Author Topic: iStock site down (Read 16448 times)

jsmithzz · « **on:** January 20, 2011, 08:42 »

1

ETA: Whoa, not sure how my entire post got wiped and replaced with the number one. I had written originally that I was angry the site was down on top of all the additional problems and price increase that was just announced for some files.

I recognize that they have their work cut out for them, but raising costs and cutting contributor pay is not the way to win back customers. I think someone in the iStock forums said it well when they stated that iStock should focus on stabilizing the existing site and stop trying to fix what's not broken. Customers are leaving. Contributors are leaving. What is iStock going to do to EARN back the trust of the very people who made it what is today?

PaulieWalnuts · « **Reply #1 on:** January 20, 2011, 09:12 »

Hmmm. 2?

ShadySue · « **Reply #2 on:** January 20, 2011, 09:17 »

One full hour since the site was down, redirecting visitors to Twitter, yet there's nothing on twitter about today's problem?

dhanford · « **Reply #3 on:** January 20, 2011, 09:20 »

What? How many hours they'll have the scheduled maintenance page up even though the site crushed?

jjneff · « **Reply #4 on:** January 20, 2011, 09:22 »

This is crazy!

vlad_the_imp · « **Reply #5 on:** January 20, 2011, 09:23 »

They are indeed a complete bunch of incompetents

jjneff · « **Reply #6 on:** January 20, 2011, 09:34 »

Someone who knows more than me. Dose this happen because of carelessness or dose it just happen at times. I have never seen this
many problems on other sites so what makes iStock different?

aeonf · « **Reply #7 on:** January 20, 2011, 09:35 »

Quote from: vlad_the_imp on January 20, 2011, 09:23

They are indeed a complete bunch of incompetents

I agree.
If I was one of the big bosses at getty/H&F I would have fired a very high percentage of the emplyees there long ago (and a much higher percentage then the royalties they pay the contributors!).

aeonf · « **Reply #8 on:** January 20, 2011, 09:36 »

Quote from: jjneff on January 20, 2011, 09:34

Someone who knows more than me. Dose this happen because of carelessness or dose it just happen at times. I have never seen this
many problems on other sites so what makes iStock different?

it happends because of incompetents, low IQ, and having no fear of getting fired.

jsmithzz · « **Reply #9 on:** January 20, 2011, 09:42 »

I used to work in IT and most project failures were due to poor testing of the product prior to delivery. It seems that is the case with some of iStock's releases that don't work in certain browsers or at all. They need to do a more thorough job with testing and/or roll out a beta site to select users to kick the tires. That's pretty standard in the project management world. I'm sure there are lots of factors going on that we aren't privy to but that's just what I see as an observer.

Ploink · « **Reply #10 on:** January 20, 2011, 09:43 »

They are back online...

Graffoto · « **Reply #11 on:** January 20, 2011, 09:48 »

Quote from: Ploink on January 20, 2011, 09:43

They are back online...

Hope it stays up $:-\$

ShadySue · « **Reply #12 on:** January 20, 2011, 09:54 »

Good job I'm banned, or I'd be immediately banned again for 'immoderate language'.

jcpjr · « **Reply #13 on:** January 20, 2011, 09:56 »

Very poor QA

rene · « **Reply #14 on:** January 20, 2011, 09:58 »

It was just a maintenance. As Istock site is running on Windows 95 the best way to clear cache is restart the server.

rubyroo · « **Reply #15 on:** January 20, 2011, 10:06 »

I thought it was DOS 6.2.2

(Scratch that... that would have been far more reliable!)

ShadySue · « **Reply #16 on:** January 20, 2011, 10:10 »

Quote from: jcpjr on January 20, 2011, 09:56

Very poor QA

I'm not sure that they have QA: this job has apparently been vacant since early 2007, at least: http://www.istockphoto.com/istock_position.php?ID=4

hoi ha · « **Reply #17 on:** January 20, 2011, 10:14 »

Quote from: rene on January 20, 2011, 09:58

It was just a maintenance. As Istock site is running on Windows 95 the best way to clear cache is restart the server.

No this was not maintenance - the site crashed - before the site actually went down it was buggy for several hours and was creating error pages - this was a another IT dept snaffu.

traveler1116 · « **Reply #18 on:** January 20, 2011, 10:15 »

Quote from: ShadySue on January 20, 2011, 10:10

Quote from: jcpjr on January 20, 2011, 09:56
Very poor QA

I'm not sure that they have QA: this job has apparently been vacant since early 2007, at least: http://www.istockphoto.com/istock_position.php?ID=4

Did you see it says "Can you break our software?"
http://www.istockphoto.com/istock_careers.php
Maybe they should be looking for someone who can fix it?

jsmithzz · « **Reply #19 on:** January 20, 2011, 10:26 »

Quote from: traveler1116 on January 20, 2011, 10:15

Quote from: ShadySue on January 20, 2011, 10:10
Quote from: jcpjr on January 20, 2011, 09:56
Very poor QA

I'm not sure that they have QA: this job has apparently been vacant since early 2007, at least: http://www.istockphoto.com/istock_position.php?ID=4

Did you see it says "Can you break our software?"
http://www.istockphoto.com/istock_careers.php
Maybe they should be looking for someone who can fix it?

LOL. It seems the software breaks just fine without any QA help.

ShadySue · « **Reply #20 on:** January 20, 2011, 10:34 »

Quote from: jjneff on January 20, 2011, 09:34

Someone who knows more than me. Dose this happen because of carelessness or dose it just happen at times. I have never seen this
many problems on other sites so what makes iStock different?

Multiple choice:
a. They don't care
b. They haven't a clue how to make it better
c. They're testing our patience.
Actually, it's probably
d. All of the above.
I'm beginning to think that iStock, since September is just a giant experiment to see how much cr*p contributors and buyers will take before leaving. Nothing else. Just like the mice and the earth in H2G2.

Ploink · « **Reply #21 on:** January 20, 2011, 11:16 »

I'm also glad that I could help to ease our customers' pain by giving them 15% off for credit purchases (>50 credits) http://twitter.com/iStock - even when it was my agent's f*ckup and not my own...

*Caution: some sarcasm may apply*

ShadySue · « **Reply #22 on:** January 20, 2011, 11:24 »

Quote from: Ploink on January 20, 2011, 11:16

I'm also glad that I could help to ease our customers' pain by giving them 15% off for credit purchases (>50 credits) http://twitter.com/iStock - even when it was my agent's f*ckup and not my own...

*Caution: some sarcasm may apply*

So it's lose-lose for the drones. Again. Lose while the site is down, probably lose the few hours before when it was crawling and there were many faults (e.g. I got logged out) and we lose again with the vouchers - and that didn't even show when the site was down, so why now?
Do the people who muck it up ever lose a penny?

rubyroo · « **Reply #23 on:** January 20, 2011, 11:41 »

Quote from: ShadySue on January 20, 2011, 11:24

Do the people who muck it up ever lose a penny?

It seems not.

123XXX · « **Reply #24 on:** January 20, 2011, 12:11 »

Quote from: aeonf on January 20, 2011, 09:35

I agree.
If I was one of the big bosses at getty/H&F I would have fired a very high percentage of the emplyees there long ago (and a much higher percentage then the royalties they pay the contributors!).

I think the whole issue is they have difficulty finding good IT people that are willing to work in Calgary. If they were located in Silicone Valley, or New York like many of the other Microstock sites, then they would probably no problem finding a team of competent IT site admins and programmers. They could of course import some if they can't find them within the local work force, but my guess is that the pay at iStock is so poor they have trouble getting good people at all. However, the IT team they have working there are clearly at a very low level. Have you ever seen such a huge internet company have such a high level of incompetents within their IT team? It is mind boggling how inept they seem most of the time. Putting up a content management system like the platform the iStock site runs on is pretty basic stuff. Look at Alamy's site with over 20 million images. Never skips a beat. That tells you something.

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Author Topic: iStock site down (Read 16448 times)

jsmithzz

PaulieWalnuts

ShadySue

dhanford

jjneff

vlad_the_imp

jjneff

aeonf

aeonf

jsmithzz

Ploink

Graffoto

ShadySue

jcpjr

rene

rubyroo

ShadySue

hoi ha

traveler1116

jsmithzz

ShadySue

Ploink

ShadySue

rubyroo

123XXX

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