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Author Topic: Is it worth it to keep images at StockXpert for Thinkstock royalties?  (Read 34084 times)

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« on: February 04, 2010, 19:30 »
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Hi all-

I just got the message about StockXpert closing. Shame. I requested a final payment and planned on just deleting all my images.

My question is: Do you think it will be worth it (when I didn't make much at StockXpert to begin with) to leave my images there and try to get some royalties from Thinkstock? I have many more images there than at Istock, so I'm really not sure it's worth it or not. I feel like it could be ages until another payout from StockXpert via Thinkstock.

Also, why didn't they just have it transferred to Istock instead of StockXpert (obviously for those who are at both sites)?


helix7

« Reply #1 on: February 04, 2010, 19:38 »
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Seems like it would take more effort to delete your images than to just leave them and see what happens with ThinkStock, no? Why not just sit back and watch what happens? Who knows.. maybe you'll make some decent money with the new site.

« Reply #2 on: February 04, 2010, 19:42 »
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Well it would probably only take 2 minutes to delete them all from StockXpert, but I do see where you are coming from. Maybe I will give it some time. My only gripe is...say I make only a couple bucks and decide later on to delete them, I might not even be able to get the payout from StockXpert after 2/11. That's why I was thinking it made more sense to have the royalties transfer to Istock instead.

« Reply #3 on: February 04, 2010, 19:52 »
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I believe the StockXpert site will be staying up for you to access your account and request payments from any sales at Thinkstock. May as well leave your images there in the mean time and see how it goes. I requested a payout from StockXpert too but now I'm thinking I should have waited a while, there may be a buyers stampede from now until the site stops selling!!
« Last Edit: February 04, 2010, 19:55 by Tomboy2290 »

lisafx

« Reply #4 on: February 04, 2010, 19:55 »
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If you want to be on Thinkstock  it is probably better to do it through Istock since that is where all the operations seem to be moving. 

donding

  • Think before you speak
« Reply #5 on: February 04, 2010, 20:01 »
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None of my pics were showing up on ThinkStock from StockXpert and I've got the same ones on iStock so I just e-mailed them yesterday requesting they close the account and send me my payout and got a response today saying that they will close the account on the 11th so not to lose out on any royalties and then payput will be sent out after that date.

« Reply #6 on: February 04, 2010, 20:13 »
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I cannot find my images on ThinkStock so I guess I need to be more patient or they will all rejected?

« Reply #7 on: February 04, 2010, 20:20 »
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@ Melastmohican: I think they are still migrating images, so hang in there, maybe they will show up.

@ Lisafx: See I have this dilemma. A lot of my older images that are on StockXpert are very unlikely to be accepted at Istock. Otherwise, I'd just upload everything at Istock and be on my way. :) I have probably around 30-50 on Thinkstock that came from Istock, but 300 or so from StockXpert.

lisafx

« Reply #8 on: February 04, 2010, 20:25 »
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A lot of my older images that are on StockXpert are very unlikely to be accepted at Istock. Otherwise, I'd just upload everything at Istock and be on my way. :) I have probably around 30-50 on Thinkstock that came from Istock, but 300 or so from StockXpert.

Oh, yeah, that is an issue.  Sounds like in your case its better leaving them there then.

Istock should really rethink their acceptance strategy for these cheapo sub sites.  If you check the box to have new uploads go directly to partner sites then there should maybe be a less stringent standard.

« Reply #9 on: February 04, 2010, 21:28 »
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Finally i come back from hollys and what I see.?&'&&&#%
It better for me and you ears to not say what I think of this new camouflaged mafia (yappy) yuppies who finally catch they childish dream and take over Getty public society.
For now it is not fpublic society at all.
If they are so smart in they moves why they dont offer us to compensate our looses of they outburst "miracle" plan. e.g.
We are so stupid but strongest mixed up dog in park.

So why they just dont offer us e.g. (lets take middle earnings from eXpert site per month) and pay us this value every month and they can sell our images from from ours Xpert port for they own price e.g. 100000 per image if they can, may, will or whatever...
We gave them our port and all its clear.
All the same we can upload at eXpert any more. They have our images on they whatever dot crap greedy affiliate site but they must pay us compensation because WE are subscribers and without us YOU will be simple ZERO.

But NO. What they do, does and doing...
Mixing our galeries from one site to another, closed one transfer to another.... blah.
Why are my images from iStock on that fThing stok???
on iStock they are newer checked to be on this kind of Thing Stok and why are they now there???
On iStock I have few of them checked what are in that Thingstok there images what they are not checked on f iStock????
To ask support??!??(%&$??!? and eventualy get silly answer after 2 months IF??!
I will after and "if they fix" ""glitch"" in they sys.
what
And all of this for again screwing us!!! People who are feeding you Greedy mafia plan in you for now non independent public state.
I am not believer but hope that you greedy plan will bang in you nut head.

OK
This above is my little grindig about iStock (as usual) I can say that my sales are up last two months, Maybe really by coincidance to blind chicken buy EL (or may be It is ordinary glich for washing money between them). OK nice someone mix my ID number with some venal gonzo reviewer and money is still on my acc.
THNX


« Reply #10 on: February 04, 2010, 23:59 »
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Hahaha Suljo!
Take a heart from me, I barely understand your posts but the parts I do, always make me laugh :)

~~~~~~~~~
I am not believer but hope that you greedy plan will bang in you nut head.
~~~~~~~~~

Lol, that was priceless :)

« Reply #11 on: February 05, 2010, 00:32 »
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I'm not the best and certainly not expensive, but I'm not cheap enough to let my things be on thinkstock for peanuts. I don't like to feel that cheap. It's a question of pride.

I don't want to undercut DT and SS with their generous subs compensation at 0.35$ (level 1) or 0.36$. It doesn't make sense for them to keep these kinds of royalties up if we offer our images - out of short term greed - behind their back at 0.25$ at the first new cheap site that pops up.

Yesterday morning, I deleted my port at SX (800 since 2006) one by one. I looked at the images with 5, 10 and more downloads. They were totally different from other sites: the kind of images that IS never would accept because too artistic, too off-mainstream, too "distorted". I'm probably not the only one with the observation that SX (also by JUI and photos.com) sold totally different things than other sites. That type of niche content is lost forever for Getty.

The SX, photos.com, JUI customers just won't evaporate, and they won't find what they were used to on thinkstock. The lazy part of them will stick with IS and discover a whole new world. The other part will roam around till they find SS or DT or perhaps FT (but it has a weird acceptance policy).

DT and SS have approximately the same content as SX had, just a bit more. They will find themselves at home there. By murdering SX instead of keeping it as B-site next to A-site IS, Getty destroyed assets it payed for.

helix7

« Reply #12 on: February 05, 2010, 00:34 »
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Well it would probably only take 2 minutes to delete them all from StockXpert, but I do see where you are coming from. Maybe I will give it some time. My only gripe is...say I make only a couple bucks and decide later on to delete them, I might not even be able to get the payout from StockXpert after 2/11. That's why I was thinking it made more sense to have the royalties transfer to Istock instead.

Well now you've got me thinking... Until now I just figured 'Why bother? Just leave things at StockXpert and get on with life.' But I suppose there are some good reasons to delete everything at StockXpert and move it all over to istock. istock is the continuing business entity, while StockXpert is only going to exist to store TS earnings. It would be easier for record-keeping and bookkeeping to condense things under istock rather than keeping StockXpert around just for the sub earnings. If financially it all works out the same, maybe for some people (possibly me included) it might be better to delete the StockXpert account.

I also have stuff on istock that I couldn't get accepted at StockXpert because of their weird requirements with showing source material (StockXpert makes you provide it within the ZIP file for vectors, meaning buyers would then get your source material). I could get those images into the partner program via istock whereas I could not with StockXpert.

Definitely has me thinking...


« Reply #13 on: February 05, 2010, 00:48 »
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Mixing our galeries from one site to another, closed one transfer to another.... blah.
Getty will have a big headache mixing all the collections on TS. They are totally different as to quality requirements and keywording practices. At the IS forums people already complained that their images with strict CV can't compete with the much more liberal keywording habits at the other sites that fill up TS.
So the TS reviewers will have to check keywords and image quality again, since it was said that the images from SX would be "selected". Take 30 sec per image for that, and 3M images, that's 25K hours, 13 manyears or 312K$. Even if they can find 26 persons able to do that, it will still take half a year to do so.
« Last Edit: February 05, 2010, 00:51 by FD-amateur »

« Reply #14 on: February 05, 2010, 01:06 »
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I agree with FD, you should not, in my opinion, leave the images on ThinkStock as it is the real low pay per download agency.

Note that FT gives us 0.3, DT 0.35, 123RF 0.36, SS is bit different as the initial is also 0.25, yet for anyone bit serious it goes quickly up to 0.33.

By supporting TS (don't we need an abbrev for the new stock?) in masses, we give the higher paying sub agencies clear message that we don't mind lowering our commissions.

And as for transferring StockXpert content to IS (instead of to TS), I think it was pretty clear from the beginning that this could not happen. It would cut some of the major rules of IS - like the upload limits, larger upload limits for exclusives, supposed higher standards...

nruboc

« Reply #15 on: February 05, 2010, 01:26 »
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I agree with both the above, would never support the lowest paying subscription site out there

« Reply #16 on: February 05, 2010, 01:32 »
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By supporting TS (don't we need an abbrev for the new stock?) in masses, we give the higher paying sub agencies clear message that we don't mind lowering our commissions.

Exactly. If there is a lot of grumbling from IS exclusives, it might well be that the 0.25$ on TS goes up for IS exclusives only, according to their canister level. Then IS will, but for the exclusives only, have a SS and FT scheme.
Putting the price as low as the initial level on SS now will give TS a huge profit. So perhaps this is a strategic reserve to please the exclusives later with a canister-based reward. The IS forum will cheer all over praising IS as never before.  :P

« Reply #17 on: February 05, 2010, 01:53 »
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Aren't there any other sites that have 25 cents commission for subs? I do not believe that SS will feel any pressure to lower prices just because a new site is popping up.

« Reply #18 on: February 05, 2010, 02:17 »
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Aren't there any other sites that have 25 cents commission for subs? I do not believe that SS will feel any pressure to lower prices just because a new site is popping up.

Yes, there is CanStockPhoto. I believe the CanStockPhoto standard subscription pays 0.25. Fotosearch subscription through CanStockPhoto is 0.3.

« Reply #19 on: February 05, 2010, 04:56 »
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By supporting TS (don't we need an abbrev for the new stock?) in masses, we give the higher paying sub agencies clear message that we don't mind lowering our commissions.

Exactly. If there is a lot of grumbling from IS exclusives, it might well be that the 0.25$ on TS goes up for IS exclusives only, according to their canister level. Then IS will, but for the exclusives only, have a SS and FT scheme.
Putting the price as low as the initial level on SS now will give TS a huge profit. So perhaps this is a strategic reserve to please the exclusives later with a canister-based reward. The IS forum will cheer all over praising IS as never before.  :P

Payments are alreadu higher at TS for IS exclusives. They go until 0,38 dollars. But even so, most exclusives have put there just old non-selling files.

lisafx

« Reply #20 on: February 05, 2010, 08:14 »
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Aren't there any other sites that have 25 cents commission for subs? I do not believe that SS will feel any pressure to lower prices just because a new site is popping up.

Yes, there is CanStockPhoto. I believe the CanStockPhoto standard subscription pays 0.25. Fotosearch subscription through CanStockPhoto is 0.3.

The difference at Canstock is that those .25 sales (which are priced too cheap for sure) are offset by frequent $20 credit sales through Fotosearch. 

At Thinkstock there are no credit sales.  It will all be .25 sub sales, so there is nothing else to be gained by being on the site. 

« Reply #21 on: February 05, 2010, 08:24 »
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Aren't there any other sites that have 25 cents commission for subs? I do not believe that SS will feel any pressure to lower prices just because a new site is popping up.

Yes, there is CanStockPhoto. I believe the CanStockPhoto standard subscription pays 0.25. Fotosearch subscription through CanStockPhoto is 0.3.

The difference at Canstock is that those .25 sales (which are priced too cheap for sure) are offset by frequent $20 credit sales through Fotosearch. 

At Thinkstock there are no credit sales.  It will all be .25 sub sales, so there is nothing else to be gained by being on the site. 

I think there is single credit sale, contributor gets 20 % of price, but that sales will be rarely, because it is subscription site...

lisafx

« Reply #22 on: February 05, 2010, 08:40 »
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I think there is single credit sale, contributor gets 20 % of price, but that sales will be rarely, because it is subscription site...

Oh, thanks for the correction.  I'm not sure it makes much practical difference, but it's good to be accurate.

« Reply #23 on: February 05, 2010, 09:04 »
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I wont use thinkstock while they only offer $0.25.  Just imagine how much better that site would be if they paid us something reasonable, like $0.35.  CanStockPhoto have hardly any $0.25 sales, I get nearly as many $20 sales there.  I still wish they went to $0.35 though.

I don't think thinkstock will work but if it does and all we have is low subs sites, I will stop using microstock.  I already have a plan in place to move to RM, footage and selling from my own site.  There is no way I am going to be forced in to low commission subs that earn the sites a lot more than we do.

grp_photo

« Reply #24 on: February 05, 2010, 09:12 »
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I optioned out for Thinkstock but as they are now advertising thinkstock in the istock contact sheet I'm thinking of option in it is probably a good way to drive buyers away from istock and should be supported by independent photographers.


 

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