MicrostockGroup

Another fairly big best match shift today. The "fish" search now features three non-V/A files in the first 50, instead of three in the first 1,000. A handful of ordinary files now appear on each page (but with a ridiculous concentration on jumping goldfish, so it's not really much better).

It seems they've realised that the V/A boost was grossly overdone.

Still only one non V/A horse in the top 200, more or less dead centre, where it was before.

where's the difference? I thought they meant dearer=better

"Better" is subjective. It's not something the best match can determine.

It looks as if the ordinary files have been given a few more points to lift them slightly. In some searches (fish) the top files had enough points already for that to make a difference, in others (horse, monkey) the gap was still too big to pull anything much in among the V/A block.  Perhaps the problem they have is that if they give enough extra points to ordinary files, the real stars in the most popular searches will push V/A completely out of contention, and that's the last thing they want.

Horses are one of those subjects with a long tradition and probably which very much favour Vetta and Agency collection work. You would surely have to agree that the results do look really good. Those are some great images.

If you go to a department store the fancy stuff is always in the window. I guess it's like that ?

Is AW still selling through Getty? He was one I alluded to in another thread as a Big Name Getty tog who doesn't (appear to be) selling there any more, just through his own site. Maybe I just can't fnd his work there any more.

Sean is seriously Superman! thats pretty cool

I agree with this, nicely said.

Looks like there's also a heavy "new file" weight too, judging by my results, much more so than last week.

Yes but in a department store it is usually easy to find the cheaper stuff if that is what you want.

They maybe need a few more signs, but it's not hard at iStock.


Destination stores always want the windows and entrances to look fantastic. Think of the big stores in any capital city.

Or think of the Apple website for that matter. You really have to hunt to find the refurb stuff. It's there if you search.

Not sure that department store is a good analogy - isn't the average age of a department store customer over 65? I can't remember the last time I set foot in a department store except to walk through one if it was at a mall and that was the way from my car to wherever. But even when I did shop in them, they put eye-catching stuff in the window, and that could be seasonal merchandise, sale merchandise or something they hoped might get you to walk in the door instead of walking by.

Department stores don't typically cover the ground from Neiman Marcus to Wal-Mart with Macy's in the middle, which is what IS is more like now, with Agency through the Dollar Bin.

If you look at amazon.com (to cite but one example of this sort of search interface in an online store), when you look at home theatre systems, there are search panels on the left that let you search by brand, by watts, by price (with a list of set ranges and then a from and to text entry field where you specify your price range), rating, etc.. I'm not sure why this successful business model for online shopping is one that Getty/iStock disdain. It seems to be working pretty well for amazon.

This isn't the 1920s where we're trying to appeal to the carriage trade and keep out the riff raff. Have a premium collections landing page (in addition to photos, illos, video, etc.) so that the high end buyers can be directed to start there and never have to see those of us who don't play in that rarefied atmosphere; put a full range of on off switches (and let preferences be saved) so buyers can search as their needs dictate.

I am truly convinced that they can still flog the high price stuff successfully even if they allow buyers to chose not to look at it. It seems like insanity not to let buyers choose and have them take their business elsewhere out of frustration.

I think a pretty important point is often forgotten: the vast majority of buyers does NOT read the forums or newsletters.
Awhile ago i bumped into someone who works on the design department of a rather big company here that spends over $2500/month on stock. He said they recently moved over from istock to shutterstock because istock suddenly tenfolded their prices and became very, very expensive. Don't overestimate buyers, plenty of them are clueless about the different collections and will just turn elsewhere if the expensive ones dominate the search results.