I wonder if we are on a rotation to get the image exposure.

Thats my thinking of the meaning of "ebb and flow"

Whoa, daddy. Go Cam[rocker]!

"On the one hand I'm happy to see that its not just me that is suffering so greatly, on the other it makes me sick that so many people are suffering so greatly. I've been canceliing or turning down stock shooting opportunities consistantly for the past three weeks. I have serious doubts about the survival of this business and am now becoming embarrassed to admit I'm exclusive. I used to be a F*cking cheerleader for this place, and now I'm having to figure out what to do to keep providing for my family. I remember the language that iStock used to make us feel secure when signing up for exclusivity, something "trust us we'll take care of you". Maybe I'm paraphrasing but thats how I remember it. But from where I sit it looks as though you guys aren't taking care of crap. I can't even tell if your making any money for yourselves.

You need serious reinvention for your Contributor/Customer relations and Marketing, that is if you ever figure out how to keep the store front working. If I walked into an Apple store and I was forced to look at the Mac Pro before I could get my hands on an iTouch I would never enter that store again. From what I can tell that is exactly how you guys are playing this game, and the competition is laughing at all of us."

Source - http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=323102&page=2

I am finding the same. old files dominating my sales today. dls average.

What a fascinating and very telling response. All that talk of how *iStock* wants the best match and not a word on what the customers might want to see in the best match. I think they forgot who actually buys the images.

So this response tells us that:
A) Revenues must by OK or they would be willing to reverse the process.
Unless they are deliberately trying to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

It doesn't actually tell us that at all. It may be that the new best match is an attempt to reverse already declining sales. Don't forget that this change has immediately followed Istock's failure to post the new RC targets, most likely to avoid the embarrassment of admitting such. They've had to take some action.

FWIW sales seem back to "normal" for me. Normal-ish...

What makes us happy is our clients getting the most relevant possible results.

That's actually open to interpretation. What constitutes relevant? Relevant to whom? If it meant "most relevant to the clients' needs" then they wouldn't be happy packing the front of the search with files that people apparently don't want. But he now thinks that the major, necessary shake-up has taken place.

If the quote means "most relevant to our profit margins".... well... that may be different (though in the long-run its hard to see how iStock's best interests can be different from their clients' interests).

What makes us happy is our clients getting the most relevant possible results.

That's actually open to interpretation. What constitutes relevant? Relevant to whom? If it meant "most relevant to the clients' needs" then they wouldn't be happy packing the front of the search with files that people apparently don't want. But he now thinks that the major, necessary shake-up has taken place.

If the quote means "most relevant to our profit margins".... well... that may be different (though in the long-run its hard to see how iStock's best interests can be different from their clients' interests).

By placing all the V's and A's in the front it's anything but relevant. iStock's customer base is sensitive to prices from what I've seen over the years, and placing the high priced files in the front tells me they don't know their customers.  They're just alienating buyers at our expense in my opinion. 

have any of you actually performed test searches? it doesn't sound like it. I've searched on all my test search terms. each search has returned a solid MIX of files. in fact 'business' under best match sort order has only three Agency files and one Vetta file on the whole first page with 200 results.

I've done the same type of search on a number of random terms, some big, some drilled down and I'm not seeing anything flooded with V or A with the excpetion of the 'fish' search....which was given as an earlier example. that returns a large number of Vetta and Agency....who knows why. some of the terms I searched on that returned 'normal' results so that you can try them yourselves are:

business
woman
man
family
child
urban
teamwork
team work
house
for sale

I'm not commenting on the validity of the new best match, but it doesn't seem as V/A heavy as is being 'reported'.

I have done a few searches. Try 'hotel room' and see what comes up. When I did it the first 50 images were all Vetta and Agency files with one file that was in the main collection but a best seller. Also, it seems that search results may be regional and I've heard that different users are getting different results depending on where they are.

'Hotel Room' was Agency and Vetta for me. I also did 'fashion' - nothing but V&A for over 20 pages. Pages 20-30 still V&A heavy, but regular collection files scattered throughout. Started to get fewer V&A round about page 33.

ETA: BTW My search was set for 200 files per page. That's a lot of V&A!

For family I see a lot of flames and Agency, not too many Vetta though.

have any of you actually performed test searches? it doesn't sound like it.
I'm not commenting on the validity of the new best match, but it doesn't seem as V/A heavy as is being 'reported'.

'horse' photos only: 1 non V/Ain the top 200; 4 in the next 200. (give or take 1 or 2, maybe)

Jesus! I just searched on "fish" (both boxes ticked) and the first 1,000 files in the best match are almost exclusively Vetta or Agency with no more than maybe a dozen ordinary files scattered through them. A bunch of the first page results are truly bizarre from a very low-selling artist.
No wonder sales are collapsing.
If this is the same in other searches then there is little doubt the objective is to put as much high-priced content at the front as possible.

Ugh.

It makes me wonder if the status quo will continue for best match....i.e. Files found their way to the top of searches because they were a relevant to the search AND clicked on by the customer.

Will Vetta and Agency be always at the top of the searches, or will they filter down through the mass to the bottom, simply because they are more expensive and not due to irrelevancy.

Can somebody find a grossly irrelevant  Vetta or Agency image ? If so then Vetta and Agency images have a "bubble" around them so as they will always be at the top.

Time will tell....meanwhile my downloads are non-existent......is the Crown worth its exclusivity....

One interesting fact is that iStock has not grown in membership since January 36,892, Today 36,895. (I keep a spreadsheet on the numbers from http://istockcharts.multimedia.de/ ) When I look at the numbers, only the Base Level is decreasing, all other levels are increasing. Which says there has not been a new member this year.

The exclusive numbers have risen back up from Decembers Peak with December 5872, January 5399, Today 5479....Dec/Jan had a huge bailout due to the best match, I wonder what will happen in the next week or two.

Has the dust settled, no, its just the eye in the storm................