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Author Topic: Istock F5 epic fail  (Read 266150 times)

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« Reply #1025 on: April 28, 2011, 12:09 »
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With Vetta/Agency sales the picture may be healthier for exclusives

Don't forget that exclusive+ sales can make a significant difference too.


ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #1026 on: April 28, 2011, 12:12 »
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... If they set them to low then they give away the farm. ...


The only people giving away the farm on a continuing basis are the IS contributors. Nothing short of splitting revenues 50/50 will change that fact.

Which micros, that actually sell at decent prices and at good volume, split 50-50 or better?


http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/agencies-with-fair-commissions/

That only tells of the commission, not of the volume of sales or sales prices. 50% of very little is still very little.

« Reply #1027 on: April 28, 2011, 12:18 »
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right (havent said the opposite) lets all leave the big ones and join other

« Reply #1028 on: April 28, 2011, 12:44 »
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Stockxpert was a big earner for me with a 50% commission, before they were closed down.  Dreamstime has always been in the top earners and they used to be 50% but they have reduced commissions in recent years.

I think all the sites could make a healthy profit with 50% commission but it wont happen because people have shown they are now willing to accept under 20%.  The extra commission would make being a microstopck contributor more profitable and would give us an incentive to work harder and make more money.  I think it's similar to countries that lower their taxes.  They actually increase revenues because it gives people more incentive to work.  Unfortunately the sites don't think like that ::)

Just thought of another 50% site that does really well, Pond5.  Hopefully they will be as good with stills as they are with footage, outselling istock for me.
« Last Edit: April 28, 2011, 12:46 by sharpshot »

« Reply #1029 on: April 28, 2011, 13:05 »
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a little OT but I had a nice one this afternoon, I had some pictures approved at FT but have found that some have a keyword not well written (not that important but it sure might help on sales) so I write to them if then can change that for me, they reply telling thats not possible, so I tell them, shall I remove and upload again with well written keyword?? they told me, no they will be automatically rejected because they dont review the same files again.. what does this mean? they want to sell our pics or are we are just trying hard when they arent not that worried of getting more sales...

microstockphoto.co.uk

« Reply #1030 on: April 28, 2011, 13:42 »
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I got the same answer years ago - at the time of passage from v1 to v2 - when I contacted support after a few of my pictures lost all keywords. Needless to say, no one bought those untagged pictures again (two were decent sellers).

« Reply #1031 on: April 28, 2011, 17:30 »
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I think iStock has put themselves in a serious box.  With the instability of the best match and flaky site operations they cannot predict what levels of RC's will work for the year. If they are too high then their best contributors/sellers will be hacked off.  If they set them to low then they give away the farm. They cannot predict when the site will stabalize.  They cannot predict what the next tweek of the best match will do for individual sales levels. The first months of this year are no vauable basis for projections at the contributor level.  They have done it to themselves and are now trying to find a path forward.  I suspect they will drag their feet (and already have) on any photog RC levels announcement as long as they possibly can. [returning to lurk mode]

Seems like their constant tinkering with the website and trying to manipulate the numbers is backfiring.

« Reply #1032 on: May 05, 2011, 19:46 »
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With istock's latest announcement to try and suck non-exclusives back in, with the "promise" of making them more money by locking their photos in for 6 months with the Photo+ program, just thought this thread should be resurrected to remind everyone of all the FAILS of istock.

« Reply #1033 on: May 05, 2011, 21:04 »
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the "promise" of making them more money by locking their photos in for 6 months with the Photo+ program...

Um...huh?  Where can I see this announcement?

[update] Never mind, I see the other thread.

« Reply #1034 on: May 06, 2011, 16:33 »
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The 'discussion' regarding Kelly's CNET interview has been curtly locked by Joyze, suggesting that we discuss the wonders of PNG instead;

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=328488&page=7

I think we can safely say, from a PR and contributor relations perspective, that Kelly's interview graduated with distinction as an 'Epic Fail'.

« Reply #1035 on: May 08, 2011, 10:07 »
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This is definitely an ongoing epic fail:

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=310482&page=4#post6372250

More than two months and he has not been paid for his high res image downloaded from Getty. And not a single word from admins about it, publicly or privately.

« Reply #1036 on: May 08, 2011, 10:27 »
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This is definitely an ongoing epic fail:

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=310482&page=4#post6372250

More than two months and he has not been paid for his high res image downloaded from Getty. And not a single word from admins about it, publicly or privately.

Incredible.
It seems like nobody from IS staff feels concerned by this kind of problems. How many of us haven't been payed without knowing it? Is this another bug or another way to make more profit?

« Reply #1037 on: May 08, 2011, 12:00 »
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This is definitely an ongoing epic fail:

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=310482&page=4#post6372250

More than two months and he has not been paid for his high res image downloaded from Getty. And not a single word from admins about it, publicly or privately.

Incredible.
It seems like nobody from IS staff feels concerned by this kind of problems. How many of us haven't been payed without knowing it? Is this another bug or another way to make more profit?


I mentioned once, long ago, that we actually don't have a way to really find out if some agencies cheat us, and I got almost sent to a guillotine by some people. And I said that the only way to notice this kind of cheating is to find an image that's been published, but it doesn't have any downloads.

Let's hope it's just a February sale that will be reported among march sales.

« Reply #1038 on: May 08, 2011, 12:12 »
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This is definitely an ongoing epic fail:

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=310482&page=4#post6372250

More than two months and he has not been paid for his high res image downloaded from Getty. And not a single word from admins about it, publicly or privately.

Incredible.
It seems like nobody from IS staff feels concerned by this kind of problems. How many of us haven't been payed without knowing it? Is this another bug or another way to make more profit?

I think the reason that it seems like nobody at IS cares is because at this point they really don't care. I'm sure morale there is extremely low, they get angry calls from customers all day, they get badgered in the forums by contributors. I have to imagine it's not a very pleasant place to work at the moment. And in that kind of environment and with so many fires to tend to and extinguish, everything just falls through the cracks.

« Reply #1039 on: May 08, 2011, 12:25 »
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I think the reason that it seems like nobody at IS cares is because at this point they really don't care. I'm sure morale there is extremely low, they get angry calls from customers all day, they get badgered in the forums by contributors. I have to imagine it's not a very pleasant place to work at the moment. And in that kind of environment and with so many fires to tend to and extinguish, everything just falls through the cracks.

From what we are led to believe though (in forum posts from a couple admins - rogermexico & JJRD), is that everyone loooooves working there and that the attrition rate is very low. Yeppers.  ;)

« Reply #1040 on: May 08, 2011, 13:34 »
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Does Getty's invoicing actually work the same way as iSTock's? On Alamy a sale can take months to get reported and longer to get cleared. Do we know if Getty waits until it gets paid before reporting a sale? If so, delays of several months could be normal.

« Reply #1041 on: May 08, 2011, 14:31 »
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Does Getty's invoicing actually work the same way as iSTock's? On Alamy a sale can take months to get reported and longer to get cleared. Do we know if Getty waits until it gets paid before reporting a sale? If so, delays of several months could be normal.

On the thread people would have thought it would have been paid by now. I think someone mentioned a two month delay and the photo sold in February, apparently.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #1042 on: May 08, 2011, 15:00 »
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Does Getty's invoicing actually work the same way as iSTock's? On Alamy a sale can take months to get reported and longer to get cleared. Do we know if Getty waits until it gets paid before reporting a sale? If so, delays of several months could be normal.
It's possible, but if so, you'd think that echodelta or asylumdown would just explain that simple piece of information. Or you'd think other people would have had the same issue and they could chip in.

« Reply #1043 on: May 08, 2011, 17:20 »
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The deal for video and vector was part of the incentive to get contributors to opt in to Vetta. There is no such deal for photographers. Right now they won't even give us a date for when they'll announce the photo targets.

Honestly, I don't see how they could leave the targets the same for photographers.  Downloads seem to be in steep decline there for many, many people. 

Very true but they will likely leave them the same so we all take another pay cut...that's simply been their M.O. for nearly a year.

« Reply #1044 on: May 09, 2011, 01:23 »
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Does Getty's invoicing actually work the same way as iSTock's? On Alamy a sale can take months to get reported and longer to get cleared. Do we know if Getty waits until it gets paid before reporting a sale? If so, delays of several months could be normal.
It's possible, but if so, you'd think that echodelta or asylumdown would just explain that simple piece of information. Or you'd think other people would have had the same issue and they could chip in.

I'm not sure about other people knowing about it, you need to find the photo in use and know that it hasn't been sold anywhere else in order to find out that a GI sale credit is due. The odds of that happening are quite slim.

« Reply #1045 on: May 09, 2011, 04:15 »
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The deal for video and vector was part of the incentive to get contributors to opt in to Vetta. There is no such deal for photographers. Right now they won't even give us a date for when they'll announce the photo targets.

Honestly, I don't see how they could leave the targets the same for photographers.  Downloads seem to be in steep decline there for many, many people. 

Very true but they will likely leave them the same so we all take another pay cut...that's simply been their M.O. for nearly a year.

I'm still worried that they'll move some of the levels up.
I'd guess that they'll leave the top tiers the same but those of us down the bottom might get another kick in the  "donkey".

« Reply #1046 on: May 09, 2011, 07:16 »
0

The deal for video and vector was part of the incentive to get contributors to opt in to Vetta. There is no such deal for photographers. Right now they won't even give us a date for when they'll announce the photo targets.

Honestly, I don't see how they could leave the targets the same for photographers.  Downloads seem to be in steep decline there for many, many people. 

Very true but they will likely leave them the same so we all take another pay cut...that's simply been their M.O. for nearly a year.

I'm still worried that they'll move some of the levels up.
I'd guess that they'll leave the top tiers the same but those of us down the bottom might get another kick in the  "donkey".

Well, if it went that way it'd be two kicks from that donkey.  Meeting current 2010 RC levels will be tough for a lot of people because their images are buried in the search.  That equals less credits spent on your work (less doe).  So for them to raise the RC levels based on reduced credit spend overall would be a slap in the face...again and a kick in the bean sack to boot (for us men, anyhow:))

« Reply #1047 on: May 09, 2011, 11:07 »
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JoAnn posted this in the Vector Vetta Rebellion thread, but looks like it qualifies for another epic fail:

This isn't generally visible because it's in the Vetta forum, but apparently they gave insufficient attention to the details of rolling out Vetta for video and illustrations.

Now the program is accepting nominations, contributors who want to participate are running into bugs that prevent them from doing that.

Trying to nominate a legacy file, they get the error "This file was previously in the Vetta Collection but it is no longer eligible for nominations" which is what you would get if you had taken a file out of Vetta and tried to nominate it again later.

Trying to nominate a new file upon upload, they get the error:


It's hard to say if this is because they're rushing this, or it's just the typical poor quality software rollout.

« Reply #1048 on: May 09, 2011, 17:00 »
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This is definitely an ongoing epic fail:

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=310482&page=4#post6372250

More than two months and he has not been paid for his high res image downloaded from Getty. And not a single word from admins about it, publicly or privately.


Joyze has finally said she will look into the matter;

"Hey Folks, this was just brought to my attention by one of our moderators. I'm looking into this right now and will contact the contributor directly with the details."

« Reply #1049 on: May 09, 2011, 17:23 »
0
This is definitely an ongoing epic fail:

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=310482&page=4#post6372250

More than two months and he has not been paid for his high res image downloaded from Getty. And not a single word from admins about it, publicly or privately.


Joyze has finally said she will look into the matter;

"Hey Folks, this was just brought to my attention by one of our moderators. I'm looking into this right now and will contact the contributor directly with the details."


How nice. After over two months someone finally responds.  ::)


 

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