Author Topic: iStock in the New Year (Read 77598 times)

gostwyck · « **Reply #200 on:** December 14, 2009, 11:21 »

Quote from: cthoman on December 14, 2009, 10:48

I thought only exclusives complained about the best match. I've never really seen it affect my sales. As a non-exclusive, I've always been at the back. I just assumed people used the other searches to find my files.

The biggest upheaval to the best match in my experience happened in Sept 2006, just as you joined Istock. My own sales, which had been growing steadily for a couple of years as I built my portfolio, were suddenly slashed by over 30%. Not nice when it happens.

lisafx · « **Reply #201 on:** December 14, 2009, 12:06 »

Quote from: Ploink on December 14, 2009, 06:25

Let me help you out here: There were two posts by JJRD stating something about "giving exclusives more exposure" and making their files "easier to find" - you can find them here:

SNIP

someone calculates, that with the new prices, Istock makes more money on an exclusive sale than on an independent sale - no matter the size of the photo. To me it is obvious where this is going, and you are right: It is scary

Thanks for posting those links Ploink. I have been trying to keep up with that massive thread, but it is really hard to find the nuggets of relevance among all the complaints and arguments

lisafx · « **Reply #202 on:** December 14, 2009, 12:28 »

Quote from: gostwyck on December 14, 2009, 11:21

The biggest upheaval to the best match in my experience happened in Sept 2006, just as you joined Istock. My own sales, which had been growing steadily for a couple of years as I built my portfolio, were suddenly slashed by over 30%. Not nice when it happens.

Absolutely. I experienced the same thing, but in October - December 08. My sales dropped 40% during the busiest and (formerly) most lucrative season of the year.

Before that my sales had been steady and predictable for almost 4 years and I was seriously considering exclusivity. When that big drop happened to so many people it was obviously a best match change. It was certainly a big wakeup call to me.

For the first time I contemplated how I would fare financially without my istock income. With Istock dropping from 40% to barely 30% of my income it turned out I could survive alright with the other 70%.

The prospect of a big raise in my overall income as an istock exclusive is very, very tempting. OTOH if the best match were to become volatile again that would be a large disincentive to go exclusive.

sharpshot · « **Reply #203 on:** December 14, 2009, 14:04 »

I was hit by a 40% drop in October - December 08 too. It has been more stable since BM2 but it looks like they might be going to put profits ahead of contributor earnings stability, so I wouldn't be surprised to see the return of the big dipper on my stats charts. Luckily for me, istock rarely make more than 30% of my earnings, so the swings aren't too painful.

cthoman · « **Reply #204 on:** December 14, 2009, 14:40 »

I'm still not convinced, but it could be the structure of my portfolio. I don't really have any super popular files in my portfolio just a bunch of solid sellers. So, I may be more immune to wild swings in changes to search rankings. Usually when I see someone complaining about the best match, they are complaining about their best seller getting buried in the search.

elvinstar · « **Reply #205 on:** December 14, 2009, 16:17 »

Quote

Is the difference between $6.00 and $10.00 that big of deal to the average buyer? It would be nice to hear from some buyers.

I'm a web developer first and a stock shooter second, so I have a bit of insight for you. Please bear in mind that I'm a small shop and try to keep my overhead low (I don't charge clients for photos, they are included in my fees).

Pricing is DEFINITELY a concern for me! I look at StockXpert first because I can get more image for my money there. Then, if I can't find what I need, I go to IS.

On another note, as my clients are all small businesses, they don't care how many times an image has been used. They just want the finished design to look good. I couldn't possibly care less whether the photographer is exclusive or not. It's all about the image.

Hope that helps!

sharpshot · « **Reply #206 on:** December 14, 2009, 16:18 »

Quote from: cthoman on December 14, 2009, 14:40

I'm still not convinced, but it could be the structure of my portfolio. I don't really have any super popular files in my portfolio just a bunch of solid sellers. So, I may be more immune to wild swings in changes to search rankings. Usually when I see someone complaining about the best match, they are complaining about their best seller getting buried in the search.

I thought the same until it happened to me

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #207 on:** December 14, 2009, 16:46 »

Quote from: sharpshot on December 14, 2009, 16:18

Quote from: cthoman on December 14, 2009, 14:40
I'm still not convinced, but it could be the structure of my portfolio. I don't really have any super popular files in my portfolio just a bunch of solid sellers. So, I may be more immune to wild swings in changes to search rankings. Usually when I see someone complaining about the best match, they are complaining about their best seller getting buried in the search.
I thought the same until it happened to me

Everybody does!

When their sales are good it's the deserved reward for their clearly superior images.

I saw a few images tank in the 2006 best match shift (several hot images just stopped selling cold turkey) and the fall of 2008 was truly awful. The fact that this coincided with me going exclusive might have made it slightly less awful, but I had a dreadful time until bm2.0 came out. Things have been great since then.

I don't have one or two best sellers and then the rest, so I'm not dependent on the fortunes of one or two images. I like to think that good results in BM2.0 are the result of good keywording on my part which is finally having an effect on search placement. But that could be another delusion - an attempt to rationalize something I can't see the logic behind.

My take on the price increases is that they aren't going to be good for exclusives - that the success of Vetta has made them think they can up the price on run-of-the-mill content too. I do know that overall download numbers have gone down as prices have gone up and I think that's even accounting for the increased number of contributors sharing the pie (lots and lots of contributors join; only a few really build a substantial portfolio and stick with it).

helix7 · « **Reply #208 on:** December 14, 2009, 16:51 »

Quote from: lisafx on December 14, 2009, 12:28

...The prospect of a big raise in my overall income as an istock exclusive is very, very tempting. OTOH if the best match were to become volatile again that would be a large disincentive to go exclusive.

Yep. I think that's the tricky part for most people. As long as your istock earnings represent at least a third of your total microstock earnings each month, mathematically you might benefit from going exclusive under this new plan (assuming you are Gold canister level or higher). It's the other factors that could shake things up.

I did some quick math on my numbers and figured that anything over 33% (istock earnings out of my monthly total) would be within my threshold for exclusivity to make sense once I reach Diamond. Of course Diamond is a long ways from here now under the new plan, and currently I only make about 25% of my money with istock, so there's not much of a chance you'll ever see a crown by my name. But for anyone that is Diamond or anyone who earns more than 33% of their income each month from istock, it could work. Throw in the upcoming bump in the search results for exclusive files and you might see a significant pay increase by going exclusive. The wild card is everything we can't mathematically calculate. What happens if there is a best match 3.0 shake up? Could canister royalty rates change again down the road? What if buyers respond negatively to the new pricing and istock decides to drop the prices? Anything can happen. It's a gamble, for sure.

lisafx · « **Reply #209 on:** December 14, 2009, 18:07 »

Quote from: cthoman on December 14, 2009, 14:40

I'm still not convinced, but it could be the structure of my portfolio. I don't really have any super popular files in my portfolio just a bunch of solid sellers. So, I may be more immune to wild swings in changes to search rankings. Usually when I see someone complaining about the best match, they are complaining about their best seller getting buried in the search.

That's what I thought too. I have over 5k images and just over 1/2 % of them are red or blue flames. My sales are pretty evenly distributed over a wide variety of images including both new and older images.

Which is why I was so surprised to have them gutted late last year. Only thing that really slashes my sales is when they bump independents to the back.

cthoman · « **Reply #210 on:** December 14, 2009, 18:42 »

Makes sense. Thanks for the perspective everybody. I guess it is not a problem until it happens to me.

Just kidding.

dgilder · « **Reply #211 on:** December 16, 2009, 23:37 »

Here is an interesting way to look at the iStock 2010 thread to get a sense of who is talking about what:

http://davidgilder.com/misc/iStockfulator/is2010thread.html

Graffoto · « **Reply #212 on:** December 17, 2009, 00:55 »

Quote from: dgilder on December 16, 2009, 23:37

Here is an interesting way to look at the iStock 2010 thread to get a sense of who is talking about what:

http://davidgilder.com/misc/iStockfulator/is2010thread.html

Looks like the Matrix to me.
All I see is Blond, Redhead, Brunette...

leaf · « **Reply #213 on:** December 17, 2009, 02:36 »

Quote from: dgilder on December 16, 2009, 23:37

Here is an interesting way to look at the iStock 2010 thread to get a sense of who is talking about what:

http://davidgilder.com/misc/iStockfulator/is2010thread.html

very cool!

FD · « **Reply #214 on:** December 17, 2009, 06:28 »

I don't know what happened with any best match or so, but suddenly this month iStock gave more income than DT. The old greedy lady has some surprises from time to time.

- In French: pourvu que ca dure.

disorderly · « **Reply #215 on:** December 18, 2009, 21:57 »

I've been thinking about the canister changes, and I realized that the only problem I have with the change is that my paltry upload quota might remain just as paltry for another five years. I'll never go exclusive with iStock, or at least can't imagine a scenario where I'd consider it. So the only benefit I can see is the chance to work through my image backlog just a little faster when I hit gold.

Which is only a problem because iStock has made it a problem. You see, there are three different features that have been tied to the same milestone: upload quota for independents, upload quota for exclusives, and commission rate for exclusives. Right now they all hit at the same moment: with X downloads.

But why? Why does the change in uploads for independents and exclusives have to hit at the same point? And why does that have to be tied to exclusives' commissions? If the reason for changing the goalposts is one of cost, surely the cost of reviewing a few more images a week (and only for those of us who fill our quota every week) is small compared to a bump of 5% in commissions for the other guys.

If I were running things, I'd separate the commission increases from the upload quotas. I might not use the same download count for both, or I might use a different one for independents vs. exclusives. But the point is that I'd let independents have that one tiny benefit sooner rather than later. 10,000 downloads is a lot; enough, I'd argue, to justify a few more uploads a week.

sharpshot · « **Reply #216 on:** December 19, 2009, 03:28 »

If my sales do plummet with istock, I wont be uploading anymore, so the limits wont matter. If they make it harder for non-exclusives, less people will use them and buyers will have to go to the other sites to see what they are missing. The other sites already have huge portfolios from some of the best microstock contributors that have lots of their images missing on istock. I think more and more buyers will have a second account on one of the other sites.

modellocate · « **Reply #217 on:** December 22, 2009, 16:35 »

I can always count on IS to bring loads of changes and brand identity confusion

Beach Bum · « **Reply #218 on:** December 22, 2009, 21:55 »

Quote from: lisafx on December 14, 2009, 12:28

Quote from: gostwyck on December 14, 2009, 11:21

The biggest upheaval to the best match in my experience happened in Sept 2006, just as you joined Istock. My own sales, which had been growing steadily for a couple of years as I built my portfolio, were suddenly slashed by over 30%. Not nice when it happens.

Absolutely. I experienced the same thing, but in October - December 08. My sales dropped 40% during the busiest and (formerly) most lucrative season of the year.

Before that my sales had been steady and predictable for almost 4 years and I was seriously considering exclusivity. When that big drop happened to so many people it was obviously a best match change. It was certainly a big wakeup call to me.

For the first time I contemplated how I would fare financially without my istock income. With Istock dropping from 40% to barely 30% of my income it turned out I could survive alright with the other 70%.

The prospect of a big raise in my overall income as an istock exclusive is very, very tempting. OTOH if the best match were to become volatile again that would be a large disincentive to go exclusive.

I, too, had a huge drop in sales at Istock beginning in October of last year. I vowed then to never go exclusive anywhere.

Suljo · « **Reply #219 on:** December 22, 2009, 22:23 »

Quote from: lisafx on December 10, 2009, 21:42

Quote from: pancaketom on December 10, 2009, 21:30

I suppose we shall see what happens, but I get the impression that short term gains are what IS is looking for now.

Short term gains. You may have hit the nail on the head there. I read some speculation in that monster thread that this could be Getty's effort to increase short term profits in preparation for a sale. Could just be another conspiracy theory, but it does sound plausible...

So are they go in one pocket, so iStock will have same fate like StockXpert now

or iStock will be as two left shoes to sell...

rimglow · « **Reply #220 on:** December 23, 2009, 15:07 »

If going exclusive is so tempting, then why hasn't Yuri Arcurs done it? I would think that he is a good role model to emulate. He seems to have figured out the business end of microstock.

lisafx · « **Reply #221 on:** December 23, 2009, 15:16 »

Quote from: rimglow on December 23, 2009, 15:07

If going exclusive is so tempting, then why hasn't Yuri Arcurs done it? I would think that he is a good role model to emulate. He seems to have figured out the business end of microstock.

One could just as easily ask "If being independent is so great why haven't Lise Gagne, Sean Locke, etc. done it?"

Yuri is very successful and very talented. However, with all the people he has working for him, and with his massive overhead, he is really more of a factory than a simple microstock contributor.

Most of us sole proprietors will never be able to produce the quantity of content he does, so what works for him might not work for others of us and visa versa.

Sean Locke Photography · « **Reply #222 on:** December 23, 2009, 15:19 »

Quote from: rimglow on December 23, 2009, 15:07

I would think that he is a good role model to emulate. He seems to have figured out the business end of microstock.

He has found something that works for him, to whatever goal he worked toward. That doesn't necessarily work or make sense for anyone else.

michealo · « **Reply #223 on:** December 23, 2009, 17:17 »

Quote from: rimglow on December 23, 2009, 15:07

If going exclusive is so tempting, then why hasn't Yuri Arcurs done it? I would think that he is a good role model to emulate. He seems to have figured out the business end of microstock.

I am pretty sure that Yuri said he would go exclusive at istock if starting today ..

crazychristina · « **Reply #224 on:** December 23, 2009, 18:07 »

Quote from: lisafx on December 23, 2009, 15:16

Quote from: rimglow on December 23, 2009, 15:07
If going exclusive is so tempting, then why hasn't Yuri Arcurs done it? I would think that he is a good role model to emulate. He seems to have figured out the business end of microstock.

One could just as easily ask "If being independent is so great why haven't Lise Gagne, Sean Locke, etc. done it?"

Yuri is very successful and very talented. However, with all the people he has working for him, and with his massive overhead, he is really more of a factory than a simple microstock contributor.

Most of us sole proprietors will never be able to produce the quantity of content he does, so what works for him might not work for others of us and visa versa.

I see Lise is less than 50,000 from the 1,000,000 mark.

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Author Topic: iStock in the New Year (Read 77598 times)

gostwyck

lisafx

lisafx

sharpshot

cthoman

elvinstar

sharpshot

Jo Ann Snover

helix7

lisafx

cthoman

dgilder

Graffoto

leaf

FD

disorderly

sharpshot

modellocate

Beach Bum

Suljo

rimglow

lisafx

Sean Locke Photography

michealo

crazychristina

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