MicrostockGroup
Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: oxman on July 15, 2012, 09:04
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Consider the state of microstock sites' inventory. It is mostly massive quantities of about 80% weak images (crap) and growing. Searching for quality images is difficult and will become more so.
That is the nature of amateur crowd sourcing business models (even though I feel the same about RM).
So, here comes Yuri and peopleimages.com. It changes the game with 90%+ cherries. Searches are significantly more productive using his Model Properties and Search Options. It blows away RM in regards to pricing. He has built a massive, prolific photo factory churning out 5,000 quality images a week!.
Currently, peopleimages.com is in its infancy much like iStockphoto was in 2000. They were a game-changer. Once the years roll by and PI gets traction, loyalty, word-of-mouth, a strong organic Google placement and Adwords presence, it may also become a game-changer for people/lifestyle photos and perhaps dominate people stock photography worldwide.
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Yes, I'm thinking of quitting and getting a job at Target. :P It doesn't change the game. It's a nice site with perfect looking people. If you want 80k images of the same thing, you know where to go.
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I don't have any direct skin in that game, (IOW no real reason to care if Yuri succeeds or fails with his own site) but I think that he sells a one-look plastic fantastic type of stock. It's hugely successful but it really is so homogenous. I can't see it becoming dominant unless he broadens his reach a bit.
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1 - micro price collection (60154 files from 3$ to 35$) which is more expensive than all stock agencies, istock regular indie from 1$ to 23$
2 - pure+ collection (5878 excusive files from 4$ to 75$) which is more expensive than the regular exclusive collection at iStock (4$ to 28$)
3 - premium collection (8311 excusive files from 45$ to 670$) which is A LOT more expensive than the exclusive + collection (12$ to 60$) and a LOT more expensive than the vetta collection (35$ to 160$)
Yuri have advantage against all exclusive, exclusive+, vetta or even the "cheap" regular indie/exclusive? big NO (not in terms of price and diversity thats for sure)
that said we know that "most buyers" will shop around so I donīt see him recovering the 3.4 Million $ "invested" in a short period of time unless his buyers are just nuts about it and buy his exclusive collection massively once that is the only "advantage" he has, advantage if he is actually selling if not he is actually losing money..
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I don't see him capturing a significant market share away from the larger sites, but his site could become a major factor in his own earnings. And, I think that is probably all you can really strive for when you open your own site (to make more money for yourself).
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He is clever, he setting up an escape route and a great earner which will benefit greatly when micro agencies start to fall apart.
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that said we know that "most buyers" will shop around so I donīt see him recovering the 3.4 Million $ "invested" in a short period of time unless his buyers are just nuts about it and buy his exclusive collection massively once that is the only "advantage" he has, advantage if he is actually selling if not he is actually losing money..
How much of his collection on his website is exclusive to his website?
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The search results say about 9 thousand exclusive of 75 thousand images, or 12% exclusive.
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The search results say about 9 thousand exclusive of 75 thousand images, or 12% exclusive.
Tx. I still wonder if he'll pull from the other sites as his site gains traction. Would surely make sense.
But yes, 3.4M is hard to claw back.
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that said we know that "most buyers" will shop around so I donīt see him recovering the 3.4 Million $ "invested" in a short period of time unless his buyers are just nuts about it and buy his exclusive collection massively once that is the only "advantage" he has, advantage if he is actually selling if not he is actually losing money..
How much of his collection on his website is exclusive to his website?
when it started they were 7k pictures, now 8440 from 74763, 11.29%
he has also 419 free images (192 from NASA)
http://peopleimages.com/search#exclusive:yes (http://peopleimages.com/search#exclusive:yes)
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Yes, I'm thinking of quitting and getting a job at Target. :P It doesn't change the game. It's a nice site with perfect looking people. If you want 80k images of the same thing, you know where to go.
That is a key point. His stuff is kinda antiseptic... but he is not stupid. I am sure he is aware of that and will diversify his content. But on the other hand, that stuff sells like crazy. Sure, many discerning art directors will gravitate from that look, but a million regular folks will eat it up indefinitely.
I am sure we will hear from him on this thread soon ;)
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I seriously donīt think Yuri has 80k files of the same thing, thats far from accurate and actually unfair, not a Yuri fan but browsing his collection you can see tons of different subjects and people ages, not going to say what are those subjects but they arenīt just 4 or 5
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The search results say about 9 thousand exclusive of 75 thousand images, or 12% exclusive.
But that percentage will increase, right? I mean, he's not uploading to other sites since he started pplimages, at least that's how I understood that project when it was leaked
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Yes, I'm thinking of quitting and getting a job at Target. :P It doesn't change the game. It's a nice site with perfect looking people. If you want 80k images of the same thing, you know where to go.
That is a key point. His stuff is kinda antiseptic... but he is not stupid. I am sure he is aware of that and will diversify his content. But on the other hand, that stuff sells like crazy. Sure, many discerning art directors will gravitate from that look, but a million regular folks will eat it up indefinitely.
I am sure we will hear from him on this thread soon ;)
It's a niche. Well, not a niche really, but style that really sells, a proven formula. Why would he want to change anything? And even if he did, he could just hire a few creative photographers or some that shoot more real looking candid ppl and shots. Piece of cake with a guranteed salary of 5k (to get the quality as well)
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... he could just hire a few creative photographers or some that shoot more real looking candid ppl and shots. Piece of cake with a guranteed salary of 5k (to get the quality as well)
Is that a living wage in South Africa?
Added GIMF, so I discovered that the minimum wage for a domestic cleaner in RSA metropolitan areas, which is 1.28 euros, which is 51.2 euros for a 40 hour week, or 2304 euros for a 40 hr, 45 week year.
Oddly, there isn't a legal minimum wage for computer workers.
http://www.mywage.co.za/main/salary/minimum-wages/faqs/frequently-asked-questions-about-minimum-wages (http://www.mywage.co.za/main/salary/minimum-wages/faqs/frequently-asked-questions-about-minimum-wages)
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But it's fun, and you get a sticker!
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The search results say about 9 thousand exclusive of 75 thousand images, or 12% exclusive.
But that percentage will increase, right? I mean, he's not uploading to other sites since he started pplimages, at least that's how I understood that project when it was leaked
you need to read more often :D he is back on SS, FT (both with over 1k files in the last month) and iStock only audio
nothing in DT
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... he could just hire a few creative photographers or some that shoot more real looking candid ppl and shots. Piece of cake with a guranteed salary of 5k (to get the quality as well)
Is that a living wage in South Africa?
Added GIMF, so I discovered that the minimum wage for a domestic cleaner in RSA metropolitan areas, which is 1.28 euros, which is 51.2 euros for a 40 hour week, or 2304 euros for a 40 hr, 45 week year.
Oddly, there isn't a legal minimum wage for computer workers.
[url]http://www.mywage.co.za/main/salary/minimum-wages/faqs/frequently-asked-questions-about-minimum-wages[/url] ([url]http://www.mywage.co.za/main/salary/minimum-wages/faqs/frequently-asked-questions-about-minimum-wages[/url])
To get him to stop shooting ms for himself on start doing it for you. Unless you don't need a quick fix and can school a bunch of young talents to get a good tog or two at the end
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The search results say about 9 thousand exclusive of 75 thousand images, or 12% exclusive.
But that percentage will increase, right? I mean, he's not uploading to other sites since he started pplimages, at least that's how I understood that project when it was leaked
you need to read more often :D he is back on SS, FT (both with over 1k files in the last month) and iStock only audio
nothing in DT
Makes no sense whatsoever to me ???
Well it does, it shows business at pplimages is slow
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His business model concerns me. With 100 full time staff and 4 million in sales things could be tight. Numbers don't lie and I assume he has a sharp CFO, but it feels like an urgent and perhaps overly ambitious venture.
And his mentor program is training tons of Mini-Me Yuris that will take their skills and start their own microtock accounts or perhaps website. It has already happened. And no non-compete clause can stop it.
He may also be maxing out on his main subject matter of happy, shiny business, beach, spa, family photos. I mean, how many ways can you shoot that stuff? I see he also has some food shots and concept images. Huh? I thought this was People Images. Ok, so sell that other stuff and music and video but... um perhaps peopleimages.com is a limiting URL?
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He may also be maxing out on his main subject matter of happy, shiny business, beach, spa, family photos. I mean, how many ways can you shoot that stuff? I see he also has some food shots and concept images. Huh? I thought this was People Images. Ok, so sell that other stuff and music and video but... um perhaps peopleimages.com is a limiting URL?
searching "people" 72328 results
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Ok, so sell that other stuff and music and video but... um perhaps peopleimages.com is a limiting URL?
You'd think, but iStockphoto don't sell just photos, and Dreamstime don't sell dreams ;)
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He is clever, he setting up an escape route and a great earner which will benefit greatly when micro agencies start to fall apart.
This makes the most sense to me. Most of us who rely on microstock income have been exploring our options in one way or another in preparation for the rumored demise of microstock. Kind of reminds me of all the folks in the US in the 50s building bomb shelters in their back yards. ;)
Difference is that Yuri has the resources to make his site top notch rather than ktools or photoshelter. He also has the brand recognition and portfolio to have a strong likelihood of making it a big success.
But no, I don't think he will be putting the micros out of business. They might manage to do it to themselves though....
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But no, I don't think he will be putting the micros out of business.
total sales
2009: 20842437
2010: 21752185
2011: 18466282 (today and tomorrow left) (-15%)
even if Yuri had his 1.4 M in 2011, iStock made a few more downloads 18.4 Millions, so 17 M
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His business model concerns me. With 100 full time staff and 4 million in sales things could be tight. Numbers don't lie and I assume he has a sharp CFO, but it feels like an urgent and perhaps overly ambitious venture.
And his mentor program is training tons of Mini-Me Yuris that will take their skills and start their own microtock accounts or perhaps website. It has already happened. And no non-compete clause can stop it.
He may also be maxing out on his main subject matter of happy, shiny business, beach, spa, family photos. I mean, how many ways can you shoot that stuff? I see he also has some food shots and concept images. Huh? I thought this was People Images. Ok, so sell that other stuff and music and video but... um perhaps peopleimages.com is a limiting URL?
We may never know until we are working for him :o
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Difference is that Yuri has the resources to make his site top notch rather than ktools or photoshelter. He also has the brand recognition and portfolio to have a strong likelihood of making it a big success.
He definitely has the resources and has spent time and money to make something unique, but I wouldn't sell any of us short. If anything, Yuri's bar for success is a lot higher than most of ours. Most of us don't need to earn that much or get that many sales to equal the income of our top micro.
I think there is something to be said for offering unique content on your own site. Especially if you have hit a wall with the regular micro sites. You don't have much to lose by focusing your attention and new images exclusively on your own site. I don't know if that is Yuri's game plan, but it seems like a good one (because that is my plan).
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i'm sure he knows the score and his investment is not too much ambititious but just in line with his possibilities.
i just wonder why he setup his biz in south africa, of all places ?
plenty of cheaper places in europe without going too far .. portugal .. greece .. croatia .. cyprus .. and what about Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines ?
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He is clever, he setting up an escape route and a great earner which will benefit greatly when micro agencies start to fall apart.
This makes the most sense to me. Most of us who rely on microstock income have been exploring our options in one way or another in preparation for the rumored demise of microstock. Kind of reminds me of all the folks in the US in the 50s building bomb shelters in their back yards. ;)
Difference is that Yuri has the resources to make his site top notch rather than ktools or photoshelter. He also has the brand recognition and portfolio to have a strong likelihood of making it a big success.
But no, I don't think he will be putting the micros out of business. They might manage to do it to themselves though....
Yes, thats what I mean, micros will put themselves out of business, thats for sure. In a couple of year time you will have, Getty with all its umbrellas and probably, SS, unless they decide to sell out, etc. Thats it.
Yuri, is making sure of a slice of the cake, not a take-over, he cant do that and Im not sure he wants to either.
Unfortunately, micro on the whole has dragged itself into the mudd, gained a bad reputation for lousy customer/contributor relations ( exeption being, SS, DT and some of the middle tiers), its still got this sort of amateur stamp, not picture quality but for the way they operate, amateurish and without scruples.
They had a great thing going but somehow some people managed to destroy it.
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Yuri is making sure that most of the microstock sites bite the dust in not too distance a future his peopleimages.com will be among the very few still standing. :)
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I don't think he can quite compete with the big agencies... but you never know. Maybe one day? :o
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www.peopleimages.com (http://www.peopleimages.com) is the result of agencies constantly trying to push commissions down. At some point this happens and they got themselves a competitor instead. If commissions where as high as other platforms (iTunes pays out 70% to their content providers) I would never have dreamed about venturing into this.
This site is purely because of low commissions.
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i'm sure he knows the score and his investment is not too much ambititious but just in line with his possibilities.
i just wonder why he setup his biz in south africa, of all places ?
plenty of cheaper places in europe without going too far .. portugal .. greece .. croatia .. cyprus .. and what about Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines ?
Good Q. (Actually)
South africa has so much mixed culture from immigration that you can find very competent support/hotline staff that speaks almost all European languages perfectly. Also. The primary language of South Africa is English which is great. Besides that it is a country in development and probably soon will be doing better than many European countries. I believe we will see a reversed migration in the coming years. South park is right: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_of_the_Meheecans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_of_the_Meheecans)
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If commissions where as high as other platforms (iTunes pays out 70% to their content providers) I would never have dreamed about venturing into this. This site is purely because of low commissions.
If someone asked me why I started my own site, (and why I am working on starting another and more improved one at some point next year) this would be exactly the same answer they would get..
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[url=http://www.peopleimages.com]www.peopleimages.com[/url] ([url]http://www.peopleimages.com[/url]) is the result of agencies constantly trying to push commissions down. At some point this happens and they got themselves a competitor instead. If commissions where as high as other platforms (iTunes pays out 70% to their content providers) I would never have dreamed about venturing into this.
This site is purely because of low commissions.
and it's a competitor who knows the score, not a banker like the owners of Getty or IT guys like the founders of IS/SS/fotolia.
big added value.
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i'm sure he knows the score and his investment is not too much ambititious but just in line with his possibilities.
i just wonder why he setup his biz in south africa, of all places ?
plenty of cheaper places in europe without going too far .. portugal .. greece .. croatia .. cyprus .. and what about Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines ?
Good Q. (Actually)
South africa has so much mixed culture from immigration that you can find very competent support/hotline staff that speaks almost all European languages perfectly. Also. The primary language of South Africa is English which is great. Besides that it is a country in development and probably soon will be doing better than many European countries. I believe we will see a reversed migration in the coming years. South park is right: [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_of_the_Meheecans[/url] ([url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_of_the_Meheecans[/url])
sounds good.
do you think there's also plenty of choice about local models in south africa ? of every ethnicity ?
as i'm based in SE asia one of the issues for me is that the people than ends up in my images are
all asians and the market for this is not as big as for caucasians.
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[url=http://www.peopleimages.com]www.peopleimages.com[/url] ([url]http://www.peopleimages.com[/url]) is the result of agencies constantly trying to push commissions down. At some point this happens and they got themselves a competitor instead. If commissions where as high as other platforms (iTunes pays out 70% to their content providers) I would never have dreamed about venturing into this.
This site is purely because of low commissions.
All I can say is good for you! I wish the micros hadn't gotten greedy and forced you into competing with them. It should serve as a wakeup call to start treating contributors better, but I somehow doubt it will.
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[url=http://www.peopleimages.com]www.peopleimages.com[/url] ([url]http://www.peopleimages.com[/url]) is the result of agencies constantly trying to push commissions down. At some point this happens and they got themselves a competitor instead. If commissions where as high as other platforms (iTunes pays out 70% to their content providers) I would never have dreamed about venturing into this.
This site is purely because of low commissions.
All I can say is good for you! I wish the micros hadn't gotten greedy and forced you into competing with them. It should serve as a wakeup call to start treating contributors better, but I somehow doubt it will.
Not until he's making enough on his own site to allow him to pull from the others.
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[url=http://www.peopleimages.com]www.peopleimages.com[/url] ([url]http://www.peopleimages.com[/url]) is the result of agencies constantly trying to push commissions down. At some point this happens and they got themselves a competitor instead. If commissions where as high as other platforms (iTunes pays out 70% to their content providers) I would never have dreamed about venturing into this.
This site is purely because of low commissions.
I'm very glad this was the main motivator, things have to change to a fair system of 40 or 50% for the contributor. Apple pays out 70% because their main business is hardware to run/play that content and are probably not making huge profits compared to their other areas. They know that in order to get the best apps and content they need to offer a good split. Then they can sell you tons of gadgets.
However as long as artists don't respect themselves enough in microstock, we wont be getting a fair commission anytime soon.
People who are content with less than 20cents a download are plenty and the micros know it. They however will probably be getting mostly crappy content worthy of those slim payouts, littering the search with terrible content which will decrease sales and buyers.
Don't feed the lower commission sites and things will be forced to evolve.
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I don't have any direct skin in that game, (IOW no real reason to care if Yuri succeeds or fails with his own site) but I think that he sells a one-look plastic fantastic type of stock. It's hugely successful but it really is so homogenous. I can't see it becoming dominant unless he broadens his reach a bit.
Are you serious? How exactly would you define dominant? He's the most successful stock photographer on the planet and therefore dominant.
Plastic fantastic is what faceless corporations want, isn't that obvious?
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I don't have any direct skin in that game, (IOW no real reason to care if Yuri succeeds or fails with his own site) but I think that he sells a one-look plastic fantastic type of stock. It's hugely successful but it really is so homogenous. I can't see it becoming dominant unless he broadens his reach a bit.
Are you serious? How exactly would you define dominant? He's the most successful stock photographer on the planet and therefore dominant.
Plastic fantastic is what faceless corporations want, isn't that obvious?
Yes he is! but JoAnn, has got a small point here. It wouldnt hurt to broaden the scope a little bit. Look around in glossy publications such as Harpers, Vogue, Elle, etc, etc, there are plenty of "ordinary, even slightly overweight models finding their way in there. Its the modern thinking you know. There is even a hugely successful model-agency in London called "Uggly people" and theyre leasing out their models all the time! Now, I wouldnt be promoting that but to get some what we call "real" people in various situations, such as business, etc, wouldnt exactly hurt.
I want to see this really take-off! teach some agencies a lesson but as I said, it wouldnt be a bad idea to widen the horizon, just a bit anyway. :)
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i'm sure he knows the score and his investment is not too much ambititious but just in line with his possibilities.
i just wonder why he setup his biz in south africa, of all places ?
plenty of cheaper places in europe without going too far .. portugal .. greece .. croatia .. cyprus .. and what about Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines ?
Good Q. (Actually)
South africa has so much mixed culture from immigration that you can find very competent support/hotline staff that speaks almost all European languages perfectly. Also. The primary language of South Africa is English which is great. Besides that it is a country in development and probably soon will be doing better than many European countries. I believe we will see a reversed migration in the coming years. South park is right: [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_of_the_Meheecans[/url] ([url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_of_the_Meheecans[/url])
sounds good.
do you think there's also plenty of choice about local models in south africa ? of every ethnicity ?
as i'm based in SE asia one of the issues for me is that the people than ends up in my images are
all asians and the market for this is not as big as for caucasians.
I grew up in Cape Town and believe me, there is a model overload there. You can find models from every ethnicity without problems, amateur or professional. It's also full with Europeans (Germans, British, Dutch etc.). Lovely City!! My Girlfriend is trying to get me to move back since our last holiday in Cape Town.