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Messages - mtilghma
76
« on: January 21, 2012, 13:12 »
agree with no correlation
in terms of ease of uploading:
CanStockPhoto
SS
123RF
DT
FT
iS
in terms of revenue
SS
iS
DT
FT
CanStockPhoto
123RF
I would say thats pretty uncorrelated
77
« on: January 20, 2012, 12:24 »
would that mean lobo would have hammer powers on the getty forums? I could see that ending well, hehehehe
78
« on: January 19, 2012, 17:43 »
that being said, i do have a secret, selfish outcome that i see helping me most. that would be if istock turns into a getty portal, like many have said so far, where photos go either up to vetta or down to thinkstock. such a situation may result in the "up to vetta" venue requiring image exclusivity, but not agency exclusivity. that would help me, and I would submit a lot through that. my biggest loss when rescinding istock exclusivity was many of my photos being taken off vetta... they sold quite well there. if i can stay an indy, but upload to "istock->getty->vetta" first if i promise image exclusivity if accepted, i think that would help me a lot.
Yes, but I'd hate to see what I think is a Vetta image rejected and sent to Thinkstock!
In many ways I'd like to see the end of photographer exclusivity, and a fair rate paid to everyone. I'd like the opportunity to put some things elsewhere as RF. I have been thinking of giving up the crown so that I can do just that, but so far no one has convinced me that I'd be financially better off as an independent.
To those who have been laid off, well, that's happened to me twice, both times have led on to new adventures and turned out to be for the best. I hope the same happens for all of you!
your fear implies a situation where i promise image exclusivity no matter the outcome, even if it goes to thinkstock. i would never submit, if that were the situation. if i need to promise image exclusivity only for the vetta outcome, but not the thinkstock outcome, i would submit in droves
79
« on: January 19, 2012, 17:20 »
first and foremost, my biggest hope is that the friends and acquaintances i've made here and elsewhere who make either their entire income or a large portion of it as an istock exclusive do not see their lives turned up-side down. no petty victories are worth that. whether it means a smooth transition to indy, or an istock rebound, or whatever else, that is my hope.
that being said, i do have a secret, selfish outcome that i see helping me most. that would be if istock turns into a getty portal, like many have said so far, where photos go either up to vetta or down to thinkstock. such a situation may result in the "up to vetta" venue requiring image exclusivity, but not agency exclusivity. that would help me, and I would submit a lot through that. my biggest loss when rescinding istock exclusivity was many of my photos being taken off vetta... they sold quite well there. if i can stay an indy, but upload to "istock->getty->vetta" first if i promise image exclusivity if accepted, i think that would help me a lot.
80
« on: January 17, 2012, 11:32 »
hahahaha look at mine! wait, why am I laughing? 
81
« on: January 16, 2012, 23:20 »
Thanks for the comments. I meant mostly if you guys could see a way to fit this flickr thing in there, or if it is pointless, but I guess I was opening up myself for all comments, too.
I agree it's strange, and like I said, it changes pretty often so this is only likely temporary. But like I said, it is this way right now mainly because I want to give RM a try. Some people tend to say that location shots like mine are often more suited to RM, so I'm trying to slowly build an RM portfolio. Since if it is for sale on a SINGLE RF website it can't be RM, if I uploaded a photo to all micros and only put the ones rejected by all to RM, I'd have no RMs. Therefore it makes sense to send to one or two first, and SS makes the most sense since it both earns the most, and reviews the fastest. Does that make sense?
82
« on: January 16, 2012, 16:35 »
I signed up for flickr for the first time ever a few months ago, mainly in an attempt to bring random internet views to my personal website, where I host my photos and point people to certain stock or print sites.
I guess I didn't uncheck the Getty bullet, so I got a sitemail that said something like "the getty curators have found your images and think that some of them would go great on getty, namely these pictures below:" then attached some of my photos from flickr they wanted me to upload to getty, and then they had a specialized link for me to create an account. I followed the link to create my getty submitter account, but I guess that's all I'll be doing for now.
Suffice to say that all the photos they cited have been for sale on the RF micros for years. My current workflow, which honestly is changing all the time, is:
Submit to SS.
If SS accepts, submit to all other RF micros.
If SS rejects, but I think it is definitely a micro-type photo, submit to all other micros.
If SS rejects, but I'm not sure exactly if the photo is geared to micro, submit to Alamy RM.
I do this because usually the Alamy RM stated number is to expect something like 1 dollar per image per year. I have a small (and I like to think high quality, but who doesn't) portfolio, and on SS alone, I see WAY more than 1 dollar per image per year. IS I also see way more than that, but its sliding. Others, the jury is still out, since I'm a newish independent, but I'm interested in giving RM a tentative try, so that influenced my workflow decision.
Not really sure how getty would fit into this, as it seems I'm a "flickr submitter" which means that I can only submit the photos theyve already tapped. So they cant replace the Alamy RM step, I don't think. And I don't think I want them to replace the micro steps, since who knows what they will and will not tap, or how long it will take.
Comments on my workflow decisions?
83
« on: January 16, 2012, 16:23 »
wow, back in the day they used to give such a lead-up and fanfare over price changes! My how times have changed
Regarding the DL numbers, mine have dropped 76% for january to date, compared to 2011. But that is a somewhat sensationalist number, as it includes:
Dropping exclusivity between now and then
PP sales for Jan have not showed up yet, and nowadays they account for the lionshare of actual downloads
I have a small portfolio, so things are more volatile in general
84
« on: January 16, 2012, 12:17 »
I have some photos on both imagekind and fine art america. I have gotten multiple payments from FAA but none from imagekind 
85
« on: January 13, 2012, 20:03 »
Getty's track record doesn't give me any reason to hold out hope IS will ever improve. Maybe my experience with StockXpert has left me cynical, but I can't help but think they are actually trying to push out all the contributors so they can use the brand name iStockphoto for older Getty images they wholly own. They get 100% of the royalties for those images and minimal labor is involved. Moving Getty images onto iStock is cheap and efficient.
That is a frightening theory that I had not yet heard of.
86
« on: January 13, 2012, 15:42 »
just read more carefully, and i see that yes, that is what it was. so yea, hopefully the average line is showing the trend, not the monthly line.
then i noticed the dip was due to january. then i noticed most other january's had a dip too. then i noticed they werent NEAR as bad. looks as if the extremes are getting more pronounced. kinda like climate change! WHERE IS AL GORE WHEN WE NEED HIM!?
87
« on: January 13, 2012, 15:39 »
I assume that the thin lines are actual data points, and the bold lines are some sort of moving average? Here's to hoping the moving average line is the best indicator, because the thin one shows a very different picture!
88
« on: January 13, 2012, 12:53 »
off topic: Scott I just looked at your iStock port. >110000 dl's on 390 files is one of the most impressive things I've seen in a while. Congrats.
89
« on: January 13, 2012, 12:51 »
at the start of the year 2011 :
my data _
blackdiamond : 37
diamond : 774
gold : 1090
silver : 3180
bronze : 8064
base : 23079
total contributor : 36764 (less than the real effective number about 85000 now)
esclusive contributor : 5872
total files : 7479201
This is the "unsustainable" part that H&F was worried about. The top contributors (Diamonds of both colors) increased over 18% this year. It was that trend that I'm sure lead to their self-defeating commission structure change. Gold +14%, Silver +14%, Bronze +19%.
If H&F saw that trend, though, and worried about an unsustainable future, rather than an unsustainable present, they could/should have stuck to their "grandfathered canister" promise
90
« on: January 11, 2012, 11:37 »
mine is blazing... already 137% the earnings of my previous BME, and thats not projection, that is earnings to date. Probably due to a healthy number of ELs (can we start using ED's, so as to stop paying homage to istock?), but anyways, I was not expecting this.
91
« on: January 10, 2012, 11:10 »
and just to note, I uploaded about 30 photos yesterday, and already got a sale overnight. I don't think this is necessarily an indication of sales trickling in each and every day, yet, rather I think someone just snatched one up when it was in the 'most recent' stack... but still, not a bad sign, that's for sure!
92
« on: January 09, 2012, 18:45 »
Sorry if there has been a response similar to this, but I read this and felt the need to respond, and haven't read the rest yet. A combination of both. Too many diamonds making 40% who were performing poorly.
Yes, I've seen some diamonds say that they've dropped from 2-3 canister % levels under the new RC system. What does that indicate? For some probably that they've been there for a long time and aren't selling a whole lot. For others, maybe IS overall sales are down. It's a hard truth but not everyone performs equally. Should everybody get a trophy no matter how they perform?
I don't know of any company that pays their sales team or even their distributors based on how long they've been there. There's a monthly quota and it's all about performance. Those who don't hit quota either make a lower percentage or don 't get paid at all. Weaker salespeople leave because they can't afford to stay. This is sales 101.
Taking IS's overall sales performance out of the equation, who's more valuable?
- Someone who started in 2002, has 25,000 files, and just hit 25,000 downloads to reach diamond ten years later?
- Or someone who joined in 2010, has 100 files, and already hit 25,000 downloads to reach diamond in a year?
Which one is more profitable? Which one is producing what buyers want? Should they be compensated equally? I get that that was their thinking, and I get that it does make SOME sense. Really, I do get it, and you won't find me with any iStock voodoo dolls. But really, I think there's another type of very valuable contributor that got screwed, like me. The high-performing-files but low-amount-of-files type of contributor. By the time I reached 10k downloads, it had been about 5 years and I had about 300 files. Thats a download per file per day of about 0.02, which is pretty good. Not the word's greatest, but by no means shabby at all. If you're not familiar with ballpark figures, istock provides enough data for you to calculate it yourself, using some famous names you know, if you want. What's my point? My point is that, while I'm certainly not as "valuable" as the big names, I'm no more deserving of a royalty reduction, because although I earn less money, they'd also be saving less money by slashing my royalties. It's very simple. Like gostwyk keeps saying, we are all equally valuable per download, which is at the heart of what I mean. But it goes even further... what do we cost istock? Server/storage space, time (reviewing), and advertising. When factoring in these admittedly secondary factors, high-performing-files but low-amount-of-files type of contributor are even more valuable "per download". If RC targets were per file, I'd have done just fine. Even if I didn't do just fine, I wouldnt have felt that their move was unfair. Instead, it felt like a move that had nothing to do with true performance/cost analysis, but rather a way to screw contributors while keeping the biggest names relatively happy. I'm sorry, but 20 of this type of contributor are at LEAST as valuable as an image factory, and far more than that have dropped the crown as a result.
93
« on: January 09, 2012, 17:56 »
I actually like this concept for a site a lot. I'm uploading my port as we speak  (no response yet regarding ftp slot though ... my username is mtilghma) I think it's brilliant because all the contributors tend to whine when sites decrease overall photo prices, but my bet is that when faced with the cut-throat competition, they'd do the same if given the chance. You've given them the chance. You benefit from all the price slashing, with none of the hatred and animosity directed towards you. Brilliant! (I don't mean to be mean, as I said, I really like this concept)
94
« on: January 09, 2012, 17:42 »
I dropped iS exclusivity in june 2011. I am happy with the decision I made, because it truly revitalized my love of photography, and re-motivated me. That said, I still have not recovered to where I was before, earnings-wise. I'm getting there, but not there yet. However, I do think I'd be ahead relative to where I WOULD be if I had not rescinded, because the RC change would have hit me very hard. But that's all speculation.
95
« on: January 07, 2012, 18:08 »
I would say that if I had to keyword my entire portfolio, after 'landscape' and 'nature', i'd probably pick 'travel'. And to be honest, they do sell fairly well. But there's just not enough of the photos. As everyone has said, you are at the mercy of the weather that 1-2 days you get to spend somewhere, so after a 2 week trip, I might only have 3 or 4 good photos. Good thing its a hobby!
96
« on: January 06, 2012, 14:27 »
ha, what does your all time post total have to do with the bug i am experiencing?
i deleted all possible things from my browser (cookies, cache, everything) and am still experiencing the same bug... it attempts to download something when i click 'discussion forum'. the file is called 'download', is 14.1 kb, and has no file type.
again, its not a big deal because i can get to the forums fine by just googling 'shutterstock forum', just thought you might what to know about my bug
97
« on: January 05, 2012, 15:23 »
Maybe YOU are low budget. I, on the other hand, am extravagance personified. 
98
« on: January 03, 2012, 21:21 »
Anyone else have the problem that when they try to go to the discussion forum, the browser tries to download something instead of navigating you to the forum? Happens for me on both firefox and chrome
99
« on: January 01, 2012, 17:15 »
slow day for me. this was my first: 
100
« on: December 31, 2011, 11:08 »
Ah ok, thanks. Yes I've temporarily switched to the batch uploader as well.
I'm also having issues with FTP uploads on DT, so maybe its something filezilla did? doubt it...
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