And lay offs in Corbis too ...
http://www.seattletimes.com/business/corbis-said-to-be-cutting-about-15-of-workers-amid-photo-price-war/

Shenk said in the memo that he�ll try to get the company to profitability by stabilizing the photo-licensing business, focusing on premium content and core customers, and by accelerating its push into branded entertainment.

Who do you see buying Corbis. SS or FT? Article mentions Getty but nothing about iStock.

Paid downloads increased 22%
Image collection expanded 49%

Taking 100 as our exposure value for last year, we now have 81
To mantain our revenue, we had to increase our portfolio by ~23%

Of course, most new images are similar illustrations that never get sold.
So I would estimate about 15% increase in port to break even. Not so bad.

I somehow think the math is not right... Since most of the downloads happen in the first couple of pages, we have to figure out what percentage of our portfolio we upload will get a shot at being in those pages where it matters. More images that is uploaded means your image you uploaded has less chance of being seen... your 15% increase in portfolio seems way off to me.

If your awesome shot of a cat competed with 100 other cat shots last year, your window of it being seen and bought by a buyer was 1/100. With a bit of luck, within a day or 2 a buyer would search cat when your cat picture enters library and would get a view. this year it is 1/150. so maybe last year your cat shot was 3rd page. this year it is most likely 5 page and those pages matter. In my eyes, it is a lot harder to attract views now.

I think Shutterstock is a awful site and even worse market company. Plus they are near all time lowers even with the fluffy earnings news. I expect a drop in commissions within a year.  http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/SSTK

I think Shutterstock is a awful site and even worse market company. Plus they are near all time lowers even with the fluffy earnings news. I expect a drop in commissions within a year.  http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/SSTK

I have no idea how you can reach this conclusion they are market leaders and have $282m sitting in the bank and for most contributors they generate the most income. Thats not a bad position to be in. Why is the earnings news "fluffy" its the anecdotal reports of individual contributors that is fluffy.

They were market leaders they aren't now Shutterstock may not be in a few years. I'd rather live in the present than spending my time prophesying disaster based on zero evidence. I don't have to be exclusive to SS so if they are replaced by Adobe its no skin off my nose.

Not QUITE that bad as sales are going up too.....but if you stand still or have a big portfolio built over time that you can't grow fast because of its base size  you can expect income to go down. Hence the reason some of the more seasoned contributors are seeing falling revenue I suspect.

I'm no statistician, the 2 college statistics courses I took were many years ago, but it is interesting to see some of the thoughts here about SS's numbers for the quarter.

"Image collection expanded 49%". In one quarter!!?? That was a shock to me. In simple terms, it looks like you would have to increase your port by 49% every three months just to keep keep up. So if you start out 2016 with 1000 images you will need to add 3000 during the year just to stay even with SS's increase in its image collection. Ouch 

LOL, especially remarkable considering all of the "all 45 rejected" threads!

lol, I 100% agree!!!

I'm no statistician, the 2 college statistics courses I took were many years ago, but it is interesting to see some of the thoughts here about SS's numbers for the quarter.

"Image collection expanded 49%". In one quarter!!?? That was a shock to me. In simple terms, it looks like you would have to increase your port by 49% every three months just to keep keep up. So if you start out 2016 with 1000 images you will need to add 3000 during the year just to stay even with SS's increase in its image collection. Ouch 

no - you're assuming that all images sell equally -- it's probably the most common statistical error showing up in MSG (see the many threads asking how many images you need to make $100/mo

 instead it's more likely 20% of the images account for 80% of sales; since i don't know those exact numbers, and more importantly, i can't predict how my new images will do, I really can't know how many images I need to add to 'keep up'; and of course demand today is different from what it was 1 year ago

the only real option is to continue to work & submit for as long as the results are acceptable to me

Quote from: VB inc on November 05, 2015, 12:02

If your awesome shot of a cat competed with 100 other cat shots last year, your window of it being seen and bought by a buyer was 1/100. With a bit of luck, within a day or 2 a buyer would search cat when your cat picture enters library and would get a view. this year it is 1/150. so maybe last year your cat shot was 3rd page. this year it is most likely 5 page and those pages matter. In my eyes, it is a lot harder to attract views now.

if i read understood you correctly, i have to disagree with your point.
as much as i do not like ss these days , been hating them since they went public.
but truth is truth, so let me clear this up.

no, your cat will not go from pg 3 to pg 5, if you gain dl almost daily from day 1.
You are not understanding my point. Since the library has grown 150% from previous quarter or year, the cat picture you uploaded last year might have been seen at page 3 when the buyer first bought the picture. The cat picture you upload this/next year might be placed in page 5 when a buyer searches for cat since there is much more cat picture uploads. I am not talking about best sellers at all here. I am talking about your recently uploaded files being buried before they get a chance to become best sellers. I am talking about chance and luck playing a bigger role when the library has grown over 50% because the window of time when a buyer searches your category becomes shorter as the library gets bigger to give each file a chance to be seen
my best earners are still on pg 1 no matter how many thousands other come in daily.
the way i see it is that ss does not shuffle your placement . the best sellers will always bring
in money if it was downloaded on the first day and almost daily the first month.
you can be sure it is still the best earner after 5 years.

even if there is a lapse of one month without any dl, you still will be seeing dl almost daily
from your cat on pg 1. it will not go to pg2 never mind 3 or even 5.
this is my own history.

which answers the other thread of why most of us are not leaving the sinking HMS ss
... our best sellers are giving us incentive to stay .

Bolded by me in red

"Image collection expanded 49%". In one quarter!!??

It's a year on year comparison - 3Q 2014 to 3Q 2015.

Quote from: michaeldb on November 05, 2015, 17:33

"Image collection expanded 49%". In one quarter!!?? That was a shock to me.

yeah. but it was all marijuana shots.

is the "cute kitten with piles of marijuana and matches" niche already covered? we could do couple of thousands of that during xmas holidays

Quote from: Shelma1 on November 06, 2015, 07:38

Quote from: michaeldb on November 05, 2015, 17:33

"Image collection expanded 49%". In one quarter!!?? That was a shock to me.

yeah. but it was all marijuana shots.

+10 
and he is still proliferating ...
he is ss own  energizer rabbit and the reason why "we have xxxxxxxx new images every day"

by this time next year, all the reviewers will be seeing everything out of focus
and wrong wb and poor condition of lighting
due to 2nd hand smoke

Or, some 20 Year old will call it a new trend...LOL

49% is really hard to believe.  They can of course claim any number they want, because there's no practical way to verify or disprove it, without deep access to their database - and even then, you'd be relying on date stamps which can easily be changed and don't have to be correct to begin with.   It's not like a company's financials, which can - in principal - be audited by an outsider. 

The huge growth in the archive no doubt sounds good to shareholders.   They won't realize that half of it is bogus icons, and shots of marijuana.

the growth of their archive is really wild.  Shutterstock can't keep up this pace of growth for long imo.  Not unless they branch out in a lot of new areas.  It's going to start getting tougher and I think that is reflected in the the stock price which is well below its all time high.

I pray we get a new site that is fresh and has a system of 50/50 split. across the board. That site will win the hearts and minds in 30 Days. Jon Walks away with a Billion and swears thats the best commission he could have paid.  Are we really that stupid? I guess so.

We've had many new 50/50 sites and some that pay us more.  The problem is us, not the sites.  The only way for us to get a better deal would be if we all only uploaded to sites that pay 50/50 or better but that's not going to happen.  So it will make absolutely no difference if we get a fresh new 50/50 site because the vast majority of people will carry on uploading to the established sites and the vast majority of buyers will carry on using them.

I would be quite happy only uploading to alamy and Pond5 if everyone else did the same but unfortunately that's never going to happen.  It would be even better if contributors owned a majority share in a site with a 50/50 split but it seems like that's another impossibility.

Quote from: Rinderart on November 08, 2015, 00:56

I pray we get a new site that is fresh and has a system of 50/50 split. across the board. That site will win the hearts and minds in 30 Days. Jon Walks away with a Billion and swears thats the best commission he could have paid.  Are we really that stupid? I guess so.

We've had many new 50/50 sites and some that pay us more.  The problem is us, not the sites.  The only way for us to get a better deal would be if we all only uploaded to sites that pay 50/50 or better but that's not going to happen.  So it will make absolutely no difference if we get a fresh new 50/50 site because the vast majority of people will carry on uploading to the established sites and the vast majority of buyers will carry on using them.

I would be quite happy only uploading to alamy and Pond5 if everyone else did the same but unfortunately that's never going to happen.  It would be even better if contributors owned a majority share in a site with a 50/50 split but it seems like that's another impossibility.

I am only uploading to three sites, one pays 50%, 100%, and 30% right now, it's an insult and not worth it to go to the sites that pay pennies on the download BUT lets say you are on every site that will accept your footage or photos, at the end of the month those pennies add up, it all adds to the final total and I think that's why people are uploading to those sites.

The prices charged to the customer need to go up and then the sites can afford to pay better commissions,  the sites/agencies can play a huge roll here in changing the industry from a race to the bottom to a profitable business for them as well not just us.     The costs to run servers or cloud storage are going up, 4K is coming, massive pricing change has to happen or they will all go out of business, you can't cover those kind of costs with what little money video and photos sell for today, the prices have to go up and be passed on to the customer just like in any other business in the world.

The cost of building materials goes up? the contractor builds that into his/her quote, the cost of oil goes up? the refineries build that into the wholesale gas price. "our wholesale costs went up" is the common refrain when asked why the prices went up.

Yet in this industry people are working for pennies.....and losing money. (the contributors).

What everyone needs to do is get some basic business plan software, run it, fill in all the blanks and you will see what you really need to charge for your work. 

I take my blizzard and snowstorm clips for example, if the stock prices are set at $500 per clip the customer is still getting a good deal because to hire me for a day to spend that much in time, fuel, and expenses plus gear to chase and get that footage it would cost the customer $2500/day to hire me yet instead of paying $500 they can get my work for $60-$79 via the agencies.  So at $500 a clip they customer is still getting a good deal.

I had two $125 days and now I am on my 5th in a row $10 day.  Control control control.

Quote from: Rinderart on November 08, 2015, 00:56

I pray we get a new site that is fresh and has a system of 50/50 split. across the board. That site will win the hearts and minds in 30 Days. Jon Walks away with a Billion and swears thats the best commission he could have paid.  Are we really that stupid? I guess so.

We've had many new 50/50 sites and some that pay us more.  The problem is us, not the sites.  The only way for us to get a better deal would be if we all only uploaded to sites that pay 50/50 or better but that's not going to happen.  So it will make absolutely no difference if we get a fresh new 50/50 site because the vast majority of people will carry on uploading to the established sites and the vast majority of buyers will carry on using them.

I would be quite happy only uploading to alamy and Pond5 if everyone else did the same but unfortunately that's never going to happen.  It would be even better if contributors owned a majority share in a site with a 50/50 split but it seems like that's another impossibility.

well said both.
sharpshot, i cannot speak for the others here, and don't intend to 
but the problem is not just us. ask anyone who's been here long time,
they will tell you we all started joining almost all the sites to the right of this page
giving leaf our affliate credit.

but after giving all the work we have, and supporting them,
some with excellent CR eg who? elena, john griffith, douglas, linda ...
 i think .. but cannot remember
the agencies, only the names of the good ppl.
but they did not produce any sales.
in fact, i still have some i fotgot to delete my port from them.

and i still have zero to 10 dls since their inception here on msg.

so it is not our unwillingness to support them. it's not getting the results.
and some, like dt , thinkstock, BigStock,  just go belly up after a great start.
i can tell you we all want a new site, ...but not canva or offset or whatever artsy site...
just the old ss , old is, ... once-reputable sites.

SS is completely flat this month for me...so far anyways.  Have to keep in mind that it all depends on the day and which way the wind is blowing, SS could be smokin next week for all I now and the others in a slump.

It seems to me that since 750 images a month has replaced 25 images a day the first half of the month is always difficult for me, and the last week very very good. We'll see if it works this month.

"During the third quarter we added more content than ever before, growing our library by nearly 6.6 million images, that's 67% more than we added in Q3 of 2014."

http://seekingalpha.com/article/3651626-shutterstock-sstk-jonathan-oringer-on-q3-2015-results-earnings-call-transcript?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-widget

"The backbone of that user experience is ensuring we have both the highest quality and the most diverse selection of content to meet the creative needs of our clients. Product matters."

When does the marijuana leaf spam stop? If they are making false reasons for rejections for common subjects, somebody needs to end this bad bud storm.

I had two sales of 0,08 (!) each yesterday! It's starting to look like Istock at SS. Sorry. This should have been posted in another thread.

... This is good news for us, not just for stock holders. We are tied to the company success. If revenue and growth slows, our share of the earnings will drop more than it has.

i am like you keeping my head up above water to be optimistic, YYY...
but sharing the revenue and growth will only ripple down to us if the company cares for us.
they can still continue to grow keeping all to themselves. eg. the large preview to attract
more buyers (or traffic), yet putting the contributors work open to theft .

Quote from: etudiante_rapide on November 14, 2015, 09:12

Quote from: YadaYadaYada on November 14, 2015, 08:05

... This is good news for us, not just for stock holders. We are tied to the company success. If revenue and growth slows, our share of the earnings will drop more than it has.

i am like you keeping my head up above water to be optimistic, YYY...
but sharing the revenue and growth will only ripple down to us if the company cares for us.
they can still continue to grow keeping all to themselves. eg. the large preview to attract
more buyers (or traffic), yet putting the contributors work open to theft .

Agree.  The wealth is not being shared.  Nov has always been #1 or #2 month of the year and this Nov is on track to be the lowest Nov since my first year, and comparable to a very poor summer month.

same here. as i said before, most months are lowest historically. but luckily for me, each time at the end of the month i got lucky with one good client (angel???) who rescued my month from being wme
and it turns out to be best match bme .  still, i don't consider that as a bme since as stockastic (i think it was him) said, "if you remove that single sale(s), the numbers are not that good".

600,000 images added this week.

Agree wealth is not being shared. What I mean is, people cheering for the stock drop and SS losing market share or sales, are cheering against their own best interest. As the company goes, so do we. Why should I be happy that my best earning site has lost profits? We make those profits too.

I can bleat we need a raise all day long. All agencies just treat us like potatoes. If we actually had any power, or could exert pressure on them, we could demand a raise. Where's that power if people are happy making 13% on IS, less on others and we know that dollar pay is best on SS at 22%?

i am sure those cheering for ss drop don't belong there. so it is in their interest that ss fails.
like that commentor who tells me to delete my portfolio if i really wish to boycott ss for their super large preview. 
is she serious?  you get angry with your family and you leave home, does she? LMAO

we will still get the money, although the new works will not. my comparision year to year sub sales will drop, but once again, as i told pixelbytes, my single sales save the month for me each month.

we won't lose money in this way. we will only lose money that our new works will suffer.
the old existing sellers will continue to sell. i do not see someone coming in to steal my sellers
because they are not the type of pictures you want on your blog or you think will make you money
because they are the sort of images business client buys.

but yes, new images will suffer because they are the most exposed. so i stop uploading
..actually have not uploaded since the mass rejection furor started. but i am only saying
boycott in support of the other ppl here.

as you say, if we have power , well, only ppl power can remove the wall.
maybe we call roger waters to do another brick benefit for microstock contributors