MicrostockGroup

My sales seem to be following the pattern you're talking about. Yesterday was good, today looks pretty bad, but not at weekend levels...

I haven't had a sale since June 3. This is the longest stretch of no sales since I started at iStock.

Wonder if it has anything to do with all the files I dumped into the non-exclusive perk program.

I dumped nearly 300 files into the P+ program over the weekend. It may be that the negative effects of this show up more as time goes by, but I don't see anything drastic so far.

Things have been good today compared to the snail's pace since the last best match lurch - so no barn burner, but not one of those days where I wonder if the world has a day off

Lovely self-portrait!  and toning.

Just to illustrate how bad the best match search is now. I have an image at IS, a polar bear image with has over 2700 Dls. If you search for Polar bear ist comes in the results a little bit behind 800 other images!! There are images in front of that image which have 0 Downloads - Vetta - exclusive and even non exclusive images. Why is it that IS puts highly sellable and proven images so far behind in the search??

Whats weird is that in many searches, the Vettas promoted on first pages looks like either neewbie stuff or just down out middle of the road stuff. One would have thought in order to show variety and keep the buyers interested, they would have at least made sure the selection of Vettas would be among the better ones.

You are joking, arent you??  Vetta and it must be good? and who decides that? some inspector who himself is exclusive ?  Normally the Vettas are in fact good or shall I say above average. Im also seeing a hell of a lot of generics, with extremely low DLs, looking at the same shot, weeks later and still, no more dls.

Thats my whole point!  its not enough with a shot beeing just good or great, its got to be cdommercial, selling-power or else its dustbin material.

Glad youre agreeing!  youre right, if the Vettas worked the way it should to work, it would in fact be a good thing. Yeah its weird really all this generic stuff, beats me?

Good, I'm not the only one wondering how some of the cr@ppy photos were accepted as Vetta. In fact the greater part of the photos in the collection. Of course some really are unique and awesome, but those account for approximately 20%.

I'd have to concur with your view of Vetta. When I had to do a project for the day job recently that involved hours and hours on iStock to source images, it was truly appalling some of what is selling as Vetta.

What's really too bad is that folks like JJ can't take constructive criticism like this to heart and use it to improve the review system and overall quality of such a high-price product. Vetta being his or others' "baby" really holds the collection back from being the best that it could (or should) be. And makes it a real turn off to many contributors and buyers alike. I know that in the beginning, before it even launched, when I tried to question the quality I was thanklessly ripped a new one. And, what a shocker, quality has turned out to be an issue. Clearly. Look at all the random crap they've collected and deemed the best of the artistic best (Vetta).

Give me a break.

Yes but thats not the issue,  ofcourse there are plenty of good imagery among Vettas but at the moment thay are burried deep down the best match and instead they seam to flaunt newbie and generic Vettas, many of which shouldnt even have past the inspection.

I have kept a close eye on some 20 Vetta files, on page one in a big search, now these files have hardly any dls and for the past 10 days they have together, sold a lousy six times !  makes one wonder why they are there in the first place???
Silly me!!  I thought commerce came in first place.