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Author Topic: Another Massive Best Match Shift  (Read 246969 times)

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« Reply #325 on: December 28, 2011, 11:56 »
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Imagine the effect this has on Yuri, to see his expense and hard work wasted and his work not showing in the early pages of a search. I typed in 'businessman handshake' and found every exclusive copycat in the ranks but no Yuri in the front pages.
Yuri didn't invent the business handshake, in fact the oldest "business handshake" on istock is an exclusive file along with most of the other earliest ones.  Yuri's first business handshake was from 2006, 3 years after the first one.  I'm not sure how you can say everyone copied Yuri?

Yuri is the supreme copycat. But the big guns in the "business" category are all copying each other and it started with the early iStockers copying successful images from the traditional libraries. So none of them are concept pioneers.

However, Yuri Arcurs undoubtedly does it best (as his sales figures web-wide attest) so burying his content is not giving customers the "best" match.


« Reply #326 on: December 28, 2011, 11:57 »
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This best match is not better not worse than any of the precedents. In some aspects is better (more original content on front of costumers), in some worse (less cheap files in front). I don't think many customers will even notice it.  And yes, it's better for some contributors and worse for other..., but that's another matter, completely different.

Personally I think the best match is far worse than before. For a start many searches are dominated by a few newly-uploaded series by the same contributor/s thus offering less immediate choice. There's a reason why best-selling images are 'best-sellers' __ they're the ones the buyers liked the most (when they could actually find them). Suppressing such images behind a motley group of 'fresh' but largely boring and similar content is unlikely to thrill the buyers much.

Anyway, we'll soon see what happens won't we? The 'How was your January' thread on the IS forum should be illuminating.

Well, I have read the thoughts of independents for a long time on here.  And the couple of themes independents agreed on were keeping files "not all eggs in one basket" and this decision was leading to a mitigated loss effect with the fall of istock.  Many reporting the rise of SS at the expense of istock.  The common link between the two sites was selling the same independent files at different prices.  What would you in this scenario?  Besides sticking a link at the bottom saying this file is cheaper (way cheaper) at SS and every other rf site.   You saw the recent ad by Bigstock saying we have the same files for 60% cheaper.   I am not sure how this business models survives.   Price is not a factor that can be overcome by (features, service, or fancy colors).   Yes istock took more profit from independents, but they lost a lot of market share and strengthened their competitors.  Not a very good long term business strategy. 

lisafx

« Reply #327 on: December 28, 2011, 12:07 »
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They could just add another filter, exclusive only if that was the point. And highlight it so buyers can really see it. Problem solved, for those that are looking for exclusive content. But that would go against everything they're really trying to achieve

They already have an exclusive only filter.  Have had as long as I've been there (7 years).  Only difference is they now have (effectively) two exclusive only filters, and one of them is called Best Match.  ;)

traveler1116

« Reply #328 on: December 28, 2011, 12:08 »
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Imagine the effect this has on Yuri, to see his expense and hard work wasted and his work not showing in the early pages of a search. I typed in 'businessman handshake' and found every exclusive copycat in the ranks but no Yuri in the front pages.
Yuri didn't invent the business handshake, in fact the oldest "business handshake" on istock is an exclusive file along with most of the other earliest ones.  Yuri's first business handshake was from 2006, 3 years after the first one.  I'm not sure how you can say everyone copied Yuri?

Yuri is the supreme copycat. But the big guns in the "business" category are all copying each other and it started with the early iStockers copying successful images from the traditional libraries. So none of them are concept pioneers.

However, Yuri Arcurs undoubtedly does it best (as his sales figures web-wide attest) so burying his content is not giving customers the "best" match.
I wasn't saying Yuri is copying, just that he wasn't the first to do those shots and it's a bit ridiculous to say "every exclusive copycat" copied him when that obviously isn't true.  I do agree that it isn't the best match but it hasn't been for a while and it's been said before but no one seems to listen or they just don't want to acknowledge (is this what cognitive dissonance means?) that a few months ago nonexclusive images dominated the best match disproportionately.  It'll change again, at least for you nonexclusives it happened now rather than a month or two ago during the peak selling time.

« Reply #329 on: December 28, 2011, 12:12 »
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Imagine the effect this has on Yuri, to see his expense and hard work wasted and his work not showing in the early pages of a search. I typed in 'businessman handshake' and found every exclusive copycat in the ranks but no Yuri in the front pages.

Thank goodness he has the benefit of being independent and not having his eggs in one basket.  This should be a non-issue!

lisafx

« Reply #330 on: December 28, 2011, 12:14 »
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  Besides sticking a link at the bottom saying this file is cheaper (way cheaper) at SS and every other rf site.   You saw the recent ad by Bigstock saying we have the same files for 60% cheaper.   I am not sure how this business models survives.   Price is not a factor that can be overcome by (features, service, or fancy colors).   Yes istock took more profit from independents, but they lost a lot of market share and strengthened their competitors.  Not a very good long term business strategy. 

Well, considering that (to my knowledge) EVERY other microstock site charges less than Istock and pays contributors a higher percentage, it seems to be quite doable.  In fact, most of the other major sites are thriving as Istock appears in decline.  Seems to me that it is Istock who has strengthened their competitors, and does not have a good long-term business strategy. 

FWIW, it was not the price differential that has caused Istock's buyers to abandon it for SS.  There has been a big price difference for a number of years.  Whatever the reason for the shift was, it most certainly wasn't the price difference on independent files.

lagereek

« Reply #331 on: December 28, 2011, 12:22 »
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I wasn't contemplating exclusivity - I'd signed a medium-term contract with another  agent, so it wasn't an option for me - but I know Gostwyck was about to jump. That was when they introduced the different pricing for exclusives. But just before a lot of people completed their six-month moratorium on uploading to DT, the powers that be at iStock decided to kick the train off the rails. I can't recall which crisis it was, but it came just in time to stop a lot of independents reaching for the crown.

That was one of the first shoot-self-in-foot moments at iS.

Yes, it was Gostwyck, me, and Cathy Clapper from this board, among others, who were waiting out the 6 months to become exclusive, and had been doing so under assurances that we would "be grandfathered into our current canister levels", back when that meant a certain royalty %.  The "kick off the rails" was the Sept. 2010 introduction of RC credits, making canister levels worthless.  We were lucky in that it happened before we went exclusive.  Some, like Dgilder and others weren't as lucky and got sucked into exclusivity on false pretenses.  I don't see how anyone could ever trust Istock after they did that. 

Me too and thank * we didnt. Imagine having to wake up seven days a week, wondering if the site is still there or exploaded, or the entire interface reaching out, to grab you by the balls or what hairy creature is constructing a new best match while eating a banana.
We could be a lot worse off you know. :)

« Reply #332 on: December 28, 2011, 12:29 »
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Imagine the effect this has on Yuri, to see his expense and hard work wasted and his work not showing in the early pages of a search. I typed in 'businessman handshake' and found every exclusive copycat in the ranks but no Yuri in the front pages.

Thank goodness he has the benefit of being independent and not having his eggs in one basket.  This should be a non-issue!

Jealous, Sean?


 

« Reply #333 on: December 28, 2011, 12:30 »
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Imagine the effect this has on Yuri, to see his expense and hard work wasted and his work not showing in the early pages of a search. I typed in 'businessman handshake' and found every exclusive copycat in the ranks but no Yuri in the front pages.
Yuri didn't invent the business handshake, in fact the oldest "business handshake" on istock is an exclusive file along with most of the other earliest ones.  Yuri's first business handshake was from 2006, 3 years after the first one.  I'm not sure how you can say everyone copied Yuri?

So true.

reckless

« Reply #334 on: December 28, 2011, 12:44 »
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Imagine the effect this has on Yuri, to see his expense and hard work wasted and his work not showing in the early pages of a search. I typed in 'businessman handshake' and found every exclusive copycat in the ranks but no Yuri in the front pages.
Yuri didn't invent the business handshake, in fact the oldest "business handshake" on istock is an exclusive file along with most of the other earliest ones.  Yuri's first business handshake was from 2006, 3 years after the first one.  I'm not sure how you can say everyone copied Yuri?

Guess I should have done my homework. How could one man possibly dominate the businessman searches until lately. Now the same style shows up but with gold crowns attached? What was I thinking?

SNP

  • Canadian Photographer
« Reply #335 on: December 28, 2011, 12:55 »
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as said above, what happens when independents get fed up and leave iStock altogether? maybe that's a non-issue since those upset here represent a tiny percentage of the overall non-exclusive contributor base. for the record, this latest best match incarnation certainly isn't doing anything magical for this exclusive's sales. but there is no denying that the search results are absolutely dominated by exclusive content this week. seems different from the usual type of best match tweak.

« Reply #336 on: December 28, 2011, 12:58 »
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Imagine the effect this has on Yuri, to see his expense and hard work wasted and his work not showing in the early pages of a search. I typed in 'businessman handshake' and found every exclusive copycat in the ranks but no Yuri in the front pages.
Thank goodness he has the benefit of being independent and not having his eggs in one basket.  This should be a non-issue!
Jealous, Sean?

Hee hee....

lagereek

« Reply #337 on: December 28, 2011, 13:12 »
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as said above, what happens when independents get fed up and leave iStock altogether? maybe that's a non-issue since those upset here represent a tiny percentage of the overall non-exclusive contributor base. for the record, this latest best match incarnation certainly isn't doing anything magical for this exclusive's sales. but there is no denying that the search results are absolutely dominated by exclusive content this week. seems different from the usual type of best match tweak.

Hi Stacey!  but its a heavy minority, many high end contributors. At least we vent our opinions and share here. The dangerous crowd, is the silent crowd of independants, they say nothing, suffer a bit in silence and then they leave, without a word and if theres anything to go by what has been whispered to me, they have left in thousands.

« Reply #338 on: December 28, 2011, 13:38 »
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Under this best match it doesn't matter if we leave or not, we've been made irrelevant (though maybe some people will search by DLs). In any case, even if I earn almost nothing at iS next month, I will still want my $200 from TS.

One thing that surely has to make this search unsustainable is that it slams the door in the face of newbies. It's hard to imagine any of them ever being able to get a foothold is IS if everything they submit starts life in the bottom 30% of any given search. So, at the moment, it is effectively a members-only exclusive club.

BTW, I'm not at all upset. I've got past the stage of being upset with IS, just like I got past being upset over rejections. I've become fatalistic about it.

« Reply #339 on: December 28, 2011, 13:51 »
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Under this best match it doesn't matter if we leave or not, we've been made irrelevant (though maybe some people will search by DLs). In any case, even if I earn almost nothing at iS next month, I will still want my $200 from TS.

One thing that surely has to make this search unsustainable is that it slams the door in the face of newbies. It's hard to imagine any of them ever being able to get a foothold is IS if everything they submit starts life in the bottom 30% of any given search. So, at the moment, it is effectively a members-only exclusive club.

BTW, I'm not at all upset. I've got past the stage of being upset with IS, just like I got past being upset over rejections. I've become fatalistic about it.

Newton said it best:"For every action there is an equal and opposite re-action". They can`t just keep shoveling sh*t into the fan without getting it all over themselves too.

« Reply #340 on: December 28, 2011, 13:55 »
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  Besides sticking a link at the bottom saying this file is cheaper (way cheaper) at SS and every other rf site.   You saw the recent ad by Bigstock saying we have the same files for 60% cheaper.   I am not sure how this business models survives.   Price is not a factor that can be overcome by (features, service, or fancy colors).   Yes istock took more profit from independents, but they lost a lot of market share and strengthened their competitors.  Not a very good long term business strategy. 

Well, considering that (to my knowledge) EVERY other microstock site charges less than Istock and pays contributors a higher percentage, it seems to be quite doable.  In fact, most of the other major sites are thriving as Istock appears in decline.  Seems to me that it is Istock who has strengthened their competitors, and does not have a good long-term business strategy. 

FWIW, it was not the price differential that has caused Istock's buyers to abandon it for SS.  There has been a big price difference for a number of years.  Whatever the reason for the shift was, it most certainly wasn't the price difference on independent files.

Have you looked at the prices of your images at istock vs other agencies.  At one agency I could buy 15 of your images for the cost of one image at istock.  They are the exact same image.  No difference whatsoever.  But price isn't the cause of the loss of sales to istock??? 

jbarber873

« Reply #341 on: December 28, 2011, 13:58 »
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Under this best match it doesn't matter if we leave or not, we've been made irrelevant (though maybe some people will search by DLs). In any case, even if I earn almost nothing at iS next month, I will still want my $200 from TS.

One thing that surely has to make this search unsustainable is that it slams the door in the face of newbies. It's hard to imagine any of them ever being able to get a foothold is IS if everything they submit starts life in the bottom 30% of any given search. So, at the moment, it is effectively a members-only exclusive club.

BTW, I'm not at all upset. I've got past the stage of being upset with IS, just like I got past being upset over rejections. I've become fatalistic about it.

    One way to look at this is that Istock is creating a collection of exclusive content that you can't get anywhere else.
    Another way to look at it is that if you search at Istock, you effectively have no access to the best selling files by a majority of microstock artists.
It's hard to say how this plays out. In the short term it may help them keep the exclusives in house, but in the long term it may make for a less competitive collection, especially if as Baldrick says, newbies will be unable to be seen and sell. Any collection that filters out new blood does so at it's peril.
As noted elsewhere on this thread, Yuri was not the first person to shoot a handshake, but the fact that he is the best seller proves that quality will win out over just being first.

« Reply #342 on: December 28, 2011, 14:00 »
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...Has anyone else noticed that some search words/phrases seem to have virtually disappeared? Try a search on 'roast lamb' for example. I'm getting zero results even when using different PCs and ISPs. Same with 'lamb (mutton)'. The phrase 'lamb shank' only generates 5 results although there are well over 100 within the library. I'd assume that there must be other similar issues.

If you do a search on roast and lamb you get some results - that suggests to me that they've introduced a new CV term - Roast Lamb - but no files have that and they haven't made the search changes that should go with that (if you do a cv term search that gets 0 results, try the two words AND-ed and put up a message about what you did).

The fact that there are a bunch of very cute and very alive lambs that show up in the search for roast and lamb appears to be spamming. I don't think keywording animals with the meal they might become is helpful in any way to buyers

xst

« Reply #343 on: December 28, 2011, 14:01 »
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SS (so far)
1. hasn't cut my commissions.
2. Gives me .38c without requiring exclusivity
3. hasn't changed best match to make almost all my images invisible (for example make search for "sensual couple" - first 100 pages of 201 have ONE non exclusive image)
4. counts ALL downloads toward higher payout level


@lagereek

Christian,

Hope Christmas was good and that you were unaffected by the hurricane/storm - you are up north somewhere right?

Loads of things are going on at the moment, but I'm trying to keep a cool head and not doing anything rash or jump to conclusions, I've weathered many storms before during my 10 years in this industry, you probably have experienced many more.

As usual all the noise is coming from what seems to be a very vocal minority, but I'm starting to feel that a few comments made by contributors that seems to share my cool head have made me take these recent developments a little bit more seriously. I'm suffering at iStock at the moment, not catastrophic, but it is negative. Whether this is the result of industry developments, the tinkering with the best match search or something else I haven't worked out fully just yet. Hard to base decisions on only anecdotal information.

However, I fail to see the vast difference between the subscription model and it's pricing at Shutterstock versus TS/Photos.com - a few cents perhaps, but that's it right? Is it those few cents that make you this angry/annoyed/aggravated or have I missed something?

The way you "paint" iStock as basically untrustworthy (although in the past you seemed to have a completely different opinion) I also don't understand why you still have any images left there whatsoever? It doesn't seem to be worth it to you, both in terms of revenue nor the negative energy it seems to generate with you. Perhaps it would be better for you to drop them completely and not have to spend your time/energy on iStock issues? Only looking out for your best as a friend ;)

I'm not a fan of the the low-priced subscription model at all, but at the moment I would put Shutterstock in the same bucket at TS/Photos.com in that regard. Please explain to me the BIG difference between Shutterstock's subscription model and TS/Photos.com. Obsviously Shutterstock is much larger and generate more sales, but pricing is not that different to warrant your upset?

xst

« Reply #344 on: December 28, 2011, 14:05 »
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In the past I was steering all clients of my design business to IS, now I recommend Dreams

  Besides sticking a link at the bottom saying this file is cheaper (way cheaper) at SS and every other rf site.   You saw the recent ad by Bigstock saying we have the same files for 60% cheaper.   I am not sure how this business models survives.   Price is not a factor that can be overcome by (features, service, or fancy colors).   Yes istock took more profit from independents, but they lost a lot of market share and strengthened their competitors.  Not a very good long term business strategy. 

Well, considering that (to my knowledge) EVERY other microstock site charges less than Istock and pays contributors a higher percentage, it seems to be quite doable.  In fact, most of the other major sites are thriving as Istock appears in decline.  Seems to me that it is Istock who has strengthened their competitors, and does not have a good long-term business strategy. 

FWIW, it was not the price differential that has caused Istock's buyers to abandon it for SS.  There has been a big price difference for a number of years.  Whatever the reason for the shift was, it most certainly wasn't the price difference on independent files.

« Reply #345 on: December 28, 2011, 14:06 »
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Best match at iStock no longer finds the most relevant image, rather it locates most relevant image from a very small subsection of the collection. This is not in any customer`s best interest so there is now yet another incentive for customers to move on to other sites. They are the authors of their own demise.

« Reply #346 on: December 28, 2011, 14:11 »
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...Have you looked at the prices of your images at istock vs other agencies.  At one agency I could buy 15 of your images for the cost of one image at istock.  They are the exact same image.  No difference whatsoever.  But price isn't the cause of the loss of sales to istock??? 

You're looking today, but for those of us who have been around at iStock (and other sites) since before there even was exclusivity at iStock realize that prices have fluctuated over time at sites that have been around for years. Mostly it's been upwards, just more so at iStock than elsewhere. Content that has been on all those sites for all those years got more expensive at iStock (not the huge price rises that came from putting longstanding exclusive content into Vetta and Agency, but still a rise). iStock has been competing very successfully with those other sites for all those years and their decline did not coincide with other sites cutting their prices to demolish iStock. It came with some really poorly thought out moves that IMO were largely driven by H&F & Getty.

In other words you make it sound as if contributors are making some change or the other sites are making a change that is why things aren't going well at iStock. Taking the long term view that just makes zero sense.

« Reply #347 on: December 28, 2011, 14:19 »
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In the past I was steering all clients of my design business to IS, now I recommend Dreams

When I log-in at iStock I still get a message flashing up saying that i "should" recommend the site to buyers because I'll get $20 if I do.

It seemed a bit crass when it first appeared, now it looks more like a bad joke. No way would any sane independent point buyers towards iStock now (perhaps that's something they've overlooked).

« Reply #348 on: December 28, 2011, 14:22 »
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In the past I was steering all clients of my design business to IS, now I recommend Dreams

When I log-in at iStock I still get a message flashing up saying that i "should" recommend the site to buyers because I'll get $20 if I do.

It seemed a bit crass when it first appeared, now it looks more like a bad joke. No way would any sane independent point buyers towards iStock now (perhaps that's something they've overlooked).

That`s the Hubris Factor at work :)

« Reply #349 on: December 28, 2011, 14:27 »
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Have you looked at the prices of your images at istock vs other agencies.  At one agency I could buy 15 of your images for the cost of one image at istock.  They are the exact same image.  No difference whatsoever.  But price isn't the cause of the loss of sales to istock??? 

If price is the cause of Istock's demise then it is more fool Istock for not knowing their own customers and their own market. Not so long ago they virtually 'owned' microstock and, if they'd played their cards better and been a little more patient, they still would.

Btw, it wasn't so long ago that Istock were selling images for 1/15th of their current prices either __ and everybody loved them for it. Buyers happily downloaded images by the bucketload, not because they had a use for them, but simply because they liked them.

If Istock had offered all exclusives 40% from the start (and maybe 50% to Diamonds or BD's) then the competition could not even have got started. Istock could have been as dominant as Microsoft, Google or Amazon currently are in their respective fields. That's when they could have decided what the market should pay. Now that we know how they act when in a position of power (and having sold out to private equity) it is probably just as well for all of us that that never happened.


 

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