Author Topic: The POWER of iStockPhoto -- market share analysis (Read 11185 times)

nicku · « **Reply #25 on:** May 14, 2012, 00:24 »

The Getty images ''group'' including IS and other agencies is more powerful than SS alone.... But SS is by faaaaar the best microstock agency.

luissantos84 · « **Reply #26 on:** May 29, 2012, 12:38 »

I guess this was talked here but I don´t remember/cannot find it, anybody knows how many buyers IS or SS has?

Lagereek · « **Reply #27 on:** May 29, 2012, 13:00 »

Really, its of zero interest which have the most turnover, profit, revenue, etc. The only thing of importance here is: which one is most gratifying to be with, which is the best for independants?

luissantos84 · « **Reply #28 on:** May 29, 2012, 13:40 »

Quote from: Lagereek on May 29, 2012, 13:00

Really, its of zero interest which have the most turnover, profit, revenue, etc. The only thing of importance here is: which one is most gratifying to be with, which is the best for independants?

that said I believe both SS and IS (we do enjoy/need money)

Skylinehunter · « **Reply #29 on:** June 04, 2012, 21:23 »

Quote from: jsnover on May 11, 2012, 19:44

Quote from: briciola on May 11, 2012, 19:28
Quote from: traveler1116 on May 11, 2012, 12:04
...with the changes in pricing for exclusive vs. nonexclusive the differences have been enhanced a lot. You would probably make a minimum of 4x what you make on IS as a nonexclusive, plus more for Vetta/Agency files, plus I think about 50% more for TS and the PP, plus mirrored Getty Images sales, and now the new E+ mirroring which on the face sounds good (we'll have to see how that plays out, I don't know if anything sells there but to me the E+ collection looks better than the Stockbyte collection).
I have to admit, with DT falling off a cliff, 123RF mainly subs, I dropped FT, stockfresh is dead in the water, veer seems a crock...I'm seriously thinking exclusive is the way to go for me - SS has never exceeded IS for me by any real margin, so these benefits are enticing...just so hard to get my head around submitting only to a company that i regard as incompotent and so bloody greedy

It was a very appealing proposition at one time - at least to me (I was exclusive from 2008 to 2011). I had thought/hoped it would take Getty longer to dismantle everything that was good about iStock for an exclusive than it did.

They are currently on a long march to 20% maximum for everyone on Getty - the latest fun there is moving exclusive plus to Getty in the Stockbyte collection (and possibly into Thinkstock as well given that a portion of Stockbyte is already there) and all of Stockbyte to iStock. The latter further dilutes earnings for real iStock contributors and the former pays you a flat 20% with no RCs (in other words all your sales there decrease your ability to earn a higher percentage for your sales on iStock). I won't reiterate the long list of things that has changed in the last two years that have materially altered the picture for exclusives, but I think the big problem with your plan is that what you sign up for today won't be the same in 6 months, 1 year, and on out. Very likely even if the business grows, the payouts to contributors will continue to shrink (as a percentage of the take). The bite from that will really be apparent as the continuing decline in volume of sales can't be made up for by jacking up prices yet again.

Having just made the transition back to independent from exclusive (June 2011 to now; I was previously independent from 2004 to 2008) I would just note that it's not an easy transition to make. Possible, but hard.

I am an Istockphoto exclusive. When I see some proof that I could make nearly as much being nonexclusive as an exclusive on Istockphoto (I'm talking at least an average return per image of at least a few dollars a month), or at least without a serious income hit, I would be happy to consider it. Yes it may be more safe to have photos on multiple websites, but I am not willing to take a huge hit in income. Even then though, the coordination needed to upload hundreds of images to several sites and track all their sales is a bit too much for me, vs being able to track all sales on one site (this was a major issue for me before I went exclusive many years ago.)

sharpshot · « **Reply #30 on:** June 05, 2012, 02:14 »

Quote from: Skylinehunter on June 04, 2012, 21:23

I am an Istockphoto exclusive. When I see some proof that I could make nearly as much being nonexclusive as an exclusive on Istockphoto (I'm talking at least an average return per image of at least a few dollars a month), or at least without a serious income hit, I would be happy to consider it.

I think it's going to be very hard to make the switch now. The other sites have become stricter with reviews than they were a few years ago. Getting sales going can take a long time for new contributors.

Quote

Yes it may be more safe to have photos on multiple websites, but I am not willing to take a huge hit in income. Even then though, the coordination needed to upload hundreds of images to several sites and track all their sales is a bit too much for me, vs being able to track all sales on one site (this was a major issue for me before I went exclusive many years ago.)

I don't find that a big problem. I can check the sales from the big sites in less than 2 minutes and I only check the smaller sites occasionally. Uploading with FTP is easy and most sites have made it quite simple to get images online. It's not like the tedious time consuming procedure that istock has.

cathyslife · « **Reply #31 on:** June 05, 2012, 06:51 »

And on the other side of the coin, istock is always shafting contributors over one thing or another, and I find that to be unacceptable. In recent years, that didn't happen with the some of the other sites.

As sharpshot said, things today are WAY different than they were a few years ago. If I were you, I would stay exclusive too. In fact, I think all of the exclusives at istock should stay exclusive. For sure you will take a money hit in the beginning but if you have confidence in your images, you would move past that. But I totally disagree with that whole "coordination and tracking to multiple sites" things. It's just not that time consuming. For me, trying to figure out how istock was screwing me on a daily basis was WAY more time consuming than uploading to multiple sites.

So everyone has their opinion. These opinions have been expressed over and over on this forum. Beat. Dead horse.

michaeldb · « **Reply #32 on:** June 05, 2012, 11:55 »

Quote from: sharpshot on June 05, 2012, 02:14

I think it's going to be very hard to make the switch now. The other sites have become stricter with reviews than they were a few years ago. Getting sales going can take a long time for new contributors.
Quote
Good point. And because of that eventually the selling of stock images will come down to a battle between two sides:
-Getty (and IS and its exclusives)
-independents at SS, DT, and the others

It is why I have stopped submitting to IS and have been removing image from there, even if it costs me money. We are making a mistake by feeding the hand that beats us.

Getty would love to have a monopoly of the RF image business and could achieve that. If it does, we independents will be out of business.