It's a feature not a bug. I wrote about it here: http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/sort-by-really/msg337547/#msg337547 and it's being discussed on iStock here: http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=355588&page=1

Wow.  Great way to direct sales to their contributors of choice.

Hadn't thought of that.....will be interesting to take a closer look and see if that really is what is happening.  Would not surprise me one bit.

 

Hopefully they are good ones and you get to keep the sales! 

Has to be one of the worst ideas anyone over there has had. Wonder whose turn it was to 'think of something new' yesterday. Reveals all the keyword spamming and bad best match relevancy (where it exists).

I hate the way that on the internet opinion often tends towards tabloidesque superlatives such that anything is always either the worst or the best.

This looks quite sensible to me on the whole. Coupled with the simplified search options it isn't stupid. Perhaps the implementation needs to be fine tuned over time with respect to the content which gets fed into that channel. But they have to build it before they fine tune the content. It's a different window on the database. Why not ? The 'see also' channel is a potential marketing tool - it's going to sometimes work for us and sure it will probably sometimes go against us.

Some people think that it spoils the look and feel of the pages. Well I know that this is going to be a difficult thing for many people to acknowledge - but the look and feel of the site may be suffering from the mish mash of content in our description fields - lightboxes in all different styles etc. Pushing that lot down beneath the fold might be a good first step. Personally I keep wondering whether we really need a description field.

Why they thought that anyone doing a search and picking the image they wanted would want to see the irrelevant images they discarded again is inexplicable.

It is exactly analogous to a similar feature  on the web version of the Kindle bookstore - a feature which I use and which, I expect, many other people also use. There are always multiple ways to find what you are looking for.

Get the Best Match sorted. Penalise spamming and poor keywording. Give the crowd a financial incentive to wiki and act on it. When the search is poor, no manner of dressing up will help.

I might be wrong but I would doubt that they would be planning to sort out the keywords. I doubt that they are going to need to over time. Because with all new non-premium content on sale at the lowest price sales will decide relevancy*. Anyone searching by newest is going to get a mixture of often less relevant content but at much lower pricing. Buyers who choose to search by newest can probably do a better job on relevancy** than a relatively time consuming inspection process. Though my guess would be that exclusive content will get tighter keyword scrutiny for the moment at least.

*and quality
** ie building the relevancy data

I keep wondering whether we really need a description field.

For content which does not 'have' to be 'editorial' (so will be rejected as an editorial submission) but is most likely to be used in an editorial context, it's essential.

Quote from: ShadySue on August 13, 2013, 05:24

Quote from: bhr on August 13, 2013, 05:17

I keep wondering whether we really need a description field.

For content which does not 'have' to be 'editorial' (so will be rejected as an editorial submission) but is most likely to be used in an editorial context, it's essential.

I am not convinced that iStockphoto 2013 is a great outlet for uploading editorial content to other than product shots. By editorial - like you I mean content which is most likely to be used in an editorial context.

iStock for months has not been a good place to upload any new files, especially of subjects in popular genres/main keywords.

Of course you need description fields. The average designer is not an expert on all things. Not all photos are being marketed to the ignorant masses. It helps the designer sell the image to the client if he knows something about the image and has some words to go with it.

Surely if a picture needs a description then it should be properly captioned for editorial.

Not allowed if it doesn't 'have' to be editorial. I've had images thrown back and asked to remove some signs so that they could be submitted to the main collection, even though the pics would almost certainly only have editorial use.
In natural history, a description may be of help to an editorial buyer, even if there is no need for the image to be editorial. Also detailled descriptions of certain landscapes or cityscapes may help the buyer.
Finally, the similar images is above the caption of editorial pics, meaning that at least on my monitor, the caption can't be read without scrolling.

Anyway, it's buggy. The sort has been switching between the old drop down with all the options and the three boxes all day, and a while ago the strip was gone, then it was back.
Do they never, ever test properly in a sandbox before pushing live? (stupid question)

Descriptions matter more for images of places (not all of which are editorial) and some of wildlife or plants/trees. Putting them underneath their "similar" images is a disservice to buyers.

I have so few images left there I don't care, but I had spent a bunch of time organizing lightboxes of related (if not similar) images in ways I thought was helpful to buyers and thus to me (in terms of increased sales). No one will ever spend ten seconds doing anything like that any more in the current set up given where it's placed.

On top of which the new page design is butt ugly.

Fail, IMO

so long as you upload links of your own similars it shouldn't be too disastrous. think of it like this:

you've got 6 of the series and the buyer can see all six on one page, plus another 6 similar images (which hopefully includes a few of yours too), they may just decide that's as good as it gets and just pick one.

Maybe.

Sure the location, above my own list of similars, is annoying. but I did a few checks and on a few the list of similars was hilarious, surely convincing the buyer that mine was the best. the people ones are worse of course, so having your own links or lightboxes is going to be crucial.  they weren't all links to exclusive files either. (not yet  )

As a buyer I would like this. (I'd probably be unaware how limited the best match search is.)  I'm not going to hate it just cos it's iS.