Quote from: iStop on January 05, 2013, 01:10

An interesting analysis of iStock's traffic as at 8 December 2012:

http://www.statscrop.com/www/istockphoto.com

[snip]

Look at the 4 year Traffic Graph.  Looks pretty much my my earnings chart.

The page views per user data are interesting, too. It appears that around the time they started pumping in dodgy agency files the page views per user halved - and that happened almost overnight.

Continuous quick drop - 514

Getty traffic has also dropped considerably over the last 2 years. And if you compare Getty traffic against iStock traffic it appears iStock has about 10 times the traffic of Getty at this point, even with the recent tanking of iStock's traffic.

So Getty's master plan is not sophisticated. It is simply to save Getty and they are flooding iStock with Getty content to hopefully capitalize on iStock's traffic to help Getty's sales. They are doing this for better or for worse and after they started this major offensive 3 months ago they are probably seeing the outcome is for the worse.

The question is do they try and reverse things at some point. My guess is the hard headed bean counters will just let their bets ride and end up driving iStock further into the ground. Usually corporates try and reverse bad decisions only after it's too late. Sad but true.

And all of the impact to the iStock contributors being seen at the moment is just casualties of war to them. 

Getty traffic has also dropped considerably over the last 2 years. And if you compare Getty traffic against iStock traffic it appears iStock has about 10 times the traffic of Getty at this point, even with the recent tanking of iStock's traffic.

So Getty's master plan is not sophisticated. It is simply to save Getty and they are flooding iStock with Getty content to hopefully capitalize on iStock's traffic to help Getty's sales. They are doing this for better or for worse and after they started this major offensive 3 months ago they are probably seeing the outcome is for the worse.

The question is do they try and reverse things at some point. My guess is the hard headed bean counters will just let their bets ride and end up driving iStock further into the ground. Usually corporates try and reverse bad decisions only after it's too late. Sad but true.

And all of the impact to the iStock contributors being seen at the moment is just casualties of war to them.

Good analysis. Sadly I suspect your observations are spot on.

Flooding iStock with expensive Getty content is not going to help either brand very much, even if iStock does have 10x the traffic. Micro buyers will just be driven away and macro buyers would surely have gone to Getty anyway if that's what they wanted.

I find it hard to imagine the management can be so stupid. It's not as if there's a shortage of competitor sites.

But who knows? Corporations have done dumber things. And if that is the strategy, it looks as if we may be entering the death spiral.

 Getty needs to see that IS and Getty are fundamentally different businesses and stop the cack-handed integration.

Prices on iStock need big cuts. Royalty rates need to be boosted to keep suppliers happy. There needs to be heavy investment in technology and advertising.

All bad for next quarter's results, but the only way to avert a death spiral. Perhaps Carlyle will be able to take a longer-term view than we've become accustomed to.

Flooding iStock with expensive Getty content is not going to help either brand very much, even if iStock does have 10x the traffic. Micro buyers will just be driven away and macro buyers would surely have gone to Getty anyway if that's what they wanted.

I find it hard to imagine the management can be so stupid. It's not as if there's a shortage of competitor sites.

But who knows? Corporations have done dumber things. And if that is the strategy, it looks as if we may be entering the death spiral.

 Getty needs to see that IS and Getty are fundamentally different businesses and stop the cack-handed integration.

Prices on iStock need big cuts. Royalty rates need to be boosted to keep suppliers happy. There needs to be heavy investment in technology and advertising.

All bad for next quarter's results, but the only way to avert a death spiral. Perhaps Carlyle will be able to take a longer-term view than we've become accustomed to.

I agree 1000%. To me it is really a price issue and a major marketing effort to win back buyers with value and quality selection. Getty management are ffffn idiots.

Yes, of course flooding iStock with expensive Getty content doesn't help either brand. Its like trying to sell someone a Gucci bag who goes into K-Mart for a ruck sack. But the fact is they have done it already and it's clear to everyone that the site is flooded with Getty content. No doubt about that. So that confirms their greed and desperation is outweighing their sensibilities.

With Getty's traffic also falling to all time lows they are far more worried about Getty falling down the slippery slope such that they are willing to turn iStock into the sacrificial lamb if necessary in their act of desperation.

But when they started this offensive they probably didn't think it would kill iStock's traffic so quickly or at all. They probably figured, with the ability to search on iStock by price range and collection, the micro buyers would still get what they need whilst also being able to convert some of iStock's massive buyer traffic (which Getty is now lacking) into higher priced content buyers. A self fulfilling prophecy though as we have come to understand.

Surely it's all blowing up in their face. There is no doubt. If the economical micro stuff isn't selling as evidenced by the monthly stats threads on iStock, then you can be rest assured the more expensive Getty macro stuff definitely isn't selling in place of it. The buyers have simply packed up and left for a place that offers them content in their desired micro price range.

But as I said, Getty admins went into this with both feet and so far they haven't shown signs of trying to reverse the downward spiral they created. And as I said, my guess is they won't as I am sure it was a very senior decision maker who was behind all this and he/she will entrench the company with his/her decision saying that the offensive plan simply needs time to become successful followed by some words of wisdom to keep all the staff morale up like "you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs" as everyone starts worrying about their job security amidst iStock's ailing revenue.

The sad thing is I think the buyers have already said how they feel about their new macro content scheme by leaving. And the rest will become history.

What is also interesting is how in the past when they made bad decisions they were quick to reverse them back. But that's when iStock was more in control of its own fate. Now that the decisions are made by Getty, and their new partners who want to see profits increase ASAP, you won't find them backing out of major decisions so easily. They will sum the blood bath up as temporary growing pains. But in the end no growth. Just pain.

With Getty's traffic also falling to all time lows they are far more worried about Getty falling down the slippery slope such that they are willing to turn iStock into the sacrificial lamb if necessary in their act of desperation.

I agree with all of your post but actually I'm pretty sure that Istock, at it's peak, represented a very significant chunk of Getty's entire turnover. Quite possibly as much as 30% and growing when most of the Getty empire was shrinking. I think they hitched themselves and their problems to their 'wonder-horse' thinking it was so strong it was almost unbreakable. Wrong. They broke it too and, short of rolling back the clock 4-5 years in terms of prices and royalties, it is now probably un-mendable.

Lisa, good point about the cash prices. Something caused the iStock cliff in September, and I don't think it was the broken zoom. I'd bet on the naked greedy cash prices being shoved under buyers' noses, causing panic attacks all round.

Far from encouraging thrifty buyers to buy cheaper credits instead, the cash prices dealt a deadly psychological blow. I know I nearly fainted when I saw them, and I'm on the side of the fence that might be expected to like them.

It is my suspicion that the Alexa ranking is very pertinent to dropping sales site wide at IS. I do not believe for one nano second that sales and revenue "are exactly as they predicted". Case in point is their sudden faux interest last month in improving communication with contributors, their long overdue lifting of the curtain to introduce key administrative players, their unabashedly shameful promotion to give to charity for increased sales, and their recent resurrection of "contributor trusted" JJRD. IMO, they are scared sh*tless and are obviously in panic mode.

I think it's entirely possible that contributors could be in a tailspin while IS/Getty is still experiencing growth or meeting whatever their expectations are. Expectations could be X% growth. No growth. Or to not let sales drop by more than X%.

They could have seen a 5% increase in revenue but if contributors/content increased by 50% there probably isn't enough sales growth to keep up with the increase in content. Same pie with a lot more people taking a piece of it. Competition 101.

Contributors need to move beyond the whole best match, Image Magnifier, and other "fix it" distractions. There aren't enough sales to go around to please everybody. Simple as that.

The image magnifier is fixed. best match has been changed a few times. Did sales increase? Not from what I see. Every time they change the best match some will win some will lose. They are slowly fixing things and it doesn't seem to improve sales.

The problem is that they seem to be focused only on their numbers. Their revenue and profits. If contributors are dying, quitting, or moving to competitor sites, how long do they think this can keep going before it does affect their finances? It took years to get where we are. How long do they think it will take to reverse it?

For me it's time to start Plan B. My sales and growth have actually been very good there for 2012 but the trend is obvious. They're only doing small things in an attempt to pacify contributors and they don't see any urgency in contributor sales. I'm keeping my photo exclusive content there for now but for 2013 I'll be focusing my time elsewhere submitting video, prints, and other work. Until they commit a true effort to fixing the biggest problems, sales growth and contributor benefits, then I can only see money problems getting worse for contributors.

Funny thing is, they're losing their leverage. As long as contributors were making money they knew they could continue taking things away and we would deal with it because of the money. But what if the money dries up?

Quote from: lisafx on January 08, 2013, 11:43

Holy cow!  I see what you mean!  I am used to seeing my cash prices, which start at $2 or $4 depending on if the image is P+. ...

Reading what you wrote made me go have a look as I realized I had no idea that a regular exclusive image had become so expensive - $7 to $48 (versus $4 to $34 for a Photo +). Compare that to a DT level 4 XS - about $7 (9 credits) but the largest size is insanely high at IS - $48 versus about $17 (19 credits)

Perhaps it was all about sticker shock not lack of zoom? Or just adding together too many small negatives. Site's not working quickly; searches are weird; no zoom - then you look at the prices and wonder why you're there...

ROFLMAO !! Thats a nice reflection of the chain of events.

Quote from: lisafx on January 07, 2013, 15:08

Slightly OT, reading customer reactions to the cash payment option is very enlightening.  That should either be scrapped, or they should make the credits worth $1 and lower the prices so that there is less sticker shock.

It's even more of a shock in the UK, where you see the even-more-hiked-up prices then if you decide to follow on anyway, you then get the VAT added on.
We're used to seeing prices quoted including VAT, (or at the very least, the base price and the total price including VAT, on mainly B2B sites which might have some 'consumer' customers also) so that looks like a scam, even though it technically isn't. (The actual scam is in the hike over US$).

I can't see the prices in pounds from the US, but looking at current exchange rates, $7 to $48 should be about 4.40 - 30 pounds. What are the current UK prices?

One of the things I  notice is that whereas I used to see a lot of overnight (my time; pacific time zone) sales from all the big agencies I no longer see that at iStock although I still do at SS (where about 60% of my sales are from outside the US). Perhaps the currency schemes Getty has been trying to make money on is another discouraging factor for non-US buyers?

I can't see the prices in pounds from the US, but looking at current exchange rates, $7 to $48 should be about 4.40 - 30 pounds. What are the current UK prices?

�1.50 for an XS indie file; �13.50 for an indy L file;
�5 for an XS Exclusive file; $17.75 for a L exc. file;
�90.50 for a L Vetta file; �103.25 for a L Agency file.
All of these plus 20% UK VAT.