Author Topic: The state of our market and a case for exclusivity (Read 20398 times)

pancaketom · « **Reply #50 on:** October 30, 2013, 15:48 »

I have always maintained that they need to have the CV as well as a "not one of these" options. So if you put in Mt Helen and don't mean Mt St Helens or whatever their CV wants to map it to, you can still include it. Also when someone searches, they can click on "not one of these options". But they didn't do it that way, and in fact the way their search worked last time I tried to use it it actually encourages spamming since otherwise your images don't get seen even if someone tries to search for exactly what is in your image.

The CV is an attempt to solve a real problem, but like so many things at IS, its implementation is pretty poor.

tickstock · « **Reply #51 on:** October 30, 2013, 15:49 »

EmberMike · « **Reply #52 on:** October 30, 2013, 15:51 »

Quote from: pancaketom on October 29, 2013, 02:06

I think the bigger problem is the sites appear to be greedy pigs and the race to the bottom is more of a race to the lowest percentage paid to the artists.

This is just as non-existant as the pricing "race to the bottom". Who is cutting percentages recently? istock? They actually raised the percentage for vector artists, and I'm hopeful they'll follow suit for photographers eventually.

Meanwhile there are new sites popping up offering higher percentages than most of the old microstock standards offer.

And Shutterstock, the place where most of us make most of our money, while not giving us a pay raise in a long time also haven't cut rates or prices.

So where is this stuff coming from?

"Race to the bottom" is nothing more than a scare tactic, drumming up unfounded fear that the industry is participating in a collective effort to pay artists less and less every day. Do some companies try to do this? Sure. But overall, at many new companies and also at the biggest company in the business, it's not just happening.

tickstock · « **Reply #53 on:** October 30, 2013, 15:56 »

EmberMike · « **Reply #54 on:** October 30, 2013, 16:24 »

Quote from: tickstock on October 30, 2013, 15:56

Shutterstock hasn't cut rates or prices? They did introduce the RC system (a very unrealistic one) at BS and they are paying less too...

True, but as far as we can tell, SS isn't actively trying to divert customers to Bigstock. I'm sure they're not upset if it happens organically, but currently SS is actually promoting Offset to existing customers, not BS. So in the context of a discussion about the "race to the bottom" theory, SS is actually pushing far harder upwards than down.

tickstock · « **Reply #55 on:** October 30, 2013, 16:28 »

ShadySue · « **Reply #56 on:** October 30, 2013, 17:04 »

I did that search and:
In the orange 'related ads' box at the top, it was DP, SS then DT.
In the right hand Ads column, it was Ft, iS, 123RF, Getty and StockLayouts.
First of the non-ad hits was SS, PhotoXrpress, Getty, ingimage.

I believe Google searches are geographically ordered, though it hardly makes a difference in this case.

stockastic · « **Reply #57 on:** October 30, 2013, 17:32 »

Quote from: EmberMike on October 30, 2013, 15:51

And Shutterstock, the place where most of us make most of our money, while not giving us a pay raise in a long time also haven't cut rates or prices.

Stay tuned.

luissantos84 · « **Reply #58 on:** October 30, 2013, 17:37 »

Quote from: EmberMike on October 30, 2013, 15:51

And Shutterstock, the place where most of us make most of our money, while not giving us a pay raise in a long time also haven't cut rates or prices.

which iStock did back in 2010

luissantos84 · « **Reply #59 on:** October 30, 2013, 18:04 »

Quote from: tickstock on October 30, 2013, 16:28

ETA: I tried the search for 'subscription stock photos' again in a different browser that had the history cleared and BS was first on Google ads there too, surprisingly SS wasn't even on the list.

DT on ads and then SS, photoxpress, getty, thinstock

where is BigStock? number 41!

tickstock · « **Reply #60 on:** October 30, 2013, 18:06 »

luissantos84 · « **Reply #61 on:** October 30, 2013, 18:10 »

I can see 1 below the search and 5 at the right

tickstock · « **Reply #62 on:** October 30, 2013, 18:12 »

luissantos84 · « **Reply #63 on:** October 30, 2013, 18:13 »

tickstock · « **Reply #64 on:** October 30, 2013, 18:14 »

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #65 on:** October 30, 2013, 18:16 »

Quote from: tickstock on October 30, 2013, 15:49

Your example doesn't make it seem simply pointless at all. On other sites when you type in "agia triada" you also get all the other 'spam' results, plus you get it with all other words.

You're completely missing the point (deliberately?). On other sites you get Agia Triada (Minoan) results, on iStock, you get no results unless someone has deliberately spammed because iS DOES NOT ALLOW the Minoan Agia Triada site.

That is the proof that the CV is broken and always has been. That flaw could easily have been corrected (see pancake tom's explanation), but they don't want to/can't be bothered to correct it.

luissantos84 · « **Reply #66 on:** October 30, 2013, 18:17 »

I am talking about the non-paid regular search position

EmberMike · « **Reply #67 on:** October 30, 2013, 18:32 »

Quote from: tickstock on October 30, 2013, 16:28

I just did a google search for "subscription stock photos", guess which site came up first in the google ads? I'll give you a hint it wasn't Shutterstock...

Well, it was for me. But those searches are heavily influenced by our personal browsing/searching history and patterns, so it means nothing really.

Not sure what this has to do with SS pricing and royalty rates, either.

tickstock · « **Reply #68 on:** October 30, 2013, 18:34 »

tickstock · « **Reply #69 on:** October 30, 2013, 18:36 »

ShadySue · « **Reply #70 on:** October 30, 2013, 18:42 »

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on October 30, 2013, 18:16

Quote from: tickstock on October 30, 2013, 15:49

Your example doesn't make it seem simply pointless at all. On other sites when you type in "agia triada" you also get all the other 'spam' results, plus you get it with all other words.

You're completely missing the point (deliberately?). On other sites you get Agia Triada (Minoan) results, on iStock, you get no results unless someone has deliberately spammed because iS DOES NOT ALLOW the Minoan Agia Triada site.

That is the proof that the CV is broken and always has been. That flaw could easily have been corrected (see pancake tom's explanation), but they don't want to/can't be bothered to correct it.

One thing I found with the almost-inevitably helpful and always pleasant Team Keywords was that they were reluctant to add things if they thought there was only likely to be a few photos of that keyword, which was fair enough if there wasn't a different DA (e.g. place names), IF a buyer knows to try quotes if they don't get a result first time.

I think Google search (images) is usually pretty awful, all sorts of random images thrown in because the words might be nearby a totally unrelated picture.

But the CV does allow my over-used example Blue Whale to be a cleaner search on iS than the other micros/mids, because apart from some cocktails apparently called 'Blue Whale' and some misIDs / spam, the search doesn't throw up any random whale or whale shark in blue water or with a blue sky above, like most sites do (misID/spam is as bad on all the other micros/mid-stock sites I've looked at). Don't focus on the example, it's a problem with the method; that's just the example I use.

Neither method is perfect.

pancaketom · « **Reply #71 on:** October 30, 2013, 20:26 »

Quote from: tickstock on October 30, 2013, 18:34

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on October 30, 2013, 18:16
Quote from: tickstock on October 30, 2013, 15:49

Your example doesn't make it seem simply pointless at all. On other sites when you type in "agia triada" you also get all the other 'spam' results, plus you get it with all other words.

You're completely missing the point (deliberately?). On other sites you get Agia Triada (Minoan) results, on iStock, you get no results unless someone has deliberately spammed because iS DOES NOT ALLOW the Minoan Agia Triada site.
I understand what you're saying. The example is pretty obscure though even wikipedia barely has much information on it and calls it "Hagia Triada". A search on both Shutterstock and iStock shows maybe 10 images (maybe just 2 on iStock). You can type in 'agia triada' into the search without choosing a disambiguation and you can enter it into your keywords without selecting a specific meaning also. If you think about it when you type "agia triada" into a Shutterstock search you have in effect selected all of the meanings (ones you didn't want, the same when you enter it into keywords), I don't think it's too big a deal for some very obscure terms to have this problem. It can also be fixed if there is a real problem. This is where contributors and the site can work together to make it better or people can just whine and complain, I know what I chose to do.

Complain about SS?

tickstock · « **Reply #72 on:** October 30, 2013, 20:37 »

heywoody · « **Reply #73 on:** October 31, 2013, 16:30 »

Quote from: pancaketom on October 30, 2013, 15:48

I have always maintained that they need to have the CV as well as a "not one of these" options. So if you put in Mt Helen and don't mean Mt St Helens or whatever their CV wants to map it to, you can still include it. Also when someone searches, they can click on "not one of these options". But they didn't do it that way, and in fact the way their search worked last time I tried to use it it actually encourages spamming since otherwise your images don't get seen even if someone tries to search for exactly what is in your image.

The CV is an attempt to solve a real problem, but like so many things at IS, its implementation is pretty poor.

It's a complex technical solution that just doesn't work very well - what does / did work was the better policing but that is pretty labour intensive. Too many keywords allowed is an invitation to spam and people accept that invitation.

Uncle Pete · « **Reply #74 on:** November 02, 2013, 22:56 »

Subscription Stock Photos - metacrawler

http://www.metacrawler.com/search/web?fcoid=417&fcop=topnav&fpid=2&q=subscription+stock+photos&ql=

Bigstock is the last one on page one, which is #20. The rest are the usual suspects and a couple of the spam sites that pop up in searches for everything.

1-2-3 SS-DT-FT-spam info dot com - site info -PX-123--getty-is-ts-is-ss-cs-super-ss-dt-dt-investment- and finally BS.

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Author Topic: The state of our market and a case for exclusivity (Read 20398 times)

pancaketom

tickstock

EmberMike

tickstock

EmberMike

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ShadySue

stockastic

luissantos84

luissantos84

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luissantos84

tickstock

luissantos84

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BaldricksTrousers

luissantos84

EmberMike

tickstock

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ShadySue

pancaketom

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heywoody

Uncle Pete

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