Author Topic: Nippyish note from Rebecca Rockafellar (Read 71036 times)

Poncke · « **Reply #150 on:** December 09, 2012, 07:40 »

Quote from: ClaridgeJ on December 09, 2012, 07:20

Quote from: Poncke on December 09, 2012, 07:07
I have been reading up on this thread and the IS one with the message from that Rebecca woman. I think her OP is really poor communication. You dont talk like that to really upset people. Its like throwing oil on a fire. The message is even further frustrating the contributors and I find the tone very condescending. Its also a complete hit and miss when she comes back saying she is reading the thread, on her weekend that is. Are you for real, she must be making about 150k a year (correct me if I am wrong) and you are a GM. Your work never stops. Does she think the contributors don't work on a Saturday? What I consider utter fail is first say you have been watching the forum for a year and then you say I have been reading all your complaints and post a summary like its all new to you. What has she been reading for that year then? And the cherry on top is that the summary of the 4 problems misses the biggest frustration of them all, the commission!! I have never seen such amateur management, poor communication and display of completely missing the point by a general manager of any large company. Well the utter fail of BP's Tony "I'd like my life back" Hayward managing the Deep Horizon disaster is a classic. To me it seems Rebecca wants her life back back as well after she got ridden by Getty's/Carlyle's board for making a complete mess of iStockphoto.

Well I guess you will have to make an honest women of her. Can hear wedding bells coming on!

I am sorry, but I am completely missing the joke. I'm prolly missing something

Mantis · « **Reply #151 on:** December 09, 2012, 08:18 »

Quote from: Poncke on December 09, 2012, 07:40

Quote from: ClaridgeJ on December 09, 2012, 07:20
Quote from: Poncke on December 09, 2012, 07:07
I have been reading up on this thread and the IS one with the message from that Rebecca woman. I think her OP is really poor communication. You dont talk like that to really upset people. Its like throwing oil on a fire. The message is even further frustrating the contributors and I find the tone very condescending. Its also a complete hit and miss when she comes back saying she is reading the thread, on her weekend that is. Are you for real, she must be making about 150k a year (correct me if I am wrong) and you are a GM. Your work never stops. Does she think the contributors don't work on a Saturday? What I consider utter fail is first say you have been watching the forum for a year and then you say I have been reading all your complaints and post a summary like its all new to you. What has she been reading for that year then? And the cherry on top is that the summary of the 4 problems misses the biggest frustration of them all, the commission!! I have never seen such amateur management, poor communication and display of completely missing the point by a general manager of any large company. Well the utter fail of BP's Tony "I'd like my life back" Hayward managing the Deep Horizon disaster is a classic. To me it seems Rebecca wants her life back back as well after she got ridden by Getty's/Carlyle's board for making a complete mess of iStockphoto.

Well I guess you will have to make an honest women of her. Can hear wedding bells coming on!
I am sorry, but I am completely missing the joke. I'm prolly missing something

It's the malt scotch version of forum posts.

ClaridgeJ · « **Reply #152 on:** December 09, 2012, 10:59 »

Quote from: Mantis on December 09, 2012, 08:18

Quote from: Poncke on December 09, 2012, 07:40
Quote from: ClaridgeJ on December 09, 2012, 07:20
Quote from: Poncke on December 09, 2012, 07:07
I have been reading up on this thread and the IS one with the message from that Rebecca woman. I think her OP is really poor communication. You dont talk like that to really upset people. Its like throwing oil on a fire. The message is even further frustrating the contributors and I find the tone very condescending. Its also a complete hit and miss when she comes back saying she is reading the thread, on her weekend that is. Are you for real, she must be making about 150k a year (correct me if I am wrong) and you are a GM. Your work never stops. Does she think the contributors don't work on a Saturday? What I consider utter fail is first say you have been watching the forum for a year and then you say I have been reading all your complaints and post a summary like its all new to you. What has she been reading for that year then? And the cherry on top is that the summary of the 4 problems misses the biggest frustration of them all, the commission!! I have never seen such amateur management, poor communication and display of completely missing the point by a general manager of any large company. Well the utter fail of BP's Tony "I'd like my life back" Hayward managing the Deep Horizon disaster is a classic. To me it seems Rebecca wants her life back back as well after she got ridden by Getty's/Carlyle's board for making a complete mess of iStockphoto.

Well I guess you will have to make an honest women of her. Can hear wedding bells coming on!
I am sorry, but I am completely missing the joke. I'm prolly missing something

It's the malt scotch version of forum posts.

Single malt, best in the world.

Microbius · « **Reply #153 on:** December 09, 2012, 11:12 »

Some of the MSG people on this list (e.g. Lisa or Sean) may want to chime in on the IStock thread as their names are being taken vain:

Quote from funky-data page 11:
Many things said, If I were you I would listen people like Cobalt, Sjlocke, RapidEye, StanRohrer, Lisafx, Inhauscreative, etc. These people have very serious experience on stock business and they can help you. They won't ask any money. Fixing the site and increasing sales will be satisfactory for these people.

Seems to be putting words in people's mouths by saying they don't want a fairer commission structure just the site fixed ("it's not about the money"

).

Poncke · « **Reply #154 on:** December 09, 2012, 11:33 »

Quote from: Microbius on December 09, 2012, 11:12

Some of the MSG people on this list (e.g. Lisa or Sean) may want to chime in on the IStock thread as their names are being taken vain:

Quote from funky-data page 11:
Many things said, If I were you I would listen people like Cobalt, Sjlocke, RapidEye, StanRohrer, Lisafx, Inhauscreative, etc. These people have very serious experience on stock business and they can help you. They won't ask any money. Fixing the site and increasing sales will be satisfactory for these people.

Seems to be putting words in people's mouths by saying they don't want a fairer commission structure just the site fixed ("it's not about the money" ).

By reading your quote I think that poster meant they will offer their advice for free, as in not sending an invoice.

cathyslife · « **Reply #155 on:** December 09, 2012, 11:59 »

Does anyone seriously think that poor istock cant figure things out for themselves without contributors help?

heywoody · « **Reply #156 on:** December 09, 2012, 12:13 »

Is it not just possible that IS has come to the realisation that peed off contributors might not be the best thing for their bottom line? Maybe some of the responses will actually be taken on board?

jjneff · « **Reply #157 on:** December 09, 2012, 12:37 »

I have been warned and spanked by my friend Lobo so I must calm down. I still see iStock dancing around the real issues here. what if they did this and what effect do you think it woud make if any.

1. We have decided to ditch the RC system and reinstate the canister system. Once you achieve a certain level you will keep it.
Non-exclusives will stay at 20% rate regardless of canister level.
2. We have adjusted pricing and will be driving traffic to our "Value Collection" instead of ThinkStock, this gives us the ability to
up sale to our more profitable collections.
3. We have made changes to the ASA and will have no further comment, you are free to accept or drop your exclusive status at
anytime.
4. Along with these changes we are focusing on site stability and advertising and making collections where we see a need in the
market.
5. We are going to do a Large Lypse every year and look forward to your ideas and participation!
6. Last but not least, if you are Exclusive we want you to know we value your time and work! Welcome back to Punctum Day!

luissantos84 · « **Reply #158 on:** December 09, 2012, 12:45 »

great post from Juan bringing up his grandfather farm

gostwyck · « **Reply #159 on:** December 09, 2012, 12:53 »

Quote from: luissantos84 on December 09, 2012, 12:45

great post from Juan bringing up his grandfather farm

Hmmm. There's a treasure-trove of bad puns to be had from Juan's chicken farm post __ and that's no yoke.

ClaridgeJ · « **Reply #160 on:** December 09, 2012, 13:01 »

Its getting ridiculous. They dont need any help with straightening things out. The Getty people have got tons of experience and have probably forgotten more then anybody else will ever learn.
How difficult can it be?

Just remove this RC nonsense. fix the bugs/glitches, etc. Make it worthwhile for independants to return and ofcourse, take care of the remaining exclusives.

jeez, you dont have to be a brain surgeon for this.

disorderly · « **Reply #161 on:** December 09, 2012, 13:03 »

Quote from: jjneff on December 09, 2012, 12:37

I have been warned and spanked by my friend Lobo so I must calm down. I still see iStock dancing around the real issues here. what if they did this and what effect do you think it woud make if any.

For me it would make no difference at all. Breaking faith with suppliers once means they can and likely will do it again. Returning to the original agreement isn't nearly enough to get me to start uploading again. I may be easy, but I'm not cheap.

Poncke · « **Reply #162 on:** December 09, 2012, 13:04 »

I think a brain surgeon wouldnt know how to run a stock agency

ShadySue · « **Reply #163 on:** December 09, 2012, 13:07 »

Quote from: luissantos84 on December 09, 2012, 12:45

great post from Juan bringing up his grandfather farm

I wish Juan and some others wouldn't bang on as though the current best match was the worst thing that had ever happened.
Some of the examples they give have most the showing files being what they actually are, even if they're not showing up 'my' or the people who are posting's files.
I could provide others where the best match shows up search results where most of the results don't even reflect the search term, mostly because of spam, but sometimes because of bad language mapping.

Best match is NOT the main issue.
It's ruined trust in all matters financial. The best match is extremely important, but it's threatening to trump the main issue.
They could easily 'fix' the relatively minor issue currently bugging people (best match currently favouring mostly new files).

Would that make people more happy than then retroactively making up for all the lies and underhand shenanigans, dropping our percentages, clawing back bonuses on certain sales (for exclusives), always clawing back refunds, yet not paying us when we lose money - have they even claimed they'll make up for the loss of the day a couple of weeks ago when they had us all at base rate? Small for individuals, lots for them to keep collectively. Dishonesty about the foreign exchange rates, and sneakily changing the ASAs.

The best match will change, again and again. We won't always like it.

But the constant shafting is a constant downhill road.

They could very easily change the best match and said, "We gave you what you said you most wanted. Why aren't you happy now?" rather than do anything about the real issues.

cthoman · « **Reply #164 on:** December 09, 2012, 13:23 »

Quote from: ClaridgeJ on December 09, 2012, 13:01

Its getting ridiculous. They dont need any help with straightening things out. The Getty people have got tons of experience and have probably forgotten more then anybody else will ever learn.
How difficult can it be?

Just remove this RC nonsense. fix the bugs/glitches, etc. Make it worthwhile for independants to return and ofcourse, take care of the remaining exclusives.

jeez, you dont have to be a brain surgeon for this.

It's tough when you don't actually want to do any of that.

blamb · « **Reply #165 on:** December 09, 2012, 14:47 »

Yeah, pretty much everything they SHOULD do they can't/won't do. They've boxed themselves in to the current program and the short-term change would be too painful with no guarantee of success. Ouch.

RapidEye · « **Reply #166 on:** December 09, 2012, 15:52 »

Sue, I completely agree that the issues go far beyond Best Match. But this Best Match is a bona fide slo-mo disaster that could damage iStock seriously in a short time -- not least because of the astounding denial of a problem by TPTB.

stockastic · « **Reply #167 on:** December 09, 2012, 16:16 »

As a former software developer for big companies - I can tell you that questions lke "how hard could it be?" are typically not well received.

The honest answer is often "very hard and I couldn't possibly explain why, in non-technical terms". But my guess is that the site is frozen - due to some grand coporate reorganization that was supposed to happen months ago but stalled out. The web site is in limbo, the people have been told not to work on it, pending handover to some new group, at some unspecified future time.

ShadySue · « **Reply #168 on:** December 09, 2012, 16:39 »

Quote from: RapidEye on December 09, 2012, 15:52

Sue, I completely agree that the issues go far beyond Best Match. But this Best Match is a bona fide slo-mo disaster that could damage iStock seriously in a short time -- not least because of the astounding denial of a problem by TPTB.

I'm getting very different results than are being reported there. They're complaining about a lot of new files hogging the top spots. I've just been uploading some photos from Paris, and photos that went into my port yesterday are already down below position 100 ('photos only'), and at the top are an assortment of well-selling files Not the same as downloads, but certainly not giving new files their 'moment in the sun'.

That said, I'm finding apparently spammed results where the 'offending' keywords aren't apparently in the appended keywords, including my own files. How can that happen?

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #169 on:** December 09, 2012, 16:53 »

Quote from: stockastic on December 09, 2012, 16:16

As a former software developer for big companies - I can tell you that questions lke "how hard could it be?" are typically not well received.

The honest answer is often "very hard and I couldn't possibly explain why, in non-technical terms". But my guess is that the site is frozen - due to some grand coporate reorganization that was supposed to happen months ago but stalled out. The web site is in limbo, the people have been told not to work on it, pending handover to some new group, at some unspecified future time.

Do some searches at Thinkstock for things that produce crappy results at iStock. Getty has a working search if it wanted to use it.

And to answer jjneff, I would not return to exclusivity because I don't trust them, but I'd certainly welcome scrapping the RC system and fixing site operations. As an indie, I don't really care where the sales get made - Thinkstock or iStock is the same if the money's right as I can't earn anything more than 20% regardless (assuming there's no RC). The Value Collection would need some new content (but not my whole indie portfolio) before it would make much sense.

Before someone admits that the current search results are hopelessly broken, I have to assume they're all so detached from reality that I should ignore every other word that comes out of their mouths.

sharpshot · « **Reply #170 on:** December 09, 2012, 18:02 »

Quote from: ClaridgeJ on December 09, 2012, 13:01

Its getting ridiculous. They dont need any help with straightening things out. The Getty people have got tons of experience and have probably forgotten more then anybody else will ever learn.
How difficult can it be?

Just remove this RC nonsense. fix the bugs/glitches, etc. Make it worthwhile for independants to return and ofcourse, take care of the remaining exclusives.

jeez, you dont have to be a brain surgeon for this.

Isn't it the Getty people that have made this mess? Who told istock to get their overall commissions down to 20%, hence bringing in the commission cuts and the RC nonsense? Who's idea was it to send istock buyers to Thinkstock? Whose idea was it to keep raising prices, even when it was obvious that buyers couldn't take any more? Haven't they reduced the istock workforce and then sat back and watched as things have become worse and worse.

To fix the problems, I think those responsible for this mess have to be replaced by people that can do the job properly. Perhaps that might include the person that's been in charge of istock for over a year now and has just started the thread in the istock forum? There might be an excuse that Getty/istock was being sold and nothing could be done during that time but I don't believe that all the horrendous problems problems with istock can be fixed without changing the big decision makers that have caused the current problems.

ShadySue · « **Reply #171 on:** December 09, 2012, 18:12 »

Quote from: sharpshot on December 09, 2012, 18:02

To fix the problems, I think those responsible for this mess have to be replaced by people that can do the job properly. Perhaps that might include the person that's been in charge of istock for over a year now and has just started the thread in the istock forum? There might be an excuse that Getty/istock was being sold and nothing could be done during that time but I don't believe that all the horrendous problems problems with istock can be fixed without changing the big decision makers that have caused the current problems.

Has such as RR got any power at all?
Can she actually make the changes are may help to reassure the contributor community?
Has she said even one thing to try to defend the company from accusations of being 'greedy', which she herself has observed?

ShadySue · « **Reply #172 on:** December 09, 2012, 18:16 »

[OT] I'm looking forward to reading the December sales thread. They're claming 42,876 extra downloads over their 'expectations', although they have made their expections non-transparent, as it's not 'extra downloads over the same period last year', but
"*"Extra files" determined by aggregating the total number of downloads over the campaign period which ranges from November 19 to December 13 and comparing this data to the total number of downloads that we expect to generate during this timeframe which is based on results from a similar period of time in the previous year; any incremental downloads beyond the expected downloads for this period will constitute an extra file.
That could mean anything. Their target could be based on the worst four weeks last year (that would be a similar period of time).

It's all smoke and mirrors.

gostwyck · « **Reply #173 on:** December 09, 2012, 18:20 »

Quote from: ShadySue on December 09, 2012, 18:12

Quote from: sharpshot on December 09, 2012, 18:02

To fix the problems, I think those responsible for this mess have to be replaced by people that can do the job properly. Perhaps that might include the person that's been in charge of istock for over a year now and has just started the thread in the istock forum? There might be an excuse that Getty/istock was being sold and nothing could be done during that time but I don't believe that all the horrendous problems problems with istock can be fixed without changing the big decision makers that have caused the current problems.

Has such as RR got any power at all?
Can she actually make the changes are may help to reassure the contributor community?
Has she said even one thing to try to defend the company from accusations of being 'greedy', which she herself has observed?

No, no and no. She's a waste of space as far as we're concerned.

markrhiggins · « **Reply #174 on:** December 09, 2012, 18:21 »

RESET REQUIRED. Bring back old commission rate equal reset starting point. Answer questions rather than lecture equal reset number two.

IS is a second tier agency with high prices and poor contributor loyalty. It is a struggling off-shoot of Getty and is somewhere lost between macro and microstock with confusing searches and buying choices. It lacks the freshness of new content other agencies have with a slower content growth and less variety of contributors. It prone to image fraud with a high level of been effectively given away and no commission to file owners.

Sorry if you do not believe this is 100% correct. just wait 12 months and then look.

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Author Topic: Nippyish note from Rebecca Rockafellar (Read 71036 times)

Poncke

Mantis

ClaridgeJ

Microbius

Poncke

cathyslife

heywoody

jjneff

luissantos84

gostwyck

ClaridgeJ

disorderly

Poncke

ShadySue

cthoman

blamb

RapidEye

stockastic

ShadySue

Jo Ann Snover

sharpshot

ShadySue

ShadySue

gostwyck

markrhiggins

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