Great, they should reinforce that policy, punishing everyone who's earnings depend on quantity and not quality. There's too much substandard content on the micros anyway, not allowing the buyers to find what they want, that's why they're leaving in droves, some of them willing to pay 10x, 20x or even 5000x the price on the macros (5000x comes from the comparison of average sub sale price compared to a 1500$+ RM sale).

No search algorithm can ever be as good to put only the best images in front of the buyers from millions crappy ones.

Your rant is based on a number of misperceptions.  Some of us rely on both quantity and quality; I upload many photos from a shoot because I believe that some customers will want a specific look or pose, while others will buy a number of shots from the same session if they can.  On every other agency I will see sales the same day for multiple photos from the same session.  I've had it happen on DT as well, despite their determination to keep me from having multiple "similars" in my port.  When I see three or four sales at the same time of the same subject on DT, I have to wonder how many more they might have purchased if DT weren't so restrictive.  I've seen a dozen sales on other sites, sales that suggest someone doesn't see my work as a triumph of quantity over quality.

Quote from: disorderly on September 03, 2012, 11:35

Quote from: stan on September 03, 2012, 10:17

Great, they should reinforce that policy, punishing everyone who's earnings depend on quantity and not quality. There's too much substandard content on the micros anyway, not allowing the buyers to find what they want, that's why they're leaving in droves, some of them willing to pay 10x, 20x or even 5000x the price on the macros (5000x comes from the comparison of average sub sale price compared to a 1500$+ RM sale).

No search algorithm can ever be as good to put only the best images in front of the buyers from millions crappy ones.

Your rant is based on a number of misperceptions.  Some of us rely on both quantity and quality; I upload many photos from a shoot because I believe that some customers will want a specific look or pose, while others will buy a number of shots from the same session if they can.  On every other agency I will see sales the same day for multiple photos from the same session.  I've had it happen on DT as well, despite their determination to keep me from having multiple "similars" in my port.  When I see three or four sales at the same time of the same subject on DT, I have to wonder how many more they might have purchased if DT weren't so restrictive.  I've seen a dozen sales on other sites, sales that suggest someone doesn't see my work as a triumph of quantity over quality.

Yes, first day sales. But what about first month, year, decade sales? If no one will be able to find what he's looking for because of shooters like you 2 that post 100 from the series instead of narrowing it down to 20 or even 10 best photos. That is what agencies are asking us, not only DT with their policy (they must have a reason to do it, I guess data that they see across the board supports their decision), but also Veer in their latest newsletter for instance.

Who said anything about first day sales?  I see continuing sales from series I uploaded months and years ago.  I see them on SS, I see them on 123 and DP, I even see them on DT.

If this were really such a problem, it would be easy for agencies to solve it.  Just pick one (or three or five) from a given photographer/model combination to include in search results, with an option to see more from that combination when a client wants a specific pose.  Or be even more granular and either combine photographer, model and matching keywords (to get the same outfit and setting), or use creation time (embedded in the EXIF data) or give me a quick and easy way to mark related images.  Don't stop me from offering images that clients want, because they buy when they're available, to solve a scale problem for the site as a whole.

Quote from: stan on September 03, 2012, 11:40

Quote from: disorderly on September 03, 2012, 11:35

Quote from: stan on September 03, 2012, 10:17

Great, they should reinforce that policy, punishing everyone who's earnings depend on quantity and not quality. There's too much substandard content on the micros anyway, not allowing the buyers to find what they want, that's why they're leaving in droves, some of them willing to pay 10x, 20x or even 5000x the price on the macros (5000x comes from the comparison of average sub sale price compared to a 1500$+ RM sale).

No search algorithm can ever be as good to put only the best images in front of the buyers from millions crappy ones.

Your rant is based on a number of misperceptions.  Some of us rely on both quantity and quality; I upload many photos from a shoot because I believe that some customers will want a specific look or pose, while others will buy a number of shots from the same session if they can. On every other agency I will see sales the same day for multiple photos from the same session.  I've had it happen on DT as well, despite their determination to keep me from having multiple "similars" in my port.  When I see three or four sales at the same time of the same subject on DT, I have to wonder how many more they might have purchased if DT weren't so restrictive.  I've seen a dozen sales on other sites, sales that suggest someone doesn't see my work as a triumph of quantity over quality.

Yes, first day sales. But what about first month, year, decade sales? If no one will be able to find what he's looking for because of shooters like you 2 that post 100 from the series instead of narrowing it down to 20 or even 10 best photos. That is what agencies are asking us, not only DT with their policy (they must have a reason to do it, I guess data that they see across the board supports their decision), but also Veer in their latest newsletter for instance.

Who said anything about first day sales?  I see continuing sales from series I uploaded months and years ago.  I see them on SS, I see them on 123 and DP, I even see them on DT.

If this were really such a problem, it would be easy for agencies to solve it.  Just pick one (or three or five) from a given photographer/model combination to include in search results, with an option to see more from that combination when a client wants a specific pose.  Or be even more granular and either combine photographer, model and matching keywords (to get the same outfit and setting), or use creation time (embedded in the EXIF data) or give me a quick and easy way to mark related images.  Don't stop me from offering images that clients want, because they buy when they're available, to solve a scale problem for the site as a whole.

You did, bold text.

Well surely not that easy if so many of them are having a ton of bugs. Sometimes they can't solve even the simplest for months. So I would expect them to offer advanced features (perhaps not that advanced, but in light of what I wrote, it is).

Why not delete images that have not had a sale in 6 months (or a year). That should reduce the images on sale by quite a bit!

No - some files are low demand, low supply, but it's important to the agency that they're there if someone wants them, or they'd go elsewhere. Being low supply, then never clog up the search.
 Also there is always some arbitrariness about the search results people get, and some perfectly good files get lost because at the time they were unloaded, new uploads were sinking very fast and they never had a chance. Sometimes I've had first sales four years after they were uploaded and that has given them a kick. One of my current 'most popular' pics had a long period when it didn't sell, then came to life again. Maybe it had a rival that was deactivated, I don't really know.

Addeed: and at least two of these 'iStockwhacks' with long periods of no dls and low overall sales have had ELs.

A final thought is that given the above (best match killing a file in a popular area; low demand, low supply files being necessary to round out the collection) if they were going to delete 0 or low selling files, it would be extremely 'dog in a manger' to delete exclusive files and not allow them to be submitted elsewhere.

Quote from: disorderly on September 03, 2012, 12:40

Quote from: stan on September 03, 2012, 11:40

Quote from: disorderly on September 03, 2012, 11:35

Quote from: stan on September 03, 2012, 10:17

Great, they should reinforce that policy, punishing everyone who's earnings depend on quantity and not quality. There's too much substandard content on the micros anyway, not allowing the buyers to find what they want, that's why they're leaving in droves, some of them willing to pay 10x, 20x or even 5000x the price on the macros (5000x comes from the comparison of average sub sale price compared to a 1500$+ RM sale).

No search algorithm can ever be as good to put only the best images in front of the buyers from millions crappy ones.

Your rant is based on a number of misperceptions.  Some of us rely on both quantity and quality; I upload many photos from a shoot because I believe that some customers will want a specific look or pose, while others will buy a number of shots from the same session if they can. On every other agency I will see sales the same day for multiple photos from the same session.  I've had it happen on DT as well, despite their determination to keep me from having multiple "similars" in my port.  When I see three or four sales at the same time of the same subject on DT, I have to wonder how many more they might have purchased if DT weren't so restrictive.  I've seen a dozen sales on other sites, sales that suggest someone doesn't see my work as a triumph of quantity over quality.

Yes, first day sales. But what about first month, year, decade sales? If no one will be able to find what he's looking for because of shooters like you 2 that post 100 from the series instead of narrowing it down to 20 or even 10 best photos. That is what agencies are asking us, not only DT with their policy (they must have a reason to do it, I guess data that they see across the board supports their decision), but also Veer in their latest newsletter for instance.

Who said anything about first day sales?  I see continuing sales from series I uploaded months and years ago.  I see them on SS, I see them on 123 and DP, I even see them on DT.

If this were really such a problem, it would be easy for agencies to solve it.  Just pick one (or three or five) from a given photographer/model combination to include in search results, with an option to see more from that combination when a client wants a specific pose.  Or be even more granular and either combine photographer, model and matching keywords (to get the same outfit and setting), or use creation time (embedded in the EXIF data) or give me a quick and easy way to mark related images.  Don't stop me from offering images that clients want, because they buy when they're available, to solve a scale problem for the site as a whole.

You did, bold text.

Well surely not that easy if so many of them are having a ton of bugs. Sometimes they can't solve even the simplest for months. So I would expect them to offer advanced features (perhaps not that advanced, but in light of what I wrote, it is).

Are you illiterate or just careless?  I said same day, meaning that in a single day I often have a dozen or more sales of images from the same session.  You said first day, which I assume you mean the first day those image went on sale.  I've occasionally had good sales on Shutterstock within a few days of those images being approved, but more often, and on every other agency, it's usually after they've been up for months or years.  Some of them haven't sold at all, and then suddenly a bunch will get bought up.  So no, I won't be deleting anything after just six months.  Heck, seasonal sales need at least a year before I know if they're going to be hits.

August was a good month compared to the others.

BME at Shutterstock and a rather decent one at DT. FT is not recovering from the downward turn it took earlier this year. I used to reach payouts with them every month - not anymore - not even with selling an EL. Almost had a BME at 123rf, but on a very very low level (still building my portfolio there).