Quote from: cclapper on January 12, 2011, 10:31

I see kelvinjay locking threads now

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=291562&page=1
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=291542&page=1


and very little of Lobo. Do you think he quit, or got promoted to CEO? 

Maybe he's on holiday? I see he's still up there and still has his moderator badge.

Fired?

Quote from: ShadySue on January 11, 2011, 19:20

So in my Stats it says Photo: 317 credits (yeah, the buyers are boycotting me too) and on the next line it says Vetta/Agency: 317 credits. I haven't have a Vetta sale since 19th December -essentially the price hike killed my Vettas and the sale doesn't help. So why is it saying Vetta/Agency: 317 credits?
It's obviously 'a bug'. Hope they're looking into this one too.
Can't they do anything right first time?

Its not a bug.  Main and V/A royalty %s, while are separate, are determined by the combined total of all photos.

It's meant to be like that? H*ck, whose bright idea was that?

Don'tcha love iStock's flexitime.
Andrew said he's have the live link to the new ASA in 'one second', but that was times 17 minutes ago.
Of course, it will be live by the time I post this! 

What on earth is going on with search today?
Twice I've made a search and ended up apparently searching  on 'source' as a keyword, when that wasn't what I entered. This most recent time I typed in Edinburgh, and then clicked on Edinburgh as it appeared below the search box and got 'source'.
Earlier, only the top few thums on a search showed, and several refreshes made no difference (FF)
I switched to IE, did a search, clicked on an image, then clicked the back button and came out of my original search.
I'm sure it's not the only reason I have no dls today or yesterday, but it can't be helping.  
Of course, I can't report it on the forums.  

Added: why is is so inconsistent? The last time (just before I typed the above) I typed Edinburgh in the top search box, it offered me Edinburgh, Edinburgh Castle or Edinburgh (Holyrood), This time, it's only offering me Edinburgh, and I've noticed this sort of thing before too.

I thought the second world was the communist eastern bloc. (with first world being the allied capitalist west and the 3rd world being those that were unallied). 3rd world has come to mean undeveloped though and 2cd world has been dropped.

Yes, I don't know if the expression 'second world' was ever used, but it was the communist bloc which was implied.
I try not to use the term 'third world', though old habits die hard, but Developing World I thought was OK?
@nosaya: I don't understand the logic of "I don't use PC terms like 'developing nations' because SOME of these places still have 30- 40 years to go before I would consider them developed." - isn't that exactly what's meant by 'developing'?

I was reading somewhere in someone's blog that rights managed license sell more than RF, however the return per image is lower, as the usage is very restricted.

Are some RM licenses as low as micro prices...is that true?

So is that true that the Royalty Free return per image is higher and generates more sales, because it has less rescritions?

As always, it depends.
For a start, your title is Editorial v Royalty Free, but your question is about RM v RF.
Editorial is a type of image, Royalty Free is a license for use of an image, as is RM.
Some RM licenses can be pretty low: these are generally either 'novel use', e.g. for a private blog, or for newspaper use, as some newspapers have heftydiscounts for bulk buying.
That said, e.g. iStock gives their biggest bulk buyers big discounts (which aren't advertised on the site) and some reported sales by iStockers via Getty have been as low as 6c, yup, six cents.
I had an RM sale on Alamy in early December for $500/$300 to me.
I've heard that on average, RF prices are higher than RM on Alamy, but that's only the tiny proportion of Alamy contributers who participate in the forums.
On Alamy, editorial images (i.e. where a model and/or property release would be needed for commercial use, but the release is not available) can only be sold RM, never RF (I say that because of your title, just to be clear).

I noticed via DeepMeta that my 'files viewed' both on Thursday, then overnight Thursday/Friday were about three times the usual for 24 hours (i.e. I had about 6x the 'normal' views), but I had very few sales during these times. Maybe they were trawling, but found nothing of interest.
Which is, of course, fine by me, as I don't want my images being sold elsewhere with me getting nada.

I have no idea how people make plans moving forward.
There has always been little point in uploading less desired images, even if unique.
There seems little point in everyone competing in the already overpopulated, if popular, areas.
Like I said in another thread, it'll be all about finding a niche which no-one else has access to, yet is still wanted by buyers. I'm afraid my brain doesn't work that far (I've never been able to second-guess buyers), and I don't have unique access to anything I'd be able to sell photos of.
Totally demotivating.

Even the veneer of 'community' has been shown to be micro-thin. It's all "I'm all right, Jack" from the relieved, and even a few, I'm still down, but I'm happy for those who are up.
Isn't that a prime definition of masochism?

Vomit inducing.
But not as vomit inducing as the grovelling tone of the replies.

I couldn't believe my eyes. That's exactly why they do it. People just bend over further. 

Just up.
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=289922&page=1

"As 2010 wound down, our data gave us a more and more complete picture of how the year went. We've now been able to crunch everything down and examine how performance matched up against our predictions.

And I must say, thank you to everyone for helping iStock with an exceptional year. With your hard work, we continue to meet and exceed our goals. We were almost exactly right on our credit burn targets, but the distribution was a little different from what we expected. We�ve adjusted the credit targets to better reflect that. Some targets have stayed the same, some down--none up. So good news."

So.
We "contiune to met and exceed our goals", but we're still unsustainable.
What's wrong with these people?
At least he knows who's doing the hard work. And shafting us anyway.

Quote from: ShadySue on January 07, 2011, 14:55

Do you find that lots of people pau to licence your images for personal use?

I have a friend who used to buy images for his daughter's school assignments (maybe very specific images, but he is the only person I know who buys images for personal use).

I remember reading someone on iStock not long after I started about parents buying iStock images for their kids homework. As a very recently ex-teacher, I still find that incredible. If I'd required it, I'd have been in big trouble. If an assignment had come in with a stock image, what would it have got credit for? That the kid had a parent wealthy enough to have a computer and a credit card?