MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => iStockPhoto.com => Topic started by: ShadySue on June 13, 2013, 10:34
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For those who don't get the newsletter:
"Contributor News: Collections Changes - June 13, 2013
We are happy to announce we will be launching the NEW Collections structure on the afternoon of June 13th, 2013. We've compiled the FAQs and a breakdown of the Collections changes here in the last newsletter. Please take a moment to review these links.
Please note:
Uploads will not be disabled during the transition.
Inspections will be disabled on June 13, 2013 at 2pm until 6pm MST
The Connector will be offline from June 13, 2013 2pm until approximately June 14, 2013 9am MST
If you would like to be notified of any changes to this schedule you can subscribe to the Announcement thread here
We expect this transition will only take 24-48 hours and will be actively monitoring all aspects of the launch to ensure things roll out smoothly.
It's important that we clarify to the contributor base that the migration process will happen gradually in phases over the coming days and weeks. This approach will let us monitor each change more closely and ensure the results are right before moving to the next migration. Your patience during this process is much appreciated.
It's an exciting change and we expect this will provide the buyer community with a more simplified experience.
Join the discussion here.
Which leads me to the next line item in our newsletter today…
Updated Pricing Filter
In addition to the Collections restructure we are launching our Updated Price filter. The slider has been greatly improved to make it far more noticeable and easier for the customers to use. The logic that classifies each asset into the price tiers has been improved to give customers a better ability to find the right image at the right price.
For photos this means:
$: Main
$$: Signature
$$$: Signature+
$$$$: Vetta
The logic that classifies each assest has also been updated to accommodate collections and complexity for Illustration, Video and Audio content. Due to changes to the collections structure we will also see an increase in content in the 3rd($$$) and 4th($$$$) levels of the price filter. This will allow customers who use the price filter to find higher priced, quality content to see more results. We should also note that regardless of what setting the buyer selects, Exclusive content will be featured in their searches.
This feature will go live Thursday June 13, 2013.
Join us in the discussion forum.
Forum Downtime
The Forums will be coming down on the afternoon of Tuesday June 18, 2013 due to some back end maintenance that needs to be done. So Lobo, Kelvinjay, and RobMattingely are going to have a Spa day. We should have things back up and running for the evening."
Announcement also in the announcement forum oddly placed in the discussion forum:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=354349&page=1 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=354349&page=1)
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so the photo + will jump to signature +, will exclusives and indies have the same pricing?
thanks for sharing Sue :)
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so the photo + will jump to signature +, will exclusives and indies have the same pricing?
thanks for sharing Sue :)
FAQs second article in this thread:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=353725&page=1 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=353725&page=1)
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if i remember correct, photo+ will go to signature and E+ go to signature+. Only those non exclusive photo+ files performing very well will go to signature+ and very well selling non exclusive files to signature.
Correct me please if i am wrong.
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Photo+ files are now listed as (DEACTIVATED) Photo+ but still seem to have premium pricing if you try to find a purchase price. It's a bit scary seeing (DEACTIVATED) next to all your best-selling files.
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if i remember correct, photo+ will go to signature and E+ go to signature+. Only those non exclusive photo+ files performing very well will go to signature+ and very well selling non exclusive files to signature.
Correct me please if i am wrong.
None of my photo+ files have been moved to signature or signature+. They have all been moved back to the main collection, including all my best performing files. In fact, when I sort my images by collection, the only options in the drop down box are Main and Value Bin. So I'd be interested to know what the criteria are for moving non-exclusive files to signature or signature+. What's the definition of "high performing" and "very high performing"? Are there any non-exclusives out there who have had images moved to signature or signature+?
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All my files are now main collection, not a single file made it to signature.
The price slider is very visible and easy to understand. But I certainly miss being able to choose a price point.
Anyway, let's see what the site looks like on Monday or Tuesday.
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I don't know if (deactivated)photo+ is just the same as main collection or not, it seems to sort separately and still to be priced separately. Lets allow time for the dust to settle.
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All my exclusive plus are now in Signature, including the better-sellers, only my old Vettas are in Sig+, including the lower sellers.
Wonder if they'll tell us when the process is completed.
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All my exclusive plus are now in Signature, including the better-sellers, only my old Vettas are in Sig+, including the lower sellers.
Wonder if they'll tell us when the process is completed.
Collections have not changed yet. Only the price slider has changed. We have to wait.
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They are also doing it in June, not september, so they can use the slow summer to fix any bugs.
That is probably the biggest improvement, no September drama.
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They are also doing it in June, not september, so they can use the slow summer to fix any bugs.
That is probably the biggest improvement, no September drama.
Your keyboard to the IT team's ears.
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When I used the slider, I can see some of mine were moved into different collections.
Are there any new icons for the new collections? I can't see any, except Vetta which is shown in text below the file name. For S+, below the file name, I can see "Stock Photo", the same as S. You can only tell it's S+ because the price is higher than S.
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When I use the slider all of mine are in the lowest pricing. That is worrying. Also I only have collection filters for Main
or Value Bin and about 80 of my worst sellers are now in the value bin.
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When I use the slider all of mine are in the lowest pricing. That is worrying. Also I only have collection filters for Main
or Value Bin and about 80 of my worst sellers are now in the value bin.
I forgot, if I ever knew, that they were retaining the Value Bin. So it's five collections/price points, not four?
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When I use the slider all of mine are in the lowest pricing. That is worrying. Also I only have collection filters for Main
or Value Bin and about 80 of my worst sellers are now in the value bin.
I didn't think they were retaining the Value Bin. Is it actually five collections/price points, rather than four?
I have never had anything in the Value Bin, my slider only has 4 choices. What are the prices for small size in Value Bin and S?
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When I use the slider all of mine are in the lowest pricing. That is worrying. Also I only have collection filters for Main
or Value Bin and about 80 of my worst sellers are now in the value bin.
I didn't think they were retaining the Value Bin. Is it actually five collections/price points, rather than four?
I have never had anything in the Value Bin, my slider only has 4 choices. What are the prices for small size in Value Bin and S?
If you look in My Uploads at the dropdown for Collections, there are 5 choices, one being Value Bin. All my old VB files seem currently to be in the main collection, from the two which flamed there, to those that never sold even in the VC; as usual, I can't find any link to the value collection :o, but others can usually help me with this.
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When I use the slider all of mine are in the lowest pricing. That is worrying. Also I only have collection filters for Main
or Value Bin and about 80 of my worst sellers are now in the value bin.
I didn't think they were retaining the Value Bin. Is it actually five collections/price points, rather than four?
I have never had anything in the Value Bin, my slider only has 4 choices. What are the prices for small size in Value Bin and S?
If you look in My Uploads at the dropdown for Collections, there are 5 choices, one being Value Bin. All my old VB files seem currently to be in the main collection, from the two which flamed there, to those that never sold even in the VC; as usual, I can't find any link to the value collection :o, but others can usually help me with this.
I did what you said, I don't have the DB choice, perhaps because I don't have anything there.
There are only 4 choices from the slider, $-$$-$$$-$$$$. For $, the lowest price is $5, right?
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When I use the slider all of mine are in the lowest pricing. That is worrying. Also I only have collection filters for Main
or Value Bin and about 80 of my worst sellers are now in the value bin.
I didn't think they were retaining the Value Bin. Is it actually five collections/price points, rather than four?
I have never had anything in the Value Bin, my slider only has 4 choices. What are the prices for small size in Value Bin and S?
If you look in My Uploads at the dropdown for Collections, there are 5 choices, one being Value Bin. All my old VB files seem currently to be in the main collection, from the two which flamed there, to those that never sold even in the VC; as usual, I can't find any link to the value collection :o, but others can usually help me with this.
I did what you said, I don't have the DB choice, perhaps because I don't have anything there.
There are only 4 choices from the slider, $-$$-$$$-$$$$. For $, the lowest price is $5, right?
I also have 4 choices from the price slider, but in £.
Like I said, I do have VC available in the dropdown, but no files currently in the VC.
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A bit upset. My exclusive content has all been put into signature level...which is fine except they won't mirror to Getty anymore...apparently only Sig+ and Vetta get mirrored now. Outside of that little kick in the nuts, I don't have a problem with where my content was placed.
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I am not sure how well the price slider is working yet. I was trying to ascertain now how many files I have in the Signature + collection now after the collection changes that were made. So I did a search in my portfolio for all of my Signature + collection files using the price slider. What came up are all the files that I had made E+ myself in the past. Meanwhile, when the collections changed, I noticed that iStock added some more of my better selling files to the Signature + collection as well. All good on the new files they added, but the new files they added don't come up in the Signature + collection when searching using the price slider as of yet. So this means the price slider is producing inaccurate pricing search results right now.
To reconfirm this I did a price slider selection in my portfolio of all my regular Signature collection files and sure enough all the files that iStock added to Signature + showed up in the regular Signature collection selection made using the price sliders. Perhaps once they remove the files that they feel shouldn't be in the Signature + collection then the sliders will start working correctly based on price.
The problem for the time being though is that if a buyer is looking for regular Signature collection priced files then the buyer is going to get a heap load of Signature + collection files as well. And if they sort their results by either best match or downloads then they will actually end up seeing nothing but Signature + priced files in their Signature only search results.
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Looks like my few Agency files have become Vetta, my old Vettas have become S+ and all my previous E+ have been demoted to S along with all my other images.
So I've gone from thousands of images selling at E+, Vetta and Agency to 450.
The higher prices were the only thing that kept my returns afloat since sale numbers are so poor. Looks like this is a method for making the majority of the collection cheaper. Good for buyers, bad for artists.
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I also noticed if you go to My Uploads and you select Signature + from the drop down menu and click Search to refresh you will actually get an accurate reading of how many actual Signature + files you have after the collection changes and the figure/results will include your old E+ files and the new files added by the system to E+ after the collection changes. So even though the price slider isn't returning correct results yet based on the new collections at least the My Uploads is.
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Hmmm.... All my P+ appear to have been demoted to main. I don't think that will benefit me or iStock. Hopefully they have simply not gone through everything yet.
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Have buyers been notified in any way so they at least have a clue what is going on when they perhaps pull up a light boxed image and find all the prices have changed?
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Follow
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I have never had anything in the Value Bin, my slider only has 4 choices. What are the prices for small size in Value Bin and S?
It goes from 1$ small to 4$ large. My ones in the bin are all really old images so don't come any higher than large
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Hmmm.... All my P+ appear to have been demoted to main. I don't think that will benefit me or iStock. Hopefully they have simply not gone through everything yet.
Same here so I'm hoping that it isn't finished yet.
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Several of my older files with historic high sales (but not nowadays) have been 'promoted' to S+, which will kill them dead. Given a choice, I'd have moved some of these down to the main collection, and kept the rest in S.
Other files which are of very unusual subjects have gone down one or even two collections. They are never going to sell a lot, but I feel should have a premium because of their rarity value.
Not much evidence of vsual editor involvement.
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Not much evidence of vsual editor involvement.
Did anyone think they were going to go through 20 million files individually? They can hardly keep up with the queue.
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Hmmm.... All my P+ appear to have been demoted to main. I don't think that will benefit me or iStock. Hopefully they have simply not gone through everything yet.
Same here so I'm hoping that it isn't finished yet.
Same here... I bet you dollars to donuts that it's going to stay that way until hell freezes over they ironed out all the other bugs :P
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Good for buyers, bad for artists.
there's no way out when as an agency your main issue is oversupply.
the only fix is to put more weight on new images and "sandbox" the old ones.
as for the "who needs 1 million pics of the Tour Eiffel ?" question, well that's a problem that so far nobody managed to solve in my opinion.
micros will be more and more inundated by business concepts and shaking hands for a long time, up to the buyer to waste time picking up the "perfect image", they can't have their cake and eat it too !
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A lot of my photo+ are now DEACTIVATED(photo+) anyone know if that means that they are back in the main collection?
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A lot of my photo+ are now DEACTIVATED(photo+) anyone know if that means that they are back in the main collection?
It looks like the files marked DEACTIVATED(photo+) are still priced higher than those marked MAIN
My MAIN files are at 1- 4 - 7 - 10 credits
DEACTIVATED(photo+) are 3 - 5 - 10 - 12 credits
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A lot of my photo+ are now DEACTIVATED(photo+) anyone know if that means that they are back in the main collection?
It looks like the files marked DEACTIVATED(photo+) are still priced higher than those marked MAIN
My MAIN files are at 1- 4 - 7 - 10 credits
DEACTIVATED(photo+) are 3 - 5 - 10 - 12 credits
All my DEACTIVATED(photo+) images turned into "main" overnight.
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Not much evidence of vsual editor involvement.
Did anyone think they were going to go through 20 million files individually? They can hardly keep up with the queue.
You are right, it is just a formula like best match. Based on age/sales/views/etc to where your file goes. I guess the inspectors will put new files into the categories??
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Not much evidence of vsual editor involvement.
Did anyone think they were going to go through 20 million files individually? They can hardly keep up with the queue.
You are right, it is just a formula like best match. Based on age/sales/views/etc to where your file goes.
If that's right then all specialist niche material is doomed to have the lowest price.
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Ah, my stuff seems to have sorted itself as expected beforehand.
I obviously jumped the gun on using the price filter to look at collections.
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I appear to have but one solitary file marked as Deactivated and still having a premium price! All my other stuff has been relegated to Main.
When IS introduced P+ (2 years ago?) the price increase boosted my monthly earnings by about 30%. I assume this will now have the reverse effect.
I can't see this new collection thing working to the extent of having the buyers flooding back to IS and increasing our volume of sales. At best it may just stem the tide of buyers who have been leaving.
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Personally for me, I predict this is a disaster. All my best sellers were promoted to S+, but for most of them there's nothing special to them. They were lucky to have caught on and be given a good place in the best match, but at S+ pricing buyers aren't stupid. They'll look for something in the S or Main collections and skip mine.
Way to go! Kill off all my best selling files in one fell swoop. >:(
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Several of my older files with historic high sales (but not nowadays) have been 'promoted' to S+, which will kill them dead. Given a choice, I'd have moved some of these down to the main collection, and kept the rest in S.
Other files which are of very unusual subjects have gone down one or even two collections. They are never going to sell a lot, but I feel should have a premium because of their rarity value.
Not much evidence of vsual editor involvement.
This was what made Photo+ useful, in my opinion. Self selection by the Artist crowdsources the work effort by the very people most likely to know and care which images are promoted!
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This was what made Photo+ useful, in my opinion. Self selection by the Artist crowdsources the work effort by the very people most likely to know and care which images are promoted!
+1
Mine are now all Main. The P+ pricing never seemed to hurt sales but made a big difference for $$$ for me. Without it iS will probably drop quite a bit more for non-exclusives. Too bad.
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This was what made Photo+ useful, in my opinion. Self selection by the Artist crowdsources the work effort by the very people most likely to know and care which images are promoted!
+1
Mine are now all Main. The P+ pricing never seemed to hurt sales but made a big difference for $$$ for me. Without it iS will probably drop quite a bit more for non-exclusives. Too bad.
Mine too have all been demoted from P+ to Main - nothing in a higher collection, even my one image with a flame and another just a few sales short of it's flame. Actually just sold that one - Yippeee - $0.16 for that X-small sale. Last 6 X-small sales on that one ranged from .52 to .75 Still peanuts but at least there were two or three peanuts in the shell. Another negative factor for me will be the loss of the extra RC's I got from the P+ sales. They were what helped me hit the next level above base. I pretty much quit uploading after the debacle with Google Drive and more than half my income at IS comes from the partner program now. Thinking this may be the deciding factor in pulling the plug on them.
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A lot of my photo+ are now DEACTIVATED(photo+) anyone know if that means that they are back in the main collection?
It looks like the files marked DEACTIVATED(photo+) are still priced higher than those marked MAIN
My MAIN files are at 1- 4 - 7 - 10 credits
DEACTIVATED(photo+) are 3 - 5 - 10 - 12 credits
All my DEACTIVATED(photo+) images turned into "main" overnight.
I had 6 DEACTIVATED(photo+)'s this morning and it's now down to 4.
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Ok guys. Here Lobo says here (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=354349&page=10)-
"For the time being almost all non exclusive files have been placed in Main, including all files that were in Plus. The initial approach is focusing on better placement of our exclusive material."
So we non ex still can expect that our P+ may eventually go to Signature collection
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This was what made Photo+ useful, in my opinion. Self selection by the Artist crowdsources the work effort by the very people most likely to know and care which images are promoted!
+1
Mine are now all Main. The P+ pricing never seemed to hurt sales but made a big difference for $$$ for me. Without it iS will probably drop quite a bit more for non-exclusives. Too bad.
Maybe not; there are quite a few exclusives here and there not happy about relatively 'ordinary' photos being promoted to S+, which we fear will kill them. Indie files will compete well, so it might be lower prices but more sales.
However, I see gemmy13's post and it's just that the indie files have to wait for the bump up.
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I appear to have but one solitary file marked as Deactivated and still having a premium price! All my other stuff has been relegated to Main.
Well that's one more that me ;)
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All bloody beautiful. What a great way to disguise yet another pay cut. I'd rather sell 1 P+ file than 2 Main collection.
It effectively reduces the amount of Redeemed Credits non exclusives receive per average sale. One more hurdle to take, trying to reach target levels we have no say in. One choice less to control andself market our images.
On the bright side, leaving iStock becomes more and more sustainable as an option for me. It wouldn't affect my total income as badly as it would've done a year ago.
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That's just peachy, these guys really have the winning friends and influencing people thing down pat, don't they? I don't suppose it occurred to them to just move P+ into the new collection while they make up their minds instead of handing out another pay cut. My 15% of a small number sold just as well, if not better, at the higher point as they did at the lower. The irony is that folks all would have picked their P+ on a similar basis and, given IS take the lions share of sales revenue, who is going to lose the most?
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Whatever IS does, people stick by them. Its the Stockholm Syndrome. But at some point the love affair has to end, no?
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That's just peachy, these guys really have the winning friends and influencing people thing down pat, don't they? I don't suppose it occurred to them to just move P+ into the new collection while they make up their minds instead of handing out another pay cut. My 15% of a small number sold just as well, if not better, at the higher point as they did at the lower. The irony is that folks all would have picked their P+ on a similar basis and, given IS take the lions share of sales revenue, who is going to lose the most?
What's truly bizarre is that they are giving themselves a pay cut, too. That's a first!
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If you look in My Uploads at the dropdown for Collections, there are 5 choices, one being Value Bin. All my old VB files seem currently to be in the main collection, from the two which flamed there, to those that never sold even in the VC; as usual, I can't find any link to the value collection :o, but others can usually help me with this.
Hmmmm.
Looking at the ValueBin dropdown in My Uploads still says, "There are no items to display", as it did last night, but looking again at my two files which flamed in the DB, I see they are priced at 1Cr up, so are apparently in the Value Collection. I wouldn't have minded if these to had gone up to the Main, and the rest can stay in the new VB.
Anyone found out how a potential buyer can access the VB?
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I'm confused!
I seem to have no files in the main collection. I never used + or uploaded to Vetta but all my files are now in Sig or Sig+
Also, I compared the pricing with getty and.... well, see screen grab showing the same file price on both sites. How does that make sense?
I was on the verge of going independent and setting up a Symbo site, but now I suppose I should wait until the dust settles.
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Nope I was right the first time. The Main collection is priced at 1Cr up.
So how much are files in the Value Bin? Does the VB actually exist, or is that a placeholder in the dropdown?
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Aren't they getting rid of the value bin
Pretty sure I read that they were going to decide later what to do with the VB.
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All my files were P+, now they are all main. I guess that means that my miniscule IS income will be cut in 1/2, thus making the site formerly known as Istock really just a front for the partner program. Luckily the content I still have there is mostly just to keep an eye on what they are doing and not really part of my income stream anymore.
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All my files were P+, now they are all main. I guess that means that my miniscule IS income will be cut in 1/2, thus making the site formerly known as Istock really just a front for the partner program. Luckily the content I still have there is mostly just to keep an eye on what they are doing and not really part of my income stream anymore.
All of P+ are Main also but supposedly further adjustments are coming.
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All my files were P+, now they are all main. I guess that means that my miniscule IS income will be cut in 1/2, thus making the site formerly known as Istock really just a front for the partner program. Luckily the content I still have there is mostly just to keep an eye on what they are doing and not really part of my income stream anymore.
All of P+ are Main also but supposedly further adjustments are coming.
...coming, but when? Sounded like it was in the distant future after they adjusted all the exclusive content. In the meaning, we all lose income and take a hit on the RC's making it harder to maintain or grow in levels.
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So, not that I m very surprised, they screwed up again. Some files are being removed from Getty....
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I've also lost 30 images from Getty overnight. Who knows what's going on.
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... thus making the site formerly known as Istock really just a front for the partner program.
You nailed it there - I suspect this has been the goal of GI from the beginning. It's too bad to have images with flames that sold just fine at P+ prices now available for a buck and only 16 cents to me. Lost revenue for iS too and they lose even more since they are taking more. If they really are lowering review standards as mentioned in the other thread then it seems that their strategy now may be to offer images at lower prices rather than higher quality. Too bad. Last month was the first time for me to make more through PP rather than regular iS sales and unfortunately it looks like that will now be the norm as so far this month regular iS sales are even lower.
People keep supporting them regardless of commission cuts, etc., because they have continued to deliver revenue-wise relative to every other agency besides SS. For independents that may change with the current pricing structure.
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Whatever IS does, people stick by them. Its the Stockholm Syndrome. But at some point the love affair has to end, no?
Maybe not, many companies are terrible. Microsoft acts like your lucky to buy from them, Coke is 6 times the cost of copies. Both are bigger than ever.
Yuri going exclusive with getty is not a good sign for those thinking getty is going down! He is no dummy.
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Yuri can get a special deal, the rest of us can't. So it really shouldn't matter what Yuri does and it doesn't mean that Getty/istock is a good option for the rest of us.
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All my files were P+, now they are all main. I guess that means that my miniscule IS income will be cut in 1/2, thus making the site formerly known as Istock really just a front for the partner program. Luckily the content I still have there is mostly just to keep an eye on what they are doing and not really part of my income stream anymore.
All of P+ are Main also but supposedly further adjustments are coming.
...coming, but when? Sounded like it was in the distant future after they adjusted all the exclusive content. In the meaning, we all lose income and take a hit on the RC's making it harder to maintain or grow in levels.
It's kind of shocking to look at where the independent price points went to. I looked at some top independent contributors and looks like the bulk (all?) of their images are priced in the bottom tier.
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All my files were P+, now they are all main. I guess that means that my miniscule IS income will be cut in 1/2, thus making the site formerly known as Istock really just a front for the partner program. Luckily the content I still have there is mostly just to keep an eye on what they are doing and not really part of my income stream anymore.
All of P+ are Main also but supposedly further adjustments are coming.
...coming, but when? Sounded like it was in the distant future after they adjusted all the exclusive content. In the meaning, we all lose income and take a hit on the RC's making it harder to maintain or grow in levels.
It's kind of shocking to look at where the independent price points went to. I looked at some top independent contributors and looks like the bulk (all?) of their images are priced in the bottom tier.
Yes, they put us back where we were before the P+ deal came along. I'd put all my best-selling files into P+ so about 80% of my sales were at that level. I don't know what the percentage drop in earnings will be, but it is sure to be painful. The only consolation is that it is a hefty drop in earnings for Getty, too, as for every $ I lose they lose more than $4, so maybe they will do something about it. They stand to lose hundreds of dollars a month on my account alone so I guess that overall their loss would run into a good number of millions over a year.
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....They stand to lose hundreds of dollars a month on my account alone so I guess that overall their loss would run into a good number of millions over a year.
They must be expecting buyers to buy more images and for some buyers that have left to come back. I don't think it will work, it's too late now. Can anyone trust them to keep prices as they are for more than a few months without changing everything again? Now the upload limits have gone and the QC seems to of gone, the site will be swamped with low quality images. Buyers will avoid the lower tier collections as that's were all the low quality stuff will end up. Hopefully more non-exclusives will see that istock is a complete waste of time now. I can't believe so many non-exclusives haven't worked that out yet.
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just a question..do you find fair that the contributor urilux
have http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-12107875-young-man-presenting-ideas-to-his-business-team.php (http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-12107875-young-man-presenting-ideas-to-his-business-team.php) in vetta
and http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-12479981-business-people-discussing-work-on-laptop-at-a-meeting.php (http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-12479981-business-people-discussing-work-on-laptop-at-a-meeting.php) in main
how is possible that a file that collects >2700 in 3 years is moved to the main collection ?
the same for http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-12181084-business-development-hands-holding-seedling-in-a-group.php (http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-12181084-business-development-hands-holding-seedling-in-a-group.php)
or http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-11860951-view-of-a-couple-sitting-on-deck-chairs-enjoying-vacation.php (http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-11860951-view-of-a-couple-sitting-on-deck-chairs-enjoying-vacation.php)
how can people that have business images compete with these kind of difference of price being at the same time exclusive ... ?
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I have never seen a meeting where people are sitting that close together at such a small table. And I have been to plenty of meetings. Sure those images sell well, but I had to laugh at how cramped that all looks. Off topic, sorry. Carry on.
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It's kind of shocking to look at where the independent price points went to. I looked at some top independent contributors and looks like the bulk (all?) of their images are priced in the bottom tier.
If you read the thread over there, according to Lobo it's an ongoing process and all indie files have been put in the bottom tier and will be adjusted over the next few days.
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=354349&messageid=6900327 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=354349&messageid=6900327)
Mind you, he also said: "Exclusive content will always have preferential treatment in search. Period."
maybe in a planet where 'always' and 'preferential treatment' have been redefined in the iStock dictionary like 'exclusive' (and 'trust' before that). In my current best match search for 'elephant', 7 of the top 13 are indie. For 'finch' the top 8 are exclusive, and the next 8 are indie. True, the top 36 searches on 'busiessman' are exclusive or faux-exclusive, but he said 'always'.
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=354349&messageid=6900801 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=354349&messageid=6900801)
I have no idea whether he just makes things up or just feeds us the lies TPTB feed him. Quite probably the latter, but if it were me, I'd be sick of being constantly made to look idiotic or a liar by my bosses.
NB, I make NO comment about the relative merits of the exclusive and indie files in these searches.
And in looking at these and other searches, I see that new files are nowhere in the top 200, as the best match still has a huge weighting to sales. Still no incentive to upload, which is lucky, as I have a huge garden project ongoing. ;D
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just a question..do you find fair that the contributor urilux
have [url]http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-12107875-young-man-presenting-ideas-to-his-business-team.php[/url] ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-12107875-young-man-presenting-ideas-to-his-business-team.php[/url]) in vetta
and [url]http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-12479981-business-people-discussing-work-on-laptop-at-a-meeting.php[/url] ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-12479981-business-people-discussing-work-on-laptop-at-a-meeting.php[/url]) in main
how is possible that a file that collects >2700 in 3 years is moved to the main collection ?
the same for [url]http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-12181084-business-development-hands-holding-seedling-in-a-group.php[/url] ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-12181084-business-development-hands-holding-seedling-in-a-group.php[/url])
or [url]http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-11860951-view-of-a-couple-sitting-on-deck-chairs-enjoying-vacation.php[/url] ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-11860951-view-of-a-couple-sitting-on-deck-chairs-enjoying-vacation.php[/url])
how can people that have business images compete with these kind of difference of price being at the same time exclusive ... ?
Wow, that must also be part of his 'special deal' - his old good sellers shifting collections.
I need his business adviser LOL ;)
I know that putting my old slide scans which historically sold well onto S+ will kill them stone dead. I'd have been far less upset if they had been demoted to Main rather than some of my more 'unique' subjects which will never sell more than a couple of times. Putting them in a cheap collection won't change that.
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True, the top 36 searches on 'busiessman' are exclusive or faux-exclusive, but he said 'always'.
Being given "preference" is not the same as a guarantee that every exclusive file will be above every non-exclusive file. It means they will get an undeserved few extra brownie points added to the search which may not (or may) be enough to put them ahead of a more deserving independent file.
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What's truly bizarre is that they are giving themselves a pay cut, too. That's a first!
It's funny, I made this point in the relevant thread over there (which was ignored obviously). As I was there I looked at a few ports of a few diamonds who are bleating about the wonderfullness of the exclusive content and who, without exception, have less downloads per image than even I have (who could hardly get anything accepted there up to now - dunno about in their new accept any old cr@p approach)
As a small amateur I haven't bothered with anything below top 5 but, of these, there is only one that is actually focused on the commercials of this business via their pricing, acceptance policy, contributor cut etc etc and we all know who that is.
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You are completely missing the point - note use of the word "even". I'm firmly in the average to low category so anyone whose exclusive content is selling less than that is no real loss to other sites. It's also fairly obvious that, if you took the top half percent of anyone's port you would see decent numbers.
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Have buyers been notified in any way so they at least have a clue what is going on when they perhaps pull up a light boxed image and find all the prices have changed?
Does anyone know if buyers were contacted in advance?
By sheer coincidence, my 3 (sic, it was my WWY after w/e 5 Jan) dls on Friday were all files that were promoted to S+ for no obvious reason. I hope that wasn't 3 p*ssed off buyers if they'd lightboxed them for a while.
OTOH, maybe they were delighted to find their other lightboxed images had somehow dropped a grade so it balances out.
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Judging from twitter post, buyers weren't notified.
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Here is a problem, I've had exclusive content that was suppose to mirror to Getty for months but has been held up do to tech issues with their system...now that content was deemed signature collection, so now it will not see Getty...another swift kick in the nuts
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Here is a problem, I've had exclusive content that was suppose to mirror to Getty for months but has been held up do to tech issues with their system...now that content was deemed signature collection, so now it will not see Getty...another swift kick in the nuts
They have promised, whatever that means in the iStock lexicon of new definitions, that old E+ content that was supposed to be mirrored will be mirrored.
We shall see.
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They have promised. They have also promised a lot of other things
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I'm exclusive and so far with this change my sales have fallen through the floor!...so aggravating.
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am I wrong in thinking that a little indie like me will do ok from this? if buyers move that slider to the $ section and my files are there... isn't there less competition? (provided my work is good enough)
edit: spelling
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am I wrong in thinking that a little indie like me will do ok from this? if buyers move that sliders to the $ section and my files are there... isn't there less competition? (provided my work is good enough)
I don't think so, there used to be a chance of making some money with istock due to the low upload limits. Now anyone can dump 999 low quality images per week on the site, I don't see how most independents are going to be able to make much. Istock doesn't have the buyers for a bloated collection. Shutterstock still manages to keep a lot of us happy with even more images in their collection but they must have increased their number of buyers a lot more than istock over the past few years and they have kept prices relatively low.
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Yes. It's an effective way to chop Exclusives out of the search and most commonly used category, whilst paying out the minimum royalty.
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True, the top 36 searches on 'busiessman' are exclusive or faux-exclusive, but he said 'always'.
Being given "preference" is not the same as a guarantee that every exclusive file will be above every non-exclusive file. It means they will get an undeserved few extra brownie points added to the search which may not (or may) be enough to put them ahead of a more deserving independent file.
So that will be why searching on children, photos only, with the price slider at $ - $$ has only 3 exclusive files in the top 200 by best match.
(Sorry, someone noticed this and pointed it out over there, but the forums are on their scheduled downtime so I can't credit them.)
http://www.istockphoto.com/search/text/children/filetype/photos/source/basic#174f5b06 (http://www.istockphoto.com/search/text/children/filetype/photos/source/basic#174f5b06)
"Always. Period" he said. >:(
Added:
1. Source: Krakozawr
2. Exactly the same when searching Horse, photos only, £ - ££
Probably what's happening is:
All indie files are temporary demoted to Main, including those perviousoly P+ wth good sales.
Exclusive files in Main are those with 0 or 1 dl since August last year.
Exclusive files with lots of sales are generally in S+ (though there are some anomalies I can't work out).
Exclusive and indie files uploaded since September with fewer than ten dls are faring badly in many but not all searches, and children and 'horse' are two of the former.
Still: "Always. Period." was the faux-promise.
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am I wrong in thinking that a little indie like me will do ok from this? if buyers move that sliders to the $ section and my files are there... isn't there less competition? (provided my work is good enough)
I don't think so, there used to be a chance of making some money with istock due to the low upload limits. Now anyone can dump 999 low quality images per week on the site, I don't see how most independents are going to be able to make much. Istock doesn't have the buyers for a bloated collection. Shutterstock still manages to keep a lot of us happy with even more images in their collection but they must have increased their number of buyers a lot more than istock over the past few years and they have kept prices relatively low.
Add to that us little indies no longer have photo+ (which files accounted for probably 90% of my sales), and that means quite a pay cut for us I would think.
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3 February 2013 - Total files 12,691,392
19 June 2013 - Total files 14,150,876
1,459,484 images added in 136 days. 10,732 per day, or 332,677 per month.
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LOL, I am not sure why you are so hung up on comparing with Shutterstock. I just posted the number to add some numbers to the discussion that was going on about the many files being added. This discussion is about Istock. What is YOUR point?
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I think the number of new images is relevant because istock don't have the buyers to generate enough sales from a much larger collection. SS still maintains good earnings for a lot of us, despite having no upload limits. The same policy wont work for istock, unless they somehow manage to get all the buyers they've lost back and that seems highly unlikely. What I think will almost certainly happen is that istock contributors that had some protection from the upload limits will now have their earnings diluted. The bigger collection might appeal to buyers but why would they move from sites that also have all those images? One of the last remaining differences with istock, a smaller more edited collection has now gone and they are just a higher priced version of SS.
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Where do you find information on total numbers of customers (buyers) at iS and SS?
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is it too early to call the change of collections "a disaster"? :P
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Has there been any indication of whether they intend to restore icons on searches so that buyers can see the price on the thums?
Otherwise any pretence that this change is 'for the buyers' is just that.
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Still waiting for c29 old E+ files from many months ago to be mirrored, far less newly-hiked S+s.
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Having read some posts over on the iS forum, I tried some searches for myself moving the slider up to £££ - ££££ and even ££££ alone, sorted by new, and as has been reported there, I can't see any rhyme nor reason why many of these files have been allocated to Sig+ or Vetta.
Not only the ingested material, but also files from existing iS contributors.
NB, I'm not complaining that my files aren't being promoted: far from it, I want to demote some; I just don't understand, and bet the customers won't understand, why many of these S+ and V files are there. :o
And wasn't it all supposed to be for the benefit of the buyers? Allegedly. :(
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Amazing Vetta Price for a crappy image - This is the new direction? This is what buyers want? This is how they love their exclusives?
http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-25406043-close-up-of-lettuce-leaves.php?st=040ee5e (http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-25406043-close-up-of-lettuce-leaves.php?st=040ee5e)
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Who the heck is clerkn-well whatever.... Is this a Getty collection dumped on iStock, I have noticed every time Getty dumps images on iStock the best match is screwed sideways. Looks good for the future as an exclusive :-)
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Who the heck is clerkn-well whatever.... Is this a Getty collection dumped on iStock,
Yes.
I'm pretty certain they used to be all Agency, so they'll be pretty miffed to have gone down in the world.
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Wonderful, no wonder the best match is screwed, are these people pseudo exclusive as well like yuri? All of us know that in a court of law you have to apply the same rules to everyone in your company except for iStock which makes the ULA only one sided to benefit them. How is the collections move going to make them more $$ I only see it hurting them short term as well as long term.
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Every time I think iStock just might get something right Bam..Slam right between the eyes on this one. I am thinking I am the idiot now.
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Although many of the sideways images have been disabled already, there are still a couple like this one:
http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-25406521-juicy-green-apple.php?st=33e00c7 (http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-25406521-juicy-green-apple.php?st=33e00c7)
There are images that no one else could even get accepted at all given the terrible lighting, like these:
http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-25406435-close-up-of-orange-slice.php?st=33e00c7 (http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-25406435-close-up-of-orange-slice.php?st=33e00c7)
http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-25405954-oranges.php?st=33e00c7 (http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-25405954-oranges.php?st=33e00c7)
http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-25405856-close-up-of-pomegranate-seeds.php?st=33e00c7 (http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-25405856-close-up-of-pomegranate-seeds.php?st=33e00c7)
http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-25411556-blurred-view-of-football-players-facing-each-other.php?st=33e00c7 (http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-25411556-blurred-view-of-football-players-facing-each-other.php?st=33e00c7)
I stopped looking after the first 2000 new Vetta images were all Clerkenwell Images (and it seemed like 1K of them were scientists around greenhouses, which must be a bigger market than I realized)
Getty is dumping whatever it wants onto the iStock site. I find it hard to see how any rational view of what's going on could conclude there is any consideration for iStock exclusives (real ones). People want to believe things will turn around or go back to the way they were. I think that's wishful thinking at best.
Getty has made their intentions (and their competence) manifest.
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Really. I could not believe until i saw the new vista images myself. So Many sister images.. In fact not only sister but twins/triplets/quadruplets.. lolz i thought now they are accepting series of similar images in their Main collection after increasing the limit to 999 but also in Vista ...?????
ps.. also series of Grasses in vista ?? heck... are the curators favoring certain photographers ?
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I thought Getty was crop of the cream. I shoot better than that. How does that crap get accepted onto Getty in the first place. Many top shooters cant get onto Getty, and that crapstock does.
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ps.. also series of Grasses in vista ?? heck... are the curators favoring certain photographers ?
Yes, same as before.
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iStock is the only company I know that can take a complete gem and turn it into a turd aka Vetta
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iStock is the only company I know that can take a complete gem and turn it into a turd aka Vetta
Is this really news?
Clerken_well's first iS submission was in December 2010.
Agency had a lot of ingested and pseudo-exclusive material, some of which would never even have been accepted at the time, had any normal mortal uploaded it. Much of it badly keyworded.
They tried to tell us they were being manually checked, but it was impossible to believe.
Vetta also had some very simple retro raster cartoons ingested from one company.
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Amazing Vetta Price for a crappy image - This is the new direction? This is what buyers want? This is how they love their exclusives?
[url]http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-25406043-close-up-of-lettuce-leaves.php?st=040ee5e[/url] ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-25406043-close-up-of-lettuce-leaves.php?st=040ee5e[/url])
Lobo: "We have premium content Editors who are actually making these picks. I think we will see just how effective the Editor picks are in the future."
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=354610&messageid=6907570 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=354610&messageid=6907570)
The above is an Editor's Pick, as is:
http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-25324187-grass-full-frame.php?st=1857def (http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-25324187-grass-full-frame.php?st=1857def) and all the rest of that contributor's (contributors'?) work.
Oh, in the same post above, Lobo responsed to posts about how bad the search results look in IE8 by saying "IE8 has about 24% of market share ... observing that it is an old browser and finishing, "I appreciate browser issues will always come up, thankfully there are plenty of alternatives." Which I guess will be buyers going to see if other vendors have sites that work on the browsers they are forced to work on, as was the situation indicated in the posts complaining about the IE8 bugs.
I remember when the rest of the IE using world was on IE6, my sister once saying her entire university staff network was forced to use IE4. I didn't believe her and one time I was in her office tried to update it and got a message saying that tampering with network settings was a potentially sackable offence. Honestly.
So, iS is happy to throw away "about 24%" of market share? I'd think good practice would be to check all changes in all browsers down to at least 5% of market share. But then again, website QC isn't iStock's way.
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iStock is the only company I know that can take a complete gem and turn it into a turd aka Vetta
And then try to polish it ;)
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I saw that 2 inspectors are uploading large amount of images this month. Anybody saw anything similar or it's just a coincidence??