Author Topic: 111,655 new photos added in the past week (Read 11392 times)

cclapper · « **Reply #75 on:** January 09, 2011, 08:21 »

Quote from: kjorgen on January 09, 2011, 07:31

I agree they have to do something. But I think instead of just increasing the standards way too much now, they should start in the other end - remove the old stuff that is not selling! If they let the old pictures with lower quality stay on their site, and not take in some of the new pictures with much higher standards -the all around quality on Shutter is not going to increase.

I agree with this. This is microstock...standards are up to trad agency quality, but commissions have remained micro.

stockmarketer · « **Reply #76 on:** January 09, 2011, 08:49 »

Quote from: ichiro17 on January 26, 2010, 10:18

Unsustainable business practices

You're right. On a related note, I've stopped buying merchandise on Amazon because I realized they have too much stuff. You can buy anything you could possibly want on Amazon! Why would anyone shop there?

Oh wait, I take that back, I actually buy just about everything on Amazon, BECAUSE they have so much stuff (and the prices can't be beat, but that's another topic.)

The key here isn't how much stuff a site offers, it's "can the buyer find it." So far, I'd say the proof is that Shutterstock buyers CAN easily find what they are looking for? All you doomsayers who think that every additional image accepted by Shutterstock is another nail in its coffin, do you have proof that suggests their business is suffering because of it? Are you a buyer? Just because you do a search hoping to see your own images and they don't come up, it doesn't mean that the buyer is having a bad experience. I DO buy images for my day job and I can tell you that I enjoy Shutterstock's search much more than iStock's, so from my perspective, the site offers a good experience and I have never thought "There's simply too much here, I won't come back!" As long as SS continues to provide an Amazon-like experience, offering a wealth of options for every conceivable need but delivering what the buyer wants most near the top of the search results, it will continue to prosper. And if you're uploading marketable images that buyers actually want, you will prosper along with SS.

gostwyck · « **Reply #77 on:** January 09, 2011, 09:04 »

Quote from: stockmarketer on January 09, 2011, 08:49

The key here isn't how much stuff a site offers, it's "can the buyer find it." So far, I'd say the proof is that Shutterstock buyers CAN easily find what they are looking for? All you doomsayers who think that every additional image accepted by Shutterstock is another nail in its coffin, do you have proof that suggests their business is suffering because of it? Are you a buyer? Just because you do a search hoping to see your own images and they don't come up, it doesn't mean that the buyer is having a bad experience. I DO buy images for my day job and I can tell you that I enjoy Shutterstock's search much more than iStock's, so from my perspective, the site offers a good experience and I have never thought "There's simply too much here, I won't come back!" As long as SS continues to provide an Amazon-like experience, offering a wealth of options for every conceivable need but delivering what the buyer wants most near the top of the search results, it will continue to prosper. And if you're uploading marketable images that buyers actually want, you will prosper along with SS.

Agree 100%. The speed and accuracy of the search engine is the key to SS's success IMHO. It may be much simpler than IS's absurdly over-complicated CV system but it works much better and you can actually search on the words you want to (rather than what IS's CV thinks you should). If I were a buyer then SS would be my agency of choice.

Artemis · « **Reply #78 on:** January 09, 2011, 09:29 »

Quote from: stockmarketer on January 09, 2011, 08:49

*snip*
All you doomsayers who think that every additional image accepted by Shutterstock is another nail in its coffin, do you have proof that suggests their business is suffering because of it? Are you a buyer? Just because you do a search hoping to see your own images and they don't come up, it doesn't mean that the buyer is having a bad experience. I DO buy images for my day job and I can tell you that I enjoy Shutterstock's search much more than iStock's, so from my perspective, the site offers a good experience and I have never thought "There's simply too much here, I won't come back!" As long as SS continues to provide an Amazon-like experience, offering a wealth of options for every conceivable need but delivering what the buyer wants most near the top of the search results, it will continue to prosper. And if you're uploading marketable images that buyers actually want, you will prosper along with SS.

I've heard from more than one stockbuyer in person (one of them working on the publicity department of a pretty big company here that easily spends over $1000/month on stock) that they ditched SS because they didnt have the time to wade through all the junk out there (so yes, im convinced it hurts their business). Their database is just totally clogged...
I agree they're in dire need of a big spring cleaning, as someone said on the SS forums: its not about deleting niche-pics that dont sell so often but have their value, its about the gazillion staplers, strawberries, etc. isolated on gray(ish).

gostwyck · « **Reply #79 on:** January 09, 2011, 09:48 »

Quote from: Artemis on January 09, 2011, 09:29

I've heard from more than one stockbuyer in person (one of them working on the publicity department of a pretty big company here that easily spends over $1000/month on stock) that they ditched SS because they didnt have the time to wade through all the junk out there (so yes, im convinced it hurts their business). Their database is just totally clogged...

Someone from SS headquarters phoned me a couple of days ago so I had a chat about a few things. SS and BigStock have separate staff but they are both housed in the same New York office. Apparently they now have 'about 150 people' working there but exact numbers were difficult because they seemed to have new people being employed 'almost every day'. When I joined SS it was just Jon and a girl called Andrea if I remember correctly.

You don't grow a business like that unless you are doing far more right than you are doing wrong. Quite clearly they must have hundreds of thousands of happy customers providing repeat business to support an operation of that size.

Artemis · « **Reply #80 on:** January 09, 2011, 10:19 »

Of course they have many thousands and thousands of happy customers, (its always a miracle to me how buyers can find my pics in the millions of others, there really must be sh*tloads of customers); never claimed they dont have, i also agree all in all they seem to run their business pretty darn well. Still, there's always room for improvement and for SS the database would be a good start.

molka · « **Reply #81 on:** January 09, 2011, 11:56 »

Quote from: kjorgen on January 09, 2011, 07:31

... remove the old stuff that is not selling! ...

How would that help contributors? It might help the company a bit, with some really minro cut in strage expanses, but that's not a big deal anyway. Actually going around weeding out stuff might just cost more then leting them lay around.

pancaketom · « **Reply #82 on:** January 09, 2011, 13:22 »

getting rid of content isn't that critical - but making search work is. The problem with SS is that the keywords are a mess and since they split multi-word keywords a lot of what appears to be spam really isn't. (and there is an immense amount of spam too). Also the way search works on SS is roughly sales over time - so say a good selling business image will show up high in niche search if it has those keywords. (as opposed to some of the keyword relevance search engines). I think they tried to address some of this by using the description in the search too.

I'm guessing that any automatic weeding program would have to be very cleverly written to not cause more trouble than it was worth, and it probably would not be cost effective to actually pay people to choose which images to delete.

gostwyck · « **Reply #83 on:** July 20, 2011, 09:55 »

Amazing what can happen in 18 months or so. We are now down to just 59K 'new stock photos added this week' __ that's nearly half what it was before. Fewer contributors finding it worth their time against all the competition?

luissantos84 · « **Reply #84 on:** July 20, 2011, 09:57 »

Quote from: gostwyck on July 20, 2011, 09:55

Amazing what can happen in 18 months or so. We are now down to just 59K 'new stock photos added this week' __ that's nearly half what it was before. Fewer contributors finding it worth their time against all the competition?

maybe more rejections but sure some have given up

rubyroo · « **Reply #85 on:** July 20, 2011, 10:25 »

Well at least it explains why review times have speeded up.

RacePhoto · « **Reply #86 on:** September 27, 2011, 02:17 »

Quote from: gostwyck on July 20, 2011, 09:55

Amazing what can happen in 18 months or so. We are now down to just 59K 'new stock photos added this week' __ that's nearly half what it was before. Fewer contributors finding it worth their time against all the competition?

I wish I had started saving these a few years ago:

SHUTTERSTOCK STATS:
16,333,183 royalty-free stock photos / 73,424 new stock photos added this week / 320,570 photographers

Somewhere years ago I remember one person would do a weekly update. Anyway, 73,000 this week.

Good accurate keywords make sales. Incorrect or irrelevant words, just detract. But smart buyers know how to use the search, it's to their benefit and saves them time.

gostwyck · « **Reply #87 on:** September 27, 2011, 04:05 »

^^^ Well the number of 'new images this week' may have largely stabilised but it is getting incredibly difficult for new images to make an impact. I guess the upside is that existing images, which have already earned a decent sort-order placement, are more likely to enjoy longevity in their earnings. Not easy though.

nicku · « **Reply #88 on:** September 27, 2011, 06:07 »

Quote from: stockastic on January 25, 2010, 23:22

Absolute insanity. These guys are digging their own grave. "Search Fatigue" will eventually send buyers elsewhere.

Don't forget that SS have two aces aces up his sleeve that are kept there for ''bad times''...

1. some sort of exclusivity program.
2. implementation of a credit based system.

those measures will enhance their popularity significantly if their are somehow threatened.

Perry · « **Reply #89 on:** September 27, 2011, 08:05 »

Quote from: nicku on September 27, 2011, 06:07

Don't forget that SS have two aces aces up his sleeve that are kept there for ''bad times''...

1. some sort of exclusivity program.
2. implementation of a credit based system.

I have no idea why they don't already have the "2.". They have Bigstockphoto and On Demands, but no "regular" credit download possibility

nicku · « **Reply #90 on:** September 27, 2011, 08:43 »

Quote from: Perry on September 27, 2011, 08:05

Quote from: nicku on September 27, 2011, 06:07
Don't forget that SS have two aces aces up his sleeve that are kept there for ''bad times''...

1. some sort of exclusivity program.
2. implementation of a credit based system.

I have no idea why they don't already have the "2.". They have Bigstockphoto and On Demands, but no "regular" credit download possibility

SS is the top agency, probably they are not so greedy like other agencies...... they must have an ''insurance policy'' for the future in case one of the top 4 threaten their 1st place.