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ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #100 on: June 28, 2013, 05:14 »
0
I guess the next step will be subscriptions.
They have subs already, both relatively expensive subs on iS itself and relatively cheap subs via the PP.


« Reply #101 on: June 28, 2013, 05:45 »
+3
EVERY OTHER AGENCY IS A FRIENDLY AGENCY!

Absolute rubbish. Look at the shenanigans at Fotolia (I still think they're worse than iStock with all their hidden little tricks). Even SS is doing funny things with Bigstock. DT has such a confusing earnings structure that I'm never quite sure what they're doing. 123 just cut our commissions. So did Alamy.
I think Fotolia are almost as bad as istock but they seem to of followed there lead.  Its the same with the other sites that have seen what most contributors are willing to tolerate and have decided there's no point paying a decent commission percentage, when a lower one still gets a good supply of images.  I wouldn't put alamy in the same class as some of the others though.  50% commissions still seems fair compared to the 17% I get with istock that will probably be even worse next year.  It would be a huge financial loss for non-exclusives to take action against all the sites that have cut commissions but I think dealing with the one that pays the lowest commission percentage and has done the dreadful Google deal would send a message that we can only be pushed so far.  If nothings done on a large scale to make the sites see we mean business, there's no point in all these endless threads about the latest changes that are going to hit our earnings.

« Reply #102 on: June 28, 2013, 05:57 »
+3
EVERY OTHER AGENCY IS A FRIENDLY AGENCY!

Absolute rubbish. Look at the shenanigans at Fotolia (I still think they're worse than iStock with all their hidden little tricks). Even SS is doing funny things with Bigstock. DT has such a confusing earnings structure that I'm never quite sure what they're doing. 123 just cut our commissions. So did Alamy.

I just wanted to say that all other agencies seem far more friendly than IS in this moment, in relative sense... Of course, the biggest piece of "microstock agency alliance" is quite unfair for us...
But we don't need to be in business with them, that is our free will...
They are greedy, but we are more greedier than they are, if we can tolerate all this and continue to upload on their sites...
« Last Edit: June 28, 2013, 06:08 by borg »

« Reply #103 on: June 28, 2013, 06:12 »
0
EVERY OTHER AGENCY IS A FRIENDLY AGENCY!

Absolute rubbish. Look at the shenanigans at Fotolia (I still think they're worse than iStock with all their hidden little tricks). Even SS is doing funny things with Bigstock. DT has such a confusing earnings structure that I'm never quite sure what they're doing. 123 just cut our commissions. So did Alamy.
I think Fotolia are almost as bad as istock but they seem to of followed there lead.  Its the same with the other sites that have seen what most contributors are willing to tolerate and have decided there's no point paying a decent commission percentage, when a lower one still gets a good supply of images.  I wouldn't put alamy in the same class as some of the others though.  50% commissions still seems fair compared to the 17% I get with istock that will probably be even worse next year.  It would be a huge financial loss for non-exclusives to take action against all the sites that have cut commissions but I think dealing with the one that pays the lowest commission percentage and has done the dreadful Google deal would send a message that we can only be pushed so far.  If nothings done on a large scale to make the sites see we mean business, there's no point in all these endless threads about the latest changes that are going to hit our earnings.

So, we need another topic, "War against iStock", not "How to support friendly agencies"!

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #104 on: June 28, 2013, 06:33 »
+6
Isn't it amazing that when it's a change to our detriment, like RCs and dropping prices of Main files, it's always done in a timely manner, but when it's something that might benefit us, like mirroring E+ files to Getty, it can be months or in that particular case years late.
Funny that.

« Reply #105 on: June 28, 2013, 06:47 »
+1

You weren't talking about royalties, you said the cheapest license.  But if now you want to talk about the lowest paying royalties per license then look at the sub sites, some pay as low as 21 cents to license a full sized image.

But, iStock has/is a sub site. If you are going to average out your RPD at iStock, you have to include Thinkstock. Just like you include Single sales and On Demand in the RPD for Shutterstock and other sites that sell subs and individual image sales.
Fair enough.  For independents the RPD is probably about the same across many of the sites, what it looks like to me is that Istock has been lowering prices to compete with Shutterstock for a while first as you say with Thinkstock and now on the main site.  There probably isn't much difference anymore but if people will accept it at Shutterstock (even praise it) then why wouldn't they accept it at Istock?
BTW whatever happened with Fotolia talking about lowering royalties for contributors that were on cheaper sites?

1 - SS numbers for this month are over 20 times iStock, SS doesn't give me headaches (ever), actually it is the one that fuels the majority of contributors as you know, I dare to say that most contributors would quit without their income
2 - FT went back on their idea, nothing happened

« Reply #106 on: June 28, 2013, 07:22 »
+5
Yeah, well, in my own case I have good reason not to trust Fotolia on the most basic level and since it's stupid to rely on someone you can't trust I no longer sell through them.  When they respond to a request for payment by suspending your account and then put an internal memo on it saying payment has been sent when it hasn't, it is time to part company. At least iSTock tell me they are going to shaft me and do what they say.

« Reply #107 on: June 28, 2013, 09:06 »
0
deleted
« Last Edit: June 28, 2013, 09:08 by borg »

« Reply #108 on: June 28, 2013, 10:14 »
+12

I stopped uploading, removed 500 of my best images and left them with the LCV stuff, what is everyone else doing?

I stopped uploading and removed over 2000 images over the Google drive fiasco - and it was a huge deal (although luckily they didn't grab anything of mine)

I don't trust SS or any of the agencies at this point - each incident of "bad behavior" encourages the rest of them to keep pushing to see what they can get away with - however except for the ridiculous cuts at BigStock (which I suspect will come to SS in time) SS has been a straightforward agency to deal with. Terms have stayed the same or improved over time. Getty/iStock has broken numerous promises, broken the site too many times to count, cut contributor royalties and for many earnings as well. It has been opaque and obfuscating in just about every way it knows how.

So when the PP payments are delivered later and later each month because they can't get the connector working (really? all this time later you can't make it work reliably? their IT is either a kindergarten class or they are understaffing them so badly that there's no one working on most of the problems) or it just gives them a way to hang on to contributor money longer (managing the float is a time honored way for businesses to pocket a little extra cash), suggesting that there is any realistic comparison with SS's reliable timely payment (I don't ever remember waiting until the 15th of the month, ever, since October 2004) is insanity.

Everyone's entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.

« Reply #109 on: June 28, 2013, 10:26 »
0
they know how to do the job but most of the times they don't care (when there is no advantage for them)

this last change shows that very well

« Reply #110 on: June 28, 2013, 10:35 »
-2
Maybe I am boring but we need our stock agency! Microstockgroup agency!
So, how many of us are active here!?
We can make first round of IPO with first 100$ for contributors who want to participate and be shareholder....
Of course, we have to find country for agency registration, to find employees from this forum and start, easily, slowly...
When MSG agency will be "alive and kicking", contributors will be payed on usual way and on the end of year, with profit after taxes...

When every contributor start to feel this agency as his own, then you will see marketing explosion....

www.msgstockphoto.com can be domain...

One idea!
On that site you don't have to be exclusive contributor, but unique demand can be that you have to be "timeshare exclusive contributor" or you have to upload new content for example 1 year only on "msgstock agency"... After that period you can upload anywhere...
« Last Edit: June 28, 2013, 10:42 by borg »

« Reply #111 on: June 28, 2013, 10:52 »
+1
Maybe I am boring but we need our stock agency! Microstockgroup agency!
So, how many of us are active here!?
We can make first round of IPO with first 100$ for contributors who want to participate and be shareholder....
Of course, we have to find country for agency registration, to find employees from this forum and start, easily, slowly...
When MSG agency will be "alive and kicking", contributors will be payed on usual way and on the end of year, with profit after taxes...

When every contributor start to feel this agency as his own, then you will see marketing explosion....

www.msgstockphoto.com can be domain...

One idea!
On that site you don't have to be exclusive contributor, but unique demand can be that you have to be "timeshare exclusive contributor" or you have to upload new content for example 1 year only on "msgstock agency"... After that period you can upload anywhere...



Not many contributors here have the time or resources to start up an agency, let alone run it.

« Reply #112 on: June 28, 2013, 10:56 »
-1
But they can have 100$ to participate in project... People in active team will work for salary not to be volunteer....
Every successful agency mainly start from one man, I don't see reason why people who are already involved in microstock might not know how to built up another one...

Also my question is:
Is there some agency (low earner) whose owner is willing to sold complete web and infrastructure to MSG contributors? Then we can make several IPO rounds to collect money for put that agency in "top tier"...
« Last Edit: June 28, 2013, 11:01 by borg »

WarrenPrice

« Reply #113 on: June 28, 2013, 10:57 »
0
But they can have 100$ to participate in project... People in active team will work for salary not to be volunteer....
Every successful agency mainly start from one man, I don't see reason why people who are already involved in microstock might not know how to built up another one...

Search past threads on the subject and you will see.

« Reply #114 on: June 28, 2013, 11:04 »
-3
But they can have 100$ to participate in project... People in active team will work for salary not to be volunteer....
Every successful agency mainly start from one man, I don't see reason why people who are already involved in microstock might not know how to built up another one...

Search past threads on the subject and you will see.

Ok. Please Tyler could you shut down this forum...

This forum has no purpose...
This forum became a place for weeping and crying after bad agency moves...Meaningless work! >:(
« Last Edit: June 28, 2013, 11:06 by borg »

« Reply #115 on: June 28, 2013, 11:29 »
0
Thats a no go for me, simply not worth the frustration any more, deleting last remaining files.

Ron

« Reply #116 on: June 28, 2013, 11:39 »
0
But they can have 100$ to participate in project... People in active team will work for salary not to be volunteer....
Every successful agency mainly start from one man, I don't see reason why people who are already involved in microstock might not know how to built up another one...

Also my question is:
Is there some agency (low earner) whose owner is willing to sold complete web and infrastructure to MSG contributors? Then we can make several IPO rounds to collect money for put that agency in "top tier"...
IF you get 100 people to partake, you have 10.000 dollar. Its not even enough to get through your first meeting. Plus there is such an agency, Stocksy, unfortunately Stocksy is a private club who are not taking any new contributors at the moment.

« Reply #117 on: June 28, 2013, 12:11 »
+1
It's unbelievable really!!!!   >:(

I'm not going to upload to them until they fix their collections and my files have a chance to move to a normal priced collection.

« Reply #118 on: June 28, 2013, 12:43 »
+1
Istock making files cheaper it's not good news for anybody. Istock has been (I mean istock, not TS or Getty) the only agency that has been raising prices consistently, reaching a good level, far away from the cents scheme. Other agencies, although having the opportunity, never followed this trend (stocksy would be the exception, but right now stocksy is just an startup). Actually, it seemed that the main marketing weapon of the other micro sites was to sell cheaper than istock. Istock will regain customers, no doubt. And so, other agencies will be tempted to compete again in price (let's say selling for 0.5 what IS sells for 1). And if selling for 0.5 is insustainable, next thing that will suffer will be comission rates.

lisafx

« Reply #119 on: June 28, 2013, 13:05 »
+17

So, we need another topic, "War against iStock", not "How to support friendly agencies"!

Reading your posts today, I am just shaking my head.  Back in February hundreds of us got together and staged a protest by deleting all or part of our portfolios and stopping uploading.  Where the F were you then?  Going on like business as usual?   

Now you want everyone to follow you into some "war" with Istock?  We already had the "war" and you and a lot of other people who are irate today evidently didn't participate.  If everyone had, maybe they wouldn't be pulling yet more sh*-t. 


« Reply #120 on: June 28, 2013, 13:27 »
+3
...Istock will regain customers, no doubt....
I'm not so sure they will regain customers.  Virtually getting rid of QC and swamping the sites with images that they used to reject might make buyers decide they aren't worth bothering with.  I think they've worked hard to get rid of their buyers, it will be even harder to get them back.

« Reply #121 on: June 28, 2013, 14:32 »
+1
I was searching for images of and got a survey popup (which I took). I thought it might be about the changes in interface, but it was just a question about what I thought iStock sold (photos, vectors, music, video, fonts) had I bought from them and would I recommend them to others, was the site easy to navigate, was the information confusing vs. clear. There was a comment box at the end and I noted how it was so confusing to see a bunch of images that looked close to identical at wildly different prices.

They get points for doing a survey, but I can't imagine that the current state of the site is the result of listening to buyers in prior surveys.

SS is having a great June (much better than last June); DT is only 75% of June's numbers last year (in spite of having more level 5, 4, etc. images than I did then) so if I had to guess where the customers are going...

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #122 on: June 28, 2013, 14:40 »
+3
They get points for doing a survey, but I can't imagine that the current state of the site is the result of listening to buyers in prior surveys.
Oh, don't worry, they surely didn't listen to contributor surveys either. They maybe fine one deluded soul who gave the answer they wanted, and latch right on to that. If there were two, they could spin it, "Our customers told us that ..."

« Reply #123 on: June 28, 2013, 15:11 »
+1
Quit submitting long ago, and on D-Day I deactivated all but one file.  I wanted to keep the account active in case some miracle occurred, and that obviously hasn't happened.  The main reason I originally quit submitting was the keywording process, which is the one thing they'll never change.

"Nothing works and nobody cares."  - Robert Ruark





ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #124 on: June 28, 2013, 15:23 »
0
...Istock will regain customers, no doubt....
I'm not so sure they will regain customers.  Virtually getting rid of QC and swamping the sites with images that they used to reject might make buyers decide they aren't worth bothering with.  I think they've worked hard to get rid of their buyers, it will be even harder to get them back.

What have they done with best match today? Last night, a search on 'gorilla' was fairly reasonable, mostly actual gorillas, but a bit light on new files. Now there are mostly gorillas on the first few lines then a whole load of blokes in gorilla costumes, which either Keywords or Ducksandwich said were not to be keyworded Gorilla as Gorilla Mask and monkey costume are in the CV.
Honestly, what's the point?

Added: I think it's an extension of what I noticed last night when I said that changing sort order wasn't reliable. Now I can change to sort by downloads, but best match is the same as Age and I can't change it. Even trying in a new tab didn't change it this time.

Added again: best match works fine in IE but not FF.
« Last Edit: June 28, 2013, 18:24 by ShadySue »


 

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