Author Topic: iStock simplifying collections (Read 36522 times)

Suljo · « **Reply #50 on:** May 13, 2013, 19:02 »

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Get a Mac - It´s the time to play Choose a Vista

dingles · « **Reply #51 on:** May 13, 2013, 19:02 »

I don't mind it. I personally don't want to waste time moving my files around and waiting. For the most part, I'd probably keep them in the main çollection anyway. I guess it sucks that we are losing some more control, but not overly important to me.

I like the idea of exclusives having to keep quality up. Outside of video, I'm not sure how exclusivity holds any weight any more.

cmannphoto · « **Reply #52 on:** May 13, 2013, 19:11 »

Quote from: lisafx on May 13, 2013, 18:58

I think this will be a good thing for high performing indies. I nominated my images for P+ based on sales criteria and uniqueness. If these continue to be the criteria then I don't expect too many of them will be dropped down. Access to higher priced collections, plus the prospect of getting files on Getty means that indies are likely to see an income rise.

I also don't see this as a negative for high performing exclusives. If the quality of their files merits it, they will continue to have better access to the higher priced collections, and will benefit from the higher percentages and visibility they get over indie files.

The people this will most likely hurt are the exclusives who have been coasting by, producing mainly mediocre work. Those are the ones that Istock doesn't really care if they drop the crown. Those are also the ones with the least option to go indie, as a lot of their back catalogue of work would not be accepted on other sites by today's higher standards. Those folks will have to up their game or they are pretty much screwed.

I will add one thing to this. With the influx of Getty content into the Agency Collection and a lot of that does not sell, with this new system they can now move that content to other collections so it can earn them some money.

cthoman · « **Reply #53 on:** May 13, 2013, 19:21 »

Quote from: gostwyck on May 13, 2013, 17:25

SS understands the market and what they are really selling. IS, DT and FT simply don't __ and that's why they are being taken to the cleaners by SS. You may not like the implications of that but it is what's actually happening.

I'm not sure that is true. IS was doing quite well until they started burning the place down. I think the fundamental model of IS is still sound. I know I modeled my own personal site off of parts of it. It's just that the royalty percentages were garbage, so it didn't seem like a stable place to be.

Quote from: cobalt on May 13, 2013, 16:31

It is very interesting news for independents and maybe people with very special content can now make deals with getty to have their content placed even higher than before.

I'm wondering if that is the real future. As contributors pull away, will these sites have to invite them back through side deals? If so, my phone is available for calls.

gostwyck · « **Reply #54 on:** May 13, 2013, 19:50 »

Quote from: cthoman on May 13, 2013, 19:21

Quote from: gostwyck on May 13, 2013, 17:25
SS understands the market and what they are really selling. IS, DT and FT simply don't __ and that's why they are being taken to the cleaners by SS. You may not like the implications of that but it is what's actually happening.
I'm not sure that is true. IS was doing quite well until they started burning the place down. I think the fundamental model of IS is still sound. I know I modeled my own personal site off of parts of it. It's just that the royalty percentages were garbage, so it didn't seem like a stable place to be.

I think Istock were able to ride the wave of being 'first to market' and having a much greater marketing budget than anyone else for quite some time.

Only a couple of weeks ago I popped into a client's office, with whom I have an excellent relationship, just as they happened to be searching for images on Istock, where they had always bought images. As they expressed frustration at the speed of the site I suggested they tried SS instead telling them not only how much faster and accurate the SS search was likely to be but also how IS paid me only 18% of sales. They were visibly shocked. I doubt that IS will be getting much more of their money in the future!

cthoman · « **Reply #55 on:** May 13, 2013, 20:08 »

Quote from: gostwyck on May 13, 2013, 19:50

I think Istock were able to ride the wave of being 'first to market' and having a much greater marketing budget than anyone else for quite some time.

I actually think the same can be said for SS. Their subscription model got established a while ago, and nobody has really been able to cut into it much. I don't see that changing much either because contributors seem to rabidly protect it. I can't blame them though. They don't have much left after IS started rapidly shrinking. I see SS more as a security blanket in an unstable industry than a genius of the market.

gostwyck · « **Reply #56 on:** May 13, 2013, 20:36 »

Quote from: cthoman on May 13, 2013, 20:08

Quote from: gostwyck on May 13, 2013, 19:50
I think Istock were able to ride the wave of being 'first to market' and having a much greater marketing budget than anyone else for quite some time.

I actually think the same can be said for SS. Their subscription model got established a while ago, and nobody has really been able to cut into it much. I don't see that changing much either because contributors seem to rabidly protect it. I can't blame them though. They don't have much left after IS started rapidly shrinking. I see SS more as a security blanket in an unstable industry than a genius of the market.

You're wrong on a couple of points there. Firstly SS's gain, over the last 2-3 years, has not been on subscription sales but mainly on OD's, EL's and SOD's. Sub sales have actually been relatively stable.

Secondly, SS are somewhat unique in that they haven't actually reduced royalties to contributors (barring the recent reduction to the absurdly over-generous historical referral scheme) since they started.

I don't think SS are a 'genius of the market' either. I'm just utterly gob-smacked how utterly stupid most of their competitors have behaved. SS quite literally didn't have do anything other than concentrate efforts on their customers' experience ... to win the game outright in an almost embarrassingly short amount of time. In a crowded, competitive market that should have been the obvious thing to do. Somehow all their competitors concentrated their efforts on maximising the bottom-line of the next quarter rather than the next 5 years. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

gbalex · « **Reply #57 on:** May 13, 2013, 20:38 »

Quote from: gostwyck on May 13, 2013, 17:25

Quote from: cobalt on May 13, 2013, 16:43
They could have just allowed the exclusives to nominate a percentage of their portfolio for the lower price point. This would put the artist in control. The market would have sorted that pretty quickly once people get an idea for what sells best where.

Putting the agency or the artist 'in control' is actually the root cause of the problem that Istock has had. The customer and/or the market should really be 'in control'. By trying to be 'in control' of prices and especially sort-order placement, Istock have effectively lost control of their industry and now appear to be in free-fall.

The supposed 'value' that Istock placed on particular images, via their pricing architecture, bore absolutely no relation to how the customers (or indeed other agencies) valued those images. Now Istock have finally had to accept that.

SS understands the market and what they are really selling. IS, DT and FT simply don't __ and that's why they are being taken to the cleaners by SS. You may not like the implications of that but it is what's actually happening.

And yet you think it is a fine idea for SS to be serving buyers content based on what is best for the agency's bottom line and its stock holders bank accounts.

Based on my experience as a buyer on IS, the content they served me was not in my best interest's and not what I needed for my projects. Consequently I spent more time trying to find what I needed and they lost me as a customer.

If SS persists in serving us content based on what is best for their bottom line they will also experience buyers departing.

gostwyck · « **Reply #58 on:** May 13, 2013, 21:10 »

Quote from: gbalex on May 13, 2013, 20:38

Quote from: gostwyck on May 13, 2013, 17:25
Quote from: cobalt on May 13, 2013, 16:43
They could have just allowed the exclusives to nominate a percentage of their portfolio for the lower price point. This would put the artist in control. The market would have sorted that pretty quickly once people get an idea for what sells best where.

Putting the agency or the artist 'in control' is actually the root cause of the problem that Istock has had. The customer and/or the market should really be 'in control'. By trying to be 'in control' of prices and especially sort-order placement, Istock have effectively lost control of their industry and now appear to be in free-fall.

The supposed 'value' that Istock placed on particular images, via their pricing architecture, bore absolutely no relation to how the customers (or indeed other agencies) valued those images. Now Istock have finally had to accept that.

SS understands the market and what they are really selling. IS, DT and FT simply don't __ and that's why they are being taken to the cleaners by SS. You may not like the implications of that but it is what's actually happening.

And yet you think it is a fine idea for SS to be serving buyers content based on what is best for the agency's bottom line and its stock holders bank accounts.

Based on my experience as a buyer on IS, the content they served me was not in my best interest's and not what I needed for my projects. Consequently I spent more time trying to find what I needed and they lost me as a customer.

If SS persists in serving us content based on what is best for their bottom line they will also experience buyers departing.

Huh? What are you talking about? That's exactly the opposite of what I've said. SS provides for the market by having all images priced the same and the sort-order position determined by popularity with buyers on specific keywords. Therefore the market alone determines an image's earnings ... i.e. not the agency or the artist.

cthoman · « **Reply #59 on:** May 13, 2013, 21:55 »

Quote from: gostwyck on May 13, 2013, 20:36

You're wrong on a couple of points there. Firstly SS's gain, over the last 2-3 years, has not been on subscription sales but mainly on OD's, EL's and SOD's. Sub sales have actually been relatively stable.

It really depends on your perspective. SS really stopped growing for me several years ago. Sub sales were replaced with On Demand sales with a marginal net gain. Then things stalled out, and I backed away to explore other opportunities. Maybe that is an alien view on things, but they really weren't growing for me.

Quote from: gostwyck on May 13, 2013, 20:36

Secondly, SS are somewhat unique in that they haven't actually reduced royalties to contributors (barring the recent reduction to the absurdly over-generous historical referral scheme) since they started.

Despite all that, they were still 6 times less than my RPD on IS and even more on other sites. I know that is apples to oranges, but the bottom line wasn't that much more impressive either.

Quote from: gostwyck on May 13, 2013, 20:36

I don't think SS are a 'genius of the market' either. I'm just utterly gob-smacked how utterly stupid most of their competitors have behaved. SS quite literally didn't have do anything other than concentrate efforts on their customers' experience ... to win the game outright in an almost embarrassingly short amount of time. In a crowded, competitive market that should have been the obvious thing to do. Somehow all their competitors concentrated their efforts on maximising the bottom-line of the next quarter rather than the next 5 years. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I think that is my issue. I'm not overly impressed with SS's domination of the competition. Especially on the vector side, SS is a wasteland of poor review standards and copyright free-for-all. I've also seen several small sites quickly rival my earnings with SS in a matter of years. Like I said, I'm sure my experience is rare, but it still exists.

iStop · « **Reply #60 on:** May 14, 2013, 01:32 »

It seems hard to really assess from every angle whether this latest set of proposed changes is going to end up being a good thing or a bad thing and for who.

But if history is any indication of future performance, then I can categorically state that every time iStock has made a change in the way they operate the site that it has ALWAYS ended up in most contributors earning less money and it has ALWAYS ended up in the site having additional functionality problems.

And if we trace the most recent major changes they made to the site back in September of last year, I can truthfully state that I have personally made less and less each and every month ever since those changes were made.

So based on the above, without even studying in detail the latest round of forthcoming changes, I think it is safe to assume that these changes will end up resulting in the same negative outcome of reduced income for almost all contributors.

What is so ironic in all this is that every time iStock comes up with a plan to implement site changes that are supposed to earn contributors more money, I ALWAYS end up earning less. Funny that isn't it?

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #61 on:** May 14, 2013, 02:13 »

To be fair, there have been a couple of times when artists have gained from iS changes, as well as iS benefitting (the arrival of P+ is one example).
This latest shake-up looks like a stunning repudiation of the entire strategy of iStock management over the last five or six years and a recognition that all the short-term squeezes over the last few years have been counter-productive in the middle- to long-term.
IS has finally abandoned the absurd fiction that exclusive's work is, de facto, better than independents'. They appear to be retreating from the idea of mangling the search in order to try to foist the most expensive collections on clients, regardless of quality. Overall, this is probably the best business move they have made for a long time. It could be a step to bringing customers back.
If I were exclusive I would be very worried. Not only does this mean that exclusive files will be financially the least attractive for iStock to market, by abandoning the mantra that exclusive files are special iStock has put itself one short step away from abandoning the entire idea of exclusivity, which I have argued for a long time really has no merit.
At the moment, independents effectively subsidise the exclusives by receiving less than Getty's standard 20% commission, in order to help drag down the overall average towards the desired figure. Hopefully, if they do scrap exclusivity they will put everyone at least on a flat 20% rate.
Wise exclusives should probably be positioning themselves for the bombshell.

sharpshot · « **Reply #62 on:** May 14, 2013, 02:35 »

I deleted all my best selling images after the Google deal fiasco. Not sure how this will work out but I think the horse bolted a long time ago and they've taken far too long to react. Are all the buyers they've lost going to return? I think that's very unlikely.

ShadySue · « **Reply #63 on:** May 14, 2013, 03:25 »

They'd have done better to invest in cleaning up keywords, especially of the pseudo-exclusive imported stuff which are spam-ridden, and improving the relevance of the search.

fotografer · « **Reply #64 on:** May 14, 2013, 03:39 »

Quote from: gostwyck on May 13, 2013, 19:50

. As they expressed frustration at the speed of the site I suggested they tried SS instead telling them not only how much faster and accurate the SS search was likely to be but also how IS paid me only 18% of sales.

I honestly don't get the sense of sending clients to one of the sites with the lowest rpd. I would always send them to DT where my rpd is consistently 3 or 4 times more.

tickstock · « **Reply #65 on:** May 14, 2013, 07:19 »

dirkr · « **Reply #66 on:** May 14, 2013, 07:29 »

Quote from: fotografer on May 14, 2013, 03:39

Quote from: gostwyck on May 13, 2013, 19:50
. As they expressed frustration at the speed of the site I suggested they tried SS instead telling them not only how much faster and accurate the SS search was likely to be but also how IS paid me only 18% of sales.
I honestly don't get the sense of sending clients to one of the sites with the lowest rpd. I would always send them to DT where my rpd is consistently 3 or 4 times more.

Agree (partly). If they say they need to buy X pictures, send them to the site with the highest RPD. If they say they have a budget of Y$ to spend on images, send them to the site with the highest royalty percentage. Ideally one site fits both accounts (Pond5 with the possibility to set prices comes to my mind...).

I would never send someone to Shutterstock just because they are bringing in the most money. Shutterstock is far from being at the top of either of these metrics (RPD or %).

cobalt · « **Reply #67 on:** May 14, 2013, 07:32 »

But why would they if they earn less money this way?

When the price of exclusive files was higher, getty always earned more money on an exclusive file although they paid out a higher percentage to the artist. This way the interest of getty and the exclusive artist where aligned.

At the same price level the indie file will always earn them more money.

You really believe that out of the generosity of their hearts they will voluntarily pay more?

But the biggest loss is the ability to nominate files for E+ and Getty. You can now no longer invest in a shoot and decide the higher price point to make your money back.

And it also effects your RC. Before you could nominate 25% of your portfolio for E+. How much of a percentage will you get now?

ShadySue · « **Reply #68 on:** May 14, 2013, 07:40 »

Quote from: tickstock on May 14, 2013, 07:19

They have also announced that this year they plan to do some lypses with the intent of getting more exclusive contributors who will supply images from markets that are underrepresented.

No stated intent of getting 'exclusives', but inviting non-iStockers from certain areas to participate in lypses to get them on board as contributors:
"Our 2013 plan is two-tiered:
Empower and nurture the photographers in regions where we have a solid base of artists. Pool our creative resources into helping these photographers tailor-make their own shoots and get them linked in to hot local content needs. We need events here that provide the tools to the artists and focus on education, feedback and connectivity.
Develop regions where we have low photographer participation (and hence content). Targeted at not only the existing photographers, but at the future iStockers. We need events here to sign up contributors and get them providing content, in a sustainable manner, from their corner of the world."
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=352097&messageid=6857377

tickstock · « **Reply #69 on:** May 14, 2013, 07:47 »

tickstock · « **Reply #70 on:** May 14, 2013, 07:51 »

cobalt · « **Reply #71 on:** May 14, 2013, 07:58 »

shutterstock and dreamstime have a system that only works with the success of the file or the money the portfolio earns. istock will use editors to move files up and down. that is an important difference. And the editors will bring in indepedent content to compete with exclusive files in price bands where they never had to compete before. I really don´t think this is fair to the exclusive contributors. They have decided to sell with one agency only, there should be a very clear emphasis on them.

If they open up the collection to accept exclusive images and then offer to "upgrade" a file to a higher price point if the photographer decides to make it exclusive - that would be a system that would make sense to me. They could gardually attract some of the best content by convincing indepdent artist that these files will be well promoted.

And again - how will the customer react, if suddenly indepedent files that were "cheap" are moved to a higher price point? Especially if they can get these files cheaper elsewhere?

I really don´t understand what they are doing. I think moving indie content "up" will confuse the customer even more. Unless they lower the prices overall to become more competitive.

Personally I prefer to make my own decisions, so I really like that pond5 gives me the ability to set my own price point. But no agency is perfect and at the moment i am glad i can spread the risk and also if I do a shoot I can decide which agency is most suitable for a series. I don´t send all my files everywhere, or all the files from a series. But this is the way I work.

I will see in 18 months how it works out.

ETA: I am too new to know if the best match on Shutterstock, dreamstime etc. are changed to disadvantage higher earning contributors. i have heard rumours, that fotolia does that. But I am still on the lowest ladder, will see what happens as time goes by.

tickstock · « **Reply #72 on:** May 14, 2013, 08:03 »

cobalt · « **Reply #73 on:** May 14, 2013, 08:13 »

On istock you can use the price slider to decide the price range of files you want to look at. Until now every price range had exclusive content and the higher price bands had only exclusive content.

So if a customer was ready to look at higher prices, he would see only exclusive files.

But with the coming changes, if I understand them correctly, indie content will go to main, exclusive content will default to signature, until a few months later they look at the files and decide if they should stay there.

This will mean that for the first time, the customer can look at the lowest price point and see mostly indie files. Only exclusive files with zero downloads, i.e. the less interesting content will be represented there. So you will have weaker exclusive content competing with all indie content on the lowest level.

The next higher levels that used to have ONLY exclusive content will now have a mix of exclusive and indie content. Just the highest level with Vetta, will be exclusive only.

So while before exclusive content was always visible over all price points, you will now see only teh weaker exclusive files in a sea of indie content at the lower price point. Then on higher levels there will be a mix of indie and exclsuive content whereas before it would only be exclusive content.

Maybe go back to the December thread by the Getty admins. they described that model quite clearly.

There is a lot of superb indie content out there. The volume alone would make me scared if there will be enough room left for exclusives in the higher price bands.

ETA: I forgot P+. So you had 15% of indie content in the next higher price band.

Anyway, it is no longer my problem. Might even be positive for me.

loop · « **Reply #74 on:** May 14, 2013, 08:14 »

"IS has finally abandoned the absurd fiction that exclusive's work is, de facto, better than independents'".

As selling items, they are. It is not a matter of quality: it's the fact that independent work can be found elsewhere for a fraction of the price. Whan I've had to buy a file from an independent contributor, alhougth found in IS, I always have ended buying it at the cheapest site.

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Author Topic: iStock simplifying collections (Read 36522 times)

Suljo

dingles

cmannphoto

cthoman

gostwyck

cthoman

gostwyck

gbalex

gostwyck

cthoman

iStop

BaldricksTrousers

sharpshot

ShadySue

fotografer

tickstock

dirkr

cobalt

ShadySue

tickstock

tickstock

cobalt

tickstock

cobalt

loop

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