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Author Topic: Stocksy - where are they?  (Read 48384 times)

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« Reply #51 on: September 03, 2013, 11:42 »
+3
Im still hopeful about Stocksy. Im glad to hear that there has been growth over the last 5 months. I like the positive attitude coming from the few who have posted here. After leaving iStock and now testing the waters with a personal site, I would be very interested in sending my best work to Stocksy. Gives me a solid reason to stay in this business and justify the time spent on new projects. Its also a no brainer for me as I am not actively involved with other sites at the moment and I like the idea of image exclusivity. Trying to make some long-term decisions. Thanks for sharing your experiences so far.

« Reply #52 on: September 03, 2013, 15:36 »
+13
For me, solid sales trend growth over the 5 continuous months I've had sales at Stocksy. Also, my August was almost double my June, with no ELs yet. I'm starting to regularly have better sales days on Stocksy than iStock and I have every expectation that trend will continue and accelerate.

There is so much to like about Stocksy, but many people won't know the great vibe first hand yet. Among a few of my favorite things are the personal touches including direct access to editors if needed and incredibly responsive (like superhuman) technical support. You absolutely feel like a partner with the focus on customer's and contributor's experience, making the site and the business optimal for both. It's entirely 180 to the way things felt at the other place, as if you were expendable, even a resource to be strip mined.

The vibe in the forums is extremely positive, a lot of people encouraging and helping each other.

When Stocksy offers discounts, it doesn't come out of contributor's commission. Also, contributors keep 100% of ELs. Crazy, right?! Things like that really make you feel valued. I hope Stocksy's growth continues on the path it's on, not just for co-op owner/member/contributors, but also to reinforce the idea that businesses can thrive and take good care of their partners at the same time.

« Reply #53 on: September 04, 2013, 05:24 »
+3
I don't check these forums very often, but I did want to say that it wasn't arrogance that prevented us from replying to everyone.  It was a technical failure on our part.  It's something we've apologized for in the past (in Facebook, over emails, etc.). We didn't have a mechanism to reply to the amount of portfolios we initially received. We've corrected that and now send emails after a Call to Artist submission or Application is reviewed.  It was a stupid mistake on our part and was not intentional.  We fixed it as soon as we could.

Does that mean that all of the applicants will get the response now, be it positive or negative?

For people that recently got involved with Stocksy, how many days did you wait for them to call?

I agree with everyone who said that it's not just about being accepted or rejected - I'd still have to think very carefully about breaking the exclusivity with iS and Getty. But I do want to know whether I'm in or out. I like almost everything about Stocksy so far and looks very promising! Keeping the fingers crossed.
« Last Edit: September 04, 2013, 05:28 by ivanjekic »

« Reply #54 on: September 04, 2013, 05:37 »
+8
It is great to hear that Stocksy is growing! Even if I am not there now it gives me something to work towards! I really hope Stocksy blows all the others out of the water because they treat the artist fair. So happy to hear some good news from them!


lisafx

« Reply #56 on: September 04, 2013, 11:10 »
+6
You can always withdraw the accepted images and submit elsewhere if you don't like how things work out.

"Series" would mean same people, clothing, place and theme.  If you change clothing and location during a shoot, so that it appears to be separate from the first part, you should be fine.  But you can ask Rob S. or Nuno S. for specifics if you have a detailed plan.

Thanks for the detailed reply.  Everything about them does sound really positive.  I will need to come up with a different workflow and shooting style for Stocksy submissions.  I just don't see anything I currently shoot as being a good fit there. 

OTOH don't want to get left behind in the microstock soup when there is such an appealing life-raft floating by ;)

« Reply #57 on: September 04, 2013, 14:52 »
+4
I think they might have helped their own PR if they'd bothered to reply to people who applied, even if it was a polite 'no thanks'.
Looking arrogant and lazy is normally the prerogative of big established players, not newcomers hoping to create a positive buzz.

they lost me right at the beginning due to what you mentioned above, mainly the arrogance. send us your link to your successful folio on another site and we 'might' invite you.

now why in gods name would i send you a link from another site so that you can 'might' scoop me from them. a real class act i'd say. tacky tacky tacky.

then when i sent in an email in reply to the email they sent me, with some very solid questions, i think it was the total lack of reply and professional courtesy in doing so that made me decide i 'might' won't be putting anything with them.

honestly, the arrogance and lack of reply is what i'd expect from the very agency they were trying to scoop me from.

no thanks.

I am still trying to remain positive about Stocksy but you are right in that I never heard a thing back from them regarding my port.  I don't have anything they'd want anyway except maybe my underwater work.  I am sure they had a frickin flood of applicants and were overwhelmed with contributors desperately looking for a new and successful way to sell their images.  But they should have know and prepared for that flood. Other than never hearing a peep back from them, they still have the right to accept or reject whatever they want.  But leaving the "criteria" floating in the fog will not help build their collection.  It will impede their ability to grow the collection, to offer clients more variety and fresh new material in the volume needed to become a player in the game of stock. 

« Reply #58 on: September 04, 2013, 18:57 »
+2
Thanks Nuno, glad to hear that!

Even though the criteria is currently unknown and many of those things are floating in the air, it is possible that Stocksy themselves are still searching for the exact look and variation they need, so they cannot say "we want this and need that".

However, they are one of the few stock site where you almost cannot see any junk. All other sites are plagued with junk stock photographs and it's beyond me why they keep accepting those kind of images in the first place. It's like they are shooting themselves in the foot.
No one will buy badly staged and produced photographs, it's a waste of space, buyer's time and a search engine. What's worse, prolific junk shooters are readily accepted and constantly plague newest images mode of the search engine.

So, I'm glad that Stocksy are the pioneers of a thoughtful stock selection, and I guess the designers will slowly begin to appreciate that.  It is true that over time, Stocksy may need less artsy images of some "boring" subjects (fruits on the white background anyone?). However, they can also say - hell, the clients can get those kind of images on all other sites and google... we'll focus on more unique things.

fritz

  • I love Tom and Jerry music

« Reply #59 on: September 04, 2013, 19:37 »
+1
Thanks Nuno, glad to hear that!

Even though the criteria is currently unknown and many of those things are floating in the air, it is possible that Stocksy themselves are still searching for the exact look and variation they need, so they cannot say "we want this and need that".

However, they are one of the few stock site where you almost cannot see any junk. All other sites are plagued with junk stock photographs and it's beyond me why they keep accepting those kind of images in the first place. It's like they are shooting themselves in the foot.
No one will buy badly staged and produced photographs, it's a waste of space, buyer's time and a search engine. What's worse, prolific junk shooters are readily accepted and constantly plague newest images mode of the search engine.

So, I'm glad that Stocksy are the pioneers of a thoughtful stock selection, and I guess the designers will slowly begin to appreciate that.  It is true that over time, Stocksy may need less artsy images of some "boring" subjects (fruits on the white background anyone?). However, they can also say - hell, the clients can get those kind of images on all other sites and google... we'll focus on more unique things.
Well, I did search for "support" but I wasn't impressed with the result. Actually most of the files look to me like a snapshoots ;D.  Sorry, but  out of 265 results  I see a lot of wrong balance, bad composition .......

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #60 on: September 04, 2013, 19:45 »
0
What I see for 'support' is a lot of stuff in iStock/general micro style.

shudderstok

« Reply #61 on: September 05, 2013, 03:02 »
+1

So, I'm glad that Stocksy are the pioneers of a thoughtful stock selection, and I guess the designers will slowly begin to appreciate that.  It is true that over time, Stocksy may need less artsy images of some "boring" subjects (fruits on the white background anyone?). However, they can also say - hell, the clients can get those kind of images on all other sites and google... we'll focus on more unique things.

they are? from all the hundreds if not thousands of agencies out there before stocksy i'd say they are more or less doing what was normal before microstock came along and allowed every photograph taken to be accepted. it's a concept the micro crowd does not understand with 89% acceptance rate. its called rejection 90% of the time, editing accepting 10% of the work submitted.

i think the premiere agency that really got into it was before GI even existed. not sure if you have ever heard of Tony Stone Images, now called Stone. They also got bought out by GI. all agencies used to edit tight, but i seem to recall it was Tony Stone Images that were really  'contemporary' and had a style that most other agencies did not have.

in fact, i used to contribute to TSI and joke with my TIB friends about how boring the images were at TIB and that TSI was fresh (these silly conversations do stand the test of time, just look at GI,Stocksy,IS,SS et al.) yet we were all shooting for the best agencies around at the time, and sadly we all got bought out by GI.

i think all Stocksy is trying to do is back up the truck a bit to when there was a moral standard in the industry. 50% royalties; quality tight editing procedures; knowing your editor; etc. i find it strange however this comes from the people who also brought down the industry with the intro of microstock namely IS, sh!tty pricing on images, lowering royalty rates to 20% and taking every image ever shot if it had a pixel in it regardless of quality. sort of ironic don't you think?

still though, it is a move in the right direction, and i applaud this new effort. but i really don't think they are the premiere agency to be concerned about quality and stock selection, they are simply going old school in terms of what it used to be. i think a few of the founding photographers are also from the days of Tony Stone Images, at least i think so cause i see a few names from those days with Stocksy, and have heard that a few GI photographers also got in early, so i am guessing it is them.

@NUNO thanks for acknowledging that Stocksy more or less screwed up or whatever, that certainly corrects the arrogance issues i've had and others too, it puts it into a new light. it was an oooopppssss.


« Reply #62 on: September 05, 2013, 04:25 »
+4


... what was normal before microstock came along and allowed every photograph taken to be accepted. it's a concept the micro crowd does not understand with 89% acceptance rate. its called rejection 90% of the time, editing accepting 10% of the work submitted.

i think the premiere agency that really got into it was before GI even existed. not sure if you have ever heard of Tony Stone Images, now called Stone. They also got bought out by GI. all agencies used to edit tight, but i seem to recall it was Tony Stone Images that were really  'contemporary' and had a style that most other agencies did not have...


Thats bs. A micro sites actually became extremely picky after just a few years, both on subject matter and especially on technical quality. They don't seem to care about aesthetics, which bothers me too, but that doesn't mean they are  not very-very-very picky. As for stone and other old getty cr*p, we were buying images for them for years, and boy were they a disappointment 'bout 50% of the time. We were getting pisspoor quality unusable junk from them all time... and that's really bad when you got a tight deadline and it's 24-48 hours for some kind of a replacement. Theye were (and still are) selling lame slide snapshot that only look ok as a print thumbnail, and they were also loaded with lame ugly shots, just like now. (like that infamous on-camera-flas toilet shot in one of istock collections). I remember sitting in front of the comp in cold sweat after receiving some discolored OOF ultragrainy junk that wouldn't even work at desktop size, while the deadline for a shiny full page ad was next morning with the printing shop on hold waiting for me... so plz.. keep your fairytales for granma'

gillian vann

  • *Gillian*
« Reply #63 on: September 07, 2013, 18:52 »
+4
Stocksy has become my #2 or #3 agency very quickly. I've slowed down uploading to the others as most of my lifestyle stuff works well for Stocksy.  I've got just over a 100 files on Stocksy, compared to 400-500 on the others.  There is an almost family-like atmosphere over there, and I've even emailed a few members and given them keywords they've missed off their files, and I've had a member email me and point out an error in my description. That's pretty scary stuff to do but it's what friends do for each other, right? That's how it feels over there.

« Reply #64 on: September 07, 2013, 19:11 »
+3
just dropped a tear ;D

« Reply #65 on: September 07, 2013, 21:32 »
0
Does Stocksy plan on including illustrations at some point?

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #66 on: September 08, 2013, 02:41 »
+4
.  There is an almost family-like atmosphere over there, and I've even emailed a few members and given them keywords they've missed off their files, and I've had a member email me and point out an error in my description. That's pretty scary stuff to do but it's what friends do for each other, right? That's how it feels over there.
That's how it was on iS, back in the day, before they made us all rivals.
(I have good long-term memory.)

tab62

« Reply #67 on: September 08, 2013, 10:34 »
0
Everyone keeps asking - "Where is Stocksy?"

Here they are-

http://www.stocksy.com/?gclid=CMj15euPvLkCFQxyQgod6VoAYg



 ;D

« Reply #68 on: September 08, 2013, 10:40 »
0
Expectations were very high based on the previous IS success.  It seems the under current of IS promoting of the "artsy" stock shooter and ignoring the guy that sells 500,000 "too stocky" images has reared its ugly head.  A lot of the images look the same to me.  It's like the kids school who don't fit all look the same while  laughing at the popular kids for looking the same. 

Read the founding story.  A guy wants to sell fine art online, but can't,  then ends up with a stock site and I guess he never wanted as a commercially geared site.   Seams like timing was everything in 1999.   Now, its a much harder.   

I just wonder if they launched Istock part II would it slay the getty monster again.  Not a lot of happy contributors out there.

EmberMike

« Reply #69 on: September 08, 2013, 18:21 »
0
Does Stocksy plan on including illustrations at some point?

At the original launch, yes, it was discussed that vector illustrations would be included at some point. But at that time I was told it would just take a few months, which have long since come and gone and no word yet.

I also noticed recently that some raster versions of vectors that were previously on the site (mostly stuff from simonox) are now gone. No idea if that's related, but I'm wondering if it's a sign that maybe Stocksy is scrapping plans for any sort of illustration offering.

gillian vann

  • *Gillian*
« Reply #70 on: September 08, 2013, 19:43 »
+1
just dropped a tear ;D

! LOL
I know how it sounds, and yes, sometimes it's a bit too happy clappy, but then I can come here and have arguments with almost anyone and balance is restored. :)

« Reply #71 on: September 08, 2013, 19:51 »
+1
just dropped a tear ;D

! LOL
I know how it sounds, and yes, sometimes it's a bit too happy clappy, but then I can come here and have arguments with almost anyone and balance is restored. :)

Stocksy being your 2nd or 3rd best agency I understand (for real), believe I would be delighted as well just wouldn't express it so romantically ;D

gillian vann

  • *Gillian*
« Reply #72 on: September 08, 2013, 19:56 »
0

Stocksy being your 2nd or 3rd best agency I understand (for real), believe I would be delighted as well just wouldn't express it so romantically ;D

yes, I suppose, or maybe you'd be so high on the love over there you would change the way you think, and be inspired and grateful to be part of the community... and end up a bit romantic about it :)

« Reply #73 on: September 08, 2013, 20:05 »
+1

Stocksy being your 2nd or 3rd best agency I understand (for real), believe I would be delighted as well just wouldn't express it so romantically ;D

yes, I suppose, or maybe you'd be so high on the love over there you would change the way you think, and be inspired and grateful to be part of the community... and end up a bit romantic about it :)

ahah now you are reminding me of "come and dine with me" lol on today's episode there was a really tough woman that was a football supporter but in the end she couldn't stopped crying when the party hostess got a singer playing a romantic song for her and other invited ;D

« Reply #74 on: September 16, 2013, 14:18 »
+5
This is only one member's data, so take with a grain of salt. But here it is:

In the first week of September, my Stocksy earnings were much better than my iStock earnings. I wondered if the trend would hold true for whole month. We are only at the half way point, but I take my iStock earnings on the 16th and 1st day of the month. As I made my withdraw today, I checked my Stocksy stats: still besting iStock earnings handily.

I continue to be impressed by Stocksy's growth. Also feel this ought to be (although probably won't) a sign to other firms in this space. Not to try and imitate, but to mind the fundamentals -- fair royalties, care for suppliers, and honest dealing with buyers.


 

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