2. micromoth3 April 2014, 11:58 GMT +02:00

How curious!

It's worth pointing out though that www.freeimages.com is not the same as www.freeimage.com. The former is the reincarnation, the latter is something completely different.Very confusing!

3. xymonau3 April 2014, 16:26 GMT +02:00

I think they just relocated the server.

4. ColinBrough3 April 2014, 18:14 GMT +02:00

@2: Thanks, Kevin, for pointing out that freeimages.com and freeimage.com aren't the same - careless typo on my part.

5. jazza3 April 2014, 20:20 GMT +02:00

They did not relocated the server. Their server is in Calgary, Canada, and this new site is probably exactly the same site, only with a new domainname and one redirect.

6. crisderaud4 April 2014, 4:17 GMT +02:00

Very interesting. They must have been waiting to buy that domain name.

I wonder how this will change Google search results and their Alexa standings.

7. micromoth5 April 2014, 16:19 GMT +02:00

Hmm... I'm almost tempted to buy up www.free_images.com (note the underscore) if it's available and redirect to RGB Stock. :-)

8. lennie7 April 2014, 5:01 GMT +02:00

Try it, but I don't think underscores are allowed in .com domains.

9. wolliballa12 April 2014, 0:24 GMT +02:00

what about free-images.com, looks available these days ;-)

10. jazza15 April 2014, 20:26 GMT +02:00

I am afraid it is taken already since 2002. Not by us unfortunatly :(

11. wolliballa21 April 2014, 23:24 GMT +02:00

@jazza: the domain is just 'parked'. You only have to open the purse. However it would be not cheap ( >10.000 ) I would suspect ;-)

imagesforfree.de
images-for-free.de
free-stock-photo.de

are all available (today).
Should I take them? sxc started under .hu so why not redirect from Germany?

12. wolliballa21 April 2014, 23:33 GMT +02:00

13. jazza22 April 2014, 9:54 GMT +02:00

At the moment our online activities for Germany are on www.rgbstock.de. The German site attract not much users since we quietly started with this German translation. My first concern is to increase the number of German users. Of course we can change the domain name, but I am not sure it would help. What do you think?

14. Ayla8722 April 2014, 10:33 GMT +02:00

I think to attract more users to the German site will require some advertising efforts, which is quite expensive and time consuming. To change (that is: to offer additional ) domain names won't help as long as they aren't heavily promoted anywhere.

The German site with its keyword translation is a great help for those who are not so comfortable with English.

For new users an even more detailed explanation of the "concept of stock photography" might still be helpful to get them comfortably settled and attracted, but that is difficult to achieve, I know.

--Michael

15. gesinek22 April 2014, 11:54 GMT +02:00

What's about the Dutch Version? Is there an increase of new dutch users? And if it works better in Netherlands - what is the difference to the German offer? We german users can make a little bit more advertisement for the site at Facebook e.g.

16. jazza22 April 2014, 13:00 GMT +02:00

This weekend I started a new service: All the new subscribers receive an extra e-mail where we point out to the DE and NL site. (more languages will follow soon) When a user is from the Netherlands, or from Germany, (or Austria) he will receive the message in the correct language i.e. Nenderlands, Deutch.

Gesine, maybe you can have a look to the German e-mail message? I will send you a separate e-mail about it tonight.

The Dutch site is also not visited very good. A little bit better than the German site.
Potentially there are much more German speaking people then Dutch people though.

17. xymonau22 April 2014, 14:27 GMT +02:00

What are the free sites to advertise there? We have "Gumtree" here. I know most people go there to buy and sell, but others browse. Perhaps that would help. Any free newspapers with free ads? Bumper stickers with the address on? Not sure how much they would cost, but home printing might be cheaper. Just a thought.

18. jazza22 April 2014, 18:06 GMT +02:00

I would like to send a German and Dutch newsletter to our German and Dutch users. I will have to check how many of them we can identify in our system.
And we have to be patient; that is important too.

19. wolliballa23 April 2014, 0:48 GMT +02:00

Suggest to add links to rgbstock within relevant wikipedia articels referencing 'Stockphotography', picture libraries etc. I am not too familiar with the specific expressions , but I have done so with the German wikipedia
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockfotografie
Maybe others could assist to do the same in their language wikipedia ?

20. ColinBrough4 August 2014, 16:28 GMT +02:00

Adding this message here, because I know not everyone has any interest in what is happening over at freimages.com (formerly sxc.hu). However, I've still been uploading images there as well as here. None of my images uploaded since early June (change happened between 29th May and 13th June) have had any downloads, and cannot be "found" via keyword search. They are not even browseable via the categories. Am I the only one seeing this, or are others seeing the same behaviour?

21. crisderaud4 August 2014, 17:25 GMT +02:00

This week marks the date when sxc was suddenly taken over by Getty/iStock (5 yrs ago)
Perhaps this is their target for phase out of the site. We can only speculate based on the lack of function and no new images for quite some time.

22. coolhewitt234 August 2014, 18:28 GMT +02:00

I was reading about Getty buying sxc. The sxc website must have been taking away business from Getty/iStock. Does Getty own all the rights to the images on Sxc?

23. ColinBrough4 August 2014, 21:08 GMT +02:00

No, whoever owns freeimages (which is ultimately Getty, though the terms of use at the site still reference HAAP Media Ltd) doesn't own the rights to the images. The terms of use of the website are very similar to those here at RGBstock - "You (the uploader) authorize RGBStock.com to be your non-exclusive agent that licenses Images FOR FREE to third parties based on the terms that can be found in the Image License Agreement alongside the restrictions specified to each image. RGBStock.com agrees not to sell these Images under any circumstances and not to distribute them outside the website..."

If Getty tried to sell on or otherwise distribute or license those images uploaded to sxc.hu/freeimages.com they'd make themselves very vulnerable to both litigation and a PR disaster, so I think its unlikely they'd abuse their access to the images in that way.

24. crisderaud12 August 2014, 16:19 GMT +02:00

Their site seems to be broken at the moment. It won't load for me.

25. gesinek12 August 2014, 17:57 GMT +02:00

Was there for the first time (after they have another name), works again.