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Author Topic: What is happening to iStock?  (Read 28273 times)

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« Reply #25 on: August 02, 2015, 08:27 »
+12
...To me the whole thing was the change from someone with an entrepreneurial mindset at the top towards people with calculators and spreadsheets leading the company that was the main cause for all that has developed from then on.


Nail on the head.  Once the guy with vision is replaced by bean counters companies tend to go into a downward spiral.


PZF

« Reply #26 on: August 02, 2015, 09:02 »
+1
Only a  relative detail but somethig else which doesn't help is that anything a tad unusual, technical or sometimes even creative then often lacks the vocabulary to even keyword it properly....
There needs to be a quick route to get new words added....

« Reply #27 on: August 02, 2015, 09:04 »
+2
...To me the whole thing was the change from someone with an entrepreneurial mindset at the top towards people with calculators and spreadsheets leading the company that was the main cause for all that has developed from then on.


Nail on the head.  Once the guy with vision is replaced by bean counters companies tend to go into a downward spiral.
All my best years were 2006 and later.

« Reply #28 on: August 02, 2015, 09:10 »
+4
The whole point is, I have figured out that I cannot control what others do. All I can do is to do what I can control.

Trying to work like a slave for iStock, or Alamy or SS, will work for a while only.


That about sums it up I reckon. We can surmise what we like about any of them, and we can make a pretty good guess at what has been done and why, but at the end of the day, they don't generally listen to us, and our choice is limited to "in" or "out"


None of them ever promised any particular amount of income for anyone AFAIK.


I'm not defending incidentally, but it's a fact.

« Reply #29 on: August 02, 2015, 17:30 »
+1
Only a  relative detail but somethig else which doesn't help is that anything a tad unusual, technical or sometimes even creative then often lacks the vocabulary to even keyword it properly....
There needs to be a quick route to get new words added....
Even unusual place names suffer the same fate and I hate that I have to hyphenate double barrel names that are common in Australia, like Gin Gin, Wagga Wagga and hundreds more, in the titles and  of course are not in the CV at all.

madman

    This user is banned.
« Reply #30 on: August 03, 2015, 13:41 »
+3
I think there's a curse on iStock, coming from the somewhere deep inside...
« Last Edit: August 03, 2015, 13:56 by madman »

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #31 on: August 03, 2015, 13:47 »
+8
I think there's a curse on iStock, going from the somewhere deep inside...
It's incompetent management, with maybe a touch of malice.

« Reply #32 on: August 03, 2015, 15:28 »
+4
There are 3 main issues, not just with respect to iStock but also relating to all microstock sales - where microstock largely replaced previous RF stock:

1. Over-supply: In 2001 only a few people had DSLRs or knew Photoshop. Today all of that is ubiquitous to the point of no longer even being interesting any longer -> and becomes increasingly irrelevant vs iPhones and great apps. DSLRs are what the grandparents are probably using to make pictures today.

2. Declining market vs a peak in the 2007-2010 era. The market peak came in the era following ubiquitous broadband but before the full impact of the financial crash filtered through. About the time that Facebook was opened up for anyone to join. A down obviously always lags some years behind the crash. The sorts of client businesses which once fuelled a peak in microstock sales often simply no longer exist.

3. Competition from free/shared content. This is particularly relevant with respect to the huge number of companies, NGOs, local govt bodies and small businesses which once believed or were convinced that they needed a website. They don't today because a Facebook page reaches their customers better. A plumber or local shop doesn't need a website which is much more than a business card. For interacting with customers they can use Facebook. And the knock-on is that the customers ("friends") share content. Companies and small businesses looking for fresh content can today often achieve that simply by sharing what their "friends" post.

The companies selling stock will do okay provided that they can keep their costs low. I would be worried for any companies which have stockholders with expectations of growth or which are servicing significant debt. Unless those companies can find completely new things to do. Meanwhile the images which a significant number of the existing customers actually use are trending ever closer towards being free at the point of use.

Company valuations and expectations of future profits which seemed to make sense even a few years ago now seem hopelessly daft.

« Reply #33 on: August 03, 2015, 16:17 »
+3
...what do you think of the current state of IS/getty and future prospects. it appears the futzing has stabilized for the moment. (did i really say that?) :o


I think that they have one big problem they haven't figured out. 3 credits versus 1 credit for essentially the same content -search for orange slice, woman gym, new home and you can't see any reason that one image is three times the price of another.

And they still have the should-have-been-rejected content that came from off site and flooded the collection with rubbish - two examples (no surprise they haven't sold since 2013):

http://www.istockphoto.com/photo/close-up-of-orange-slice-25406435
http://www.istockphoto.com/photo/juicy-green-apple-25406521

There are smaller problems - the site regularly not working well and some really odd choices with the "new" interface versus the "classic"; inspection standards that I hear let just about anything in (when they used to have some of the most exacting standards, at least for technical excellence); no inexpensive sizes for blog or web use any more.

Why would you shop at iStock if you were a buyer? You have so many other choices that are a whole lot easier to deal with.


All the points mentioned about the mistakes iStock has made over the years thus, leading us to this low point are all spot on. But the mention above of the "3 credits versus 1 credit for essentially the same content" is really the key to why the bloodletting still continues and never stops.

Basically iStock decided if content is exclusive to their site then it gives them the right to charge buyers more for it. But what they don't understand is that most buyers who are looking for micro/mid stock priced content don't see the value in paying triple the price simply because an image is offered for rent on only one site.

Then you have to ask yourself, "Why is iStock really charging more for exclusive content, is it actually better or more valuable?" The answer is no of course on the issue of better and very debatable on the matter or more valuable.

So when the photo buyer doesn't want to pay 3 credits for an image they don't usually bite the bullet and pay the higher price anyway just because they can't buy the exact same image elsewhere. No, they find another solution.

First the buyer might try and find what he/she is looking for in the 1 credit category on iStock, and, if they can't, then they simply move onto lower cost pastures to get their content elsewhere, and then usually they never come back. 

But what actually drives all this as always is the fact that iStock is simply looking for a way to make more money from their images by splitting them into multiple price categories.

Though if you want to charge buyers more for certain images then the images really need to be more valuable. And since they are not, what iStock should be doing instead (to achieve their goal of making more money out of certain content) is not penalize the buyers, as their current 3 credits versus 1 credit structure does, but penalize the non-exclusives instead by raising prices on non-exclusive content (content where iStock keeps a bigger piece of the pie) and up all non-exclusive content to the same price as exclusive content.

Then this current problem of wrongly penalizing the buyers is easily solved by splitting the present pricing down the middle and making all content only 2 credits. This would completely simplify their pricing and no longer raise questions from buyers about why some pictures are 3 credits and others are 1 credit for virtually the same quality picture.

Do that to the pricing, and maybe Getty has a chance of selling more total pictures again than before and saving iStock. Well, maybe not saving iStock, but perhaps stopping the bloodletting from continuing until the dead horse starts rotting even more.
« Last Edit: August 04, 2015, 03:47 by iFlop »

« Reply #34 on: August 03, 2015, 17:15 »
0
Non exclusive photos are a commodity that can be found elsewhere for the price of 1 credit or less, and most customers know that. I wouldn't make sense to put it at  2 credits. Exclusive content can't be found outside the Getty group, so it'ts natural giving it a higher price.

« Reply #35 on: August 03, 2015, 17:40 »
+2
I agree with iFlop, the price difference between non-exclusive and exclusive photos doesn't make any sense to me. If people are buying images from micro stock sites, they're really are not worried about if an image is exclusive to one site or not. I've worked at several companies that buy a lot of stock images and the price difference between non-exclusive and exclusive for roughly the same quality of images causes a lot of confusion.

« Reply #36 on: August 03, 2015, 17:53 »
+5
... so it'ts natural giving it a higher price.

Only if there are no essentially identical images available elsewhere.

Lots of the exclusive content on iStock (from real iStock exclusive contributors) is just generic stock with lots of readily available substitutes.

There is some stunning imagery that really is different and that would command a higher price, but lots of fruits, veggies and handshakes that are technically exclusive but easily purchased anywhere.

« Reply #37 on: August 03, 2015, 19:06 »
+1
In many cases, even almost identical (or copycated) images don't serve the same purpose in the same way. Besides being a photographer I'm a buyer, and it's when you are buying and choosing when you realize that.

« Reply #38 on: August 03, 2015, 22:21 »
+4
All IS exclusives should stop being IS exclusives. They will make more money and protect themselves against market fluctuations, after spreading their eggs in multiple baskets.
Hopefully, this will drive the IS customers towards agencies that pay better their contributors (= all the other major agencies).

And this will be good for everybody.

Sent from my SM-N910T using Tapatalk
« Last Edit: August 03, 2015, 22:25 by Zero Talent »

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #39 on: August 04, 2015, 04:18 »
+1
All IS exclusives should stop being IS exclusives. They will make more money
Not always true
Quote
and protect themselves against market fluctuations, after spreading their eggs in multiple baskets.
Hopefully, this will drive the IS customers towards agencies that pay better their contributors (= all the other major agencies).
Which micros pay their contributors better than iS pays their exclusives?

madman

    This user is banned.
« Reply #40 on: August 04, 2015, 04:21 »
0
All IS exclusives should stop being IS exclusives. They will make more money and protect themselves against market fluctuations, after spreading their eggs in multiple baskets.
Hopefully, this will drive the IS customers towards agencies that pay better their contributors (= all the other major agencies).

And this will be good for everybody.

Sent from my SM-N910T using Tapatalk


I think so exactly... because there is no other logical thing to do...

madman

    This user is banned.
« Reply #41 on: August 04, 2015, 04:25 »
+2

Quote
and protect themselves against market fluctuations, after spreading their eggs in multiple baskets.
Hopefully, this will drive the IS customers towards agencies that pay better their contributors (= all the other major agencies).
Which micros pay their contributors better than iS pays their exclusives?

as I've been trying since 2 years, new uploads does not bring any significant revenue from istock, I dont any new upload to istock, because that is completely waste of time, but the other microstock sites give us the more you upload, the more you earn, this system better than istock's more upload, less earn system.

« Reply #42 on: August 04, 2015, 04:37 »
+1
Quote
and protect themselves against market fluctuations, after spreading their eggs in multiple baskets.
Hopefully, this will drive the IS customers towards agencies that pay better their contributors (= all the other major agencies).
Which micros pay their contributors better than iS pays their exclusives?

When it comes to RPD, none of the micros do. Then again, iS exclusivity wasn't about "micro only" since 2009, and they keep pushing that fact by encouraging contributors to do more than "just" the micro stuff. Comparing to premium sites, I get paid better in RPD than I ever did as an IS exclusive, plus I am much more successful to get my content in there than I ever was with Vetta/Agency. When you compare actual RPD (that is, figuring in all the subscription sales that are easily forgotten these days), I believe for IS exclusives it has dropped to something in the range of $3-4. Correct me if your numbers are different.

When it comes to RPI, I am not sure either. I happen to hear the numbers of several iS exclusives every now and then. They are probably still ahead of the overall market. But not by much. And until now I have seen no indication of the trends changing.

But yes, it definitely doesn't make sense for all IS exclusives to go non-exclusive. For many of them, it wouldn't pay off to distribute all of their images through all the micro channels.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #43 on: August 04, 2015, 04:59 »
0
Michael, spreading into macros is clearly a good way to go. Though IMO profitability is far more important than mere return per download or per image, and generally (with exceptions) expenses for taking Macro images would be more.

However, this is a micro group, and ZeroTalent said nothing to imply that he was talking about macros in his suggestion, and that is all I was replying to.
All I'm saying is that s/he made a sweeping statement, which is not universally applicable.

iS is on the way down, down, deeper 'n' down with no safety net. But Zero's suggestion of how to cope with this is not the only answer. (Flipping burgers, literally, might be a better moneyearner for some.) Also, s/he has forgotten to factor in that if everyone spread their ports, income at the other agencies would be spread thinner, given that rpd on the other micros often isn't high to start with. It's not like iS has all that many buyers to spread around.

Everyone has to make their own decisions about where they will put their work based on how acceptable they find the terms and conditions (and contracts allow 'them' to change on a whim). Years of reading msg don't make me think any other micro would be acceptable (to me). If I was starting now, I wouldn't.  ::)

(I just calculated and FWIW my iS rpd is down to $2.96 this year to the end of July, but falling rapidly because of subs. I'd expect a lot of exclusives to get getting more than that because of their higher percentage rate and because I have very few images on Getty. I read here that at least some exclusives do well from Getty - a fair proportion of my Getty sales are lower value than my regular iS sales. Also I'm not in the PP, so some exclusives who are in the PP may have a lower rpd still, but a higher overall income.)
« Last Edit: August 04, 2015, 06:29 by ShadySue »

« Reply #44 on: August 04, 2015, 06:26 »
+1
In my case, RPD, including subs and Getty,  is a little more than 5, being at 40% (just for regular IS downloads, of course)

MxR

« Reply #45 on: August 04, 2015, 07:00 »
0
... so it'ts natural giving it a higher price.

Only if there are no essentially identical images available elsewhere.

Lots of the exclusive content on iStock (from real iStock exclusive contributors) is just generic stock with lots of readily available substitutes.

There is some stunning imagery that really is different and that would command a higher price, but lots of fruits, veggies and handshakes that are technically exclusive but easily purchased anywhere.

Yes Yes Yes... only high quality contributors are making good amount of money. If a contributor shot self isolated expressives portraits or generic stock, the sales willl continue decreasing...

Today with generic content exclusivity has no sense... because of this only sites with high quality-different content like offset, stocksy, westend61 or fotolia infinite are succes

« Reply #46 on: August 04, 2015, 07:59 »
+2
Isnt part of the problem that direction and vision are missing? Klein is no longer CEO, but who will replace him?

Until they have a new boss, many decisions will be delayed and when a new person comes in, there are usually a few months until he or her with their team are settled in. Scott Braut was snapped up by Adobe and he was the most visible talent on the market, who else is there that has his level of experience?

Exclusive images would be an easy solution, they would get more good quality content if the money is there and the generic stuff no longer clogs up the system.

But September is coming...lets see what new and exciting changes and announcements they have for us.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #47 on: August 04, 2015, 08:00 »
+6
But September is coming...lets see what new and exciting changes and announcements they have for us.
Oh, I wish you hadn't reminded us.  ??? :o :( >:( ::)

« Reply #48 on: August 04, 2015, 08:36 »
+4
 With credits it is smoke and mirrors buyers wise up really quick on that and when you could get an image for a couple of bucks with out having to have a subscription buyers bought as needed. Now subs replaced that but iStock was already late to that market. Yes subs is a good deal on istock but they left their edge when they just went for that market. I made more with old credit pricing and % then I do with subs! Next they dropped Vetta, instead of making it a better value they just dropped it which was a mistake! For video it is a whole mess for non-exclusive's, I am happy with the pricing as an exclusive but it is obvious that buyers have left in large numbers for video! I have been with iStock since 2006 and have around 8,000 video clips in my gallery. I have uploaded better and more content then last year but am earning a lot less this year! I just want to scream when admin says you don't know the market, well obviously you don't either! Now lets talk about the new search and ADP it is slow and buggy we have been in a testing phase for months and it is obvious! buyers don't know what they will find from one day to the next! that sure breeds a lot of confidence! Now people say if you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem. First stop testing everything and don't roll out more changes until you have settled on a design. I don't care if I like it or not at this point I just want something that works! Getty has a fine design on their search page so just copy that if you are confused. I did not see Getty go through all this testing. Next make a way for buyers to purchase images like that use too for a couple of bucks for a small image, bloggers don't need 21meg. images! and many business don't either! Now pay non-exclusives 25% and Exclusives 35%  to 45% and drop RC's!! If exclusives are favored right in search then we won't mind non-exclusives earning more! Now you can reduce the gap between the two at 2 to 1 which makes more sense. Next be sure to include descriptions when searching for images, why not give the buyer more info on purchasing? For video do the same percentage and artist will return. Be more picky if needed buy don't drive artist away! I love iStock and I love what I do! Let's fix this now!

« Reply #49 on: August 04, 2015, 08:58 »
0
jjneff, Ill vote for you! :)

Just make it 30% for video, that should be the lowest anywhere.
« Last Edit: August 04, 2015, 09:00 by cobalt »


 

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