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Author Topic: Kelly announces slightly downsized RC targets  (Read 49468 times)

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« Reply #175 on: January 14, 2011, 15:41 »
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That's easy to say, not so easy to do. You're asking people to stop making a living from microstock and potentially move to a site that might not make them anything. I've been with Alamy, never made much money there. I make a modest living with microstock sites. Why should I give that up because of your moral objection to microstock?

You might as well have said "Hello Mr Troll. Would you like a nice banana?"


« Reply #176 on: January 14, 2011, 16:31 »
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Anyone know a ktools site that has RM options on it?  I'd like to see how they handle pricing.

You set your own prices with that software package, whether it is $1 or a few orders of magnitudes higher.  And you can charge different prices by image size, or have a one price fits all option.


Yes, I found lots of RF pricing on the demo sites.  I'm asking if anyone knows of someone using the software that has their images licensing as RM.

I haven't done a lot of search, but I know there are online solutions (not downloadable software) that allow you to sell RM. One I've been found long ago, but have no personal nor third-party experience with it, is http://www.ifp3.com, but I am not sure if downloads are automatic even as RF.

« Reply #177 on: January 14, 2011, 17:33 »
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That's easy to say, not so easy to do. You're asking people to stop making a living from microstock and potentially move to a site that might not make them anything. I've been with Alamy, never made much money there. I make a modest living with microstock sites. Why should I give that up because of your moral objection to microstock?

You might as well have said "Hello Mr Troll. Would you like a nice banana?"

I do hope the microstock business doesn't collapse completely - I'd so miss your delightful (if sometimes biting) sense of humour :)

PaulieWalnuts

  • We Have Exciting News For You
« Reply #178 on: January 14, 2011, 18:10 »
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Continuing on the agency vs personal site talk, I'm saying there needs to be something totally new.

How about this? Asthethic rating technology. http://acquine.alipr.com/index.php.

What about a community site without inspectors? An algorithm inspects the photos and rates them for technical and aesthetic quality . Buying patterns determine if the image sinks or rises from there. Buyers could filter by quality and aesthetics.

Take Flickr (or make a site), add this technology, and tweak for stock requirements.

 

molka

    This user is banned.
« Reply #179 on: January 14, 2011, 18:15 »
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ok, how 'bout everyone withdrawing their shots from at least istock... or at least deactivating them? punishment due. the best would be everybody removing their ports from micro sites and uploading them to sites like alamy. think big, do something like this, or they'll just keep raping you untill you look like swiss cheese.

That's easy to say, not so easy to do. You're asking people to stop making a living from microstock and potentially move to a site that might not make them anything. I've been with Alamy, never made much money there. I make a modest living with microstock sites. Why should I give that up because of your moral objection to microstock?

do you people ever do this thing called THINKING? it helps you make connections between certain phenomenona. of course you don't have sales on a place like alamy, when you got millions of files on sale for a couple fo bucks. jezuz... : (

« Reply #180 on: January 14, 2011, 18:32 »
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Continuing on the agency vs personal site talk, I'm saying there needs to be something totally new.

How about this? Asthethic rating technology. http://acquine.alipr.com/index.php.


I that like "Hot or Not" for your images.  ;D

« Reply #181 on: January 14, 2011, 19:01 »
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Continuing on the agency vs personal site talk, I'm saying there needs to be something totally new.

How about this? Asthethic rating technology. http://acquine.alipr.com/index.php.

What about a community site without inspectors? An algorithm inspects the photos and rates them for technical and aesthetic quality . Buying patterns determine if the image sinks or rises from there. Buyers could filter by quality and aesthetics.

Take Flickr (or make a site), add this technology, and tweak for stock requirements.

 


In this asthetic rating allways will pets, flowers or skies poped up first, because lets say most "ordinary" people loves that but nobody buy that as stock. EG see on yahoo video pages there are 99% stuff with "smart/dum" pets. And with social community is problem that only 1% of images have any kind of ratings which are almost made by you friends when you forced them to say something about, or vote for you.
Just my opinion

PaulieWalnuts

  • We Have Exciting News For You
« Reply #182 on: January 14, 2011, 20:13 »
0
Continuing on the agency vs personal site talk, I'm saying there needs to be something totally new.

How about this? Asthethic rating technology. http://acquine.alipr.com/index.php.

What about a community site without inspectors? An algorithm inspects the photos and rates them for technical and aesthetic quality . Buying patterns determine if the image sinks or rises from there. Buyers could filter by quality and aesthetics.

Take Flickr (or make a site), add this technology, and tweak for stock requirements.


In this asthetic rating allways will pets, flowers or skies poped up first, because lets say most "ordinary" people loves that but nobody buy that as stock. EG see on yahoo video pages there are 99% stuff with "smart/dum" pets. And with social community is problem that only 1% of images have any kind of ratings which are almost made by you friends when you forced them to say something about, or vote for you.
Just my opinion


I was just using that as an example. The point being, create the technology that checks specifically for stock requirements. Sharpness, CA, posterization, etc and also saleability then gives the image a rating. Buying patterns will then trend the image high or lower.
« Last Edit: January 14, 2011, 20:46 by PaulieWalnuts »

helix7

« Reply #183 on: January 14, 2011, 20:35 »
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do you people ever do this thing called THINKING? it helps you make connections between certain phenomenona. of course you don't have sales on a place like alamy, when you got millions of files on sale for a couple fo bucks. jezuz... : (

Right, so by your logic, all I need to do is remove all of my images from microstock, upload to Alamy, and I'm rolling in money. I had no idea it was so simple!

:-\

RacePhoto

« Reply #184 on: January 15, 2011, 03:13 »
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do you people ever do this thing called THINKING? it helps you make connections between certain phenomenona. of course you don't have sales on a place like alamy, when you got millions of files on sale for a couple fo bucks. jezuz... : (

Right, so by your logic, all I need to do is remove all of my images from microstock, upload to Alamy, and I'm rolling in money. I had no idea it was so simple!

:-\

Darn and I missed it too! :)

Here's the answer, a co-op site with links to everyones own site. (that may be confusing?)

OK I'll try again. A main site with samples and links to what's on the various private sites and the buyers can then move to whatever collection interests them and buy direct.

The co-op would collect a small annual fee for membership and use that to advertise and make the site rank higher than any one single individual site ever could. Kind of the same as a webring but everyone would also benefit because their site would point to the central co-op site. If someone wanted to drop, that's fine because the central site would still remain the major web presence.

molka

    This user is banned.
« Reply #185 on: January 15, 2011, 08:35 »
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do you people ever do this thing called THINKING? it helps you make connections between certain phenomenona. of course you don't have sales on a place like alamy, when you got millions of files on sale for a couple fo bucks. jezuz... : (

Right, so by your logic, all I need to do is remove all of my images from microstock, upload to Alamy, and I'm rolling in money. I had no idea it was so simple!

:-\

what an infantile response... who talked about rolling in money? : )

SNP

  • Canadian Photographer
« Reply #186 on: January 15, 2011, 12:07 »
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do you people ever do this thing called THINKING? it helps you make connections between certain phenomenona. of course you don't have sales on a place like alamy, when you got millions of files on sale for a couple fo bucks. jezuz... : (

Right, so by your logic, all I need to do is remove all of my images from microstock, upload to Alamy, and I'm rolling in money. I had no idea it was so simple!

:-\

Darn and I missed it too! :)

Here's the answer, a co-op site with links to everyones own site. (that may be confusing?)

OK I'll try again. A main site with samples and links to what's on the various private sites and the buyers can then move to whatever collection interests them and buy direct.

The co-op would collect a small annual fee for membership and use that to advertise and make the site rank higher than any one single individual site ever could. Kind of the same as a webring but everyone would also benefit because their site would point to the central co-op site. If someone wanted to drop, that's fine because the central site would still remain the major web presence.

I think a coop site amongst competitive creatives is a pipe dream. Day one: set up coop site. Day two: everyone posts links to their respective websites. Day three: spent obsessing over how to get buyers to follow your link and your link alone....no idea based on a coop model is going to work IMHO. if microstock were to go under, I'd worry about promoting my work as an individual, as someone suggested in an earlier post. Ibranching out is important. Microstock is my primary source of income, but I do custom work outside of microstock. There's good money there too.
« Last Edit: January 15, 2011, 12:08 by SNP »

« Reply #187 on: January 15, 2011, 14:05 »
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I think a coop site amongst competitive creatives is a pipe dream. Day one: set up coop site. Day two: everyone posts links to their respective websites. Day three: spent obsessing over how to get buyers to follow your link and your link alone....no idea based on a coop model is going to work IMHO...

Not a coop, but a distributed model where the search engine is google or bing. Payments, PayPal or Moneybookers. Some sort of easy setup for a web site like the Ktools thing. I was thinking about the IS controlled vocabulary and how one might get something like that without an agency - to provide more useful search results when searching across many seller sites. Then it occurred to me that google already does a wonderful job at finding things even when people don't use a controlled way of describing what they want. Perhaps a CV isn't really all that important in the age of the super-savy search engine.

In a distributed model there'd still be issues of IP and model releases, and I'm not sure how that could be handled - anyone want to start a cloud-based service for that? :)

Although the administrative overhead of various small payments to multiple service providers is a bit greater than uploading to agencies, (a) it's not that much worse and (b) as there's multiple places earning small amounts of cash from us there is less incentive for any one of them to get greedy and start taking more cash when the business takes off.

Obviously the search engine is the big dog in the pack - and if they start fiddling with the order of results in could boost or hurt sales - but at least there'd be no more of the pleas to make the search for photos work more like google :)

« Reply #188 on: January 15, 2011, 14:23 »
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^^^ Interesting post JoAnne.

In this age in which 'Information Is King' a business can often generate far more money from it's data than it's product. A classic example is 'Party Pieces Ltd', the family-owned business of Kate Middleton's parents. Their product is cheap throwaway stuff for childrens' parties but they make FAR more money from selling their massive database of mothers with kids aged 2-10. That's a goldmine for those who sell into that market and they will happily pay big money for access to it.

Not sure yet how a database of designers and photographers might generate extra cash (insurance, equipment, outsourced services, etc?) but it could play a part.

« Reply #189 on: January 15, 2011, 16:23 »
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Not a coop, but a distributed model where the search engine is google or bing. Payments, PayPal or Moneybookers. Some sort of easy setup for a web site like the Ktools thing. I was thinking about the IS controlled vocabulary and how one might get something like that without an agency - to provide more useful search results when searching across many seller sites. Then it occurred to me that google already does a wonderful job at finding things even when people don't use a controlled way of describing what they want. Perhaps a CV isn't really all that important in the age of the super-savy search engine.

In a distributed model there'd still be issues of IP and model releases, and I'm not sure how that could be handled - anyone want to start a cloud-based service for that? :)

Although the administrative overhead of various small payments to multiple service providers is a bit greater than uploading to agencies, (a) it's not that much worse and (b) as there's multiple places earning small amounts of cash from us there is less incentive for any one of them to get greedy and start taking more cash when the business takes off.

Obviously the search engine is the big dog in the pack - and if they start fiddling with the order of results in could boost or hurt sales - but at least there'd be no more of the pleas to make the search for photos work more like google :)

-------------------------------------
Maybe something like http://www.abebooks.com/ or http://www.alibris.com/ which are used book sites.  Each site is a compilation of individual book stores selling their inventory through a common interface.  You search for book x and get a listing a number of different individual vendors each of whom are offering a copy of book x for sale.  You pick the one you want, and purchase it through the site's ecommerce feature.  The order is transmitted to the bookshop who then ships you the book. 

RacePhoto

« Reply #190 on: January 16, 2011, 01:56 »
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Someone start a site that only takes 40% of the final sale price, doesn't offer subs and then they could be talking about "rolling in the dough". :D Sounds a great deal like Alamy but they aren't micro and don't sell the same type of product that most people here are producing.

A new micro site that only takes 40%, for exclusives for example, would have a flood of contributors that would take that instead of 25-38 cents, or the 15% and up on IS, or whatever the rest are handing out to keep the starving artists from quitting, at the bare minimum.

I think my only question is, if it's so easy and there's so much profit to be had, why hasn't someone done it?

« Reply #191 on: January 16, 2011, 02:02 »
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Someone start a site that only takes 40% of the final sale price, doesn't offer subs and then they could be talking about "rolling in the dough". :D Sounds a great deal like Alamy but they aren't micro and don't sell the same type of product that most people here are producing.

A new micro site that only takes 40%, for exclusives for example, would have a flood of contributors that would take that instead of 25-38 cents, or the 15% and up on IS, or whatever the rest are handing out to keep the starving artists from quitting, at the bare minimum.

I think my only question is, if it's so easy and there's so much profit to be had, why hasn't someone done it?

Graphic Leftovers? OK, so it is only 52% instead of 60%.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #192 on: January 16, 2011, 06:07 »
0
Someone start a site that only takes 40% of the final sale price, doesn't offer subs and then they could be talking about "rolling in the dough". :D Sounds a great deal like Alamy but they aren't micro and don't sell the same type of product that most people here are producing.

A new micro site that only takes 40%, for exclusives for example, would have a flood of contributors that would take that instead of 25-38 cents, or the 15% and up on IS, or whatever the rest are handing out to keep the starving artists from quitting, at the bare minimum.

I think my only question is, if it's so easy and there's so much profit to be had, why hasn't someone done it?
Some have offered better deals, most either don't sell (60% of very little isn't much) and/or go belly up fairly quickly. I'm guessing it must take a considerable amount of money to set up a site which would even begin to rival the Big 4. And it's difficult to persuade any but the most bullish - or naive - to submit their images to a company which was unproven, but you can hardly start to market a collection of, say, under 10,000 'general' images, no matter how good. Especially if these images were also available elsewhere.
Of course, all stock libraries had to start somewhere, but the general micro market is now well established.
The alternative would be for highly specialist niche RM libraries, where your marketing would be very tightly and personally targetted.

RacePhoto

« Reply #193 on: January 16, 2011, 15:40 »
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Someone start a site that only takes 40% of the final sale price, doesn't offer subs and then they could be talking about "rolling in the dough". :D Sounds a great deal like Alamy but they aren't micro and don't sell the same type of product that most people here are producing.

A new micro site that only takes 40%, for exclusives for example, would have a flood of contributors that would take that instead of 25-38 cents, or the 15% and up on IS, or whatever the rest are handing out to keep the starving artists from quitting, at the bare minimum.

I think my only question is, if it's so easy and there's so much profit to be had, why hasn't someone done it?

Graphic Leftovers? OK, so it is only 52% instead of 60%.

Maybe I've been ignoring them and I shouldn't be. Also I think 3DStudio offers a pretty good share. I wasn't set on the 60%, in fact before I hit [post] I was writing 50%. :)

Yes that's the point, it's terribly expensive to start up. It's not easy to get a market share. Most of the people here (which represent the majority of upper MS contributors) might not be interested in yet another Me Too agency. It would take someone with millions, willing to take the risk and share on a fair basis. On the other hand, if it did happen, it would be a real kick in the ass for the big four and their screw the contributor policies!

It's a long uphill battle and would take a few years to make a dent in the market. WHo knows what the market will support in three years?

helix7

« Reply #194 on: January 17, 2011, 12:00 »
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what an infantile response... who talked about rolling in money? : )

So what are you saying then? You say we don't have sales on Alamy because we're cannibalizing earnings with microstock. So I suggest that by your logic I would do much better to delete my microstock portfolios and just sell on Alamy. To which you reply that my suggestion is "infantile."

Help me out here. What the heck are you trying to say?

« Reply #195 on: January 17, 2011, 12:54 »
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what an infantile response... who talked about rolling in money? : )

So what are you saying then? You say we don't have sales on Alamy because we're cannibalizing earnings with microstock. So I suggest that by your logic I would do much better to delete my microstock portfolios and just sell on Alamy. To which you reply that my suggestion is "infantile."

Help me out here. What the heck are you trying to say?

That you too should ignore him...

« Reply #196 on: January 19, 2011, 12:46 »
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R.I.P. We need a better explanation of the new royalty guidelines for vectors thread. You've been going since September and were never really answered.

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=252412&page=25#post5647842

PaulieWalnuts

  • We Have Exciting News For You
« Reply #197 on: January 20, 2011, 06:10 »
0
Back in September, when Istock first announced these royalty cuts, I was worried the other sites might want to follow suit at some point.  Now, after months of Istock falling deeper and deeper into the quicksand of their own greed and hubris, I think they serve more as a cautionary tale to the other sites, of what can happen if you lose sight of the importance of your contributors and buyers.  I doubt any of the other sites are looking at this mess at Istock, and saying "Hey, lets try that!"   :P


I'd agree 100% (and so does my data). Istock appear to be on course to prove how an eye-wateringly profitable business can be rapidly driven onto the rocks by unbelievable greed and short-term thinking. Things will never, ever be the same again for Istockphoto. They f*cked it up and they'll go into the history books of 'how not to do it'.

Sales are already falling, which is why the RC targets were 'revised', and it's going to get really embarrassing for them when they announce the 2011 RC if they make any attempt to be realistic about them. They won't of course. They'll probably announce 'no change' when they do and then revise them downwards again towards the end of the year or earlier if enough exclusives start to kick up a fuss.


I think both of you are lumping two separate issues together.

There's the contributor commission cut. What problems has this caused for Istock other than a lot of contributors complaining? There's less woo-yaying and trust but I'm not seeing how this is hurting their business. I doubt most buyers know or even care about how micro sites get images and where the money goes.

Then there's the technical issues. This seems to be what's mostly affecting buyers. A few buyers are complaining and some are leaving. I'm sure more are quietly leaving. But none of us have istock sales data so none of us know how their sales are doing. Sales are falling for you. That doesn't mean they're falling for Istock or even anybody else.

Now, what happens when one or more of the other big four cuts commissions without screwing up their sites? Life goes on as usual for buyers and contributors can do nothing but complain, draw funny screw pictures, quit, or move to a bottom tier site paying 50% where you make $5 per month from 5,000 images.

This is the problem everybody should be concerned with, and planning for now, because it's coming. Not if, when. You'll need a better plan than threatening to leave because there will be nowhere to go.

So what the other sites have learned from this is to not screw up their site while cutting commissions.


I may change my name from PaulieWalnuts to Prophet

Fotolia cuts commissions again

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #198 on: January 20, 2011, 06:13 »
0
I may change my name from PaulieWalnuts to Prophet
Fotolia cuts commissions again

Yup, one screws us, all screw us.


 

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