Here's a nice set of procedures addressing the metadata issues brought up in the forums as of late.

Click here

Over the last couple of weeks, the site has been performing well overall, but Search has not.

We have 48 search servers, and right now they are all maxed-out with queries. We're adding 20 more servers this afternoon, and although this will help, it will not bring the level of service our customers have come to expect.

We've been tweaking the system constantly since the issues started a few weeks ago, and have had some success. But more importantly, we've planned some more thorough back-end architecture changes which will be implemented over the next few weeks. We believe these larger changes will help rectify the issues. We understand that the current situation is certainly not optimal, but we're doing what we can as quickly as we can to make iStock a first-rate experience.

In the mean time, you may have been seeing a new error message, and we'd like to explain it.

Your search failed because our servers were too busy to fulfill your request. This sometimes happens with searches that are very broad or complex and return massive numbers of results. Try narrowing your search to something more specific, or using less 'or' modifiers. If the problem persists, please contact Support.

Normally queries take less than a second to complete on our search servers. If a query takes over 30 seconds, we know something is wrong, and we are set up to kill that query in order to maintain overall site performance. So you'll see that message above if your query times out. Please note that we've always killed these queries, but in the past we would just return zero results. That wasn't optimal either, but now that we're dealing with so many search time-outs, we're providing the more detailed message in order to clarify what's happening.

We are working as hard as we can to get everything running as quickly as possible: it's our top priority. Thank you for your patience during this period. We'll do our best to keep you updated.

You there! Fasten your punctum detector and start scouring through your favourite iStock files. On the double. There’s only two days left in the Punctum Day Awards to vote once for your favorite file in each category: Photo, Vector, Video, Flash and Design.

If you want to see some of the top voted files in the race, check out Top 10 Picks. Polls will stay open until midnight on July 25, MST. In addition to the prestigious honour of winning a Punctum Day Award there is also $40,000 USD in cash and prizes for the victors.
Hop to it!

iStock wants contributors to know that we're listening. We've improved the My Uploads page to include new customizable features and ones that you've told us you've wanted for a while. Some of the changes reflect the types of royalties you can receive based on our new Subscribers who purchase your files. Here's what you'll notice about the new page:

- 'Subscriptions' has been added to the top menu so you can see a detailed breakdown of file stats including Subscription downloads, royalties and you can also control which files are accessible to Subscribers.
- New 'Currently Viewing' tabs at the top where you can select from a drop-down menu the type(s) of files you wish to display and the status of the files (active, pending, rejected etc.).
- The main 'Royalty" column will now show sales from the following: Subscriptions, Pay-as-you-go credits (the classic iStock credits we've always sold), Prints and Extended Licenses.
- 'Last Comment' has returned, thanks to many of your requests

We hope you enjoy these new features of My Uploads.

Best,
iStock team

The Qualifying Contest for our annual Steel Cage tournament is completed and our 32 Battle Royale contenders have been announced. See them all and their work here.

When we set out to find judges for the 2008 Punctum Day Awards who will sift through our collections in search of artistic excellence, our mandate was simple. Find some of the most amazing creative professionals from around the world who are regular customers of iStock and let them choose our finest files worthy of Punctum Day Awards.

We are delighted to introduce you to Warren Cook, Creative Director of Jamison Advertising Group, Sandra Castanha, Creative Director of Ferrier Pearce, and Brad Hochberg principal of The Refinery. Read the bios of the 2008 Punctum Day Awards judges.