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Author Topic: Big 4?  (Read 21565 times)

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modellocate

  • Photographer
« on: January 21, 2009, 22:40 »
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Is it just me, or does everyone's earnings from Dreamstime, Fotolia, Shutterstock, and StockXpert over the past year sit far above istock and bigstock?


vonkara

« Reply #1 on: January 21, 2009, 22:44 »
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Not me Istock is way in front Shutterstock this month and Fotolia is even behind 123Rf. Haha I'm way different than the poll actually

« Reply #2 on: January 22, 2009, 01:51 »
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I think it would be hard to agree on the big 4 :) For me it is SS,  FT, IS, and StockXpert. DT and 123rf, and BigStock are about the same for me, far behind.

« Reply #3 on: January 22, 2009, 02:11 »
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For  me it's definitely FT, SS, IS and DT in that order with StockXpert lagging and BS and 123rf well behind.
Crestock I don't even bother uploading to any more, just go in every 2 or 3 months to claim a payment.

« Reply #4 on: January 22, 2009, 10:06 »
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For  me it's definitely FT, SS, IS and DT in that order with StockXpert lagging and BS and 123rf well behind.
Crestock I don't even bother uploading to any more, just go in every 2 or 3 months to claim a payment.

Same here, but sorted differently.

« Reply #5 on: January 22, 2009, 10:26 »
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Is it just me, or does everyone's earnings from Dreamstime, Fotolia, Shutterstock, and StockXpert over the past year sit far above istock and bigstock?

No. IS are still my biggest earner followed by SS, FT and DT.

Helped in part by the price increase IS are actually doing very well for me this month with 35% of total earnings, up from their all time low of 27.7% in December. Mind you, their numbers are boosted somewhat by the slump at SS which is looking like 4 consecutive months of falling sales.

« Reply #6 on: January 22, 2009, 10:33 »
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I think it would be hard to agree on the big 4 :) For me it is SS,  FT, IS, and StockXpert. DT and 123rf, and BigStock are about the same for me, far behind.

I'm often quite surprised to see such ranking based on a so tiny data set: statistics are significant and become useful only when enough data are taken into account.

In your case, you say that DT is "far behind " IS. You have only 9 downloads at IS and 6 at DT and you are correct: you have 50% more downloads at IS compared to DT... but it corresponds to only 3 downloads!

Anybody is obviously free to give such statistics... I have no problem with that, but all those ranking posts become quite useless unless they are based on a bigger data set.

Just my 2c  ;)

« Reply #7 on: January 22, 2009, 10:46 »
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For  me it's definitely FT, SS, IS and DT in that order with StockXpert lagging and BS and 123rf well behind.
Crestock I don't even bother uploading to any more, just go in every 2 or 3 months to claim a payment.

Same here, but sorted differently.


Not necessarily in that order, but always my top 4.  Well - with the exception of FT.  It had a long period after V2 where it often fell to 5 or 6, but I seem to have joined the search engine again in about September.  

If I had a crystal ball to look into I would guess that I will no longer see SS on top next year at this time (based on my last year's results vs 2007 vs low sales of new uploads.)

« Reply #8 on: January 22, 2009, 10:49 »
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I think it would be hard to agree on the big 4 :) For me it is SS,  FT, IS, and StockXpert. DT and 123rf, and BigStock are about the same for me, far behind.

I'm often quite surprised to see such ranking based on a so tiny data set: statistics are significant and become useful only when enough data are taken into account.

In your case, you say that DT is "far behind " IS. You have only 9 downloads at IS and 6 at DT and you are correct: you have 50% more downloads at IS compared to DT... but it corresponds to only 3 downloads!

Anybody is obviously free to give such statistics... I have no problem with that, but all those ranking posts become quite useless unless they are based on a bigger data set.

Just my 2c  ;)

I totally agree here.. ;D

Patrick h.

« Reply #9 on: January 22, 2009, 11:03 »
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I think it would be hard to agree on the big 4 :) For me it is SS,  FT, IS, and StockXpert. DT and 123rf, and BigStock are about the same for me, far behind.

I'm often quite surprised to see such ranking based on a so tiny data set: statistics are significant and become useful only when enough data are taken into account.

In your case, you say that DT is "far behind " IS. You have only 9 downloads at IS and 6 at DT and you are correct: you have 50% more downloads at IS compared to DT... but it corresponds to only 3 downloads!

Anybody is obviously free to give such statistics... I have no problem with that, but all those ranking posts become quite useless unless they are based on a bigger data set.

Just my 2c  ;)

I agree with you. The more data, the more accurate statistics. Then the question comes up, what is enough data? If there are pre-established criteria, perhaps by the rules of this forum, or industry, I wold follow those and refrain from posting about my sales. Until then, I feel free to do so. In my case, I only join IS in November last year, and my sales there are going much faster (in relative terms) to these others sites, StockXpert and FT included. I have posted my dat in relative terms, as everybody else is doing. I invite the moderators of this forum to predefine when the contributors are considered worthy enough to post their data. Thanks.

« Reply #10 on: January 22, 2009, 11:20 »
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I just had a reminder of how volatile the numbers can be: a single extended license sale at Fotolia pushed them from 5th to 3rd for the month.  And that's with a few thousand images on each site and close to a thousand sales a month.  If things can be that volatile for me, they're basically meaningless for someone with a handful of sales.

I don't have a top 4; I have a top 5, with the order for 2-4 changing regularly.  At the moment the order is SS, SX, Ftl, iS and DT.  Actually, Albumo is ahead of DT in 5th, but that's due to a bounty they paid on the last three months of uploads.  Not something that will occur very often.

« Reply #11 on: January 22, 2009, 11:24 »
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The more data, the more accurate statistics. Then the question comes up, what is enough data?

Surely it is perfectly obvious that 6 & 9 sales is not 'enough data' on which to pass judgement?

Looking back on my own graph I would say that the data didn't settle down into meaningful patterns, without wild fluctuations, until I'd been doing microstock for about 18 months and had clocked up about 30K-odd sales.

« Reply #12 on: January 22, 2009, 11:26 »
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Can I show my statistics, or I belong to photographers with "tiny data set"??

« Reply #13 on: January 22, 2009, 11:29 »
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Can I show my statistics, or I belong to photographers with "tiny data set"??

Of course you can show them, but you also ought to put them into context so we know how meaningful they are.  Percentages aren't much good without knowing something about the raw numbers behind them.

« Reply #14 on: January 22, 2009, 11:31 »
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Oh, it's too complicated for us Blondes  ::)

« Reply #15 on: January 22, 2009, 11:32 »
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For me, the meaningful patterns have been obvious from the very beginning, as some sites have regular sales, and some don't. But you are welcome to disregard my data. I apologize if I mislead anyone here, it was not my intention.

« Reply #16 on: January 22, 2009, 11:32 »
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I agree with you. The more data, the more accurate statistics. Then the question comes up, what is enough data? If there are pre-established criteria, perhaps by the rules of this forum, or industry, I wold follow those and refrain from posting about my sales. Until then, I feel free to do so. In my case, I only join IS in November last year, and my sales there are going much faster (in relative terms) to these others sites, StockXpert and FT included. I have posted my dat in relative terms, as everybody else is doing. I invite the moderators of this forum to predefine when the contributors are considered worthy enough to post their data. Thanks.

It was not a remark against you specifically: many contributors do the same. And you are indeed free to publish whatever you want. It is also not a matter of being a worthy contributor, but a matter of the significance of the statistics. This is not a personal judgment, but a mathematical one: with such small data set, you ranking may be completely different in two days.

There are indeed pre-established criteria: they are defined by the statistical laws. There is a link between the size of the data set and the accuracy of the statistic... but I don't remember this law. But I would say that 1000 downloads seems a minimum to me.
« Last Edit: January 22, 2009, 11:36 by araminta »

« Reply #17 on: January 22, 2009, 11:36 »
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Oh, I will have 1000 downloads in 5 years or more (except on SS)....

« Reply #18 on: January 22, 2009, 11:37 »
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Oh, I will have 1000 downloads in 5 years or more (except on SS)....


Until then, you should thus take your own statistics with a BIG grain of salt  ;)

« Reply #19 on: January 22, 2009, 11:38 »
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I joined SS in mid November and have 200+ downloads, on DT I have 6 since last August, I don't think that can change in two days. Some patterns are quite clear to me so far, and that's how I understood the purpose of this thread.

« Reply #20 on: January 22, 2009, 12:03 »
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For me, the meaningful patterns have been obvious from the very beginning, as some sites have regular sales, and some don't. But you are welcome to disregard my data. I apologize if I mislead anyone here, it was not my intention.

To be honest you might find your sales somewhat more 'meaningful' if you sorted out your keywording. You appear to be spamming most images with lots of completely irrelevant words whilst leaving out obvious and applicable words that a buyer might actually use to find them.

For example you have an image which appears to be a boy leaping into the air. You don't have 'male, jump, jumping, leap, leaping, person, etc, etc ... but you do have 'woman, adult, love, family, etc'. Accurate keywording is critical to sales and spamming helps no-one.

« Reply #21 on: January 22, 2009, 12:10 »
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I was not aware of those keywords, and if I did it, it was an honest oversight on my part. I try not to spam with my keywords. Could you point to the image in question?

If you are talking about this image, I dont see those keywords you just mentioned:


« Reply #22 on: January 22, 2009, 12:14 »
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Oh, I will have 1000 downloads in 5 years or more (except on SS)....


Until then, you should thus take your own statistics with a BIG grain of salt  ;)

Well, the person who poster this thread has 100 sales on DT, and I have 127 which means:
1. I am more qualified to talk about DT, or
2. We both are not qualified to talk about DT, or
3. You should quote the first post in this thread, to cut it out from the start
4. Something else..

I personally think 1000 is too much. I can say from this point, that I have 127 DL's on DT and 31 DL's at FT and I started FT before DT. I think it's enough for statistics. Also, until average photographer gets to the point of 1000 images online, several agencies wont' be online anymore, and some of them will be born.
That's why I think much less is enough for statistics.


« Last Edit: January 22, 2009, 12:29 by whitechild »

« Reply #23 on: January 22, 2009, 12:23 »
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I was not aware of those keywords, and if I did it, it was an honest oversight on my part. I try not to spam with my keywords. Could you point to the image in question?


This was the image;

http://www.dreamstime.com/happiness-image6493742

I only looked at a couple of others but clearly this image of mushrooms should not have words such as 'isolated, red, orange, happy, kitchen, restaurant, diet, flower, etc

http://www.dreamstime.com/two-white-mushrooms-image6180525

« Reply #24 on: January 22, 2009, 12:27 »
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Thanks for pointing it out, it was an oversight on my part and not intentional spamming. Those were some of my first pictures. As you can see, I have corrected the keyrods on that image later, when I submitted my image on SS:

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-20628223-boy-expressing-happiness-by-jumping-in-the-park.html

I will try to correct these mistakes. Again, thanks for pointing that out to me.


 

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