After a good few weeks, I was hoping for new highs but my sales have fallen again.  I was doing better with a much smaller portfolio.

Quote from: epixx on October 08, 2007, 07:49

Go to your member profile, then click on the "stats" tab.

Here's another question:
I tried to attach my own stats to a reply in this thread, but it wasn't possible. Do I have to host it somewhere to do that?

I use photobucket to host the photos.

Here are my stats. Not a pretty sight 

Quote from: yingyang0 on October 08, 2007, 13:25

Quote from: epixx on October 08, 2007, 07:49

Go to your member profile, then click on the "stats" tab.

Here's another question:
I tried to attach my own stats to a reply in this thread, but it wasn't possible. Do I have to host it somewhere to do that?

I use photobucket to host the photos.

Thanks, that worked, but what a horribly ugly website 

Well as you can see from below things have been on a downward trend since March, with SS knocking IS of top spot as my best performing Agency.

Last month steadied a little SOoo  ....  one can hope, you never know with Istock 



Sue

Quote from: epixx on October 08, 2007, 14:07

Quote from: yingyang0 on October 08, 2007, 13:25

I use photobucket to host the photos.

Thanks, that worked, but what a horribly ugly website 

The name ain't much prettier either   

Quote from: sueC on October 08, 2007, 14:09
Well as you can see from below things have been on a downward trend since March, with SS knocking IS of top spot as my best performing Agency.

Ha ha, for a moment, I thought you had copied my stats. They show an almost identical trend 

I have to add, that I've almost doubled my portfolio at IS since April. That makes it even worse, doesn't it?

Here's an interesting curve, the Alexa statistics for IS. I picked it from the forum over there. There's actually a discussion going on about the falling sales. It's been going on since 3 October without being locked. That must be a new iStock record or something   



Seems to follow my sales-trend pretty well.

OMG!
Ok, so I'm trying to copy/paste the image from the stats page so I can load it into Elements 4.0 and save it up to my pbase account to show it here, and it won't copy??  What's up with that?

I usually just hit the "PrtScn" button and it copies the browser page, but Elements doesn't recognize that there's anything in the clipboard.  Tried Control/C as well... nothing.  Right-clicking won't copy it either.  Does istock do something so you can't copy these things?  How can I copy/paste this simply into Elements so I can save/host it to show?  This is weird.

Quote from: epixx on October 07, 2007, 18:15
What I find particularly annoying with some of the attitudes I see at the forums, particularly when questions about upload quotas come up, is the fact that most of those diamond members built their portfolios when upload limits were much higher. Sometimes I get a feeling that they are saying "since you didn't become a member when we started out, you are not one of us, and should be thankful that you are allowed in here at all."

This is not at all true.  Upload limits have varied all over the place from 10 on up, since I started in August 2004.

When I started, March 2006, the limit per day was around the current weekly level. Correct me if I'm wrong. The weekly limits were introduced shortly after. I don't know the exact history, but from what I've been able to gather, the current levels are much lower than they were two or more years ago.

But I don't really worry that much anymore. If the current sales development continues, IS is a bit down on my priority list anyway.

I definitely remember an upload limit of 10 or 15 a week when I first started.

I'm not exclusive but I agree with Sean.  I have never had that feeling from the exclusive members and have always found them willing to help anyone.  Most of my CN members are exclusive and almost everyone of them asked me to be in their CN.  This feeling of 'them and us' I think is just in peoples heads.

Hey you and me both eppix used to be the first place I uploaded, but no longer 

That is through choice btw as I never get to my upload limit anyway

Jeez, I feel like an old timer here. I started in 2004 but still have a fairly small portfolio. I remember when it was like 10 pictures a day for everyone and as time goes on it gets smaller and smaller. I rarely fill up my weekly quota, but recently I've been hitting it and wish I could get more in.

I ran into the same problem last year that epixx is running into. I went through this period from March to September where after making best month for like a year straight, I ran into a brick wall. Then a year ago, things picked up through May of this year. A lot can be attributed to the seasonality of the stock business. The one thing I've found is that IS changes it the search engine algorithm many times. One image I had went to flames in a couple of months and about a year ago something changed and I've had like two downloads in a month. That took a huge bite out of my monthly downloads.

The one thing I find with IS is that it takes a while for images to start getting downloads vs. SS or DT...

I think we can agree that the views on the IS forums are very divided. People either love them or hate them. I've always found them to be weird. The helpfulness is there, by all means, but only until there's a hint of criticism. The contrast to this forum is almost beyond description. Even if some of the agencies are criticized heavily here, we are still able to have a constructive dialog with their admins.

But this is really OT, since the thread is about the sinking sales at IS. While staying away from the IS forums doesn't cost me a dime, sinking sales do. As I see it, there are two possible reasons for that: either IS is losing market shares, or the number of photos online increases fast than what the market is willing to absorb. A combination is also possible, that the number of agencies with large portfolios is growing too fast for IS to keep up with.

Since IS is obviously protecting the exclusives (from what I see, 80-90% of the first page of most searches are from exclusives), being a non-exclusive at IS becomes less attractive. It's also impossible for photographers to read from their own sales where this is going, since exclusives and non-exclusives develop differently.

It's a pity, since IS used to be a great place for everyone to sell photos. Now, the non-exclusives seem to be ignored mostly. Add to that the lowest pay in the business, and the conclusion for many may soon be that it's simply no fun anymore.

Quote from: zorki on October 08, 2007, 16:37
I ran into the same problem last year that epixx is running into. I went through this period from March to September where after making best month for like a year straight, I ran into a brick wall. Then a year ago, things picked up through May of this year. A lot can be attributed to the seasonality of the stock business. The one thing I've found is that IS changes it the search engine algorithm many times. One image I had went to flames in a couple of months and about a year ago something changed and I've had like two downloads in a month. That took a huge bite out of my monthly downloads.

The one thing I find with IS is that it takes a while for images to start getting downloads vs. SS or DT...

While I agree with you on many points, there are two elements that are radically different from previous years:

- IS favors exclusives much stronger than before.

- The competition from other agencies is much fiercer. There are more micro-agencies around, and the big ones are doing a much better job selling their images than before. In a few months, SnapperTown (that is the name, isn't it ) will be up and running full steam, and we can be quite sure that they will use all the resources they have to gain a significant market share.

I've never heard of snappertown.  Did a search but couldn't find any info on them. (?)

Figured out how to do the stats page.  Elements just won't do a copy/paste of it, but I did it with another program.   This includes my adding to my portfolio as well, which didn't seem to do much good.

Quote from: digitalshooter on October 08, 2007, 20:07
I've never heard of snappertown.

I believe they were trying to be funny.  They were probably talking about SnapVillage.

What evidence is there that istock favors exclusives?  I have seen lots of exclusives complaining about sales and I have seen istock deny that they favor exclusives.

The exclusives have higher commissions and istock must make more profit from non-exclusives, so I don't see what advantage it would have for them to favor exclusives.

"What evidence is there that istock favors exclusives?"

Your having a laugh right!? 

I haven't been around that long, but I agree with hatman. The only bias towards exclusives I've noticed is the use of their imagery to promote the agency (both in print and online).

As a whole, IS is currently experiencing record sales days. Perhaps the culprit for decreased sales on older images is increased competition.

or perhaps it is because as already stated very few non exclusive files show up in the first pages of best match for one ....

Anyhoo still not to distressed as I have a smallish Porfolio and my sales are flying elswhere to compensate

Quote from: sueC on October 08, 2007, 21:57
or perhaps it is because as already stated very few non exclusive files show up in the first pages of best match for one ....

Just did a search for the classic "business" only 6 out of the first 10 were exclusive (didn't look past that). My guess is that exclusives just upload more than non-exclusives.

My images didn't jump up in the search when I went exclusive. The biggest factor in the search right now is dl/month. If exclusive plays a role it doesn't appear to be a big one.

Quote from: yingyang0 on October 08, 2007, 22:18
Just did a search for the classic "business" only 6 out of the first 10 were exclusive (didn't look past that). My guess is that exclusives just upload more than non-exclusives.

My images didn't jump up in the search when I went exclusive. The biggest factor in the search right now is dl/month. If exclusive plays a role it doesn't appear to be a big one.

I did 5 different searches (sailboat, London, man telephone, tomato meal, pencil) and on average, of the 24 first images (the first page), 70% were from exclusives. This is understandable, since photos from exclusives don't exist elsewhere, and are supposed to give IS a competitive edge. I would have been surprised if it looked much differently.

Obviously, with higher upload limits, exclusives have the possibility to upload more. If they really do so is another question. The exclusive vs non-exclusive debate isn't really that interesting. It's the way IS has chosen to go, and we can accept it or leave.

Much more interesting is how much market share they are losing, and to whom. It would also be interesting to know why they have the technical problems that they have, and why they repeatedly shoot themselves in the foot with activities that could easily have been avoided (unlimited upload for exclusives a few weekends ago springs to my mind).

Things like that annoy me because I think their basic concept is great. In spite of meager paybacks, and in spite of horrible routines for almost everything, I have chosen to invest a lot of work uploading photos to IS. When my sales at the same time go down instead of up, not for a month or two, but for almost six consecutive months, I have to start wondering where they are going.

We will probably never know. Nobody keep their cards as close to the body as the guys at IS, which again is understandable, but it also makes me feel that the community thing and "human touch" is more a gimmick developed by some marketing guru than anything else. "What's good for Getty is good for the world". These things were most probably very different in the past, but IS today isn't less of a commercial enterprise than Coca-Cola.