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Author Topic: Is Dreamstime dying?  (Read 80954 times)

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« Reply #225 on: May 30, 2010, 04:27 »
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I don't think falling sales is reflected on all sites. I haven't exactly uploaded much in the last year, but despite that my overall trend has been upwards - Dreamstime is the only site in the top 4 which is showing a significant and consistent downward trend.

That trend started in about March last year and has continued since. The pace accelerated this month which will be the lowest revenue since July 08.

I don't think the site is "dying" as such, but its certainly performing worse for long-term contributors.


« Reply #226 on: May 30, 2010, 05:32 »
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Am I the only one to have the exact same Sales/Revenue curves as Vonkara ?
Not only similar curves. The EXACT same numbers, month after month.
How is that possible  ???

[EDIT] False alarm. See how it is possible in Skvoor's post below ;)

It's SUPER DEAD


« Last Edit: May 30, 2010, 07:04 by ErickN »

« Reply #227 on: May 30, 2010, 06:09 »
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Am I the only one to have the exact same Sales/Revenue curves as Vonkara ?
Not only similar curves. The EXACT same numbers, month after month.
How is that possible  ???

It's SUPER DEAD





Wow __ no you're not. My graph and numbers are EXACTLY the same too!!!!!!

I'm not sure I even want to think about what this must mean. I really can't think of a rational explanation for 3 contributors (possibly far more?) all apparently having identical sales and revenue figures for 13 months consecutively.

« Reply #228 on: May 30, 2010, 06:27 »
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I'm not sure I even want to think about what this must mean.

I'm not sure I want either...   :o

« Reply #229 on: May 30, 2010, 06:33 »
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Very weird.
« Last Edit: May 30, 2010, 06:39 by gostwyck »

« Reply #230 on: May 30, 2010, 06:45 »
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Vonkara links graph image directly from Dreamstime web.
So everybody who is logged in Dreamstime see his graph..
Try to logout from Dreamstime and you cannot see Vonkara's graph..

« Reply #231 on: May 30, 2010, 06:48 »
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Vonkara links graph image directly from Dreamstime web.
So everybody who is logged in Dreamstime see his graph..
Try to logout from Dreamstime and you cannot see Vonkara's graph..

Ok I get it now ! What we see is not Vonkara's graph, it's our own graph.
Thanks skvoor for the clarification !

« Reply #232 on: May 30, 2010, 06:50 »
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Am I the only one to have the exact same Sales/Revenue curves as Vonkara ?
Not only similar curves. The EXACT same numbers, month after month.
How is that possible  ???

Especially since Vonkara is exclusive on iStock.  :P

Update: you've got it.  I always liked Vonkara's sense of humor. ;)
Now let's have a look what your numbers look like on SS. Nothing is secret here...
« Last Edit: May 30, 2010, 06:59 by FD-amateur »

« Reply #233 on: May 30, 2010, 06:53 »
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Phew! Thanks for the explanation. I really wondered what was going on there!

« Reply #234 on: May 30, 2010, 07:31 »
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... In my first few years (2006-2007 for example) microstock felt like a license to print money!  Seemed like nearly every new series would take off like wildfire.  It was very encouraging and made selling on micros lots of fun.

Yep, that's how I felt. Well it was clear that these good times couldn't last forever but such a dramatic development was beyond my imagination

Quote
Now watching sales come in on new series is like watching paint dry.  If the images sell at all it is in little dribs and drabs.  Nothing to give the thrill of accomplishment.  It really has become just a job, and a fairly stressful one at that.

Not just that. Remember how our images looked like in 2005 or 2006? Don't you agree that our skills have improved (somewhat :) )? I would say so.
These days there are a number of Microstockers that produce high quality images that could be found on Macro agencies.

Additionally, why even keep shooting lifestyle with 3 to 6 models in one frame if there are now 50+ photographers doing the same thing. Like Yuri or Sean who early realized that "the more, the merrier" (and "the more in my pocket" :D ) were having a blast being pioneers in shooting many models at the same time.

Most of the Microstockers simply where overwhelmed with that (now, it was even more important to have a good location, MUAs, assistants, find 3-6 actually good looking and professional models). Now I'm not too sure if these shots are still taking off as they used to 3 years ago. Maybe that concept was like printing money for a while but of course the competition will jump on to the train and steal your share.

I feel like I became a guerrilla contributor, trying to bypass high-in-demand concepts simply because they were out of my budget or capabilities (which also reduces the fun factor).  

Well anywho, the market is not dead (yet) so we still got a little time left.

I wonder if part of this is that nobody has really given us a huge raise or bump in a while that wasn't offset by some kind of royalty reduction. IS exclusives got their nice little bump, and I was hoping to see SS react to it. But so far, they haven't blinked.

Hmm, I don't totally agree. Although I don't turn away more money, but I wonder how the agencies could afford to increase royalties for their contributors if their sales are moving sideways. What I mean: Only because of raises in the past I could maintain my income from 3 years ago. If the agencies wouldn't have raised commissions I would be working some 9 to 5 job somewhere by now.

However, I don't believe most agencies grow at a rate like IS. Maybe SS has achieved to get more customers but to me it appears that most other agencies still sell about the same amount of images and the sales are distributed over a bigger archive so every contributor inevitably ends up with fewer sales as the selection is much bigger.

If there is a raise though I'll take it.
« Last Edit: May 30, 2010, 07:34 by click_click »

« Reply #235 on: May 30, 2010, 07:41 »
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I think that rather new DT is born. DT is an old site which has never been very successful for professional photographers - just compare numbers of 20 best exclusives (and non-exclusives) at DT vs IS. Very difficult to live only with DT earnings.
Achilles probably understood that he cannot compete on purely professional basis. So new DT is hobbyists-community-cheerleader site where positive attitude makes everybody feel good. Everybody can feel like an artist and it's well known that usually artist are poor.  ;D

Interesting point of view. And it's rather adjacent to the fact that many top contributors ceased uploading to them. It's their answer to Dreamstime's "we don't want your 2000 images / month upload rate, we can't market them properly anyway" attitude. And to "Any two shots with the same person displayed are similars. There can be only one." attitude as well.

Very interesting points. And lately they don't seem to be such a professional site at all.

@ click_click

Very good posts.
« Last Edit: May 30, 2010, 07:53 by Kone »

« Reply #236 on: May 30, 2010, 07:56 »
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Maybe SS should consider just giving a raise to those of us who support them by NOT contributing to TS.

I'm on board with that idea, too!

I have an interesting chart. I disabled files in anticipation of exclusivity at IS but now am enabling them again. But I see sales and revenue are down from March. It looks like the files I started enabling may have given my sales a jump.
« Last Edit: May 30, 2010, 07:59 by cclapper »

« Reply #237 on: May 30, 2010, 09:10 »
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Wow __ no you're not. My graph and numbers are EXACTLY the same too!!!!!!

I'm not sure I even want to think about what this must mean. I really can't think of a rational explanation for 3 contributors (possibly far more?) all apparently having identical sales and revenue figures for 13 months consecutively.

edit: I have seen the explanation
« Last Edit: May 30, 2010, 09:13 by Tom »

« Reply #238 on: May 30, 2010, 09:14 »
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It's DT's prerogative to accept or refuse any file for any reason.

They, we and the buyers may all have different opinions about that.

DT as the middle man SHOULD know best what's good for contributors AND buyers (and therefore for themselves) by accepting and refusing certain images.

Now if we analyze DT's behaviour in terms of acceptance criteria lately (as far as I know of them) it appears that they will not allow series (for whatever reasons) or they are running out of storage space.

To me it makes no sense whatsoever to refuse series (I'm not talking about a model in the same pose looking to the right in one image and looking to the left in another image...).  They act like Crestock or a Macro agency who pick the top of the top and everything else goes. This may be a short term success for DT filling their archive with only superior (cough) shots but in the long run they will upset contributors because of the high rejection rates.

On a side note: Assuming that Yuri and Co. stopped uploading because DT doesn't accept series anymore, in the long run it also leads to a flood of mediocre images (that are not series).

So yeah, you can say image factories (who also submit series) are intentionally driven away from the site while the thousands of hobby-photographers get all their stuff accepted because they don't even produce series (in most cases).

I really believe they are making a big mistake.

lisafx

« Reply #239 on: May 30, 2010, 10:06 »
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To me it makes no sense whatsoever to refuse series (I'm not talking about a model in the same pose looking to the right in one image and looking to the left in another image...).  They act like Crestock or a Macro agency who pick the top of the top and everything else goes. This may be a short term success for DT filling their archive with only superior (cough) shots but in the long run they will upset contributors because of the high rejection rates.

On a side note: Assuming that Yuri and Co. stopped uploading because DT doesn't accept series anymore, in the long run it also leads to a flood of mediocre images (that are not series).

So yeah, you can say image factories (who also submit series) are intentionally driven away from the site while the thousands of hobby-photographers get all their stuff accepted because they don't even produce series (in most cases).

I really believe they are making a big mistake.

Once again, Click, I think you have stated the issue perfectly.  Or at least I agree 100% :)

Just to add that there is an extra disincentive for folks to upload there if they are getting a lot of series rejections - the search engine ranks you by acceptance rate, so uploading a series and having much of it rejected will lead to a drop in sales.

I am certainly confused about how to proceed when uploading to DT.  I have been getting series rejections lately like everybody else.  I try to not upload images that are "too similar" to others from the series, but in order to make photography pay at the microstock level you have to try and get as many usable different images from each model and setup as you can.  Otherwise it is not cost effective to bother with expensive and time-consuming shoots involving props, models, locations, etc.   

It does seem like continuing in this direction will ultimately yield a collection full of grab shots (flowers, ducks, buildings, landscapes) from hobbyists and fewer high-production-value lifestyle shots from the pros.   

« Reply #240 on: May 30, 2010, 10:57 »
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To me it makes no sense whatsoever to refuse series (I'm not talking about a model in the same pose looking to the right in one image and looking to the left in another image...).  They act like Crestock or a Macro agency who pick the top of the top and everything else goes. This may be a short term success for DT filling their archive with only superior (cough) shots but in the long run they will upset contributors because of the high rejection rates.

On a side note: Assuming that Yuri and Co. stopped uploading because DT doesn't accept series anymore, in the long run it also leads to a flood of mediocre images (that are not series).

So yeah, you can say image factories (who also submit series) are intentionally driven away from the site while the thousands of hobby-photographers get all their stuff accepted because they don't even produce series (in most cases).

I really believe they are making a big mistake.

Once again, Click, I think you have stated the issue perfectly.  Or at least I agree 100% :)

Just to add that there is an extra disincentive for folks to upload there if they are getting a lot of series rejections - the search engine ranks you by acceptance rate, so uploading a series and having much of it rejected will lead to a drop in sales.

I am certainly confused about how to proceed when uploading to DT.  I have been getting series rejections lately like everybody else.  I try to not upload images that are "too similar" to others from the series, but in order to make photography pay at the microstock level you have to try and get as many usable different images from each model and setup as you can.  Otherwise it is not cost effective to bother with expensive and time-consuming shoots involving props, models, locations, etc.   

It does seem like continuing in this direction will ultimately yield a collection full of grab shots (flowers, ducks, buildings, landscapes) from hobbyists and fewer high-production-value lifestyle shots from the pros.   

You are 100% right. Both of you.

Look at this:
In May, I submitted 153 files to DT. They accept 13 and reject 140, all for similarity.
Okay, there is some similarity between some of the files and they got accepted just a month ago. So this will lead to a drop in sales for sure.

But now just this:
 Reason: - Too many photos/illustrations on the same subject or from the same series. Your submission should not duplicate content already in your portfolio or content which you plan to upload separately in the future (ie. collages based on your images). Please be more selective and choose only the best shots or illustrations. Avoid submitting simple variations on the same subject or duplicating content already in your portfolio (including from collages). You can create sets of similars (several shots included within the same image). That will help the file sell better and generate higher royalties via our level-based system.

« Reply #241 on: May 30, 2010, 11:16 »
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......Your submission should not duplicate content already in your portfolio or content which you plan to upload separately in the future (ie. collages based on your images). Please be more selective and choose only the best shots or illustrations. Avoid submitting simple variations on the same subject or duplicating content already in your portfolio (including from collages). You can create sets of similars (several shots included within the same image). That will help the file sell better and generate higher royalties via our level-based system.[/i]

So if I understand correctly, they are saying that they WILL accept collages, and according to the next-to-last sentence, they are encouraging you to include several shots IN ONE FILE, thereby giving the buyer SEVERAL SHOTS FOR THE PRICE OF ONE. Am I interpreting that correctly? Because if I am, it seems like a bad business idea.

This has been discussed in another thread, but bears repeating. Collages and several shots in the same image are great value for buyers...but it is totally BAD for the contributors and agencies! I can't believe an agency is encouraging this! They must really be desperate for buyers.

But I am going to say this...I will not be participating in this whole collage thing. My skills and image quality have gone up in the past 5 years and I expect my sales and commissions to do the same. I won't participate in Thinkstock and I am NOT going to offer more than one shot per image!

If that is the only way they are going to accept series, then I think they are going to find themselves out of a lot of sellable images. I understand why they are doing what they are doing, but I think they have misinterpreted the problem. They had a huge problem early on with multiples, people were submitting images whereby in one image it was black and white, then the exact same image was submitted and accepted in color. In the case of illustrations, one illustration would be submitted with a blue background, then 10 more of the exact same illustration was submitted only changing the background to 10 different colors. Like that. I totally agree they need to clean those up. But series are a whole different subject.

It's getting crazy out here in microstock land.

« Reply #242 on: May 30, 2010, 11:29 »
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If this is their strategy, I will also stop uploading.  They have cut commissions and new images take a long time to reach the higher levels, there is no way I would upload a series in one file when other sites sell them separately.

red

« Reply #243 on: May 30, 2010, 11:38 »
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With so many images on all the sites I can't understand why some of the older images are not deleted. I think this would refresh all the collections. Why are more images better when better images would differentiate agencies? I know that the eternal question, "what makes a good stock image," is hard to answer but I believe that there are tons of non-sellers on all the sites. Why is this a numbers game - whoever has the most images wins?

Yes, no one likes to have their images deleted but many have remarked upon "so many images," and "quality has improved over 5 years" and "too many similars already exist." It might be a bold move but culling images based on previous sales would be a good way to proceed.

Some sites, including DT, have said they were going to do this but I haven't seen any major changes. IMHO this would be much better than trying to recruit many new contributors who upload a few good shots then give up. The sites keep their money as they never reach a payout. I suspect this is one strategy for making money based on some of the images accepted from new members that seem to get accepted under the radar of the standards applied to long time members.

Microbius

« Reply #244 on: May 30, 2010, 11:43 »
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Any images not sold for four years on DT are deleted

"This is an automated notification. Your portfolio includes images that have been online for more than 4 years with no downloads up to the present. In order to keep up with the current standards we believe they should be removed from our commercial database, allowing fresh content to be more visible.

The following action options are available for you to decide:

- donate the image to the free section (default action) which can provide significant portfolio exposure and increase your sales; images can be disabled at any time later.
- re-keyword the image via keymasters ($0.40/image); choose this option only if you strongly believe your image has sale potential.
- disable the image; this is permanent deletion of your image and should be used as a last resort.

In order to review the images and take the desired action, please access the link below.
If no action is taken, the default one is automatically selected."

red

« Reply #245 on: May 30, 2010, 11:45 »
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Yes, I'm aware of this but why doesn't the count of how many images DT has online ever decrease? I suspect they still count deleted or disabled images.

« Reply #246 on: May 30, 2010, 11:54 »
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Good question. And I don't know why they all emphasize the quantity so much instead of the quality.

And I self-culled my images when I was going to go exclusive. I disabled all the images with 0 sales first (the older ones). And I refuse to let them go to the free section, so they are going to stay disabled.

Why others don't do the same, well, I can't really answer that.

« Reply #247 on: May 30, 2010, 12:02 »
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I will of been there 4 years in a few months, so haven't had the zero sales problem yet.  They should let us opt all images out of the free section.  Some that don't sell with DT have sold quite well on other sites, I just don't agree with giving them away for free.  It is time consuming disabling files, I am not looking forward to having to do that every month.  Perhaps I will find the time by not uploading new images ::)

vonkara

« Reply #248 on: May 30, 2010, 12:09 »
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I guess you guys see your own graph... That's hilarious
« Last Edit: May 30, 2010, 12:30 by Vonkara »

« Reply #249 on: May 30, 2010, 13:18 »
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I leave my old images up to the last minute.  Who knows if a sale happens?  If not, I disable them.


 

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