Author Topic: iStock accepts almost any image now? (Read 6300 times)

grapegeek · « **on:** January 13, 2014, 12:06 »

If you aren't following my saga. I was in iStock from the beginning and always had a small portfolio. Took a few years off pursuing other things and now have more free time to shoot and upload. I have uploaded a fair amount of images (for me) in the past few weeks. Zero rejections. Over on SS, I am getting a few rejections where they used to take just about anything. Also, acceptance times are measured in minutes and not the weeks it took a couple of years ago. What is the rationale behind accepting everything? The downside is that none and I mean NONE of the images have even had a single view. Some are going on two months being live. It's like everything that has been uploaded in the past year or so is put on ice and not getting downloads while my images from back in 2005 get constant downloads... argh!

ShadySue · « **Reply #1 on:** January 13, 2014, 12:31 »

Yup, that's how it is.
I've had two rejections from the last several months, and I'm probably the only one!

I have very few 2013 files selling and almost all 2012/2011 sales are of editorials.
What's mostly selling from my port (and it isn't much this month, I'm 33% below this time last year) is mostly from 2007-9.

Back in 2011, something weird happened whereby if a file sold once or twice reasonably quickly, it went down in the best match, which has never been addressed ('the curse of the download').
Then round Sept 2012, new files took a huge hit in the best match, which has been complained about many times, but they are not acknowledging it as an issue or doing anything about it.

I have no idea whether the person who know how to tweak the Best Match has been let go, or if it's deliberate and part of some sort of Plan, evil or otherwise.

Anyway, I've trickled down from 'very few' uploads in 2013 to 'what's the point?'.

grapegeek · « **Reply #2 on:** January 13, 2014, 12:45 »

I'm with you then... what's the point of uploading? Just put my images on a competitor's website and get downloads that way if they aren't going to address the problem!

grapegeek · « **Reply #3 on:** January 13, 2014, 14:14 »

@ShadySue... just looked at your portfolio and filtered down to just the Editorials. It's true! You are getting at least some downloads on recent editorials. Is that the way to go? I have a ton of those...

ShadySue · « **Reply #4 on:** January 13, 2014, 14:18 »

Quote from: grapegeek on January 13, 2014, 14:14

@ShadySue... just looked at your portfolio and filtered down to just the Editorials. It's true! You are getting at least some downloads on recent editorials. Is that the way to go? I have a ton of those...

Not recent, as in 2013. It was going OK for a while, but ...

ShadySue · « **Reply #5 on:** January 13, 2014, 15:03 »

You may have missed me saying often before that I deactivated over 100 mostly-editorial images early in 2013 because they weren't even getting views.

ouchie · « **Reply #6 on:** January 13, 2014, 19:26 »

Quote from: grapegeek on January 13, 2014, 12:06

If you aren't following my saga. I was in iStock from the beginning and always had a small portfolio. Took a few years off pursuing other things and now have more free time to shoot and upload. I have uploaded a fair amount of images (for me) in the past few weeks. Zero rejections. Over on SS, I am getting a few rejections where they used to take just about anything. Also, acceptance times are measured in minutes and not the weeks it took a couple of years ago. What is the rationale behind accepting everything? The downside is that none and I mean NONE of the images have even had a single view. Some are going on two months being live. It's like everything that has been uploaded in the past year or so is put on ice and not getting downloads while my images from back in 2005 get constant downloads... argh!

i have not read the entire thread, just you post.

I have a theory that they are intentinally accepting anything nowadays in order to pull a fast one on everyone.

Ie: free images, extreamly low prices.

kinda like that google thing that made me cancel my acct with them.

i belive they are going to profit nicely from all the images one final time, with us getting pennies and they making one last bucket load of money before closing down the doors.

why else would they accept all your images and not sell any right now?

could be jst me being kinda punch happy from the past few scenarios they did.

hope im wrong.

i was even thinking on reopening my acct and uploading everything to them. thinking why not make some extra $ while i can. but then theyd have my pics and i could be screwed if the do another google deal.

Hobostocker · « **Reply #7 on:** January 14, 2014, 02:40 »

istock lowering the bar is ultimately good for customers.

quantity is the key factor, small portfolios and small part time photographers will soon become irrilevant.

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #8 on:** January 14, 2014, 03:48 »

And full time photographers won't be able to make a living..... especially if they are the sort who have to have the bar lowered to enable them to pile a load of dross into the collection. Dross isn't good for anyone.

ShadySue · « **Reply #9 on:** January 14, 2014, 04:32 »

Quote from: Hobostocker on January 14, 2014, 02:40

istock lowering the bar is ultimately good for customers.

quantity is the key factor, small portfolios and small part time photographers will soon become irrilevant.

Huh? Lower standards in photography and non-existent standards of keywording can't possibly help the customer to find what they want.

grapegeek · « **Reply #10 on:** January 14, 2014, 10:52 »

I can possibly fathom why IS would basically accept anything and then not sell it. What a waste of time and money. I've done some spot checking of portfolios of big time seller to small time sellers and nobody is selling new images. I'm sure if they have sinister intents on those new images but unless the best match brings new images up in the search (Fresh Match doesn't work either) then it's all for nothing...

cuppacoffee · « **Reply #11 on:** January 14, 2014, 11:02 »

I see one scenario where this might work. IF old non-sellers are deleted from the site after a set amount of time it will self weed-out the stinkers or those with low commercial value. Problem is that it takes years to accomplish and stinkers keep getting accepted to replace those deleted. This keeps the false perception that, "this site has more images to offer than the others" - not a good thing. I'd rather look through fewer "better" (whatever that means) images and not have to navigate through all the drek. I don't think any microsite expects to be around in 5 years in the same form it is today. There have been and continue to be so many changes in how images are viewed/valued by the casual users and serious buyers see the costs per image decreasing so they don't value a good image like they used to either.

ShadySue · « **Reply #12 on:** January 14, 2014, 11:06 »

I suspect they're going to say, "Oh, we have all this cr*p content that hasn't sold in (so long) so we're going to keep it permanently in Main / send to PP only / whatever"

But they regularly seem to do something worse than my worst fears, so be very afraid.

Why they have totally abandoned any pretence of accurate keywording on acceptance beats me. Just about any sort by newest is truly shocking, so it's highly unlikely (m)any buyers would use it.

cobalt · « **Reply #13 on:** January 14, 2014, 11:10 »

The strategy of taking "everything" makes sense if you are planning to make money with the simpler images on their cheaper websites. Only the higher end content is what they are probably expecting to sell on istock. Basically istock is just an entry portal for content of any type that they later pass around, move up or down etc...Same with keywords. Even if the keywords are not perfect, the system will anyway only promote the keywords that the customers use, it is self learning.

If you only look at istock itself, the strategy is strange, but if you think about how many agencies Getty owns and how many partner deals they have it makes perfect sense to try and attract "everything" that the stock industry has to offer.

That is why images elsewhere - on stocksy, offset, fotolia or dreamstime are the only real pain for them, especially if they can´t make a deal to get them licensed to their site.

"getty has everything" is a very powerful concept. It is simply a lot easier for the customer, especially for the high volume customer, to get any kind of content that is available from one site.

ShadySue · « **Reply #14 on:** January 14, 2014, 11:12 »

Quote from: cuppacoffee on January 14, 2014, 11:02

I see one scenario where this might work. IF old non-sellers are deleted from the site after a set amount of time it will self weed-out the stinkers or those with low commercial value. Problem is that it takes years to accomplish and stinkers keep getting accepted to replace those deleted. This keeps the false perception that, "this site has more images to offer than the others" - not a good thing. I'd rather look through fewer "better" (whatever that means) images and not have to navigate through all the drek. I don't think any microsite expects to be around in 5 years in the same form it is today. There have been and continue to be so many changes in how images are viewed/valued by the casual users and serious buyers see the costs per image decreasing so they don't value a good image like they used to either.

I don't think that's their aim, or if it is, they're implementing it oddly.
Like I said, since 2011 at least, new files getting a download get demoted, in some cases right down to the last page of a search. I had that happen several times, and other people have reported the same.

While at the low prices at some places may necessitate a weeding out of 'low commercial value' subjects, that also may not help the buyer. If a buyer has a need of a less usual image, can't find it on their usual site, they are annoyed, and might realise that another site has a wider range of subjects and make that their new 'usual site'.

But auto-demoting files as they did with their 'collections' makes no distinction between whether a file is low-supply; low demand (so has no need to be priced lower), or a less popular choice among a thousand similar subject files.

ShadySue · « **Reply #15 on:** January 14, 2014, 11:23 »

Quote from: cobalt on January 14, 2014, 11:10

. Even if the keywords are not perfect, the system will anyway only promote the keywords that the customers use, it is self learning.

Allegedly so, but if new files aren't given their time in the sun in the best match on ingestion, then are demoted if they dare to get a download or two, they will never be able to rise in that system. As grapegeek said above, "I've done some spot checking of portfolios of big time seller to small time sellers and nobody is selling new images."

I've checked top sellers new work myself, and it's really very discouraging.

It's not all gloom and doom. I've found a relatively new submitter (I've seen his work for years in mags, an indie in my main interest area) who joined in May 2013 and has just gone over 400 dls (his port was showing as '>300 on Sunday) - but he (or an assistant?) has uploaded 12247 images since May, so a dl/ul rate of 1:30.

grapegeek · « **Reply #16 on:** January 14, 2014, 11:47 »

I ran across someone that just joined last summer and was drawing these cartoon character illustrations. Uploaded thousands of them in the past four months and I think they've sold maybe 200 in six months. The flood gates are open. I can only see a couple of reasons why they would do this. A) To supply the lower end partner sites. B) to pad their numbers so they look like they have as many images as their competition. C) They plan on something we can't foresee. My gut tells me it's A but we need to see sales pick up on the PP and it looks like they screwed that up...

Uncle Pete · « **Reply #17 on:** January 14, 2014, 12:34 »

Maybe Getty is going to spin off IS, or sell a share of it to some investment group, again, and they want to be able to say we have ##,###,### images.

We all should remember what happened with the last investment company. Total disaster, drained funds, lowered commissions. Then they paid themselves a nice dividend and got out of the business.

JPSDK · « **Reply #18 on:** January 14, 2014, 13:47 »

it is easy enough. It is suicide.
The old istock concept with the well curated and keyworded images of supposingly higher quality was dying. Overpriced, not competitive, and dying.

So the did the opposite, focused on bulk.
So now they have gone rid of the old istock, and try to make a new istock. A bulk carrier, as all the others, just worse.

It does not make much sence to me. But istock never make sence, they were always clinging with their claws and always manipulating and always preying on anybody.

So since it doesnt make sence, there is probably some sinister istock agenda, like some way to capitalize on the bulk of pictures, without downloads, they now have.
I dont know what it is.
But we shall see.

enstoker · « **Reply #19 on:** January 14, 2014, 14:17 »

No, Istock is not dead. Yet!
Some old contributors with "brand portfolios" and old customers are still doing good business.
I have some friends, all are among first 500 Istockers. They sell and earn less and less, compared to last year or two...
but still, they do great job as exclusives.
On the other side, we, non exclusives, low rated "loosers" (as IS stuff probably name us), are fighting for cents in PP, because our regular sells in MAIN are negligible small.
So, "IS 500 club" works perfect.
FOR NOW !

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Author Topic: iStock accepts almost any image now? (Read 6300 times)

grapegeek

ShadySue

grapegeek

grapegeek

ShadySue

ShadySue

ouchie

Hobostocker

BaldricksTrousers

ShadySue

grapegeek

cuppacoffee

ShadySue

cobalt

ShadySue

ShadySue

grapegeek

Uncle Pete

JPSDK

enstoker

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