Author Topic: iStock fails to recover ground (Read 64895 times)

pancaketom · « **Reply #200 on:** November 28, 2011, 12:17 »

Quote from: CarlssonInc. Stock Imagery Production on November 28, 2011, 05:08

"There SHOULD NOT! be any room for diletants in todays stock-files. This is not a charity organization where some poor young photographer should be given chances, etc, this is a cut-throat business and all of us here in this forum are in serious competition with each other, no matter how friendly we, here, in postings, etc.

Stock photography is the same as anything else. You have to EARN your place, earn your position and rights, end of story. Thats what IS, forget all the time and right now you have rookie-files way up front in everyone of their searches. "

Well said Christian.

I have to disagree here a bit. It shouldn't be about someone earning their place. It should be about the image. If the image is good enough it should have a chance to go in front of the buyers. If they want it, it should sell.

Now I can see why a site would prefer someone who consistently produces good selling images over someone who only rarely produces one and sends lots of losers too, but they should weed them out with upload limits based on rejections or a hard initial application, not by shooting down the few good images they might produce.

In general I would say that the micro inspection process has a fairly high degree of chance and that images are screened too tightly on pixel peeping quality and that the search engine should help determine what ends up on the front page and if something doesn't sell after a year or 2 or 4 it can be culled. I also think that there is value for the collection in obscure subjects that might only rarely be searched for and bought - but if they aren't in the collection then the buyer goes looking elsewhere and maybe will stay there for the rest of their image needs too.

lagereek · « **Reply #201 on:** November 28, 2011, 12:27 »

Quote from: pancaketom on November 28, 2011, 12:17

Quote from: CarlssonInc. Stock Imagery Production on November 28, 2011, 05:08
"There SHOULD NOT! be any room for diletants in todays stock-files. This is not a charity organization where some poor young photographer should be given chances, etc, this is a cut-throat business and all of us here in this forum are in serious competition with each other, no matter how friendly we, here, in postings, etc.

Stock photography is the same as anything else. You have to EARN your place, earn your position and rights, end of story. Thats what IS, forget all the time and right now you have rookie-files way up front in everyone of their searches. "

Well said Christian.

I have to disagree here a bit. It shouldn't be about someone earning their place. It should be about the image. If the image is good enough it should have a chance to go in front of the buyers. If they want it, it should sell.

Now I can see why a site would prefer someone who consistently produces good selling images over someone who only rarely produces one and sends lots of losers too, but they should weed them out with upload limits based on rejections or a hard initial application, not by shooting down the few good images they might produce.

In general I would say that the micro inspection process has a fairly high degree of chance and that images are screened too tightly on pixel peeping quality and that the search engine should help determine what ends up on the front page and if something doesn't sell after a year or 2 or 4 it can be culled. I also think that there is value for the collection in obscure subjects that might only rarely be searched for and bought - but if they aren't in the collection then the buyer goes looking elsewhere and maybe will stay there for the rest of their image needs too.

Yep! but if you read the posting you will see the words, FIles, pics, should earn its place, etc. Not the actual person, could be a joe-bloggs, who cares? as long as the pics are quality.

gbalex · « **Reply #202 on:** November 28, 2011, 12:58 »

Quote from: antistock on November 27, 2011, 21:37

Quote from: lagereek on November 27, 2011, 04:41
This is not a charity organization where some poor young photographer should be given chances, etc, this is a cut-throat business and all of us here in this forum are in serious competition with each other, no matter how friendly we, here, in postings, etc.

exactly.

I agree who needs their LCV and subpar crap anyway?

http://www.dpchallenge.com/forum.php?action=read&FORUM_THREAD_ID=164121

Joey L: "01/22/2005 10:54:38 AM This was exactly what my test proved, for all the other people who love photography but are stuck with a "poor quality" camera. Like me, those people are capable of submitting to stock web sites and if they contribute enough they can make a few bucks."

nruboc · « **Reply #203 on:** November 28, 2011, 14:24 »

Quote from: Mantis on November 27, 2011, 19:17

Quote from: antistock on November 27, 2011, 02:39
@Mantis : if your photos are so good why don't you join Getty and make some fat sales there ?

SS sucks and bla bla bla ? excuse me but what else do you expect from a company selling products for as low as 0.5$ ??
actually considering their tight costs you're even lucky they're writing you back saying your pics are of LCV.

SS doesn't suck. I never said that. I said they are a good company with room to improve the way they review and determine salable images. I shoot my images base on the reason I buy (or don't buy) images. When I am creating a safety video, for example, I need choice. Placing text in the right place is important and when I can't find the right image or composition of an image that creates more time for me to produce my videos. I NEVER SAID MY WORK WAS SO MAGNIFICENT that it should be accepted everywhere, but I do shoot based on the frustrations I have as a buyer from not finding what I want. So please read my posts more carefully before responding. And I am speaking for not just me in particular but the bulk of image suppliers that were/are automatically deemed LCV buy Shutterstock's unrealistic assessment and lack of defined acceptance standards. Funny, speaking for me, whatever I shot and submitted before 4-6 months ago sold on SS and made us both money. Now they just sell every else. By the way, PLEASE show me where I said SS sucks bla bla....please. Just curious where you made that up.

Quote from Mantis:
"This is the one are where SS sucks. They also do not listen to contributors, rather ignoring them is something they perceive as value added. "

lisafx · « **Reply #204 on:** November 28, 2011, 14:31 »

I keep thinking this thread will get back on topic of Istock sales and traffic, but instead there are these endless lengthy posts about Shutterstock's reviewing practices. what?!

FD · « **Reply #205 on:** November 28, 2011, 14:36 »

Quote from: lisafx on November 28, 2011, 14:31

I keep thinking this thread will get back on topic of Istock sales and traffic, but instead there are these endless lengthy posts about Shutterstock's reviewing practices. what?!

Ah... men. Sigh. So easily distracted, so little focus when they are taken away, every 2 seconds thinking of se Porsches. It must be hormonal. We nuns don't have that

cobalt · « **Reply #206 on:** November 28, 2011, 16:14 »

I was talking about free images of the week with a friend last night (does it make sense, is the file dead afterwards etc...)

I told here that my own experience was really good. In 2006 (or 2007?) I had a FIOW and the file had over 24 000 free downloads. The file continued to show very healthy sales and still sells today, so I recommended she should just submit a few suggestins or offer up her Portfolio for FIOW.

I then had a look at the recent FIOW and was suprised to see that they had less downloads. 14-16 000. Now this is the year 2011 and I would expect istock to have many, many more customers and who doesn´t love free files?

I then had a look at this lightbox that has quite a large number of FIOW.

http://www.istockphoto.com/search/lightbox/13824/#1e2d34a4

It looks like older files have downloads of over 40 000.

Now I don´t know - are the files of the last 4 weeks less commercially attractive and therefore have less free downloads?

Or is the number of free downloads a good indicator of the number of active, regular buyers?

Personally I would assume that if you define a regular buyer as "buys a few files every month", then at least 20% of them would be downloading the free image of the week? Or would you expect most regular buyers to download the free images? Those of you who are buyers - do you always download FIOW?

Is this a value worth watching and does it correlate with the traffic stats on compete?

What do you think?

ETA: Thanks to the comments on the file I can see it was FIOW in Nov 2006

lisafx · « **Reply #207 on:** November 28, 2011, 16:20 »

Jasmin, That is a very interesting observation (and on topic!). It is certainly curious that FIOWs would be getting consistently fewer downloads now than a couple of years ago.

There may be other reasons besides demise in site traffic, such as sites like DT, FT, and 123 that have built up very extensive free image sections.

But as another piece of the puzzle, along with traffic stats, monthly sales threads, etc., it is potentially useful indicator.

Thanks for pointing it out.

cobalt · « **Reply #208 on:** November 28, 2011, 16:25 »

Thanks Lisa!

It is difficult to interpret data like this, especially because as an exclusive I have no idea what other sites are offering.

But the traffic stats are scaring us all and in the absence of an explanation for what the stats mean from HQ we are all reading the tealeaves we have access too.

One thing that would interest me - do the other sites show how many times a free file was downloaded (yes, I usually vote to have them removed but...)

Again this could be an interesting indicator, at least about the size of the market that likes freebies :-)

lagereek · « **Reply #209 on:** November 28, 2011, 17:06 »

As I said, I think its a meltdown, finished. As far as recovering ground? well, really, they have slowly been losing ground for the last 3 years, bit late in the day to try and recover, isnt it?
the weird thing about it, is, they havent even tried.

cobalt · « **Reply #210 on:** November 28, 2011, 17:27 »

Losing customers is one thing. Losing PAYING customers is something else.

But if watching free downloads over the next 3 months shows fewer and fewer downloads, it would add to the data from compete.

I do think the type of file offered makes a big difference, so I really think it is not enough data in itself.

But together with compete, sales threads, etc...just another piece in the mosaic.

And again your own portfolio might still be doing extremely well. I know quite a few exclusives who are celebrating a record year. They did upload a lot of files and have improved the quality of their work.

Reading tealeaves, nothing more.

lisafx · « **Reply #211 on:** November 28, 2011, 17:37 »

Quote from: cobalt on November 28, 2011, 16:25

One thing that would interest me - do the other sites show how many times a free file was downloaded (yes, I usually vote to have them removed but...)

I can't speak for the majority, but I have a few free files on DT and they don't have anywhere near the downloads of the Istock FIOWs. My most downloaded free file is at around 1500 DLs and the least downloaded is at around 120.

As you said, the quality of the files may have a lot to do with it. I only allowed a few files that didn't sell ANYWHERE to be transferred into the DT free program.

cobalt · « **Reply #212 on:** November 28, 2011, 17:48 »

Thank you for sharing Lisa!

Let´s see what the others have to say.

This could be an interesting indicator about active customer volume, in general.

jamirae · « **Reply #213 on:** November 28, 2011, 17:49 »

Quote from: cobalt on November 28, 2011, 17:27

Losing customers is one thing. Losing PAYING customers is something else.

But if watching free downloads over the next 3 months shows fewer and fewer downloads, it would add to the data from compete.

I do think the type of file offered makes a big difference, so I really think it is not enough data in itself.

But together with compete, sales threads, etc...just another piece in the mosaic.

And again your own portfolio might still be doing extremely well. I know quite a few exclusives who are celebrating a record year. They did upload a lot of files and have improved the quality of their work.

Reading tealeaves, nothing more.

that is a very interesting statistic - the downloads on FIOTW. I agree that the usefulness of the image makes a difference in the downloads but one could still glean some interesting and telling stats but looking at the overall month-to-month and year-to-year stats on the FIOTW downloads. FIOTW is a "loss leader" designed to bring in traffic and turn them into buying customers. If the overall numbers are dropping that would be an indication of a drop in buyers visiting the site - but of course just one indication and other factors would need to be looked at as well (such as the types of images being offered, the actual sales volumes in relation to the FIOTW downloads, etc). We wouldn't have access to a lot of the data, but one would hope that the marketing staff at IS is looking at all these indicators.

cobalt · « **Reply #214 on:** November 28, 2011, 17:57 »

For the free video of the month I am seeing 11-22 000 downloads. That is quite a huge number of downloads for video.

Again, big difference between the files. But I will be watching those numbers with interest.

lagereek · « **Reply #215 on:** November 29, 2011, 02:04 »

You know, isnt it a fact that when chips are down, the going gets rough, wild speculations, evil rumours starts to appear and all this leaves room for wishfull thinking and wild hopes. We start to indoctrinate ourselves, Oh! it cant be that bad, many are still doing well, etc, etc, videos are selling, this and that.
This time around though, I think we have to face facts, there are just too many signs, pointing in the wrong directions.

Also, I would suggest, its not so much the lack of sales, buyers leaving, etc, one could live with that, but no, its the management or rather the mismanagement of the site that is unacceptable, the blase incomunicado, non caring attitude which have landed them in trouble, still pursuing a stiff upper lip, as if things are totally normal and hurrah Henrietta.
Im sure many here agree, dont care if they sell a million Vettas/ageny, per day, good luck. Its the general attitude, the amateurish and naive approach, trying to justify every single thing going wrong, etc, instead of just saying, sorry, made some errors of judgements here.

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #216 on:** November 29, 2011, 05:15 »

So, Christian, to boil it down: Anything negative is absolutely reliable evidence of the collapse of iS; anything positivie is naive wishful thinking.

I think it's clear that iS is losing market share in its core business of selling cheap photos/graphics but it is not so clear how it is doing with Vetta, agency, video and news. Since all those things are innovations over tha last few years it's not fair to say it is not looking at ways of generating new income streams.

Remember how they deliberately tried to push iStock clients into TS? That only makes sense if they see TS as the marketplace for their original customer base and iS as turning into something else. I currently sell almost three times as many files at TS (well, PP to be strictly accurate) in a month as I do at iS and PP brings in almost two thirds as much cash as straight iS sales.

In cash terms, the combined value of iS and PP has been marginally higher in two of the last three months than my highest pre-PP month (August 09). My iStock only sales numbers are down about 40% from then, but my total sales through the "family" are up more than 50% and are roughly equal to my highest-ever sales tally of November 2006 (of course, dl/file are way below what they were five years back, but so is my % of the total iS collection).

Overall, in the last three months, Getty companies have sold as many of my files as they ever have over any three month period and generated more cash for themselves out of me than in any previous three month period. This is despite my being locked out of the higher-value markets and not participating in new ventures, such as video.

So while the core photo business of iS, looked at in isolation, seems to be doing horribly (and doing a lot of damage to exclusive photographers in the process) the wider picture may be quite different. As far as Getty's MBAs are concerned, it may all be going according to plan.

lagereek · « **Reply #217 on:** November 29, 2011, 05:26 »

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on November 29, 2011, 05:15

So, Christian, to boil it down: Anything negative is absolutely reliable evidence of the collapse of iS; anything positivie is naive wishful thinking.

I think it's clear that iS is losing market share in its core business of selling cheap photos/graphics but it is not so clear how it is doing with Vetta, agency, video and news. Since all those things are innovations over tha last few years it's not fair to say it is not looking at ways of generating new income streams.

Remember how they deliberately tried to push iStock clients into TS? That only makes sense if they see TS as the marketplace for their original customer base and iS as turning into something else. I currently sell almost three times as many files at TS (well, PP to be strictly accurate) in a month as I do at iS and PP brings in almost two thirds as much cash as straight iS sales.

In cash terms, the combined value of iS and PP has been marginally higher in two of the last three months than my highest pre-PP month (August 09). My iStock only sales numbers are down about 40% from then, but my total sales through the "family" are up more than 50% and are roughly equal to my highest-ever sales tally of November 2006 (of course, dl/file are way below what they were five years back, but so is my % of the total iS collection).

Overall, in the last three months, Getty companies have sold as many of my files as they ever have over any three month period and generated more cash for themselves out of me than in any previous three month period. This is despite my being locked out of the higher-value markets and not participating in new ventures, such as video.

So while the core photo business of iS, looked at in isolation, seems to be doing horribly (and doing a lot of damage to exclusive photographers in the process) the wider picture may be quite different. As far as Getty's MBAs are concerned, it may all be going according to plan.

Hi!

Oh Im sure its going according to their plan, 100%, destruction, non communication and bewilderness, are the hallmarks when Getty slowly defates a company they once took over, no problem, its been like that since 93.
The question is: who wants or need to be a part of all that nonsense?

The aftermath will be: H&F decides to squeeze even a bit more out of everything. A clockwork Orange, you might say.

antistock · « **Reply #218 on:** November 29, 2011, 05:34 »

i don't get it.

IS is already screwing photographers in any possible nasty way.
why people should give one image away ?

24.000 freeloaders using your RF image ... and being RF they can legally use it FOREVER and ever and for free and without even crediting you.

gostwyck · « **Reply #219 on:** November 29, 2011, 05:43 »

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on November 29, 2011, 05:15

As far as Getty's MBAs are concerned, it may all be going according to plan.

You can't possibly believe that can you? You must realise that your PP sales are hugely inflated because most contributors have chosen not to participate and are unlikely to be a reflection of the greater market __ don't you? You'll find out if and when the useless IS programmers finally manage to get their 'PP conveyor belt' to work. Of course that could be a very long time yet. (NB: Funny how SS's 'Bridge to Bigstock' was implemented rapidly and without interruptions elsewhere). According to the independent traffic stat's (that others have provided) TS has just 45K unique visitors against 2M at SS. Your 'analysis' appears to have been entirely constructed as a counter-arguement against Lagereek and is at least as distorted and unrealistic a picture as you accuse him of.

antistock · « **Reply #220 on:** November 29, 2011, 05:49 »

Quote from: lagereek on November 29, 2011, 05:26

The aftermath will be: H&F decides to squeeze even a bit more out of everything. A clockwork Orange, you might say.

exactly, after Tony Stone it was game over, and we can all bet Getty has more evil plans in store.

and to those who claim it's unthinkable to ask high prices today look at the sh-it sold in art galleries or at the awful images used in many commercials where they paid 10Ks for a studio shot.

photography is STILL a 100 words, let's not forget it !

Cogent Marketing · « **Reply #221 on:** November 29, 2011, 05:52 »

Quote from: antistock on November 29, 2011, 05:49

Quote from: lagereek on November 29, 2011, 05:26
The aftermath will be: H&F decides to squeeze even a bit more out of everything. A clockwork Orange, you might say.

exactly, after Tony Stone it was game over, and we can all bet Getty has more evil plans in store.

and to those who claim it's unthinkable to ask high prices today look at the sh-it sold in art galleries or at the awful images used in many commercials where they paid 10Ks for a studio shot.

photography is STILL a 100 words, let's not forget it !

1000

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #222 on:** November 29, 2011, 06:25 »

Quote from: gostwyck on November 29, 2011, 05:43

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on November 29, 2011, 05:15
As far as Getty's MBAs are concerned, it may all be going according to plan.

You can't possibly believe that can you? You must realise that your PP sales are hugely inflated because most contributors have chosen not to participate and are unlikely to be a reflection of the greater market __ don't you? You'll find out if and when the useless IS programmers finally manage to get their 'PP conveyor belt' to work. Of course that could be a very long time yet. (NB: Funny how SS's 'Bridge to Bigstock' was implemented rapidly and without interruptions elsewhere). According to the independent traffic stat's (that others have provided) TS has just 45K unique visitors against 2M at SS. Your 'analysis' appears to have been entirely constructed as a counter-arguement against Lagereek and is at least as distorted and unrealistic a picture as you accuse him of.

Yes, it was a counter-argument to lagereek because it gets boring seeing the same drum being thumped and nothing new being said. However, every single fact in it is correct and represents data people can interpret as they like.

I'm pretty sure that your assertion that "most contributors have chosen not to participate in pp" is false. It may or may not be the case that a considerable proportion of leading independents have chosen not to participate and that may be inflating my figures, but neither you nor I know that, either. We do know that a good proportion of the most vocal were in the boycott but that is a very small number of people.

I'll put up a survey. Let's see what that says.

Meanwhile, I wait with interest to see if (subject to them ever getting things working) my PP figures do take a major hit.

I do find the TS web traffic figures very strange, given my returns. I wonder if it is something to do with how the data are collected.

As for Getty's MBAs, I did say maybe, its what they want , I didn't say I believe it is. From where I am sitting it's hard to imagine that the big-wigs could be happy with the way it's going but as I was trying to point out, that could be because we are seeing only a small part of a very big picture. Maybe they have diverted sales into more profitable (for them) channels rather than losing them outright. It seems unlikely but it's not impossible. And if not, why aren't there signs of frantic efforts to woo back lost customers?

antistock · « **Reply #223 on:** November 29, 2011, 08:01 »

getty's MBAs are doing their dirty jobs, they're simply hired for it and they shouldn't blamed.
and of course they don't give a sh-it about us and they laugh all their way to the bank, this is happening in ANY creative field by the way, not just photography.

they're greedy professional merchants, what else should you expect from the market leader ?

the problem is .. there's a limit between being in a business and having a win-win situation and getting completely screwed like with Getty, these guys are simply killing the market for photographers as unless paid really well the 15% or 20% of a sale cannot sustain a photographer no matter if RF or RM.

as a direct comparison it's the norm for art galleries to take a 50% cut and they're the ones investing in marketing, advertising, and paying for exibitions and anything else.

now, as yourself what getty or IS are actually doing to promote our products while eating up to 85% of the sales ?

and then now IS is launching a massive and aggressive campaign to fish new affiliates putting the IS banners on their web sites ...pathetic ..and just in time...as they wouldn't do it if biz was going alright, it's obvious their biz is going shite and they're all out in the hope of finding new useful idiots.

antistock · « **Reply #224 on:** November 29, 2011, 08:22 »

Quote from: cobalt on November 28, 2011, 17:27

Losing customers is one thing. Losing PAYING customers is something else.

ok but why you're expecting a market leader company to care about us ?
in their eyes we're tens of thousands, one worth the other, easily replaceable by newbies, absolutely expendible.

either we get it or we don't.

let's go back to the beginning : if you're REALLY a skilled photographer you have an agent finding customers for you, and you sell for art galleries or make assignments for the biggest brands billing them 100K as a start !

microstock is the absolute rock bottom of the whole industry, even lower than newbies buying the cheapest Canon Rebel and doing weddings for 500 bucks.

so, we're here ranting that micro agencies s-ucks, well what else is to be expected from the cheapest of the cheapest ?? 1000$ a pop ??

blaming microstock is like blaming Walmart.... same same.

MicrostockGroup Sponsors

Author Topic: iStock fails to recover ground (Read 64895 times)

pancaketom

lagereek

gbalex

nruboc

lisafx

FD

cobalt

lisafx

cobalt

lagereek

cobalt

lisafx

cobalt

jamirae

cobalt

lagereek

BaldricksTrousers

lagereek

antistock

gostwyck

antistock

Cogent Marketing

BaldricksTrousers

antistock

antistock

Related Topics

Sponsors

Microstock Poll Results

Sponsors