Quote from: spike on March 04, 2014, 16:29

Quote from: cobalt on March 04, 2014, 12:40

Sean is on them, hunting their twitter feed for stocksy customers

https://twitter.com/iStock/status/440876736956219393

I don't want to offend anyone, but I probably will. This is just pathetic, regardless of how much I don't like iStock.

Or maybe I'm just conservative and have an outdated view on professionalism, and this is how you do marketing in the modern times. In any case, I would never spam like this.

Go ahead, downvote.

You think it's wrong to try to help people who can't buy images they need for project deadlines?
You'd rather the customers just failed?

And, as has been said already, after they way they treated Sean, he's got every right.

That's what I was thinking -- he was offering help to people under deadlines, and as I recall, he even got a thank you.  I've seen a couple of suggestions from others that they visit other sites.

Can you imagine iStock tweeting something similar to what Sean tweeted if Stocksy were to experience downtime, repeatedly?

No, because they probably cannot react so fast. They need more time to think, to act.

Quote from: gostwyck on March 04, 2014, 16:38

It was Getty that decided they wanted Sean as a competitor ... rather than one of their most successful contributors. Now they are reaping what they sowed.

Can you imagine iStock repeatedly tweeting something similar to what Sean tweeted if Stocksy were to experience downtime?

It's hard, right?

It's hard because Sean is an individual and iStock is a corporate entity, added to which there is the issue of the assymmetry of power, where the stronger party confers credibility on the weaker through a direct challenge.

It's Back

It's Back

But it's incredibly slow for something that should have no traffic load on it right now.

The most recent forum posts (on any subject) were over 7 hours ago. People have no idea the sites back up and running again.

No doubt the infamous Lobo will be posting something of an explanation unless they've all gone home for the day

Additionally, do you think buyers are idiots? That they can't find another stock agency?

Some of them can't.  I answered several questions specifically about where to look elsewhere.

As for direct messaging, again, they asked in the open air of twitter.  They didn't send their concerns in a direct message, so I answer in the open air.

All of this is very naive in order to justify something unprofessional. And fine, do it as much as you want, I just don't agree with it or consider it professional, regardless of who the contributor is. It's like here you can't say one negative thing about certain people, which isn't really untypical in isolated small online communities, but still kinda sucks.

Actually, you haven't yet said why it's "unprofessional".  That's ok though - don't worry, you're not hurting my feelings.

If I were a buyer, I'd stay away from stocksy because of this.

And that is your right. Sean can draw his own conclusions about whether or not it was an effective tactic.

Some of them can't.  I answered several questions specifically about where to look elsewhere.

As for direct messaging, again, they asked in the open air of twitter.  They didn't send their concerns in a direct message, so I answer in the open air.

Well ok, whatever comforts you. If you believe you haven't behaved unprofessionally and that your sole reason for tweeting the same thing multiple times was "just helping others", there isn't much I can say or do. I can only choose to not believe you, what I actually opted for.

Also the other ones defending you that you are just helping others, like people can't type "microstock agency" in google, I don't know if they're being naive or just justifying your unprofessionalism under the pretext of helping because you're known in this community.

Whatever the case may be, it's yours and their choice, as mine is mine. I might not share the popular opinions around here, but at least I'm not phased by certain figures and am honest about my intentions and attitudes. Case closed for me.

Well ok, whatever comforts you. If you believe you haven't behaved unprofessionally and that your sole reason for tweeting the same thing multiple times was "just helping others", there isn't much I can say or do. I can only choose to not believe you, what I actually opted for.

Also the other ones defending you that you are just helping others, like people can't type "microstock agency" in google, I don't know if they're being naive or just justifying your unprofessionalism under the pretext of helping because you're known in this community.

Whatever the case may be, it's yours and their choice, as mine is mine. I might not share the popular opinions around here, but at least I'm not phased by certain figures and am honest about my intentions and attitudes. Case closed for me.

I don't think I said my sole reason was anything.  Obviously, I was doing some marketing, and hopefully it helped some people as well.  As I already pointed out, people were asking for alternatives.  And I did get a couple of thanks.

Again, you haven't said why it was "unprofessional", so I have to continue to disregard that. 

(As it was mentioned in the twitter thread, I tried 'ice cream'. There's something badly wrong with the Stocksy search engine. Some irrelevant files I clicked on don't actually have 'ice cream' in their keywords (maybe it was getting fooled by the US-English term 'frosting'?)

I'll let them know.  Thx.

Out for 5 or 6 hours, they come back, but still couldn't manage to remove the Valentine's pic from the landing page.