MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => iStockPhoto.com => Topic started by: lisafx on August 09, 2013, 11:07
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I was aware my sales at IS had increased, and money had decreased, but looking at the graphs side by side really brings the point home better than words... :o >:( :P
Photo downloads:
(http://www.pbase.com/lisafx/image/151740214/original.jpg)
Royalties for same period:
(http://www.pbase.com/lisafx/image/151740215.jpg)
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IS is ...
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Yikes, July looks ugly. Hopefully, that was an aberration and not the new normal.
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Yikes, July looks ugly. Hopefully, that was an aberration and not the new normal.
It's a direct result of the price changes. This is the new normal, since Istock claims the price changes are "forever".
If I only looked at the download graph I would think I had a windfall month!
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We'll never know for sure, but I have to believe this drop has been even worse for IS than for contributors - even the highest paid indies get only 20% and IS is seeing a huge drop in their take of indie sales.
Even if there's some uptick in some parts of the higher price collections, I wonder if it can really make up for the massive drop.
Perhaps they're hoping that as the busy season kicks in the volume will pick up, but looking at the July sales thread, even exclusives were saying the volumes of downloads were by and large down (and compared to several years ago way, way down). And reports have been that way for a long time now (even where money was up, download volume had dropped).
I think Ms Dow Jones may have missed the mark, but I'll be interested to see how this plays out over the busy fall season
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Yikes, July looks ugly. Hopefully, that was an aberration and not the new normal.
It's a direct result of the price changes. This is the new normal, since Istock claims the price changes are "forever".
If I only looked at the download graph I would think I had a windfall month!
That's what I was wondering if it was from the pricing changes. That's pretty disturbing. Maybe, the volume will eventually make up for it, but the initial results on your sales look bad. If money is their main objective, this wouldn't seem to be too positive for them either.
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cheaper prices - lower sales -"Only from IStock" -I have never seen such a self-destructive energy - in my life
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when a leading company start losing his top suppliers and employees it's the sign of an imminent downfall.
months, maybe years, but the cracks become more and more visible.
i remember when everyone in the IT dreamed about being hired at microsoft, now they all dream about google, apple, facebook, samsung ... microsoft or nokia or IBM are seen as secondo or third rate.
IS is on the same path and it's gotta be hard to get back on track, once a customer leave for greener pastures it's lost forever in most of the cases.
will they learn the lesson ? i don't think so .. there's an unbelievable arrogance in their announcements and newsletters, they really think they know better.
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cheaper prices - lower sales -"Only from IStock" -I have never seen such a self-destructive energy - in my life
cheaper prices are another obvious sign of desperation, and that's exactly what BlackBerry and Microsoft did recently with their mobile products having disappointing sales !
so how long before IS fully acknoledges its own downfall ? i would say another couple quarters (6 months) and you can bet they many heads will roll, a new leadership team will be announced with more mumbo jumbo and talks of past grandeur but it's too late now, the game is over for IS unless they do something radical, but what ? slashing prices even more ?
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Lots of bad karma at IS. :-X
when a leading company start losing his top suppliers and employees it's the sign of an imminent downfall.
months, maybe years, but the cracks become more and more visible.
i remember when everyone in the IT dreamed about being hired at microsoft, now they all dream about google, apple, facebook, samsung ... microsoft or nokia or IBM are seen as secondo or third rate.
IS is on the same path and it's gotta be hard to get back on track, once a customer leave for greener pastures it's lost forever in most of the cases.
will they learn the lesson ? i don't think so .. there's an unbelievable arrogance in their announcements and newsletters, they really think they know better.
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Just got 32 cents for a (small) sale......and $1.25 for an XL a couple of days ago (which is the most I've received for a single sale since the price change). Turning cartwheels.....
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Xanox@
,,,for IS - unless they do something radical, but what ? slashing prices even more ?
[/quote]
...all they have to do - is to .......
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...all they have to do - is to disappear - forever - - - - - -what a lesson !!!!
Will it? Has it made a difference so far?
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I was aware my sales at IS had increased, and money had decreased, but looking at the graphs side by side really brings the point home better than words... :o >:( :P
My own graphs are almost identical in shape. At least we can enjoy the rueful irony that IS are actually losing more than 4x the money that we are.
I'm guessing that IS really had little choice, but to take the painful medicine, in order to stay in the game. Unfortunately they probably haven't performed the operation skilfully enough to have the effect that they really need. 'Main' collection files are now cheaper than they need to be whilst the majority of exclusive files, at 10x more for a Medium image, appear over-priced relative to the Main collection. I can see buyers hoovering up the Main collection images (which at these prices does nobody any good) whilst ignoring the more expensive ones. That'll probably lead to more exclusives handing in their crowns ... and so on.
I think the future is going to be much worse for Istock though. I (stupidly) uploaded about 100 new images to IS a couple of months ago. Since then those images have garnered about 15 sales for a total of about $10. That works out at about 5c per image/month. Yes ... I really did say 5c/image/month. Most of the images don't appear to have appeared on the PP yet but the few that did have earned a paltry $5 more. I find that incredible. If the insultingly low royalties, on pathetically low prices, weren't enough disincentive to starve IS of new content then surely the lack of sales will be. I can't imagine why any independent contributor would bother to upload to IS again.
By way of comparison the 100 images uploaded to SS at about the same time have earned well over $200.
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....... I wonder if that's because with all the savings on nonexclusive files buyers are able to spend more on exclusive content, are other exclusives seeing a raise in RPD?
You're welcome.....glad to help out. ;)
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Interesting and horrific graph...
As a low volume exclusive, my monthly graphs show a decline in D/Ls (currently about half of the January levels) ...
The corresponding revenue graphs are more or less flat, but I do not draw any comfort from that ... the day-on-day sales volume is very volatile, showing many days without a single D/L....
My personal opinion is that this is an inevitable underlying effect of the massive dilution of the collection, without a corresponding increase in demand... with added-on impacts of the collection price changes, as customers recognize the massive price differentials... plus best match tinkering also has an (unquantifiable, but [for me] mainly negative) impact...
Wish I could find some positives to offer, but it is two in the morning and even a few beers can't provide inspiration.
Happy Weekend, One and All
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istock will win this game not now but next year when half contributors will dropp one or two royalty levels
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istock will win this game not now but next year when half contributors will dropp one or two royalty levels
They'll lose in the long run as many of those contributors that drop royalty levels will follow suit by dropping their crowns; or, maybe that's what they (iStock) want.
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are other exclusives seeing a raise in RPD?
No, my July RPD was 20% down on the average of Jan - June and my August looks similar. Of course, my actual dls are down to such a level as to be 'statistically irrelevant' probably.
Here's my stats as an exclusive. To put in perspective, my January started at half the $$ of my BME. So my sales and $$ are shooting down, despite many of my pics being demoted to main. I guess buyers see 'only from iStock' and assume they're more expensive. The few which have sold as main were seasonal, unusual/unique in subject and would have sold at S. Plus I'm definitely not happy about quite a number of promoted images which didn't deserve to be made S+, and are now dead.
(http://www.lizworld.com/stats0813.jpg)
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I was aware my sales at IS had increased, and money had decreased, but looking at the graphs side by side really brings the point home better than words... :o >:( :P
My own graphs are almost identical in shape. At least we can enjoy the rueful irony that IS are actually losing more than 4x the money that we are.
I'm guessing that IS really had little choice, but to take the painful medicine, in order to stay in the game. Unfortunately they probably haven't performed the operation skilfully enough to have the effect that they really need. 'Main' collection files are now cheaper than they need to be whilst the majority of exclusive files, at 10x more for a Medium image, appear over-priced relative to the Main collection. I can see buyers hoovering up the Main collection images (which at these prices does nobody any good) whilst ignoring the more expensive ones. That'll probably lead to more exclusives handing in their crowns ... and so on.
I think the future is going to be much worse for Istock though. I (stupidly) uploaded about 100 new images to IS a couple of months ago. Since then those images have garnered about 15 sales for a total of about $10. That works out at about 5c per image/month. Yes ... I really did say 5c/image/month. Most of the images don't appear to have appeared on the PP yet but the few that did have earned a paltry $5 more. I find that incredible. If the insultingly low royalties, on pathetically low prices, weren't enough disincentive to starve IS of new content then surely the lack of sales will be. I can't imagine why any independent contributor would bother to upload to IS again.
By way of comparison the 100 images uploaded to SS at about the same time have earned well over $200.
^^Great post. Sorry (but not surprised) to hear you are in the same boat.
Thanks for posting about the fate of your most recent uploads. Occasionally I have entertained the idea of resuming uploading to Istock in order to grab whatever pennies I can from the PP, but the fate of your recent files has made it clear what a waste of time that would be.
Istock has done nothing more than shoot themselves in the foot once again. Without any incentive to upload, they can add a stale collection to the myriad other reasons for buyers to look elsewhere.
For once I agree with Xanox. This looks like a company in its death throes, even despite their snagging Yuri.
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For once I agree with Xanox. This looks like a company in its death throes, even despite their snagging Yuri.
well, actually iStock is not a total disaster, not at all, but they're competing with an agency like Shutterstock which keeps delivering and proved they really know what they're doing.
technically, SS hired a very good software team, a very good management team, and they had a clear long-term vision from day one and a very aggressive marketing plan.
all these factors combined make them the industry leader and rightly so.
i can't see how IS can possibly make a U-turn anytime soon considering it won't be long before yet another re-org will be launched inside the company and that means more confusion and more employees leaving the company, including the few ones left who have experience in the industry.
we don't know and we can't exclude that Getty's plan was to destroy IS or at least to keep it at bay, but looking from the outside it looks like a sick company micro-managed by people that downplayed how hard is to sell images in the actual cut-throat market.
after all IS has been pumped so much in order to raise the whole value of Getty Images when they sold the whole company, IS was probably the jewel of the crown with impressive net returns and growth expectation, once the sale was done they faced the hard reality and now they're reaping what they sow.
solutions ? not many, the product is still good but the buyers are decreasing constantly, how do they plan to earn buyers' confidence back after backstabbing both buyers and photographers for years ?
once a company earns such a bad reputation it's game over, see how hard is for microsoft now to sell anything having to do with Windows on mobile platforms, see how hard Yahoo is struggling to survive, and how Apple keeps losing market share as they stopped innovating after Jobs' death.
what we're witnessing now is that web-based companies can raise very fast thank to the internet but also crash and burn equally fast, Facebook is next on the list and will join the long list of former market leaders like MySpace, Friendster, Digg, that now are worthless.
if we look at their example, they made all the mistakes IS is doing right now, not listening to users, redesigning and launching new half baked web sites, doing a big mess and failing to notice the competitors were about to crush them in 6-12 months.
istock's future is probably to be relegated into a market niche along with Photos.com and Thinkstock.
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Same graph here with August set to look even worse. As each month goes by, IS are starting to smell more and more like The Walking Dead of the industry.
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They're probably still doing OK because they've got rid of the upload limits. They're still getting a huge supply of images from people that don't care about making money and I don't think that will stop. They'll lose more buyers that liked their smaller collection that had higher QC but they'll gain ones that are attracted to the bigger cheaper collection.
Most contributors are going to see a commission cut, as its almost impossible to keep up with the RC levels. Some will leave or stop uploading but they will be replaced by those that don't care.
The only good news for non-exclusives is that SS seems to be doing well but now it feels like being 80% exclusive with them and that's not comfortable for me.
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My graph shape is very similar too.
Will it continue to go down?
Or should we consider (hope) that it is only a moment of adjustment after the setting of new prices?
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My graph shape is very similar too.
Will it continue to go down?
Or should we consider (hope) that it is only a moment of adjustment after the setting of new prices?
Don't you think getting rid of the low upload limits they used to have and reducing the review standards is also a factor? Istock is swamped by low commercial value images now. The search might sort that out if it works well but otherwise buyers will have a lot of images to wade through. I think that has already lead to earnings dilution, as it has with every other site I've used that has had a big increase in the collection. That can be very hard to recover from.
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My graph shape is very similar too.
Will it continue to go down?
Or should we consider (hope) that it is only a moment of adjustment after the setting of new prices?
Don't you think getting rid of the low upload limits they used to have and reducing the review standards is also a factor?
Yes, I have even open a thread about that…
http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/what-is-happening-to-istock-is-it-the-end/ (http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/what-is-happening-to-istock-is-it-the-end/)
But I have no answer, I am new on microstocks and I have not a great experience.
In fact mine was a question (Will it continue to go down?) not an answer ;)
But I have a certain experience of life and this experience tells me: "only time will say".
Two months to make conclusion about such a change are a little short I think.
And I think that we must consider too that july and august are probably not the best months to make some statistics as a lot of customers could be in vacation.
But I repeat I am new on microstocks and I did not understood yet how things move (fast, slow, or what else).
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I am confused on this restructure. First according to Lobo it is not finished, but when they say we will get an update it doesn't happen. Next we had another GM change and the new GM might not like some of the changes that were in the pipe so now who knows. I am amazed at the so called "professionals" that run this company. They said communication was important and bam now hardly any from them except Lobo. I would be thrilled if they pulled an ace out and people come running back but I just can't see it at the moment.
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Two months to make conclusion about such a change are a little short I think.
And I think that we must consider too that july and august are probably not the best months to make some statistics as a lot of customers could be in vacation.
But I repeat I am new on microstocks and I did not understood yet how things move (fast, slow, or what else).
Historically there was a 'summer slump' for many contributors, but those who have been selling for some years can also compare figures from previous July-Augusts, and in many cases, that comparison isn't reassuring (from July sales posts on iS and here).
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My stats look very much like Lisa's :(
This is the closest I've ever been quitting IS. Their cumbersome (and slow!) upload system is just too much work considering that their earnings have dropped dramatically and I also hate them deeply. I haven't been able to stop uploading there because the earnings from IS have been a significant part of my income. As it looks now, they make me only 10 to 15% of my earnings. I really could afford quitting this time (and I would of course leave my portfolio there to earn some small change)
I'll wait for a couple more months, and if they downhill continuess I will stop uploading there (what a relief that would be!)
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The final factor in this whole IS debacle will be to see how many levels we drop after Dec 31, 2013 and if that makes back anything near what they are losing today by cutting prices/commissions. Looking at my numbers it looks like I will EASILY drop two levels from my current 17%. To my eye, it Just doesn't look like they can make up enough revenue through the upcoming drop in levels. This tells me, as some of you have pointed out, that IS is changing their game plan, expectations, etc simply to be able to keep the business afloat until:
1. They realize a gain from the levels drop
2. They attract more customers with the low pricing
3. Make up some degree of revenue losses through customer volume rising, purchasing frequency
4. Lost margins, to a degree, made up by revenue enhancement to yield a dollar profit amount similar to the "good ol days. For example (this is completely fictitious), they used to make a $1M bucks in sales, and profit $100K (10% margin). Now they would have to get $1.5M in sales to net $100K in profits (6.7% margin). Still getting their $100K but at a much higher sales volume to get there.
Something along these lines and I suspect they will see if this works and make more changes accordingly. If the damage is irreversible they wil have to accept low profits and/or have to find a trick to remove their "FOREVER" pricing and maybe raise prices again using some form of marketing/contributor trickery.
Has anyone noticed that IS hasn't said a thing about the RC levels throughout all of these changes? They're not because I believe it is a HUGE part of their plan, and perhaps the most painful to contributors. If they have addressed it I haven't seen it.
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Two months to make conclusion about such a change are a little short I think.
And I think that we must consider too that july and august are probably not the best months to make some statistics as a lot of customers could be in vacation.
But I repeat I am new on microstocks and I did not understood yet how things move (fast, slow, or what else).
Historically there was a 'summer slump' for many contributors, but those who have been selling for some years can also compare figures from previous July-Augusts, and in many cases, that comparison isn't reassuring (from July sales posts on iS and here).
Yes, you are right. Good point.
But I don't know if during the previous years similar changes happened, and to be able to compare we need to reason on similar bases (and they are different).
We should not compare the last years trend with the present one but the last years trend with the present one considering the influence of the actual changes.
My concern is: do these changes have a temporary effect or will they have a permanent one?
I continue to think that it is (maybe) a little soon to draw definitive conclusions (I like to be optimist, as I can).
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What would worry me is that the RC targets for photos are still listed as maximum 30%. I know they said it was a bug in the facebookgroup. But it is really simple thing to change if they wanted to. What if they are trying to lock in new exclusives to these rates?
I mean, those who go exclusive now, have signed on with these rates visible, don't they? And then next year make these the targets for everyone....
I know it doesn't affect me, but it is a concern I keep hearing.
The new prices are so low, they must be losing a lot of money. And with the floodgates opened for low quality content, why pay out more than 30% on the base contract? They can always offer a higher rate on individual contracts if they really want your work.
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My stats look very much like Lisa's :(
This is the closest I've ever been quitting IS. Their cumbersome (and slow!) upload system is just too much work considering that their earnings have dropped dramatically and I also hate them deeply. I haven't been able to stop uploading there because the earnings from IS have been a significant part of my income. As it looks now, they make me only 10 to 15% of my earnings. I really could afford quitting this time (and I would of course leave my portfolio there to earn some small change)
I'll wait for a couple more months, and if they downhill continuess I will stop uploading there (what a relief that would be!)
In a couple more months, you'll probably put it off until the new year. Why wait? It feels so good not uploading there. Putting up with such a low commission percentage and that tedious upload was really getting to me. I'm amazed so many non-exclusive people still bother. Removing my 500 best images felt good too but stopping uploads is a good first step.
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It looks like LisaFX copied my sales graph. :-[
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I think the future is going to be much worse for Istock though. I (stupidly) uploaded about 100 new images to IS a couple of months ago. Since then those images have garnered about 15 sales for a total of about $10. That works out at about 5c per image/month. Yes ... I really did say 5c/image/month.
I have uploaded fewer than you have, but out of curiosity I decided to do the math. I found that over the last several months the images I have uploaded to IS have been worth about 6 cents per image per month. The same amount uploaded at Dreamstime has returned more than 5x the IS results, and believe me DT has not been gangbusters for me.
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Just out of curiosity, what would YOU do to turn around IStock if you had the chance to steer the ship?
It is rather presumptuous to assume anything without knowledge of what the books truly look like. But my goal would be to restore contributor confidence and make IS the #1 destination for future uploads. Why? Because
1) I want the best images available
2) Happy Contributors upload more, and recommend that customers purchase from my agency
3) People who are treated well tend to be more productive and take more pride in their future work than those who feel unappreciated.
I would begin by immediately pushing up contributor commissions and completely eliminating the RC/crown system. Set non-exclusives at a 30% commission rate, probably similar to or higher than SS and just below DT. That would be a huge message that things have drastically changed in favor of artists. Commission rates would be even higher than they were during the Bruce era. Push exclusives into the 35% to 40% range, and try to come up with added incentives to keep them around.
Secondly I would hire a team to completely revamp the uploading procedure. Even if I feel a need to keep categories, I need to decide if the merits of my own keywording system are not enough to overcome the snag in the upload process. My goal is get the upload procedure at least as efficient as DT, and hopefully SS.
Third, I would swallow my idiotic pride and humbly ask Sean to return with his full portfolio. I would acknowledge that he, and many others, were treated unfairly when they fought against the Google fiasco. Regardless of how much they rocked the boat, their position had strong merit.
Fourth, I would make a decision about the forum. The current forum is a mess, and buyers see it. If the forum is going to remain a Gestapo run cesspool, then it is going to give us a bad image. Why continue wasting company resources on it? Either clean up the forum and its administrators, or simply eliminate it. Where is there a rule that says a stock agency has to have a forum?
I may be a Pollyanna and I don't know what their books look like. But I think that if they shocked contributors with this type of goodwill, they would see a stampede of people returning to them. The goodwill would likely slowly spread back to the buying community, just as all of the bad will in recent years soured it.
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Just out of curiosity, what would YOU do to turn around IStock if you had the chance to steer the ship?
It is rather presumptuous to assume anything without knowledge of what the books truly look like. But my goal would be to restore contributor confidence and make IS the #1 destination for future uploads. Why? Because
1) I want the best images available
2) Happy Contributors upload more, and recommend that customers purchase from my agency
3) People who are treated well tend to be more productive and take more pride in their future work than those who feel unappreciated.
I would begin by immediately pushing up contributor commissions and completely eliminating the RC/crown system. Set non-exclusives at a 30% commission rate, probably similar to or higher than SS and just below DT. That would be a huge message that things have drastically changed in favor of artists. Commission rates would be even higher than they were during the Bruce era. Push exclusives into the 35% to 40% range, and try to come up with added incentives to keep them around.
Secondly I would hire a team to completely revamp the uploading procedure. Even if I feel a need to keep categories, I need to decide if the merits of my own keywording system are not enough to overcome the snag in the upload process. My goal is get the upload procedure at least as efficient as DT, and hopefully SS.
Third, I would swallow my idiotic pride and humbly ask Sean to return with his full portfolio. I would acknowledge that he, and many others, were treated unfairly when they fought against the Google fiasco. Regardless of how much they rocked the boat, their position had strong merit.
Fourth, I would make a decision about the forum. The current forum is a mess, and buyers see it. If the forum is going to remain a Gestapo run cesspool, then it is going to give us a bad image. Why continue wasting company resources on it? Either clean up the forum and its administrators, or simply eliminate it. Where is there a rule that says a stock agency has to have a forum?
I may be a Pollyanna and I don't know what their books look like. But I think that if they shocked contributors with this type of goodwill, they would see a stampede of people returning to them. The goodwill would likely slowly spread back to the buying community, just as all of the bad will in recent years soured it.
All good points. But, they make too much sense and will never happen; any of them.
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They already bumped up commissions, at least for some people (like me), and it doesn't seem to have helped. They tried the half-price sale for a day and got feedback from contributors that while downloads were up, earnings were down, and they rolled the darned thing out anyway. And by promising "forever," they're now locked in to a bad decision.
If I were them, I'd look at what my successful competitors were doing and emulate that....along with hiring away some of the people that spearheaded that success. At the very least they need someone new to oversee and revamp their IT department, because everything about the site is painfully slow and always chock full of glitches.
But I'm not sure the investment corporation that owns them is particularly interested in their success.
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Just out of curiosity, what would YOU do to turn around IStock if you had the chance to steer the ship?
It is rather presumptuous to assume anything without knowledge of what the books truly look like. But my goal would be to restore contributor confidence and make IS the #1 destination for future uploads. Why? Because
1) I want the best images available
2) Happy Contributors upload more, and recommend that customers purchase from my agency
3) People who are treated well tend to be more productive and take more pride in their future work than those who feel unappreciated.
I would begin by immediately pushing up contributor commissions and completely eliminating the RC/crown system. Set non-exclusives at a 30% commission rate, probably similar to or higher than SS and just below DT. That would be a huge message that things have drastically changed in favor of artists. Commission rates would be even higher than they were during the Bruce era. Push exclusives into the 35% to 40% range, and try to come up with added incentives to keep them around.
Secondly I would hire a team to completely revamp the uploading procedure. Even if I feel a need to keep categories, I need to decide if the merits of my own keywording system are not enough to overcome the snag in the upload process. My goal is get the upload procedure at least as efficient as DT, and hopefully SS.
Third, I would swallow my idiotic pride and humbly ask Sean to return with his full portfolio. I would acknowledge that he, and many others, were treated unfairly when they fought against the Google fiasco. Regardless of how much they rocked the boat, their position had strong merit.
Fourth, I would make a decision about the forum. The current forum is a mess, and buyers see it. If the forum is going to remain a Gestapo run cesspool, then it is going to give us a bad image. Why continue wasting company resources on it? Either clean up the forum and its administrators, or simply eliminate it. Where is there a rule that says a stock agency has to have a forum?
I may be a Pollyanna and I don't know what their books look like. But I think that if they shocked contributors with this type of goodwill, they would see a stampede of people returning to them. The goodwill would likely slowly spread back to the buying community, just as all of the bad will in recent years soured it.
I'd get rid of the exclusive contract in it's present form, and offer the option for exclusive images or maybe exclusive shoots (this to prevent people putting similars elsewhere).
I'd abandon all the scams, and put some effort into demonstrating that IS is a company that can be trusted.
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I'd get rid of the exclusive contract in it's present form, and offer the option for exclusive images or maybe exclusive shoots (this to prevent people putting similars elsewhere).
I'd abandon all the scams, and put some effort into demonstrating that IS is a company that can be trusted.
Great idea. I think I'd appoint you as the next GM of Istock.
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. But I think that if they shocked contributors with this type of goodwill, they would see a stampede of people returning to them. The goodwill would likely slowly spread back to the buying community, just as all of the bad will in recent years soured it.
Trouble is, no-one trusts them now. They made promises before, then reneged on them.
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Just out of curiosity, what would YOU do to turn around IStock if you had the chance to steer the ship?
It is rather presumptuous to assume anything without knowledge of what the books truly look like. But my goal would be to restore contributor confidence and make IS the #1 destination for future uploads. Why? Because
1) I want the best images available
2) Happy Contributors upload more, and recommend that customers purchase from my agency
3) People who are treated well tend to be more productive and take more pride in their future work than those who feel unappreciated.
I would begin by immediately pushing up contributor commissions and completely eliminating the RC/crown system. Set non-exclusives at a 30% commission rate, probably similar to or higher than SS and just below DT. That would be a huge message that things have drastically changed in favor of artists. Commission rates would be even higher than they were during the Bruce era. Push exclusives into the 35% to 40% range, and try to come up with added incentives to keep them around.
Secondly I would hire a team to completely revamp the uploading procedure. Even if I feel a need to keep categories, I need to decide if the merits of my own keywording system are not enough to overcome the snag in the upload process. My goal is get the upload procedure at least as efficient as DT, and hopefully SS.
Third, I would swallow my idiotic pride and humbly ask Sean to return with his full portfolio. I would acknowledge that he, and many others, were treated unfairly when they fought against the Google fiasco. Regardless of how much they rocked the boat, their position had strong merit.
Fourth, I would make a decision about the forum. The current forum is a mess, and buyers see it. If the forum is going to remain a Gestapo run cesspool, then it is going to give us a bad image. Why continue wasting company resources on it? Either clean up the forum and its administrators, or simply eliminate it. Where is there a rule that says a stock agency has to have a forum?
I may be a Pollyanna and I don't know what their books look like. But I think that if they shocked contributors with this type of goodwill, they would see a stampede of people returning to them. The goodwill would likely slowly spread back to the buying community, just as all of the bad will in recent years soured it.
I'd get rid of the exclusive contract in it's present form, and offer the option for exclusive images or maybe exclusive shoots (this to prevent people putting similars elsewhere).
I'd abandon all the scams, and put some effort into demonstrating that IS is a company that can be trusted.
The idea of image exclusivity was discussed to death in the forums. Doesn't sound like it will be happening.
Too bad, too. I suspect it would encourage some, like myself, who have dropped the crown to commit certain images exclusively to iStock and to begin uploading again.
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And by promising "forever," they're now locked in to a bad decision.
Don't worry, their promises ("you will be grandfathered in") and their statements ("only from iStock") don't mean what we might think is implied by a promise or statement.
Also, their promise is '1/2 of our imagery, half of the price with credits', so even if they mean it as a promise, only commits them to making sure that half of their imagery (which excludes audio, what about video or flash?) costs twice as much if you pay with cash.
Alternatively, the vast lowering of standards is resulting in an increase in the collection, most of which will seldom sell, and will be safely in the 1/2 price band for ever.
Or they could think of some other way of interpreting it.
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Let's wait... "Smart girl' Rebbecca & Lobo are looking for jobs?
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I think that the biggest problem with istock is that it doesn't exist anymore. The name is still there but that's it. Almost everything about the site has changed in the past 5 years. Its just part of Getty, they keep the name, like they've kept the name of some of the other sites they've assimilated.
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I may be a Pollyanna and I don't know what their books look like. But I think that if they shocked contributors with this type of goodwill, they would see a stampede of people returning to them. The goodwill would likely slowly spread back to the buying community, just as all of the bad will in recent years soured it.
I tend to agree with doing it positive. I think IS or DT seem to be in the best situation to actually be the contributor's choice agency, but so far they have taken steps in the opposite direction.
If I ran it, I might get rid of the exclusive program and pay everyone 40% or 50%. Simplify the pricing (for real). Maybe an $8, $16 and $24 size pricing. Then, probably add back in a premium collection of some sort. Maybe not though. Fixing the upload system definitely makes sense too. Maybe, just do it a simple FTP and have reviewers categorize images and make adjustments to titles and descriptions.
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I think that the biggest problem with istock is that it doesn't exist anymore. The name is still there but that's it. Almost everything about the site has changed in the past 5 years. Its just part of Getty, they keep the name, like they've kept the name of some of the other sites they've assimilated.
There is a certain, painful (and yet somehow glorious) truth in what you say there. Istockphoto, as we once knew it, really doesn't exist at all. They are now a third, forth or even fifth level agency struggling to maintain their revenue. Greedy wankers. Serves them right!
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in every other industry they try to slash suppliers' costs to cut costs, why micro should be any different ?
we're a cost, not a scarce resource that needs to be incentivized and paid properly, IS is not a boutique agency with hard to find specialists.
yeah, they've probably noticed many contributors have stopped uploading but their management welcomed the idea of lowering the bar to allow fresh low quality images getting in.
from an agency's perspective, it's all about quantity and freshness of the archive, and in any case they're the ones putting the money on the table and investing in advertising to find new buyers, we're suppliers and our role is limited and low-risk.
as i said before, their biggest problem is the competition from SS which is now market leader, so either now they realistically accept the situation and settle for the nr.2 spot or i don't see many other options at the horizon.
by the way, it's possible that Getty knew pretty well that this would have been the obvious outcome, after all they've no grand plans to make Photos.com or Thinkstock the market leaders ... they're happy to keep them as second/third tier lowcost agencies for clients that occasionally need some cr-ap and have low budgets.
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It looks like LisaFX copied my sales graph. :-[
In reality, to save some money, iStock uses the same graph for everybody :D
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Some nice ideas to turn the company around in the above posts but it looks from the outside as though the bean counters and MBA types have control. Sadly, as with so many American and European companies in the past decade these guys think profit is about slashing costs and fiddling with their product/price.
Stuff like marketing, sales, building competitive advantage, market share and trust - basically putting the customer before the shareholder is so old-school and takes time. Plus its hard to do and they're not up to it.
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I've seen a drop of 50% in the average sale commission from June to July and it's getting worse in August!
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in every other industry they try to slash suppliers' costs to cut costs, why micro should be any different ?
we're a cost, not a scarce resource that needs to be incentivized and paid properly, IS is not a boutique agency with hard to find specialists.
You are wrong. You can produce - let's say - potatoes, and negotiate their price. But in microstock world some potatoes sell 1000 times more than other potatoes. Everyone wants to sell those potatoes.
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in every other industry they try to slash suppliers' costs to cut costs, why micro should be any different ?
we're a cost, not a scarce resource that needs to be incentivized and paid properly, IS is not a boutique agency with hard to find specialists.
You are wrong. You can produce - let's say - potatoes, and negotiate their price. But in microstock world some potatoes sell 1000 times more than other potatoes. Everyone wants to sell those potatoes.
blame the agencies for that.
they know very well the 20/80 rule, but business concepts and other top sellers are paid exactly like any other random low-selling image.
there's nothing to negotiate with micro agency, it's a "take it or leave it" affair.
even Yuri finally gave up and moved to getty/IS and he's doing lifestyle/business/concepts which are among the top sellers, if he can't negotiate a decent payout, who will ?
in any case something's gotta change sooner or later as the whole idea of selling micro is being destroyed by decreasing sales .. the deal was to sell cheap but to sell many times, now you only sell cheap ... that's a dealbreaker and they've no way to "fix" it as they should create an artificial undersupply in their own archive.
so the whole model is broken from the ground up and soon sales will be as scarce as in RM.
what will agencies do ? nothing in my opinion, they will just wait and see, all they need to stay in business is a constant supply of new images, old contributors will be replaced by new happy snappers who've no idea about how it all works and are thrilled at the idea of getting 30 cents for a download.
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there's nothing to negotiate with micro agency, it's a "take it or leave it" affair.
even Yuri finally gave up and moved to getty/IS and he's doing lifestyle/business/concepts which are among the top sellers, if he can't negotiate a decent payout, who will ?
What on earth makes you imagine that Yuri didn't negotiate a very favourable deal? We know already that he gets excusive benefits while not having to be in any 'normal/usual' sense 'exclusive'.
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Great thread. I've got a graph that looks like yours with a large drop in sales and income.
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What on earth makes you imagine that Yuri didn't negotiate a very favourable deal? We know already that he gets excusive benefits while not having to be in any 'normal/usual' sense 'exclusive'.
because in the end he realized he could make more money with getty/IS alone.
so it's obvious any kind of special deal he could have negotiated with SS & friends was still nowhere near what he's earning from Getty now.
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What on earth makes you imagine that Yuri didn't negotiate a very favourable deal? We know already that he gets excusive benefits while not having to be in any 'normal/usual' sense 'exclusive'.
I assumed that was what he was upset about with the rest of them. He tried to negotiate with all of them and only IS was listening.
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What on earth makes you imagine that Yuri didn't negotiate a very favourable deal? We know already that he gets excusive benefits while not having to be in any 'normal/usual' sense 'exclusive'.
I assumed that was what he was upset about with the rest of them. He tried to negotiate with all of them and only IS was listening.
That was my point.
Or that iStock's deal was better.
I remember a few years back he posted on his blog that submitters should always negotiate with agencies, but when questioned about that on msg, he said Getty/iS 'of course' didn't negotiate terms. That was then.
He was always good at getting deals or being sponsored (once he got an enormous lighting bank from one of the companies, another time he was doing feature videos via one of the smaller sites). Of course, he will always go where he gets the best deal. That's what comes with being a 'brand' (euphemism).
This is now.
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Same graph here with August set to look even worse. As each month goes by, IS are starting to smell more and more like The Walking Dead of the industry.
Agreed, except without the high entertainment value :)
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Just out of curiosity, what would YOU do to turn around IStock if you had the chance to steer the ship?
It is rather presumptuous to assume anything without knowledge of what the books truly look like. But my goal would be to restore contributor confidence and make IS the #1 destination for future uploads. Why? Because
1) I want the best images available
2) Happy Contributors upload more, and recommend that customers purchase from my agency
3) People who are treated well tend to be more productive and take more pride in their future work than those who feel unappreciated.
I would begin by immediately pushing up contributor commissions and completely eliminating the RC/crown system. Set non-exclusives at a 30% commission rate, probably similar to or higher than SS and just below DT. That would be a huge message that things have drastically changed in favor of artists. Commission rates would be even higher than they were during the Bruce era. Push exclusives into the 35% to 40% range, and try to come up with added incentives to keep them around.
Secondly I would hire a team to completely revamp the uploading procedure. Even if I feel a need to keep categories, I need to decide if the merits of my own keywording system are not enough to overcome the snag in the upload process. My goal is get the upload procedure at least as efficient as DT, and hopefully SS.
Third, I would swallow my idiotic pride and humbly ask Sean to return with his full portfolio. I would acknowledge that he, and many others, were treated unfairly when they fought against the Google fiasco. Regardless of how much they rocked the boat, their position had strong merit.
Fourth, I would make a decision about the forum. The current forum is a mess, and buyers see it. If the forum is going to remain a Gestapo run cesspool, then it is going to give us a bad image. Why continue wasting company resources on it? Either clean up the forum and its administrators, or simply eliminate it. Where is there a rule that says a stock agency has to have a forum?
I may be a Pollyanna and I don't know what their books look like. But I think that if they shocked contributors with this type of goodwill, they would see a stampede of people returning to them. The goodwill would likely slowly spread back to the buying community, just as all of the bad will in recent years soured it.
Dan, I wish you were running Getty/Istock. If you were, they might have a prayer of survival. Unfortunately, I think the folks running the show are still misguidedly looking only at next quarter's profits.
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I'm very very unhappy with this unproductive site. It has been months since i've stopped uploading. OP is definitely right, this is probably it ,IS nailed it's own coffin. If sales continue this way in a few months, i will have no choice but the remove my port from the site. No point of having more downloads figure while income slumped.
p/s- Fingers crossed , i think this will be the only month i'm not able to cash out after all these years being with IS
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Just completed my mid-month analysis and Istock have dropped out of the Big 4 for the first time since 2009 - now in 5th place behind DP. Also I've just recorded a download for 12 cents - that is daylight robbery, pure and simple.
For my own peace of mind I won't be uploading or following their progress for the foreseeable future. Evidently my energy and creativity are best deployed elsewhere.
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Just out of curiosity, what would YOU do to turn around IStock if you had the chance to steer the ship?
It is rather presumptuous to assume anything without knowledge of what the books truly look like. But my goal would be to restore contributor confidence and make IS the #1 destination for future uploads. Why? Because
1) I want the best images available
2) Happy Contributors upload more, and recommend that customers purchase from my agency
3) People who are treated well tend to be more productive and take more pride in their future work than those who feel unappreciated.
I would begin by immediately pushing up contributor commissions and completely eliminating the RC/crown system. Set non-exclusives at a 30% commission rate, probably similar to or higher than SS and just below DT. That would be a huge message that things have drastically changed in favor of artists. Commission rates would be even higher than they were during the Bruce era. Push exclusives into the 35% to 40% range, and try to come up with added incentives to keep them around.
Secondly I would hire a team to completely revamp the uploading procedure. Even if I feel a need to keep categories, I need to decide if the merits of my own keywording system are not enough to overcome the snag in the upload process. My goal is get the upload procedure at least as efficient as DT, and hopefully SS.
Third, I would swallow my idiotic pride and humbly ask Sean to return with his full portfolio. I would acknowledge that he, and many others, were treated unfairly when they fought against the Google fiasco. Regardless of how much they rocked the boat, their position had strong merit.
Fourth, I would make a decision about the forum. The current forum is a mess, and buyers see it. If the forum is going to remain a Gestapo run cesspool, then it is going to give us a bad image. Why continue wasting company resources on it? Either clean up the forum and its administrators, or simply eliminate it. Where is there a rule that says a stock agency has to have a forum?
I may be a Pollyanna and I don't know what their books look like. But I think that if they shocked contributors with this type of goodwill, they would see a stampede of people returning to them. The goodwill would likely slowly spread back to the buying community, just as all of the bad will in recent years soured it.
My friend although this would be nice! Any one believes this really can happen in microstock now! would need committing ;-) you would need to change all stock sites.
People are moaning about the drop in revenue but I bet your selling on Shutterstock and happy with your 25 a day sales!
It's sad to stay that what has probably screwed the industry up, are the contributors! We work hard and product some amazing images/art and unfortunately (me included) we upload it to many sites! We are as much to blame as the agencies. How can istock sell a photo that can be bought elsewhere for half the price?! if we were more exclusive then price would be less of an issue. Apart from the Google issue which Google and istock should be made to pay a massive fine to all artists involved. why are we are just having a pop at istock? Those that really wanted to change things walked away from istock early this year, totally respect to those guys.
I'm sure that most customers using our imagines don't know or care about all this politics and certainly don't ready our forums! They are busy doing their thing and looking to buy images for the lowest cost!
I’m sure folks will wish to rant at my post, I’m not happy about the current situation in the industry but this is just how it is. The real problem is i and i'm sure the agencies, don't know how to bring back the glory days :-\ I’m sure this is why they need yuri (only at istock) makes sense exclusive is the only way to drive prices back up.
One thing is for sure with istock dropping its though review policy are work is being lost in rubbish snaps :(
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Just completed my mid-month analysis and Istock have dropped out of the Big 4 for the first time since 2009 - now in 5th place behind DP. Also I've just recorded a download for 12 cents - that is daylight robbery, pure and simple.
For my own peace of mind I won't be uploading or following their progress for the foreseeable future. Evidently my energy and creativity are best deployed elsewhere.
And this will only get worse in January when nearly everyone's payout level drops. I believe that we've only seen one part of the commission cuts and we'll see w hole new slue of threads in Feb 2014 about how IS screwed everyone by not adjusting the RC levels commensurate with the commission cuts.
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istock will win this game not now but next year when half contributors will dropp one or two royalty levels
iStock will win when story will be over as with Stocxpert, and all buyers will be redirected to getty and thinkstock...
It is expensive for Getty to have double infrastructure...
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as much as i'm convinced exclusivity brings no added value in microstock, agencies like iStock have all the data we can't access and they can judge in real time what's going on, if they haven't killed exclusivity yet it can only mean that somehow they're profiting from it.
same goes for these absurd RC rules and the whole idiotic ranking in diamonds silver/black/gold/uranium ...
so, what's next ? buyers are moving to greener pastures it seems, no matter if IS is aggressively advertising on Adsense etc, the competitors are doing the same (even Yuri, search "stock photos" and there's a paid link to People Images).
i'm afraid their downfall is imminent at this point because it means their loyal buyers are lost forever and they're not going back anytime soon, and why they should anyway ?
it looks like a deja vu of Quark vs Adobe actually ...
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People are moaning about the drop in revenue but I bet your selling on Shutterstock and happy with your 25 a day sales!
I actually have a higher RPD with SS than I do with IS. Which I never would have believed possible just last year.
I'm seeing a slowdown at SS too. It's simple mathematics. My old material continues to sell, but at a predictably lower rate (off by 5 or 10% since last year) because so much new material has been added. But my new images don't sell, at all. So there is no way for me to maintain income, and no longer incentive to upload.
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They don't want seem to want exclusives and they definitely don't want new files. A 'marker' file I got accepted yesterday and went into my port within the last couple of hours (i.e. it wasn't showing in the search earlier) is already down at 28 out of 391 files. Extrapolated, that would mean if it was a sexy businesswoman, it would already be off the top 200 in the best match. I'm going to try to remember to chart its best match position daily.
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I haven't looked too closely at my graphs in a while but I was surprised to find that my RPD had gone over $10 for July and August. I'm not sure if it's ever been that high before and I seem to be getting more ELs than I would normally get. I wonder if that's because with all the savings on nonexclusive files buyers are able to spend more on exclusive content, are other exclusives seeing a raise in RPD?
Yes, RPD is now well over $10. It happened with the E+ to S+ switch by moving a bunch of content up levels.
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We work hard and product some amazing images/art and unfortunately (me included) we upload it to many sites!
I've stopped this. Now, I just need everyone else to get on board. ;)
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Another kick in the goolies for iS and exclusives:
"Come on! I need a post-it note photo, do a search, plenty come up. The one I like is 40 credits for a 'large' version - and ranges from 30 to 55 credits for various print resolution versions. 40 credits for a post-it note photo? This is not photography at its highest level. It's a post-it note. After 10 years on this site, I think its time to explore other options!"
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=355636&messageid=6926658 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=355636&messageid=6926658)
It was probably a good-selling exclusive file which stupidly got promoted by the formula rather than by the tog's greed.
Wonder if they'll have any answer other than 'use the slider', actively directing sales away from exclusives (other than those with demoted post-it photos), and that tog has lost a sale s/he might have got at S.
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Well, if the one he likes is 40 credits, that's what the cost is. If it's more important that it doesn't cost 40 credits, then he can pick a cheaper one.
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Well, if the one he likes is 40 credits, that's what the cost is. If it's more important that it doesn't cost 40 credits, then he can pick a cheaper one.
besides, he could snap the photo himself with his iphone and good luck with that.
how hard is to shot a photo of a post-it on your desk ??
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Well, if the one he likes is 40 credits, that's what the cost is. If it's more important that it doesn't cost 40 credits, then he can pick a cheaper one.
besides, he could snap the photo himself with his iphone and good luck with that.
how hard is to shot a photo of a post-it on your desk ??
From iStock's point of view, how many simple post-it's are going to sell at that price point.
My point was not particularly sympathy with the buyer - my first thought was 'use the slider', the second as mentioned 'photo your own'.
My sympathy was with the exclusive who is (and in fact the several exclusives who are) lmost certainly going to find it difficult to sell many of these files at S+ prices, where they have probably been put outwith their control.
Here are the 1692 S+ files of post-its:
http://www.istockphoto.com/search/text/sticky%20note/filetype/photos/source/basic#f9d4ac5 (http://www.istockphoto.com/search/text/sticky%20note/filetype/photos/source/basic#f9d4ac5)
http://www.istockphoto.com/search/text/sticky%20note/filetype/photos/source/basic#1fd2e661]and here are the 6211 Main post-its:
[url]http://www.istockphoto.com/search/text/sticky%20note/filetype/photos/source/basic#1fd2e661 (http://and here are the 6211 Main post-its:
[url)[/url]
As collections in general, and not nitpicking odd pics from either collection, IMO this is a great illustration (among many) of the lie in why they created the collections:
"Why?:
To simplify the collections and have the flexibility to present customers with the right content at the right price point. Here are a few specifics:
- It’s not always easy for customers to see why one file is priced differently from another.
- We want to make this connection clearer and easier to understand.
- The fact that exclusive content is generally priced higher than non-exclusive is not always justified by the image ... "
http://www.istockphoto.com/article_view.php?ID=1535 (http://www.istockphoto.com/article_view.php?ID=1535)
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Lisa's graphs are proof for me. IS has gone to hell.
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To simplify the collections and have the flexibility to present customers with the right content at the right price point. Here are a few specifics:
- It’s not always easy for customers to see why one file is priced differently from another.
- We want to make this connection clearer and easier to understand.
- The fact that exclusive content is generally priced higher than non-exclusive is not always justified by the image ... "
[url]http://www.istockphoto.com/article_view.php?ID=1535[/url] ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/article_view.php?ID=1535[/url])
Ha!!!! ::) :o ;D Right. So now they think they've made it easy to see why one file is priced differently than another? We've already seen enough examples to see why that is a real LOL. And by so doing, they have also (not coincidentally) made it impossible to even tell that one file is priced differently from another (without using the slider, or clicking on each file), now that the icons are gone.
Yet another perfect, bang-up job brought to you by iStock.
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Well, if the one he likes is 40 credits, that's what the cost is. If it's more important that it doesn't cost 40 credits, then he can pick a cheaper one.
What surprised me, when I did a search on 'post-it note', is how many images depict a piece of yellow paper ... secured by a drawing pin. Isn't that missing the point of what 'post-it notes' are and how they're supposed to work?
It was actually the invention of a 'glue that doesn't stick to anything' that led to the 'post-it note' being developed by 3M.
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Well, if the one he likes is 40 credits, that's what the cost is. If it's more important that it doesn't cost 40 credits, then he can pick a cheaper one.
What surprised me, when I did a search on 'post-it note', is how many images depict a piece of yellow paper ... secured by a drawing pin. Isn't that missing the point of what 'post-it notes' are and how they're supposed to work?
It was actually the invention of a 'glue that doesn't stick to anything' that led to the 'post-it note' being developed by 3M.
Is that you, Sherlock?