Just noticed tonight when researching ideas that Shutterstock has added new ratings on each picture in Popularity, Usage and Trendsetter values?
I can see why they do it, gearing more eyes to best sellers. It can inform copycats as a downside.
What do you think of it? I have not noticed it on any other sites yet...
I don't see it happening on videos yet...
It is interesting seeing shutterstock ratings of these 3 areas. I'm still trying to understand it and I ask Shutterstock to please share your rating recipe more

Another shutterstock Stupid Things. Dont care

If data were correct - and based on my own experience they aren't - it would be a nice little gadget, probably more useful for contributors than buyers (because a picture 'never sold' here may well be a bestseller on another agency).

Quote from: Firn on June 20, 2022, 00:49

Not sure what profit customers should have from this random rating generator.

I do not know how valuable it is for customers, but as a contributor, I find it somewhat useful.

For example, if I have pictures of a flower, then I can look what kind of pictures of the same species are already online and to some extent, how they are selling.

But how do you determine how they are selling with that rating? If an image that has sold 5 times is rated the same way as an image that sold 500 times, as it is now, you have absolutely no clue how they are selling. As I said above - With my port many images that have sold only 2-5 time have the highest rating, same as images that sold hundreds of times and some images that sold are marked as not sold at all. I am not making this up.
Maybe for some mysterious reason it works correctly with your port - Still doesn't help you, because you don't know whether the rating is correct for images you look up or as random as with my port.

Here are example:
 edit: oops, wrong URLs, put examples in post below

But how do you determine how they are selling with that rating? If an image that has sold 5 times is rated the same way as an image that sold 500 times, as it is now, you have absolutely no clue how they are selling.

It gives me only limited information, but is better than nothing. For example, if there are 100 images of a species in the database and the best rating is "rarely used", then it is unlikely that another image of the same species will sell well, unless the existing images are all mediocre or unless the new image has a quality that makes it interesting for people who did no look specifically for that species. On the other hand, if 20 of the images have high usage or are frequently used, there is a good chance that my image will also sell, if it is of sufficient quality.

Here are example:
This one sold 4 times: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/tropical-colocasia-esculenta-aloha-garden-houseplant-1772506973 That's not "frequenly used"
And here is one with only 2 sales. TWO!! : https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/close-topical-philodendron-verrucosum-houseplant-dark-1961934799
Usage says "High usage" I have no clue whether "high usage " is supposed to be better or worse than "frequently used", because when you hoover over the usage score it says the categories are "often", "commonly", "rarely" and "not used", so high and frequently shouldn't even be part of the rating. That's how messed up this system is. Regardless, no image with only two sales should be labeled as "frequently used" or "high" usage.

"High usage" is supposed to be better than "frequently used", so the image with two sales is rated higher than the one with four sales. One clue for that is that it is dubbed "Superstar", unlike the other and you will probably notice that all of your images that sell really well have the "high usage" rating. At least that is the case for my port.

As to why the image with two downloads is rated so high, I can only guess. Is it possible that it sold almost directly after you uploaded it and thus got the high rating for selling twice within a short time and then was just never demoted?

For what it's worth: The picture with two downloads is also the second image in your port, at least for me, so the rating for the image regarding the sorting is also yery high, for whatever reason. So your image may be an exception. I think it is not typical for an image to get this rating with two downloads.

I re-activated my account recently and all the sales I've had this month are either superstars or trendsetters. Since I'm not adding new work, maybe it's helpful in keeping my old best-sellers in the mix?

There's a big difference between trendsetters and superstars - but maybe the names make sense:

One trendsetter has only 9 downloads but they are all very recent DLs mostly from May-photos of Churchill Downs where they run the Kentucky Derby. They were online for 2+ years while my portfolio was mostly deactivated and got "found" last month. (Other photos shown as related - from Louisville - say they haven't been downloaded, but all of my photos from Louisville have been downloaded at least twice, and most more than that - so a glitch?)

By contrast, the superstars all have 78-488 DLs with most at 200+ DLs, so a big jump from trendsetters. They've each earned me between $90 to nearly $800 apiece - so for SS I guess I'd say they were superstars. Sad that now they are only earning me mostly 10 cents a DL...

Quote from: Big Toe on June 20, 2022, 16:54

For what it's worth: The picture with two downloads is also the second image in your port, at least for me.

Intersting. It's not anywhere on the first pages for me (Actually couldn't find it on the first 10 pages, after that I stopped searching), so that confirmes my suspicion that Shutterstock sorts image differently depending on where you are located.

Just did a quick test. Below my port sorted by top images from Germany at the top and with an US proxy below.
Neither of the results contains my bestseller and both are a weird mix of images that actually do sell frequently and images that have only sold like 1-3 times.

Are you sure that you linked the correct images earlier? They seem to belong to a totally different port, which also contains some images of the Philodendron plant, but none of your dressed up dog photos.

When I view your port with the dogs, I see a very similar, although not identical sorting then the one in your sreenshot for Germany, where I am also located.

In my port it seems to be like:

one sale - "rarely used" (or sometimes "never used")
two sales - "frequently used"
three sales - "high usage"

which is reeeeally stretching it, if you ask me.

And yes, the location is one factor in what appears also cookies on a computer. For all we know the time of day and holidays and whatever else, someone decided was good. I know that they force images up and down by keywords to feature them. So SS will set the weighting on a word or words, higher when they want to promote that for some reason.

What do you think of Shutterstock new ratings on each picture?

I try not to? 

Another shutterstock Stupid Things. Dont care

Yes to that as well.