MicrostockGroup

They always hang on to rejects, which are already titled keyworded etc. Maybe they are going to accept a bunch of them at once, with some sort of script that looks for targetted areas, when the rejection reason is a nit.

That post is an amazing example of really poor communication - about any sort of details. Warm and fuzzy with hints of big changes but nothing specific. At this point I have no optimism about any change at iStock being good for contributors (real contributors, not Getty stooges that is).

Andrew does much better than JJRD at communication, but he won't be a policy maker, just someone to try and smooth over ruffled feathers. Even he can't defend the indefensible though. I'd wish him good luck via the iStock forums (if I could); my gut says he's going to need it

He's had so much bad news to communicate, and very little good news. Why, having been away for a while, anyone would want to come back to that job, I can't imagine.

I'd have put money on Andrew not coming back *surprised face*

The true believers seem to be cheering it all, rather than wondering what it actually means.
Either the KoolAid is fantastic or I need to lay off the CynicismSauce aka RealityCheck.

you're not even an istock contributor, you never have been.

I appreciate that they try to keep things warm and fuzzy, but I think it would be received a lot better if they just put things out there, clearly. no drama, no f5, no carrot dangling. I'd guess that most of us just want to know how this is going to affect our sales and evasive announcements make it seem that there is something to hide, even if there isn't.

Yes, he was a member, but has been crusading against istock sinc the beggining of the times

Ugh and sigh. The way they announce things. 5 paragraphs that say absolutely nothing. yadda, yadda, yadda, the only part that was intelligible was that rogermexico was coming back.

The warm and fuzzy days are over, yet they insist on using that tactic before bringing out the big stick (and the Vaseline). I don't have a vested interest (my apologies to those that do) so I find it all very amusing.

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=334953&page=1

"Greetings from iStockalypse Milan.

There was a time when things were relatively simple & linear around here, from a Content perspective: we would grow the collection exponentially on a monthly basis, we would inspect those files from our contributor base & welcome them into our corpus. End of story, frankly.

The rules were simple, for all file types: if the technical quality was up to our evolving standards & if those assets were safe from an Intellectual Property perspective, they were coming in. That simple yet effective system enabled us to transform stock photography & create what progressively became one of the very best royalty-free corpus in the entire industry.

Now, to ensure that we fully support all efforts related to International Development at iStockphoto & sync with Marketing initiatives in a much more structured fashion, it is time for Content to readdress a thing or two as to how we interact with our ever growing community of artists.

For months now, we have been working on a string of initiatives aimed at assisting our community of contributing artists. I will be sharing more, way more from that front in the upcoming weeks. Let's just state that we are on a mission to simplify the ingestion process as well as the inspection process, enrich our collections with fantastic files that are fully relevant to Key Regions needs as well as making sure that we cover major markets as never before.

Creative Research & information sharing will be key to make this happen... in order to make sure that we reach the next level of our evolution.

We need a voice that speaks to the needs of our artists: a voice dedicated to our next challenge as a community.

Within this context, it is my pleasure to announce the nomination of Andrew Wedderburn, as Manager, Creative Resources, Content, effective immediately.

In this new position at iStock, Andrew's mandate is to increase strategic information flow and streamline content communication... as well as to assist both iStockphoto and Getty Images Content management teams (all file types) with Creative Research initiatives.

The power of this community is fascinating... and this is a bold day, people.

Please join me in welcoming Andrew to Content... and thank you so very much indeed."
---------------------------------------------------

“…to ensure that we fully… sync with Marketing initiatives in a much more structured fashion, it is time for Content to readdress a thing or two as to how we interact with our ever growing community of artists” scares me.  Does this mean in part that they will start to reject/disfavor new content that previously was easily accepted and sold well because it does not now “fully sync” with the prevailing winds/whims?  Maybe it means that they will publically ID certain types of content that they feel are lacking and give priority inspection or better best match placement to content that fills that void?

“we are on a mission to simplify… the inspection process”  Inspector layoffs possible as part of simplification?  Inspection must be a significant overhead on a per file basis and cutting overhead is an “easy” way to grow the bottom line without needing to growing the top line, just like cutting commissions is.

“enrich our collections with fantastic files that are fully relevant to Key Regions needs as well as making sure that we cover major markets as never before”  Wonder what they think the “Key Regions” are?  Guess they could be potentially big markets where Getty does not sell much currently, since they are different then “major markets”.  China?  India?  Certainly opportunities are there, but lots of problems including smaller budgets and higher IP theft.  Maybe lower prices/commissions for images sold to “key regions” to match smaller local budgets? 

Maybe they are worried that inspectors reject too many non-exclusive images with no reason and this will hurt their TS plan.

I am guessing it is some sort of deal where certain images (that their world class inspectors choose) go straight to PP and never see the "light" of IS. Maybe they start with independent images and stuff from "upstream" first.

I think all this fuss is once again over the evasive communication and not the real issue. I don't believe JJ is maliciously being evasive. he is a very sincere person and is another of the HQ people who is truly behind the community. saying that, I wish they would just scrap this type of announcement and stick to facts. I would gladly take point form lists of changes we'll be seeing, without any drama.