I'm afraid the day has come, and remarkably, it didn't happen with their site going offline and vanishing into cyberspace.   The story wasn't broke by the press or a disgruntled employee.  It was blogged, by the Chief Instigator himself.  This evening Bryan Zymjewski announced that Lucky Oliver will be shut down forever on May 15th.   You can read the entire announcment in his Blog Post.

"We spent the last year looking for the funds to grow LuckyOliver because, without the addition of significant capital, the return on investment for LuckyOliver and its contributors would not be satisfactory. After reviewing the options, the investment team decided that it was in the best interest of all stakeholders to shut the company down."

And I just received my first cash out of about Fifty Bucks.  (Whew!).  Bryan did state that those who reached the payout threshold ($25) could request their payments.  I guess I'm making a donation of my April earnings of $2.70.  I'm actually quite surprised they are so ethical and are not attempting to string us along for a few more days at the expense of uncollected earnings.  We don't normally get one month's notice with these agencies!

It's a pity.  I really loved the site, but I wonder if the things I loved about it are the things that pushed serious buyers away.  Lucky Oliver was trendy and fresh and hip.  But could a circus themed agency attract major buyers who are accustomed to the seriousness of Istock and Dreamstime?  To paying in credits and not tokens?

It was a love/hate affair for many of us.  The loyals fiercely defended LuckyOliver like crazed sports fans cheering their team through good seasons and bad.  For the most part, I was one of them, and I will be forever delighted that they chose this photo of my little Jazz Man the winner of one of their early contests.  It never earned any sales though. I guess that said a lot.    The naysayers loudly warned that they would pull their photos if sales didn't pick up.  Most of them did.  But a lot of the Ubersensational shooters stayed there.  Iofoto, Photoshow, Andresr, Yuri Arcurs to name a few. Oh, there will be a lot of "I told you so!"s when the news spreads in the morning.

LuckyOliver was special though.  They strove to keep it personal.  Rejections were helpful, and not just a push of a button.  Groupies hung out in the forum and in a motherly fashion steered conversations to a positive place.  Bryan was everywhere....  

...everywhere, that is - until recently.   He was notably absent.  No new blogs.  No updates.  When Logoboom asked in their forum (6 days ago) where Bryan has gone, he surfaced to respond:

"Hey gang- I've been spending a bit more time with the kiddies and refocusing. I needed to take some time away from the front lines to energize- two years of working through weekends has made me a little stale. Things are still happening, I just haven't been as vocal."

So where does this leave the industry?  I don't get the impression that there will be much of a void left by LuckyOliver's demise.  Can any new microstock agencies really make it in this market?  Will the other young entrants like Albumo, Snapvillage and Zymmetrical fold to the likes of Istock, Shutterstock and the other big players?

Perhaps there will be a last minute investor to save the carnival,  who knows, but it's still likely a good idea to spend your tokens before May 15th.

If you have a moment to leave a comment, please let me know what you plan to do with your LuckyOliver portfolio?  Will you keep it live, or will you immediately delete?