Well, I can only imagine removing the member profile features is going to piss some people off. Can you imagine having a blog on iDot for years and now its gone. Site performance is good, but  having to sacrifice parts of the site for it is questionable.

We are making every effort to improve site performance. The faster the site, the better the experience for people using it � contributors and customers.  Of course that means we need to take a hard look at a number of features we currently have on the site, the impact that they have on site performance and the ongoing utility of those features. We should note that nothing is off the table. We are identifying a number of solutions to improve the performance issues but in order to deal with the larger issues we need to first start untangling Contributor and Client features from one another.



My Uploads: 

When a contributor uploads a file, it will no longer appear instantly on their My Uploads page. Instead there will be an approximate 5 minute delay. We appreciate this might alter your workflow when uploading your content. However, this is a change that will give us back some site performance. Expect to see this change in the next couple of weeks.



Member Profile Changes
:
In a continued effort to accommodate some larger code changes on the site we have found it necessary to make some alterations to the Member Profile pages. We are planning to remove the following features as soon as possible:

    �    Testimonials
    �    User Blog
    �    About Me

We can appreciate that there will be some concern about the removal of these features. We would like to make it clear that our chief concern at this point is to improve site performance, making it easier and faster for customers to license content from iStock.

We want to assure you the Lightbox banners you have created can still be utilized in the description field on the File Close Up page. What we have found is that he majority of our contributor who are utilizing the Blog and About me sections are using them specifically for hosting their many Lightbox banners. We are strongly suggesting you find an alternative place to host these images going forward. These features will be removed in the immediate future.

Legacy Features:
We are also removing a number of legacy features that have been either discontinued or offered elsewhere offsite:

    �    Ratings and Comment
    �    Logos (Previously Announced April 23, 2012 - we are removing the last remnants)
    �    Contributor FAQ (New FAQ is available here)

We have a discussion thread prepared for your questions or concerns.

This notification thread will serve as a place where we will update our progress. Please subscribe to this thread in the event you want to be provided email notifcations.

The links

http://istockfaq.gettyimages.com/

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=356766&page=1&sp_rid=&sp_mid=5781399

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=356746&page=1&sp_rid=&sp_mid=5781399

Laughable, but apparently worth a woo yay there. Desperation.

I see that the search doesn't work for public lightboxes. I wonder if they are going to do away with that also.

At least it's nice to see them do something... but at the same time it's hard not to see it as an act of desperation. Like they're completely lost and don't know how to fix the site so they're trying a little bit of everything. The Fresh Match was pretty much the same... it's like they've given up the idea of ever being able to fix the the broken Best Match, so they launch this compromise instead.

I'm getting more and more desperate since I'm exclusive...

I swear they are just looking at the features at ShutterStock and saying, if they don't have them we don't need them either. Probably very true but the 5 min upload delay is just a pain and not a feature at SS. IStock can now say "we offer a five minute delay on uploads to give you time to pick your nose and prepare keywords, no other site dose this for you in the industry!" Just kidding of course but I truly hope real progress is made from this.

Of course and not a a big deal it's just silly.

Can anyone who 'knows about these things' say whether removing one or other of the duplicated feature on the upload page, whereby both clicking on the file number under the tiny thum or clicking the Edit text/button both take you to the file editing page, would signicantly reduce overhead on that upload page?
I remember when it was introduced some people saying it was adding to the time the pages took to load, and IIRC TPTB didn't refute it, or offer a reason why both are there.

Ditch the RC system and iStock will scream!

.

If the change can improve the site performance, I don't have any problems with removing these features.

The similars feature isn't coming back.
The best Woo-way we've had in ages, even though it's a negative!

Positive - istock at least publicly admit they have a problem (site speed) ... 
Positive - istock attempt to address the problem 

Neutral - at first glance, none of the removed features seems to be terrible for contributors (at least for myself, but maybe I overlooked something?)

Negative - do we really believe that this is the best way to target site problems?  For me (as an ex-IT person) - well - doubtful...
Negative - a certain "contributor relations manager" states ....' As noted in the OP, untangling the code is our goal. Site speed improvements will come as soon as we start taking steps to rectify the problems on the back end'     Very worrying is the implication that iStock has little insight to the working of its own computer system (despite the alleged root-and-branch workover of a couple of years ago, which seemed to do little except to pad many of the pages with redundant graphics).

Overall though, I would have to say that acknowledging/addressing this  problem, has to be a good thing...

Regards