MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => iStockPhoto.com => Topic started by: Chico on January 19, 2011, 17:08
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Take a look.
http://siteanalytics.compete.com/istockphoto.com+shutterstock.com+dreamstime.com/?metric=sess&months=12 (http://siteanalytics.compete.com/istockphoto.com+shutterstock.com+dreamstime.com/?metric=sess&months=12)
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Wow. Thanks for posting that. It pretty much says it all. I am a little disappointed, though, that DT isn't showing at least a little bit of an increase.
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Wow. Thanks for posting that. It pretty much says it all. I am a little disappointed, though, that DT isn't showing at least a little bit of an increase.
agreed. where is all the traffic going? is it getting spread around or has the eonomic downturn really caused an overall drop? I see SS rising, but not as much as IS is dropping.
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Thanks for posting.
I tried Canstock - impressive increase.
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In the 2009 Photoshelter survey, a significant portion of designers said they would be moving away from microstock in 2010. Perhaps they left for more traditional rf/rm sources?
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Looking at Alexa, the stats are much more even other than the holiday period, for all agencies.
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/istockphoto.com# (http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/istockphoto.com#)
However, the siteanalytics stats would explain a lot.
But you'd think if sales were falling off to that extent, they'd be really pushing to attract and keep new customers, not running around like headless chickens thinking up new schemes that don't work and raising prices.
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Go to Alexa and it's a different story, don't believe either of them.
oops ShadySue beat me too it!
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In the 2009 Photoshelter survey, a significant portion of designers said they would be moving away from microstock in 2010. Perhaps they left for more traditional rf/rm sources?
Hopefully they are finding contributors' personal websites and buying direct.
edit: It might be that designers at LARGE companies who are in Getty's pocket are moving to traditional RF/RM sources, but I can't imagine that most of the companies in the US can afford to pay double or triple or more for images. If they are, the people who got laid off or took huge cuts in pay should be starting a revolt.
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It's particularly interesting to see that September (the "money isn't what will make you happy" announcement month) saw a shift into a noticeably more rapid decline than the smooth and slightly recovering curve of March to August-end.
I don't see 50% of the visits coming in the last three or four months and it is remarkable that there was no recovery in the stats after the end of the summer holiday period. SS and DT both improve towards the year-end as you would expect.
Of course, this will reflect a shift in supplier activity as well as buyer activity
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Well if these percentage figures are true?? however sceptical, Im not noticing any decrease in IS sales, contrary some days they are up.
I have however noticed a big increase in FT and the trad-RM,RF.
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It's particularly interesting to see that September (the "money isn't what will make you happy" announcement month) saw a shift into a noticeably more rapid decline than the smooth and slightly recovering curve of March to August-end.
I believe the quote was more along the lines of "money isn't why you come here". Kelly must be blessed with psychic powers because that is becoming more true every day as sales at Istock continue to dry up.
I tend to be as sceptical as the next man regarding these internet traffic graphs however I have to say that Chico's example does bear a strong relationship to my own sales data, particularly the last 6 months.
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I'm not seeing any 50% drop. Sorry.
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I'm not seeing any 50% drop. Sorry.
Not 50% no, but compared to last January I'm projected to be nearly 30% down in downloads (although the 2nd half of the month should hopefully be much better). Are you down at all or even up on last Jan? Exclusives and independents do seem to be reporting contrasting experiences.
More significantly last January IS were generating 36% of revenue whilst this month they're down to 26% and barely maintaining 2nd place above FT. SS are up to 36% from 24% last year. It's been a very steady slide for my IS sales over the last few months but accelerating recently.
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I'm not seeing any 50% drop. Sorry.
And I wouldn't expect someone of your caliber TO see a drop. I can't see lagereeks port, but since he is reporting an increase in trad RF/RM, I'm guessing he's up there, too. It's pretty tough for me to compare ANY of my stats to that of yours. Not being snarky, because you deserve to be there...you churn em out... just stating the facts.
The stats, I assume, reflect the greatest percentage of people's salestraffic, not the ones who are at the top of the heap.
edit: and I also agree...who knows which stats are even the truth.
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Well, it's just traffic, so it could be contributors are spending less time there as well. January has been pretty slow at IS, but January has always been a strange month for me in the micros. Sometimes it's great and sometimes it stinks.
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Well, it's just traffic, so it could be contributors are spending less time there as well. January has been pretty slow at IS, but January has always been a strange month for me in the micros. Sometimes it's great and sometimes it stinks.
right it is just traffic. and since we have also seen less downloads, but earnings compensated by higher prices, I would say you'd have to look at the downloads to see if that sort of shows the traffic. and yes, the traffic would include contributors not just buyers to that would be a factor as well. It is interesting, but in order to make much sense of it one has to look at the overall picture, and, frankly, we don't have all the data available to us.
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I didn't like the re-designed site and didn't go there as much. Then they announced the commission cuts and I stopped uploading, cutting down my visits drastically. I do think a lot of the fall in traffic could be from contributors, they would be panicking more if it was buyers. I do wonder if it will be buyers next though. I just don't see how they can keep most of their buyers with the problems they have had in the last year. At some point, I think there could be a significant shift to some of the other sites.
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Well, it's just traffic, so it could be contributors are spending less time there as well. January has been pretty slow at IS, but January has always been a strange month for me in the micros. Sometimes it's great and sometimes it stinks.
right it is just traffic. and since we have also seen less downloads, but earnings compensated by higher prices, I would say you'd have to look at the downloads to see if that sort of shows the traffic. and yes, the traffic would include contributors not just buyers to that would be a factor as well. It is interesting, but in order to make much sense of it one has to look at the overall picture, and, frankly, we don't have all the data available to us.
sorry, i said sales, but meant traffic. ::)
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I'm not seeing any 50% drop. Sorry.
I forgive you.... ;)
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I think the big difference between Alexa and Compete is that Compete only looks at US traffic and Alexa does is work wide.
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I'm not seeing any 50% drop. Sorry.
I don't want to be perceived as bragging when others are down...but for reference...my sales aren't down either. far from down. I'm pleasantly surprised given the issues lately. some days are still slower of course--usual ebb and flow stuff--but overall, a nice increase in dl numbers and dollars....
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I don't want to be perceived as bragging when others are down...but for reference...my sales aren't down either. far from down. I'm pleasantly surprised given the issues lately. some days are still slower of course--usual ebb and flow stuff--but overall, a nice increase in dl numbers and dollars....
Oh come on __ put your numbers into context. You went berserk over the last 12 months, uploaded over 2000 images and increased your portfolio size by more than 50%. If your sales hadn't increased under those circumstances it would have been extraordinary. So, being as you seem willing to share information and now we also understand the context, what percentage increase of downloads are you projecting for January?
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No 50% drop here, in fact more than that the other way. And I submitted less in 2010 than in 2009. iStock sales are great for high volume exclusives these days... imho
And since iStock's sales are up year over year, those traffic stats apparently have zero correlation to sales
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No 50% drop here, in fact more than that the other way. And I submitted less in 2010 than in 2009. iStock sales are great for high volume exclusives these days... imho
And since iStock's sales are up year over year, those traffic stats apparently have zero correlation to sales
How do you know iStock's sales are up year over year, and by sales do you mean revenues or unit sales? Even when traffic was rising, sales per file were at least in part because the number of files online was growing fast, so there has always been a disconnect between traffic and individual contributors' sales/earnings. It may be that the great majority of traffic is accounted for by contributors rather than buyers, so p-ssing off contributors is the main thing that shows up in such figures.
Perhaps what this shows is that the relative importance of iSTock in the market is falling and awareness of competitors is increasing. Istock got where it is through very effective marketing that created high industry awareness (Sean is a brand in his own right and has his own personal industry awareness that will probably help to insulate him from negative trends). But in general, however much exclusives like to believe that their files make istock far better than anywhere else, the truth is there are two or three other sites that are equally capable of satisfactorily filling the gaps in any designer's draft.
What holds those sites down is the carefully crafted myth that iStock is amazingly superior to any competitor. But since Bitter left, the management seems to have lost interest in keeping the myth alive. After all, the happy-clappy "wooyay, we're the best, there's none as great as us" posts don't have dollar signs that the accountants can add up, do they? They's just wasting staff resources.
I just noticed something very interesting. The ever popular and cloying "wooyay" thread in off-topic has garnered just 91 posts since the latest one was put up to celebrate the autumnal equinox. The last fall/winter thread managed 199 posts up to Jan 20, 2010. I would say that is a very good indicator of how the old spirit is holding up.
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I'm not seeing any 50% drop. Sorry.
And I wouldn't expect someone of your caliber TO see a drop. I can't see lagereeks port, but since he is reporting an increase in trad RF/RM, I'm guessing he's up there, too. It's pretty tough for me to compare ANY of my stats to that of yours. Not being snarky, because you deserve to be there...you churn em out... just stating the facts.
The stats, I assume, reflect the greatest percentage of people's salestraffic, not the ones who are at the top of the heap.
edit: and I also agree...who knows which stats are even the truth.
Hi! well Im an independant IS-Diamond but not in Seans league but Ive been with the Getty-RM, since 93, so I do know the score, weather I like it or not.
See, whats happening here is a classic, lots of people do actually believe or wish that buyers are going to side-up with contributors and go elsewhere or whatever? this will ofcourse never happen. "Blood is thicker then water" and for loads of buyers, IS, is in fact their life-blood, been going there for ages and they are not gonna give that up in favor of a few contributors screaming and halloring, right or wrong?
Further more, the entire Micro market is slightly down, not just IS but all of them and its normal, micro has had its 10 year span and thats about as long as the novelty lats.
I think the buyers who do leave Micro, are leaving because they are fed up with technical aspects such as slow-sites, technical problems, bad-keywording, spamming, lousy searches, irrelevant material, etc, and they simply dont have the stomach to sit there wasting time trying to find the right shot among a gazillion of almost identicals.
Ive said it before: the sites that will survive and survive without having to hide under a bigger umbrella, are the sites that get their act together regarding all these tech-problems, most important, saving buyers from tons of irrelevant rubbish, making it a quick, effective and speedy search.
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...See, whats happening here is a classic, lots of people do actually believe or wish that buyers are going to side-up with contributors and go elsewhere or whatever? this will ofcourse never happen. "Blood is thicker then water" and for loads of buyers, IS, is in fact their life-blood, been going there for ages and they are not gonna give that up in favor of a few contributors screaming and halloring, right or wrong?...
It looks to me like some buyers are leaving istock for the other sites. I agree that they probably wont do it just because some contributors leave istock but that's only one factor. Istock have continually increased prices and now they have made it very complicated, with all the different collections. The site is down much more than the others, there have been multiple bugs and some buyers are going to have to use the other sites to get what they want. None of us really know how this will work out but I really don't see any reason why istock should always remain the No.1 site. How many industries do you see where the first business in to it remains the biggest forever, when they make lots of mistakes and alienate some of their suppliers and buyers? They might get away with it if there was little competition but that's not the case in the microstock industry. I think it's quite possible that istock will be overtaken at some point and it looks to me that they are accelerating their own downfall.
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Interesting link thanks and seems in line with my decline in Downloads there, and possibly a clue to me seeing a huge increase in On Demand sales over at Shutterstock of late.
As for the reasons why.... think sharpshot pretty much nailed it above
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See, whats happening here is a classic, lots of people do actually believe or wish that buyers are going to side-up with contributors and go elsewhere or whatever? this will ofcourse never happen. "Blood is thicker then water"...
Further more, the entire Micro market is slightly down, not just IS but all of them and its normal, micro has had its 10 year span and thats about as long as the novelty lats.
I think the buyers who do leave Micro,
Seems to me that you yourself are believing or wishing that micro is on the way out and your ten-year theory will hold true. What evidence is there that the entire micro market is slightly down? Where are these buyers rushing off too? We know that the macro market is heavily down and sale prices on Alamy, for example, continue to fall.
Micro photographers have a constant struggle against the ever-expanding competition, we all know that, but overall, old-timers seem to be topping up or flat-lining while newcomers are reporting strong growth. Someone on SS sold over 20,000 files in his first year there. That says to me that the micro market itself is very far from being down. What it means for me, I don't know. Maybe that some of the newcomers are so good that my gravy train has sprung a leak.
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You must be joking!! I certainly do not wish Micro to be on the way out, I have got far too many shots and far too much invested in Micro for that kind of wish. As you say, where are the buyers going to? beats me!
In another fresh thread here, FT, is following suit lowering comissions, so, you tell me: where is it going? might be that newcomers, newbies, are a safer bet for agencies? they dont shout, no primadonna attitudes and they keep producing until they themselves are old-timers.
Dont know??????????
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If I had just found microstock now, I wouldn't bother with it. Just getting accepted with some sites is hard. They now reject far more than when I started and some sites sell hardly any new images. It must be very discouraging for newbies, especially when already low commissions are being slashed and competition is extreme.
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No 50% drop here, in fact more than that the other way. And I submitted less in 2010 than in 2009. iStock sales are great for high volume exclusives these days... imho
And since iStock's sales are up year over year, those traffic stats apparently have zero correlation to sales
How do you know iStock's sales are up year over year, and by sales do you mean revenues or unit sales? Even when traffic was rising, sales per file were at least in part because the number of files online was growing fast, so there has always been a disconnect between traffic and individual contributors' sales/earnings. It may be that the great majority of traffic is accounted for by contributors rather than buyers, so p-ssing off contributors is the main thing that shows up in such figures.
Perhaps what this shows is that the relative importance of iSTock in the market is falling and awareness of competitors is increasing. Istock got where it is through very effective marketing that created high industry awareness (Sean is a brand in his own right and has his own personal industry awareness that will probably help to insulate him from negative trends). But in general, however much exclusives like to believe that their files make istock far better than anywhere else, the truth is there are two or three other sites that are equally capable of satisfactorily filling the gaps in any designer's draft.
Every time Kelly Thompson talks about sales figures, they've always gone up. And recently he said they expect sales to be up 30% (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=252322) next year. One thing iStock has going for it that others don't is branding, it's now synonymous with stock for many people. It's like saying do you want a 'coke', when you really mean any soda. Of course, this won't help if the site isn't up ;)
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Do people actually do that somewhere on this planet?
I'd be really pee'd off if I asked for a 'Coke' and actually got a 'Coke'.
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Every time Kelly Thompson talks about sales figures, they've always gone up. And recently he said they expect sales to be up 30% ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=252322[/url]) next year.
Nothing goes up forever. That piece was written in early September and what he actually said was that he expected payouts to contributors to increase by 30% next year __ despite the reductions in commissions. Sales would have to rise by even more than that if he were correct. I very much doubt that will happen. The reduction in RC targets is a strong indicator that sales in the latter part of the year were significantly below projections. If Kelly can't actually project the next 3 months with any accuracy then I wouldn't give his predictions for the next 15 months much credence.
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Do people actually do that somewhere on this planet?
I'd be really pee'd off if I asked for a 'Coke' and actually got a 'Coke'.
Yes, Coke Brand actively protects it's name and identity against becoming generic. If you ask for Coke and get some other brown Cola flavored beverage, the place selling it could be in violation.
The Coke bottling company regularly challenges restaurants and bars that sell other brands when asked for a "Coke" as they are not serving a real Coke, but something else. They can't have Coke on the menu unless they serve Coke Mix or Coke bottles and Cans.
Ask someone who owns a bar or restaurant. :D
Besides I'd hate to order Coke and get some P-Word instead? LOL
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Reminds me of the old SNL sketch - "No Coke. Pepsi"
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Yes, Coke Brand actively protects it's name and identity against becoming generic. If you ask for Coke and get some other brown Cola flavored beverage, the place selling it could be in violation.
I'm pretty sure down south, everything is a "coke'.
http://www.tableausoftware.com/blog/do-you-say-coke-soda-or-pop-map-visualization-shows-your-likely-answer (http://www.tableausoftware.com/blog/do-you-say-coke-soda-or-pop-map-visualization-shows-your-likely-answer)
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Pretty amazing... humans have finally worked out how to destroy the whole purpose of the evolution of language.
Maybe a hundred years from now humans will just be making grunting noises again, and monkeys will be waiting tables asking "Would that be an orangeade or a sparkling blackcurrant, Madam?"
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...
Ive said it before: the sites that will survive and survive without having to hide under a bigger umbrella, are the sites that get their act together regarding all these tech-problems, most important, saving buyers from tons of irrelevant rubbish, making it a quick, effective and speedy search.
Plus one! Errr, I mean woo-yay, hearty agreement and all that.
Remember all those other search engines you used before google? There's a reason why nearly everyone uses google now - they are quick, effective, honest and they eliminate a lot of rubbish.
If google wanted to they could probably tweak images.google.com to search any or all stock agencies, and add filters and sorting options to the search such as size, price, age, number of downloads. No confusing crowns and "special collection" symbols. No mysterious and inscrutable bias in the ranking. Anyone who wanted to could actually create such a meta-agency themselves, and they could work out a deal with the stock agencies as to whether they wish to be included or not, e.g. for a percentage of sales originating from the meta-search engine. If it was a really good search tool and became popular with buyers then agencies would have to play ball with them.
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Pretty amazing... humans have finally worked out how to destroy the whole purpose of the evolution of language.
Maybe a hundred years from now humans will just be making grunting noises again, and monkeys will be waiting tables asking "Would that be an orangeade or a sparkling blackcurrant, Madam?"
More to do with Trademark protection than "evolution of language" as you put it. Coke doesn't want their name to become generic like Aspirin, Thermos, Yo-Yo, Dry ice, and many more.
Companies spend billions to ensure that their products become household names, then they spend millions more to prevent these household names from being applied to any products beside their own. Interesting conflict, but not just silly language censorship.
Meanwhile Google did run into legal problems when they were showing images in searches and some places claimed it was a copyright violation. That's why when you search you may notice the lack of images to related stories in the news. Maybe they found that keyword spam made the searches fruitless. :D
I think that if they did include images in the search, it would be helpful for all of us.
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Race, I think you may have misunderstood me... I meant that using 'coke' as a generic term for all sodas was destroying the purpose of language. (i.e. to clearly differentiate between one thing and a different thing and to communicate with clarity... as I have failed to do... LOL).
More than that though... I wanted to tell my monkey joke :D
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Race, I think you may have misunderstood me... I meant that using 'coke' as a generic term for all sodas was destroying the purpose of language. (i.e. to clearly differentiate between one thing and a different thing and to communicate with clarity... as I have failed to do... LOL).
More than that though... I wanted to tell my monkey joke :D
Obviously I missed the point, so I need to pay better attention to the words. :)
I apologize for going into Trademarks. Now I need to go shopping I'm out of Diet Coke. ps Lite Beer is only made by Miller, the name is protected. Just in time for the playoffs tomorrow.
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No problem Race! Enjoy your correctly-named drinks and the play-offs ;D
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Isn't it interesting how the 'generic' for a fizzy drink varies by locality.
When I was young, weans in the west of Scotland often called any variety 'lemonade', but in the east of Scotland, it was often called 'juice'.
But nowadays, it's just 'a can'.
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Isn't it interesting how the 'generic' for a fizzy drink varies by locality.
When I was young, weans in the west of Scotland often called any variety 'lemonade', but in the east of Scotland, it was often called 'juice'.
But nowadays, it's just 'a can'.
I wouldn't say Scotland is representative of any food culture ... other than Scotland itself. I remember once choosing a pizza in a Glasgow chippy as a relatively 'low fat' option compared to what else was on offer. I was utterly stunned when they said 'Aye' and then chucked my precious pizza into the deep fat fryer. Arrgghh! Apparently a significant proportion of the Scottish population think that a large portion of chips actually counts as part of the 'five-a-day' nutritional recommendation for fruit & veg.
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I wouldn't say Scotland is representative of any food culture ... other than Scotland itself. I remember once choosing a pizza in a Glasgow chippy as a relatively 'low fat' option compared to what else was on offer. I was utterly stunned when they said 'Aye' and then chucked my precious pizza into the deep fat fryer. Arrgghh! Apparently a significant proportion of the Scottish population think that a large portion of chips actually counts as part of the 'five-a-day' nutritional recommendation for fruit & veg.
Sounds like my kind of diet!
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I wouldn't say Scotland is representative of any food culture ... other than Scotland itself. I remember once choosing a pizza in a Glasgow chippy as a relatively 'low fat' option compared to what else was on offer. I was utterly stunned when they said 'Aye' and then chucked my precious pizza into the deep fat fryer. Arrgghh!
Well, yes, you were in a chippy - what else would you expect? They even deep fry steak pies and mars bars in chippies.
Apparently a significant proportion of the Scottish population think that a large portion of chips actually counts as part of the 'five-a-day' nutritional recommendation for fruit & veg.
So does a Chocolate Orange. :P
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So does a Chocolate Orange. :P
Ooh! Thanks! <Adding that to health-foods list>
Deep-fried pizza? Urghhhhhhhhh.