Author Topic: IS Changes best match Algorithm Again! (Read 35075 times)

bittersweet · « **Reply #75 on:** October 23, 2008, 17:23 »

Quote from: araminta on October 23, 2008, 02:13

Quote from: yingyang0 on October 22, 2008, 19:02
Since this version of the best match supposedly helps exclusives more than previous versions wouldn't that be an incentive to go exclusive and not a disincentive?

If you look at IS forum you will see that MANY exclusive also do see their sales dropping with the new best match algorithm.

IS just do it completely wrong here $:-\$

There are also independents reporting just the opposite (paulcowan for one)

loop · « **Reply #76 on:** October 23, 2008, 17:35 »

Actually, in my humble opinion, the new best match tends to favor more old-timers (people who has been on istock for three, four or more years --exclusive or not) than simply exclusives. If you are old timer and exclusive I suppose it's even better.

lisafx · « **Reply #77 on:** October 23, 2008, 17:49 »

Quote from: loop on October 23, 2008, 17:35

Actually, in my humble opinion, the new best match tends to favor more old-timers (people who has been on istock for three, four or more years --exclusive or not) than simply exclusives. If you are old timer and exclusive I suppose it's even better.

I've been there just under four years and I don't feel particularly favored. True, the best match seems to be promoting older images, so that is helping old timers, but the bias against independents is too strong for it to be helping most of us.

Paul Cowan is a special case. He shoots a lot of niche items where there just may not be enough competing images to push his to the back.

aremafoto · « **Reply #78 on:** October 23, 2008, 19:02 »

Quote from: lisafx on October 23, 2008, 17:49

Quote from: loop on October 23, 2008, 17:35
Actually, in my humble opinion, the new best match tends to favor more old-timers (people who has been on istock for three, four or more years --exclusive or not) than simply exclusives. If you are old timer and exclusive I suppose it's even better.

I've been there just under four years and I don't feel particularly favored. True, the best match seems to be promoting older images, so that is helping old timers, but the bias against independents is too strong for it to be helping most of us.

Paul Cowan is a special case. He shoots a lot of niche items where there just may not be enough competing images to push his to the back.

Not for me either. I've been there for 3 yrs and this month (after the best match change) is the worst month of this year.

loop · « **Reply #79 on:** October 23, 2008, 19:25 »

It wouldn't be just the time... time itself, wouldn't mind anything if these years ago you were uploading few files, or if these files were no up to today's standard quality-commerciality. So, you'd have to adc quantity, commerciality and quality to time.

But I can be wrong, of course. That's just an hypotesys I've made looking at the search results.

diego_cervo · « **Reply #80 on:** October 24, 2008, 02:33 »

Hi all,
did some of you already complain about it with istock? What do you think about sending a collective complain to make them hear our voice louder?
Diego

bittersweet · « **Reply #81 on:** October 24, 2008, 06:26 »

Quote from: diego_cervo on October 24, 2008, 02:33

Hi all,
did some of you already complain about it with istock?

About 35 pages worth and counting..
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=78277&page=1

lisafx · « **Reply #82 on:** October 24, 2008, 08:15 »

Quote from: diego_cervo on October 24, 2008, 02:33

Hi all,
did some of you already complain about it with istock? What do you think about sending a collective complain to make them hear our voice louder?
Diego

Yep!

Please see the above noted thread and the 80 page one on the same subject immediately preceding it.

PeterChigmaroff · « **Reply #83 on:** October 24, 2008, 09:47 »

I love a good conspiracy theory now and then. Once a company gets taken over, especially by investment firms, I wonder about the soundness of their management skills. All that is visible to them, at least in my eyes, is the length and size of the number on the bottom of the income statement. The temptation to tweak is insatiable. iStock is somewhat unique, in that it seems a lot of their senior people are still there. That certainly hasn't been the case with many takeovers of macro agencies. I know a lot of folks absolutely adore iStock but I have to say, from experience that big money has little respect for its suppliers, especially when there are many many suppliers. Since iStocks's purchase by Getty and Getty's subsequent takeover the playing field has changed dramatically. It may not look like too much has changed from this side of the operation but from the inside I'll bet anything that it ain't the same place at all. The pressure to constantly perform, then outperform, then outperform the outperformance is huge. In many ways I'm glad I came into this thing late in the game, there is no chance of being exclusive for me. Again I'm sure I'm going to ruffle a lot of feathers but I am very happy I am not exclusive at this point even if the last search shuffle was in the exclusive's favour.

travelstock · « **Reply #84 on:** October 24, 2008, 09:57 »

Well I don't know how my images are being found, but this week hasn't been too bad - up about 30% on last week. Still the gap between IS and FT and DT in particular is constantly shrinking.

stokfoto · « **Reply #85 on:** October 24, 2008, 10:15 »

the impact has been pretty bitter for me resulting in several "zero download" days and significant drop since the change.I hope they will switch back soon same goes for FT as well.

Gimmerton · « **Reply #86 on:** October 24, 2008, 14:38 »

One more time Best Mismatch sucks for me

jeancliclac · « **Reply #87 on:** October 25, 2008, 12:28 »

Quote from: fotografer on October 22, 2008, 11:49

I'm an independent and this last change seems to be for the better. Yesterday was my best day this month and today is shaping up well.

the 21 october was also my best day this month (almost matching a normal day for october 2006- the year for which sales at IS starts to decline for me), unfortunately the day after and following were again looking much more my present IS standard (30% to 40 % of 2006 sales). I have no clue if the fact I'm not exclusive has a role to play here, but according what I read it has. I think that exlcusive shall be rewarded with higher % share of the pictures sales but exclusivity should not affect best match as best match is suposed to help the buyer to finfd pictures, in that regard exclusive/ non exclusive is not relevant at all.

IS was alwyas my prefered site and the top one for sales, now has became number 3 only in sales and I still feel pushed out...but still like the place....but getting frustrated of this more and more....
jean

fotografer · « **Reply #88 on:** October 25, 2008, 13:14 »

i take it back, good sales lasted exactly a day and a half and then they dried up again.

Quote from: jeancliclac on October 25, 2008, 12:28

Quote from: fotografer on October 22, 2008, 11:49
I'm an independent and this last change seems to be for the better. Yesterday was my best day this month and today is shaping up well.

the 21 october was also my best day this month (almost matching a normal day for october 2006- the year for which sales at IS starts to decline for me), unfortunately the day after and following were again looking much more my present IS standard (30% to 40 % of 2006 sales). I have no clue if the fact I'm not exclusive has a role to play here, but according what I read it has. I think that exlcusive shall be rewarded with higher % share of the pictures sales but exclusivity should not affect best match as best match is suposed to help the buyer to finfd pictures, in that regard exclusive/ non exclusive is not relevant at all.

IS was alwyas my prefered site and the top one for sales, now has became number 3 only in sales and I still feel pushed out...but still like the place....but getting frustrated of this more and more....
jean

vonkara · « **Reply #89 on:** October 25, 2008, 14:07 »

The slot system is gone. That is the real problem I think. Then in many searches, you see the same "around" 20 contributors in the first 20 pages. That's representing 80% of the sales

Freezingpictures · « **Reply #90 on:** October 25, 2008, 14:53 »

The slot system is not and never was the solution, because it also punishes people who are specialists, who are very good on one subject. E.g. I specialize on penguins. Currently it would not make a difference for me though, because as a non-exclusive my images are forced back. However think about it. I represent more than 3% of all penguin images on istock photo. And lets hypothetical for the sake of the argument assume by objectively judging that 10 of them are clearly among the best 100. iStock's slotsystem would push 6 of them back and replace them by less good images. Bad for customer and bad for contributor -> Slotsystem = Bad

Kngkyle · « **Reply #91 on:** October 25, 2008, 14:59 »

This month has been by far my worst month ever at Istock. Only one fifth of what I got last month, which was also a bad month. Overall, using the average of what I have made at IS per month, October is looking to come in at about 14% of what I usually make in 1 month there. That's an 86% drop.

I'm not a big contributor or anything, but I have been on Istock for 12 months and this isn't one of the usual ups and downs for me.

CofkoCof · « **Reply #92 on:** October 27, 2008, 08:27 »

Any illustrators reading this topic? Hows your month? I'm getting almost no vector sales since the last change. I decided to cancel my pending vectors and wait until this thing is resolved (JJRD said they are working on it but it's been quite a while since then and no change). Where's the point in submitting if my images will get burried and will never get a chance? In the vector topic "best match and vectors" some illustrators said they've done the same.

GeoPappas · « **Reply #93 on:** October 27, 2008, 08:53 »

Quote from: Kngkyle on October 25, 2008, 14:59

...I have been on Istock for 12 months and this isn't one of the usual ups and downs for me.

I have heard statements similar to this and it is beginning to make me wonder if some of the microstock sites have it built into their system to give high sales for the first year (to encourage new contributors), but then remove that increase after the first year.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

jsnover · « **Reply #94 on:** October 27, 2008, 09:35 »

I'm not submitting anything at the moment, photos or illustrations - new stuff is just lost with the current best match. I have some illustrations - all from the first half of 2008 - and I think I have only sold 2 or 3 this month. It's as if they weren't there.

It's nice that I have images from 2005 onward to sell, but I'd rather see some opportunity given to new images. We don't want to return to the almost total focus on new images of a few weeks back (although that started to make some hot sellers for me; unfortunately they just got shot in the head with the next shift to focus on older images) - I fail to see how it can be this hard to go back to the reasonable mix of old and new, photos & illustrations, flamers and up-and-comers.

The best match is just busted and I can only hope they're working round the clock to get this straightneed out.

Pixart · « **Reply #95 on:** October 27, 2008, 10:02 »

I get very suspicious when big changes like this happen anywhere. I just wonder if this movement has anything to do with the pending JI sale and their future plans for Istock. Can't you see it now...

"Welcome to Istock, the most Definitive Collection of Affordable Exclusive Content."

With a price tag between Alamay and today's Istock, of course.

But if Joanne isn't being favored as an exclusive, who is again? Ain't me.

vonkara · « **Reply #96 on:** October 27, 2008, 10:22 »

That's a good one.

Istock suck ... good for the ones who's making a lot actually and don't care about the forgotten. fellow photographers HA

PaulieWalnuts · « **Reply #97 on:** October 27, 2008, 12:25 »

I'm holding off on uploading for a little while too until I see what happens over the next couple of weeks. I'll then check the level of effort required vs. expected earnings.

I'm exclusive and my sales have dropped about 35% from the week before the latest best match change. So it's not just non-exclusives that are being hit by this.

This past year has been a test for me to see if I could live off of microstock. A couple weeks ago I would have said yes but I'm not sure about that now. While the hobbyists are frustrated what about the people who got hit and rely upon IS as their primary income? I'm not sure if IS realizes this impact. For some people this best match change may mean having to get a second job or losing a house. I hope they realize this impact and take it into consideration before making such big changes.

graficallyminded · « **Reply #98 on:** October 27, 2008, 12:39 »

I'm a full timer too - and let me tell you this...I'm glad I don't have all of my eggs in the same basket. Month to month, your sales could fluctuate drastically when things like this happen. Just last month I lost one of my largest referrals due to a "glitch" so my income will be $400 less than last month. Thankfully that's not the only site I submit to. I can also fall back on photo reviewing for extra income.

PaulieWalnuts · « **Reply #99 on:** October 27, 2008, 12:59 »

Quote from: graficallyminded on October 27, 2008, 12:39

I'm a full timer too - and let me tell you this...I'm glad I don't have all of my eggs in the same basket. Month to month, your sales could fluctuate drastically when things like this happen. Just last month I lost one of my largest referrals due to a "glitch" so my income will be $400 less than last month. Thankfully that's not the only site I submit to. I can also fall back on photo reviewing for extra income.

I hear ya but I'm not sure spreading the eggs out is any better for me. Before going exclusive I was with 12 sites and every one of them had something screwy going on that affected my overall income. Only four of them were really producing anything worthwhile and two of them (IS and SS) were 80% of my income. That's not much of a cushion.

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Author Topic: IS Changes best match Algorithm Again! (Read 35075 times)

bittersweet

loop

lisafx

aremafoto

loop

diego_cervo

bittersweet

lisafx

PeterChigmaroff

travelstock

stokfoto

Gimmerton

jeancliclac

fotografer

vonkara

Freezingpictures

Kngkyle

CofkoCof

GeoPappas

jsnover

Pixart

vonkara

PaulieWalnuts

graficallyminded

PaulieWalnuts

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