Author Topic: Have you moved on Istockcharts? (Read 14889 times)

Snowball · « **on:** April 23, 2011, 11:38 »

Just for fun, check out your position on http://istockcharts.multimedia.de/. Have you moved up or down?

Looking at the IS charts recently, I noticed that there are people moving UP in the charts but complaining of declining sales overall.

What does this mean? Well, if you are moving up, but your sales are bad, then the overall sales of the collection are most likely being redistributed among other contributors or collections, or else falling universally.

At least that's my interpretation. But I'm no statistician. Will be interested in hearing other people's theories on the data as the poll progresses.

I moved up in the charts but sales are way down. Non-exclusive.

gostwyck · « **Reply #1 on:** April 23, 2011, 11:48 »

I'm slowly moving up in the chart (which is nice) ... but my sales are also steadily declining (which is not so nice). More than anything that tells me that Istock, in their foam-mouthed greed, are basically f*cked. SS have beaten them at their own game. Comfortably. Heigh-ho.

lagereek · « **Reply #2 on:** April 23, 2011, 12:51 »

Same here, moving up but sales not what they used to be.

Sean Locke Photography · « **Reply #3 on:** April 23, 2011, 12:56 »

Assuming you're sorting by downloads?

Same old place...

fotografer · « **Reply #4 on:** April 23, 2011, 13:02 »

My sales haven't changed much over the last few months but I have gone up a bit.

visceralimage · « **Reply #5 on:** April 23, 2011, 13:13 »

Quote from: sjlocke on April 23, 2011, 12:56

Assuming you're sorting by downloads?

Same old place...

gets a bit lonely at the top (near the top), eh

RacePhoto · « **Reply #6 on:** April 23, 2011, 14:38 »

I'm moving up but my pictures are "CrapStock" just seems that sales dribble in and it must be the people above me are even worse off?

I don't shoot models, I shoot the overdone, over supplied, stuff and things. I can't explain why anyone buys anything of mine, but as long as they do, I'll take the spare change.

Believe it or not, I'm in the top 50% of all sellers for total sales. That's pretty sad.

Quote from: Snowball on April 23, 2011, 11:38

Just for fun, check out your position on http://istockcharts.multimedia.de/. Have you moved up or down?

Looking at the IS charts recently, I noticed that there are people moving UP in the charts but complaining of declining sales overall.

What does this mean? Well, if you are moving up, but your sales are bad, then the overall sales of the collection are most likely being redistributed among other contributors or collections, or else falling universally.

At least that's my interpretation. But I'm no statistician. Will be interested in hearing other people's theories on the data as the poll progresses.

I moved up in the charts but sales are way down. Non-exclusive.

Snowball · « **Reply #7 on:** April 23, 2011, 14:46 »

Quote from: RacePhoto on April 23, 2011, 14:38

I'm moving up but my pictures are "CrapStock" just seems that sales dribble in and it must be the people above me are even worse off?

I don't shoot models, I shoot the overdone, over supplied, stuff and things. I can't explain why anyone buys anything of mine, but as long as they do, I'll take the spare change.

Believe it or not, I'm in the top 50% of all sellers for total sales. That's pretty sad.

If you are in the top 50% and moving up, then you must be shooting "crapstock" people want to buy.

ShadySue · « **Reply #8 on:** April 23, 2011, 16:26 »

Something seems to have changed again with the way istockcharts allocate positions. For a while, it was alphabetical order within your fuzzy total, i.e. if your name was Aardvark and you had 9901 dls, you'd come well above Zumba who had 9999.
Now that has changed totally. I just rolled over 10,000 on Thursday, which means I must be around 'real' position 1994. But I'm actually showing at 1858. I can't see how it's worked out, but it's not 'actual' downloads and it's not alphabtical within fuzzy totals. It also seems not to be dl/ul ratio or dl per time on site, both of which would be useful differentiators within the fuzzy total.
Ironically for a long time when there was an 'absolute' total, I was position 1860.
I have counted my 'real' position as being c1994, so have voted for lower position/lower dls.

Snowball · « **Reply #9 on:** April 23, 2011, 16:37 »

Quote from: ShadySue on April 23, 2011, 16:26

Something seems to have changed again with the way istockcharts allocate positions. For a while, it was alphabetical order within your fuzzy total, i.e. if your name was Aardvark and you had 9901 dls, you'd come well above Zumba who had 9999.
Now that has changed totally. I just rolled over 10,000 on Thursday, which means I must be around 'real' position 1994. But I'm actually showing at 1858. I can't see how it's worked out, but it's not 'actual' downloads and it's not alphabtical within fuzzy totals. It also seems not to be dl/ul ratio or dl per time on site, both of which would be useful differentiators within the fuzzy total.
Ironically for a long time when there was an 'absolute' total, I was position 1860.
I have counted my 'real' position as being c1994, so have voted for lower position/lower dls.

Strange. Would be nice to know what methodology they are using now. That might explain some of my growth too, but unless I know what changed I can't be sure.

stockmarketer · « **Reply #10 on:** April 23, 2011, 19:35 »

I moved up, but sales are down. I'm in the top 5% or so, but lately IS has been rejecting almost everything I send. I now submit a small fraction of what I produce, guessing as to which shots have the best shot at approval, but even doing this, only about 20% of my "best" stuff is passing the test... these are shots quite similar to ones that have been approved in the past and are selling quite well, relatively speaking. Very frustrating.

stockmarketer · « **Reply #11 on:** April 23, 2011, 19:45 »

Looks to me like it's sorted with two criteria: first by rounded sales by the thousands, then by number of approved uploads in the past 30 days. So if you had 9901 downloads but uploaded (and somehow convinced the reviewers to accept!) 100 files in the past thirty days, you'd rank well above someone with 9999 downloads but has had 0 approved uploads. Seems like a better methodology than alphabetically within the group of contributors within that range of 1,000 downloads.

Quote from: Snowball on April 23, 2011, 16:37

Quote from: ShadySue on April 23, 2011, 16:26
Something seems to have changed again with the way istockcharts allocate positions. For a while, it was alphabetical order within your fuzzy total, i.e. if your name was Aardvark and you had 9901 dls, you'd come well above Zumba who had 9999.
Now that has changed totally. I just rolled over 10,000 on Thursday, which means I must be around 'real' position 1994. But I'm actually showing at 1858. I can't see how it's worked out, but it's not 'actual' downloads and it's not alphabtical within fuzzy totals. It also seems not to be dl/ul ratio or dl per time on site, both of which would be useful differentiators within the fuzzy total.
Ironically for a long time when there was an 'absolute' total, I was position 1860.
I have counted my 'real' position as being c1994, so have voted for lower position/lower dls.

Strange. Would be nice to know what methodology they are using now. That might explain some of my growth too, but unless I know what changed I can't be sure.

pancaketom · « **Reply #12 on:** April 23, 2011, 22:13 »

Once IS blurred the sales totals the day to day changes on the charts became a lot less interesting. I wonder what percentage of contributors are on those charts.

aeonf · « **Reply #13 on:** April 24, 2011, 06:05 »

Up in charts.
Up in sales.
Up in $$$.

Difydave · « **Reply #14 on:** April 24, 2011, 06:57 »

I don't look that often, but if I remember right from the last time I looked then I'm moving up. After my last week or so that's surprising.

lisafx · « **Reply #15 on:** April 24, 2011, 09:12 »

Quote from: stockmarketer on April 23, 2011, 19:45

Looks to me like it's sorted with two criteria: first by rounded sales by the thousands, then by number of approved uploads in the past 30 days. So if you had 9901 downloads but uploaded (and somehow convinced the reviewers to accept!) 100 files in the past thirty days, you'd rank well above someone with 9999 downloads but has had 0 approved uploads. Seems like a better methodology than alphabetically within the group of contributors within that range of 1,000 downloads.

Very interesting. I had been wondering how that worked. I just moved to the head of my group and was very surprised.

Now I am kind of bummed. Maybe I am not outselling these people but have just been uploading more. Which is kind of weird too, because I have been really slacking off lately.

visceralimage · « **Reply #16 on:** April 24, 2011, 12:45 »

I am at 27702, so far from Sean or Lisa it is like I am not even on the same site. I am a long long way from the top; heck, I can't even see the middle.

ShadySue · « **Reply #17 on:** April 24, 2011, 12:51 »

Quote from: visceralimage on April 24, 2011, 12:45

I am at 27702, so far from Sean or Lisa it is like I am not even on the same site. I am a long long way from the top; heck, I can't even see the middle.

Hey, you gave them several years of a start.

visceralimage · « **Reply #18 on:** April 24, 2011, 14:39 »

Quote from: ShadySue on April 24, 2011, 12:51

Quote from: visceralimage on April 24, 2011, 12:45
I am at 27702, so far from Sean or Lisa it is like I am not even on the same site. I am a long long way from the top; heck, I can't even see the middle.
Hey, you8 gave them several years of a start.

I don't like excuses; can't be number one making excuses. Then again, pretty hard to be number one if you start the race four years behind the starting gun. Guess I will just need to work harder; that will cutting deep into my margarita time. In Russia, that was no problem because there were no margaritas; but now that I am back in USA, that becomes a real problem.

lisafx · « **Reply #19 on:** April 25, 2011, 09:09 »

It's not really a race. As Liz points out, timing is everything. Those who started early were able to establish a foothold before the market became so oversaturated.

Although, to be fair, when I started in 2005, there were already newbies saying it was too late for them because they missed out on the glory days. With that attitude, I doubt those people every got any kind of success.

There are different markets for different types of images too. Some subjects are higher demand than others. If your specialty is landscape and wildlife, and that is what you love, that is what you should shoot and be happy, even if it will not land you in some privileged spot on some chart

visceralimage · « **Reply #20 on:** April 25, 2011, 11:30 »

Thanks Lisa; wildlife photography feeds my soul. I do a bit of product and food photography, hopefully it will help feed my stomach.

ShadySue · « **Reply #21 on:** April 25, 2011, 11:35 »

Quote from: lisafx on April 25, 2011, 09:09

There are different markets for different types of images too. Some subjects are higher demand than others. If your specialty is landscape and wildlife, and that is what you love, that is what you should shoot and be happy, even if it will not land you in some privileged spot on some chart

Wildlife pics are in high demand, at least in the UK, but there are so many places you can get pretty good to excellent wildlife images free (e.g. ARkive), or at least free for non-commercial use that many of the 'expected' end users (schools and wildlife societies) don't actually need to pay for a lot of the content theu use. They things they can't source for free are the rare species you're unlikely to get in micro shot in the wild, partly because some micros don't understand natural light (iStock and I'm now hearing SS, for instance). Plus of course it's in pretty big supply.

RacePhoto · « **Reply #22 on:** April 26, 2011, 01:01 »

Quote from: visceralimage on April 24, 2011, 12:45

I am at 27702, so far from Sean or Lisa it is like I am not even on the same site. I am a long long way from the top; heck, I can't even see the middle.

Middle by which search? Just click on a heading and see.

Or click on a page and see.

Maybe I'm not making that easy.

It starts on Download Total as default. There are 739 pages, so lets be easy and say the middle is 370. In the box that says page # of [ ] type in 370. There's the middle.

Or search on your name and see where you are in user numbers, "Jump to position#"

What's the middle? If you are asking what I'm guessing, that would be Downloads total? (correct me if I'm wrong)

Page 370 shows... 100 downloads as the middle. Now since the fizzy numbers (as someone else appropriately called it) the next level is 200 downloads.

100 DLs goes from 16526 to 20252 - or 3,726 people between 100 and 200 downloads. It goes by hundreds from 100 up to 1000 (and tens below that)

Member 8584 has 1000 DLs or another 11,668 people between 100 and 1000 dls.Once again the IS info and charts go by 100 DLs per identifiable change after 100.

8,584 people have over 1000 DLs. You can easily call that $1000 total earnings. Roughly 20,000 people have had 100 DLs and cashed out of the 36902 total members. You can take that as half have cashed, or half have never cashed.

visceralimage · « **Reply #23 on:** April 26, 2011, 17:38 »

Race;

You have to much free time on your hands; you need a day job or another dayjob $:-\$

I have hopes of making it to 100 downloads before year end; I dream of downloads such as Sean or Lisa-I bet they get hundreds a day

Time to get back to work, will not get anything uploaded chatting here on MSG

Yesterday was Hot Dog photography day, today was Grilled Cheese photography day. I think tomorrow will be breakfast day, eggs and bacon; I can smell it already. This is what I shoot after 10 am and before 5 pm when the light sucks in Florida; no wildlife photography during these mid-day hours

lisafx · « **Reply #24 on:** April 26, 2011, 17:44 »

Quote from: visceralimage on April 26, 2011, 17:38

Race;

You have to much free time on your hands; you need a day job or another dayjob $:-\$

Amen! Had to be said.

Take a heart

Xalanx · « **Reply #25 on:** April 26, 2011, 18:27 »

Quote from: lisafx on April 26, 2011, 17:44

Quote from: visceralimage on April 26, 2011, 17:38
Race;

You have to much free time on your hands; you need a day job or another dayjob $:-\$

Amen! Had to be said.

Take a heart

Amen twice! And another heart.

visceralimage · « **Reply #26 on:** April 26, 2011, 18:49 »

This is not good, today I am at 27,808 (sales)-dropped from 27,702 but number of files puts me at 11,878. Look out folks at the top, heading your way (top for number of files); Look out folks at the bottom, I am heading your way in sales, it seems. When sorted by member since (ascending), I am number 21, woo hoo.

ShadySue · « **Reply #27 on:** April 26, 2011, 19:06 »

VI -
Don't you have anything better to do that worry about istockcharts?

Obsessing about charts makes you go blind.

dhanford · « **Reply #28 on:** April 26, 2011, 19:11 »

Quote from: sjlocke on April 23, 2011, 12:56

Assuming you're sorting by downloads?

Same old place...

LOL!

RacePhoto · « **Reply #29 on:** April 26, 2011, 20:20 »

Hey, I resemble those remarks.

I won't promise anything but the season starts on Saturday, and runs until Oct. The March and April weekends were kind of a warm-up. No Internet at the campground. But if I go to McDonalds I can check in on the netbook.

ABout how often do I look at the charts? When someone posts a message or maybe every few months, if I'm bored. Not that often, honest.

Quote from: Xalanx on April 26, 2011, 18:27

Quote from: lisafx on April 26, 2011, 17:44
Quote from: visceralimage on April 26, 2011, 17:38
Race;

You have to much free time on your hands; you need a day job or another dayjob $:-\$

Amen! Had to be said.

Take a heart

Amen twice! And another heart.

visceralimage · « **Reply #30 on:** April 26, 2011, 20:27 »

Quote from: ShadySue on April 26, 2011, 19:06

VI -
Don't you have anything better to do that worry about istockcharts?
Obsessing about charts makes you go blind.

Actually, my one vice is MSG; when I take a break I check-in here. iStockCharts is just the topic of this thread; this community is so much into stats that one must do one's homework before posting else one is found to be a fraud, poser or lurker.

Freedom · « **Reply #31 on:** April 26, 2011, 20:49 »

Never looked at it before. Interesting. The second one must be Lise, right after Yuri.

How often does it update the data?

ShadySue · « **Reply #32 on:** April 27, 2011, 03:55 »

Quote from: visceralimage on April 26, 2011, 20:27

Actually, my one vice is MSG; when I take a break I check-in here. iStockCharts is just the topic of this thread; this community is so much into stats that one must do one's homework before posting else one is found to be a fraud, poser or lurker.

That probably applies only to the anonymous.

aeonf · « **Reply #33 on:** April 27, 2011, 07:46 »

Quote from: Freedom on April 26, 2011, 20:49

Never looked at it before. Interesting. The second one must be Lise, right after Yuri.

How often does it update the data?

Every 24 hours.
And #2 is indeed lisa (not "our" lisafx).

rubyroo · « **Reply #34 on:** April 27, 2011, 07:51 »

That's "Lise", not "Lisa".

Sean Locke Photography · « **Reply #35 on:** April 27, 2011, 10:28 »

Man, I am never going to get to a million...

lisafx · « **Reply #36 on:** April 27, 2011, 11:18 »

Quote from: rubyroo on April 27, 2011, 07:51

That's "Lise", not "Lisa".

Thanks for clarifying that.

Yeah, I am nowhere NEAR Lise, Sean, Yuri, and the rest of the Gods on Mt. Olympus...

And with this months sales in freefall at Istock, I doubt I ever will be

Freedom · « **Reply #37 on:** April 27, 2011, 12:19 »

Thanks. It has not updated my data in the past three days. It doesn't matter though.

Quote from: aeonf on April 27, 2011, 07:46

Quote from: Freedom on April 26, 2011, 20:49
Never looked at it before. Interesting. The second one must be Lise, right after Yuri.

How often does it update the data?

Every 24 hours.
And #2 is indeed lisa (not "our" lisafx).

microstockphoto.co.uk · « **Reply #38 on:** April 27, 2011, 12:32 »

sorry but how do you check if you're going up or down? unless of course you took notice of previous position

Freedom · « **Reply #39 on:** April 27, 2011, 12:42 »

Just checked again, it moved, down a bit. But it didn't update in 24 hours.

rubyroo · « **Reply #40 on:** April 27, 2011, 12:54 »

Quote from: lisafx on April 27, 2011, 11:18

Quote from: rubyroo on April 27, 2011, 07:51
That's "Lise", not "Lisa".

Thanks for clarifying that.

Yeah, I am nowhere NEAR Lise, Sean, Yuri, and the rest of the Gods on Mt. Olympus...

And with this months sales in freefall at Istock, I doubt I ever will be

You're welcome Lisa. I hope things take a turn upwards again for you soon (whether via iStock or through a collective upswing elsewhere). Never say never...

lisafx · « **Reply #41 on:** April 27, 2011, 14:10 »

Quote from: microstockphoto.co.uk on April 27, 2011, 12:32

sorry but how do you check if you're going up or down? unless of course you took notice of previous position

You have to know where you were to know how far you've come...

Sounds kind of philosophical. Like "Wherever you go, there you are"

RacePhoto · « **Reply #42 on:** April 28, 2011, 01:53 »

Quote from: microstockphoto.co.uk on April 27, 2011, 12:32

sorry but how do you check if you're going up or down? unless of course you took notice of previous position

"A long journey begins with one step."

I know I'm going up because I have more downloads now than I did before and moved up past the middle, upper 50%, of total downloads. After that, I see your point.

Now I'll have to look and see if I ever made a note of position # last year?

jonlarter · « **Reply #43 on:** April 29, 2011, 07:58 »

I did make a nice jump up the charts yesterday ... only because I'd hit the next DL marker tho ... but still made me feel like I was getting somewhere for a while

lisafx · « **Reply #44 on:** April 29, 2011, 12:07 »

Quote from: jonlarter on April 29, 2011, 07:58

I did make a nice jump up the charts yesterday ... only because I'd hit the next DL marker tho ... but still made me feel like I was getting somewhere for a while

Wow, Jon. Your artwork is great! I expect you will keep moving up those charts very quickly

PaulieWalnuts · « **Reply #45 on:** April 29, 2011, 12:12 »

Quote from: lisafx on April 29, 2011, 12:07

Quote from: jonlarter on April 29, 2011, 07:58
I did make a nice jump up the charts yesterday ... only because I'd hit the next DL marker tho ... but still made me feel like I was getting somewhere for a while

Wow, Jon. Your artwork is great! I expect you will keep moving up those charts very quickly

Yeah, and Jon's a good example that you don't need a huge portfolio to make good sales.

visceralimage · « **Reply #46 on:** April 29, 2011, 12:16 »

Leaf, time to lock this thread; every couple days I check my position again (reminded by this thread) and find that I have dropped even more. Today, 27,834, down from 27808 earlier in the week.

Someone needs to give me a few mercy purchases just so I can maintain position on the chart.

pancaketom · « **Reply #47 on:** April 29, 2011, 12:27 »

Because of the steps in how IS reports sales (by 100's or whatever), everyone in the middle basically moves down until they pass one of the reported levels at which point they jump up. Then they move down until they pass the next level. No real point in looking at it very regularly. I appear to be listed alphabetically amongst those with my level of DL and no recent uploads.

aeonf · « **Reply #48 on:** April 29, 2011, 14:57 »

Quote from: visceralimage on April 29, 2011, 12:16

Leaf, time to lock this thread; every couple days I check my position again (reminded by this thread) and find that I have dropped even more. Today, 27,834, down from 27808 earlier in the week.

Someone needs to give me a few mercy purchases just so I can maintain position on the chart.

Someone (AKA - you!) needs to start fatening up his portfolio in order to get some more downloads!
You have some great photos, why not at least fill the very few slots you have a week???
Another tip: you can upload isolated versions of the animals as well.

visceralimage · « **Reply #49 on:** April 29, 2011, 16:08 »

Quote from: aeonf on April 29, 2011, 14:57

Quote from: visceralimage on April 29, 2011, 12:16
Leaf, time to lock this thread; every couple days I check my position again (reminded by this thread) and find that I have dropped even more. Today, 27,834, down from 27808 earlier in the week.

Someone needs to give me a few mercy purchases just so I can maintain position on the chart.

Someone (AKA - you!) needs to start fatening up his portfolio in order to get some more downloads!
You have some great photos, why not at least fill the very few slots you have a week???
Another tip: you can upload isolated versions of the animals as well.

Well, since I have only been non-exclusive from Dreamstime since mid-Feb.; I have been using every available slot every week; I have managed to get 111 shots online in the past two months and I have over a thousand waiting to be loaded as they allow. Thanks for the compliment; I truly am trying to get them online to IS, at 18 a week, it is taking some time.

One other thing that pisses me off about IS is the way they calculate the week; you are allowed to upload a certain number of images per week but the week starts at the end of your previous upload. Therefore, if you are subject to an outage, such as happened last weekend; or your happen to be on a dogsled heading in from the tundra; you loose a few days time. At least on DT and Veer, the clock resets based on a calendar, not your last upload

adijr · « **Reply #50 on:** May 06, 2011, 11:27 »

11125 th. I guess I should upload my 21st image at some point soon.

Thanks for the thread, it's quite informative. It's a little misleading if you went exclusive though, since your sales (at least mine) go down a little despite the $$$ going up.

microstockphoto.co.uk · « **Reply #51 on:** May 06, 2011, 15:29 »

Quote from: visceralimage on April 29, 2011, 16:08

or your happen to be on a dogsled heading in from the tundra

Oh dear! no wi-fi in the tundra? I couldn't live there for more than 10 minutes without checking email.

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Has your position changed recently on Istock charts?

Author Topic: Have you moved on Istockcharts? (Read 14889 times)

lagereek

RacePhoto

lisafx

lisafx

RacePhoto

lisafx

Xalanx

RacePhoto

rubyroo

lisafx

microstockphoto.co.uk

rubyroo

lisafx

RacePhoto

lisafx

microstockphoto.co.uk

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