Author Topic: iStock in the New Year (Read 77427 times)

nruboc · « **Reply #75 on:** December 09, 2009, 14:08 »

Quote from: lisafx on December 09, 2009, 13:14

Quote from: Jonathan Ross on December 09, 2009, 12:31
If you get buried under lots of new exclusives your sales will drop. Being non-exclusive does not remove you from this problem.

This is exactly my concern. There has always been a bias toward exclusive files in the best match, but up to now IS has had some incentive to keep non-exclusive content visible because they make more $ on it.

Now, by more than doubling the price of exclusive content, they stand to make more profit on it. There is now NO incentive for them to give any kind of decent search placement to non-exclusive content at all.

If they plan to jerry rig the best match against non-exclusive content then we can all kiss the volume of our sales at Istock goodbye.

BINGO

gostwyck · « **Reply #76 on:** December 09, 2009, 14:10 »

Quote from: averil on December 09, 2009, 13:58

How many independents might now consider going exclusive on istock?

It's difficult not to at least consider it. My projections suggest that it could lead to as much as a 30% increase in revenue.

It's not a decision I'm looking forward to making though. Up to now it has been easy as the independent route was inherently more stable, less risky and you earned 20-25% more. All of a sudden that seems to have been turned on it's head. I just hope that the other major agencies can react accordingly to keep us interested.

KB · « **Reply #77 on:** December 09, 2009, 14:17 »

Quote from: gostwyck on December 09, 2009, 14:10

Quote from: averil on December 09, 2009, 13:58
How many independents might now consider going exclusive on istock?

It's difficult not to at least consider it. My projections suggest that it could lead to as much as a 30% increase in revenue.

It's not a decision I'm looking forward to making though. Up to now it has been easy as the independent route was inherently more stable, less risky and you earned 20-25% more. All of a sudden that seems to have been turned on it's head. I just hope that the other major agencies can react accordingly to keep us interested.

Yep, same here.

For the first time, I'm giving serious consideration to going exclusive, despite how scary that seems to me.

Based on the new prices and my canister level, I would make at least double what I'm making now, and probably more. That's enough for my IS income to come close to matching what I make UL'ing to 8-10 agencies in total (for a bit less work, but far more risk).

I'm going to wait at least 6 months (obviously I have to), but exclusivity looks more attractive than it ever did before.

nruboc · « **Reply #78 on:** December 09, 2009, 14:29 »

I see alot of worry on the IStock forum from exclusives, but in my opinion, there shouldn't be. Lisa is exactly right, IStock now has more incentive to promote the exclusive collection, AND THEY WILL.

Look at the figures, they now stand to make MORE from exclusive photgrapher sales in all sales up to X-Large (which the majority of the sales fall within) and that is taking into account the exclusive is at the high end of 40%.

If the exclusive is at 30% they will make more from the exclusive at ALL image size sales.

I see them tweaking the best match to HEAVILY favor exclusives more than ever before. I'm sure their raising the canister levels is anticipation of alot more folks going exclusive when they do.

Independents are in for a shock IMHO. Thank god IStock makes up less than 1% of my earnings!

ShadySue · « **Reply #79 on:** December 09, 2009, 14:58 »

Quote from: averil on December 09, 2009, 13:58

Kelly Thompson is promising significant dollar increases to exclusives under the new deal.
Quote
There is one thing I want our exclusives to take away from this. We are confident that with the new Exclusive prices, you'll have the chance to see some significant increases in your payouts – more than enough to counterbalance any delay in your next 5% canister increase.

It's not a promise, it's an opportunity - we're taking a chance. We read into it what we like, e.g. the 'become exclusive' hype which says "you WILL see a difference" - and we all choose to assume it means a difference for the better.

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #80 on:** December 09, 2009, 15:22 »

Quote from: averil on December 09, 2009, 13:58

Kelly Thompson is promising significant dollar increases to exclusives under the new deal.
Quote
There is one thing I want our exclusives to take away from this. We are confident that with the new Exclusive prices, you'll have the chance to see some significant increases in your payouts – more than enough to counterbalance any delay in your next 5% canister increase.

How many independents might now consider going exclusive on istock?

Given the upending of long standing terms of the exclusivity deal with virtually no notice, you'd have to be really happy with high risk to go for exclusivity right now.

epantha · « **Reply #81 on:** December 09, 2009, 15:32 »

I wouldn't feel comfortable going exclusive with IS. They are one of the most volatile sites. How could you trust them?

pancaketom · « **Reply #82 on:** December 09, 2009, 15:41 »

BOHICA... wow, changing the canister goalposts is a really poor move. It sucked when Fot did it and it sucks when IS does it. what a bunch of greedy pigs. "hey, we're making money hand over fist (first part of statement) - sorry, we're going to have to keep more of it for ourselves (second part)."

Had IS done image exclusivity from the beginning (before the disambiguation and best match flip flops) they'd own most of the good content. You'd be nuts not to make any image that started getting decent sales on IS exclusive. I for one am underwhelmed with them now.

elvinstar · « **Reply #83 on:** December 09, 2009, 16:05 »

As I said in a poll, "I'm only with IS because they make me money." There is NO WAY that I would EVER go exclusive with them! This announcement is insulting to non-exclusives, at best.

Why don't they do what they would really like to and make IS exclusive only?

sharpshot · « **Reply #84 on:** December 09, 2009, 16:29 »

I don't think I will ever go exclusive with istock mainly because it would be a difficult time consuming and costly task to remove all my RF images from the other sites. It would be even worse getting them back on if I decided exclusivity wasn't working.

Some of the decisions istock have made don't fill me with confidence. Their subscriptions didn't work, I still don't understand what they are doing with photos.com and StockXpert and now they have followed a bad move by fotolia in raising the canister levels. They do have good sales and that keeps me interested for now but there have been a few times in the past when my sales have slumped there and I am so pleased I have other places to sell my images.

ap · « **Reply #85 on:** December 09, 2009, 16:33 »

Quote from: elvinstar on December 09, 2009, 16:05

Why don't they do what they would really like to and make IS exclusive only?

i've wondered about this too. but in this latest announcement, they made it clear that they need to cater to the cheaper end of the market (after listening to their customer wants) and voila, we independents fit the bill. i guess the istock exclusives who are not yet vetta enough are like the middle class being squeezed everywhere.

Freedom · « **Reply #86 on:** December 09, 2009, 16:49 »

I had always wanted to go exclusive with IS. But this new announcement has reminded me how vulnerable you will become once you put all eggs in one basket.

On the surface, IS is said to want to enhance the earnings for the exclusives. But the bottom line is always the company's bottom line, and never that of the contributors. Who do you trust? Bruce? He's gone, K Thompson? Will he be there forever? Who will filfull the promises? Who carries more weight in the decision making process? The corporate board and shareholders? Or contributors? Think clearly.

Another point is, it's sad that some of the exclusive colleagues thought they could always gain at the expense of their non-exclusive colleagues. As the exclusive pool gets larger, sooner or later they would have to fight for their own survivals. Can Istock afford so many exclusives in the long run? Are the exclusive images really far more superior than non-exclusives? Another reality check.

cathyslife · « **Reply #87 on:** December 09, 2009, 17:39 »

Quote

Why don't they do what they would really like to and make IS exclusive only?

It's clear to me that they have been on the path to exclusive only ever since Getty bought the company. Every move they have made leads in that direction and they haven't come right out and done it in one swoop because financially it makes better sense to do exactly what they are doing. But one way or another you can believe that that is the final goal.

PixelBitch · « **Reply #88 on:** December 09, 2009, 17:55 »

Which strikes me as odd because Getty were the ones who freed us from agency/photographer exclusive agreements when they bought Image Bank and others, and we became image exclusive...now it seems they are heading back to the dark ages of servitude.

Quote from: cclapper on December 09, 2009, 17:39

Quote
Why don't they do what they would really like to and make IS exclusive only?

It's clear to me that they have been on the path to exclusive only ever since Getty bought the company. Every move they have made leads in that direction and they haven't come right out and done it in one swoop because financially it makes better sense to do exactly what they are doing. But one way or another you can believe that that is the final goal.

sharpshot · « **Reply #89 on:** December 09, 2009, 18:17 »

I don't think they are looking to go exclusive only. Their customers know the non-exclusives are on the other sites and istock would lose lots of money if they removed them. Perhaps they could of done it a few years ago but it looks too late now.

RacePhoto · « **Reply #90 on:** December 09, 2009, 18:23 »

Quote from: Jonathan Ross on December 09, 2009, 12:31

Hi Race,

Don't count on that, there is a big factor in sales and image placement on the site. If you get buried under lots of new exclusives your sales will drop. Being non-exclusive does not remove you from this problem. You are also limited as to how many images you can upload, that will also effect sales.

Best,
Jonathan

You need to consider the source. I hardly ever have more than 12 new images in a week. If I do, I can wait, because the next week, I may have nothing new. Upload limits are not an issue for a low volume non-exclusive contributor. (hobbiest) My sales are pretty consistent on IS and SS. Nothing special but there are some people who may want them or need them. It's not like I do anything with business people, headsets, handshakes or model releases. I have one model released photo and that's of my Mother, Christmas 2008. I may do another one in April of 2010.

For other "nons", it may make a difference, but for me, the new scheme changes nothing. The people who will be effected in more ways will be the exclusives.

For those reasons I've told myself to butt out of the discussion of pay cuts, lost commissions and adverse canister changes.

As for increased sales for Non-Exclusive, someone using the beta picture scanning software, that finds original copyright owner and sources posted this comment.

I see interesting results at iStockphoto. Hardly any non exclusive pics on the front pages, loads and loads at the end of the searches.

Who's at the front of the searches? Exclusives.

Dook · « **Reply #91 on:** December 09, 2009, 18:35 »

I can not see anywhere in the statement : Can you still become exclusive with 250 downloads or is it 500 now? Because, if it is 500 downloads now, a lot of newbies will give up of this idea and start uploading to all other sites. And once they reach 500 dls, it will be harder to decide to become exclusive because they have to go through all this hard work of deleting pictures from other sites.

KB · « **Reply #92 on:** December 09, 2009, 19:03 »

Quote from: Dook on December 09, 2009, 18:35

I can not see anywhere in the statement : Can you still become exclusive with 250 downloads or is it 500 now? Because, if it is 500 downloads now, a lot of newbies will give up of this idea and start uploading to all other sites. And once they reach 500 dls, it will be harder to decide to become exclusive because they have to go through all this hard work of deleting pictures from other sites.

It is 250 now, but 500 after the Feb change. It's been stated several times on that 1000+ post thread.

NitorPhoto · « **Reply #93 on:** December 09, 2009, 19:20 »

Quote from: RT on December 08, 2009, 17:35

Like them or hate them you have to admit that iStock are constantly trying to raise the bar, time will tell what effect this has on non-exclusives but one part of the statement I did find interesting was this:

"We're also hoping to encourage the strongest talents in stock today to consider bringing their best work to iStock exclusively."

You can read that two ways but I'm hoping they are going to (at long last and not before time) allow us independents to submit a selection of exclusive images (with perks) as appose to total exclusivity, if that were the case I would seriously consider making them the only 'microstock' agency I submit to.

If they would allow image exclusivity I would probably stop uploading to other micro agencies and send all my future images to iStock ONLY. This is what I can not do now because photographer exclusivity is not a real option. We will see. It would be a VERY logical move for them.

dgilder · « **Reply #94 on:** December 09, 2009, 20:05 »

I agree with that, image specific exclusivity would be very tempting on the iStock front. I just think it would be too difficult for them to police, should some people be tempted to put similar but not identical images up elsewhere. I think that is the main reason we see them sweetening the pot for all-out exclusives, and I expect we will never see the oh-so-desirable image exclusivity at iStock. Its just too hard to make sure people aren't cheating with piecemeal exclusivity.

gostwyck · « **Reply #95 on:** December 09, 2009, 20:08 »

Quote from: dgilder on December 09, 2009, 20:05

I agree with that, image specific exclusivity would be very tempting on the iStock front. I just think it would be too difficult for them to police, should some people be tempted to put similar but not identical images up elsewhere. I think that is the main reason we see them sweetening the pot for all-out exclusives, and I expect we will never see the oh-so-desirable image exclusivity at iStock. Its just too hard to make sure people aren't cheating with piecemeal exclusivity.

It'll never happen. The exclusivity programme was brought in to twart the emerging competition and the same objectives still apply.

Freedom · « **Reply #96 on:** December 09, 2009, 20:16 »

Image exclusivity will give Istock the true monopoly of the best images in the market.

However tiime and time again, big agencies, be it Getty/Istock, SS, FT, DT or Alamy, have proven that the agreements are only binding on the contributors, and they have the disrection to change the agreement as they see fit.

dgilder · « **Reply #97 on:** December 09, 2009, 20:54 »

This thread is so cheerful.

Merry Christmas

FD · « **Reply #98 on:** December 09, 2009, 21:00 »

Quote from: averil on December 09, 2009, 13:58

How many independents might now consider going exclusive on istock?

I think most here had the same observation: what flies at one site gets buried at another, and vice versa. Since the images and tags are the same, this can only be explained by search engine placement and search algorithm. Let's face it, when a buyer is looking for a concept, he takes the first image that will do, and he won't crawl (at the expense of costly time) through all the images in the hope to find a marginally better one that is buried.

Being independent and be present on all selling microstock sites gives the best chance to all your images. Being exclusive means that you run the risk that very good images stay buried as you are at the mercy of one particular search engine with its unavoidable idiosyncrasies. So, no, no exclusivity, certainly not at iStock. You can't even sell your images directly (it happens) and your rejected ones are a total loss. Exclusivity on a per-image base would make more sense, on condition that they are pimped in the search engine.

Moreover, with earnings like 1:2:3 on IS:DT:SS, an increase in commission on IS wouldn't make up for the loss on other sites. The picture might be different for those independents that have most of their income already at IS.

elvinstar · « **Reply #99 on:** December 09, 2009, 21:43 »

Quote

what flies at one site gets buried at another, and vice versa.

I agree. It is always amusing for me to look at what sells best for me on the different sites. I also like being independent because if any site tries too hard to screw me, I can always remove my images from there and only lose a portion of my stock income rather than all of it.

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Author Topic: iStock in the New Year (Read 77427 times)

nruboc

gostwyck

KB

nruboc

ShadySue

Jo Ann Snover

epantha

pancaketom

elvinstar

sharpshot

ap

Freedom

cathyslife

PixelBitch

sharpshot

RacePhoto

Dook

KB

NitorPhoto

dgilder

gostwyck

Freedom

dgilder

FD

elvinstar

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