iDig iStockphoto.com

I use a fair amount of stock photography in my work and while I've always liked and used the heck out of photos.com which is subscription based (about $500 per year) my fiancee has turned me on to a new stock photo site, that I think is even better. It's called iStockphoto.com and it's much more than a stock photography site, it's a community. Community sites are a dime a dozen, but what sets istockphoto.com apart is that this is a community that produces some amazing original stock photography, illustrations, Flash animations, and video that is not only high-quality but inexpensive. iStockphoto.com runs on a credit system. All the artwork is provided by an extremely active community of artists who get paid for their work directly. Anyone can contribute once they fill out an application and get accepted (your first samples are reviewed by a panel). This is a welcome quality control system, and is working well.

To use the service you buy however many credits you want and then you use them pay for whatever you download. Photos are 1 to 6 credits depending on the size you want. Illustrations (vectors thank you!) are mostly 5 credits. Video is 5 to 20 credits. Flash animations seem to vary a bit, but the ones I've seen are usually 1 credit.

The site itself is very Web 2.0 and to delve into all the cool features would take an awfully long post, but the short list would include:

• User ratings
• Tagging
• A great Lightbox utility
• Forums
• A creative network
• A blogging tool

Not only do I get a lot of use out of the site, but I have often started simply surfing around to check out all the cool stuff available. I can't say I've done that with many other commerce sites.