Contributor News � August 23, 2012

New Way to Pay for iStockphoto Customers

This week we have an early peek for iStock contributors into some upcoming site news: soon iStock customers will be able to pay for file downloads directly with their credit card, without first having to purchase credits.

This is a major change to how iStockphoto works. Our goal is to make it easier for people to download files, particularly new visitors to the site. We're taking away a lot of the complexity and modernizing our purchasing process.

All files will now display a price in US Dollars (or your local currency) as well as the price in credits. Our customers will be able to pay the dollar price with their credit card without having to buy a credit pack. We will still offer credits for people who download files regularly.

We will have much more detailed information about the new process when it launches. For now we want to give contributors a heads-up about the changes, and provide you with some answers to the big questions we know you have:

How you get paid
You still get paid the same way: your current royalty percentage on each US Dollar spent downloading your files.

Redeemed Credits
You will still earn the same Redeemed Credits for your files whether they are paid for with credits or the new system.
All files priced in US dollars (or local currency) have exactly the same Credit value associated with them as the value of that file in Credits. So, you still get the same amount of Redeemed Credits however customers choose to pay. If someone downloads a 30 Credit file, you still get 30 Redeemed Credits � whether they use credits, or pay directly with their credit card in their local currency.

Reporting
All file downloads will be reported to you in a single column. We won't break out information about what payment method was used for a file because the outcome for you is the same. Currently you have a separate column that breaks out Subscription downloads. This information will now be folded into the overall downloads total.

Downtime
The launch will require several hours of downtime. As you can imagine, rebuilding our purchasing backend is a big undertaking. We will provide advance notice of the downtime window a few days in advance.

Anticipated Issues
Several features from the file close-up page need to be rebuilt as part of this process and will be unavailable immediately after launch. These include:
� Adding files to a lightbox directly from the file closeup page (adding files to lightboxes from a search results page will be unaffected)
� Image Zoom
� File rating (existing reviews and ratings will still be visible, and sort by rating will still work)
We will get those features added back in that order of priority.

Timeline
This new functionality will go live within the next few weeks.

Text in Illustrations

iStock will now accept illustrations that include text elements. Design elements are a big part of our collection and we want to free up our illustrators to incorporate words into their creations. So we're loosening what used to be some pretty tight restrictions. Here's what we're looking for:

� Banners, badges, and other design elements that include text
� Wordmarks: text-only treatments that convey a concept. (We will be picky about these � bring your 'A' game.)
� Holiday illustrations with captions. ('Merry Christmas', 'Happy Valentine's Day')
� Original text designs (letters made out of balloons, etc)
� Multiple languages � think beyond English.

Submission requirements
� You must have the necessary rights to any existing font that you include. By uploading, you are warranting that you either own all copyrights to the font or typeface that you have used or that you have licensed the font or typeface for commercial use. Do your homework. Find out which fonts permit commercial use and which ones don't.
� All existing fonts must be converted to outlines prior to submission.
� Text must be interesting and useful. Don't just fire up illustrator, type a word, and expect it to be accepted. We are looking for original and unique type treatments, not 'I Love You' in Times New Roman Bold (or, God forbid, Comic Sans).

This change is effective immediately: you can upload these files now. We've prepared a beginner's guide to using text at iStock here.

Illustration Upload Limits

We've raised the upload limits for vector artists:

Non-Exclusive Upload Limits
� Default was 18, now 25
� Bronze was 20, now 30
� Silver was 24, now 40
� Gold was 30, now 50
� Diamond was 38, now 60
� Black Diamond was 40, now 70

Exclusive Upload Limits
� Bronze was 60, now 75
� Silver was 90, now 100
� Gold was 120, now 130
� Diamond was 150, now 160
� Black Diamond was 200, now 225

Royalty Payout Timelines

As you know, we pay your royalties one week after you put in your payment request. You can see a calendar of the different request deadlines for 2012 here.


The payout process begins at 9 AM one week later. Please be aware that this is a process and it takes time: you won't receive your payout at exactly at 9 AM. Sometimes the process may take 24-48 hours to complete.

The time of your ticket closure does not reflect when your payment will drop.

We will always let you know if there are going to be delays in the process.

Creative Brief Emails

We've been very happy with this new Contributor Newsletter email format. It works so well we've decided to start sending you another monthly email, this time on creative topics. Watch for a monthly creative brief from iStock in your email inbox. The email will have a short description of the topic and link to two detailed pdf briefs: one creative and one editorial.

Creative Research Survey

The Getty Images Creative Research team is conducting a survey into the different ways various countries are visually represented. We wanted to throw it out to you, the iStock contributor community, to get your input. Please help us out and take a few minutes to answer these questions.
   
     
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Could the fraud risk rise with this system? Meaning more charge backs? It sounds like a good system but from past experiences with istock my optimism is on guard. Hope it works for more purchases seeing that it will be one step easier to buy.

Downtime
The launch will require several hours of downtime. As you can imagine, rebuilding our purchasing backend is a big undertaking. We will provide advance notice of the downtime window a few days in advance.

my online banking page is never offline! iStock....

Apparently, they were listening. A little too late though. It will be interesting to see if they'll raise prices with it. 

This sounds like a response to SS Single Image sales.  Maybe the price should be increased?

 

Quote from: cthoman on August 23, 2012, 16:37

Apparently, they were listening. A little too late though. It will be interesting to see if they'll raise prices with it. 

This sounds like a response to SS Single Image sales.  Maybe the price should be increased?

 

Presuamably, the price would have to be a bit above the credit value of the smallest bundle.
Isn't there a credit card cost 'per transaction' in Canada?

I also fail to see how the zoom feature has to go away because they're allowing people to buy individual images. If it's a few days, it's no biggie, but when live stats went away they never came back.

I agree about not seeing the connection between payment method and zooming.
We might like to imagine that because zoom is important to buyers, they'd get it up and running pdq; but if logic were king, they'd find a way of doing it that didn't necessitate zooming to be suspended.

have looked at the thread in iStock forum but I couldn�t find any request from contributors, anybody has an explanation for no increase in uploading slots for photos?

Quote from: aeonf on August 23, 2012, 17:23

Sounds good to me.

Me too. Want something, buy what you need. I never liked credit systems anywhere, and that includes beer and food tickets at a country fair. 

Agree, it's pretty pointless just like "Krustyland money" - I think a lot of this industry is based on "seemed like a good idea at the time" thinking - credits, rejections based on tiny flaws that would never be visible looking at the entire image, huge res files just because "we can" when a hell of a percentage of use if for web, gazillions of spam keywords to describe that isolated tomato, newspeak dictionary controlled vocabs, etc, etc.

To me, the credit system started out ok, i.e. 1 credit = 1 dollar. But it seemed to provide a level of smoke and mirrors. When the agencies wanted to raise prices, the value of the credit dropped, but to the buyer, who was used to buying credits and thinking 1 credit =1 dollar, unless they searched the site carefully, would be tricked.

Thinking more about this, the timing is the other concern - we're coming up to the busy season. IS has repeatedly hosed the site during busy times because they botched software changes/updates. September to mid-December is one of the traditionally big sales seasons and it would be sane planning, IMO, if the site were worked on in January or over the summer (August is drawing to a close and they haven't started to roll out changes yet).

Perhaps this will be the one release that goes smoothly and has only minor bugs.....

A lot of contributors are thinking the same thing, but you'll never see this post on the IS Forums.

I wonder why they're doing it on Tuesday afternoon.
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=346649&page=1
I'd rather they did it on a Saturday and tested it to destruction on the Sunday.
But maybe they've learned from previous 'upgrades' and have tested it to destruction offsite. We live in hope.

Tuesday Sept 4?  It does seem like an odd time to revamp the site.  September 11 would have seemed more appropriate.   

Or December 21st, either way next Tuesday is a bad idea, based on past performance.