MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => iStockPhoto.com => Topic started by: dgilder on March 05, 2011, 23:25
-
This only goes to January, who wants to take bets that Shutterstock passed iStock in February?
http://siteanalytics.compete.com/istockphoto.com+shutterstock.com+dreamstime.com/?metric=sess&months=6 (http://siteanalytics.compete.com/istockphoto.com+shutterstock.com+dreamstime.com/?metric=sess&months=6)
-
Well, SS has my vote, at least my stuff is selling on SS and DT; in three weeks, only two sales on IS. I understand I only have a limited collection on IS but I am getting plenty of views just no sales.
-
Uhhh, I think that each contributor will see different results. Just because your month at SS may surpass someone else's doesn't mean the world has changed.
-
It has if you look at the unique visitor version of the chart ;)
http://siteanalytics.compete.com/istockphoto.com+shutterstock.com+dreamstime.com/?metric=sess&months=6 (http://siteanalytics.compete.com/istockphoto.com+shutterstock.com+dreamstime.com/?metric=sess&months=6)
-
Uhhh, I think that each contributor will see different results. Just because your month at Shutterstock may surpass someone else's doesn't mean the world has changed.
If we are to have any idea of what is going on, we either have to take published data (e.g. from iStock's Feb sales thread, from the site traffic analysis or even from the data on the side of this page) or take our own statistics (after six years as my number one agency, iStock (ignoring partner sales) slid into second place for me last August and has never recovered). When personal data and most pieces of public information point in the same direction, then I think the world probably has changed.
A more contentious question is: WHY has it changed? Is it the search/site problems? Is it the attempt to shift into midstock/trad pricing? Is it the pollution of the site with wholly-owned and vetta content that departs from the microstock "look"? Is it pricing? Is it the insult to suppliers through commission cuts? Is it Thinkstock?
Maybe it is telling that it its just so easy to think of things that have happened recently that MIGHT have a negative impact but very hard to think of anything recent that MIGHT have had a positive impact (please correct me if there are positive things that I haven't noticed). When you constantly make changes to your business and you spend a year when every change has negative implications for either your customers or your suppliers, it seems fair to think that your management has entirely lost the plot and is going to be punished through the bottom line.
-
For comparison, and I am not an evangelist for Alexa, here are the Alexa stats for two years:
(http://www.lizworld.com/alexa2.jpg)
For the individual contributer, the iStock figures are still worrying, as the gradual growth in visits is nothing like in proportion to the growth of files contributed.
-
This only goes to January, who wants to take bets that Shutterstock passed iStock in February?
Yup, scary:
(http://www.lizworld.com/compete.jpg)
Vast difference between alexa and siteanalytics.
For example, siteanalytics says that 1,823 sites link in to iStock, alexa says 16,115.
Hmmm.
-
If people weren't still complaining about having trouble with the image search on iStock, you could make the case that they made their website more efficient:
-
worth noting in the stats that shutterstock has a different site for contributors. Every time contributors check in at Istock it would be adding to the stats.
-
worth noting in the stats that shutterstock has a different site for contributors. Every time contributors check in at Istock it would be adding to the stats.
excellent point.
-
Supposing for a second that these charts are to be viewed as reliable indicators that traffic is down at istock, I'd suggest that maybe istock HQ not only doesn't care about this but that they planned on it. They would have to know that constantly raising prices and introducing expensive new collections would drive some buyers away. They're also actively marketing ThinkStock to istock buyers and trying to drive traffic to the subscription service. They're after more money from a smaller base of regular customers, as well as a greater percentage of the profits via TS subscriptions. The casual image buyer is no longer a priority at istock, so if some small-time buyers leave and it's reflected in traffic stats, I doubt it would matter much to istock HQ.
In my opinion, anyway, and again assuming that the chart is accurate.
-
It seems that number of visits does not correspond with sales. According to number of unique visitors 123rf would be agency no.3.
-
Sorry to pour cold water on your theories but Alexa is a small dataset. For example I worked in a large corporation with over 200,000 client workstations, all of which were locked down so that something like Alexa could not be installed. This is typical in the corporate world. So corporate traffic is way under reported by Alexa.
If you compare IS versus SS on netcraft.com
http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=www.istockphoto.com (http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=www.istockphoto.com)
http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=shutterstock.com (http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=shutterstock.com)
You will see they are ranked 1806 versus 661914 respectively
-
For the 10'th time, please ignore those silly sites. They mean nothing what-so-ever. Any attempt to conclude statistical data from such sites is bound to be WRONG!
-
For the 10'th time, please ignore those silly sites. They mean nothing what-so-ever. Any attempt to conclude statistical data from such sites is bound to be WRONG!
What are they there for, then? Still, you might be right. The end of month threads may be more meaningful.
-
Both of the posted examples show that anyone can find statistical data to prove their own personal point of view. Which makes them kind of meaningless. And it still isn't correct to judge the overall picture just by the people who post in the end of month threads. They are but a small portion of total contributors. Unless you force every single contributor in the world who is selling royalty-free microstock to take a poll, you will never be able to get an accurate representation. IMHO, of course.
-
If you compare IS versus Shutterstock on netcraft.com
I like that netcraft says IS is in the Netherlands.
For the 10'th time, please ignore those silly sites. They mean nothing what-so-ever. Any attempt to conclude statistical data from such sites is bound to be WRONG!
If these sites were so irrelevant, why would Amazon buy Alexa? I'll grant your point that the sample data may not be random enough, but it never will be. What we see is that there is a large group of people whose behavior is shifting, whether or not they are representative of the whole sounds like it will be a IS vs. SS religious debate.
-
It's about trends and should be viewed as such. What influences the trends is another matter worth considering. Assuming everything is constant a declining number of hits is not good despite what sales might indicate.
-
If these sites were so irrelevant, why would Amazon buy Alexa?
Because it entertains! If it entertains then it may be a good investment. If it makes you visit the site and you want to believe the data then the chart business model is working!
-
I like that netcraft says IS is in the Netherlands.
IS use Akamai to mirror their content and Akamai have a worldwide network of 73,000 edge servers to deploy content ...
When you access the site some or all off the content is served by Akamai from a server that is located near you (near meaning with low likelihood of latency) that is why you will see the locations varying from time to time
-
Sorry michealo, that was meant to be a play on words, rather than a discussion of hosting infrastructure.
-
I like that netcraft says IS is in the Netherlands.
IS use Akamai to mirror their content and Akamai have a worldwide network of 73,000 edge servers to deploy content ...
When you access the site some or all off the content is served by Akamai from a server that is located near you (near meaning with low likelihood of latency) that is why you will see the locations varying from time to time
I'm not sure why the location of the servers should have anything to do with where it shows istock's location. It just proves how unreliable some of the things on the internet are.
-
Perhaps the Alexa stats are in error. However our own polls show iStock's earnings rating dropping rather precipitously. It is 5.3 as of 3/7, which is as low as I have ever seen it.
-
Perhaps the Alexa stats are in error. However our own polls show iStock's earnings rating dropping rather precipitously. It is 5.3 as of 3/7, which is as low as I have ever seen it.
Interesting question if the reported earnings rate data over time is available in a graph? Might be instructive. Tyler is this possible? Or already available?
-
I like that netcraft says IS is in the Netherlands.
IS use Akamai to mirror their content and Akamai have a worldwide network of 73,000 edge servers to deploy content ...
When you access the site some or all off the content is served by Akamai from a server that is located near you (near meaning with low likelihood of latency) that is why you will see the locations varying from time to time
I'm not sure why the location of the servers should have anything to do with where it shows istock's location. It just proves how unreliable some of the things on the internet are.
Lot's of information on the internet is unreliable, however a tool reporting that a server is located in the Netherlands when it actually is isn't unreliable.
-
For the individual contributer, the iStock figures are still worrying, as the gradual growth in visits is nothing like in proportion to the growth of files contributed.
For many, many years the average number of downloads per file per month has been dropping. Anyone with a long set of personal data can see that.
But now the compensating factors of cannister level jumps and rising prices leading to rising commission payments have been taken out of the equation.
One thing about these data services is that they measure whatever it is they are measuring impartially so the changes they record are real. Whether it is possible to interpret them in a meaningful way is another matter as is the question of whether their access to data has some systematic bias built in.
It's also worth noting that even if the number of buyers visiting were constant, it would say nothing about whether their budgets were increasing or decreasing and whether they were putting it all into one or two agency files when in the past they might have bought a dozen contributors files. The diversion of iStock income to Agency must do significant damage to contributor earnings.
-
For the individual contributer, the iStock figures are still worrying, as the gradual growth in visits is nothing like in proportion to the growth of files contributed.
For many, many years the average number of downloads per file per month has been dropping. Anyone with a long set of personal data can see that.
But now the compensating factors of cannister level jumps and rising prices leading to rising commission payments have been taken out of the equation.
One thing about these data services is that they measure whatever it is they are measuring impartially so the changes they record are real. Whether it is possible to interpret them in a meaningful way is another matter as is the question of whether their access to data has some systematic bias built in.
It's also worth noting that even if the number of buyers visiting were constant, it would say nothing about whether their budgets were increasing or decreasing and whether they were putting it all into one or two agency files when in the past they might have bought a dozen contributors files. The diversion of iStock income to Agency must do significant damage to contributor earnings.
A good point, and another appropriate parallel would be seeing the first page of results of an image search being like the eye level shelf in a supermarket, there are other shelves and other pages but the eye level shelf is where highest margin goods are placed. Increasingly this "shelf" has become filled with Agency and Vetta files, it is not surprising that this displacement is having an effect particularly if one does not have files in these collections.
-
I like that netcraft says IS is in the Netherlands.
IS use Akamai to mirror their content and Akamai have a worldwide network of 73,000 edge servers to deploy content ...
When you access the site some or all off the content is served by Akamai from a server that is located near you (near meaning with low likelihood of latency) that is why you will see the locations varying from time to time
I'm not sure why the location of the servers should have anything to do with where it shows istock's location. It just proves how unreliable some of the things on the internet are.
Lot's of information on the internet is unreliable, however a tool reporting that a server is located in the Netherlands when it actually is isn't unreliable.
Except the poster didn't say the server was in the Netherlands, he said the site is reporting that istock is in the Netherlands. ;) Didn't he? But thanks for making your point. I got your message, loud and clear. ;D