I don´t think the popular search at SS matches the best match on IS, on SS popular is the most downloadED or at least very close

Quote from: Juanmonino on January 12, 2012, 00:14
sales were lower than last year and much lower than expected during this time.   I waited to january to see what happens, but today...never had worst working day results in years

There are in fact other microstock agencies than Istockphoto. No point in whining or panicking or getting hysterical; just do your research and make plans to preserve your income.

Like it or not Istock is on the slide. It will never, ever be the same again because they have pissed off too many customers and they can't even get the site to work properly. It's anyone's guess at what point the slide may even out (my guess it has quite a loooong way to go yet). The longer you leave it to join other agencies the harder you will find it to establish yourself and build a steady income.

I don't particularly want your massive and excellent portfolio competing with mine elsewhere but I'm sure it will be there soon enough anyway. Good luck.

Quote from: luissantos84 on January 12, 2012, 00:30
I don´t think the popular search at SS matches the best match on IS, on SS popular is the most downloadED or at least very close

OK, I tried relevant as well, still no nonesense (people reading paper at home) and rubbish:



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

That's a huge geographic variation with iStock's results.
Here's what I get:

I doubt is geographic... I get the same full  relevant results that ShadySue. I just get some dogs if I sort by age, but that's just bad keywording and these files will sink fast for searches with these terms.

Quote from: ShadySue on January 12, 2012, 00:48
That's a huge geographic variation with iStock's results.
Here's what I get:

Well good, at least at some parts of the world results seem to be ok (still not good). WTH is the first one about? I see that in every single IS search I make, always at least one W-T-F photo and dozens that don't fit in, that shouldn't be on the last, let alone first page...

Quote from: wut on January 12, 2012, 00:56
Well good, at least at some parts of the world results seem to be ok (still not good). WTH is the first one about? I see that in every single IS search I make, always at least one W-T-F photo and dozens that don't fit in, that shouldn't be on the last, let alone first page...

The first one is an eviction notice, which isn't exactly a homeless 'person', but isn't totally irrelevant.

It is something called a "concept", if you know what it is. While "person" may be a stretch, "homeless" fits 100%.

Quote from: loop on January 12, 2012, 00:59
It is something called a "concept", if you know what it is. While "person" may be a stretch, "homeless" fits 100%.

'Homeless' maps to 'homelessness' which would be a better keyword.
The contributor has keyworded 'eviction', which has mapped to 'homelessness'; I'm not sure where 'homeless person' is coming from: it's not in the keywords for that file. The system is probably secretly mapping 'homelessness' to 'homeless person', though the DA doesn't show that.

Quote from: wut on January 12, 2012, 00:56

Quote from: ShadySue on January 12, 2012, 00:48
That's a huge geographic variation with iStock's results.
Here's what I get:

Well good, at least at some parts of the world results seem to be ok (still not good).

IMO, the 'above the line' search result I got on this  search was very good, as was SS's.

Quote from: loop on January 12, 2012, 00:55
I doubt is geographic... I get the same full  relevant results that ShadySue. I just get some dogs if I sort by age, but that's just bad keywording and these files will sink fast for searches with these terms.

I checked a few of the stray dogs, and it seems that it's the same issue: it's photos of stray/feral dogs keyworded 'homeless', mapping to 'homelessness', and somehow showing up in a search for 'homeless person'. But some of them do look like the sort of dog a homeless person often has for companionship and to garner sympathy.

Quote from: wut on January 11, 2012, 17:36

Quote from: CarlssonInc. Stock Imagery Production on January 11, 2012, 17:28

Quote from: wut on January 11, 2012, 17:11
Well at least I won't have to bother with their prehistoric, middle ages torture alike upload process for a while. Or forever.

What is wrong with DeepMeta, which is also supported by iStock?

IMO, it's not much of an improvement, you still have to tick through all that boxes. Besides it's ultra unintuitive, it turns me away from using it. It only reflects their level of programming incompetence, really.

I guess we have very different opinions - I find DM very easy and fast to use. Ticking a couple of boxes ain't really any hardship. Are you saying that at the other sites you upload and then everything is taken care of, no additional work for you - Getty like in that case.

Quote from: jsnover on January 11, 2012, 20:05

I realize you think that it's OK as long as the indie stuff is there somewhere, even at the back of the bus, but as buyers don't look through more than the first few pages most of the time, it'll look as though it isn't there at all. You'll lose more by frustrating customers than you win by being up front, IMO - it's the buyer that counts. Why send the buyer elsewhere, even for independent stuff? How does that help iStock?

I think you might be missing the point here. The inde stuff is most important to them when the exclusives don't have anything comparable. But where that is the case the search may not be more than a page or two long, and ALL of it will be inde material. So when iStock really needs it, the inde stuff pops up near the front of the search.

I've got a few things in niches with virtually no competition. There's not much demand for them but they sell from time to time and the buyer goes away satisfied that iStock had something to offer in the niche he searched for. I would have to pull my portfolio before the buyer would leave in frustration.

Quote from: ShadySue on January 12, 2012, 00:58

Quote from: wut on January 12, 2012, 00:56
Well good, at least at some parts of the world results seem to be ok (still not good). WTH is the first one about? I see that in every single IS search I make, always at least one W-T-F photo and dozens that don't fit in, that shouldn't be on the last, let alone first page...

The first one is an eviction notice, which isn't exactly a homeless 'person', but isn't totally irrelevant.

Quote from: loop on January 12, 2012, 00:59
It is something called a "concept", if you know what it is. While "person" may be a stretch, "homeless" fits 100%.

It's not totally irrelevant, but not nearly relevant enough to be the first image. First of, as we've concluded, there actually is no person in it, second of it's implying something that is not in the vast majority of cases not likely to happen. It' very unlikely someone will become homeless (as in living on the streets), most ppl have someone to turn to, family or friends. So it's a lot more than just might being a stretch, it's a 10th page material if you as me. But true, not as irrelevant is I thought when I saw the small thumbnail on the screen shot (I didn't really think about it, but I assumed it was suggesting some kind of financial trouble etc)

Quote from: CarlssonInc. Stock Imagery Production on January 12, 2012, 07:03

Quote from: wut on January 11, 2012, 17:36

Quote from: CarlssonInc. Stock Imagery Production on January 11, 2012, 17:28

Quote from: wut on January 11, 2012, 17:11
Well at least I won't have to bother with their prehistoric, middle ages torture alike upload process for a while. Or forever.

What is wrong with DeepMeta, which is also supported by iStock?

IMO, it's not much of an improvement, you still have to tick through all that boxes. Besides it's ultra unintuitive, it turns me away from using it. It only reflects their level of programming incompetence, really.

I guess we have very different opinions - I find DM very easy and fast to use. Ticking a couple of boxes ain't really any hardship. Are you saying that at the other sites you upload and then everything is taken care of, no additional work for you - Getty like in that case.

What do you mean a couple of boxes, you have to tick dozens. For instance take care of the CV for the first photo, which then applies to the rest. But that doesn't help me much or even at all, since I usually send little similars (and because of that identically keyworded photos), so I have to do it manually for most photos. Indeed it is at many sites. AT SS you just UL, IPTC data fills all the boxes, you choose categories and releases for all at the time (so no timeconsuming PITA CV ticking). Then there are sites like 123RF, CS etc, where you just dump everything on and add releaeses. If you have a big batch with dozen different keyword sets it's about 45x faster

Quote from: lisafx on January 11, 2012, 17:36

Quote from: michealo on January 11, 2012, 16:59

Quote from: Cogent Marketing on January 11, 2012, 16:51
I think Istock are STILL excluding indies on certain searches and favouring crowns.

so it is beneficial to be exclusive, now that surprises me, who would have thought ...

Can you point me to where near total exclusion of non-exclusive files in searches was touted as an exclusive benefit?  I've been on Istock for 7 years, and while there was always an exclusive bias, customers used to be presented with a reasonable choice of indy images too.    

Customers expect "best match" to best suit their search terms, not to be a way of further padding the company's bottom line.  If a customer wanted to see only exclusive images, that has always been an option.  No need to incorporate it into best match.  GOOD exclusive images and talented artists have always been able to stand on their own without rigging the game.

I don't spend my time checking searches as best match changes all the time.

I see most analysis here along the lines of there is no water (the tide is out) or there is loads of water (the tide is in) but you miss a salient data point which is what % of total files are exclusive versus non exclusive

As for what customers expect that is largely irrelevant they don't own companies, shareholders do. It's naive to imagine that companies exist for the benefit of their customers or employees, smart companies realise that they have to keep those stakeholders happy to prosper but that is a side issue.

Quote from: wut on January 12, 2012, 10:24

Quote from: CarlssonInc. Stock Imagery Production on January 12, 2012, 07:03

Quote from: wut on January 11, 2012, 17:36

Quote from: CarlssonInc. Stock Imagery Production on January 11, 2012, 17:28

Quote from: wut on January 11, 2012, 17:11
Well at least I won't have to bother with their prehistoric, middle ages torture alike upload process for a while. Or forever.

What is wrong with DeepMeta, which is also supported by iStock?

IMO, it's not much of an improvement, you still have to tick through all that boxes. Besides it's ultra unintuitive, it turns me away from using it. It only reflects their level of programming incompetence, really.

I guess we have very different opinions - I find DM very easy and fast to use. Ticking a couple of boxes ain't really any hardship. Are you saying that at the other sites you upload and then everything is taken care of, no additional work for you - Getty like in that case.

What do you mean a couple of boxes, you have to tick dozens. For instance take care of the CV for the first photo, which then applies to the rest. But that doesn't help me much or even at all, since I usually send little similars (and because of that identically keyworded photos), so I have to do it manually for most photos. Indeed it is at many sites. AT SS you just UL, IPTC data fills all the boxes, you choose categories and releases for all at the time (so no timeconsuming PITA CV ticking). Then there are sites like 123RF, CS etc, where you just dump everything on and add releaeses. If you have a big batch with dozen different keyword sets it's about 45x faster

I import image to DM, embedded IPTC data populates titles, descriptions as well as keywords that populates about 95% without me having to tick anything for clarification as I use the CV already. Then tick OPTIONAL categories (educated guesses already pre-selected), attach release if needed and then upload to IS. Very fast and efficient IMO.

DM is also perfect for administering already uploaded images, optimizing keywords etc. All very fast as it is "off site". Added benefit it is very easy to link images together, include lightboxes etc. If you have similars it literally as easy as copy and paste.

Quote from: CarlssonInc. Stock Imagery Production on January 12, 2012, 10:56
I import image to DM, embedded IPTC data populates titles, descriptions as well as keywords that populates about 95% without me having to tick anything for clarification as I use the CV already. Then tick OPTIONAL categories (educated guesses already pre-selected), attach release if needed and then upload to IS. Very fast and efficient IMO.

That obviously doesn't work for indies, now does it

Quote from: wut on January 12, 2012, 11:22

Quote from: CarlssonInc. Stock Imagery Production on January 12, 2012, 10:56
I import image to DM, embedded IPTC data populates titles, descriptions as well as keywords that populates about 95% without me having to tick anything for clarification as I use the CV already. Then tick OPTIONAL categories (educated guesses already pre-selected), attach release if needed and then upload to IS. Very fast and efficient IMO.

That obviously doesn't work for indies, now does it

That is of course very true...

Quote from: michealo on January 12, 2012, 10:55



As for what customers expect that is largely irrelevant they don't own companies, shareholders do. It's naive to imagine that companies exist for the benefit of their customers or employees, smart companies realise that they have to keep those stakeholders happy to prosper but that is a side issue.

I don't know if this is directed at me or someone else, but I would suggest it is "naive" of Istock to imagine it can keep making profits for their shareholders when they are hemorrhaging buyers.  It's not a side issue, it's the central issue.  You seem to have it bassackwards.   

Companies like Istock don't produce anything.  They are middle-men who exist to provide a service - enabling buyers to find a product, and transferring money received from buyers to the producers of that product.  For which they take an obscene cut, BTW.  Istock is failing miserably on both fronts.

Quote from: lisafx on January 12, 2012, 17:51

Quote from: michealo on January 12, 2012, 10:55



As for what customers expect that is largely irrelevant they don't own companies, shareholders do. It's naive to imagine that companies exist for the benefit of their customers or employees, smart companies realise that they have to keep those stakeholders happy to prosper but that is a side issue.

I don't know if this is directed at me or someone else, but I would suggest it is "naive" of Istock to imagine it can keep making profits for their shareholders when they are hemorrhaging buyers.  It's not a side issue, it's the central issue.  You seem to have it bassackwards.   

Companies like Istock don't produce anything.  They are middle-men who exist to provide a service - enabling buyers to find a product, and transferring money received from buyers to the producers of that product.  For which they take an obscene cut, BTW.  Istock is failing miserably on both fronts.

They still seem to be doing ok on the "taking an obscene cut" front though.

Quote from: lisafx on January 12, 2012, 17:51

Quote from: michealo on January 12, 2012, 10:55

Companies like Istock don't produce anything.  They are middle-men who exist to provide a service - enabling buyers to find a product, and transferring money received from buyers to the producers of that product.  For which they take an obscene cut, BTW.  Istock is failing miserably on both fronts.

+1 and a million more.

Quote from: lisafx on January 12, 2012, 17:51
Companies like Istock don't produce anything.  They are middle-men who exist to provide a service - enabling buyers to find a product, and transferring money received from buyers to the producers of that product.  For which they take an obscene cut, BTW.  Istock is failing miserably on both fronts.

They create a marketplace. That is a pretty big product.

Including forums, articles, workshops...and of course all the advertising, legal stuff, accounting, customer service etc...

You might as well say ebay, amazon, itunes "don´t produce anything".

Quote from: cobalt on January 12, 2012, 20:35


You might as well say ebay, amazon, itunes "don´t produce anything".

Yes, you might as well say that.   The difference is that those sites provide a smoothly functioning marketplace for their customers, and a fairer return to their suppliers.  Which is why none of them is in freefall, unlike Istock. 

I would appreciate a bug free site, excellent communication  and a positive upbeat management with great progress and sales reports, that´s for sure

But all the agencies put a lot of work into their services, they are much more than just "middlemen"