it means that even pure math can be twisted by morals. iStockPhoto argues  that,  with  time,  all

up to 1,000 sales – 20%
from 1,001 to 5,000 sales – 30%
from 5001 to 10,000 sales – 35%
from 10,001 to 50,000 sales – 40%
from 50,001 to 100,000 sales – 45%
above 100,001 sales – 50%

Assuming that magically, one morning you wake up to all your contributors reaching the top level in the commission roster, still you would pay the 50% commission **only when a sale is made**, meaning that every time you pay that commission you are also earning the very same amount yourself, so how can this business model be unsustainable? If anything, this model can become unsustainable due to two main reasons:
1) Despite your best sales efforts, the sales minus commission are not sufficient to pay your operational costs and reward your investment (time, money, energy, etc) properly; or,

Our new line of wall decals has been featured at CoolMomPicks, renowned as "the online arbiter of what’s cool for the swingset crowd", according to Parents Magazine. CoolMomPicks is a website by cool moms, for cool moms, according to myself! ;-)

Check their post and have your say.