MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => iStockPhoto.com => Topic started by: gwhitton on November 26, 2011, 20:28
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Just happened upon the "Jay is working on our website" screen at IStockphoto.com, and after reading it, and seeing no sign of Istock photo, or a professional "we're down page", I am wondering if they are really undergoing maintenance or if they really have been hacked instead. I can't imagine a site of their magnitude is really run by just one guy...and I would think they'd have put a little more thought into a maintenance page...like making it at least half look like the original site.
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They announced during the week that they were going to be down for several hours starting 4pm MST.
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They are really down for maintenance. They announced it on the forums on Thursday.
LOL! Sue!
But you are right about the design of the maintenance page. I didn´t understand why they didn´t use the regular design with a normal "We´re down " notice.
But at least they have several languages and offer a discount for customers. So they got that right.
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anybody knows a company that have done this before? (and of course I am not talking about a peanuts store)
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anybody knows a company that have done this before? (and of course I am not talking about a peanuts store)
Hmm, well, iStock's done it several times in the past, when the bugs get too many to deal with 'in the background'.
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Finally RIP
God take them in advance when they are in light tunel.
PLS take them and wish they will newer bee back.
PLssssssssssssssssssss
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Uh...They're going to fix in a "few" hours what they haven't been able to fix in two+ years?...Right.
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the apple online store goes down several times a year when they upgrade the system with new products or just before a significant new announcements.
It´s Saturday night, were not really losing serious money.
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the apple online store goes down several times a year when they upgrade the system with new products or just before a significant new announcements.
It´s Saturday night, were not really losing serious money.
if we accepted 15% why not a few hours offline, I am not losing money for sure
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Just happened upon the "Jay is working on our website" screen at IStockphoto.com, and after reading it, and seeing no sign of Istock photo, or a professional "we're down page", I am wondering if they are really undergoing maintenance or if they really have been hacked instead. I can't imagine a site of their magnitude is really run by just one guy...and I would think they'd have put a little more thought into a maintenance page...like making it at least half look like the original site.
It's the kind of cutesy thing that might have been appropriate a few years ago, but doesn't really fly for a $200+ million a year business these days.
And, no, I've never gone to eBay or Amazon to see them down for 4+ hours. And since this is "regular" maintenance, it won't likely fix any of the known issues.
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I dont belive in god but take them in advance ;D
gggg
Shean let's leave the sinking ship on time
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Not even Istock's logo on the page. Only touching story about little Jay working hard.
I cannot imagine that they are so unprofessional. Maybe they have smart plans like to make as many loses as possible to be sell for nothing and leave Getty's family.
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I'm amazed that they wouldn't even put the iStock logo on this page. Yet another example of poor iStock communications. My knee-jerk reaction was also that they'd been hacked. Thank goodness I'm one of the 1% of the people who actually reads the forums. I can't imagine what the other 99% must be thinking. What a joke.
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I'm amazed that they wouldn't even put the iStock logo on this page. Yet another example of poor iStock communications. My knee-jerk reaction was also that they'd been hacked. Thank goodness I'm one of the 1% of the people who actually reads the forums. I can't imagine what the other 99% must be thinking. What a joke.
I'm perversely sorry I missed the page. Bizarre that in these times they would tell a cutesy tale as described; even stranger that they would omit the logo.
It sounds as if whoever is in charge of the site's presentation is a sandwich short of a picnic, or they don't even have such a position, or the person in that position lacks control.
Which is possible. Back in the day, when PHP was young (clears throat), I was in charge of a newspaper group's content aggregation site and it was a hell of a fight to assert my right as editor to give the okay to every last message that went up on the site. None of the new-wave techies, designers and business managers had ever worked in traditional media, so they seemed to think it was perfectly fine to slap on the front page whatever they thought was necessary at the time.
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It's fairly early here in the UK on a Sunday morning, (06.38), and I just checked the D/L page. Still displaying my last downloads were 31/10 (like last week) but the total revenue amount is 'up to date' still (or maybe I should say I think is the right total). Without D/L data it's not possible to say. The "Jay" message has gone so I can only assume the maintenance is finished but the problem reported last week (and maybe others) still persist.
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They avoided disturbing the bug-eyed download monster...
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Or just paving the way for some new idiot news after the hollidays. People are getting paranoid and who can blame them.
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I still can't see any downloads since 1/11/2011. You would think that with lower traffic and less sales transactions, the site would be easier to run. Total incompetence again. How long can they carry on like this? I don't mind if they fix problems in a few days but this is over a week now.
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So, we pay for their maintenance with a 10% discount.
They took less time than pre-announced to do the site maintenance, but although it was in the evening/night during a holiday weekend in their biggest market, they didn't think to use the extra announced downtime to fix some of the bugs which they themselves somehow introduced?
Does SS have anything like as many bugs? How much downtime do they have?
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Does SS have anything like as many bugs? How much downtime do they have?
Not a single one in 2 years since I'm there. The only bug was that files didn't show up in your port and sometimes in search for a day or 2. A tiny inconvenience compared to IS's constant bugs.
They still haven't fixed the last DL bug. I can't understand, for the life of me, how they can be so incompetent ???
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I believe they did something to the last DL bug, it did show the correct page sometimes, after one or more reloads, now it doesn't. ::)
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I believe they did something to the last DL bug, it did show the correct page sometimes, after one or more reloads, now it doesn't. ::)
Yes, from bad to worse:). Besides, I can't even see pending files anymore. I really hope the site completely fails and the traffic is transferred to IS and sites that pay 50% royalties and have normal, not absurdly low prices
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It always annoyed me when they have some downtime and offer discounts because of it and it comes out of our percentage too.
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It always annoyed me when they have some downtime and offer discounts because of it and it comes out of our percentage too.
Yup.
Why do we have to pay for their incompetence?
(I'm not pointing fingers at exactly who is incompetent, as there are a few possibilities, not necessarily the code-monkeys.)
^^^^^^^^^ NB that term is not intended as derogatory. When I ran my school's website, I always said, "I'm only the code monkey, I'm not going to write the content, other than my own department's")
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Well, IS just locked the Site Maintenance thread, so I'm guessing that TPTB consider it complete and a success.
- Time for the peons to bugger off! - Nothing to see here. If you want to congratulate IS, you'll have to to the Fall/Winter WooYay thread!
Obviously, this must be foreshadowing for some very grim news and situations at IS.
Also, I think the moderators are caught by the short hairs, so you cannot expect ANYTHING from them.
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Also, I think the moderators are caught by the short hairs, so you cannot expect ANYTHING from them.
They're only forum moderators, they're not officially go-betweens, so you're right.
I'd imagine that Kelvin and Pink must be as frustrated as we as wearing their contributor hats.
Lobo doesn't have a contributor hat, so probably doesn't care. (Though if it were me, I'd be embarrassed to be a public face of such a company.)
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So, to get things straight:
- They have had a maintenance that was not announced in time
- They failed to properly communicate this downtime to its contributors (just a forum post, no e-mails)
- They put up a "Jay is working on it" page instead of a professional looking "Maintenance" page
- They offered a 10% discount out of our pockets to compensate for their clients
- They still haven't fixed ANY of the important bugs we currently encounter
- They fail to give contributors an ETA for their missing royalties payment
Seriously. One would expect more from a big multi-million dollar company like this. Why are these amateurs still in business?
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Wooyay! Ooops, sorry wrong thread.
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Also, I think the moderators are caught by the short hairs, so you cannot expect ANYTHING from them.
They're only forum moderators, they're not officially go-betweens, so you're right.
I'd imagine that Kelvin and Pink must be as frustrated as we as weating their contributor hat.
Lobo doesn't have a contributor hat, so probably doesn't care. (Though if it were me, I'd be embarrassed to be a public face of such a company.)
Agreed :)
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Wooyay! Ooops, sorry wrong thread.
:D :D :D
Brilliant comic timing there!
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So, to get things straight:
- They have had a maintenance that was not announced in time
- They failed to properly communicate this downtime to its contributors (just a forum post, no e-mails)
- They put up a "Jay is working on it" page instead of a professional looking "Maintenance" page
- They offered a 10% discount out of our pockets to compensate for their clients
- They still haven't fixed ANY of the important bugs we currently encounter
- They fail to give contributors an ETA for their missing royalties payment
Seriously. One would expect more from a big multi-million dollar company like this. Why are these amateurs still in business?
Oh, plus some things that were working before maintenance are now broken. So far I've noticed:
- the balance is jumping back and forward between yesterday's and today's total (noted on forum)
- if you only select e.g. 'photos' it doesn't stick on a new search (that worked before)
- if you select a sort by, e.g. 'age', it doesn't stick on a new search (that worked before)
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So, to get things straight:
- They have had a maintenance that was not announced in time
- They failed to properly communicate this downtime to its contributors (just a forum post, no e-mails)
- They put up a "Jay is working on it" page instead of a professional looking "Maintenance" page
- They offered a 10% discount out of our pockets to compensate for their clients
- They still haven't fixed ANY of the important bugs we currently encounter
- They fail to give contributors an ETA for their missing royalties payment
Seriously. One would expect more from a big multi-million dollar company like this. Why are these amateurs still in business?
Oh, plus some things that were working before maintenance are now broken. So far I've noticed:
- the balance is jumping back and forward between yesterday's and today's total (noted on forum)
- if you only select e.g. 'photos' it doesn't stick on a new search (that worked before)
- if you select a sort by, e.g. 'age', it doesn't stick on a new search (that worked before)
Sitemail is apparently wonky for some too.
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Why are these amateurs still in business?
Is this a rhetorical question? (ask Jay! 8))
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Sitemail is apparently wonky for some too.
I couldn't possibly say.
;)
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So, to get things straight:
- They have had a maintenance that was not announced in time
- They failed to properly communicate this downtime to its contributors (just a forum post, no e-mails)
- They put up a "Jay is working on it" page instead of a professional looking "Maintenance" page
- They offered a 10% discount out of our pockets to compensate for their clients
- They still haven't fixed ANY of the important bugs we currently encounter
- They fail to give contributors an ETA for their missing royalties payment
Seriously. One would expect more from a big multi-million dollar company like this. Why are these amateurs still in business?
Thanks for that excellent summary. I was trying to explain what's been going on at IS to my husband, who wondered what all my groaning was about, and your post came in very handy in summing it up :)
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Thanks for that excellent summary. I was trying to explain what's been going on at IS to my husband, who wondered what all my groaning was about, and your post came in very handy in summing it up :)
iStock has jumped the shark (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark) from my husband's point of view. Short of them staging an alien invasion, massive explosion or revealing they're all really zombies, he really doesn't want to listen any more, even to a well crafted summary
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" Short of them staging an alien invasion, massive explosion or revealing they're all really zombies"
...just give them enough time...istock can do anything... ;)
They certainly have "DRAMA" baked into the company DNA.
But when we always ended the year in growth it was more fun.
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But when we always ended the year in growth it was more fun.
Oh, I'm having fun wondering whether I'll earn more this year than last. Barring a supadupa EL it's going to go right to the line.
Maybe I'd make more money by laying a bet somewhere ... [OJ]
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I can picture the November sales tread now - everyone will be posting that they have no idea what their November sales are because the but still isn't fixed and the numbers are jumping all over the place and they haven't received their e-mail telling them what the adjusted amounts are for the timeframe with the lower commission rate.
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I can picture the November sales tread now - everyone will be posting that they have no idea what their November sales are because the but still isn't fixed and the numbers are jumping all over the place and they haven't received their e-mail telling them what the adjusted amounts are for the timeframe with the lower commission rate.
Oh God. I hadn't thought of that. You're absolutely right!
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I can picture the November sales tread now - everyone will be posting that they have no idea what their November sales are because the but still isn't fixed and the numbers are jumping all over the place and they haven't received their e-mail telling them what the adjusted amounts are for the timeframe with the lower commission rate.
the people who do that will be banned for not staying "on topic"
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I can picture the November sales tread now - everyone will be posting that they have no idea what their November sales are because the but still isn't fixed and the numbers are jumping all over the place and they haven't received their e-mail telling them what the adjusted amounts are for the timeframe with the lower commission rate.
Oh God. I hadn't thought of that. You're absolutely right!
Next think you know the "numbers climbing" will turn out to be a bug. And when you thought you really had $5k coming to you this month its actually $500. LOL!
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They certainly have "DRAMA" baked into the company DNA.
lol, this is quite true...well put
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..
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We assume our sales and earnings numbers at other microstock sites are correct, simply because they're stable. But we have no way to actually verify any of these numbers. Nor could an independent auditor do so, even if he were allowed to walk around freely in the offices and look at any files he chose. Only the IT people could meaningfully 'verify' these numbers, and if asked to do so, they'd simply re-run the database code and queries that drive the site, and point to the output. But is it 'correct'? Or does that code contain a couple of subtle, undetected bugs that have had the effect of losing track of a significant percentage of downloads, and underpaying commisions, for the last 4 years?
In a business that sells physical products, there are invoices, receipts, delivery and shipping records. I can demonstrate that I gave a retailer 100 widgets to sell, and only 20 can be found in inventory, therefor I'm owed commission on 80 unless the retailer can document some explanation for their disappearance other than sales.
A microstock agency is really just a set of programs running on a set of computers... and so is a bank, in today's world; but systems procedures have been developed to independently audit a bank's transaction history.
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We assume our sales and earnings numbers at other microstock sites are correct, simply because they're stable. But we have no way to actually verify any of these numbers. Nor could an independent auditor do so, even if he were allowed to walk around freely in the offices and look at any files he chose. Only the IT people could meaningfully 'verify' these numbers, and if asked to do so, they'd simply re-run the database code and queries that drive the site, and point to the output. But is it 'correct'? Or does that code contain a couple of subtle, undetected bugs that have had the effect of losing track of a significant percentage of downloads, and underpaying commisions, for the last 4 years?
Why specifically '4 years' out of interest? What happened in 2007 to arouse your suspicions? Was everything rosy before then?
Anyway we do have the power to audit, at least to some degree. We can arrange an 'MSG Auditing Commission' from which a group of like-minded souls contribute to a fund which buys credit packages from the various agencies and buys images from said members' portfolios, reporting sale price and commission received amongst each other. I've been thinking of suggesting such an organisation for some time.
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... ;)
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Gotswyck!
If this was my sole agent, put my trust and faith in, I would have been long gone or as Stan-Kanney, used to say: if they cant produce, f##k em.
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Anyway we do have the power to audit, at least to some degree. We can arrange an 'MSG Auditing Commission' from which a group of like-minded souls contribute to a fund which buys credit packages from the various agencies and buys images from said members' portfolios, reporting sale price and commission received amongst each other. I've been thinking of suggesting such an organisation for some time.
Most photographers I know do a mix of assignment work and stock, i.e. they'll shoot something specific for a client but the client has to buy it via istock (because we are exclusive). With thousands of images being sold this way every year, I think we would notice pretty fast, if these sales were not recorded.
I am sure many independents do the same.
Or you just direct customers to your portfolio because they want to buy your images.
So personally I have never seen a sale not recorded, if I sent someone a link to an image or to my lightbox.
You could of course come up with an independent auditing agency, but for me this real life solution works well.
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The copy cats are my biggest concern. I have lost thousands of dollars because of them. I sincerly wish that istock follows the Getty example one day and removes them from the site.
Or at least gives me a "privacy" option to protect my work. This includes hiding total donload numbers on my artist page.
At least give me the choice.
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......, i.e. they'll shoot something specific for a client but the client has to buy it via istock (because we are exclusive). With thousands of images being sold this way every year, I think we would notice pretty fast, if these sales were not recorded.
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This seems really odd to me. If you have an established relationship why not sell the images direct to the client and cut out IStock's percentage, even if you sell the image for Micro prices, which I personally wouldn't if I was shooting on assignment. I mean IStock hasn't got those buyers for you so why pay them a huge commission??
There's nothing in the exclusivity agreement stopping you shooting assignments right?
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Most photographers I know do a mix of assignment work and stock, i.e. they'll shoot something specific for a client but the client has to buy it via istock (because we are exclusive).
Of course you don't have to do assignment work and make the client buy via istock:
From the exclusive ASA:
"2 Provision of Exclusive Content
a In this Agreement, "Exclusive Content" means, as applicable to Supplier, one or more of (i) Photo Content, (ii) Illustration Content, (iii) Flash Content or (ii) Motion Content (collectively, “Content”); together in any case with other information, documents (such as model or property releases) or software relating to same, as the case may be or otherwise required to enable iStockphoto to realize the commercial potential of the rights granted in the Content ("Descriptive Information"); but shall not include (1) Content that is produced as "work for hire" within the meaning of United States federal copyright legislation or is otherwise the result of a specific commission by a bona fide client of the Supplier evidenced by written agreement where the Content deliverable from such commission is for the personal use of the client and not for resale or license to any other person or entity, except to the extent Supplier retains in such Content any royalty free rights of the type outlined in the Content License Agreement"
Why on earth should iStock get a penny (cent) from any money you've generated yourself.
(Of course, if you know that the work could earn more on iStock, and if, for some reason, you client is OK with it, I guess it might make sense. I'm guessing you make them sign off on being happy that a rival could (theoretically) use the images.
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.......
(Of course, if you know that the work could earn more on iStock, and if, for some reason, you client is OK with it, I guess it might make sense. I'm guessing you make them sign off on being happy that a rival could (theoretically) use the images.
I still wouldn't understand why the original client would have to buy via IStock. I just make it clear that they can have image non-exclusively and I will be free to resell it on stock sites.
Get the money then put the photo up for sale to other buyers.
Still makes no sense to have that first client give IStock a load of cash for your work.
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Sorry, quoted instead of modified.
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you can shoot assignment work, but many don't want to bother themselves with running after the money. Usually these are arrangements done similar to TFP deals with models. You'll agree to shoot a restaurant, the chef and bring a few models as guest, but the restaurant owner then has to buy whatever he likes from istock.
Instead of sending everyone from the shoot a personal cd with pictures as payment for the location, they don't get it fully for free, but have to buy from istock.
Some photographers also take a reduced fee and mix a normal assignment job including for instance the high quality wine with all the labels and the stock shooting, which the client has to get from istock.
Basically you are scouting for free locations, free models, real people at their work place and this solution works well in many cases.
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you can shoot assignment work, but many don't want to bother themselves with running after the money. Usually these are arrangements done similar to TFP deals with models. You'll agree to shoot a restaurant, the chef and bring a few models as guest, but the restaurant owner then has to buy whatever he likes from istock.
Instead of sending everyone from the shoot a personal cd with pictures as payment for the location, they don't get it fully for free, but have to buy from istock.
Some photographers also take a reduced fee and mix a normal assignment job including for instance the high quality wine with all the labels and the stock shooting, which the client has to get from istock.
Basically you are scouting for free locations, free models, real people at their work place and this solution works well in many cases.
Some initial sales would help in best match too
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.......
(Of course, if you know that the work could earn more on iStock, and if, for some reason, you client is OK with it, I guess it might make sense. I'm guessing you make them sign off on being happy that a rival could (theoretically) use the images.
I still wouldn't understand why the original client would have to buy via IStock.
They wouldn't.
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Okay that all makes a bit more sense now!
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Most photographers I know do a mix of assignment work and stock, i.e. they'll shoot something specific for a client but the client has to buy it via istock (because we are exclusive).
If you're shooting something specific for a client why would you then get them to buy it via iStock?
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.......
(Of course, if you know that the work could earn more on iStock, and if, for some reason, you client is OK with it, I guess it might make sense. I'm guessing you make them sign off on being happy that a rival could (theoretically) use the images.
I still wouldn't understand why the original client would have to buy via IStock.
They wouldn't.
Indeed. I'd come to agreement that they can buy it directly for half price, that way I'd be getting triple the money and they'd pay half as much. Everyone would be satisfied. Even if you are an 40% exclusive, you do get 25% more (well at least ;D )
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Most photographers I know do a mix of assignment work and stock, i.e. they'll shoot something specific for a client but the client has to buy it via istock (because we are exclusive).
You certainly don't need to do this, and probably shouldn't, if the client is at all interested in others using their specific images.
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.......
(Of course, if you know that the work could earn more on iStock, and if, for some reason, you client is OK with it, I guess it might make sense. I'm guessing you make them sign off on being happy that a rival could (theoretically) use the images.
I still wouldn't understand why the original client would have to buy via IStock.
They wouldn't.
Indeed. I'd come to agreement that they can buy it directly for half price, that way I'd be getting triple the money and they'd pay half as much. Everyone would be satisfied. Even if you are an 40% exclusive, you do get 25% more (well at least ;D )
I suppose if you guessed that the image could garner loads of sales on istock, it could be worth it to come to that arrangement. I'm astonished people agree to images of their location/staff potentially being used by local rivals, but there you go.
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Are they still down for maintenance ... or, still hacked?
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Are they still down for maintenance ... or, still hacked?
They seem to be up for me at this moment, but there were short lasting error screens earlier.
New bugs since the maintenance are being reported on the bugs thread.
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Are they still down for maintenance ... or, still hacked?
They seem to be up for me at this moment, but there were short lasting error screens earlier.
New bugs since the maintenance are being reported on the bugs thread.
I try to stay away from their forums -- I'm already banned from DT. ::)
Noticed that DeepMeta updates are current for recently viewed images (Fetch Statistics). It was messed up Last Week. Balance seems current. But ... sorting on "downloads" is still screwed up. Latest DL is 10/31. That ain't right!!
Was wondering if it is the same for others?
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Balance seems current. But ... sorting on "downloads" is still screwed up. Latest DL is 10/31. That ain't right!!
Was wondering if it is the same for others?
Yes, according the the forums, and my own experience.
Oh, site seems iffy again. I'm having to refresh 1 - 3 times whenever I move to a new forum page.
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"Last DL" still not showing recent sales.
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Are they still down for maintenance ... or, still hacked?
Honestly how can we know? Some of the bugs are super obvious, but others, like the latest downloads, aren't. I'm guessing that the latter is still messed up, since my last reported download was on the 1st of November, but it's impossible to tell what's correct and what isn't from our point of view other than looking at unusual patterns. Are the downloads off but the $ at the bottom correct? Vice versa? It's ridiculous. I mean, if this end of the site is so freaking buggy, inconsistent and unreliable, we're just supposed to trust that the backend that keeps track of sales isn't? There are bugs on the site that have been there for months (probably years). I guess that's why they need the bulk of the contributors' earnings - since their techs take 10x longer to fix bugs than anyone else and they need their pay for a job well done. *head explodes
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Makes you wonder what it is like for the "buyers?"
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Makes you wonder what it is like for the "buyers?"
At the moment in the Help forum, there's a post from Onion, saying he can't search using FF.
As it happens, because of the current bugfulness, I could post on the forums, so I replied saying that the site was dropping on and off all day, but only for a few seconds at the time, try another search.
I see there's an invisible post from Kelvin and my post has been cut - and I got yet another email telling me my forum privileges have been revoked and telling me to contact CR (I did, but they won't reply).
But oddly, Kelvin didn't bother to add his own reply to Onion's question.
I have no idea whether Onion is a buyer as well as a contributor, but it seems odd not to allow an answer to stay - maybe another buyer had the same question/issue.
Well, they sure don't want me, but they don't seem to want customers either.
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...my post has been cut - and I got yet another email telling me my forum privileges have been revoked and telling me to contact CR (I did, but they won't reply).
This is getting hilarious. I quit submitting to IS long ago; their value to me now is entertainment.
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Yeah, but this one isn't so funny.
Basically the OP was:
My last download do not function and I´m aware that it is a topic already...I tried to refresh data about five times as suggested and ended up in somebody elses account....I did log out immidiately but if I can do so....somebody else can go into my account too or???
To which another contributer replied:
A few weeks back it happened to me too, I ended up in someone elses account. I reported it to contributor relations and here in the help topic. After reporting it and waiting a week for a reply they replied that I should clear my cache. I didn't think this was a serious reply for a very serious problem.
And after another few posts reporting the same thing, Kelvin locked the thread, telling the OP to 'Contact CR'.
A total nightmare, - security breach.
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=337527&page=1 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=337527&page=1)
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Most photographers I know do a mix of assignment work and stock, i.e. they'll shoot something specific for a client but the client has to buy it via istock (because we are exclusive).
If you're shooting something specific for a client why would you then get them to buy it via iStock?
add me to the list of people asking why would you do this? why insert a middleman when you have a direct connection with a client? any assignment work I do, I do directly. I'm not interested in promoting iStock at the expense of my business. similarly, I don't upload anything to iStock that I've shot on assignment. why would clients pay for custom work that everyone else could then purchase? there's nothing in the exclusive ASA that requires you to do this.
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Yeah, but this one isn't so funny.
Basically the OP was:
My last download do not function and I´m aware that it is a topic already...I tried to refresh data about five times as suggested and ended up in somebody elses account....I did log out immidiately but if I can do so....somebody else can go into my account too or???
To which another contributer replied:
A few weeks back it happened to me too, I ended up in someone elses account. I reported it to contributor relations and here in the help topic. After reporting it and waiting a week for a reply they replied that I should clear my cache. I didn't think this was a serious reply for a very serious problem.
And after another few posts reporting the same thing, Kelvin locked the thread, telling the OP to 'Contact CR'.
A total nightmare, - security breach.
[url]http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=337527&page=1[/url] ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=337527&page=1[/url])
I am the smallest of fish, and the few sales I still get at IS (they really slowed down after the recent TS ultimatum) mean little to me. But someone else stealing my images would mean a lot. So you're just adding to the list of reasons why I should close the account. Maybe that should be a New Year's resolution - to drop IS and add 2 small, newer sites in its place.
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Just 2 cents. When I followed a link to iStock yesterday, I got on the "hacked" Jay page too. Everybody seems to assume this was bad taste and unprofessional but I never saw somebody mentioning that iStock - for a while - has really been hacked. Suppose for a moment I was Jay, I would just let them know they had some serious security issues and that I would love to help them out, for a decent fee, of course proportional to their loss of business during the hack. IS would never admit they've really been hacked, not to wake up sleeping dogs.
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Aside from all the other issues I am a bit concerned about my 20+ editorial images that are now showing on both Photos.com and Thinkstock. None of them mention that they are for editorial use only. We seem to have gone from a "connector" that wasn't working to one that's being a tad over keen to push images across. I'll be interested to see if I get paid if any images (that shouldn't be there) get downloaded. Regards, David.
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I'm astonished people agree to images of their location/staff potentially being used by local rivals, but there you go.
Absolutely right. I believe I have an ethical obligation to explain this to business owners. Once I have explained it to them, I have yet to have a single business owner or professional who is willing to be photographed doing their actual job. I am skeptical that many of them would.
What works for me is to bring my own models, then have the business owner give technical advice, help with the posing and presentation, so that it authentic. Then they can use the pictures, and I can upload them as stock without their having to worry about competitors using them, or worse yet, having them misrepresented or seen to endorse something they don't endorse.
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Im sure the place is hacked! not even a bunch of morons could screw up something like this. I have now lost complete interest in this place and its just a pain in the ass and a total insult against contributors, buyers, the whole industry in fact.
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Im sure the place is hacked! not even a bunch of morons could screw up something like this. I have now lost complete interest in this place and its just a pain in the ass and a total insult against contributors, buyers, the whole industry in fact.
It is weird - I got an email this afternoon from the administration team stating my forum privileges have been locked - I have not posted a message on the istock forum for over three weeks! I checked and I can still post messages (potentially). Something is definitely not right, maybe their in meltdown. Happy days.
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Im sure the place is hacked! not even a bunch of morons could screw up something like this. I have now lost complete interest in this place and its just a pain in the ass and a total insult against contributors, buyers, the whole industry in fact.
It is weird - I got an email this afternoon from the administration team stating my forum privileges have been locked - I have not posted a message on the istock forum for over three weeks! I checked and I can still post messages (potentially). Something is definitely not right, maybe their in meltdown. Happy days.
Yep, thats it! the place has finally come to an end, meltdown, whatever. Too much of a coincidence its happening right now, isnt it?
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Im sure the place is hacked! not even a bunch of morons could screw up something like this. I have now lost complete interest in this place and its just a pain in the ass and a total insult against contributors, buyers, the whole industry in fact.
It is weird - I got an email this afternoon from the administration team stating my forum privileges have been locked - I have not posted a message on the istock forum for over three weeks! I checked and I can still post messages (potentially). Something is definitely not right, maybe their in meltdown. Happy days.
It'll likely take place at the next update. But why you'd be banned when you haven't posted for three weeks is a mystery.
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Im sure the place is hacked! not even a bunch of morons could screw up something like this. I have now lost complete interest in this place and its just a pain in the ass and a total insult against contributors, buyers, the whole industry in fact.
It is weird - I got an email this afternoon from the administration team stating my forum privileges have been locked - I have not posted a message on the istock forum for over three weeks! I checked and I can still post messages (potentially). Something is definitely not right, maybe their in meltdown. Happy days.
It'll likely take place at the next update. But why you'd be banned when you haven't posted for three weeks is a mystery.
Lobo finds me an intellectual challenge - he can't handle it. Either that or he's still smarting at my comment, "Every morning Lobo goes to work, a village somewhere misses their idiot".
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Im sure the place is hacked! not even a bunch of morons could screw up something like this. I have now lost complete interest in this place and its just a pain in the ass and a total insult against contributors, buyers, the whole industry in fact.
It is weird - I got an email this afternoon from the administration team stating my forum privileges have been locked - I have not posted a message on the istock forum for over three weeks! I checked and I can still post messages (potentially). Something is definitely not right, maybe their in meltdown. Happy days.
It'll likely take place at the next update. But why you'd be banned when you haven't posted for three weeks is a mystery.
Lobo finds me an intellectual challenge - he can't handle it. Either that or he's still smarting at my comment, "Every morning Lobo goes to work, a village somewhere misses their idiot".
maybe they are now banning people for stuff they post in offline places like here. ;)
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Im sure the place is hacked! not even a bunch of morons could screw up something like this. I have now lost complete interest in this place and its just a pain in the ass and a total insult against contributors, buyers, the whole industry in fact.
It is weird - I got an email this afternoon from the administration team stating my forum privileges have been locked - I have not posted a message on the istock forum for over three weeks! I checked and I can still post messages (potentially). Something is definitely not right, maybe their in meltdown. Happy days.
It'll likely take place at the next update. But why you'd be banned when you haven't posted for three weeks is a mystery.
Lobo finds me an intellectual challenge - he can't handle it. Either that or he's still smarting at my comment, "Every morning Lobo goes to work, a village somewhere misses their idiot".
you're flattering yourself. what exactly qualifies you as the expert you seem to have become around here? ::)
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"I'm astonished people agree to images of their location/staff potentially being used by local rivals, but there you go.
Absolutely right. I believe I have an ethical obligation to explain this to business owners. Once I have explained it to them, I have yet to have a single business owner or professional who is willing to be photographed doing their actual job. I am skeptical that many of them would."
The ones I know, don´t care. Why would a local competitor advertise with their team? And if someone from overseas uses it, it doesn´t affect their business. I always explain in detail what stock is and that we cannot control who buys the file. Local baker, vet, restaurant, car repair, school teacher..only the generic images would probably be bought by any competition and if it is generic it won´t affect them.
I´ve seen a lot of photographers do these "real people working in real environments" shots.
But back to the thread, sorry for the diversion.
I agree you have to explain stock carefully, but that is the same as working with any model.
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The ones I know, don´t care. Why would a local competitor advertise with their team? And if someone from overseas uses it, it doesn´t affect their business. I always explain in detail what stock is and that we cannot control who buys the file. Local baker, vet, restaurant, car repair, school teacher..only the generic images would probably be bought by any competition and if it is generic it won´t affect them.
I´ve seen a lot of photographers do these "real people working in real environments" shots.
You think they don't care, until it happens. I did a favor for a friend and did a series of him doing his trade job for their website, and he signed a release. They were good with the whole stock thing. Series goes up, a couple images get sales, and wallah - they show up on a competitors website here in town. She paid me cash in return for taking them down.
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So you always bring in your own models to a location? (Apologies if this is a VERY stupid question...)
I´ll keep that in mind. So everyone I know who does this has been lucky? I know people who specialize in exactly that, have been doing it for years.
ETA: I am wondering if it is because of different laws on advertising, that people might be less concerned about this in Germany. Even if I buy a picture of my competitor with a RF license, I am pretty sure that would still not allow me to advertise with his face. It is also not possible to do comparative advertising (my steak costs 5 dollars, at restaurant x it costs 7). As a business manager "never allude to your competitor in advertising" gets drummed into you. I am sure if I even used my competitors shadow on a flyer and he could somehow prove it was him, even if I got the shadow from a RF file he volunteered in, I´d pay a huge fine in court. Still, if it does happen, it is a problem I agree.
As you know I usually prefer inanimate objects, but I am still well connected in the local business community and have brought a lot of photographers looking for contacts with "real people" in touch with local business.
Anyway, off topic.
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The ones I know, don´t care. Why would a local competitor advertise with their team? And if someone from overseas uses it, it doesn´t affect their business. I always explain in detail what stock is and that we cannot control who buys the file. Local baker, vet, restaurant, car repair, school teacher..only the generic images would probably be bought by any competition and if it is generic it won´t affect them.
I´ve seen a lot of photographers do these "real people working in real environments" shots.
You think they don't care, until it happens. I did a favor for a friend and did a series of him doing his trade job for their website, and he signed a release. They were good with the whole stock thing. Series goes up, a couple images get sales, and wallah - they show up on a competitors website here in town. She paid me cash in return for taking them down.
^^^ Great story! I'd have thought they could have used it to their own advantage though. It could make their competitor look pretty stupid. Also, paying you cash to take the images down strikes me as 'bolting the stable door' a bit too late. The images were already out there and in use.
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The ones I know, don´t care. Why would a local competitor advertise with their team? And if someone from overseas uses it, it doesn´t affect their business. I always explain in detail what stock is and that we cannot control who buys the file. Local baker, vet, restaurant, car repair, school teacher..only the generic images would probably be bought by any competition and if it is generic it won´t affect them.
I´ve seen a lot of photographers do these "real people working in real environments" shots.
You think they don't care, until it happens. I did a favor for a friend and did a series of him doing his trade job for their website, and he signed a release. They were good with the whole stock thing. Series goes up, a couple images get sales, and wallah - they show up on a competitors website here in town. She paid me cash in return for taking them down.
I've all but stopped using people I know as models, mostly because I've read comments like this about situations other photographers have had. I haven't taken stock photos of real people in their real job setting though. there are too many potential layers of conflict. I'm always worried about something happening.
the problem is that you then have to build convincing sets for real job stock photos.....your sets are so realistic Sean, but I know you put a lot of resources into them sometimes. I'm thinking specifically of your pharmacy shots. they are so realistic. for someone like me, mid-range, it's always a question of cost:benefit....without being able to guarantee the series will sell, it's such a gamble to set up expensive shoots.
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So you always bring in your own models to a location? (Apologies if this is a VERY stupid question...)
Definitely.
BTW, I got called out on my "a couple images get sales, and wallah - they show up" spelling - not to worry. That's how we spell it on another board to make fun of people who can't spell it and continuously spell it wrong, and I forget the world isn't in on that joke. So, voila!
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So, voila!
voilà :P (so amature amateur!)
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with all of these errors and bugs lately, downloads basically stopped, it is really shaking my confidence. Also, when they did the reset RCs to 0 and brought em back, I think I was a few hundred lower than I was before. Can't prove it (my own fault) of course I posted in the bug thread and like every other time I post a question in the help thread, it gets ignored......
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So you always bring in your own models to a location? (Apologies if this is a VERY stupid question...)
Definitely.
BTW, I got called out on my "a couple images get sales, and wallah - they show up" spelling - not to worry. That's how we spell it on another board to make fun of people who can't spell it and continuously spell it wrong, and I forget the world isn't in on that joke. So, voila!
It does make sense. I´ll recommend this solution from now on. Maybe you have now saved a photographer and a business in Germany, who knows ;-)
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...my post has been cut - and I got yet another email telling me my forum privileges have been revoked and telling me to contact CR (I did, but they won't reply).
This is getting hilarious. I quit submitting to IS long ago; their value to me now is entertainment.
I have gotten two message this month that my forum privileges have been re-revoked. They think I still care? LOL. I think I'm going to close my account there.
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... BTW, I got called out on my "a couple images get sales, and wallah - they show up" spelling - not to worry. That's how we spell it on another board to make fun of people who can't spell it and continuously spell it wrong, and I forget the world isn't in on that joke. So, voila!
I'm so glad you explained. I hadn't pegged you as someone who said "prolly" "wallah" and "nuculer". My world is back in an orderly orbit again :)
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Way up in the hierarki, rumours has it that the place is finally coming to an end. How about that? Not that I care, I have already taken down my most commercial stuff. Can you imagine being an exclusive and on top of that being totally dependant on this as your sole income, for survival, etc. I mean even if they were selling in droves, just the management of it all is so unstable and shakey, its a nightmare.
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Way up in the hierarki, rumours has it that the place is finally coming to an end. How about that? Not that I care, I have already taken down my most commercial stuff. Can you imagine being an exclusive and on top of that being totally dependant on this as your sole income, for survival, etc.
Yes, I can imagine that. I am.
Does your rumour explain the reasoning behind destroying what is or was until recently the world's most widely recognised brand in stock photography? It sounds insane.
By the way, I was at a party of South African media people at the weekend, mostly editorial types from magazines. Mentioning price, nothing else, they said they'd shifted most of their stock buying from IS to SS, with the occasional splurge on Getty and Corbis. No mention of Thinkstock at all. I'm really starting to get scared now.
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Way up in the hierarki, rumours has it that the place is finally coming to an end. How about that? Not that I care, I have already taken down my most commercial stuff. Can you imagine being an exclusive and on top of that being totally dependant on this as your sole income, for survival, etc.
Yes, I can imagine that. I am.
Does your rumour explain the reasoning behind destroying what is or was until recently the world's most widely recognised brand in stock photography? It sounds insane.
By the way, I was at a party of South African media people at the weekend, mostly editorial types from magazines. Mentioning price, nothing else, they said they'd shifted most of their stock buying from IS to SS, with the occasional splurge on Getty and Corbis. No mention of Thinkstock at all. I'm really starting to get scared now.
Hi!
Insanity, yes indeed, must have been an interesting party! and Im not surprised at all. I know myself, 2 large ad-agencies in London who has shifted from IS to SS and sometimes buying from the Getty-RM, but for RF and micro, they have shifted.
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Another bug: I tried to request a payout today. I filled in the paypal email address. Then confirmed the request. After that I got red error message saying that the request could not be processed due to DB error. Yet the amount was deducted from my balance.
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SNP Quote "you're flattering yourself. What exactly qualifies you as the expert you seem to have become around here?"
As you know dear your a forum member that most people here ignore, so we rarely get to see the little gems that you post - another member (who incidentally now also has you on ignore), emailed me your little comment. Tut, tut - Didn't your mummy tell you to be nice?, allow me to give you some 'expert advise' try HRT.
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So, I went to bed, I slept, I got up, dls still at 1st Nov.
Words fail me. >:( >:( >:(
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SNP Quote "you're flattering yourself. What exactly qualifies you as the expert you seem to have become around here?"
As you know dear your a forum member that most people here ignore, so we rarely get to see the little gems that you post - another member (who incidentally now also has you on ignore), emailed me your little comment. Tut, tut - Didn't your mummy tell you to be nice?, allow me to give you some 'expert advise' try HRT.
Not that I'm a big fan of SNP and her snide comments, but your argumentation here plays right into this theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_suppression_techniques (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_suppression_techniques)
You are using a subgroup of "Ridicule"; "belittling". It is usually used by older men towards younger women, and kills any chance of a good discussion.
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SNP Quote "you're flattering yourself. What exactly qualifies you as the expert you seem to have become around here?"
As you know dear your a forum member that most people here ignore, so we rarely get to see the little gems that you post - another member (who incidentally now also has you on ignore), emailed me your little comment. Tut, tut - Didn't your mummy tell you to be nice?, allow me to give you some 'expert advise' try HRT.
Not that I'm a big fan of SNP and her snide comments, but your argumentation here plays right into this theory: [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_suppression_techniques[/url] ([url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_suppression_techniques[/url])
You are using a subgroup of "Ridicule"; "belittling". It is usually used by older men towards younger women, and kills any chance of a good discussion.
Thanks for your message. Although I do admit I could have written the comment myself I did not. Sara, our 21 YO intern (female) designer sent it as I was late into the office today. So where does that put your theory - wiki fan? And another point, there was no necessity for her original (snide - your description) comment. I have always believed that one that throws first gets in back with interest. Simply don't post snide comments in the first place -someone of her obvious years should know better. It's also interesting to note she has a much sweeter tone on the ISP forums crowing over her Diamond status, she seems to only show her sour and bitter persona on this forum. Wiki that.
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By the way, I was at a party of South African media people at the weekend, mostly editorial types from magazines. Mentioning price, nothing else, they said they'd shifted most of their stock buying from IS to SS, with the occasional splurge on Getty and Corbis. No mention of Thinkstock at all. I'm really starting to get scared now.
There's nothing to be scared of. It's just business and the situation deserves to be assessed and acted upon with logic rather than emotion. It was emotion rather than logic that got most exclusives into the situation that they face now. The sooner they wake up and take action to safeguard their incomes the better for them.
If the traffic is rapidly declining from your one agency and growing elsewhere, which it is and has been for some time, then accept the situation, drop the silly bling and get your share of the action at the agencies where the buyers are doing their shopping. Istock have blown it, simple as that, and there's unlikely to be any way back for them. Istock have completely forgotton what the 'microstock' model, on which they built their business, is supposed to be about and have essentially morphed into 'Getty-Lite'. Prior to the sale of Istock in 2006 Getty was always regarded by microstockers as the 'arch enemy' that was insensitive to the needs of the market, charged their customers too much and abused their power over their contributors. Does that sound familiar in the latter day context? He who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat it.
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SNP Quote "you're flattering yourself. What exactly qualifies you as the expert you seem to have become around here?"
As you know dear your a forum member that most people here ignore, so we rarely get to see the little gems that you post - another member (who incidentally now also has you on ignore), emailed me your little comment. Tut, tut - Didn't your mummy tell you to be nice?, allow me to give you some 'expert advise' try HRT.
Not that I'm a big fan of SNP and her snide comments, but your argumentation here plays right into this theory: [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_suppression_techniques[/url] ([url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_suppression_techniques[/url])
You are using a subgroup of "Ridicule"; "belittling". It is usually used by older men towards younger women, and kills any chance of a good discussion.
Thanks for your message. Although I do admit I could have written the comment myself I did not. Sara, our 21 YO intern (female) designer sent it as I was late into the office today. So where does that put your theory - wiki fan? And another point, there was no necessity for her original (snide - your description) comment. I have always believed that one that throws first gets in back with interest. Simply don't post snide comments in the first place -someone of her obvious years should know better. It's also interesting to note she has a much sweeter tone on the ISP forums crowing over her Diamond status, she seems to only show her sour and bitter persona on this forum. Wiki that.
I don't know if you at all opened the link? If you prefer I can send you the original book, I guess I underestimated your expert knowledge of the Norwegian language?
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Thanks for your message. Although I do admit I could have written the comment myself I did not. Sara, our 21 YO intern (female) designer sent it as I was late into the office today. So where does that put your theory - wiki fan? And another point, there was no necessity for her original (snide - your description) comment. I have always believed that one that throws first gets in back with interest. Simply don't post snide comments in the first place -someone of her obvious years should know better. It's also interesting to note she has a much sweeter tone on the ISP forums crowing over her Diamond status, she seems to only show her sour and bitter persona on this forum. Wiki that.
I would suggest not letting 21 YO interns write under your name as you accept full responsibility for their postings.
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Thanks for your message. Although I do admit I could have written the comment myself I did not. Sara, our 21 YO intern (female) designer sent it as I was late into the office today. So where does that put your theory - wiki fan? And another point, there was no necessity for her original (snide - your description) comment. I have always believed that one that throws first gets in back with interest. Simply don't post snide comments in the first place -someone of her obvious years should know better. It's also interesting to note she has a much sweeter tone on the ISP forums crowing over her Diamond status, she seems to only show her sour and bitter persona on this forum. Wiki that.
I would suggest not letting 21 YO interns write under your name as you accept full responsibility for their postings.
I don't usually have an issue with 'others' using this account - it is after all Cogent Marketing not me specifically. Maybe I should change the profile picture though which is me! My team are a good bunch - they only take the **** when someone else does it first, but then their all young and enthusiastic. Anyway, I didn't think her (Sara) comment to SNP was too bad - SNP deserves to get back as good as she tends to give like I said before. I will have a word though to ensure a good tone to comments.
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Thanks for your message. Although I do admit I could have written the comment myself I did not. Sara, our 21 YO intern (female) designer sent it as I was late into the office today. So where does that put your theory - wiki fan? And another point, there was no necessity for her original (snide - your description) comment. I have always believed that one that throws first gets in back with interest. Simply don't post snide comments in the first place -someone of her obvious years should know better. It's also interesting to note she has a much sweeter tone on the ISP forums crowing over her Diamond status, she seems to only show her sour and bitter persona on this forum. Wiki that.
I would suggest not letting 21 YO interns write under your name as you accept full responsibility for their postings.
I don't usually have an issue with 'others' using this account - it is after all Cogent Marketing not me specifically. Maybe I should change the profile picture though which is me! My team are a good bunch - they only take the **** when someone else does it first, but then their all young and enthusiastic. Anyway, I didn't think her (Sara) comment to SNP was too bad - SNP deserves to get back as good as she tends to give like I said before. I will have a word though to ensure a good tone to comments.
In this interconnected world their is a high likelihood that some of your customers maybe on this forum, or that a forum post may come up in an Internet search ...
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Thanks for your message. Although I do admit I could have written the comment myself I did not. Sara, our 21 YO intern (female) designer sent it as I was late into the office today. So where does that put your theory - wiki fan? And another point, there was no necessity for her original (snide - your description) comment. I have always believed that one that throws first gets in back with interest. Simply don't post snide comments in the first place -someone of her obvious years should know better. It's also interesting to note she has a much sweeter tone on the ISP forums crowing over her Diamond status, she seems to only show her sour and bitter persona on this forum. Wiki that.
I would suggest not letting 21 YO interns write under your name as you accept full responsibility for their postings.
I doubt it was this intern. OMG, old people playing this kind of games. It is childlish.
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Another bug: I tried to request a payout today. I filled in the paypal email address. Then confirmed the request. After that I got red error message saying that the request could not be processed due to DB error. Yet the amount was deducted from my balance.
Same here . DB error , money was deducted , clicked Contact us to send a ticket and got an blank page :o . Now I see that at least my money is back but wouldn't try another request until further notice from IS . MB cutoff is in 4 hours . What a joke service for a 84% share
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Thanks for your message. Although I do admit I could have written the comment myself I did not. Sara, our 21 YO intern (female) designer sent it as I was late into the office today. So where does that put your theory
She's got you sussed.
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Thanks for your message. Although I do admit I could have written the comment myself I did not. Sara, our 21 YO intern (female) designer sent it as I was late into the office today. So where does that put your theory
She's got you sussed.
You might have a point there, but in my defense I said "I could have".
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Another bug: I tried to request a payout today. I filled in the paypal email address. Then confirmed the request. After that I got red error message saying that the request could not be processed due to DB error. Yet the amount was deducted from my balance.
Same here . DB error , money was deducted , clicked Contact us to send a ticket and got an blank page :o . Now I see that at least my money is back but wouldn't try another request until further notice from IS . MB cutoff is in 4 hours . What a joke service for a 84% share
Yup, my money were added back to my balance as well.
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By the way, I was at a party of South African media people at the weekend, mostly editorial types from magazines. Mentioning price, nothing else, they said they'd shifted most of their stock buying from IS to SS, with the occasional splurge on Getty and Corbis. No mention of Thinkstock at all. I'm really starting to get scared now.
There's nothing to be scared of. It's just business and the situation deserves to be assessed and acted upon with logic rather than emotion. It was emotion rather than logic that got most exclusives into the situation that they face now. The sooner they wake up and take action to safeguard their incomes the better for them.
If the traffic is rapidly declining from your one agency and growing elsewhere, which it is and has been for some time, then accept the situation, drop the silly bling and get your share of the action at the agencies where the buyers are doing their shopping. Istock have blown it, simple as that, and there's unlikely to be any way back for them. Istock have completely forgotton what the 'microstock' model, on which they built their business, is supposed to be about and have essentially morphed into 'Getty-Lite'. Prior to the sale of Istock in 2006 Getty was always regarded by microstockers as the 'arch enemy' that was insensitive to the needs of the market, charged their customers too much and abused their power over their contributors. Does that sound familiar in the latter day context? He who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat it.
You're right in general. But, for me, it was never particularly about emotion. I wanted the higher exclusive upload limits at what was then the leading agency, with the prospect of doubled royalties, and I grew my portfolio fast. I was diamond in just over a year. At the time it was the right decision, though I've always remained slightly queasy about eggs and baskets.
As things stand now, I'm not one of those who's afflicted by declining sales. I can't explain it, except possibly that I've been producing better content as time has gone by; I might be doing even better as an independent. But for now it's fine for me at iStock. The worry is, for how much longer?
My real fear lies in the initial earnings crash that must follow dumping the bling. I have to support aged parents, young children, ex-wives, you name it. I have employees to pay. I lack the cash reserves to tide me over for more than a couple of months. What is someone in my position to do?
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BTW, I got called out on my "a couple images get sales, and wallah - they show up" spelling -
"Wallah" is Arabic, approximate meaning "I swear by God", so it works perfectly well instead of "voila", if you have to sprinkle foreign expressions all over your posts ;)
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iStock deleted my post of concern. I said this is not a hobby for me as this site feeds my family, I have real concern with how this site
is being managed and can not understand why the largest micro site in the industry can not run as good as Amazon or its competition.
My confidence has been shaken and after waiting all night to see if the bugs would clear they haven't and there are new ones.
Fact is I love iStock but if this type of management continues there won't be an iStock to love. If I get frustrated just adding files I can only
imagine a buyer being frustrated when they have deadlines to meet.
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Fact is I love iStock
that's the problem too much emotion ..
fire up excel not an emoticon
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By the way, I was at a party of South African media people at the weekend, mostly editorial types from magazines. Mentioning price, nothing else, they said they'd shifted most of their stock buying from IS to SS, with the occasional splurge on Getty and Corbis. No mention of Thinkstock at all. I'm really starting to get scared now.
There's nothing to be scared of. It's just business and the situation deserves to be assessed and acted upon with logic rather than emotion. It was emotion rather than logic that got most exclusives into the situation that they face now. The sooner they wake up and take action to safeguard their incomes the better for them.
If the traffic is rapidly declining from your one agency and growing elsewhere, which it is and has been for some time, then accept the situation, drop the silly bling and get your share of the action at the agencies where the buyers are doing their shopping. Istock have blown it, simple as that, and there's unlikely to be any way back for them. Istock have completely forgotton what the 'microstock' model, on which they built their business, is supposed to be about and have essentially morphed into 'Getty-Lite'. Prior to the sale of Istock in 2006 Getty was always regarded by microstockers as the 'arch enemy' that was insensitive to the needs of the market, charged their customers too much and abused their power over their contributors. Does that sound familiar in the latter day context? He who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat it.
You're right in general. But, for me, it was never particularly about emotion. I wanted the higher exclusive upload limits at what was then the leading agency, with the prospect of doubled royalties, and I grew my portfolio fast. I was diamond in just over a year. At the time it was the right decision, though I've always remained slightly queasy about eggs and baskets.
As things stand now, I'm not one of those who's afflicted by declining sales. I can't explain it, except possibly that I've been producing better content as time has gone by; I might be doing even better as an independent. But for now it's fine for me at iStock. The worry is, for how much longer?
My real fear lies in the initial earnings crash that must follow dumping the bling. I have to support aged parents, young children, ex-wives, you name it. I have employees to pay. I lack the cash reserves to tide me over for more than a couple of months. What is someone in my position to do?
Get ready now for when you need to hit the ground running. Get accounts opened in your name at all the agencies (you may already have done this to protect your name) and get all your keywords, descriptions etc into the metadata in the correct format for the other agencies. If you contact the agencies personally then they will approve your contributor application without putting your images live for sale to allow time for your exclusive contract notice period to pass. If you have your whole portfolio ready to go along with the bandwidth to support uploading it then that will minimise the inevitable blip in income. Inspection times in indie land are a lot less than at iStock so your portfolio should be live very quickly. A contributor of your standing with the quality and size of portfolio that you have won't have any difficulty in reaching payout thresholds quickly. A short blip versus standing by watching a steady decline whilst others stake their place with other agencies. One you can do something about, the other you can't. Whatever you do, I wish you the best of luck, you always seemed a sane voice on the iStock forums.
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jjneff "iStock deleted my post of concern."
The admins do have a tendency to do that when it is information in your posting that sheds a negative light on iStock, when it is justified and reasonable or not. I have also noticed that the number of contributors to the live forum debates is diminishing either as a result of the crude and draconian admin blocking and locking forum privileges or as a result of people simply losing interest. TPTB appear to be pre-occupied rearranging the chairs on the deck.
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Way up in the hierarki, rumours has it that the place is finally coming to an end.
Well if your information proves to be correct, that would surely mean that all the indie files would end up purely in the PP.
If so, it would make the decision to pull ports a lot easier for the indies. I can't imagine why any indie would stick around purely for PP payments.
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So you always bring in your own models to a location? (Apologies if this is a VERY stupid question...)
I´ll keep that in mind. So everyone I know who does this has been lucky? I know people who specialize in exactly that, have been doing it for years.
ETA: I am wondering if it is because of different laws on advertising, that people might be less concerned about this in Germany. Even if I buy a picture of my competitor with a RF license, I am pretty sure that would still not allow me to advertise with his face. It is also not possible to do comparative advertising (my steak costs 5 dollars, at restaurant x it costs 7). As a business manager "never allude to your competitor in advertising" gets drummed into you. I am sure if I even used my competitors shadow on a flyer and he could somehow prove it was him, even if I got the shadow from a RF file he volunteered in, I´d pay a huge fine in court. Still, if it does happen, it is a problem I agree.
As you know I usually prefer inanimate objects, but I am still well connected in the local business community and have brought a lot of photographers looking for contacts with "real people" in touch with local business.
Anyway, off topic.
Totally off topic, but:
You're referring to laws that changed more than 10 years ago. Since 2000 comparative marketing is allowed in Germany (under certain conditions). See here (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vergleichende_Werbung)(sorry, in German only, the English version does not contain the references to German law).
Now back to IS (and everyday I read these threads I feel my decision to pull out start of this year was the right one...)
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I have been on the verge of dropping my exclusivity many times. I just can't afford the risk at this point in time.
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I have been on the verge of dropping my exclusivity many times. I just can't afford the risk at this point in time.
So you think there's less risk in remaining exclusive. Interesting.
Risk is usually defined mathematically as the product of 'Probability of Occurrence' and 'Consequence'. In my view the probability of Istock's failure seems to be increasing (as evidenced by the traffic stats, etc) and also the consequence of leaving exclusivity is becoming greater with every month that passes (the longer you leave it to join other sites the more difficult it will be for your images to achieve good sort order position).
Therefore the risk is actually increasing with time __ unless of course you believe that Istock can somehow compete effectively against the mighty threat that SS now presents and that the growth that they might achieve (theoretically) would also be enough to counteract the ever-increasing consquence of delay. That's not a wager I'd want to take with my income.
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"Totally off topic, but:
You're referring to laws that changed more than 10 years ago. Since 2000 comparative marketing is allowed in Germany (under certain conditions). See here (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vergleichende_Werbung)(sorry, in German only, the English version does not contain the references to German law).
Now back to IS (and everyday I read these threads I feel my decision to pull out start of this year was the right one...)"
I am sorry, but I´ve been in enough court cases with competitors since 2000 to know better. You can´t take a wikipediaquote and build a business strategy on it. Law is like medicine, it evolves all the time and you need a specialist lawyer who has the absolute latest verdicts. Sometimes regulations even change during your own court case and the outcome of your court case is completly different to what your lawyer predicted at the onset.
"Vor Gericht und auf hoher See ist man in Gottes Hand" (Before a judge and on the high seas you are in God´s hand)
So I would stay away from anything that could be misconstrued as comperative advertising, unless I have money to burn on lawyers.
But back on topic.
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I have been on the verge of dropping my exclusivity many times. I just can't afford the risk at this point in time.
Did you notice Tom's message about SS video?
What is not to afford? Those extra percent you get as exclusive you will earn on pond5 and SS in no time.
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I have been on the verge of dropping my exclusivity many times. I just can't afford the risk at this point in time.
I dont want to push anybody in any direction, its a private decision. However, really, I cant for the life of me see what you have to lose, not now.
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Get ready now for when you need to hit the ground running. Get accounts opened in your name at all the agencies (you may already have done this to protect your name) and get all your keywords, descriptions etc into the metadata in the correct format for the other agencies. If you contact the agencies personally then they will approve your contributor application without putting your images live for sale to allow time for your exclusive contract notice period to pass. If you have your whole portfolio ready to go along with the bandwidth to support uploading it then that will minimise the inevitable blip in income. Inspection times in indie land are a lot less than at iStock so your portfolio should be live very quickly. A contributor of your standing with the quality and size of portfolio that you have won't have any difficulty in reaching payout thresholds quickly. A short blip versus standing by watching a steady decline whilst others stake their place with other agencies. One you can do something about, the other you can't. Whatever you do, I wish you the best of luck, you always seemed a sane voice on the iStock forums.
Thanks, Bridget. Sound advice.
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I have done the math and talked with many contributors on SS and Pond5, I have done this at least 5 times. With iStock I also have my files on Getty which in the end
still earns more over the long run. Considering I make over $40.00 per 720 -1080 file size on iStock its not hard to see where you will earn the most. Then you have to add in the time it takes to upload to many different sites and what your return on investment would be. I have been at this since 2006 and have watched the market evolve. If iStock can keep their site running smooth and get inspection times down "Some progress is being made there" then I do feel with the quality content they have they will be a market leader. Just to have SimonKR with 20,000 files of amazing quality brings a lot of buyers there. I average 5 to 6 sales a day not counting Getty.
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I have been on the verge of dropping my exclusivity many times. I just can't afford the risk at this point in time.
I dont want to push anybody in any direction, its a private decision. However, really, I cant for the life of me see what you have to lose, not now.
What high-canister exclusives have to lose is an uncertain but precipitous immediate drop in income (royalty cut, loss of V/A and Getty, and of course best match placement) followed by an unknown rate of increase of earnings at other agencies, up to an unknown ceiling. That's pretty high-risk if you ask me.
If any former exclusive can and is willing to shed any light on these factors, I'd be deeply grateful.
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do people normally upload SRGB files to Shutterstock ? Do they convert ?
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So, I went to bed, I slept, I got up, dls still at 1st Nov.
Words fail me. >:( >:( >:(
Agreed!
Actually two thoughts came into my mind. One was total frustration, which led me to the second, which is my abbreviated definition of the IS Artists Agreement: "Play or leave"...
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I have been on the verge of dropping my exclusivity many times. I just can't afford the risk at this point in time.
I dont want to push anybody in any direction, its a private decision. However, really, I cant for the life of me see what you have to lose, not now.
What high-canister exclusives have to lose is an uncertain but precipitous immediate drop in income (royalty cut, loss of V/A and Getty, and of course best match placement) followed by an unknown rate of increase of earnings at other agencies, up to an unknown ceiling. That's pretty high-risk if you ask me.
If any former exclusive can and is willing to shed any light on these factors, I'd be deeply grateful.
*clears throat* http://stockcube-stockcube.blogspot.com/ (http://stockcube-stockcube.blogspot.com/)
(some extrapolation may be required ;D)
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I have been on the verge of dropping my exclusivity many times. I just can't afford the risk at this point in time.
So you think there's less risk in remaining exclusive. Interesting.
Risk is usually defined mathematically as the product of 'Probability of Occurrence' and 'Consequence'. In my view the probability of Istock's failure seems to be increasing (as evidenced by the traffic stats, etc) and also the consequence of leaving exclusivity is becoming greater with every month that passes (the longer you leave it to join other sites the more difficult it will be for your images to achieve good sort order position).
Therefore the risk is actually increasing with time __ unless of course you believe that Istock can somehow compete effectively against the mighty threat that SS now presents and that the growth that they might achieve (theoretically) would also be enough to counteract the ever-increasing consquence of delay. That's not a wager I'd want to take with my income.
Well, there are several different functions used to define risk, depending on your area of expertice. Financial risk is not defined in the same way as geological risk etc. Most of the functions also includes uncertainty. Just to make it more interesting, there is also a distinction in some risk theories between uncertainty that you can calculate, and the uncertainty that is so little known that it is impossible to quantify.
Isn't math fun?
But I agree on the conclusion. This is not a good time to be exclusive. I wouldn't color it red yet, but definitely yellow with a relatively large uncertainty area.
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ps - Don, can I be the first to hit you up for an SS referral? ;D ;D ;D
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I have been on the verge of dropping my exclusivity many times. I just can't afford the risk at this point in time.
I dont want to push anybody in any direction, its a private decision. However, really, I cant for the life of me see what you have to lose, not now.
What high-canister exclusives have to lose is an uncertain but precipitous immediate drop in income (royalty cut, loss of V/A and Getty, and of course best match placement) followed by an unknown rate of increase of earnings at other agencies, up to an unknown ceiling. That's pretty high-risk if you ask me.
If any former exclusive can and is willing to shed any light on these factors, I'd be deeply grateful.
I think its got way beyond just earnings, money, etc. I myself as an independant have earnt exeptionally good money at IS, during my 5 years, diamond status, etc. The present IS-problem goes much deeper.
Getty, have got IS, in a vice, so hard, the management will say, yes and OK, to everything, its obvious, isnt it. The merger with TS, is just the beginning, pretty soon exclusives will be forced to go the same way and if not? solong buddy.
This entire outfit is as reliable as a banana republic regime. People here tend to stare themselves blind at just revenues, forgetting the futures.
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Yes the issues run deep but I have a family to feed so its not something I can just guess at. I don't think Getty is going anywhere anytime soon.
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Well, there are several different functions used to define risk, depending on your area of expertice. Financial risk is not defined in the same way as geological risk etc. Most of the functions also includes uncertainty. Just to make it more interesting, there is also a distinction in some risk theories between uncertainty that you can calculate, and the uncertainty that is so little known that it is impossible to quantify.
Isn't math fun?
But I agree on the conclusion. This is not a good time to be exclusive. I wouldn't color it red yet, but definitely yellow with a relatively large uncertainty area.
True however the 'probability' bit should include the uncertainty. My experience of risk is from the nuclear industry where uncertainy is not normally something to be welcomed. Mind you, pity the Japanese didn't factor in some minor 'uncertainties' when they built their reactors on the World's most active tectonic plateline, right next to the ocean and with the back-up generators on the same level. Oh no wait, they did build a nice little wall around it. Much better __ no 'uncertainty' now is there?
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For me saying goodbye to the stress of wondering what my exclusive agent would do next was a big plus. Worth taking a pay cut in the short term for even. I may be small-time, but iStock used to be quite a big part of my life, I was a bit of an iStock evangelist. I don't worry at all any more - I feel as though I have my bets pretty well spread out and it all just washes over me.
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I have been on the verge of dropping my exclusivity many times. I just can't afford the risk at this point in time.
I dont want to push anybody in any direction, its a private decision. However, really, I cant for the life of me see what you have to lose, not now.
What high-canister exclusives have to lose is an uncertain but precipitous immediate drop in income (royalty cut, loss of V/A and Getty, and of course best match placement) followed by an unknown rate of increase of earnings at other agencies, up to an unknown ceiling. That's pretty high-risk if you ask me.
If any former exclusive can and is willing to shed any light on these factors, I'd be deeply grateful.
*clears throat* [url]http://stockcube-stockcube.blogspot.com/[/url] ([url]http://stockcube-stockcube.blogspot.com/[/url])
(some extrapolation may be required ;D)
Bridget, a million thanks. Very generous of you to show us all your underwear. Of course I made a beeline for your earnings spreadsheet, and it makes interesting reading. It seems to show, dispiritingly, that you're now earning less than half of what you did at your iStock exclusive peak. But you have very few images on the other agencies.
So I made a calculation of my own, to add columns that adjust your earnings on the other agencies in proportion to the number of images you have online there. This reveals that if you had all your images on the top five agencies -- and if all the images were created equal -- then you would be doing 43% better as an independent compared with your iStock peak.
I'm assuming, however, that you've only bothered to upload your known good sellers to the other agencies. Therefore a simple proportional calculation is not very meaningful. But it's interesting. Thanks again.
Since you've published your earnings, I'm sure you won't mind if I publish my slight reworking of your spreadsheet. It's here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AoJqxkTpE1lidDBPNEUya1FEWS00OGV4TmVqNnROWFE
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ps - Don, can I be the first to hit you up for an SS referral? ;D ;D ;D
Ha ha. But of course. :)
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...
My real fear lies in the initial earnings crash that must follow dumping the bling. I have to support aged parents, young children, ex-wives, you name it. I have employees to pay. I lack the cash reserves to tide me over for more than a couple of months. What is someone in my position to do?
I think I'd be looking for a lawyer to help set up a company (possibly two) where you can start one company out on all the other sites - with new content for the moment. Leave your IS portfolio earning for a while so you can build up your earning power elsewhere (SS pays you more the more you earn them as I'm sure you know). When your IS income starts to fall, then you can switch to independence and do what you need to with copyright transfers and move your IS portfolio to all the other sites along with your new content.
Obviously it needs to be legally solid to avoid jeopardizing your IS status, but I think it could be done.
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...
My real fear lies in the initial earnings crash that must follow dumping the bling. I have to support aged parents, young children, ex-wives, you name it. I have employees to pay. I lack the cash reserves to tide me over for more than a couple of months. What is someone in my position to do?
I think I'd be looking for a lawyer to help set up a company (possibly two) where you can start one company out on all the other sites - with new content for the moment. Leave your IS portfolio earning for a while so you can build up your earning power elsewhere (SS pays you more the more you earn them as I'm sure you know). When your IS income starts to fall, then you can switch to independence and do what you need to with copyright transfers and move your IS portfolio to all the other sites along with your new content.
Obviously it needs to be legally solid to avoid jeopardizing your IS status, but I think it could be done.
That's a very interesting idea, Jo Ann, thanks. Unfortunately I think one would have to clear it with iStock because, as I think Baldrick posted in another thread, they don't need a reason to terminate their contract with you any more than you need a reason to dump them. And in this climate, do you think they'd agree?
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...
My real fear lies in the initial earnings crash that must follow dumping the bling. I have to support aged parents, young children, ex-wives, you name it. I have employees to pay. I lack the cash reserves to tide me over for more than a couple of months. What is someone in my position to do?
I think I'd be looking for a lawyer to help set up a company (possibly two) where you can start one company out on all the other sites - with new content for the moment. Leave your IS portfolio earning for a while so you can build up your earning power elsewhere (SS pays you more the more you earn them as I'm sure you know). When your IS income starts to fall, then you can switch to independence and do what you need to with copyright transfers and move your IS portfolio to all the other sites along with your new content.
Obviously it needs to be legally solid to avoid jeopardizing your IS status, but I think it could be done.
That's a very interesting idea, Jo Ann, thanks. Unfortunately I think one would have to clear it with iStock because, as I think Baldrick posted in another thread, they don't need a reason to terminate their contract with you any more than you need a reason to dump them. And in this climate, do you think they'd agree?
You could negotiate with one of the up and coming agencies
You could look for an equity stake
Guaranteed upfront income
Bulk uploading
Promotion
Higher % commission
what they get in return is legitimacy big name exclusive goes non exclusive preferentially with them
boost in their portfolio
maybe you upload first to them (a month - 3 months) before other sites
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Thanks for the analysis Don, that was very interesting to see. You are right that I am earning about half at the moment, but if you had slavishly read every word of my uber interesting blog, ;) then you would see that is because my life kind of went down the toilet at about the same time as I quit iStock. I'm not going to go into details, but it is probably an achievement worthy of some special sort of medal that I have managed to upload elsewhere at all. *takes discreet bow*
Prior to this month, I had uploaded just over 100 images and you are quite right that I of course chose my best images to upload first, so a direct extrapolation is maybe a bit flattering. I do think that if I got my finger out I could easily match my old exclusive income though.
I won't be uploading all my 650 iStock images elsewhere - quite a bit of it is dross from my early days that I am a bit embarrassed by, which iStock are welcome to. As brutal as the Shutterstock inspection process is, it has definitely taught me a great deal about stock and refined my eye as to what to submit/shoot. When I look at my teeny port on SS, I feel quite proud of it, less so with my iStock port. Coming out from behind iStocks skirts will be good for me in the long run, I am sure.
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and anyway, I don't need to bother uploading or even shooting ever again - once I get Don's referral I will be on easy street ;D ;D ;D
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... Unfortunately I think one would have to clear it with iStock because, as I think Baldrick posted in another thread, they don't need a reason to terminate their contract with you any more than you need a reason to dump them. And in this climate, do you think they'd agree?
I think several things:
(1) lots of people have turned to contributor relations for guidance and received utter rubbish for answers. The most recent was an exclusive who ended up turning in his crown when he asked about including his own images in an app he was submitting to the Apple app store; they told him to buy an exclusive license to his own images. (http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/iphoneipad-app-with-images-prohibitted-by-istock/)
(2) Getty's current goal is to cut costs and is thus trying to get all royalties to a maximum of 20% for RF sales. If they thought they had a choice, they'd rather not pay you the higher royalty you're currently receiving.
(3) if they started dumping respected contributors for no reason at all - where the contributor had not legally violated their agreement with iStock - I think they'd be on seriously shaky ground with other exclusives. It'd be a very risky thing for them to do with relatively little upside.
(4) They didn't apparently have a problem with Daniel Laflor being exclusive and Yuri non even though Daniel apparently shared models, space, etc. I think there may be other examples of similar setups.
(5) It's always easier to ask forgiveness than ask permission, especially if the organization you'd be asking is in a state of disarray with its hair on fire
I wouldn't advocate doing anything underhanded or without legal advice, but I'm not sure I think it's necessary to ask iStock if it's OK with them if you do something advantageous to you.
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Like many of you, I've been on the inside at companies that made acquisitions which subsequently fell apart due to mismanagement. What I see now at IStock - conflicting or nonsensical responses to questions, constant churning of business models, rules and financial agreements, software and web site problems that drag on and don't get fixed - suggests a familiar pattern: key employees are leaving, and things are becoming chaotic. The remaining people don't know what to do, who's really in charge, how to fix things, or what to say to outsiders.
Has anyone actually heard anything concrete confirming that this is what's happening?
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Like many of you, I've been on the inside at companies that made acquisitions which subsequently fell apart due to mismanagement. What I see now at IStock - conflicting or nonsensical responses to questions, constant churning of business models, rules and financial agreements, software and web site problems that drag on and don't get fixed - suggests a familiar pattern: key employees are leaving, and things are becoming chaotic. The remaining people don't know what to do, who's really in charge, how to fix things, or what to say to outsiders.
Has anyone actually heard anything concrete confirming that this is what's happening?
They just keep opening new threads....
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=337597&page=1 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=337597&page=1)
I doubt I'll get a response to my question, least still it'll get removed.
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Like many of you, I've been on the inside at companies that made acquisitions which subsequently fell apart due to mismanagement. What I see now at IStock - conflicting or nonsensical responses to questions, constant churning of business models, rules and financial agreements, software and web site problems that drag on and don't get fixed - suggests a familiar pattern: key employees are leaving, and things are becoming chaotic. The remaining people don't know what to do, who's really in charge, how to fix things, or what to say to outsiders.
Has anyone actually heard anything concrete confirming that this is what's happening?
They just keep opening new threads....
[url]http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=337597&page=1[/url] ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=337597&page=1[/url])
I doubt I'll get a response to my question, least still it'll get removed.
Here is the inevitable response from the mendacious (He'll have to goggle the meaning) Lobo,
"Here is hoping the ban button works again. Please continue to gnash your teeth elsewhere. Your participation is the community is once again be revoked.
Have a super terrific day :)"
Lobo
Say's it all really What a classy professional little outfit their not.
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Here is the inevitable response from the mendacious (He'll have to goggle the meaning) Lobo,
"Here is hoping the ban button works again. Please continue to gnash your teeth elsewhere. Your participation is the community is once again be revoked.
Have a super terrific day :)"
Lobo
Say's it all really What a classy professional little outfit their not.
I guess we're all just pointing out the obvious at this point. I used to work for software company and one of my responsibilites was the web site, which sold and activated products. The idea of multiple, serious problems like this dragging on for days, or even weeks, is just inconceivable - I'd have had the owners on my case on the second day, and would be called on the carpet on the 4th. Sorry if I keep pointing this out, but 30 years in the software business are telling me that what's happened to the site is that at least one key IT person is gone, and someone else is trying to patch things up and make changes, and has gotten snarled in the complexities. They probably tried changing something that created other problems and have had to back off until they can figure it all out. Either that, or the site is totally managed by a subcontractor, who's gotten swamped. I know the signs.
And if I'd ever responded to a supplier or a customer like that guy just did to you - even if it was the biggest jerk we had to deal with - I'd be out. Done.
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Here is the inevitable response from the mendacious (He'll have to goggle the meaning) Lobo,
Say's it all really What a classy professional little outfit their not.
At least Lobo can usually spell and has a grasp of English grammar. You could 'goggle' that for some elementary tips. Alternatively you could blame your errors on a mythical 21-year old female intern in your office. Classy!
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gostwyck
Quote At least Lobo can usually spell and has a grasp of English grammar. You could 'goggle' that for some elementary tips. Alternatively you could blame your errors on a mythical 21-year old female intern in your office. Classy!
Happy hour over is it? Time for bed.
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Here is the inevitable response from the mendacious (He'll have to goggle the meaning) Lobo,
"Here is hoping the ban button works again. Please continue to gnash your teeth elsewhere. Your participation is the community is once again be revoked.
Have a super terrific day :)"
Lobo
Say's it all really What a classy professional little outfit their not.
I guess we're all just pointing out the obvious at this point. I used to work for software company and one of my responsibilites was the web site, which sold and activated products. The idea of multiple, serious problems like this dragging on for days, or even weeks, is just inconceivable - I'd have had the owners on my case on the second day, and would be called on the carpet on the 4th. Sorry if I keep pointing this out, but 30 years in the software business are telling me that what's happened to the site is that at least one key IT person is gone, and someone else is trying to patch things up and make changes, and has gotten snarled in the complexities. They probably tried changing something that created other problems and have had to back off until they can figure it all out. Either that, or the site is totally managed by a subcontractor, who's gotten swamped. I know the signs.
And if I'd ever responded to a supplier or a customer like that guy just did to you - even if it was the biggest jerk we had to deal with - I'd be out. Done.
Your description suggests you worked for a 'proper company'. But in this instance we're not talking about a proper company we're talking about iStock. That's the difference. These amateur admins have been making decisions way about their pay grades for years and have driven customers and contributors away in the process. This is merely the death throws of a subsidiary in their final moments. They deserve it too.
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Here is the inevitable response from the mendacious (He'll have to goggle the meaning) Lobo,
Say's it all really What a classy professional little outfit their not.
At least Lobo can usually spell and has a grasp of English grammar. You could 'goggle' that for some elementary tips. Alternatively you could blame your errors on a mythical 21-year old female intern in your office. Classy!
haha good
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I fear we may have woken the trolls in the form of Gostwyck and Loop, although many miss their contributions as their on ignore. For the uninitiated, these are the spineless members who prefer to keep their identity private, but still feel qualified to masquerade as 'real contributors'. aka TROLLS. ;)
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^ um, you're one of the biggest trolls here. your posts are negative, inflammatory, and ill-informed most of the time. far be it for me to defend some of gostwyck's more aggressive posts, but I'd take his input and loop's any day, since they're actually invested and experienced in microstock. you have what...26 files on iStock?
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For the uninitiated, these are the spineless members who prefer to keep their identity private, but still feel qualified to masquerade as 'real contributors'. aka TROLLS. ;)
Is that you posting or Sara ?
Or is it Sybil, or Vickie, or Peggy, or Marcia, or Vanessa ?
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^ um, you're one of the biggest trolls here. your posts are negative, inflammatory, and ill-informed most of the time. far be it for me to defend some of gostwyck's more aggressive posts, but I'd take his input and loop's any day, since they're actually invested and experienced in microstock.
Good morning. How's the mood today? Reference your quote - Like you would know the difference. You might be better off going to the ISP site and wallow in your congratulatory thread, although you won't be able to see your accurate downloads for the day or month.
Sara sends her best regards. X.
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Posted By joyze:
We are aware there are a number of bugs that are affecting contributors. Some of them are being worked on as I type and others are queued up to be addressed. Here is an update on the two major ones that are being worked on right now.
1. Royalty adjustments for the royalty issue we had two weeks ago - We've just received the reports from BI with all of the data. As you can imagine this was a task in itself to go through every download, look at the credits used, determine what value each credit was at, then work out the royalty rate etc. Our next step is to create a script that will email each contributor affected with a list of each download and what royalty is due for that download. Then we'll add the royalty owed as a bulk to your account. We are estimating this to occur on Tuesday of next week.
2. The 'My Uploads' page - The dev team is working on this one as well. However, they are holding off on fixing this until they get all of the bugs worked out of the DB release we did this past weekend. They don't want to create a fix on a system that is still being tweaked and adjusted. They have promised me however, that their goal is to have this bug fixed by end of next week as well.
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I fear we may have woken the trolls in the form of Gostwyck and Loop, although many miss their contributions as their on ignore. For the uninitiated, these are the spineless members who prefer to keep their identity private, but still feel qualified to masquerade as 'real contributors'. aka TROLLS. ;)
Hmm, let's play like kids: you double my ignores. And I'm not ignoring you, you and your young intern are entertaining enough.
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...
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I'm worried that they have to calculate royalties. I'd hoped they were being tallied automatically somewhere in the back end at the correct royalty percentage. just means a whole bunch of accounting work to make sure I'm receiving the correct royalty difference.
ETA: and sales yesterday and today suck. could it be that every second page load produces a white screen? ::) apparently customers have reported not being able to purchase too (take that with a grain of salt, I didn't read the post myself, another contributor mentioned it to me)
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I'm worried that they have to calculate royalties. I'd hoped they were being tallied automatically somewhere in the back end at the correct royalty percentage. just means a whole bunch of accounting work to make sure I'm receiving the correct royalty difference.
What's disturbing to me is the fact that the broken Istock works similarly to the correctly working Thinkstock and Getty Images in regards to sales reporting. Instead of transparent reporting of sales when they happen, everything is now opaque. I know I'm being a conspiracy theorist but its tough not to be these days.
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The site is quite buggy, but I'm not sure it affects searches. The searches I've tried worked. Judging by income, sales are a bit weak, but not much (in my case, of course)
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I'm worried that they have to calculate royalties. I'd hoped they were being tallied automatically somewhere in the back end at the correct royalty percentage. just means a whole bunch of accounting work to make sure I'm receiving the correct royalty difference.
What's disturbing to me is the fact that the broken Istock works similarly to the correctly working Thinkstock and Getty Images in regards to sales reporting. Instead of transparent reporting of sales when they happen, everything is now opaque. I know I'm being a conspiracy theorist but its tough not to be these days.
I'm not thinking in terms of a conspiracy. I think the site is more broken than we're being told though. these are major bugs, not just minor inconveniences. there's no way we should lose access to our sales data for extended periods of time. I'm jumping to a huge conclusion, but I would not support a move to sales reporting like Getty does. I want to see my individual sales stats daily. it really scares me that they're playing with the upload system and clearly all sorts of back ends systems. adding technical issues and site overhauls as factors influencing sales in an already poor economy certainly is no recipe for success....iStock needs to leave well enough alone now.
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I think the amount of time between the site problems that at a minimum paid us at the wrong royalty rate for a few days and "...the end of next week" is outrageous. And that's just their goal, not date certain.
I suspect that iStock is tight lipped about what has to be done to pay us because their internal systems are primitive and teetering on the edge of being functional. There's no point in railing at them as I don't think they're lying about the shambles the system is in, but if I got notes from my bank about running a script and it taking several weeks to straighten out an error in my account I'd be in touch with the regulatory authorities to report them. It's an utter disgrace for the custodian of our funds to be (a) this inept and (b) this lackadaisical about a prompt fix.
My mood is not improved by seeing my balance go up and down this morning. And Lobo's rude "sorry" didn't help either. OTOH I doubt customers seeing random objects in their search results are any happier.
Last year they effed up the site during the busy season. How could the dumb clucks have done it all over again - anyone see the old move "Same Time Next Year"?
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The site is quite buggy, but I'm not sure it affects searches. The searches I've tried worked. ...
All the search bugs reported in the last few pages here (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=317812&page=9) still remain. Many searches are sprinkled with totally unrelated items.
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ETA: and sales yesterday and today suck. could it be that every second page load produces a white screen?
I noticed this going on too. I was hoping it was just me.
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What's disturbing to me is the fact that the broken Istock works similarly to the correctly working Thinkstock and Getty Images in regards to sales reporting. Instead of transparent reporting of sales when they happen, everything is now opaque. I know I'm being a conspiracy theorist but its tough not to be these days.
Actually, I was thinking along these same lines. Remember when we used to have live stats on our DLs and that went wonky? Well... we never got that back did we? I may just be a matter of time before iStock stops giving daily updated stats and we have to wait for an end of month report like Getty. They seem to be moving towards alignment in other areas so why not in this one?
Long gone are the days when iStock was it´s own company or at least allowed to operate independently of Getty even once they were bought. Now iStock is just another portal for Getty and it probably makes sense to them to bring their reporting practices in line with the rest of the "family". They probably think that passing it off as a bug initially will break us in to the idea easier than if they just announce it. Bah... who knows, but it does sound like something they might do.
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I do remember live stats and now it feels a bit like looking at those old airplanes where they had tables and chairs set out for the passengers as if on a country house patio.
However, I'd settle for rock solid data with complete reporting of all the sales details (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=270162&page=1), even if it was once a week, over continued live reporting with insufficient information to have a clue whether anything is correct. Contributors need detailed accounts, and much as I'd love things to be complete and timely (my bank can manage it, even if they are scum of the earth, so I'm not sure what's stopping iStock/Getty/H&F), I'd pick complete over timely if forced. At least that way we'd have a prayer of keeping track of what's going on.
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JoAnn, you're right. This is the second year in a row that they've made the site unusable during the busiest time of year. If I were an exclusive I would be having a panic attack over this. As it is, I'm not all that happy about it.
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ETA: and sales yesterday and today suck. could it be that every second page load produces a white screen?
I noticed this going on too. I was hoping it was just me.
I'm looking at the same account balance now that I was looking at this morning. Despite how bad things have been at istock, I still always made some money on a daily basis. This, however, is a first for me.
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What's disturbing to me is the fact that the broken Istock works similarly to the correctly working Thinkstock and Getty Images in regards to sales reporting. Instead of transparent reporting of sales when they happen, everything is now opaque. I know I'm being a conspiracy theorist but its tough not to be these days.
Actually, I was thinking along these same lines. Remember when we used to have live stats on our DLs and that went wonky? Well... we never got that back did we? I may just be a matter of time before iStock stops giving daily updated stats and we have to wait for an end of month report like Getty. They seem to be moving towards alignment in other areas so why not in this one?
Long gone are the days when iStock was it´s own company or at least allowed to operate independently of Getty even once they were bought. Now iStock is just another portal for Getty and it probably makes sense to them to bring their reporting practices in line with the rest of the "family". They probably think that passing it off as a bug initially will break us in to the idea easier than if they just announce it. Bah... who knows, but it does sound like something they might do.
When did live stats end?
My member date (April 2006) is not my contributor starting point. I started uploading in November 2006 and managed to get a whopping 70 files up by August 2007. Then I didn't upload again until May 2008 and I've been consistent since then. I don't remember anything different in the early days though.
Back on topic:
I will certainly drop my crown if we get pushed into monthly reporting like the rest of the"family" or if we are forced into the PP. I dropped photo exclusivity when they forced independents into the PP so I could establish accounts at the other sites. If the other shoe drops, I'm totally done with exclusivity.
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now you've all got me convinced this is a harbinger to monthly reporting. I certainly hope it isn't. the live stats debacle is still fresh enough in my mind and it did in fact finish off the era of live stats, which never returned.
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If I remember correctly, live sales reporting (as in instant updates to the stats page) did not break, it was discontinued because it consumed too many resources. That was a long, long time ago.
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Many searches are sprinkled with totally unrelated items.
I'm still wondering if that's a 'feature' rather than a fault.
Years ago a long ex-contributor emailled me to suggest I should do that in my lightboxes, apparently to show buyers I do different sorts of stuff. It's an established marketing ploy with a name, (I Googled it at the time, but of course, I can't remember it now.)
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Many searches are sprinkled with totally unrelated items.
I'm still wondering if that's a 'feature' rather than a fault.
Years ago a long ex-contributor emailled me to suggest I should do that in my lightboxes, apparently to show buyers I do different sorts of stuff. It's an established marketing ploy with a name, (I Googled it at the time, but of course, I can't remember it now.)
If iStock thinks that they can get people who search for tropical beach to buy a picture of an isolated dog, empty car trunk or a home thermostat, they're even more delusional than I give them credit for :)
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If I remember correctly, live sales reporting (as in instant updates to the stats page) did not break, it was discontinued because it consumed too many resources. That was a long, long time ago.
That is what I heard. I wonder how much resource is being used by people continually refreshing to try and get their latest downloads. Haven't sites been crashed by f5ing in the past?
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now you've all got me convinced this is a harbinger to monthly reporting. I certainly hope it isn't. the live stats debacle is still fresh enough in my mind and it did in fact finish off the era of live stats, which never returned.
It would be a brilliant move by istock to reduce stats to a monthly report. Most of the ill will they're seeing from contributors is based on falling earnings. Monthly stats would make it harder to closely monitor the ongoing decline.
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Many searches are sprinkled with totally unrelated items.
I'm still wondering if that's a 'feature' rather than a fault.
Years ago a long ex-contributor emailled me to suggest I should do that in my lightboxes, apparently to show buyers I do different sorts of stuff. It's an established marketing ploy with a name, (I Googled it at the time, but of course, I can't remember it now.)
If iStock thinks that they can get people who search for tropical beach to buy a picture of an isolated dog, empty car trunk or a home thermostat, they're even more delusional than I give them credit for :)
That was exactly the intention. I'm not saying I agree with it, just that I'd heard of it. Too many of the (smaller) searches I've tried have exactly two irrelevant, but not spammed, files in the top 20.
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now you've all got me convinced this is a harbinger to monthly reporting. I certainly hope it isn't. the live stats debacle is still fresh enough in my mind and it did in fact finish off the era of live stats, which never returned.
It would be a brilliant move by istock to reduce stats to a monthly report. Most of the ill will they're seeing from contributors is based on falling earnings. Monthly stats would make it harder to closely monitor the ongoing decline.
Ugh! Don't give them any ideas! :P
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now you've all got me convinced this is a harbinger to monthly reporting. I certainly hope it isn't. the live stats debacle is still fresh enough in my mind and it did in fact finish off the era of live stats, which never returned.
It would be a brilliant move by istock to reduce stats to a monthly report. Most of the ill will they're seeing from contributors is based on falling earnings. Monthly stats would make it harder to closely monitor the ongoing decline.
Ugh! Don't give them any ideas! :P
I think it may be their nasty plan. 'Woo yay f5 everyone, we are now in-line with our Getty big brother, woo yay'. And then when would we realise we are getting base royalties, 6 weeks after the event.
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If I remember correctly, live sales reporting (as in instant updates to the stats page) did not break, it was discontinued because it consumed too many resources. That was a long, long time ago.
I remembered it being reported by contributors first, but that was in my early iStock days. in any case, Lobo has said "conspiracies about monthly reporting can hit the bricks."
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... in any case, Lobo has said "conspiracies about monthly reporting can hit the bricks."
And those bricks lead right here to MSG ;D
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ROFLMAO - yup, seems so.
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Are anyone else's views all over the place? If I look in my portfolio sorted by age, the veiws recorded on my recent files mostly show as having 0 views, but in My Uploads, they almost all have views, even in one bizarre case, allegedly 100 views, and in one from last week, 141 views. The two high view images are extremely unlikely.
I'm sure irregular/inaccurate views is among the least of the current buts, but ...
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Using Sean's great GreaseMonkey scripts I can turn views off, so I couldn't tell you anything about mine. I do recall a bug some months (a year or so??) back where images got bazillions of views for a short time. There was some contributor concern about whether that'd hurt files in the best match results (too many views no sales) but nothing was ever done AFAIK when the bug fix was made. Given they're pushing "fixes" at the moment, I'm sure they're pushing a bug or two along with...
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I looked again at the view which is showing in My Downloads as having 100 views. In my portfolio and on the file page, it's showing as 6.
Can we really trust ANY site figures?
On my financials tab, my Total Earnings has gone up only $10 since Sunday night, while my Balance has gone up $70.06.
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ETA: I am wondering if it is because of different laws on advertising, that people might be less concerned about this in Germany. Even if I buy a picture of my competitor with a RF license, I am pretty sure that would still not allow me to advertise with his face.
Sorry to get back to this - I guess it should go in a new thread. How is a buyer who buys a model-released image from a stock agency supposed to know whether a chef/baker/plumber/teacher/doctor or whatever is real or just a model acting the part?
It would be an interesting legal case - and I know nothing about German law - to have someone who signed a model release allowing almost any use suing someone who used it under the terms of the MR.
The English language MR says, "I agree that this
release is irrevocable, worldwide and perpetual, and will be governed
by the laws (excluding the law of conflicts) of the country/state from the
following list that is nearest to the address of the Model (or Parent*) given
opposite: New York, Alberta, England, Australia and New Zealand."
So I'm guessing a lawyer would argue that the German model was signing an agreement to sign under English Law, not German.
Whether the Law of Conflicts would come into play, IANAL. But it looks as though the model is relinquishing the right to the Law of Conflicts too. Though under English law, you can't sign away your legal rights (or maybe that's only Scots Law?)
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Many searches are sprinkled with totally unrelated items.
I'm still wondering if that's a 'feature' rather than a fault.
Years ago a long ex-contributor emailled me to suggest I should do that in my lightboxes, apparently to show buyers I do different sorts of stuff. It's an established marketing ploy with a name, (I Googled it at the time, but of course, I can't remember it now.)
If iStock thinks that they can get people who search for tropical beach to buy a picture of an isolated dog, empty car trunk or a home thermostat, they're even more delusional than I give them credit for :)
That was exactly the intention. I'm not saying I agree with it, just that I'd heard of it. Too many of the (smaller) searches I've tried have exactly two irrelevant, but not spammed, files in the top 20.
Now that you mention it, I have been seeing that lately as well. I only noticed one file in each search that I can recall, but I remember thinking that this shot has no place in this search. When I looked at the keywords, they were all correct. It didn't make sense, and certainly would not have made me abandon my search and look for a totally unrelated image. I doubt that it would be effective in causing additional sales. As for putting it in a lightbox, that would seem to me to make the lightbox look unprofessional. If they like the look of your work, then they would look at the portfolio, I would think. This whole thing strikes me as just more incompetence by the site engineers.
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deleted and sent as site mail. I think this would be too much off topic.
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Posted By joyze:
We are aware there are a number of bugs that are affecting contributors. Some of them are being worked on as I type and others are queued up to be addressed. Here is an update on the two major ones that are being worked on right now.
1. Royalty adjustments for the royalty issue we had two weeks ago - We've just received the reports from BI with all of the data. As you can imagine this was a task in itself to go through every download, look at the credits used, determine what value each credit was at, then work out the royalty rate etc. Our next step is to create a script that will email each contributor affected with a list of each download and what royalty is due for that download. Then we'll add the royalty owed as a bulk to your account. We are estimating this to occur on Tuesday of next week.
2. The 'My Uploads' page - The dev team is working on this one as well. However, they are holding off on fixing this until they get all of the bugs worked out of the DB release we did this past weekend. They don't want to create a fix on a system that is still being tweaked and adjusted. They have promised me however, that their goal is to have this bug fixed by end of next week as well.
Am I correct in interpreting the highlighted statements above ... joyze is implying that the IT team, instead of doing software development, is actually doing a lot of extremely menial bookkeeping work. Apparently they are reading through reams of financial transactions and manually correcting them (with pencil and paper? and then updating a spreadsheet or database by hand?) ... and until they finish this menial job, they won't be allowed to actually do what they were hired to do, namely to write, test, and deploy software.
Another possible implication is that the "My Uploads" page is broken because they have a problem calculating royalties, and therefore they don't want to show anyone the specific sales per image - because if they did, contributors could immediately see that the wrong royalty rate was being used. So when you see your "Balance" ticking upward, it may be based on the wrong royalty rate ... and they don't want you to know that until they have finished their manual corrections of the royalty rates AND THEN gotten around to "fixing the scripts". Just speculating ...
BTW a question for IT nerds ... how could the "scripts" i.e. the programs be at fault for a royalty rate screwup. Wouldn't the royalty rates be "data" provided by the business side of the company, which is fed into a script or program provided by the programmers and deployed by the IT operations people? Did the scripts revert to the basic rate because the data inputs specifying the actual rates were missing or corrupted? Or did someone provide the wrong data?
Question No. 2 for IT'ers ... does the referral to using "scripts" imply that they are using a fairly primitive programming environment? E.g. based on Perl or some other relatively old technology. I have no direct experience in it but I've heard people claiming that web sites based on massive amounts of Perl scripts are bound to fail eventually because of un-maintainability. Especially when the scripts have become more and more loaded with "features" ... presumably in this case with a lot of complicated rules for prices and commissions.
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If I remember correctly, live sales reporting (as in instant updates to the stats page) did not break, it was discontinued because it consumed too many resources. That was a long, long time ago.
That is what I heard. I wonder how much resource is being used by people continually refreshing to try and get their latest downloads. Haven't sites been crashed by f5ing in the past?
actually it was first "put on hold" while they worked on fixing the resource issue. since they failed at doing that, they waited long enough for some other issue to get everyone talking about and decided to just leave the live stats turned off permanently. now we all just accept it as a fact of life.
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Posted By joyze:
We are aware there are a number of bugs that are affecting contributors. Some of them are being worked on as I type and others are queued up to be addressed. Here is an update on the two major ones that are being worked on right now.
1. Royalty adjustments for the royalty issue we had two weeks ago - We've just received the reports from BI with all of the data. As you can imagine this was a task in itself to go through every download, look at the credits used, determine what value each credit was at, then work out the royalty rate etc. Our next step is to create a script that will email each contributor affected with a list of each download and what royalty is due for that download. Then we'll add the royalty owed as a bulk to your account. We are estimating this to occur on Tuesday of next week.
2. The 'My Uploads' page - The dev team is working on this one as well. However, they are holding off on fixing this until they get all of the bugs worked out of the DB release we did this past weekend. They don't want to create a fix on a system that is still being tweaked and adjusted. They have promised me however, that their goal is to have this bug fixed by end of next week as well.
Am I correct in interpreting the highlighted statements above ... joyze is implying that the IT team, instead of doing software development, is actually doing a lot of extremely menial bookkeeping work. Apparently they are reading through reams of financial transactions and manually correcting them (with pencil and paper? and then updating a spreadsheet or database by hand?) ... and until they finish this menial job, they won't be allowed to actually do what they were hired to do, namely to write, test, and deploy software.
Another possible implication is that the "My Uploads" page is broken because they have a problem calculating royalties, and therefore they don't want to show anyone the specific sales per image - because if they did, contributors could immediately see that the wrong royalty rate was being used. So when you see your "Balance" ticking upward, it may be based on the wrong royalty rate ... and they don't want you to know that until they have finished their manual corrections of the royalty rates AND THEN gotten around to "fixing the scripts". Just speculating ...
BTW a question for IT nerds ... how could the "scripts" i.e. the programs be at fault for a royalty rate screwup. Wouldn't the royalty rates be "data" provided by the business side of the company, which is fed into a script or program provided by the programmers and deployed by the IT operations people? Did the scripts revert to the basic rate because the data inputs specifying the actual rates were missing or corrupted? Or did someone provide the wrong data?
Question No. 2 for IT'ers ... does the referral to using "scripts" imply that they are using a fairly primitive programming environment? E.g. based on Perl or some other relatively old technology. I have no direct experience in it but I've heard people claiming that web sites based on massive amounts of Perl scripts are bound to fail eventually because of un-maintainability. Especially when the scripts have become more and more loaded with "features" ... presumably in this case with a lot of complicated rules for prices and commissions.
the data is all in a database, so they need the technical savvy folks to be able to comb through the data, using queries and searches on the database, and pull out the relevant stuff. I dont' think they are actually using paper ledgers for this, so it's not really bookkeeping per se, but it is dealing with our financial data.
a 'script' in this sense is just a generic term for any sort of program that will automate the process. I wouldn't get jumpy about them doing something primitive. it sounds like they need to create an automated process to send us all emails that will pull our specific data from the database and give us our stats.
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Just noticed I can retrieve one up-to-date number. On the stats page, "Regular downloads by file type (updated daily)" appears to be current. I have 7 more sales reported there than under the downloads section.
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BTW a question for IT nerds ... how could the "scripts" i.e. the programs be at fault for a royalty rate screwup. Wouldn't the royalty rates be "data" provided by the business side of the company, which is fed into a script or program provided by the programmers and deployed by the IT operations people? Did the scripts revert to the basic rate because the data inputs specifying the actual rates were missing or corrupted? Or did someone provide the wrong data?
Question No. 2 for IT'ers ... does the referral to using "scripts" imply that they are using a fairly primitive programming environment? E.g. based on Perl or some other relatively old technology. I have no direct experience in it but I've heard people claiming that web sites based on massive amounts of Perl scripts are bound to fail eventually because of un-maintainability. Especially when the scripts have become more and more loaded with "features" ... presumably in this case with a lot of complicated rules for prices and commissions.
Among non-technical people, 'scripts' is simply becoming common slang term for code of any sort, that drives a web site. 'Script' has a specific meaning in software development, referring to 'interpreted' programming languages, but that distinction is being lost. I think this usage emanates from the UK but I'm not sure. Yes, there's a clear distinction between code and data, which should be maintained, but in the Byzantine world of iStock's ever-changing business model, royalties are calculated by formulas of unknown complexity, in code ('scripts').
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Just noticed I can retrieve one up-to-date number. On the stats page, "Regular downloads by file type (updated daily)" appears to be current. I have 7 more sales reported there than under the downloads section.
I suspect that that discrepancy may be due to not having yet had yesterday's sales added to the Stats (mine aren't anyway).
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Just noticed I can retrieve one up-to-date number. On the stats page, "Regular downloads by file type (updated daily)" appears to be current. I have 7 more sales reported there than under the downloads section.
I suspect that that discrepancy may be due to not having yet had yesterday's sales added to the Stats (mine aren't anyway).
Yep...that's what I was thinking. Nevertheless, it's nice to at least have one number acting properly.
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I had to try three times to log in just now. kept getting the "whoops" page. and sales are abysmal if balance is any indicator. so now I don't even know if I am getting sales. I should have more than half my days worth of downloads by now. brutal.
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I had to try three times to log in just now. kept getting the "whoops" page. and sales are abysmal if balance is any indicator. so now I don;t even know if I am getting sales. I should have more than half my days worth of downloads by now. brutal.
My sales are terrible today too judging by the inertia on the balance. I'm starting to wonder if the entire accounting system is slowly crashing ... bit by bit.
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I had to try three times to log in just now. kept getting the "whoops" page. and sales are abysmal if balance is any indicator. so now I don;t even know if I am getting sales. I should have more than half my days worth of downloads by now. brutal.
My sales are terrible today too judging by the inertia on the balance. I'm starting to wonder if the entire accounting system is slowly crashing ... bit by bit.
It might be worth checking your BSs. I checked mine and it did have a sale today. Unusually, though, sales after UK office time have been 0, provided the balance is updating in real time.
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I just tried to log in from my laptop and got the "whoops" screen after I clicked the button, but it did log me in anyway - was the "whoops" for the wretched "are you a buyer or signing up as a contributor" screen perhaps? Yes, I know I can answer it and make it go away, but I haven't.
At any rate, it was late morning here (Pacific Time) before I saw my balance change and after a reasonable Monday and OK Tuesday, it looks as if today's a total washout at IS. Unless there are sales but we're not seeing them.
How would we know? I realize there are some in the Help forum insisting that they can look at various iStock-generated screens and be certain they are getting accurate reports of sales, but that's just illogical daydreaming.
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I started gettng 503s on Monday morning (GMT) but my post about it was removed. However, Lobo is acknowledging it's happening and says they're onto it. Woot.
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someone probably already figured this out, but Deepmeta can't give me anything either. thought I would be wily...I tried to see last downloads after fetching all my data in DM...nope, cuts off on November 1st. I can't update any files via DM either. it returns a 500 error. I don't feel any confidence about my royalties over the last two weeks. I sure hope they clear this awful mess up soon. no way this should be happening this time of year, or any time of year for that matter.
seriously. I totally understand, and am usually patient about technical problems. they happen, they are inevitable. I also believe they have very good tech people working for them. but they don't have enough of them and we're WAY too big and too busy to be mickey mousing around with things like this. this is brutal.
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I'd kinda like to see the "Whoops" screen. Instead the page just sits there spinning its wheels.
Oh hey! Text! Gotta love how they offer the buyers a discount for their incompetence and leave us in the dust.
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Il semble que nous rencontrions en ce moment un problème temporaire, mais nous travaillons dur pour le régler au plus vite. Pour patienter, nous souhaitons vous offrir 10% de réduction sur votre prochain achat de 50 crédits ou plus, en utilisant le Code Promo ci-dessous.
BYTES2011 (valable une semaine)
Normalerweise arbeitet das Pannenmonster im abgedunkelten Internet-Raum still vor sich hin. Es ist eigentlich ganz lieb, aber manchmal gerät es außer Kontrolle und macht dann Sachen kaputt. Wir fanden gerade einen Zettel von Ihm: “Liebe Ihrs, machen was kaputt ist wieder heile. Bussi, Monster.” Das Monster und die Seite sind bald wieder unter Kontrolle. Als kleine Entschädigung möchten wir Ihnen einen Nachlass von 10% für Ihren nächsten Einkauf bei iStock über 50 oder mehr Credits anbieten. Geben Sie dafür einfach den unten stehenden Code ein:
BYTES2011 (eine Woche gültig).
Parece que estamos experimentando un problema en este momento pero estamos trabajando para solucionarlo lo antes posible. Mientras tanto, nos gustaría ofrecerle un 10% de descuento en su próxima compra de 50 o más créditos de iStock con el código de cupón que aparece debajo.
BYTES2011 (válido para una semana).
当ページは作業中です。ご迷惑をお掛け致しますが、しばらくお待ちください。お詫びと致しまして、次回の50クレジット以上のご購入時にご利用頂ける10%引きのクーポンコードを差し上げます。
クーポンコード：BYTES2011（有効期限:1週間）
Latest Updates From Twitter
+Follow @iStock
* @iStock "We're working quickly to resolve the issues. We'll keep you updated."
* @iStock "Did you grow a Fu Manchu or a handlebar? Show us a pic of your 'stache. We'll pick our favs and donate $100 to your @Movember account."
* @iStock "It’s a big world out there, full of diversity. Check out images of local culture from our editorial contributors. istockpho.to/uL07kD"
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yup. getting the same screen.....bye bye sales
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Priceless message from iJerks
PLS
NEVER COME BACK
;D
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Nice. So I click on IS's Twitter link at the bottom on the monsters message "@iStock "We're working quickly to resolve the issues. We'll keep you updated.", and wouldn't you know? They even broke Twitter!!! >:( >:( >:(
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Weird
(http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/4792/capturarti.jpg)
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I also believe they have very good tech people working for them.
Really? Why on earth would you think that? This is the highly professional message that Istock customers are currently being greeted with;
"The glitch monsters are at work down in the dark internety room, but they sent a note up that said: “Dear You, Me fix broken thing. Sorry for trouble. Love, Monsters.”
They, and the site, will be back up soon. In the meantime, we’d like to offer you 10% off your next purchase of 50 or more iStock credits using the coupon code below."
Either they've just returned from a very good 'lunch' or its a bunch of 12-year olds they've got working there.
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Oh man.
I have to admit: as a guy who spent 30 years in the computer and software business, and finally got his @ss out of it a few months ago, I am SO totally enjoying this fiasco. I'm sort of ashamed of myself, but I feel like I've earned it.
This now smells like a classic meltdown. Either they've lost some key people who took all the knowledge with them, or they're dealing with a massively corrupt database and an inablity to restore from backups - or their software subcontractor has stopped answering the phone... it's now a 5-alarm fire, all hands on deck.
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Some village lost their idiot and now I see iStock has hired them! I have never seen such incompetence in my life from a company this size. I was having decent sales until now!
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This really does not look good, companies around the world preparing their systems for the approaching failure of the € and Istock are having mysterious outages: coincidence or prudence?
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They've even translated the drivel into German. The French and Spaniards seem to be blessed with a version of the message that is reasonably professional.
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I also believe they have very good tech people working for them.
Really? Why on earth would you think that? This is the highly professional message that Istock customers are currently being greeted with;
"The glitch monsters are at work down in the dark internety room, but they sent a note up that said: “Dear You, Me fix broken thing. Sorry for trouble. Love, Monsters.”
They, and the site, will be back up soon. In the meantime, we’d like to offer you 10% off your next purchase of 50 or more iStock credits using the coupon code below."
Either they've just returned from a very good 'lunch' or its a bunch of 12-year olds they've got working there.
I'm not going to say anything to defend the current situation. there's nothing to say. but, when iStock works, it's a fantastic working machine. the search is wildly accurate. I know you don't agree but I'm giving credit where it is due to techs that accomplish what they do most days. this week I'll give deserved criticism. the current errors, and the management of communication this week--shite....
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IS is saying on Twitter the outage is only expected to last 30-45 minutes.
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IS is saying on Twitter the outage is only expected to last 30-45 minutes.
only!?.....unbelievable
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They shouldn`t let Lobo into the server room with food.
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Why don't they just close for the holidays, my family doesn't need to eat!
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I'm not going to say anything to defend the current situation. there's nothing to say. but, when iStock works, it's a fantastic working machine. the search is wildly accurate. I know you don't agree but I'm giving credit where it is due to techs that accomplish what they do most days. this week I'll give deserved criticism. the current errors, and the management of communication this week--shite....
Hmmm __ maybe a bit of Canadian positive bias in there? I don't think the fact that sometimes they actually get bits of the site to work is anything to 'woo yay' about. You really should give up your crown and experience how much better every other agency is in maintaining their website.
Honestly, if I had to give marks-out-of-ten to the Big 4 microstock agencies on the general maintenance of their websites and the successful implementation of modifications it would be ... SS 10, DT 9, FT 8.5 and Istock 3.5. That's just how I see it from my own experience of each.
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^ could be. I wouldn't know, that is true. but I would argue that part of why the other sites don;t have major technical errors is that they don't push as many envelopes. iStock, IMO (and clearly I am biased) is still the industry leader. they seemed to be hell bent on changing that though....
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IS is saying on Twitter the outage is only expected to last 30-45 minutes.
only!?.....unbelievable
Sounds reasonable. If they feel comfortable letting the contributors wait 2 week for their bugs to be fixed, I cant see them breaking a sweat to get back on track for the buyers either.
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Busy advertising company has deadline for Friday morning, locked out of iStock for 45min, they go to Shutter Stock because they are in a jam. They find what they need and when their contract comes up to renew at iStock they choose to go with ShutterStock instead. If this is how the new CEO is working say fire her before its to late!
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Groovy. Now IS is sending buyers to Thinkstock.
MarcFestival Festival Creative
@iStock. Hi. I need to purchase two images urgently - how can I do this while the site is down. Is there someone I can email?
11 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply
»
iStock
iStock iStock
@
@MarcFestival unfortunately you can't. You can try Thinkstock.com if you need them right away. Sorry!
8 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply
»
Festival Creative
MarcFestival Festival Creative
@
@iStock. I don't have access and the images names don't apply. When do you think the site will be back up?
4 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply
»
iStock
iStock iStock
@
@MarcFestival We're hoping asap. I should have an update shortly.
3 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply
in reply to ↑
Festival Creative
@MarcFestival Festival Creative
@iStock. Great. Can you please send me a message when it's back up. I gotta have this job out in the next 3 hrs or it's my ass.
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Busy advertising company has deadline for Friday morning, locked out of iStock for 45min, they go to Shutter Stock because they are in a jam. They find what they need and when their contract comes up to renew at iStock they choose to go with ShutterStock instead. If this is how the new CEO is working say fire her before its to late!
On the twitter page it says to go to Thinkstock instead. "You can try http://Thinkstock.com (http://Thinkstock.com) if you need them right away. Sorry!"
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Busy advertising company has deadline for Friday morning, locked out of iStock for 45min, they go to Shutter Stock because they are in a jam. They find what they need and when their contract comes up to renew at iStock they choose to go with ShutterStock instead. If this is how the new CEO is working say fire her before its to late!
Istock on Twitter suggested you go to Thinkstock if you need something right now...
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There is a live business case for you! And StinkStock dose not carry my video files!
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Busy advertising company has deadline for Friday morning, locked out of iStock for 45min, they go to Shutter Stock because they are in a jam. They find what they need and when their contract comes up to renew at iStock they choose to go with ShutterStock instead. If this is how the new CEO is working say fire her before its to late!
Istock on Twitter suggested you go to Thinkstock if you need something right now...
See the bottom of page 9 for the entire conversation. Sad indeed.
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lets be positive . They told me the problem of get paidout was solved. Quick response all ok.
On a negative I found it wasn't fixed and then after found I could not get onto the site at all. Tweeter??? Why
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IS is saying on Twitter the outage is only expected to last 30-45 minutes.
It's now an hour since that was posted
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IS is saying on Twitter the outage is only expected to last 30-45 minutes.
It's now an hour since that was posted
And now they are saying it will be a couple of hours more. Woot.
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That will be it
t RIP
dear iSmackStok
See ya in next life
;D
I dont beleive in god, but this is maybe one prof that good exist.
God dont send them back from the end of light tunnel ;D
Wooyayyyy
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I'm stunned that the site is still down with that error page.
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This is very typical iStock I've seen over the years. People working there are detached from the contributors base and look at the site as their own place where they can look cool and different. Sadly, it looks childish in many people's eyes.
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but the messages on that page seem off the wall. is some strung out little techy writing ad-hoc messages or something? what happened to the angry octopus? or the weird vector creatures? at least those error pages showed some design prowess
so, reading all the tweets in order (because we should have to do that).....my guess is that the "error" descriptions are probably internal script for the graphics that usually appear on error pages. seems they can't display graphics right now either.....at least we know the messages aren't the result of some wacky tabacky-smoking, cheesy-throwing server room party gone awry....
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I'm stunned that the site is still down with that error page.
Dont worry. They will never go back, as they say before when its time to cross suspension bridge to Greedy family...
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"Starting tomorrow until Dec 7, this code will give you 15% off any purchase: 1979SUCKS."
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They've upped the ante - 15% vs. 10% - I assume because the site's been out so long.
I really, really wish that when they give out "sorry" discounts it would come fully out of iStock's unreasonably large share of the gross and not mine as well. It's bad enough that I can't sell if the site is down but then when we can sell again, it'll be with some lowball royalty amounts.
I don't begrudge the buyers a discount at all; I just don't want to fund it when it is 100.0% iStock's fault.
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They've upped the ante - 15% vs. 10% - I assume because the site's been out so long.
I really, really wish that when they give out "sorry" discounts it would come fully out of iStock's unreasonably large share of the gross and not mine as well. It's bad enough that I can't sell if the site is down but then when we can sell again, it'll be with some lowball royalty amounts.
I don't begrudge the buyers a discount at all; I just don't want to fund it when it is 100.0% iStock's fault.
I agree. we shouldn't be gouged when they offer discounts for technical issues.
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They've upped the ante - 15% vs. 10% - I assume because the site's been out so long.
I really, really wish that when they give out "sorry" discounts it would come fully out of iStock's unreasonably large share of the gross and not mine as well. It's bad enough that I can't sell if the site is down but then when we can sell again, it'll be with some lowball royalty amounts.
I don't begrudge the buyers a discount at all; I just don't want to fund it when it is 100.0% iStock's fault.
I agree. we shouldn't be gouged when they offer discounts for technical issues.
right.. we should get more a higher percentage for the next week as well. I am not speechless but I can think of several foul words to throw at them.
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Bruce Springsteen - I'm Goin' Down - Live from Tulsa, OK - Working On A Dream Tour - 2009-04-07 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCw2vOUKZzY#ws)
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^ could be. I wouldn't know, that is true. but I would argue that part of why the other sites don;t have major technical errors is that they don't push as many envelopes. iStock, IMO (and clearly I am biased) is still the industry leader. they seemed to be hell bent on changing that though....
I wouldn't equate a confusing,overly busy website with "pushing the envelope". The upload system is archaic. The video submission procedure is a joke. The keyword controlled vocabulary is out of date with huge areas missing. I don't think there is an area or feature of the site that isn't handled better by other agencies. Istock seems to spend all it's time slicing the same baloney into smaller and smaller pieces. No real time reporting of sales. ( no reporting at all lately- good luck in getting paid ) And then, of course, there's Lobo. The idea that so many people continue to contribute to the forums after the way they've been treated by this small man is just pitiful. He's the one pushing the envelope.
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For some interesting reading, do a twitter search for "istock". There's one guy claiming he missed a deadline and lost a client because of the outage. Kinda makes you wonder if people really do know that there are other microstock agencies out there.
I've always theorized that people stay with istock out of habit, but maybe it's also out of a lack of awareness that similar companies exist.
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For some interesting reading, do a twitter search for "istock". There's one guy claiming he missed a deadline and lost a client because of the outage. Kinda makes you wonder if people really do know that there are other microstock agencies out there.
I've always theorized that people stay with istock out of habit, but maybe it's also out of a lack of awareness that similar companies exist.
Maybe he had an exclusive photo as a comp his client had agreed to?
Or maybe he was Lagereek's client who couldn't find an image on general search, and instead of looking in his port, contacted him directly and paid more.
Strange things happen,
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For some interesting reading, do a twitter search for "istock". There's one guy claiming he missed a deadline and lost a client because of the outage. Kinda makes you wonder if people really do know that there are other microstock agencies out there.
I've always theorized that people stay with istock out of habit, but maybe it's also out of a lack of awareness that similar companies exist.
And then he follows up with "Don't worry, IS...I still love you."
We should flood that buyer with links to sites that charge less and don't cause the loss of clients.
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I really have to open Twitter acc just for iStok a
Tell me how?!
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1979SUCKS? Seriously? Sigh.
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For some interesting reading, do a twitter search for "istock". There's one guy claiming he missed a deadline and lost a client because of the outage. Kinda makes you wonder if people really do know that there are other microstock agencies out there.
I've always theorized that people stay with istock out of habit, but maybe it's also out of a lack of awareness that similar companies exist.
And then he follows up with "Don't worry, IS...I still love you."
We should flood that buyer with links to sites that charge less and don't cause the loss of clients.
It's also people not wanting to commit to a large subscription when they already have a pile of credits that can only be spent on istock; or their company will only deal with istock as that's what management has approved. It's down the track a bit when firms and designers are considering what to do when their pile of credits runs out that istock will get hit.
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There is a recession coming (already here). Cost cutting alone will divert many high budget customers away from iStock. This is just a catalyst.
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Knockin' On Heaven's Door - Bob Dylan (LIVE@1976) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0UU_v09cwQ#)
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1979SUCKS? Seriously? Sigh.
Gotta hand it to you, Sean. You tried talking to them about their silly messages...too bad they didn't listen. Thanks for trying.
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I really have to open Twitter acc just for iStok a
Tell me how?!
Just open an account (easy process) and then search for @istock. Click follow. The end.
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They removed 1979SUCKS finally.
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1979SUCKS? Seriously? Sigh.
Just in case, thought this might be a good time to offer this referral link to any interested iStock exclusives http://submit.shutterstock.com/?ref=229591 (http://submit.shutterstock.com/?ref=229591)
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They removed 1979SUCKS finally.
At least it is off the page. I'm wondering if the buyers are able to piggy-back these discount codes -- 10% off of $50 or more of credits is coupon code JAY2011, good for one week from today; and then 15% off of any purchase beginning tomorrow and good until December 7 is coupon code 1979SUCKS. That is some heavy-duty discounting, if they are able to use both of them.
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I really have to open Twitter acc just for iStok a
Tell me how?!
Just open an account (easy process) and then search for @istock. Click follow. The end.
THNX
maybe Ill try. But as I see Ill be biggest troll for them.
Only I know that there is another Lobo guy who filters and band followers or redirect them to other nonusefull posts...
Can you gimme Hellman & Friedman or GreddyImages tweet address to ;D
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@GettyImages
Don't know about H&F. Did a search and came up with two employees and four posts about their latest acquisition for $3.9 billion. As if I wasn't already mad enough..........
http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20111130/articles/111139979 (http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20111130/articles/111139979)
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This looks like to me as a beginning of the end for IStock. Whatever credibility they had left it went down the drain. It's hard to admit but one of the best micro stock site in the world will go belly up simply because their greed, unprofessional behavior and total lack of respect for those who actually make money for them ... hard working contributors. No matter what those bozo's say I honestly believe this is a hack job ... and it will happen again and again and again.
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well it is back on line and nothing fixed so it was a major crash of some sort ... I am so past anything they do surprising me - or should I say fail to do? - they behave like my local phone and broadband company - incompetent - the only difference being one is a monopoly with no competition and the other has some very serious competition - go figure.
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Meanwhile on the Istock Help forum:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=337695&page=1 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=337695&page=1)
JJRD says:
At this time, it would be fair to look at this as a positive moment.
Yes, some contributor related issues remain ; we are looking to stabilize the website from a client perspective right now, and most members of the technology team are hard at work making sure the platform is stable for the NA night and the beginning of the European day.
In the name of iStockphoto's management, I want to express our willingness at offering everybody involved with iStockphoto a stable platform to license and or share digital media, and we do apologize for the difficult phase that we are going through.
Rest assured that our only goal is to take this business to its next level, solve everything related to legacy technological issues while remaining the undisputed leader of the industry.
dcdp asks:
(...) Additionally, the buyers have been offered a 15% discount on credits purchased because of this outage as a short term apology for their difficulties. I suspect this will be worn by the contributors who have not only suffered from an ongoing inability to manage their own portfolio, upload images, and maintain their portfolio, but now have been unable to sell anything because, in the case of exclusive contributors, their sole distributor is off line. What will iStock do to recompense contributors?
JJRD replies:
Let's focus on clients at this stage, come on - the site just came back.
----------------
Okay, apparently, they have not fixed anything and we're not getting anything as compensation.
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Oh noo
iSmacks are back grrrrrrr.....
Saga is gonna to be wild...
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JJRD says:
At this time, it would be fair to look at this as a positive moment.
I don't know what kind of stuff he's on, but I'd sure like some. ;)
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dcdp asks:
(...) Additionally, the buyers have been offered a 15% discount on credits purchased because of this outage as a short term apology for their difficulties. I suspect this will be worn by the contributors who have not only suffered from an ongoing inability to manage their own portfolio, upload images, and maintain their portfolio, but now have been unable to sell anything because, in the case of exclusive contributors, their sole distributor is off line. What will iStock do to recompense contributors?
JJRD replies:
Let's focus on clients at this stage, come on - the site just came back.
So no reassurance that we aren't going to pay for this AGAIN? Thus far I have been staying mute and biding my time over this IS circus routine. But this may just be the last straw for me.
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Oh I see what I've been doing wrong now. I've been focusing on the fact that contributors just lost a load of earnings. I should have been focusing on clients.
I guess they can't see any connection between contributors losing earnings, and clients being unable to purchase images to meet their deadlines.
Apparently we're entirely separate entites that have no impact on each other.
I feel so stupid now.
(*)
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JJRD says:
At this time, it would be fair to look at this as a positive moment.
I don't know what kind of stuff he's on, but I'd sure like some. ;)
I think what he actually meant is it might have been way way worse and they are really happy to be able at least to bring it back live ;D
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JJRD says:
At this time, it would be fair to look at this as a positive moment.
I don't know what kind of stuff he's on, but I'd sure like some. ;)
I think what he actually meant is it might have been way way worse and they are really happy to be able at least to bring it back live ;D
So rather than positive, it's neutral. We were down, now we're back.
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Careers at iStock:
Applications Developer
Tracking Code: P-CAL 999
Job Description
Development expertise needed! Multiple openings.
Who You Are
iStockphoto is looking for a highly motivated individual with expertise in software development and managing software projects to work as a Web Applications Developer. The successful applicant will join a diverse team of talented individuals in developing Rich Internet Applications for high-profile partners and services. We're looking for developers who want to get their hands dirty with all aspects of development from concept to release. Responsible, communicative developers will thrive in our agile environment.
Your Next Challenge
Assist with implementation of project architecture
Research, identify and document technical requirements
Determine and identify appropriate technologies to be used
Develop and document the system architecture
Create data flows and database schemas
Assist with implementation of project design, standards and processes
Develop and document the high-level technical design
Identify project tasks and define task definitions
Assist in developing technical project schedules, plans, task assignments and time estimates
Provide senior project staff with full communication of project progress
Assist with development and maintenance of project code
Take an active role in development of low-level design
Develop code in keeping with established processes and standards
Debug and unit test modules before deployment to QA environment
Assist deployment staff by providing necessary documentation
Create and maintain project documentation, in accordance with established standards
What You'll Need
Education and Technical Experience
BSc. in Computer Science or equivalent education/experience
Strong understanding of object oriented programming (OO) and languages such as PHP,C++, C#, etc.
Experience with Linux, Apache, MySQL
Experience with a revision control system
Experience with AJAX, CSS, Javascript an asset
Experience designing and implementing interfaces using Prototype, Scriptaculous, or other AJAX UI libraries an asset
Experience with Flash programming and manipulating multimedia files (photos, videos, etc.) an asset
Ability to reliably plan, describe and implement a solution to software problems
Flexibility in the adoption of standard tools
Personal
Strong creative problem-solving ability
Excellent organizational skills
Ability to multi-task, establish priorities and meet tight deadlines
Excellent communication skills and interpersonal skills
Ability and desire to thrive in a fast-paced environment
Who We Are
iStockphoto LP is the internet's premiere royalty-free stock photography community, providing visual content for creative professionals, designers, publishers and businesses worldwide.
Please note: If you are contacted for an interview, you may be required to submit a code sample. If you're a real go getter check out these instructions and you can get started right away.
Your code sample should: a) Demonstrate an understanding of OO programming practices (any OO language is acceptable), b) Be 100% your own code (no group projects or copy/paste from tutorials) and c) Function as intended.
The code sample should be something you are proud of and should be exemplary of your skills and abilities. Please attach all required code, DB schemas, graphics, other assets and a brief note about what your code is supposed to do in a gzip/zip file.
Thank goodness, they've kept the omnious phrase 'cutting edge' out of there. :D
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How will we know how sales are affected? The My Uploads page still doesn't show any sales since 11/1.
Forget testing and all that other SOP nonsense, if you roll out new code and it doesn't work, just roll it back. It's simple. Oh wait, I guess that implies that you made a mistake.
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How will we know how sales are affected? The My Uploads page still doesn't show any sales since 11/1.
Your balance should have been rising, presumably in real time. I've had $$ added this morning (i.e. since the outage).
Yesterday I checked my BS and it recorded a sale for yesterday. Obviously it would be impractical to go through all your files like that.
So you can know your balance, but not the number of downloads. And you may get a few cents or dollars extra for the few days everyone's RC rate was showing at base.
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I was hoping that wasn't the case. If it is, then November was my worst month at Istock since September, 2006
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It's also people not wanting to commit to a large subscription when they already have a pile of credits that can only be spent on istock; or their company will only deal with istock as that's what management has approved. It's down the track a bit when firms and designers are considering what to do when their pile of credits runs out that istock will get hit.
Well isn't that yet another misconception? That the only alternative to istock is a subscription?
And I don't buy the "my company only lets me source images from istock" idea. I worked for a company like that, and I changed their minds pretty easily. Every company wants to save money and cut spending. Present the right argument and it's hard to ignore the benefits of shopping elsewhere.
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I was hoping that wasn't the case. If it is, then November was my worst month at Istock since September, 2006
I've seen a few people on iStock's November forum saying the same.
While Nov '11 was worse for me than every Nov since '08 (Nov '08 my BME), it's nothing like my WME, as it took me a while to build up steam. It's in my top three months of 2011.
I wonder if some people's balances have not been going up in real time.
If they haven't been, what confidence is there that even the increasing balances I've noticed on my account are accurate?
:( >:( ???
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It's also people not wanting to commit to a large subscription when they already have a pile of credits that can only be spent on istock; or their company will only deal with istock as that's what management has approved. It's down the track a bit when firms and designers are considering what to do when their pile of credits runs out that istock will get hit.
Well isn't that yet another misconception? That the only alternative to istock is a subscription?
"while they already have a pile of iStock credits"
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Well isn't that yet another misconception? That the only alternative to istock is a subscription?
"while they already have a pile of iStock credits"
Yeah, I get that. No one wants to leave a bunch of credit behind. But in situations like this, I'm surprised that people won't look at another agency even while a deadline looms. In one twitter post, someone claimed to have lost a client because of last night's downtime. I think that person could have salvaged the client relationship by going to another site and finding a suitable alternative to the image they wanted from istock. If it was a non-exclusive image, they could have found the exact same image elsewhere.
You don't lose your credits when you shop somewhere else. You can always go back to istock when the site is back up. I think some people either don't know that or don't know that there are alternatives out there at all.
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Jay's message:
"Howdy, Y'all,
Now that we've got iStock back up and running, I wanted to bring the community some information about yesterday's unplanned site outage.
On the weekend we took the planned outage in order to deploy a cutting-edge technology whose purpose is to provide some infrastructural goodness that I'm not allowed to describe any more clearly than that. The theory and intent were (and remain) strong, but sadly, the solution did not perform in the wild in the way it did during the 7 months we subjected it to laboratory tests. When we realized that we couldn't recover the site on that technology, we moved swiftly to restore operations on a stable, known platform.
Today we are working with the vendor and our internal team to figure out what went wrong. Like you, we are not happy. Site outages are never a good thing, not for the community and not for our business.
Sincerely,
Jay"
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=337735&page=1 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=337735&page=1)
Well, at least it's some information.
Maybe the 'vendor' of the 'cutting edge technology' (watch my lips: don't go there!) should absorb the 15%.
Definitely they should do 'real world' as well as 'laboratory' tests.
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Seven months of lab tests and they failed to realize that the whole system would fail? I think it's a massive red flag that they need to look at their "laboratory" as a testing environment before they try any more big site upgrades - the lab is clearly not able to predict actual usage (and of course there'll be a few bugs with anything new, but not complete collapse).
This also totally avoids the question about why anyone gave them permission to shift infrastructure on the site during the busy season? Was it blind optimism that it'd just work so that made it OK? Were the decision makers aware of the risks of site downtime and went ahead anyway? On the face of it it seems completely insane.
I have to assume that some Getty initiative is behind this - getting on a common platform - and they just don't care about some lost sales given their objective (which they won't share with contributors). All I can say is that they must think it's something really good for them (which likely means equally bad for contributors) to be willing to take this kind of risk.
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Careers at iStock:
Applications Developer
Tracking Code: P-CAL 999
Job Description
Development expertise needed! Multiple openings.
Who You Are
...
Is that job posting real? Where did you find it?
If they have 'multiple openings' for web developers right now, that means they're in trouble, and we probably don't need to construct any more theories to explain all their current site problems. They lost one or more key people, and with them went a critical amount of knowledge about the site, code and database. And now the remaining developers are looking at the latest list of changes demanded by management, and they have people running in the door every 5 minutes asking how much longer everything is going to take.
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Careers at iStock:
Applications Developer
Tracking Code: P-CAL 999
Job Description
Development expertise needed! Multiple openings.
Who You Are
...
Is that job posting real? Where did you find it?
It absolutely was real this morning when I cut and pasted it. And was there for several days at least.
(I looked at the weekend to see if they were still looking for someone who could 'break their system', a listing which was there for months and months on end, and they couldn't never find someone, apparently)
It now seems to be down, but I promise it was linked to from the iStock careers link, on silkroad.
If you scroll right down on any iStock page, you'll get the text links, one of which says Careers. That's where you find out about all the
"Flex your creativity with iStockphoto
We are the world's first affordable member-generated royalty-free stock image company with millions of photos, illustrations, video, audio and Flash® files starting at $1. The evidence of iStock is everywhere. Every time you open a magazine, check out a book cover or look at a billboard, chances are you’re seeing iStock. Everything began at our headquarters in Calgary, Canada in 2000.
We'll never make you wear a nametag, iron your khakis or pretend that only bad people have tattoos. You can wear what you want and look how you feel. We work hard and play even harder: there's Friday afternoon Rock Band sessions and more than 100 arcade games available in our snack-stocked cafeteria.
Perks of working at iStock
Benefits worth bragging about
Competitive base salary and bonus plan.
Health and dental benefits start on Day 1.
Group RRSP matching plan for permanent employees.
Free in-office massages at your desk from our very own masseuse.
Extra health and wellness spending for glasses, snowboards or a gym pass.
Education reimbursement program to support your career related courses.
Healthy drinks and snacks provided daily, as well as an X-Box 360 and a bubble hockey table.
We're flexible, so if you need time off, just talk to us and we'll work it out.
As of this moment, the listed jobs are:
Client Relations Representative (G-CAL 11381)
Calgary, AB, CA
Contributor Relations Representative (G-CAL 11336)
Calgary, AB, CA
Manager, Social Media (G-CAL 11330)
Calgary, AB, CA
Media Specialist (G-CAL 11331)
Calgary, AB, CA
VP, Online Marketing (G-CAL 11281)
Calgary, AB, CA
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I was hoping that wasn't the case. If it is, then November was my worst month at Istock since September, 2006
I've seen a few people on iStock's November forum saying the same.
While Nov '11 was worse for me than every Nov since '08 (Nov '08 my BME), it's nothing like my WME, as it took me a while to build up steam. It's in my top three months of 2011.
I wonder if some people's balances have not been going up in real time.
If they haven't been, what confidence is there that even the increasing balances I've noticed on my account are accurate?
:( >:( ???
I've been wondering the same. How is it possible for my earnings to crash so drastically to their lowest since my 3rd month with IS back in 2006? How is it possible for that to happen to numerous contributors?
FYI -- EL sales are updating in real time. I had one this morning.
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Jay's message:
On the weekend we took the planned outage in order to deploy a cutting-edge technology...............
Given the two deaf, dumb and blind chimps that run the site calculators?
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Perks of working at iStock
Benefits worth bragging about
Competitive base salary and bonus plan.
Health and dental benefits start on Day 1.
Group RRSP matching plan for permanent employees.
Free in-office massages at your desk from our very own masseuse.
Extra health and wellness spending for glasses, snowboards or a gym pass.
Education reimbursement program to support your career related courses.
Healthy drinks and snacks provided daily, as well as an X-Box 360 and a bubble hockey table.
We're flexible, so if you need time off, just talk to us and we'll work it out.
No wonder they need 85% of my royalties. It's no wonder all the people who work there stay there regardless of their moral convictions. "Free in-office massages at your desk from our very own masseuse." Good grief. Even X_Box 360!! They spend more time getting massages and playing X-Box 360 than they do fixing the bugs on the site!
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I looked at the weekend to see if they were still looking for someone who could 'break their system', a listing which was there for months and months on end, and they couldn't never find someone, apparently ...
On the contrary __ it would appear that they found that person a couple of weeks ago. They've clearly done an outstanding job of 'breaking the system' since they started.
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No wonder they need 85% of my royalties. It's no wonder all the people who work there stay there regardless of their moral convictions. "Free in-office massages at your desk from our very own masseuse." Good grief. Even X_Box 360!! They spend more time getting massages and playing X-Box 360 than they do fixing the bugs on the site!
My only question is - why don't they work weekends? If I worked in a company with all those benefits, I wouldn't want to go home...
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Sorry if this is mentioned already, but is anyone else not seeing DL stats for pretty much all of november? According to the chart, my last DL was 11/1.
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Sorry if this is mentioned already, but is anyone else not seeing DL stats for pretty much all of november? According to the chart, my last DL was 11/1.
Yes.
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I cannot update DM. Some pages have 500 error again.
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Sorry if this is mentioned already, but is anyone else not seeing DL stats for pretty much all of november? According to the chart, my last DL was 11/1.
I'm only missing Nov. 28 - 30. ELs for December are working fine, but of course are not showing on the photos DLed page. However, I do wonder if somehow IS missed some days considering my earnings Nov. earnings are more than 75% less than normal and the lowest since 2006.
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Sorry if this is mentioned already, but is anyone else not seeing DL stats for pretty much all of november? According to the chart, my last DL was 11/1.
Same for me. But I looked at a couple of my frequent sellers individually and found that I actually did have some sales in November. Who knows what's real anymore?
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Sorry if this is mentioned already, but is anyone else not seeing DL stats for pretty much all of november? According to the chart, my last DL was 11/1.
Strange. By 'My uploads', my last download is showing as 1st Nov, but in my Stats, Royalties and Downloads are apparently showing up to the 26th Nov. My balance seemed to be uploading in real time, barring some wavers, but if it's accurate, my today has been disastrous. My downloads total on the Stats page hasn't changed for days, maybe a week, likewise 'total earnings' in my financials tab, but my Account Balance is showing as the same as my Balance on the bar at the bottom of the page.
The Regular downloads by file type (updated daily) [lowest chart on the Stats page] is showing 18 more dls than 'downloads', but it's been static for 3 or 4 days.
So it's all seriously scary as to whether we can expect to get a true account of what we earned during that time.
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I looked at the weekend to see if they were still looking for someone who could 'break their system', a listing which was there for months and months on end, and they couldn't never find someone, apparently ...
On the contrary __ it would appear that they found that person a couple of weeks ago. They've clearly done an outstanding job of 'breaking the system' since they started.
ROFLMAO!! Yes, that position has certainly been filled ;D
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iStock still seems really slow. pages are taking forever to load. I'm home now on my regular computer
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As of this moment, the listed jobs are:
Contributor Relations Representative (G-CAL 11336)
Calgary, AB, CA
Lobo is leaving?! Or is that Rob's old job still unfilled?
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As of this moment, the listed jobs are:
Contributor Relations Representative (G-CAL 11336)
Calgary, AB, CA
Lobo is leaving?! Or is that Rob's old job still unfilled?
Dream on, Lobo is a forum moderator, not a contributor relations representative.
Uncle Rob's job has been filled by KelvinJay and PinkCottonCandy.
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iStock still seems really slow. pages are taking forever to load. I'm home now on my regular computer
No! Really? But you were only just telling us yesterday that "I also believe they have very good tech people working for them."
I have absolutely no idea why you would 'believe' that. They're not 'pushing envelopes' or at 'the cutting edge' of anything at all. They can't even provide basic site functionality. When you give your crown you'll realise that every other agency has instantaneous sales stat's for example. You don't have to wait until the next day, or in Istock's case at the moment, the next month. Istock's tech wizards actually gave up even attempting to provide that data several years ago. Too difficult for them. Istock's dev team certainly should be 'pushing envelopes' __ working for the Canadian mail service.
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^ to reiterate what I said yesterday, I'm not defending iStock. but yes, I believe that they
were are the industry leader. if I didn't, I wouldn't be exclusive there. I'm not trying to convince you. and I wouldn't say that I believe they will continue leading. lots of red flags the past two years. I think they're screwing around with a good thing and making it a mediocre thing because of short-term gains, fattening the calf, at the expense of endurance and contributors being dealt with fairly. but I think their search is better than any other, by a lot. course it would help if the site worked.
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After a whole series of occurences, including some direct communications between myself and support not public on the forums, I have now sadly reached the conclusion that IS and its reps simply lie (especially when caught out) - I have been with them from the very very beginning when photos were essentially free and have watched them transform from a great place to a greedy, dishonest entity. I was once exclusive as well so I did have great faith in them at one point. But I no longer believe a single pronouncement they make and I would warn others to take everything they "proclaim" with a high degree of scepticism.