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.

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?

Quote from: lagereek on November 29, 2011, 09:43

..... who and who havent joined PP, etc, in all fairness, who cares anyway? I couldnt careless if they sold for a billion bucks per day,  to be even more blunt, even if I was earning a grand/day, I still would slagg them off.

It's not who, it's how many - or, more exactly, what ratio of people who vote. I'm curious. I guess some others are, too, as they are answering the survey.

Meanwhile, more turds are landing on Getty news photographers, according to leaf's latest thread.

http://www.istockphoto.com/article_view.php?ID=159

looking back, interesting read.....

No need to be quite so cynical. I'm sure it was a genuinely emotional moment for him: if you've ever sold something you've created, you'll know that.

Quote from: cobalt on November 22, 2011, 05:54

Because istock is a pay as you go site with high prices, SS is a subscription site with much lower prices. So even with less traffic, istock still makes more money.

SS is not just 'a subscription site' and hasn't been for some time. OD and EL sales have been growing strongly for the last couple of years and now make up nearly 50% of my total earnings at SS.

I just voted.  I was surprised to learn that a whopping 69% of my SS money comes from non-subscription sales.  I think the subs still account for a large majority of my total downloads there, but the increase on OD sales and the massive increase in ELs has helped swell the dollar totals. 

  In any event, I've seen growth of both kinds.

Out of curiosity, I went back to check download counts at Shutterstock.  In November, 2005 I had 268 DLs.  November, 2006 saw 425, a 58% increase.  November, 2007 saw a 20% drop to 344.  2008 was up 28% to 442.  2009 grew another 9% to 485.  2010 was up 10% to 537.  Last month grew 26% more to 679. 

And those are just the downloads, not the revenues from those downloads.  Downloads grew by 153% in six years; income grew 615%.  That's due to increases in subscription royalties, as well as extended licenses and other non-subscription offerings.

I didn't do a month-to-month comparison for every month, but I suspect the results would be equally impressive.  In any event, I've seen growth of both kinds.

Quote from: Karimala on December 02, 2011, 18:00

... As more and more images are added to the site, it's only logical that contributors would see their earnings decrease through dilution of their portfolios and increased competition...

This may be true, I have seen several people say that lately, and I cannot recall anyone arguing against it. But there might be another side.

If I made picture frames and Wal-Mart offered to sell them, should I say, "I don't want to sell at Wal-Mart, they have too many products." Or if I want to sell my watch, should I decide not to sell it on ebay because ebay has too many watches for sale? Buyers tend to go where the selection is best.

Surely many of the SS PPD/non-subs sales these days are to buyers who are jumping ship from iStock, and to what ship are they likely to jump? The one with the most images? Hence our great increase in PPD sales at SS. Maybe the more images it offers, the better we will all do. Maybe there is no such thing as a downside to dilution.

So from my perspective, SS is the only big 4 site showing both download and income growth.