SNP Quote "you're flattering yourself. What exactly qualifies you as the expert you seem to have become around here?"

As you know dear your a forum member that most people here ignore, so we rarely get to see the little gems that you post - another member (who incidentally now also has you on ignore), emailed me your little comment. Tut, tut - Didn't your mummy tell you to be nice?, allow me to give you some 'expert advise' try HRT.

SNP Quote "you're flattering yourself. What exactly qualifies you as the expert you seem to have become around here?"

As you know dear your a forum member that most people here ignore, so we rarely get to see the little gems that you post - another member (who incidentally now also has you on ignore), emailed me your little comment. Tut, tut - Didn't your mummy tell you to be nice?, allow me to give you some 'expert advise' try HRT.

Not that I'm a big fan of SNP and her snide comments, but your argumentation here plays right into this theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_suppression_techniques

You are using a subgroup of "Ridicule"; "belittling". It is usually used by older men towards younger women, and kills any chance of a good discussion.

By the way, I was at a party of South African media people at the weekend, mostly editorial types from magazines. Mentioning price, nothing else, they said they'd shifted most of their stock buying from IS to SS, with the occasional splurge on Getty and Corbis. No mention of Thinkstock at all. I'm really starting to get scared now.

There's nothing to be scared of. It's just business and the situation deserves to be assessed and acted upon with logic rather than emotion. It was emotion rather than logic that got most exclusives into the situation that they face now. The sooner they wake up and take action to safeguard their incomes the better for them.

If the traffic is rapidly declining from your one agency and growing elsewhere, which it is and has been for some time, then accept the situation, drop the silly bling and get your share of the action at the agencies where the buyers are doing their shopping. Istock have blown it, simple as that, and there's unlikely to be any way back for them. Istock have completely forgotton what the 'microstock' model, on which they built their business, is supposed to be about and have essentially morphed into 'Getty-Lite'. Prior to the sale of Istock in 2006 Getty was always regarded by microstockers as the 'arch enemy' that was insensitive to the needs of the market, charged their customers too much and abused their power over their contributors. Does that sound familiar in the latter day context? He who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat it.

Thanks for your message. Although I do admit I could have written the comment myself I did not. Sara, our 21 YO intern (female) designer sent it as I was late into the office today. So where does that put your theory - wiki fan? And another point, there was no necessity for her original (snide - your description) comment. I have always believed that one that throws first gets in back with interest. Simply don't post snide comments in the first place -someone of her obvious years should know better. It's also interesting to note she has a much sweeter tone on the ISP forums crowing over her Diamond status, she seems to only show her sour and bitter persona on this forum. Wiki that.

I would suggest not letting 21 YO interns write under your name as you accept full responsibility for their postings.

Quote from: sjlocke on November 29, 2011, 06:00

Quote from: Cogent Marketing on November 29, 2011, 04:54

Thanks for your message. Although I do admit I could have written the comment myself I did not. Sara, our 21 YO intern (female) designer sent it as I was late into the office today. So where does that put your theory - wiki fan? And another point, there was no necessity for her original (snide - your description) comment. I have always believed that one that throws first gets in back with interest. Simply don't post snide comments in the first place -someone of her obvious years should know better. It's also interesting to note she has a much sweeter tone on the ISP forums crowing over her Diamond status, she seems to only show her sour and bitter persona on this forum. Wiki that.

I would suggest not letting 21 YO interns write under your name as you accept full responsibility for their postings.

I don't usually have an issue with 'others' using this account - it is after all Cogent Marketing not me specifically. Maybe I should change the profile picture though which is me! My team are a good bunch - they only take the **** when someone else does it first, but then their all young and enthusiastic. Anyway, I didn't think her (Sara) comment to SNP was too bad - SNP deserves to get back as good as she tends to give like I said before. I will have a word though to ensure a good tone to comments.

In this interconnected world their is a high likelihood that some of your customers maybe on this forum, or that a forum post may come up in an Internet search ...

Another bug: I tried to request a payout today. I filled in the paypal email address. Then confirmed the request. After that I got red error message saying that the request could not be processed due to DB error. Yet the amount was deducted from my balance.

Same here . DB error , money was deducted , clicked Contact us to send a ticket and got an blank page  . Now I see that at least my money is back but wouldn't try another request until further notice from IS . MB cutoff is in 4 hours . What a joke service for a 84% share

Quote from: Cogent Marketing on November 29, 2011, 04:54

Thanks for your message. Although I do admit I could have written the comment myself I did not. Sara, our 21 YO intern (female) designer sent it as I was late into the office today. So where does that put your theory

She's got you sussed.

You might have a point there, but in my defense I said "I could have".

Quote from: RapidEye on November 29, 2011, 02:15

By the way, I was at a party of South African media people at the weekend, mostly editorial types from magazines. Mentioning price, nothing else, they said they'd shifted most of their stock buying from IS to SS, with the occasional splurge on Getty and Corbis. No mention of Thinkstock at all. I'm really starting to get scared now.

There's nothing to be scared of. It's just business and the situation deserves to be assessed and acted upon with logic rather than emotion. It was emotion rather than logic that got most exclusives into the situation that they face now. The sooner they wake up and take action to safeguard their incomes the better for them.

If the traffic is rapidly declining from your one agency and growing elsewhere, which it is and has been for some time, then accept the situation, drop the silly bling and get your share of the action at the agencies where the buyers are doing their shopping. Istock have blown it, simple as that, and there's unlikely to be any way back for them. Istock have completely forgotton what the 'microstock' model, on which they built their business, is supposed to be about and have essentially morphed into 'Getty-Lite'. Prior to the sale of Istock in 2006 Getty was always regarded by microstockers as the 'arch enemy' that was insensitive to the needs of the market, charged their customers too much and abused their power over their contributors. Does that sound familiar in the latter day context? He who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat it.

You're right in general. But, for me, it was never particularly about emotion. I wanted the higher exclusive upload limits at what was then the leading agency, with the prospect of doubled royalties, and I grew my portfolio fast. I was diamond in just over a year. At the time it was the right decision, though I've always remained slightly queasy about eggs and baskets.

As things stand now, I'm not one of those who's afflicted by declining sales. I can't explain it, except possibly that I've been producing better content as time has gone by; I might be doing even better as an independent. But for now it's fine for me at iStock. The worry is, for how much longer?

My real fear lies in the initial earnings crash that must follow dumping the bling. I have to support aged parents, young children, ex-wives, you name it. I have employees to pay. I lack the cash reserves to tide me over for more than a couple of months. What is someone in my position to do?

iStock deleted my post of concern. I said this is not a hobby for me as this site feeds my family, I have real concern with how this site
is being managed and can not understand why the largest micro site in the industry can not run as good as Amazon or its competition.
My confidence has been shaken and after waiting all night to see if the bugs would clear they haven't and there are new ones.

Fact is I love iStock but if this type of management continues there won't be an iStock to love. If I get frustrated just adding files I can only
imagine a buyer being frustrated when they have deadlines to meet.

Quote from: gostwyck on November 29, 2011, 05:22

Quote from: RapidEye on November 29, 2011, 02:15

By the way, I was at a party of South African media people at the weekend, mostly editorial types from magazines. Mentioning price, nothing else, they said they'd shifted most of their stock buying from IS to SS, with the occasional splurge on Getty and Corbis. No mention of Thinkstock at all. I'm really starting to get scared now.

There's nothing to be scared of. It's just business and the situation deserves to be assessed and acted upon with logic rather than emotion. It was emotion rather than logic that got most exclusives into the situation that they face now. The sooner they wake up and take action to safeguard their incomes the better for them.

If the traffic is rapidly declining from your one agency and growing elsewhere, which it is and has been for some time, then accept the situation, drop the silly bling and get your share of the action at the agencies where the buyers are doing their shopping. Istock have blown it, simple as that, and there's unlikely to be any way back for them. Istock have completely forgotton what the 'microstock' model, on which they built their business, is supposed to be about and have essentially morphed into 'Getty-Lite'. Prior to the sale of Istock in 2006 Getty was always regarded by microstockers as the 'arch enemy' that was insensitive to the needs of the market, charged their customers too much and abused their power over their contributors. Does that sound familiar in the latter day context? He who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat it.

You're right in general. But, for me, it was never particularly about emotion. I wanted the higher exclusive upload limits at what was then the leading agency, with the prospect of doubled royalties, and I grew my portfolio fast. I was diamond in just over a year. At the time it was the right decision, though I've always remained slightly queasy about eggs and baskets.

As things stand now, I'm not one of those who's afflicted by declining sales. I can't explain it, except possibly that I've been producing better content as time has gone by; I might be doing even better as an independent. But for now it's fine for me at iStock. The worry is, for how much longer?

My real fear lies in the initial earnings crash that must follow dumping the bling. I have to support aged parents, young children, ex-wives, you name it. I have employees to pay. I lack the cash reserves to tide me over for more than a couple of months. What is someone in my position to do?

Get ready now for when you need to hit the ground running.  Get accounts opened in your name at all the agencies (you may already have done this to protect your name) and get all your keywords, descriptions etc into the metadata in the correct format for the other agencies.  If you contact the agencies personally then they will approve your contributor application without putting your images live for sale to allow time for your exclusive contract notice period to pass. If you have your whole portfolio ready to go along with the bandwidth to support uploading it then that will minimise the inevitable blip in income.  Inspection times in indie land are a lot less than at iStock so your portfolio should be live very quickly.  A contributor of your standing with the quality and size of portfolio that you have won't have any difficulty in reaching payout thresholds quickly.  A short blip versus standing by watching a steady decline whilst others stake their place with other agencies.  One you can do something about, the other you can't.  Whatever you do, I wish you the best of luck, you always seemed a sane voice on the iStock forums.

Way up in the hierarki,  rumours has it that the place is finally coming to an end.

Well if your information proves to be correct, that would surely mean that all the indie files would end up purely in the PP.

If so, it would make the decision to pull ports a lot easier for the indies.  I can't imagine why any indie would stick around purely for PP payments.

I have been on the verge of dropping my exclusivity many times. I just can't afford the risk at this point in time.

"Totally off topic, but:

You're referring to laws that changed more than 10 years ago. Since 2000 comparative marketing is allowed in Germany (under certain conditions). See here (sorry, in German only, the English version does not contain the references to German law).

Now back to IS (and everyday I read these threads I feel my decision to pull out start of this year was the right one...)"

I am sorry, but I�ve been in enough court cases with competitors since 2000 to know better. You can�t take a wikipediaquote and build a business strategy on it. Law is like medicine, it evolves all the time and you need a specialist lawyer who has the absolute latest verdicts. Sometimes regulations even change during your own court case and the outcome of your court case is completly different to what your lawyer predicted at the onset.

"Vor Gericht und auf hoher See ist man in Gottes Hand"  (Before a judge and on the high seas you are in God�s hand)

So I would stay away from anything that could be misconstrued as comperative advertising, unless I have money to burn on lawyers.

But back on topic.