Well, 2011 is about over and now would be a good time to make some predictions about iStockPhoto for the next year - 2012.

Here are mine:

- IS will become Exclusives ONLY. Independents will no longer be allowed to upload.
- Most low selling Independent's files will be moved to Getty's middle Tier sites
- 20% commission for everyone (everyone meaning all the exclusives remaining)
- Discontinue tiered commissions based on credits sold
- Many low selling Exclusive files will be moved to Getty's middle tier sites
- Prices may rise a little to test the reaction
- Getty will try to position IS as (what I call) a "tweener" site with higher quality images at a higher price point. Images that you cannot find elsewhere (hence exclusive only).
- The techno bug issues will force Getty to build a completely new site causing significant migration issues, and a nightmare of lost commissions and file status. There may be class action law suits as well.
- By second quarter 2012 the site will be healthy and working well. A new programming maintenance team (hopefully from the banking industry) will be hired to ensure smooth running.
- Anger among contributors will reach a boiling point and Getty will attempt to appease them with unsuccessful PR promotions.

I don't think Getty will build a new istock site, I think istock will become a Getty collection.  Exclusives will have their portfolios transferred, non-exclusives will just have Thinkstock.  If they have any interest in keeping istock going as a separate site, they must be completely incompetent.  Either way, I don't think there's much future for non-exclusives with istock.  I hope I'm wrong, it looks like the best option for us would be for istock to be sold but there's no sign of that happening, so its hard to be optimistic.

Rebecca has an epiphany, sees everything that has gone wrong, reinstates the pre-RC payment system and then adds 10% to the commission rate across the board, fully transparent accounting is provided for every sale, the logo site goes live, TS is made entirely optional, buyers return in droves as suppliers start to sing iStock's praises, the bilingual 13-year-old who has been employed part-time to write notices for site outages turns out to be computer whizz who rejigs the site in less than three weeks, without any downtime so it works perfectly.

Just before the kid completes the work a credit-card fraudster racks up thousands of sales, which are subsequently cancelled and deleted from suppliers' totals, leading to a 15,000 post thread complaining about istock not taking the whole cost on itself. Rebecca refuses to back down, leading to calls for her to quit.

By December 2, 2012, the top 1,321 content providers have become iStock millionaires.

That's right, Rodney, by this time next year, we'll all be millionaires.

Unfortunately, 19 days later the world comes to an end.

(This prediction has been approved by Nostradamus and Harold Camping)

@ BT

We can dream! 

I agree with Sharpshot's predictions though (sorry Nostradamus!)

many of the Vettas are good but they can not compete with Gettys own house-collection and many, many RM shots there ( according to our new contract) will be available as RF and Micro. I cant see the point in running two parallel quality collections, just messy.

All this is of no interest to us independants. It was once a great site, the best in fact, even if they persevere, they have been run  over, even superseeded by some other sites.
IS, have been a thorn in the side to Getty for many years and just the slightest excuse and they will slam the breaks on it.

- IS will become Exclusives ONLY. Independents will no longer be allowed to upload.

Not likely, but not completely unreasonable either. I lean towards unlikely because independents currently feed the ThinkStock collection, so istock sort of needs us right now.

- 20% commission for everyone (everyone meaning all the exclusives remaining)

Very likely. Maybe not in 2012, but eventually.

- Prices may rise a little to test the reaction

They do that every few months, so that's pretty much a guarantee.

- Many low selling Exclusive files will be moved to Getty's middle tier sites

I'd extend this to say that all exclusive files will be subject to being moved to the other sites, including ThinkStock. If Getty seriously intends to compete with Shutterstock using ThinkStock, they need a more distinct advantage. They don't have one right now, but moving more of their istock content over to ThinkStock would help.

That's my major prediction for 2012. Exclusives, expect to see your opt-out for ThinkStock disappear. istock loves to test things on the fly. Price increases, code changes, etc. The removal of the opt-out for independents was probably a test to see what the reaction and fallout would be. Seeing that not very many people deleted their portfolios, they'll probably push the same change for exclusives some time next year.

That and I'd make the fairly easy prediction that istock continues to lose customers and become less significant in the microstock business.

Unless...

The only way I see istock rebuilding is by cutting prices. They need to get buyers buying again, and doing so with the same attitude they used to. When files were around 10 credits (and credits were still around $1), it was easy to just click the "Buy" button without giving it much thought. People bought images even if it was just for comp purposes. Now it's not so easy to casually click that button when the purchase price can often exceed $30. I see cutting prices as the only way istock can regain their former glory. If they cut prices, I'd predict that istock rebounds in 2012. But as mentioned above, I agree with Simon's prediction that they will test price increases rather than price cuts.

Istock have only two possible options. They can continue down their current path of trying to squeeze buyers and contributors until they eventually fall off the cliff. Alternatively they could wake up, realise what's ahead if they don't change course, then start rolling back the price increases and commission cuts that are causing their demise. The first option is unfortunately by far the most likely.

There's an 800lb gorilla on Getty's back called H&F and it wants more now. Vetta, Agency, Getty owned, and Getty partner content to dominate the front of the search at Istock with all main collection files getting mirrored at Thinkstock.

That seems to be the best way to maximize short term profits in my opinion. There's no need to do anything complex.

My 2 cents:

- iStock will have increased competition from other sites (Shutterstock single image sales comes to mind).
- Thinkstock will seriously erode traffic to iStock and have a hugely negative effect on profitability and contributor moral. This time tweaking best match to favor exclusives even more wont help because the customers just wont be there.
- Hubris level wont change, every disaster will be characterized as magnificent.
- Lobo will get a big bonus for his people skills

2. I too thinkstock is going to need propping up -- but to appease Sean and other big contributors, I suspect that they'll somehow manage to keep diamond level or a certain RC-credit level opt-out in place.

I don't think he or any of the other superstars will get any special treatment. They calculated the tremendous effort it would take for someone with 11,000+ files to upload, re-keyword, and modify model releases for all of the other sites before they implemented the RC system. I'm sure they are betting that he'll stay exclusive regardless.

commissions will go negative - non exclusives will have to pay 5% every time they sell a file, fortunately because sales are so infrequent due to high prices and site instability it is not a major cause for concern

a certain spokesperson will say a his first complete sentence in english, unfortunately no one will be still listening when it happens

the site will be upgraded but like all previous upgrades functionality will diminish

several news items will be announced which they will make out are an improvement for contributors but on closer examination are not

I don't drink tea (so no tea leaves to read), and my crystal ball is in the shop, so I don't really have a prediction of my own, but some of the above comments about H&F squeezing the last drops of juice out of Istock, then selling the husk seem about right, IMO. 

Interesting that there aren't any rosy or positive guesses above (unless you count Balderick's, but his tongue is firmly in his cheek ).

I try really hard not to be a "hater."  There are so many iStock "Hater" threads that some may be driven to show sympathy for them.  I won't go that far but I will say:
Is there an agency that you really trust any more than any others?  You may be very disappointed when they cut commissions to satisfy "stock holders" and owners. 

As for iStock ...  I'm at the bottom of the stack with no place to go but up.  That said,  I too really wish they would get their sheet together.   

Maybe BigStock will be the Messiah.