MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => iStockPhoto.com => Topic started by: Bart on October 24, 2017, 18:22
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Anyone else receive a contributor survey asking about stat reporting, contributor support etc???
I just let all my frustrations out, and it feels good.
Maybe they are realizing their downward spiral with contributors, maybe a change is coming?? ...probably not! 😂
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Drop them years ago!
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Anyone else receive a contributor survey asking about stat reporting, contributor support etc???
I just let all my frustrations out, and it feels good.
Maybe they are realizing their downward spiral with contributors, maybe a change is coming?? ...probably not! 😂
I just don't understand why people want them to change. Simply drop that agency. I don't want them to get better in anything. I just hope they lose all their customers
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That was fun.
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Very rarely do even quite good organisations take real notice of these surveys unless they confirm what they want to hear so I'm not expecting any changes on the back of this ;-). Interesting they are asking about ability to be non-exclusive.
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I'm all for staying in touch with customers and contributors and doing proper market research, BUT...
...they sent another survey in July, and I already told them what I thought should change to make it better for contributors. And now they sent us another survey, as if they're not even doing anything with the results from the first one. So this time, I'm not gonna waste my time with them.
Besides, as they're one of the worst paying agencies out there, I'm not going to hint them in the right direction anymore. Let their competitors take over the market, if they haven't already.
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I have had a lot of fun to say them all the bad that I think of them!!
8)
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I still have income from them, cannot bite the hand that feeds me. They are way worse agencies out there which are producing nothing.
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I still have income from them, cannot bite the hand that feeds me. They are way worse agencies out there which are producing nothing.
Yes but they need help getting down their pedestal…
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Because most of the forum members hide their identity and have no link to their portfolios I take everything what is said on this page with a huuuge grain of salt. There is no way to check the relations between the complainers and their actual work. People having few hundred snapshots in their portfolio are whining their heads off, nonsense.
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Anyone else receive a contributor survey asking about stat reporting, contributor support etc???
I just let all my frustrations out, and it feels good.
Maybe they are realizing their downward spiral with contributors, maybe a change is coming?? ...probably not! 😂
Catharsis is always good; but they've sent out these surveys before, and it's never made any positive difference.
Downhill all the way, in every direction. The stats are almost useless, and I've heard terrible things about uploading nowadays, but with everything else which is going on, like keywords being suddenly disappeared rendering files unsearchable on their most important keywords, and rpd going through the floor, fixing the stats would be like polishing a t***.
I wonder how long their poor customer service people manage to stick it out, on average. It must be soul-destroying, just fob off the idiot contributors and if you make them repeat their question over and over, but only give tangential (at best) 'set' answers from a list, they'll soon give up.
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If Getty even showed a smidgeon or an inkling they valued contributors this would be a great start. But they don't. The survey is pointless in my view. If they want to know the way contributors feel they can start with reading their own forums and work on down to this forum. I don't see a large fan base from the contributors point of view. The upper management is out of touch with who actually produces the product and how important we are to their survival. But none of this is a newsflash.
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No one at the coal face has any power to change anything that would actually make a difference is my guess. Management just want us squeezed and any improvements have to come out of the same or shrinking small pot the jokers tasked with keeping us happy have been given.
No way they will ever raise commissions, which it the only way they can get people back on board in the long run.
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Probably just some new 'contributor relations' guy at Getty, starting out with a survey so he has something for his next PowerPoint. Nothing ever comes of these things.
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Probably just some new 'contributor relations' guy at Getty, starting out with a survey so he has something for his next PowerPoint. Nothing ever comes of these things.
LOL. I can imagine that first day at the job and seeing the responses come in. Day 2 is probably sending out resumes. ;D
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Probably just some new 'contributor relations' guy at Getty, starting out with a survey so he has something for his next PowerPoint. Nothing ever comes of these things.
LOL. I can imagine that first day at the job and seeing the responses come in. Day 2 is probably sending out resumes. ;D
Right now he thinks he's in The Good Place. But soon he'll figure it out.
I picture him in the first big meeting. He puts up the numbers from his survey and tells the others that he was shocked to learn that their contributors basically hope they'll burn in hell. And then there's that awkward silence, people trying not to smirk, finally someone says "ok, soooooo..."
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Probably just some new 'contributor relations' guy at Getty, starting out with a survey so he has something for his next PowerPoint. Nothing ever comes of these things.
LOL. I can imagine that first day at the job and seeing the responses come in. Day 2 is probably sending out resumes. ;D
Right now he thinks he's in The Good Place. But soon he'll figure it out.
I picture him in the first big meeting. He puts up the numbers from his survey and tells the others that he was shocked to learn that their contributors basically hope they'll burn in hell. And then there's that awkward silence, people trying not to smirk, finally someone says "ok, soooooo..."
I used to be involved in doing staff surveys....when one delivered some particularly bad results every theory was pursued except the one that maybe the staff had a point ;-)
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The bit about exclusivity was interesting.
Wouldn't surprise me if they tried a trick like raising the base level back to 20% and doing away with 40% exclusive royalties whilst proclaiming it a win all round for artists.
They'd get renewed enthusiasm from the great mass of contributors that would drown out the complaints from the small number of 40%'ers left.
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The bit about exclusivity was interesting.
Wouldn't surprise me if they tried a trick like raising the base level back to 20% and doing away with 40% exclusive royalties whilst proclaiming it a win all round for artists.
They'd get renewed enthusiasm from the great mass of contributors that would drown out the complaints from the small number of 40%'ers left.
I can only guess but I can only think the number of exclusives is going down. I can see why those with good incomes and a "following" might stick with it but I can't imagine why anyone would go exclusive from where we sit now. Raise the rates? This is Istock :-[
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They asked us : "How can we improve our Getty Images/iStock Contributor tools and services?"
Getty version of April Fool's Day
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Probably just some new 'contributor relations' guy at Getty, starting out with a survey so he has something for his next PowerPoint. Nothing ever comes of these things.
LOL. I can imagine that first day at the job and seeing the responses come in. Day 2 is probably sending out resumes. ;D
Right now he thinks he's in The Good Place. But soon he'll figure it out.
I picture him in the first big meeting. He puts up the numbers from his survey and tells the others that he was shocked to learn that their contributors basically hope they'll burn in hell. And then there's that awkward silence, people trying not to smirk, finally someone says "ok, soooooo..."
I used to be involved in doing staff surveys....when one delivered some particularly bad results every theory was pursued except the one that maybe the staff had a point ;-)
As I recall, the typical outcome was that the person who presented the survey ended up with all the action items. :-)
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Probably just some new 'contributor relations' guy at Getty, starting out with a survey so he has something for his next PowerPoint. Nothing ever comes of these things.
LOL. I can imagine that first day at the job and seeing the responses come in. Day 2 is probably sending out resumes. ;D
Right now he thinks he's in The Good Place. But soon he'll figure it out.
I picture him in the first big meeting. He puts up the numbers from his survey and tells the others that he was shocked to learn that their contributors basically hope they'll burn in hell. And then there's that awkward silence, people trying not to smirk, finally someone says "ok, soooooo..."
I used to be involved in doing staff surveys....when one delivered some particularly bad results every theory was pursued except the one that maybe the staff had a point ;-)
As I recall, the typical outcome was that the person who presented the survey ended up with all the action items. :-)
Or looking for another job ;-).
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The bit about exclusivity was interesting.
Wouldn't surprise me if they tried a trick like raising the base level back to 20% and doing away with 40% exclusive royalties whilst proclaiming it a win all round for artists.
They'd get renewed enthusiasm from the great mass of contributors that would drown out the complaints from the small number of 40%'ers left.
They could easily do personal deals with the few people that really matter and otherwise kill the exclusivity program.
I haven't heard of any interesting people going exclusive. in the forums or on facebook the people mulling exclusivity, at least those that comment publicly are true photo amateurs.
If there is nobody making an effort to develop the exclusive community, what is the point?
The old istock had over 13 000 exclusive artists from all over the world and made a big effort to train people and get them to work together.
But now all I read is people leaving and going indie.
They can always offer people with interesting content a Getty Macro house contract.
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The bit about exclusivity was interesting.
Wouldn't surprise me if they tried a trick like raising the base level back to 20% and doing away with 40% exclusive royalties whilst proclaiming it a win all round for artists.
They'd get renewed enthusiasm from the great mass of contributors that would drown out the complaints from the small number of 40%'ers left.
I really hope no one would get enthusiastic about 20%. That would still be the lowest rate of any agency. To get me back on board they would have to go to 30+ at the very least, an achievable 38c for subs and no more giveaways for a couple of cents or fractions of a cent. All perfectly reasonable and all unthinkable for istock.
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The bit about exclusivity was interesting.
Wouldn't surprise me if they tried a trick like raising the base level back to 20% and doing away with 40% exclusive royalties whilst proclaiming it a win all round for artists.
They'd get renewed enthusiasm from the great mass of contributors that would drown out the complaints from the small number of 40%'ers left.
They could easily do personal deals with the few people that really matter and otherwise kill the exclusivity program.
I haven't heard of any interesting people going exclusive. in the forums or on facebook the people mulling exclusivity, at least those that comment publicly are true photo amateurs.
If there is nobody making an effort to develop the exclusive community, what is the point?
The old istock had over 13 000 exclusive artists from all over the world and made a big effort to train people and get them to work together.
But now all I read is people leaving and going indie.
They can always offer people with interesting content a Getty Macro house contract.
The exclusive thing has changed a lot. It's not now about how many sales you've made, it's whether they think your portfolio 'fits'.
But also, the benefits of exclusivity have been severely eroded.
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Because most of the forum members hide their identity and have no link to their portfolios I take everything what is said on this page with a huuuge grain of salt. There is no way to check the relations between the complainers and their actual work. People having few hundred snapshots in their portfolio are whining their heads off, nonsense.
I have 10,000 photos on Fotolia, so not just a few hundred snapshots, and I stopped uploading to iStock a long time ago. Because if someone wants just that photo of mine, with that model and so on and buys it on iStock instead of any other agency, I make half or even less than one third of what I'd get with, say, Fotolia or Pond5.
Every sale we get on iStock means a lot of money we didn't get from another agency. You know, 15% against 50% in some cases...
So screw them, I'm not their slave, working for them for a bowl of soup!
Also if we keep supporting them, other agencies may think "Oh, these stupid contributors are happy even with a 15% commission, let's decrease ours at least a bit."
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Because most of the forum members hide their identity and have no link to their portfolios I take everything what is said on this page with a huuuge grain of salt. There is no way to check the relations between the complainers and their actual work. People having few hundred snapshots in their portfolio are whining their heads off, nonsense.
I have 10,000 photos on Fotolia, so not just a few hundred snapshots, and I stopped uploading to iStock a long time ago. Because if someone wants just that photo of mine, with that model and so on and buys it on iStock instead of any other agency, I make half or even less than one third of what I'd get with, say, Fotolia or Pond5.
Every sale we get on iStock means a lot of money we didn't get from another agency. You know, 15% against 50% in some cases...
So screw them, I'm not their slave, working for them for a bowl of soup!
Also if we keep supporting them, other agencies may think "Oh, these stupid contributors are happy even with a 15% commission, let's decrease ours at least a bit."
I think I got your point there. As per my own analysis iStock/Thinkstock/Getty is producing on average the same sales $/image as Bigstock, Depositphotos, Canstock and 123RF. Where I see the difference though is the type of photos sold. Beside the top 50-80 photos of my port, the sales is quite different at each agency, probably catering to a different market uptake each of them. Every $100 payout is buying me gas to take me to new places and shoot more photos. Pulling my port from any agency is reducing my chances to those gas $$. At the end the more photographers pull their port from any site, the higher the sales goes for those who stay. For now it seems that the # of photos are not decreasing anywhere, any soon.
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I still have income from them, cannot bite the hand that feeds me. They are way worse agencies out there which are producing nothing.
That's fine if you are the type who wants to have an ongoing relationship with someone who's abusing you. The rest of us know enough to escape and get away from a destructive, abusive relationship. Go ahead keep defending Getty for raping us, we asked for it?
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Because most of the forum members hide their identity and have no link to their portfolios I take everything what is said on this page with a huuuge grain of salt. There is no way to check the relations between the complainers and their actual work. People having few hundred snapshots in their portfolio are whining their heads off, nonsense.
How can you say that when you "can't check their work"?
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I still have income from them, cannot bite the hand that feeds me.
Not a great use of that idiom.
'Biting off the hand that feeds you' is presumably a reference to a pet or other animal which is fed just for 'being'.
Most agencies feed far more off us than we do off them. They pay the content providers for supplying to them content which people want to buy.
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Oh well...you guys are right, I have better things to do than participate in this circus.
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I still have income from them, cannot bite the hand that feeds me. They are way worse agencies out there which are producing nothing.
That's fine if you are the type who wants to have an ongoing relationship with someone who's abusing you. The rest of us know enough to escape and get away from a destructive, abusive relationship. Go ahead keep defending Getty for raping us, we asked for it?
Getty is my stock photo pimp, they give me 15% and keep the rest, but they also take care of me. So I stay with them though it's an abusive relationship and they are using me.
Actually no I don't, I left because they are possibly the worst treating us of any big agency. 4 cents downloads commission, low percentages. Sure there are worse for sales and income, but none worse for treatment. I'm not going to defend their actions or take the abuse.
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Been with GI since they took over in 93 and the film days. The first 4 years was the best I've ever had in stock. it was really fantastic. Nowadays nothing to shout about. I cant complain about Istock for some strange reason I am doing exeptionally well and I am independent of course.
Seems that when some of us got cut down 50% just over night at SS then along comes Istock and makes up for it. I know sounds crazy but thats it.
About their email I didnt even bother with it. Getty is what it is.
Just a tip! In order to earn some money with Getty you have to get into their RM-House collection made up of their original from Stones and Image-Bank.
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Anyone else got the survey emailed again. I'm on my third time. Are they just sending this out until they get the answers they want?
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Anyone else got the survey emailed again. I'm on my third time. Are they just sending this out until they get the answers they want?
2nd time gluttons for punishment obviously
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Just got it. If I had one before, I deleted it. The questions they asked tell me that they are completely out of touch. Are we doing a good job of displaying your stats? Are you serious? It was always the most difficult site to use and its only gotten worse. Stopped in soon after ESP to see how the site looked. Couldn't figure out how to do anything, see anything or find anything. Left and haven't been back.
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I deleted it. That last time they sent a survey I took it four times. If you clear your cookies, it lets you take it over and over, unless they figured that out. But nothing positive for the contributor was done based on the last survey, so I didn't waste my time on this new survey.
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Ignore it, it's just their marketing department trying to justify it's existence, by creating these useless surveys which they then cherry pick the results in order to show to upper management so that they can create an action plan on how to slightly improve something which has no effect on contributors.
Thing is they know exactly what contributors want which is why these surveys are just a total waste of time.
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They should have replaced it with a single question.
Do you want more money for the same effort?
1-Yes
2-No
3-I don't know
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Last Chance! (LOL) Help us improve your Getty Images/iStock experience
I sent them my own survey ! And it feels good ;D
Getty , i forget you so forget me.
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I have received again their
email spam today.
I have already told them all the bad that I think of them. So, why they ask me again??
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Last Chance. As if I'm missing out on buying tickets for some $1M Jackpot.
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They should have replaced it with a single question.
Do you want more money for the same effort?
1-Yes
2-No
3-I don't know
“Money will not make you happy.”
Kelly Thompson, Sept 9, 2010
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Last Chance. As if I'm missing out on buying tickets for some $1M Jackpot.
Be careful, it's your last chance to win the $0.1 Getty jackpot !
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They should have replaced it with a single question.
Do you want more money for the same effort?
1-Yes
2-No
3-I don't know
“Money will not make you happy.”
Kelly Thompson, Sept 9, 2010
AMEN to that. His comments still stick in my mind each time some agency tries to "create a new revenue stream" with some wonky scheme. In the end the money we won't get is supposed to make us happy.