MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => iStockPhoto.com => Topic started by: jjneff on March 03, 2014, 19:56
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Stock Image Subscription
Were excited to introduce image subscriptions, a new way to license photos and illustrations on iStock. Based on the Thinkstock subscription product that has been one of the fastest growing parts of our business since its launch, our new image subscriptions allow us to better serve customers with high volume licensing needs.
And it's clear that there are a lot of customers who love the ease and simplicity of the subscription model. Combining the right subscription offering with the amazing content at iStock will benefit both customers and contributors, so that's exactly what we're planning to do.
Some of you may know that we already have a subscription offering on iStock based on credits. The added complexity of credit pricing makes this subscription less friendly to new customers who are looking for a simple solution for their high volume licensing needs. When we launch the new subscription offering we will no longer promote the existing credit subscription on our website, and new iStock subscription customers will only be able to purchase this new image subscription.
For the time being, customers who have an active Credit Subscription will be able to keep using their existing subscription.
What is being offered in the new subscription model?
Clients will be able to choose between a Monthly and Annual Image Subscription, which are offered in two tiers. One tier gives customers access to the Main collection only, and the other gives access to the Main, Signature, and Signature+ collections. Image Subscriptions include Photos and Illustration only (excluding Vetta).
In order to make sure that our Exclusive Contributors can adequately participate in both Image Subscription tiers, we will be moving some of the more basic images that are underperforming in Signature, to Main. We think they will compete more effectively that way and have the added benefit of exposure to new customers through Image Subscription. We want to be sure our exclusive contributors have an opportunity to participate in the full range of products we offer at iStock.
What is the difference between the current credit subscription model and the new image subscription model?
The credit-based subscription model we launched in 2008 includes access to all of our files and provides clients with a limited number of credits to use each day. These credits can be used to purchase any file on iStock, and expire daily, at midnight MST.
Our new Image Subscription model allows our customers to download a specific number of Photos or Illustrations, of any size, monthly, from our Main, Signature, and Signature+ collections, depending on the tier.
What does this mean for contributors?
When someone licenses your content using an Image Subscription, we pay a flat royalty for each file based on your exclusivity and the collection your file belongs to, with a royalty of $0.28 for non-exclusive contributors and a minimum of $0.34 for exclusive contributors.
Here is a full breakdown of the Royalty Rates for Image Subscriptions:
Non-exclusive: All Collections: $0.28/download
Main (exclusive): $0.34/download
Signature (exclusive): $0.75/download
Signature+ (exclusive): $2.50/download
Weve made an adjustment to the Royalty Rate Schedule to reflect the new Image Subscription offering that will be effective when we launch Image Subscriptions. You will notice a new tab between Flash and the Partner Program.
Royalties will be reported monthly, not in real time. Initially we will be reporting these royalties under the Partner Program.
The existing Credit Subscription royalties are unaffected by this change. Any downloads made under Credit Subscription shall continue to pay royalties at the rates set out in the photo/illustration tab of the rate schedule.
How does the licensing work?
All files licensed under the new Image Subscription fall under our Standard License Agreement. One difference for subscription licenses vs. images licensed with credits or cash is that customers are required to use the images they download within the term of their subscription. If they dont use the image, the right to use that image terminates when the subscription terminates. For example, if a customer has a one-month subscription, they must use the images they download within that same month in order to continue using that image following the end of the subscription term.
Will Image Subscription downloads go toward contributor Redeemed Credit totals?
No. Image Subscription downloads arent purchased with credits so we will not be calculating RCs with these downloads.
Our intent is to provide customers with as many purchase options as possible to keep existing customers engaged with iStock and to attract new customers, leaving no reason for them to look elsewhere for the right content and workflow. Our new Image Subscription offering will allow us to accommodate all of our customers purchase preferences be they cash sales, credits, or subscription or in many cases, a combination of one or more options.
We will be launching Image Subscriptions in early April 2014.
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So Thinkstock pricing comes to iStock - and no RC credit for a subs sale
That will make keeping higher royalty rates harder over time for exclusives...
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Let me translate from iSpeak
thinkstock isn't shafting everyone enough. so we are starting a subs plan for istock that shafts people there too. Since a lot of the content from exclusives isn't available on main, we will move it there to shaft them too. Of course you get no RC for this shafting. We will mix the sales reporting in with the PP reporting so it will be harder for you guys to notice when we short change you, don't worry, if we accidentally overpay you we will claw it back eventually.
we are launching this in April, expect all sorts of things to be messed up as we roll this out.
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Let me translate from iSpeak
thinkstock isn't shafting everyone enough. so we are starting a subs plan for istock that shafts people there too. Since a lot of the content from exclusives isn't available on main, we will move it there to shaft them too. Of course you get no RC for this shafting. We will mix the sales reporting in with the PP reporting so it will be harder for you guys to notice when we short change you, don't worry, if we accidentally overpay you we will claw it back eventually.
we are launching this in April, expect all sorts of things to be messed up as we roll this out.
Spot on. Just one more fact that supports the race to the bottom. Finally, this is one more thing added to an already broken system to fk it up even more.
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I think this pretty much ends the exclusivity program for iS, most customers will switch to subs. Theres not much chance for anyone to hold onto their RC levels now.
Brace yourselves for exclusives dumping their ports across all the agencies.
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If we exclusives needed another reason to think the end is near, this is it. 36c or 75c sales for XXXL sizes? :o
It's inevitable now. SS is going to see quite an influx of new contributors.
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...we are launching this in April...
April 1st sounds like an appropriate choice :)
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...Since a lot of the content from exclusives isn't available on main...
This is really all this is about. They want to pump more content into their subscription business. They could force exclusives into the PP, or they could bring subscriptions over to iStock.
I'm kind of surprised they didn't just force exclusives into the PP. But iStock has never really done things the way I think makes sense, so...
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And again the exclusives have no control over which files get moved to the new subs program. :(
This would really freak me out. The whole point of being exclusive to istock (for most of the artists I know) is not to provide files for a subs program.
Now if you have high value content that rarely sells but you want to be able to provide it at a sensible price point only...it gets dumped into the subs program.
No RCs?
Thatīs just crazy.
They should then take the step to cancel the RC system altogether and base their systems simply on how much money is being earned over a lifetime,the way SS does it. Irrespective of file type. Money is money,is money.
I wonder if they will also move slow selling files from Yuri and the other people with "special deals". He moved out of SS because he thought their subs program was too low. What if Getty includes him now in their own deal?
I am glad I am already indie and have separated my portfolio into "high value" and "high volume" content. So everything on istock now, is suitable for subs.
The other files will go elsewhere.
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B*stards.
I said often, and only earlier this afternoon by SM here that I was sure this was why they've been suppressing new files for so long; and so it has proved.
Sell files stupidly cheaply, just like SS, and don't even give us RCs.
B*stards.
Sadly, I'm busy until Friday, but then time to start working out which files will be deactivated before April begins.
Just furious.
If I wanted to sell for stupid prices, I'd be on SS.
B*stards. (Did I say that?)
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Because what the world needs is another low priced subscription model.
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Because what the world needs is another low priced subscription model.
I'm not so sure it will be low priced. Only low paying.
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B*stards.
I said often, and only earlier this afternoon by SM here that I was sure this was why they've been supressing new files for so long; and so it has proved.
Sell files stupidly cheaply, just like SS, and don't even give us RCs.
B*stards.
Sadly, I'm busy until Friday, but then time to start working out which files will be deactivated before April begins.
Just furious.
If I wanted to sell for stupid prices, I'd be on SS.
B*stards. (Did I say that?)
Very poetic. Love it. ;D
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How much are they charging for this that they can allow a mix of dls per month that pay out up to $2.50 or whatever? What if a buyer downloads all S+ ?
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This is one of the scariest announcements I can ever remember reading. And that includes the Google deal. As much as I dislike the whole IS environment I dislike the subscription model even more. Istock has just become DP with better content. Why would anyone contribute to IS when they can make more at SS? The only thing keeping SS somewhat in check was IS. Very soon SS will be 70,80,90% of peoples earnings? This could be a very, very big problem for anyone who would like to make anything at all off of their images. A SS monopoly would be a very scary thing and if people aren't particularly careful about what they choose to do in the next 24 months we could be in for a massive problem.
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let me get some popcorn and go into the istock forums. which i never visit anymore
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let me get some popcorn and go into the istock forums. which i never visit anymore
Don't waste your time. For some reason the good parts lock up.
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its like a ghost town in there
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"We want to be sure our exclusive contributors have an opportunity to participate in the full range of products we offer at iStock. "
Thank you for the opportunity. I'll pass, if you don't mind.
Oh, that wasn't what you meant? You meant "We want to force our expensive exclusives to earn less money and pay them 0 RCs, just like indies".
Anyone want to bet about whether RC target-missers won't be grandfathered next year?
SS should have been raising prices gently over the years so that we could all make fair money from our images, instead of forcing this cut-price war.
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This is one of the scariest announcements I can ever remember reading. And that includes the Google deal. As much as I dislike the whole IS environment I dislike the subscription model even more. Istock has just become DP with better content. Why would anyone contribute to IS when they can make more at SS?
The only thing keeping SS somewhat in check was IS. Very soon SS will be 70,80,90% of peoples earnings? This could be a very, very big problem for anyone who would like to make anything at all off of their images.
A SS monopoly would be a very scary thing and if people aren't particularly careful about what they choose to do in the next 24 months we could be in for a massive problem.
This is exactly why I have been concerned with comments coming from key shutterstock policy makers. They have publicly stated that they have plans to continue to keep prices artificially low to gain market share. They have no regard for the assets they devalue or the artist who produce and depend on those assets for a living.
My best images no longer go to Shutterstock and when possible I buy from other agencies
Snip
And your next question comes from the line of Brian Fitzgerald with Jefferies. Please proceed.
Brian Fitzgerald - Jefferies
When you guys think of the rev share agreements with contributors, there are competitors out there that have more generous revenue shares.
Can you -- would that tend to impact or take share from you guys over the course of time or can you talk about how that dynamic is panning out?
And then, it seems like guys have been driving down pricing among your major competitors. They're now trying to price match.
Have you seen any real impact from that thus far? Thanks.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/2037843-shutterstocks-ceo-discusses-q4-2013-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=single (http://seekingalpha.com/article/2037843-shutterstocks-ceo-discusses-q4-2013-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=single)
Snip
Duck Swartz
Talking about your present strategy longer term?
Timothy E. Bixby - CFO
We think we can raise the prices over the long term but were primary in the growth mode right now and we would like to continue to cover as much of the world as possible and take as much as growth in the business that we can before we play with the pricing level. We havent raised prices in many years and then been a great strategy so far to grow.
Snip
Jonathan Oringer - Founder, CEO & Chairman of the Board
It still multiples. So it's order of magnitude whether it's if you look at us compared to other stock marketplaces like an iStock or others, it's two or three or four times more expensive to not use Shutterstock. If you look at the higher end sort of more traditional marketed might be 6 or 8 or 10 times more expensive.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/1841072-shutterstocks-management-presents-at-the-goldman-sachs-us-emerging-smid-cap-growth-conference-transcript?page=2&p=qanda&l=last (http://seekingalpha.com/article/1841072-shutterstocks-management-presents-at-the-goldman-sachs-us-emerging-smid-cap-growth-conference-transcript?page=2&p=qanda&l=last)
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I recently closed my account at IS, and now it looks like good timing.
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They canīt change the images on the landing page to welcome customers with suitable content...but they can come up with this nonsense.
Itīs like they donīt even want to try selling anymore. Just dump everything into the cheapest package available and hope something will stick.
Desperate...and lazy...at the same time.
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No RCs, 28 cents, no real-time reporting... Sound like the future of iStock is subscription based...if customers go for this over credits I think video sales will further suffer unless they merge them into subscription somehow
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So Thinkstock pricing comes to iStock - and no RC credit for a subs sale
That will make keeping higher royalty rates harder over time for exclusives...
They've grandfathered the "RC system" Royalty rates for the last two years. I have to wonder if they are going to scrap the RC system as it currently stands.
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so basically photos.com came inside IS covering exclusives too !
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SS should have been raising prices gently over the years so that we could all make fair money from our images, instead of forcing this cut-price war.
So, this latest iStock move is Shutterstock's fault? I hate the low prices being offered for our images as much as you do but I'm pretty sure that SS has had these low prices for quite some time and that for much of that time iStock was doing very well. So, I have a hard time believing that the low prices at SS are just now becoming responsible for iStock's troubles....perhaps it has something to do with poor management decisions, poor treatment of contributors, buyer discontent with repeated price changes, multiple site issues making for a poor buyer experience, etc, etc.
Didn't iStock get started by making images available for free?? Perhaps the price wars started there and then.
I'm not defending Shutterstock by any means but I think iStock contributors need to look at their 'agent' for answers to their concerns.
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Nothing to be happy about with this announcement. The best thing iStock had going for it was that it wasn't Shutterstock, no cheap subs. Oh well, I've been planning for a worst case scenario maybe now it's time to take some action?
I think it's time for all of us to take some action.....some action against these low prices and low royalties....but that's for another thread.
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Nothing to be happy about with this announcement. The best thing iStock had going for it was that it wasn't Shutterstock, no cheap subs. Oh well, I've been planning for a worst case scenario maybe now it's time to take some action?
Now we know they're in trouble!
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Wow. I guess they did not understand that if they paid exclusives a decent amount artists would have come flocking to them and dropping everyone else. Instead they keep doing the opposite. They WERE in a position to do that a couple of years ago when they had a duopoly but no longer. One would also think they would at the very LEAST match the $.38 from SS.
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Wow. I guess they did not understand that if they paid exclusives a decent amount artists would have come flocking to them and dropping everyone else. Instead they keep doing the opposite. They WERE in a position to do that a couple of years ago when they had a duopoly but no longer. One would also think they would at the very LEAST match the $.38 from SS.
I agree, I will wait to see what the new price point will be for the sub packages, but I am not at all surprised they are undercutting royalties.
If Istock had not made so many mistakes shutterstock would not have gained so much traction using price undercutting to garner market share.
With the market margins they gained in the last two years SS has put Istock in a most unfortunate position. I would be surprised if this does not drive pricing lower, Istock needs to gain back the market share they lost by sticking it to submitter/buyers. They forgot that many of us are also buyers and we will see if SS also forgets this fact.
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What!!! Only 2 pages? This announcement must have come very late in the day. I bet it's 15 by the time I get up in the morning.
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awesome news, as usual! ;D
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Nothing to be happy about with this announcement. The best thing iStock had going for it was that it wasn't Shutterstock, no cheap subs. Oh well, I've been planning for a worst case scenario maybe now it's time to take some action?
Now we know they're in trouble!
I'm not sure they are in trouble, subs seem to be very profitable for them. It's me I'm worried about not them.
more profitable than credits? that is a big change in your speech but I do understand it!
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Woo-hoo! ;)
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yay Istock way to go. Looks like I'll be down to 15% when all their buyers move to subscriptions.
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the thread at iStock forum is hilarious, there are still exclusives supporting this :o
curiously most of them were against subscriptions but now at least iStock is doing something, something is everything they have at the moment... :D
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This is the "if you can't beat them, join them" business model - lazy and myopic.
Probably the idea of some twit with an MBA (Master of Bugger All)
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hmmm - I remember someone going loudly exclusive with IS because SS was the demon with the subscription model. And what do you say now...?
Professionals deal with professionals*
*this probably becomes one of the most quoted sentences in stock history ;)
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Wow. I guess they did not understand that if they paid exclusives a decent amount artists would have come flocking to them and dropping everyone else. Instead they keep doing the opposite. They WERE in a position to do that a couple of years ago when they had a duopoly but no longer. One would also think they would at the very LEAST match the $.38 from SS.
4 cents a sale its a lot of money to improve all the bugs etc etc, I can tell you one thing, SS isn't worried about this
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hmmm - I remember someone going loudly exclusive with IS because SS was the demon with the subscription model. And what do you say now...?
Professionals deal with professionals*
*this probably becomes one of the most quoted sentences in stock history ;)
oh Yuri is a different case, not only he is still at 10 agencies but he will be out of the subs as well, he is so big that he picks his own buyers LOL
AndresR is doing well too, 4 months after being exclusive and still portfolio at SS ;D
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I wonder if spike saw this one coming ;D ;D ;D
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Spike's in rehab....where we all will be if this continues.
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From Lobo
We will be revisiting the idea of allowing RCs to apply to Image Subscriptions after we see how things go.
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Still, SS seems to be maintaining IQ standards, whereas iS is has let IQ and keywording standards go to the dogs.
I saw one particular image last week, fairly recently accepted, where the main subject was totally overblown and out of focus. Both issues could be easily seen on the thum.
Mind you, though for a while SS searches seemed cleaner, some of my recent search comparisons have been less so.
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B*stards.
I said often, and only earlier this afternoon by SM here that I was sure this was why they've been suppressing new files for so long; and so it has proved.
Sell files stupidly cheaply, just like SS, and don't even give us RCs.
B*stards.
Sadly, I'm busy until Friday, but then time to start working out which files will be deactivated before April begins.
Just furious.
If I wanted to sell for stupid prices, I'd be on SS.
B*stards. (Did I say that?)
stupid prices??? agree.... BUT don't forget the volume... the big majority are reporting SS as the biggest earner.
At the end they are not so ''stupid'' ;)
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From Lobo
We will be revisiting the idea of allowing RCs to apply to Image Subscriptions after we see how things go.
even that (in 2020) doesn't paint a better picture, the main purpose of exclusive content was the price and uniqueness of the files, now every buyer can get them for lets say 10 times less, its what iStock/exclusives didn't want to pursue but as Craig said on the forum this time they have a strategy and this time will work
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From Lobo
We will be revisiting the idea of allowing RCs to apply to Image Subscriptions after we see how things go.
My guess is that they'll leave the RC system just as it is now - every year they'll announce that nobody is going to drop a level if they miss their targets. Of course nobody will rise a level, either, because of the massive shift from credit to subscription sales.
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From Lobo
We will be revisiting the idea of allowing RCs to apply to Image Subscriptions after we see how things go.
My guess is that they'll leave the RC system just as it is now - every year they'll announce that nobody is going to drop a level if they miss their targets. Of course nobody will rise a level, either, because of the massive shift from credit to subscription sales.
Doing that would effectively ensure that almost all new contributors never rise above the base rate. Which might be just what they want.
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it's a wrap guys, exclusives just noticed they will have tons of downloads with this new strategy, iStock has something I still haven't figure it out, oh must be the community feeling ;D
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I wonder what percentage is being paid out. Back when they introduced the subs in the pp program, we were told they wanted to give us 22%. But contributors insisted on a fixed price for subs,so they wouldn't get extremly low royalties. Kelly then negotiated an agreement that started at 42 cents, right? And that would have been below 22% to mitigate the risk for getty.
Now exclusives will get 34 cents for the main collection. But they don't get any of the benefits of SS additional earnings, like the 28 or 80 or 120 dollar downloads. These downloads are not a myth, they are a significant part of the earnings on SS.
And on SS the files are not exclusive, they can all earn additional money elsewhere.
Didn't they just promise exclusives their files would no longer be mirrored to Thinkstock, so they would remain in the highest earning bracket?
But don't worry...now the Thinkstock program comes to istock...
So only the Vetta content is protected from subs. Which is 0.2% of the collection of the last 6 months as David pointed out.
And most of all: I really don't believe this will stop customers from leaving. Because the advantages of SS are a lot more than the subs program.
But I do see a lot of internal cannibalization, i.e. customers that are now on a credit plan switching to subs. Remember how their sales team went after the istock customers to get them to join Thinkstock? Obviously many people, too many people, stayed with istock. So the incredibly exciting program from Thinkstock is brought to istock...
Very sad. The subs program must be generating a huge amount of money for them. So the real royalties paid out must be incredibly low.
And the exclusives are now locked into subs with all their content, without the usual advantage of supplying sub sites: the freedom to decide which files you send there...
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right Jasmin but you must be missing something iStock is indulging, just think it is a new strategy and like everything new is exciting, that is positive ;D (don't think of anything else!)
there isn't a single announcement they have released that haven't started with "We' re excited to...", what are they smoking out there?
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Wow ... I didn't expect to wake up to this news!
The way I interpret this latest move is that IS has essentially given up on their historical model. They have raised the white flag of surrender to SS. I've never understood how IS can have 'exclusive' images priced at 10x more (for a Medium file) than 'Main collection' amongst them. There's no difference in quality so where's the additional value to the buyer for that? It must be soooo irritating to customers on a budget. Hardly surprising that it's not working for them.
For independent contributors I don't think that this will make too much difference. Our income from IS has already been slashed by so much that there's little left to lose. I doubt that many existing SS sub customers will move to IS subs instead. Most likely TS customers will move to IS for their subs (and no doubt those customers will also be directly targeted by Getty/IS in their marketing). In that respect this is just moving the deckchairs around the sinking ship.
For exclusive contributors at IS this is probably the final nail in the coffin. It's difficult to see how incomes can be maintained with this sub model. As others have said, expect to see a rash of crowns being handed back over the summer.
Oh well ... another sh1tty day in paradise for us.
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it's a wrap guys, exclusives just noticed they will have tons of downloads with this new strategy, iStock has something I still haven't figure it out, oh must be the community feeling ;D
I dont see a lot of happy exclusives posting on the IS forum.
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it's a wrap guys, exclusives just noticed they will have tons of downloads with this new strategy, iStock has something I still haven't figure it out, oh must be the community feeling ;D
I dont see a lot of happy exclusives posting on the IS forum.
I don't see one saying "will drop the crown", perhaps thinking of getting a deal
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Being a mostly patient (docile) iStock exclusive, any new change of direction seriously worries me since June last year, when it was promised that every image would find its sweet spot at the right price, while, as a lot of us have no doubt found out, a lot of good sellers were already at the right price point and have now more or less stopped selling.
Even though it is still possible to have good months, the dwindling number of downloads and strange sales pattern of ups and downs, makes it pretty obvious iStock has lost its momentum.
Leafing through an old Scott Kelby book the other day - from 2006, I think - I came across several passages where he praised "the good guys at iStock". How things have changed, sadly.
I know it's futile but still can't help wondering what would have happened if iStock hadn't introduced the RC system in the first place, angering its contributor base and paving the way for a string of further dubious business decisions, no doubt having seriously underestimated the marketing value of being seen as "the good guys at iStock".
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it's a wrap guys, exclusives just noticed they will have tons of downloads with this new strategy, iStock has something I still haven't figure it out, oh must be the community feeling ;D
I dont see a lot of happy exclusives posting on the IS forum.
I don't see one saying "will drop the crown", perhaps thinking of getting a deal
That doesnt mean they are OK with the sub plan, imo. I have seen a lot of complaining crowns.
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it's a wrap guys, exclusives just noticed they will have tons of downloads with this new strategy, iStock has something I still haven't figure it out, oh must be the community feeling ;D
I dont see a lot of happy exclusives posting on the IS forum.
I don't see one saying "will drop the crown", perhaps thinking of getting a deal
That doesnt mean they are OK with the sub plan, imo. I have seen a lot of complaining crowns.
do I need to quote them? guess it wouldn't be polite
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I know it's futile but still can't help wondering what would have happened if iStock hadn't introduced the RC system in the first place, angering its contributor base and paving the way for a string of further dubious business decisions, no doubt having seriously underestimated the marketing value of being seen as "the good guys at iStock".
There were indeed "good guys at iStock". Unfortunately they were told what to do by their masters at Getty and H&F. The pursuit of short-term profits destroyed the business ... and now "the good guys at iStock" have all gone.
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B*stards.
I said often, and only earlier this afternoon by SM here that I was sure this was why they've been suppressing new files for so long; and so it has proved.
Sell files stupidly cheaply, just like SS, and don't even give us RCs.
B*stards.
Sadly, I'm busy until Friday, but then time to start working out which files will be deactivated before April begins.
Just furious.
If I wanted to sell for stupid prices, I'd be on SS.
B*stards. (Did I say that?)
stupid prices??? agree.... BUT don't forget the volume... the big majority are reporting SS as the biggest earner.
At the end they are not so ''stupid'' ;)
Maybe, but only for certain types of images. Of people I know personally who supply / used to supply there, the volume is poor, though the quality of their images is excellent, just not what American buyers are looking for.
Ulitmately, the pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap means less choice for the buyers as there's no incentive to produce lower demand images.
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B*stards.
I said often, and only earlier this afternoon by SM here that I was sure this was why they've been suppressing new files for so long; and so it has proved.
Sell files stupidly cheaply, just like SS, and don't even give us RCs.
B*stards.
Sadly, I'm busy until Friday, but then time to start working out which files will be deactivated before April begins.
Just furious.
If I wanted to sell for stupid prices, I'd be on SS.
B*stards. (Did I say that?)
stupid prices??? agree.... BUT don't forget the volume... the big majority are reporting SS as the biggest earner.
At the end they are not so ''stupid'' ;)
Maybe, but only for certain types of images. Of people I know personally who supply / used to supply there, the volume is poor, though the quality of their images is excellent, just not what American buyers are looking for.
only 10-15% of my SS sales are from US buyers, weird but only 1% from last month (hope I can give this information)
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it's a wrap guys, exclusives just noticed they will have tons of downloads with this new strategy, iStock has something I still haven't figure it out, oh must be the community feeling ;D
I dont see a lot of happy exclusives posting on the IS forum.
I don't see one saying "will drop the crown", perhaps thinking of getting a deal
That doesnt mean they are OK with the sub plan, imo. I have seen a lot of complaining crowns.
do I need to quote them? guess it wouldn't be polite
The majority is not happy with it, thats the point. Its not that all exclusives are jumping at this news.
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there isn't a single announcement they have released that haven't started with "We' re excited to...", what are they smoking out there?
It's easy to be excited when you don't have any images to be messed around with.
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there isn't a single announcement they have released that haven't started with "We' re excited to...", what are they smoking out there?
It's easy to be excited when you don't have any images to be messed around with.
exactly, I just don't understand how they feel they can push exclusives even further, you guys must be doing a lot of money from iStock because the perspective of things outside isn't that bad, you have Stocksy and of course all other agencies, not saying it would make up all your income but it would be a lot more stable, perhaps more work in terms of submitting but honestly I would trade any 10 agencies for the submission at iStock (excluding Alamy)
the case that comes to my head is Sean's, ok he is far from his previous income but at least he is trying to build his "second" career working in all agencies, must be tough but doable
we know better our work and sales than any other so it's up to you/me to decide what is best
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hmmm - I remember someone going loudly exclusive with IS because SS was the demon with the subscription model. And what do you say now...?
Professionals deal with professionals*
Lol, I forgot all about that!
"Hi Guys.
We have found a good distribution partner (Getty Images) for the kind of content we produce. We will be removing all images from microstock doing the next few weeks. Microstock, especially subscription sites, are not suited for the kind of high production cost images we produce.
Best Yuri"
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From Lobo
We will be revisiting the idea of allowing RCs to apply to Image Subscriptions after we see how things go.
I doubt they'll be revisiting anything, just like they haven't revisited moving images from one level to another. The sub plan doesn't pay out based on royalty level, so why would sales through it affect royalty level?
Although it won't matter when they switch buyers over because eventually RCs won't matter at all.
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I just looked through the entire thread, there is not one happy exclusive. Take Luis's posts with a grain of salt.
yeah you should cut on the salt, try some spices! but actually I have never said there were happy contributors, pretty much a few are getting comfy waiting to see what will happen showing they still have hope
why aren't you anyway dude?
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I think Vetta is excluded, which is most of his work isn't it?
His work will probably be excluded, no matter in which collection it is. Same as his work is excluded from exclusivity ;D
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hmmm - I remember someone going loudly exclusive with IS because SS was the demon with the subscription model. And what do you say now...?
Professionals deal with professionals*
Lol, I forgot all about that!
"Hi Guys.
We have found a good distribution partner (Getty Images) for the kind of content we produce. We will be removing all images from microstock doing the next few weeks. Microstock, especially subscription sites, are not suited for the kind of high production cost images we produce.
Best Yuri"
I think Vetta is excluded, which is most of his work isn't it?
In his Yuri pseudo, he has 58787 files lower than S+, of which 9947 are main.
In his Yuri_Arcurs pseudo, he has 34415 lS files.
If he has another pseudo, I don't know about it. Do tell.
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hmmm - I remember someone going loudly exclusive with IS because SS was the demon with the subscription model. And what do you say now...?
Professionals deal with professionals*
Lol, I forgot all about that!
"Hi Guys.
We have found a good distribution partner (Getty Images) for the kind of content we produce. We will be removing all images from microstock doing the next few weeks. Microstock, especially subscription sites, are not suited for the kind of high production cost images we produce.
Best Yuri"
I think Vetta is excluded, which is most of his work isn't it?
3.800 Vetta files among 110.000 in his portfolios...
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ouuuch! charlie bit me!
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I just looked through the entire thread, there is not one happy exclusive. Take Luis's posts with a grain of salt.
yeah you should cut on the salt, try some spices! but actually I have never said there were happy contributors, pretty much a few are getting comfy waiting to see what will happen showing they still have hope
I'd take it more as seeing many of them don't have much choice. There are quite a few among them who are most likely right when they believe they couldn't make more money being non-exclusive. And they most certainly can't risk dropping 80% of their income right now hoping to make more in a distant future. So they sure have hope because it's the only thing they can.
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I'm exclusive and I'm not happy at all. This is a mistake. For me, exclusiveness has suddenly lost all his appeal.
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hmmm - I remember someone going loudly exclusive with IS because SS was the demon with the subscription model. And what do you say now...?
Professionals deal with professionals*
Lol, I forgot all about that!
"Hi Guys.
We have found a good distribution partner (Getty Images) for the kind of content we produce. We will be removing all images from microstock doing the next few weeks. Microstock, especially subscription sites, are not suited for the kind of high production cost images we produce.
Best Yuri"
The karma of internet public postings that come back to bite you...Well, he was the king of subs downloads on SS, now he can be the King of subs downloads on istock...just without all the extended licenses and additional income SS offers.
I am sure the customers will love having access to his whole portfolio at subs prices again.
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It'll be a disaster for them, their site isn't geared up for subs at all. They've lost all useful data for the best match algorithm with their constant messing with the pricing structure.
My guess is eventually they'll have to shut the old iS and rebadge Thinkstock with an iStock logo.
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The karma of internet public postings that come back to bite you...Well, he was the king of subs downloads on SS, now he can be the King of subs downloads on istock...just without all the extended licenses and additional income SS offers.
I don't think you've got the latter part right. iStock has all this because it was all they had in the past. And to be frank, iStock's "ODD" and "SOD" sales are averaging much higher than those of Shutterstock.
It's only a matter of perspective: When submitting to Shutterstock, you know you are submitting to a subs site. So anything bigger than $0.38 looks positive. When submitting to iStock, you knew you were submitting to a credit based site. So anything lower than $5 will now look ugly.
And when it comes to Yuri, I doubt that he cares a lot. I am pretty sure he cashed in his cheque already.
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Being a video guy I wonder what istock will do with video? They are strangely silent about video.
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The karma of internet public postings that come back to bite you...Well, he was the king of subs downloads on SS, now he can be the King of subs downloads on istock...just without all the extended licenses and additional income SS offers.
I don't think you've got the latter part right. iStock has all this because it was all they had in the past. And to be frank, iStock's "ODD" and "SOD" sales are averaging much higher than those of Shutterstock.
It's only a matter of perspective: When submitting to Shutterstock, you know you are submitting to a subs site. So anything bigger than $0.38 looks positive. When submitting to iStock, you knew you were submitting to a credit based site. So anything lower than $5 will now look ugly.
And when it comes to Yuri, I doubt that he cares a lot. I am pretty sure he cashed in his cheque already.
Yuri and other pseudo-exclusives do not care about IS sales, they care about their stuff in GI, where they get more money, probably huge percentage y maybe better exposure. IS for them is gravy.
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It's only a matter of perspective: When submitting to Shutterstock, you know you are submitting to a subs site. So anything bigger than $0.38 looks positive. When submitting to iStock, you knew you were submitting to a credit based site. So anything lower than $5 will now look ugly.
I absolutely agree. That is why it is so crucial to be able to decide which files go to the subs model and which donīt. How can you plan a production, if you donīt know at which prices your files will be sold?
And since new content hardly sells, you must basically now decide to shoot for volume for istock. Unless you belong to the lucky few who can shoot directly for Vetta.
I am not really affected, so probably I shouldīt be so upset. But it is so frustrating to watch.
I think I should go out and shoot and not look at the forums for a while.
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Wow. I guess they did not understand that if they paid exclusives a decent amount artists would have come flocking to them and dropping everyone else. Instead they keep doing the opposite. They WERE in a position to do that a couple of years ago when they had a duopoly but no longer. One would also think they would at the very LEAST match the $.38 from SS.
4 cents a sale its a lot of money to improve all the bugs etc etc, I can tell you one thing, SS isn't worried about this
They are going to get a flood of "new" content, some of which is probably excellent, so they are likely as excited as a kid ready to pee their pants.
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Got up this morning, checked sales, saw this on the SS forums and I knew it would be a hot one. :)
What!!! Only 2 pages? This announcement must have come very late in the day. I bet it's 15 by the time I get up in the morning.
Probably nothing to add but I will point out what I found that convinced it was nothing but ThinkStock in a different dress. This is a sign of desperation. They had something good, with identity and quality and exclusive content and now they are jumping into the rabbit hole, chasing.
Royalties will be reported monthly, not in real time. Initially we will be reporting these royalties under the Partner Program.
And then what happens when they can't keep accurate track of these new royalities for these subs. We've already seen that from Oct / Nov of last year.
Master F-UP!
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If IS and it's contributors hope that this will bring a large increase in volume to compensate, this will end in an ocean of tears. People, customers forming the markets are so far from being that rational, it's almost funny - there have always been sites as cheap or even cheaper than SS, and they hardly grown, just stagnated, or even went out of business. People are more likely to be creatures of habit.
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RCs was the beginning of the end for those of us that loved iStock as well as their berry competitive place in the market.
I am exclusive with my "raster illustrations" and I am going to take the wait n see approach, if volume explodes, and it will have to at those price cuts.. I'll stay...
Otherwise I will drop the crown as more $$ is the ONLY reason to have a crown.
As far as video is concerned, it has not reached the sheer volume of images and vectors so I predict it will be safe for now....
I am planning latter this year to do more with animation and would remove vids from sites that want to cheepen them :)
My Very Best :)
KimsCreativeHub.com
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As everyone knows, once a black hole forms, it will continually attract and hold all matter within its greedy reach. Subscription models are that black hole. You can't see into them and nothing gets out to give the viewer an idea of what happens within.
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Stock Image Subscription
Were excited to introduce image subscriptions-
Translation- We are excited to screw more money out of the contributors
What does this mean for contributors?
Translation- even less money that they ever thought possible
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Site's down. Or is it just me?
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Down here too...
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Down here as well
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I was diamond ! I'm so sad they replace the canister level with RC ! I'm not surprise the Sub Model don't give RC ! They don't want people to get level up ! But level is motivation ! So you see that they don't care at all about their member.
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Gateway Timeout
The proxy server did not receive a timely response from the upstream server.
Reference #1.d02c0660.1393946836.30925a0
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It'll be a disaster for them, their site isn't geared up for subs at all. They've lost all useful data for the best match algorithm with their constant messing with the pricing structure.
My guess is eventually they'll have to shut the old iS and rebadge Thinkstock with an iStock logo.
I see their aging infrastructure and search as one of their biggest obstacles right now. I don't seem them investing the discrepancies in royalties to reverse that either. This will just be bad for contributors all around because it will further deteriorate the value of our assets.
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Istock is down now !
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my theory on istock is they want people to leave, especially exclusives. I think in their hearts they want all these little artist to go away so they can have their few preferred artists like in the Getty heyday.
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Kudos to both of you for seeing through the smokescreen. Here's what I'm waiting for and wondering.
Is there one person here or there that's going to step up and say... This is a good Idea, I like it? ::)
...we are launching this in April...
April 1st sounds like an appropriate choice :)
Somewhat prophetic Tom, the site is down right now.
we are launching this in April, expect all sorts of things to be messed up as we roll this out.
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Istock is down now !
Yes. Thankfully, that will make very little difference to my earnings today.
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"iStock
Hi everyone, were currently experiencing a website issue and appreciate your patience during this time."
-posted on Facebook
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It was really starting to seem like no one had gotten royally screwed over in this business for a while. Glad iStock finally stepped up and did something about it. Just didn't feel like microstock for a while there. ;)
We need one of those signs that factories have, the ones that say "It has been ___ days since a workplace accident." Except ours can say "It has been ___ days since a stock agency concocted a new way to screw artists."
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Maybe it's a cruel April Fool's joke. :o
Let me translate from iSpeak
thinkstock isn't shafting everyone enough. so we are starting a subs plan for istock that shafts people there too. Since a lot of the content from exclusives isn't available on main, we will move it there to shaft them too. Of course you get no RC for this shafting. We will mix the sales reporting in with the PP reporting so it will be harder for you guys to notice when we short change you, don't worry, if we accidentally overpay you we will claw it back eventually.
we are launching this in April, expect all sorts of things to be messed up as we roll this out.
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I still don't have a clue what the endgame goal is here. Thinkstock was being promoted by both iStock and Getty (and presumably other Getty properties) for subscriptions. Which one will they promote now?
Getty historically hasn't been in the business of holding overlapping sites for very long, at least when it comes to microstock. They killed StockXpert because they didn't need another credit-based microstock site when they already had iStock.
Very weird that they're launching a subscription service within iStock instead of continuing to try and bring subscription buyers over to Thinkstock.
The only thing I can imagine is that they've got some data in front of them that suggests that buyers want the option to buy subscriptions and single images both under one roof. I just can't imagine there are that many of those types of customers out there.
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Is there one person here or there that's going to step up and say... This is a good Idea, I like it? ::)
Yes, On the SS forum someone likes it
That's good news I think. Sales there are very good for me already and I'd thought the lower value sales were subs. Hopefully this will mean even better sales!
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Well, in my opinion exclusivity is an outdated concept and was for a while. Clients need the right image at the right time, and they don't care at all if that image is sold on one agency only, not if the quality is the same. Istock had some delusions for a while that their exclusive content was better than non-exclusive, and it really isn't the case, and it looks like they're starting to realize that. Which will eventually result in diminishing benefits for exclusives... they'll probably retain some form of exclusivity perks but not significant ones. My prediction is that all contributors will be on about the same level pretty soon, they'll keep reducing payouts until it doesn't make sense to contribute anymore. Not for the people living in countries with high cost of living, anyway.
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Being unable to understand that having what competitors doesn't have --don't even matter if better or worse-- it's a big plus for any business in any part of the world, is extremely nearsighted.
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Being unable to understand that having what competitors doesn't have --don't even matter if better or worse-- it's a big plus for any business in any part of the world, is extremely nearsighted.
Ummm.... how is it a plus for any business to have something worse than your competitors? ;D
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Better or worse, different. But if you haven't understood it, don't try, you won't.
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Well, including the istock exlusive imagery into a sub model seems to be a bad move fom me. The world is already overfed with stock images, if you want something you will get it doesn't matter which agency you work with. But the iStock exlusive imagery had a huge advantage: it was more expensive. Still everyone could afford to buy a licence but meawhile you always knew that you are not buying the cheapest stuff so it is likely that you will not see it again and again everywhere on the internet. Now this last advantage is gone.
IStock is not leading or dictating anymore on this market but trying to catch up with Shutterstock. SS just won another battle this is what I think.
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Taking a look at Getty's actions in the last month or so, plus some of the comments from Shutterstock's February earnings call, I'm wondering if taken together we can make some sense of what Getty's up to.
photos.com and punchstock are going away and their business shifted to Thinkstock and Getty Images; clipart.com has been sold to Vital Imagery Ltd. I'm guessing that what these sites brought in wasn't worth the cost of operating them.
When Getty started Thinkstock in spite of the fact they had two other subscription sites (admittedly inherited from Jupiter Images' acquisition) the thought was that it was their "Shutterstock killer". Given Shutterstock's earnings rise over the last year, I'm guessing that hasn't worked out as they expected.
Someone (tickstock?) suggested that moving subscriptions to iStock and mandating participation meant that Getty was making good money from Thinkstock and wanted to expand it. But if that were the case, I'd have expected them to move more iStock content (and possibly more Getty content - they already changed the Getty contract to let them move things to Thinkstock without the artist's OK) over to Thinkstock where all the buyers expect to find Getty's subscription content.
They can change the iStock contributor agreement to let them force exclusive content onto Thinkstock just as they did earlier with indie content; they've also been working on whatever tangle of code powers their "connector", so I can't imagine it's a technical issue with being unable to move the content over.
So that leads to me to assume that Thinkstock isn't doing as well as all that and they're trying another tack to chip away at Shutterstock's incursion on their turf by putting the subscription business on iStock itself.
I realize that alexa's ranking of a site is just one metric, but looking at iStock, SS, Getty and Thinkstock global/US ranking:
IS 424 / 252
SS 216 / 194
Thinkstock 5,824 / 1,519
Getty 3,003 / 1,107
And for some comparison to see how well Thinkstock is doing against other micros...
Fotolia 528 and Germany (higher ranked than the US) 64
dreamstime 656 / 607
123rf 472 / 551
DepositPhotos 1,317 / 1,060
PhotoDune 2,886 / 2,018
Canstock 3,636 / 2,027
Alamy 16,001 / 12,010
I'm guessing that with all the terrible pricing moves when they remade the collections, business on iStock is not doing so well in spite of all the royalty cuts and that bringing Thinkstock to iStock is something they hope will reverse that. I would once have said that they'd be missing all the non-iStock content that Thnkstock also has, but given the dump of Getty material onto iStock in the last year or so, a lot of it may already be there. I can't imagine that the aging StockXpert content (that is now nowhere except Thinkstock) is going to make much of a difference to business.
Possibly Carlyle has given Getty some targets to hit and they're doing whatever they can to meet those (in other words looking at the long term for the business has been overshadowed by the short term need to not get fired by their bosses)?
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I don't see the need to have ThinkStock around for much longer at this rate. They are cutting and moving things together which is smart. Only time will tell how this all will play out. Being a video guy I am not affected yet but that won't last long. Out of the 9 video sales I had on Getty last month 7 of them were for 3-5 bucks! I remember iStock saying there would never be a time when we as video artist would earn less at Getty then we do at iStock. Well that was a lie!!!
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It is hard to see how the royalty rates that have been announced will work in the long run.
Non-exclusive: All Collections: $0.28/download
Main (exclusive): $0.34/download
Signature (exclusive): $0.75/download
Signature+ (exclusive): $2.50/download
The customer will be paying a flat fee for a subscription. If they buy the higher level subscription they will be able to download as many images from any collection as they want. Effectively, the customer is paying the same price per image regardless of which collection it comes from.
If the customer downloads all images from the Main collection Getty makes out, but if all the images they choose are from the Signature+ collection Getty takes a big hit because they have to give up 7 to 9 times more money in royalties than they would have if all the images came from the Main collection.
Assume that a customer has an all collection subscription, but downloads all the images they need from the non-exclusive main collection and Getty pays just 10% of the subscription fee in royalties. If those same customers downloaded the same number of Signature+ images Getty would payout over 90% of what they collect.
There would be an incentive for Getty to push images from the non-exclusive Main collection to the top of the search return order. But they will want to keep the high priced images at the top of the search return order so their single image buyers can see them first and maybe spend more for the images they want to use. This may be another plan that has not been well thought out.
It can't be long before Getty changes the royalty rate to one flat price regardless of which collection the image comes from.
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The customer will be paying a flat fee for a subscription. If they buy the higher level subscription they will be able to download as many images from any collection as they want. Effectively, the customer is paying the same price per image regardless of which collection it comes from.
That's not what the announcement said though (I thought the same thing).
"Our new Image Subscription model allows our customers to download a specific number of Photos or Illustrations, of any size, monthly, from our Main, Signature, and Signature+ collections, depending on the tier."
So, for $X, you can have 100 Main, 20 Signature and 10 S+ . Or whatever.
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But then, that's just a "subscription credit program". That would be an end run around paying contributors properly.
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That would be an end run around paying contributors properly.
Isn't that what sub programs are?
Sorry, no, I mean at iStock, you buy credits, and you trade a certain amount for a certain size of a certain image. If the sub plan works this way, you are buying credits and you trade a certain amount for a certain image. It's basically the same thing they already have, but they found a way to pay the contributor less.
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The customer will be paying a flat fee for a subscription. If they buy the higher level subscription they will be able to download as many images from any collection as they want. Effectively, the customer is paying the same price per image regardless of which collection it comes from.
That's not what the announcement said though (I thought the same thing).
"Our new Image Subscription model allows our customers to download a specific number of Photos or Illustrations, of any size, monthly, from our Main, Signature, and Signature+ collections, depending on the tier."
So, for $X, you can have 100 Main, 20 Signature and 10 S+ . Or whatever.
Then it is somewhat similar to the system that DT used in the past:
$0.35 > $0.70 > $1.05 according to the DT image level
Customers complained and DT abandoned it.
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That would be an end run around paying contributors properly.
Isn't that what sub programs are?
No. In a conventional sub programme (such as SS or DT for example) the agency takes the risk that, if a subscriber were to download their full entitlement, then the agency would lose money. It would appear from the SS financial reports that the average subscriber only downloads about one third of their entitlement.
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Sorry, no, I mean at iStock, you buy credits, and you trade a certain amount for a certain size of a certain image. If the sub plan works this way, you are buying credits and you trade a certain amount for a certain image. It's basically the same thing they already have, but they found a way to pay the contributor less.
Maybe that's exactly what the goal is.
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Well, including the istock exlusive imagery into a sub model seems to be a bad move fom me. The world is already overfed with stock images, if you want something you will get it doesn't matter which agency you work with. But the iStock exlusive imagery had a huge advantage: it was more expensive. Still everyone could afford to buy a licence but meawhile you always knew that you are not buying the cheapest stuff so it is likely that you will not see it again and again everywhere on the internet. Now this last advantage is gone.
IStock is not leading or dictating anymore on this market but trying to catch up with Shutterstock. SS just won another battle this is what I think.
An image buyer who doesn't want to buy something that's all over the internet buys RM. Current RM prices are very affordable. He would not pay more for RF image which is not in any way unique or special (and majority of Istock's exclusive collection isn't). So, including exclusive content in their sub program is a logical move for iStock. In the business where everyone sells subscriptions you can improve your chances by offering more content for the subscription price (and um, having your site up helps too ;-)).
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All I can think of is IS has figured they moved as many people to TS as they could, so now close all the others and see if they can bring more over with some brand recognition.
I still don't understand the consolidation and closings but StockXpert is still around? What's the point?
I don't see the need to have ThinkStock around for much longer at this rate. They are cutting and moving things together which is smart. Only time will tell how this all will play out. Being a video guy I am not affected yet but that won't last long. Out of the 9 video sales I had on Getty last month 7 of them were for 3-5 bucks! I remember iStock saying there would never be a time when we as video artist would earn less at Getty then we do at iStock. Well that was a lie!!!
Wow there's a first. iStock has lied to us. >:(
And another good point you make. What if they just had problems with the feed and soon everything IS will be from all these places, TS will just forward us to IS. All the rest will just forward us to IS subs. Everything on one site.
Another "Huh" is they included exclusives, then they excluded exclusives from TS, but leaving files was optional, now they are going to include exclusives again in the new one. Talk about waffle and waver.
(Edit: I had to remove an out of context quote...)
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... but StockXpert is still around? What's the point?
I think it is only for the back end function of paying contributors. They don't want to/can't/are afraid to try to come up with some sort of connector to track and pay for the Hemera (StockXpert) content that's on Thinkstock. Clunky as it is, they can use the old code to avoid breaking things introducing new code.
For those who weren't around then, StockXpert was acquired by Jupiter Images and StockXpert content was later included in subscriptions on photos.com and JIunlimited. SockXpert contributors were paid via their StockXpert account. When Getty acquired Jupiter and then decided to start Thinkstock, all the Jupiter properties contributed to Thinkstock. Then Getty closed StockXpert as a sales site or way to contribute, but left all the files there to keep them on Thinkstock.
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Noticed how their site crashed after this announcement ;D
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The end game here is a transfer from the developed world to the developing world. The future of micro stock is lower prices.
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I think it is only for the back end function of paying contributors. They don't want to/can't/are afraid to try to come up with some sort of connector to track and pay for the Hemera (StockXpert) content that's on Thinkstock. Clunky as it is, they can use the old code to avoid breaking things introducing new code.
For those who weren't around then, StockXpert was acquired by Jupiter Images and StockXpert content was later included in subscriptions on photos.com and JIunlimited. SockXpert contributors were paid via their StockXpert account. When Getty acquired Jupiter and then decided to start Thinkstock, all the Jupiter properties contributed to Thinkstock. Then Getty closed StockXpert as a sales site or way to contribute, but left all the files there to keep them on Thinkstock.
Walter Scott - Marmion
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I think Jo Ann hit the nail on the head when she said she couldn't understand the management strategy behind this move. I've thought about it, and I can't understand it either. Unless, that is, there are larger strategic things going on.
What confuses me (and probably everyone else) is that Getty has put so much effort into Thinkstock. Getty's CEO even announced a year or two back that they planned to 'aggressively grow their Thinkstock business'. Aggressive was the word he used. And indeed I personally thought that Thinkstock was making good progress - I've had my portfolio there from the beginning so I've seen the tremendous growth in sales. And some of the people on the 'refund' thread were showing big numbers, so clearly their sales must have been pretty good. Not Shutterstock, of course, but pretty impressive for a two year start-up, albeit one probably funded by transferring thousands of customers away from iStock and other Getty sites. Perhaps that's the problem - perhaps it's been Peter paying Paul and no genuine organic growth.
At the same time they've run down iStock. It's clear to anyone that iStock lacks resources. Just look at the landing page Valentine fiasco. And the unpaid subs. And the search that still doesn't work after more than a year. And the long list of bugs never resolved. And no customer support worth talking about. It gives the impression of a shoestring operation, struggling through from one day to the next.
And now we get this subs announcement. It's clearly aimed at stemming the flow of customers to Shutterstock. There might even be a plan to revitalise iStock. But without resources? And no live sales reporting? And lack of staff?
And then what happens to Thinkstock? Are they going to kill Thinkstock and put all those resources, advertising etc into iStock? That would be counter to everything they've done to iStock over the last two or three years. And would make iStock a direct competitor to Thinkstock.
Doesn't make the slightest bit of sense to me. Unless, of course, there's something more important going on and they've had independent analysis that tells them they've been wrong with their iStock strategy and a new period of investment and growth will ensue.
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What confuses me (and probably everyone else) is that Getty has put so much effort into Thinkstock. ... Not Shutterstock, of course, but pretty impressive for a two year start-up, albeit one probably funded by transferring thousands of customers away from iStock and other Getty sites.
I don't know how you came up with "two year start-up". My first PP downloads are from 2009. They were miniscule. After promises of a new push I decided to put more images back into the PP in the mid of 2011 but numbers were pretty small again. It's only now when I turned non-exclusive that the numbers got important for me in 2013. But this is mainly due to the fact that I now only get 17% at iStock, so the PP is doubling my overall IS income.
And when you mention people reporting big numbers in the refund thread: Yes, there are some in the four digits. Which means they are making some $500 or $1000 through the PP in regular month. But some of those have 5,000 or 10,000 professional level images, so they are likely to make five times more on SS with the same images.
That's probably the real message behind it: Whatever IS / Getty / TS tried, they never won significant numbers of clients but Shutterstock did. Getty has a huge client base and it just kept many of them from switching to Shutter by having a TS subscription in addition to their existing Getty and IS accounts. But I doubt they have ever managed to get more than 10-20% of the Shutterstock revenue with Thinkstock. Now they are making another try by turning IS into a subscription platform.
Business-wise it would make sense in a way. Most agencies today offer both, a full subscription offer and a credit or image pack offer. However, Getty has never been inventive, creative or acted as a leader. They are a company founded with investment money, run by investment bankers and owned by investment bankers. They buy, they merge, they leverage, they restructure, they optimize. They have never been, are not and never will be leading anything anywhere.
And that's why this news strategy is going to fail as well: They are trying to match an existing offer but they are offering less service, less quality, less reliability. So the only advantage they have is their sales force and connections to big media and advertising companies. But they will never be able to connect to the average small business owner, website startup or designer that iStock once made. They think corporate and won't ever be able to understand the masses of small people. So they won't ever win them back as clients.
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SS is a modern, technology focussed company that understands that both their customers as well as their suppliers are entrepreneurs. They see themselves as a service platform and put all their energy and considerable brain power of their staff to providing the best service in the industry.
Like Michael said - Getty doesnīt lead. They donīt innovate. And when it comes to istock they never even made the effort to really understand the business they bought. Or how doing business on the internet really works.
They donīt really think things through, they just make very half hearted attempts of copying something someone else already does.
All their ideas come from buying someone else (or a company with ideas).
But today this is just not enough.
Thinkstock was never really set up to compete professionally with SS. Which is why it probably only reached their own istock customers and not too many new ones. So now they are trying to offer a subs service on istock itself, again mostly to prevent their own customers from leaving to SS.
But since istock is not getting more staff,more money,and no professional internet brainpower to lead it... I really donīt see how they have a chance against SS.
Most agencies are offering subs in addition to credit sales. Many agencies are cheaper than SS.
But nobody has the growth of SS.
SS has very smart leadership with now over 10 years of experience. And they have tons of money to spend on infrastructure and growth instead of billions in debt like Getty.
This subs plan looks desperate. You canīt see a longterm secret business master plan, because there is none.
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The day Bruce left Istock, Istock lost the race.
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Subscriptions are a benefit to the seller if the website is easy to use,search works well and downloading is quick and easy. Customers end up downloading extra images just because they have to fill their plate at the buffet to feel like they got their money's worth.
Shutterstock is unique (and successful) as they managed to build alot of credit / on demand sales etc. My RPD at Shutterstock last month was over $1 .
Dreamstime with their level structure for credit sales should be making me the highest RPD but last months was $0.41 basically it was 90% subcriptions sales there last month. Disappointed with the trend there, I believe that their subscription pricing has migrated the buyers there mostly onto subscriptions. Unfortunately the pricing war on subscriptions has cut into credit sales.
I believe that IStocks pricing for their subscription offer will just transform any serious buyer into a subscription customer. (The few that are left). I have no confidence in that their actions will increase the amount of money I make. Either at Istock or in the industry as a whole. (another subscription offer to compete with)
With migration to subs and no RC's then I doubt if many contributors will be able to make much above 16-17% tiers. or equivalent for exclusives.
If the returns for contributors continue to fall they risk falling (some would say continue to fall) into the death spiral where a lot of contributors couldn't be bothered uploading there as the returns won't be worth it.
With lowest % returns, some of the lowest pricing for non-exclusives and below average subscription rates it would appear it would be in my interest as a non-exclusive for the customers to go elsewhere and istock fall to 10th on the earning list.
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Short and to the point extract from filo:
"It seems like every change that is made does harm to contributors. "
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=359606&messageid=6990980 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=359606&messageid=6990980)
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An offer for subscription relies on offering a huge choice for the customer and the "all you can eat" download buffet.
In this article Michael made an interesting comparison between the numbers of files reaching SS and istock in 2013. Although istock now takes nearly everything and many indies are uploading the rest of their portfolios, SS is still leading with over 3 million more files accepted.
http://www.michaeljayfoto.com/agency-news/how-did-the-istock-collection-develop-in-2013/ (http://www.michaeljayfoto.com/agency-news/how-did-the-istock-collection-develop-in-2013/)
These numbers show the obvious: the community of stock artists trust SS a lot more to sell their content, be a reliable business partner and bring in profit.
SS high quality reputation results in MILLIONS more files entrusted to them per year.
So they will always be able to offer their customers more choices than istock.
You might not get thousands of posting on the industry forums every day. But people read. Share information. And understand where the future is going.
Trust is Money. Business communication is Money. A companies reputation is Money.
The only one who doesīt understand that is Getty.
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iStock could make a subscription offering work and be successful with it. But they won't. They've already overcomplicated it to the point where it will likely fail.
What iStock seems to be unable to figure out is that Shutterstock keeps things simple, at least on the outside. Buying images is easy. Subscriptions are dirt simple. Pay the fee (a fee that really hasn't changed much in years) and you're on your way. Even on the contributor side, it's dirt simple. We get real-time stats, simple and easy to understand data, etc.
Shutterstock was often criticized for having too basic of a website. No zoom, not a particularly great design, too simple, bare, etc. But the genius of it was that it worked well at the basics. It was reliable, fast, easy to use, and although didn't have all of those "advanced" features iStock and others touted, it also didn't have to worry about those "features" getting in the way of doing what their core function was: getting people to quickly and easily buy images.
iStock doesn't have it in their DNA to do anything simple anymore. It's always complicated, and always buggy to start. So they stumble out of the gate with a mediocre offering and spend years struggling to make it better, rarely succeeding in that effort.
This subscription model will be no different, and it's doomed to fail right from the start.
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Shows what a waste of time that what if post about what if SS lowered rates was - who predicted this one.? I stock seem hell bent on self destruction
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When we speak of IS vs. SS, what catches my eye is that IS keeps jumping all over the place, trying things to see if they stick. That's my personal impression. SS on the other hand, pilots one strategy on a subset, validates it, then either expands the pilot or pulls it back to make tweaks so its gaps don't become readily obvious to their contributors and buyers. Once they prove it out, it's fully launched, as a new process should be handled.
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Shows what a waste of time that what if post about what if SS lowered rates was - who predicted this one.? I stock seem hell bent on self destruction
I'm sure lots of people saw this coming. Shutterstock is growing rapidly, making tons of money, paying contributors next to nothing, and they are loved for it. Sounds like a great business plan to me.
Well, I have the same images on SS and IS. My monthly income on SS is 40% more per month/year than IS. IS has "Istock AND Thinkstock" and they pay pathetically. Need I say 28 cents for a TS DL? Not sure why you continue to bash SS royalties when IS/TS is at best close in royalties, and in many cases less (TS), for independents anyway. BTW, I have NEVER had an .08 cent royalty on SS, but I have on IS. And don't forget the OD & SOD in case you try to use the credit argument.
Edit: BTW I would love for SS to raise sub royalties, I am not saying it is the best income stream a photographer could hope for, just that it is far better than IS with the same amount of work, apples to apples in terms of my work and resulting income. Now if you want to split hairs, the IS upload system SUCKS and is way more time consuming than SS, so if you really want to divide my time by monthly revenue, add another feather in the cap of SS.
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iStock could make a subscription offering work and be successful with it. But they won't. They've already overcomplicated it to the point where it will likely fail.
What iStock seems to be unable to figure out is that Shutterstock keeps things simple, at least on the outside. Buying images is easy. Subscriptions are dirt simple. Pay the fee (a fee that really hasn't changed much in years) and you're on your way. Even on the contributor side, it's dirt simple. We get real-time stats, simple and easy to understand data, etc.
Shutterstock was often criticized for having too basic of a website. No zoom, not a particularly great design, too simple, bare, etc. But the genius of it was that it worked well at the basics. It was reliable, fast, easy to use, and although didn't have all of those "advanced" features iStock and others touted, it also didn't have to worry about those "features" getting in the way of doing what their core function was: getting people to quickly and easily buy images.
iStock doesn't have it in their DNA to do anything simple anymore. It's always complicated, and always buggy to start. So they stumble out of the gate with a mediocre offering and spend years struggling to make it better, rarely succeeding in that effort.
This subscription model will be no different, and it's doomed to fail right from the start.
Completely agree
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I think I've made my position clear before. I don't think being nonexclusive at iStock is a good choice either. If I were to drop exclusivity I wouldn't continue with iStock. It's perfectly consistent to say that nonexclusivity at iStock AND contributing to Shutterstock are both bad for artists.
You could say the same for most microstock agencies. Are any of them good for artists?
It's just how the business is today. For me, to make a living doing this I need to do business with Shutterstock. I could do without iStock but at this point it's helpful to stick with them. I'm not Yuri or Andres, I need the middle and low earners to help pay the bills.
But none of them are "good" for me. The number of companies out there offering good deals for artists in microstock, I could count them on one hand after a tragic accident that takes a few of my fingers.
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While Shutterstock has done many things right there is no need to look at them thru rose colored glasses. Shutterstock has been able to gain market share, because they kept things simple, they undercut pricing long term and their largest competitor became greedy, arrogant, treated it's suppliers with contempt, lost focus, did not invest in its infrastructure, etc etc etc. Shutterstock's price undercutting to gain market share has been detrimental to the entire industry and should not be lauded.
To start, I do not see IS taking a significant share of the sub market if they do not make major investments in their infrastructure. That said Shutterstock infrastructure also has problems that need to be addressed, the site is not as advanced as many here seem to believe. Stable functioning sites do not go down as often as SS does, ports, images and keywords do not go missing. Nor they do they leave themselves open to hacker attacks by using end of life open source software.
If we look at shutterstock or any site with rose colored glasses and fail to take care of our own interest the owners will have no problem taking profit from our failure to protect our business assets and interests. For a reality check shutterstock has its own issues as detailed by people who work there. In my opinion, instead of offering glowing reviews we need to take all of the sites to task to make sure that our assets are taken care of.
http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Shutterstock-Reviews-E270840.htm (http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Shutterstock-Reviews-E270840.htm)
Snip
opacity, secrecy and arrogance
Anonymous Employee (Former Employee)
New York, NY
I worked at Shutterstock full-time for more than a year
Pros the industry they are working in is normally interesting. What they made of it, unfortunately, does not correspond to people expectations.
Cons Very poor management- Culture of secrecy, opacity and total lack of communication. Old Good Top down methodology.
Request, emails, questions remain unanswered.
Doubtful promotion system, where friends and acquaintances rise very quick while others struggle.
H.R take employees for a commodity to be used and abused, and lied to.
Advice to Senior Management Success when it's too quick leads can lead to complete arrogance. This is exactly what happened to the executives and founder of this company.
Wake up and respect other people around including clients, users and employees..
No, I would not recommend this company to a friend I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company
Was this review helpful?
Yes | No Add Employer Response Flag Review
Snip
Software engineer Intern
Software Engineer (Former Employee)
New York, NY
I worked at Shutterstock as an intern for less than a year
Pros Flat structure, good food, good people and very interesting.
Cons Most of stuff is perl, old perl. Kind of hard to understand what is really going on.
Snip
A great place for developers!
Project Manager (Current Employee)
New York, NY
I have been working at Shutterstock full-time for more than a year
Pros Great work life balance
Google-like perks
Quick Project Delivery
Challenging work
Encouraged and driven to be faster, smarter, and better designed
Great culture
Cons Terrible management - Considers itself a technology shop and desires to foster innovation but this works only for developers. Other disciplines not well understood or managed or seen as bringing value.
High turnover.
Advice to Senior Management Learn how to manage in ways that motivate, not demotivate.
Snip
High turnover due to clique-y environment
Designer (Former Employee)
New York, NY
I worked at Shutterstock full-time for more than a year
Pros Good equipment
Pizza fridays
Smart co-workers (developers)
Hackathon
Rally (Agile)
Manhattan location
Cons Product management is done behind closed doors
All top-down
Some people don't make eye contact when they talk to you (ever)
High turnover
Crappy, corporate looking offices
If you're not friends with certain managers forget ever going anywhere
Some managers take credit for subordinates work
No, I would not recommend this company to a friend I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company Manhattan location
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^^ I've worked for three of the biggest IT companies on the planet and I could say the same thing about any of them. Doesn't mean much really until you put it in context.
As for SS, I like what they do with my work and the money they make for me is way above the top six agencies combined. I still watch their every move though....but I'm not obsessive about it.
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I'm sure lots of people saw this coming. Shutterstock is growing rapidly, making tons of money, paying contributors next to nothing, and they are loved for it. Sounds like a great business plan to me.
So tickstock turns it into an anti-SS pissing match. Compare what he just said in another thread:
But hey if you want to turn everything into an iStock vs. Shutterstock pissing match, I'll bow out of this exchange.
Make your mind up, dude. Either you are happy with adversarial comments or you aren't.
Right now, you're making it look like it's OK to rubbish SS but you don't want comparison that puts iS in a poor light to be posted.
Odd, that.
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I wouldn't be surprised if/when Thinkstock gets merged into iStock. I'm not happy with the idea of getting paid less per image, but I am hoping in the least they will merge them all to one site and integrate real-time reporting...that may be too much for them to handle. It makes sense to me that Getty would want iStock to be a typical subscription site. From Getty's viewpoint they offer the high quality and iStock offers the cheaper content for subscriptions...covering their bases and making it much more simple sustainable model. With that said...sucks for us contributors. The returns vs the time and effort put in is becoming too even to make it worthwhile.
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This explains the move some time ago to increase the allowable submission rates from a very controlled few to near infinity.
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I'm sure lots of people saw this coming. Shutterstock is growing rapidly, making tons of money, paying contributors next to nothing, and they are loved for it. Sounds like a great business plan to me.
So tickstock turns it into an anti-SS pissing match. Compare what he just said in another thread:
But hey if you want to turn everything into an iStock vs. Shutterstock pissing match, I'll bow out of this exchange.
Make your mind up, dude. Either you are happy with adversarial comments or you aren't.
Right now, you're making it look like it's OK to rubbish SS but you don't want comparison that puts iS in a poor light to be posted.
Odd, that.
I think the reason for iStock starting a subs program is Shutterstock, it seems 100% relevant to me. I think this is a furthering of the race to the bottom. Shutterstock is doing well and iStock is responding.
You might well be right about that, but to me it looks as if it is a consequence of iStock being devoid of leadership and ideas. So what do businesses do when they are like that? Just try to copy someone else who is making a better job of things. If iS had a clue of what is was or where is should go it would not have to try to turn itself into a second-rate SS, would it?
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Methinks they're getting confused and thinking the terms protect the "PAYG" RF market:
"Are the other sites selling files with a "use-them-only-as-long-as-you-subscribe" bit? This is a huge difference."
The OP says:
"One difference for subscription licenses vs. images licensed with credits or cash is that customers are required to use the images they download within the term of their subscription. If they dont use the image, the right to use that image terminates when the subscription terminates. For example, if a customer has a one-month subscription, they must use the images they download within that same month in order to continue using that image following the end of the subscription term."
So, as long as you use the image before the term ends, you're fine. You can use them forever. Put it on a website during your subscription period, and it's good for all time. "Use" it in a comp, and you're covered. There's no definition of "use". You just can't stockpile a thousand images you don't "use". Of course, there's absolutely no way for them to police that, but whatever.
SS: "You may not ... Stockpile or otherwise store downloaded Images that are not used within twelve (12) months of the date on which you first downloaded such Image. If you fail to use an Image within twelve (12) months from the date of your first download of that Image, you lose all rights to use that Image"
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On SS I read you must use the file within 12 months. So this is probably a normal thing to do. I understood it was meant to block people from just hoarding files they will never use or donīt have immediate projects for.
From the SS standard license:
"20. Stockpile or otherwise store downloaded Images that are not used within twelve (12) months of the date on which you first downloaded such Image. If you fail to use an Image within twelve (12) months from the date of your first download of that Image, you lose all rights to use that Image."
http://www.shutterstock.com/licensing.mhtml?hsb=1&type=standard (http://www.shutterstock.com/licensing.mhtml?hsb=1&type=standard)
eta: Sean was faster...of course ;)
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^^ I've worked for three of the biggest IT companies on the planet and I could say the same thing about any of them. Doesn't mean much really until you put it in context...
Agree 100%. I said some of those things about a company I worked for about 8 years ago. "They're not going anywhere, I'm not optimistic about the future of this company," etc. Well, that little company I left voluntarily and didn't think was going anywhere, they got huge and were acquired by NewsCorp. So when I was getting emails from former coworkers celebrating their rapid increase in value of their stock options, well, I wasn't celebrating because I didn't buy in. Because I'm an idiot and thought some of the things the people above thought about Shutterstock.
I'm really good at turning my back on good investments. If you ever hear me say that a company is going nowhere, invest in it. I dumped a bunch of stock many years ago for this silly little burrito place that I also thought wasn't going anywhere. It was called Chipotle. Oh, and Bitcoin. I looked at that a few years back and thought "This is dumb, these things won't ever be worth a buck."
My point being that you're right, context matters. Just because some disgruntled former employees don't like the company doesn't mean anything. Generally those employees don't know what they're talking about. Like me. :)
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On SS I read you must use the file within 12 months. So this is probably a normal thing to do. I understood it was meant to block people from just hoarding files they will never use or donīt have immediate projects for.
From the SS standard license:
"20. Stockpile or otherwise store downloaded Images that are not used within twelve (12) months of the date on which you first downloaded such Image. If you fail to use an Image within twelve (12) months from the date of your first download of that Image, you lose all rights to use that Image."
[url]http://www.shutterstock.com/licensing.mhtml?hsb=1&type=standard[/url] ([url]http://www.shutterstock.com/licensing.mhtml?hsb=1&type=standard[/url])
eta: Sean was faster...of course ;)
I'm pretty sure they used to have straightforward rule that you had to have an active subscription to be allowed to continue using the file - or was the DT? I'm too lazy to check - in any case, the 12 month rule is potentially even more restrictive.
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If an image has to be used within a month or 12 months, or as long as you have a subscription what happens if you post an image on the Internet within the allowed time period and then drop your subscription? Nobody removes documents once they post them on the Internet. Are all those images in violation if the poster doesn't keep an active subscription forever?
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If an image has to be used within a month or 12 months, or as long as you have a subscription what happens if you post an image on the Internet within the allowed time period and then drop your subscription? Nobody removes documents once they post them on the Internet. Are all those images in violation if the poster doesn't keep an active subscription forever?
I think it means that a project using it has to be completed and published in that time, after which continued use in that project is allowed. If there isn't a project you don't need the file.
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On SS I read you must use the file within 12 months. So this is probably a normal thing to do. I understood it was meant to block people from just hoarding files they will never use or donīt have immediate projects for.
From the SS standard license:
"20. Stockpile or otherwise store downloaded Images that are not used within twelve (12) months of the date on which you first downloaded such Image. If you fail to use an Image within twelve (12) months from the date of your first download of that Image, you lose all rights to use that Image."
[url]http://www.shutterstock.com/licensing.mhtml?hsb=1&type=standard[/url] ([url]http://www.shutterstock.com/licensing.mhtml?hsb=1&type=standard[/url])
eta: Sean was faster...of course ;)
I'm pretty sure they used to have straightforward rule that you had to have an active subscription to be allowed to continue using the file - or was the DT? I'm too lazy to check - in any case, the 12 month rule is potentially even more restrictive.
As we know Shutterstock recently acquired a digital asset management company used by large enterprises. I wonder if Shutterstock will utilize this software to enforce it's 12 month terms of use clause? If not this acquisition will just add to and compound the problem and it will reduce the number of times an image will be downloaded by the same company.
Right now many large corporations are using the subscription model in lieu of digital asset management software to give its marketing and sales teams access to images, video, illustrations. Therefore each time someone on a team uses an instance of an image, it is a paid download.
Not so for images bought a single time and stored in WebDAM for very large teams to use at will, potentially at the price of one subscription download. The SS/WebDAM model will need to be based on something other than subscription if the images is stored in WebDam for multiple users. The good news is that they could potentially will be able to track how many times each image is used.
http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/03/shutterstock-acquires-digital-asset-management-service-webdam/ (http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/03/shutterstock-acquires-digital-asset-management-service-webdam/)
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If an image has to be used within a month or 12 months, or as long as you have a subscription what happens if you post an image on the Internet within the allowed time period and then drop your subscription? Nobody removes documents once they post them on the Internet. Are all those images in violation if the poster doesn't keep an active subscription forever?
I think it means that a project using it has to be completed and published in that time, after which continued use in that project is allowed. If there isn't a project you don't need the file.
I wonder:
1. what proportion of subs buyers have any idea that such a clause exists, or care even if they do?
2. whether even one site polices this and has followed up on any found misuse.
We can't know the first, but has anyone ever heard of the second?
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I think it means that a project using it has to be completed and published in that time, after which continued use in that project is allowed. If there isn't a project you don't need the file.
I don't think they can enforce this in print projects. Hard to prove that the image was used outside of the subscription timeframe when you're dealing with print. I can send final designs to be printed, but that could happen tomorrow or next month depending on the company I'm using to do the printing, their schedule, proofing, if they're overseas, etc. I've had a project finalized and approved and not go on a press for 6 months.
A project could technically be considered "finished" when I hand off the final files. But would I need to maintain an active subscription until the printing is done? Good luck to any company trying to enforce that.
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The money people in the big companies buy the subscriptions. The designers download the images and don't have a clue about the restrictions. Two different animals.
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I think it means that a project using it has to be completed and published in that time, after which continued use in that project is allowed. If there isn't a project you don't need the file.
I don't think they can enforce this in print projects. Hard to prove that the image was used outside of the subscription timeframe when you're dealing with print. I can send final designs to be printed, but that could happen tomorrow or next month depending on the company I'm using to do the printing, their schedule, proofing, if they're overseas, etc. I've had a project finalized and approved and not go on a press for 6 months.
A project could technically be considered "finished" when I hand off the final files. But would I need to maintain an active subscription until the printing is done? Good luck to any company trying to enforce that.
Yes, enforcement would seem problematic, but I think that is what the rule means.
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The money people in the big companies buy the subscriptions. The designers download the images and don't have a clue about the restrictions. Two different animals.
I'm sure you are right. But these rules aren't there to be vigorously enforced at all times, they are there so they can be used when something happens that the agency wants to act upon. And if some people stick strictly to them, all the better.
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This explains the move some time ago to increase the allowable submission rates from a very controlled few to near infinity.
I don't think so. I think that had more to do with Thinkstock since the submission rates were mainly changed for nonexclusives, for nearly all exclusives you could already upload more than you could produce before the change.
but they definitely changed in what they would accept. Especially in vector they had gotten to where they would accept almost nothing unless it was elaborate. They now accept black and white and simpler designs again.
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Sorry about this - no intention to hijack the thread - but I have just seen reference to a thread about Getty giving LOTS of images away. But I can't find the thread.
Anybody care to point me in the right direction?
Ta.
PS I agree the IS subs thing is definitely A BAD IDEA !
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Sorry about this - no intention to hijack the thread - but I have just seen reference to a thread about Getty giving LOTS of images away. But I can't find the thread.
Anybody care to point me in the right direction?
Ta.
PS I agree the IS subs thing is definitely A BAD IDEA !
http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/getty-images-makes-35-million-images-free-in-fight-against-copyright-infringemen (http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/getty-images-makes-35-million-images-free-in-fight-against-copyright-infringemen)
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This explains the move some time ago to increase the allowable submission rates from a very controlled few to near infinity.
I don't think so. I think that had more to do with Thinkstock since the submission rates were mainly changed for nonexclusives, for nearly all exclusives you could already upload more than you could produce before the change.
I think it related to the new Istock sub. model:
Theoretically If Istock will accept all indi images available on SS + subscription model + exclusive images SS does not have - why should one buy from SS if he can buy same content + exclusive content from Istock?
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This explains the move some time ago to increase the allowable submission rates from a very controlled few to near infinity.
I don't think so. I think that had more to do with Thinkstock since the submission rates were mainly changed for nonexclusives, for nearly all exclusives you could already upload more than you could produce before the change.
I think it related to the new Istock sub. model:
Theoretically If Istock will accept all indi images available on SS + subscription model + exclusive images SS does not have - why should one buy from SS if he can buy same content + exclusive content from Istock?
because they can't get all of my pics of course (or Sean's or plenty of others who have been forced out or given up w/ Getty)
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From the forum:
"Im sure that iStock will make all the adjustments to achive that contributors be happy and motivated and the change be good to everyone. im sure they know the importance of this. Why not wait and see what happens? Why not trust?"
Oh, my.
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Someone needs to lay off the crack pipe!
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From the forum:
"Im sure that iStock will make all the adjustments to achive that contributors be happy and motivated and the change be good to everyone. im sure they know the importance of this. Why not wait and see what happens? Why not trust?"
Oh, my.
Amazing.
The new iIstock sub. model will drastically decrease contributor's income.
It is not about playing with RC 35% vs 30% or even 20%.
It is about getting 28 cent - 75 cent for XXXL image sale!!!
Istock site is so buggy and so complicated - it will not move even single buyer back from SS.
This move will accelerate the race to the bottom as many exclusives will drop the crown and flood the market with their ports.
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From the forum:
"Im sure that iStock will make all the adjustments to achive that contributors be happy and motivated and the change be good to everyone. im sure they know the importance of this. Why not wait and see what happens? Why not trust?"
Oh, my.
Holy st*t, how naive.
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I was asking why some people haven't had enough of this, free photos, subs and other tricks from IS. Then I came upon this message from Lobo, which makes it look fairly scary to go Independent. But wondering how many people who have dropped the crown have adapted and equaled their income by adding SS, DT and FT. (for a minimum example) How long did it take?
"Your content on Getty Images would be deactivated. Your royalty rate for Thinkstock, Getty 360, Getty Connect would be dropped from 20% to 15%. All your iStock content would be moved into the main collection. Any file you didn't have at thinkstock would be moved over to thinkstock. Your royalty rate on iStock would go from 35% to 18%."
Much of that TS and 20-15%, balances or isn't too important but the 50% cut in commissions would be a big bite. And all GI images deactivated? Long road back to the same income?
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I was asking why some people haven't had enough of this, free photos, subs and other tricks from IS. Then I came upon this message from Lobo, which makes it look fairly scary to go Independent. But wondering how many people who have dropped the crown have adapted and equaled their income by adding SS, DT and FT. (for a minimum example) How long did it take?
"Your content on Getty Images would be deactivated. Your royalty rate for Thinkstock, Getty 360, Getty Connect would be dropped from 20% to 15%. All your iStock content would be moved into the main collection. Any file you didn't have at thinkstock would be moved over to thinkstock. Your royalty rate on iStock would go from 35% to 18%."
Much of that TS and 20-15%, balances or isn't too important but the 50% cut in commissions would be a big bite. And all GI images deactivated? Long road back to the same income?
You didn't expect that? Did you think they would let exclusives becoming indie keep their exclusive rate?
The crown is Golden Handcuffs, especially for those of us who can't supply the high-demand subjects (e.g. no models). I'd have thought that was obvious.
However, with low cost subs being forced upon us, we now have nowhere to go.
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If you go independent expect to lose more than 80% of your istock income. It is not just the drop in percentage - your images are much, much cheaper than exclusive files and you are no longer favoured in best match. However you will probably see a rise in the volume of downloads, because more people can buy your files. Doesnīt help much with the income.
When you then take your portfolio to the new agencies, you have to remember that many best match placements are taken by excellent indie artists who have been there for years. Uploading files isnīt difficult, but it takes time for your portfolio to move up in the ranks.
Of course it also depends on the quality of your content. I am sure sean will be making a lot of money again soon, at least on SS where he is contributing. But for me with a "normal" quality portfolio it will take a while.
The problem is really - if you stay exclusive and keep uploading but have no sales, especially from new work - what do you do? If your income keeps falling - when do you pull the plug?
Because when you go indie - all your work will sell, I have no problem getting sales for my new or old work on the new sites.
But nobody can give you a definite time frame how long it takes to regain your income, just like nobody can tell you how much you will be earning on istock in a year.
I think if you are uploading to istock, feel comfortable with the way they work and your new files get sufficient sales, at least enough to pay for your ongoing production, these people tend to stay.
It is the artist that can no longer pay for their production and have falling sales that at some point go indie. Or they start doing something else and just stop uploading.
Some people take a gradual approach - go indie with a second subject, video or illustrations. this way you can get to know the other agencies, see how much time it takes to upload there etc..
Originally my plan was to just go indie with video, also because the istock queue for video was over 3 months, even for exclusives, and I absolutely wanted to stay exclusive with photos.
Then came the Microsoft deal with over 1.3 million unpaid downloads and then the Getty Google deal. And I left.
I absolutely donīt regret it, but of course I still donīt have my old income. However - i havenīt tried. I looked at other ways to earn an income and took my time to get to know the agencies before I really decide where my energy should go.
I was not very interested in uploading to SS in the beginning - 33 cent downloads - who cares about that? But now I see I get these 28 dollar downloads, 12.50, 80 dollars,extended license etc...so this is a completely different result than I expected. Same goes for other sites. If it was only the sub income, it wouldīt be interesting, it is the mix of credit sales, extended licenses etc...that makes them interesting.
But of course: the agencies havenīt been waiting for you and the quality of the top level indie artist is the same as the top level istock exclusives. You will have to fight your way to the top like any other contributor and nobody is going to favour you in best match.
So - it is a personal decision. I donīt regret mine and from the people I know who went indie at the same time with me nobody is considering to go back to exclusivity. It just isnīt attractive to us, there are so many agencies and opportunities that I never even knew about.
But if somebody believes they just move everything to SS and will earn the same as before, they will be disappointed. they wouldīt be earning the same on istock if they came in with all their portfolio today.
I would definitely not advise anyone to just go indie without understanding what it means for their income.
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How much income are you predicting to make in 12 months tickstock? Even if you had 10 000 files sitting there and ready to go?
If you came in new to istock today - how much money will you earn if you upload a completely new portfolio? New work doesīt sell on istock, or is your portfolio an exception?
I have watched many people who came in new and patiently guided them along to improve their work. It took them a long time, even with excellent portfolios. 2-3 years at least and most of them went exclusive in those days. But they had a much harder time reaching a decent income level than those who had portfolios established in 2002-2005.
So yes, it doesnīt matter which agency you come in new today, they havenīt been waiting for you.
But you are welcome to show me how you can reach a full time income in 12 months, if you want to. I didnīt try, Iīd rather understand the market first.
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do they really favor exclusive content is best match? Or is this an IS myth? My videos always seem buried and the relevance to search of some of the videos that bury mine is questionable. I can say that once a file hits the magic ten downloads, it does seem to get much better placement.
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It is no myth. Exclusive content is favoured, also in video.
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maybe my exclusive content is the exception :). Some have decent placing, but others are burried deep
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Then I hope you will still have a full time in income in even one year tick stock.
Your portfolio must be doing much better than that of most people.
I feel much more comfortable repositioning myself. I know I will earn more money this way and donīt have to abruptly look for a day job because I am completely exposed to just one company.
By the way last month I already earned more on SS with 600 files than with 3600 on istock. So someone who comes in new - what will their experience be? I still have files with good positions, but a new artist? They upload to SS and istock...why would they ever go exclusive with such an experience?
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I would definitely not advise anyone to just go indie without understanding what it means for their income.
I thought you have been advising it for a while now, talking about all the success Stocksy has had how there are so many opportunities exclusivity isn't the only game in town. I didn't realize that caveat that all these great opportunities will "of course" "definitely" cost you money.
In the short term.
Which, co-incidentally is all that Getty/iS seems to be thinking about.
Though 'thinking' may be putting it too strongly.
With subs, some (at least, maybe most) of us are going to see a massive downturn in our earnings very soon now.
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True, we have the new subs to look forward to.
The exclusives had their transfer to PP stopped because istock was looking to give them higher income opportunities only, but now the subs model is coming to istock at 34 cents for exclusives and 28 cents for indies.
Legacy content on PP will still pay the artist 42 cents. And no RC royalties.
tickstock - how do you predict will the subs influence your income? Are you expecting your income to grow? What do you think? And what about the missing RC?
Customers can now buy your S+ files for 2,50 in XXXl. What does your business model predict?
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I thought you have been advising it for a while now, talking about all the success Stocksy has had how there are so many opportunities exclusivity isn't the only game in town. I didn't realize that caveat that all these great opportunities will "of course" "definitely" cost you money.
I have been sharing my experience tickstock and you know that. Going indie costs money. But so does staying exclusive, especially if your work doesīt sell and you need to take on additional jobs or assignments to start paying for the stock production.
I know many indies who are earning much more than me and their income is growing steadily and is also higher than that of many of my exclusive friends.
The people who are exclusive to fotolia are going through a similar phase like the istock exclusives, by the way. Too much risk in exposure to one agency. But Fotolia offers exclusive images, so they can just decide to leave their portfolio there, or just take part of their files to the new agencies. It makes the transfer much smoother.
Being exclusive is no magic button to a full time income, neither is being indie.
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Going indie costs money. But so does staying exclusive.. snip
Staying exclusive appears to cost more than money.
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I sincerely hope, it goes well for you. For all exclusives.
I just know as a customer I would be going for the S+ first. I mean they can get the main collection files everywhere.
But this is what I mean is that you have absolutely no guarantee that your income will be the same level next year. istock is not your employer, you are not on a fixed salary.
On fotolia some exclusives lost nearly 50% of their revenue in a few months when fotolia forced everyone into subs. Fotolia pays out up to 60% royalty to their fully exclusive artists and apparently many had their portfolios opted out of subs. But of course Fotolia already had many existing subs customers, so the change was drastic. I hope istock is smarter and somehow limits the potential damage for the exclusives.
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Like I said, if it is working for you and you are making a full time income and can earn enough to pay for your ongoing production. Good for you.
However for artist trying to make decisions it would be much more helpful if someone who had a visible portfolio said the same things as you.
I personally see much less risk in being indie, obviously.
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I sincerely hope, it goes well for you. For all exclusives.
I just know as a customer I would be going for the S+ first. I mean they can get the main collection files everywhere.
But this is what I mean is that you have absolutely no guarantee that your income will be the same level next year. istock is not your employer, you are not on a fixed salary.
There are few guarantees but looking at former exclusives it seems close to a guarantee that leaving will cost money and probably a lot. Maybe in 2-3 years it will come back but there is no guarantee there.
If things go the way they're going, many of us will be down and out on iStock long before then - with the subs scheme, it could be extremely soon.
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I doubt it will be as bad for exclusives as they imagine, if they get the volume of SS and FT with the tiered pricing their income could be more stable than it is now.
The big problem they need to address is new files not getting any exposure and the complexity of balancing the best match with so many pricing levels. Subs and credit packs are here to stay, when I have to buy I use SS as its by far the easiest and most economical option.
Subs may be the only thing that holds the exclusivity program together in the long run, theres no other way to compete with SS.
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What I donīt quite understand - wasnīt Thinkstock a big success? At least that is what I kept reading, how happy Getty is with the success of think stock.
If it was so successful - why didnīt it stop the growth of Shutterstock?
And what will be different if istock also has subs? Most of the content is the same between both sites.
The one benefit I do see, is that maybe istock will be getting some loving attention again. The place needs attention.
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What I donīt quite understand - wasnīt Thinkstock a big success? At least that is what I kept reading, how happy Getty is with the success of think stock.
If it was so successful - why didnīt it stop the growth of Shutterstock?
And what will be different if istock also has subs? Most of the content is the same between both sites.
The one benefit I do see, is that maybe istock will be getting some loving attention again. The place needs attention.
I'm expecting iS and TS to merge. They're always banging on about simplifying their options, and one question on customer questionnaires has regularly been about unified access to all collections (TS/iS/GI).
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Well if istock has subs, what is the point of Thinkstock, I guess.
You can just hope they move Thinkstock to istock, not the other way round.
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I sincerely hope, it goes well for you. For all exclusives.
I just know as a customer I would be going for the S+ first. I mean they can get the main collection files everywhere.
But this is what I mean is that you have absolutely no guarantee that your income will be the same level next year. istock is not your employer, you are not on a fixed salary.
There are few guarantees but looking at former exclusives it seems close to a guarantee that leaving will cost money and probably a lot. Maybe in 2-3 years it will come back but there is no guarantee there.
If things go the way they're going, many of us will be down and out on iStock long before then - with the subs scheme, it could be extremely soon.
Yes. Unless the subscription scheme works much better that I fear it will, it will be an stampede of exclusives out of istock, even if there aren't any exciting alternatives in the microstock market.
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They just announced they are bringing in a huge crowd of flickr artists into the getty community. These guys all get 20%
How useful are the istock artists at 40%?
Or - why are they not paying out RCīs for the subs...?
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They just announced they are bringing in a huge crowd of flickr artists into the getty community.
Can you post a link of the announcement?
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Look at the other thread getty/flickr. Someone posted the text of th email contributors just got.
http://www.microstockgroup.com/flickr/getty-images-terminate-existing-agreement-with-flickr/msg369929/?topicseen (http://www.microstockgroup.com/flickr/getty-images-terminate-existing-agreement-with-flickr/msg369929/?topicseen)
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They just announced they are bringing in a huge crowd of flickr artists into the getty community. These guys all get 20%
Isn't that the same people who already have Flickr/Getty contracts, rather than more people coming in, necessarily?
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They just announced they are bringing in a huge crowd of flickr artists into the getty community. These guys all get 20%
Isn't that the same people who already have Flickr/Getty contracts, rather than more people coming in, necessarily?
I don't know how flickr works. Once they "discover" you, don't they have to keep an eye on your portfolio when they want to find more images? Now, these folks can actually just submit as much as they want to the queue. Sounds like a different thing.
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They just announced they are bringing in a huge crowd of flickr artists into the getty community. These guys all get 20%
Isn't that the same people who already have Flickr/Getty contracts, rather than more people coming in, necessarily?
I don't know how flickr works. Once they "discover" you, don't they have to keep an eye on your portfolio when they want to find more images? Now, these folks can actually just submit as much as they want to the queue. Sounds like a different thing.
Yup, I think that's the sum of it.
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Are they really closing it? I thought they are moving things towards their mobile platform or something like that.
They wrote they will no longer make their poor editors trawl the masses of flickr. Canīt blame them for that. But I would think this is more a change towards moving the platform away from flickr and to something they own.
But maybe I just didnīt understand it.
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They just announced they are bringing in a huge crowd of flickr artists into the getty community. These guys all get 20%
Isn't that the same people who already have Flickr/Getty contracts, rather than more people coming in, necessarily?
I don't know how flickr works. Once they "discover" you, don't they have to keep an eye on your portfolio when they want to find more images? Now, these folks can actually just submit as much as they want to the queue. Sounds like a different thing.
Yup, I think that's the sum of it.
Getty's intention is to flood the market with as much content as they can:
- They drop the iStock upload limits
- They lower the inspection to zero level
- They open the flickr door
- They provide this content for free in fight against
SS copyright infringemen
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Then I hope you will still have a full time in income in even one year tick stock.
Your portfolio must be doing much better than that of most people.
I feel much more comfortable repositioning myself. I know I will earn more money this way and donīt have to abruptly look for a day job because I am completely exposed to just one company.
By the way last month I already earned more on SS with 600 files than with 3600 on istock. So someone who comes in new - what will their experience be? I still have files with good positions, but a new artist? They upload to SS and istock...why would they ever go exclusive with such an experience?
Have you factored the substantial boost shutterstock gives new contributors. I think most new contributors forget that preferential placement in the search does not last more than a year or two at most.
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I havenīt been there long enough, so I donīt know anything about it. But is it really a first year boost or do people simply not upload as much. or do they "hit the wall" the way it happens in many agencies, where you keep uploading but canīt really grow your earnings.
But if I look at the numbers some long term contributors were kind enough to share, I have to admit I didnīt see that. I saw growth as long as they kept uploading. Robert Kneschke is the most prominent, but I have also the numbers of people who donīt post them publicly.
Donīt people here keep reporting that their income keeps going up at SS?
And like I said, I still get many days with zero downloads on SS. Especially if I donīt upload it all drops like a stone.
So unfortunately I can only report what I experience. But SS is not the only agency I am uploading to and in the beginning I really didnīt upload much because I wasnīt too fond of the subs. But with the much higher downloads being real and not a myth, I feel comfortable to send up more.
SS was a pleasant surprise, so was Fotolia. Both have a lot more credit downloads than I expected.
And now istock will add subs, so letīs see what happens there.
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But if I look at the numbers some long term contributors were kind enough to share, I have to admit I didnīt see that. I saw growth as long as they kept uploading. Robert Kneschke is the most prominent, but I have also the numbers of people who donīt post them publicly.
Donīt people here keep reporting that their income keeps going up at SS?
Sorry to say, Gbalex's suggestion matches my numbers pretty well. My monthly take on SS the past several months has been less than half what it was a couple of years ago. For a number of years I did not earn less than three digits on a (nonholiday) weekday. Now I am typically getting in the mid double digits.
And yes I keep uploading, and no, in the case of SS it doesn't appear to be "the wall". I hit the wall a couple of years ago across most agencies, and although my SS income didn't grow after that, it maintained for 3 years or so. It has only gone down abruptly starting late last year.
There have been reports from many other long term contributors, both here and at SS that the search has changed to favor newer, cheaper contributors. Note that I did not say newer images, of which I have a fair number. But my newer images pay out at highest rates whereas yours and Sean's equally good ones pay out less.
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But if I look at the numbers some long term contributors were kind enough to share, I have to admit I didnīt see that. I saw growth as long as they kept uploading. Robert Kneschke is the most prominent, but I have also the numbers of people who donīt post them publicly.
Donīt people here keep reporting that their income keeps going up at SS?
Sorry to say, Gbalex's suggestion matches my numbers pretty well. My monthly take on SS the past several months has been less than half what it was a couple of years ago. For a number of years I did not earn less than three digits on a (nonholiday) weekday. Now I am typically getting in the mid double digits.
And yes I keep uploading, and no, in the case of SS it doesn't appear to be "the wall". I hit the wall a couple of years ago across most agencies, and although my SS income didn't grow after that, it maintained for 3 years or so. It has only gone down abruptly starting late last year.
There have been reports from many other long term contributors, both here and at SS that the search has changed to favor newer, cheaper contributors. Note that I did not say newer images, of which I have a fair number. But my newer images pay out at highest rates whereas yours and Sean's equally good ones pay out less.
+2 Lisa your experience closely matches my own. Shutterstock flipped on the port kill switch March of 2013. I have many friends who also took large downward hits at that time and their ports have not recovered.
It is unfortunate that shutterstock is treating its long time contributors this way and also regrettable that they lead new contributors on with the proverbial new bump carrot. They are counting on the good sales for new contributors creating the buzz they need to generate larger numbers of low cost files.
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But if I look at the numbers some long term contributors were kind enough to share, I have to admit I didnīt see that. I saw growth as long as they kept uploading. Robert Kneschke is the most prominent, but I have also the numbers of people who donīt post them publicly.
Donīt people here keep reporting that their income keeps going up at SS?
Sorry to say, Gbalex's suggestion matches my numbers pretty well. My monthly take on SS the past several months has been less than half what it was a couple of years ago. For a number of years I did not earn less than three digits on a (nonholiday) weekday. Now I am typically getting in the mid double digits.
And yes I keep uploading, and no, in the case of SS it doesn't appear to be "the wall". I hit the wall a couple of years ago across most agencies, and although my SS income didn't grow after that, it maintained for 3 years or so. It has only gone down abruptly starting late last year.
There have been reports from many other long term contributors, both here and at SS that the search has changed to favor newer, cheaper contributors. Note that I did not say newer images, of which I have a fair number. But my newer images pay out at highest rates whereas yours and Sean's equally good ones pay out less.
In my opinion, the market is over flooded with newer lower quality content.
I don't think SS cares about 38cent vs 34cent.
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well, I'll keep it in mind, thank you. if this is the case, then to benefit best from ss would be to upload a lot in the first two years and not wait to long. So I might have wasted potential income because I didn't upload faster in the beginning.
And for my own predictions I should assume that content uploaded after two years will get lower sales so by then income from other sites must be high enough to balance it.
This is an important info for those moving out, thank you.
But longterm because I anyway upload to several sites, so it is a much easier life than being exclusive.
what are your predictions for istock when subs are introduced? will indies benefit with more downloads?
are you worried it will take away income from other sites?
are you still supplying istock and did your income from Thinkstock grow in the last few years?
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I find it remarkable that any thread on Getty, Istock, whatever agency, ends in a Shutterstock bashing. Why not open dedicated threads on the Shutterstock board here about that? Why does every thread about ANOTHER agency end up with discussing Shutterstock?
When I open a thread on a certain topic I expect to read on topic comments, its annoying to constantly read off topic.
Please, be critical about SS, but do it on topic.
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But if I look at the numbers some long term contributors were kind enough to share, I have to admit I didnīt see that. I saw growth as long as they kept uploading. Robert Kneschke is the most prominent, but I have also the numbers of people who donīt post them publicly.
Donīt people here keep reporting that their income keeps going up at SS?
Sorry to say, Gbalex's suggestion matches my numbers pretty well. My monthly take on SS the past several months has been less than half what it was a couple of years ago. For a number of years I did not earn less than three digits on a (nonholiday) weekday. Now I am typically getting in the mid double digits.
And yes I keep uploading, and no, in the case of SS it doesn't appear to be "the wall". I hit the wall a couple of years ago across most agencies, and although my SS income didn't grow after that, it maintained for 3 years or so. It has only gone down abruptly starting late last year.
There have been reports from many other long term contributors, both here and at SS that the search has changed to favor newer, cheaper contributors. Note that I did not say newer images, of which I have a fair number. But my newer images pay out at highest rates whereas yours and Sean's equally good ones pay out less.
In my opinion, the market is over flooded with newer lower quality content.
I don't think SS cares about 38cent vs 34cent.
It's 38 cent vs. 25 cent. That's essentially lowering "cost of goods" by around 33%. I do think they care.
That means they have a very big financial incentive to move newer contributor's files to the front - as long as that does not result in customers buying less.
If they are really doing that - and to what extent - we can only speculate.
We do have anecdotal evidence (e.g. the reports of gbalex and Lisa above), but no real proof.
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There are plenty of 38 cent ports still hitting BME.
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I find it remarkable that any thread on Getty, Istock, whatever agency, ends in a Shutterstock bashing. Why not open dedicated threads on the Shutterstock board here about that? Why does every thread about ANOTHER agency end up with discussing Shutterstock?
When I open a thread on a certain topic I expect to read on topic comments, its annoying to constantly read off topic.
Please, be critical about SS, but do it on topic.
Ron, I suspect the reason this happens is Shutterstock is the new gold standard that all other sites are measured against. Whenever anyone looks at other agencies, the question that always comes up is how does this site compare to SS? That, of course, leads to some degree of SS bashing by those who simply don't like SS, for whatever reason. Filter the bashing out and you can end up with some degree of useful information.
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I find it remarkable that any thread on Getty, Istock, whatever agency, ends in a Shutterstock bashing. Why not open dedicated threads on the Shutterstock board here about that? Why does every thread about ANOTHER agency end up with discussing Shutterstock?
When I open a thread on a certain topic I expect to read on topic comments, its annoying to constantly read off topic.
Please, be critical about SS, but do it on topic.
Not sure if this is directed at me. I hope not, because I was not the one who brought up SS here. I was simply responding to Jasmin's comment in an attempt to fill out a more complete picture of potential earnings.
While I agree there is a lot of "Shutterstock bashing" around here by people who aren't even on the site, I don't feel that factual information provided by members who have many years' experience fall into that category.
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I think with istock announcing subs it is understandable that SS, as the biggest sub site and main competitor, will be brought into the discussion.
But like many I am surprised how often SS gets mentioned by people who have zero experience with earnings there.
So again thank you for the info Lisa (and the warning gbalex).
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Shutterstock gets dragged into any topic, by certain people, just to turn the focus on Shutterstock. They can open their own threads about that. They never do, they always try to turn a topic, not related to Shutterstock, by dragging SS into it.
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So you were at Shutterstock but are now exclusive at iStock?
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I know nothing about your experience tickstock. All I know is that you are an istock exclusive, since before 2008.
Or did I misread that?
And that you recently got access to getty and want to upload to PC, right?
A successful exclusive who is able to make a full time income from istock and getty.
eta: I think I am confused?
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maybe you should post some kind of anonymous bio somewhere, so we at least get some idea what we can ask you about.
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I know nothing about your experience tickstock. All I know is that you are an istock exclusive, since before 2008.
Or did I misread that?
And that you recently got access to getty and want to upload to PC, right?
A successful exclusive who is able to make a full time income from istock and getty.
eta: I think I am confused?
Close enough.
Perhaps you've become an iStock exclusive more recently?
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maybe you should post some kind of anonymous bio somewhere, so we at least get some idea what we can ask you about.
You can ask me anything, I might even answer you some of the time.
Who are you tickstock?
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Cute ;)
My Very Best :)
KimsCreativeHub.com
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maybe you should post some kind of anonymous bio somewhere, so we at least get some idea what we can ask you about.
You can ask me anything, I might even answer you some of the time.
Who are you tickstock?
A stock photographer.
How do you think the new iSrock sub. model will affect your revenue?
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they'll be 75 cents and $2.50. Not great at all but not Shutterstock levels yet.
Of course this is all speculation on my part, but I don't think sales volume will be SS levels, either.
Unless IS is somehow successful in luring away SS buyers (I hope so for my sake, but highly doubt it), what's going to happen is that the new sub sales are going to come from whatever few new buyers they can attract, but mostly from existing IS buyers that they convert to subscriptions. Who would be interested in that? The buyers who buy the most files now. So I fully expect that credit sales will plummet even further (much further) than they have.
And despite SS' Jon's assertion that 99.9% of their business is commercial, my own portfolio definitely has a large portion of non-commercial sales. So I also expect that many of those non-commercial buyers will decide to take advantage of Getty's giveaway, hitting my port with a double-whammy that it will never recover from.
Like I said, purely guesswork. But educated guesswork, IMO. And I do expect to be proven correct in the next few months. ;D :(
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I find it remarkable that any thread on Getty, Istock, whatever agency, ends in a Shutterstock bashing. Why not open dedicated threads on the Shutterstock board here about that? Why does every thread about ANOTHER agency end up with discussing Shutterstock?
When I open a thread on a certain topic I expect to read on topic comments, its annoying to constantly read off topic.
Please, be critical about SS, but do it on topic.
I find your remarkable discovery is true. Every Getty or IS thread becomes a bash SS thread for some reason. Must be some kind of desease that can only pick on SS and drive attention from GI and SS screwing of us. In istock section istock new sub model and they go negative into SS.
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they'll be 75 cents and $2.50. Not great at all but not Shutterstock levels yet.
Of course this is all speculation on my part, but I don't think sales volume will be SS levels, either.
Unless IS is somehow successful in luring away SS buyers (I hope so for my sake, but highly doubt it), what's going to happen is that the new sub sales are going to come from whatever few new buyers they can attract, but mostly from existing IS buyers that they convert to subscriptions. Who would be interested in that? The buyers who buy the most files now. So I fully expect that credit sales will plummet even further.
Like I said, purely guesswork. But educated guesswork, IMO. And I do expect to be proven correct in the next few months. ;D :(
So what would you do?
Drop the exclusivity and contribute to other agencies?
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they'll be 75 cents and $2.50. Not great at all but not Shutterstock levels yet.
Of course this is all speculation on my part, but I don't think sales volume will be SS levels, either.
Unless IS is somehow successful in luring away SS buyers (I hope so for my sake, but highly doubt it), what's going to happen is that the new sub sales are going to come from whatever few new buyers they can attract, but mostly from existing IS buyers that they convert to subscriptions. Who would be interested in that? The buyers who buy the most files now. So I fully expect that credit sales will plummet even further.
Like I said, purely guesswork. But educated guesswork, IMO. And I do expect to be proven correct in the next few months. ;D :(
So what would you do?
Drop the exclusivity and contribute to other agencies?
I haven't made up my mind what I'm going to do. I'm too disgusted at the moment to think straight.
I was independent for several years before becoming exclusive (taking advantage of IS's bait & switch grandfathering ploy). One of my main reasons for doing so was that I did not like giving away so many files at maximum sizes for subscription prices. How ironic. Starting over from scratch with my so-so portfolio (except at SS, where my port is in limbo) -- honestly isn't much of an option. So I have no idea what I'm going to do.
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So I fully expect that credit sales will plummet even further (much further) than they have.
They will enroll the new iStock sub. model in April. It will take 2-3 months for a buyers to finish their current credit balances and to switch to the new sub. model...
I expect in June with summer slowdown we will see a huge drop in revenue and massive exodus of exclusives from iStock flooding the market with their ports.
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So I fully expect that credit sales will plummet even further (much further) than they have.
They will enroll the new iStock sub. model in April. It will take 2-3 months for a buyers to finish their current credit balances and to switch to the new sub. model...
I expect in June with summer slowdown we will see a huge drop in revenue and massive exodus of exclusives from iStock flooding the market with their ports.
Excellent point; it will take time for many credit buyers to use up their credits before switching over to subs. So we'll probably see an extended period where sales drop off more and more, gradually at first, and then accelerating.
Not something I'm looking forward to. :(