MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => iStockPhoto.com => Topic started by: Beppe Grillo on June 15, 2013, 02:24
-
What is the future of iStock? (Okay nobody knows, but…)
When I started with iStock a few months ago it was quite difficult to get photos accepted.
Many were rejected for reasons often valid, but sometimes at the limit of valid, and sometimes for absurd reasons.
For some time (after that the upload limit became 999 I think) photos seemed to be accepted very more easily.
At some point I felt that the only rejections were the (possible) lack of "Property Release", or similar.
So I did some tests:
First I sent pictures that were rejected a few months ago. All were accepted without any problem.
Then I pushed a bit and I sent pictures whose quality was questionable. All accepted.
I pushed the envelope further, I sent blurry pictures, moved, noisy, with artifacts, etc.. All accepted
I did it again with others of the same kind ... All accepted .........
My conclusion is that now iStock accepts everything and anything ...
This is not good news I think
Is it only my impression or other forum's users feel the same?
-
Thats very weird. Has the fine-print changed at all?
-
I also tried with previously rejected files and every one of them got approved.
-
I recall somewhere reading that there strict criteria was being reduced - might have related to raster images - it does ring a bell
-
I just can't believe the number of changes there's been with istock over the last 5 years. It seems that everything the site stood for has been obliterated. Most of the changes seem to be detrimental to contributors. With this latest policy, it seems inevitable that contributors earnings will be diluted. Buyers are going to be put off by the low quality images. If they wanted to save istock, they should go back to how it was when it was popular with buyers and contributors but I think its probably beyond repair now.
-
The reduction in quality now accepted and the apparent total disregard in many cases for title, keyword and description suggests they have some sort of 'evil plan' for the future - maybe geared towards lauching a huge Value Bin a few months down the line.
But my guesses are usually wildly off the mark.
-
buyers are not forever.
while iStock was sleeping the competitors won their buyers one by one, it costed time and money but now it's too late for the IS management to suddenly make a U-turn.
what where they thinking scre-wing up both loyal buyers and contributors for the last 5 years ?
in microstock both buyers and sellers are a lot more wired to each other than in macro/RM.
designers are often also producers and photographers, if you scr-ew them they will buy elsewhere and sell elsewhere and tell all their friends and clients to do so, simple as that, see why SS is booming and IS is tanking.
-
I still got plenty rejections not so long ago. How bad must my images be then? Maybe I need to resubmit now.
-
The reduction in quality now accepted and the apparent total disregard in many cases for title, keyword and description suggests they have some sort of 'evil plan' for the future - maybe geared towards lauching a huge Value Bin a few months down the line.
But my guesses are usually wildly off the mark.
lowering the overall quality is a good thing, in the long run it would set micro where it belongs.
it makes no business sense to provide a product on par with macro/RF and sell it a tenth of the price.
i'm all for Flickr-like image quality and bad keywording, that's what in the real world a 1$ image should be worth.
dont like it ? then pay more for a higher priced collection or stick to RM.
win-win situation for me.
-
I agree up to a point but Istock really has gone from one extreme to the other - wonder if lots of buyers will be asking for refunds when they look at these images at full size?
-
The reduction in quality now accepted and the apparent total disregard in many cases for title, keyword and description suggests they have some sort of 'evil plan' for the future - maybe geared towards lauching a huge Value Bin a few months down the line.
But my guesses are usually wildly off the mark.
lowering the overall quality is a good thing, in the long run it would set micro where it belongs.
it makes no business sense to provide a product on par with macro/RF and sell it a tenth of the price.
i'm all for Flickr-like image quality and bad keywording, that's what in the real world a 1$ image should be worth.
dont like it ? then pay more for a higher priced collection or stick to RM.
win-win situation for me.
Luckily most of the other sites don't think like that. Buyers would soon give up on microstock if the quality was abysmal. There's nothing wrong selling for $1 if you can sell lots of times. I'd still rather have 150x$1 than 1x$100. Unfortunately you'll never understand that, far too complicated for a macrosaur :)
So this latest istock policy is probably going to lose them more buyers but I think they'll probably go to other microstock sites, not to RM. If they're used to paying lower prices or don't have the money to spend on the higher priced sites, they're not going to start using Getty.
-
I will clearly have to try my luck! From my first shoot i have some wonderful out of focus, noisy, underexposed images.
-
Luckily most of the other sites don't think like that. Buyers would soon give up on microstock if the quality was abysmal. There's nothing wrong selling for $1 if you can sell lots of times. I'd still rather have 150x$1 than 1x$100. Unfortunately you'll never understand that, far too complicated for a macrosaur :)
So this latest istock policy is probably going to lose them more buyers but I think they'll probably go to other microstock sites, not to RM. If they're used to paying lower prices or don't have the money to spend on the higher priced sites, they're not going to start using Getty.
Every one of the images that I resubmitted were accepted and sell at the other 12 other sites that I upload to so in my opinion shouldn't have been rejected at IS in the first place.
-
Luckily most of the other sites don't think like that. Buyers would soon give up on microstock if the quality was abysmal. There's nothing wrong selling for $1 if you can sell lots of times. I'd still rather have 150x$1 than 1x$100. Unfortunately you'll never understand that, far too complicated for a macrosaur :)
So this latest istock policy is probably going to lose them more buyers but I think they'll probably go to other microstock sites, not to RM. If they're used to paying lower prices or don't have the money to spend on the higher priced sites, they're not going to start using Getty.
Every one of the images that I resubmitted were accepted and sell at the other 12 other sites that I upload to so in my opinion shouldn't have been rejected at IS in the first place.
Their standards were too high at one time but judging by what people are saying in this thread and some of the examples I've seen, they don't have any now. It's a shame they've gone from one extreme to the other. Perhaps they're just accepting everything to get the queue down but that's not a good idea.
-
Maybe they just want to flood the search at lower pricepoints with crap files, to make buyers push it up to buy more expensive quality files?
-
Luckily most of the other sites don't think like that. Buyers would soon give up on microstock if the quality was abysmal. There's nothing wrong selling for $1 if you can sell lots of times. I'd still rather have 150x$1 than 1x$100. Unfortunately you'll never understand that, far too complicated for a macrosaur :)
So this latest istock policy is probably going to lose them more buyers but I think they'll probably go to other microstock sites, not to RM. If they're used to paying lower prices or don't have the money to spend on the higher priced sites, they're not going to start using Getty.
Every one of the images that I resubmitted were accepted and sell at the other 12 other sites that I upload to so in my opinion shouldn't have been rejected at IS in the first place.
Their standards were too high at one time but judging by what people are saying in this thread and some of the examples I've seen, they don't have any now. It's a shame they've gone from one extreme to the other. Perhaps they're just accepting everything to get the queue down but that's not a good idea.
I agree that it's a shame but I rarely put anything up unlesss it is more or less perfect or different engough from everything else that a slight imperection could be over looked and Iused to get really annoyed at their silly rejections. They can't seem to get anything they do right these days if they are going so far the other way.
-
Luckily most of the other sites don't think like that. Buyers would soon give up on microstock if the quality was abysmal. There's nothing wrong selling for $1 if you can sell lots of times. I'd still rather have 150x$1 than 1x$100. Unfortunately you'll never understand that, far too complicated for a macrosaur :)
So this latest istock policy is probably going to lose them more buyers but I think they'll probably go to other microstock sites, not to RM. If they're used to paying lower prices or don't have the money to spend on the higher priced sites, they're not going to start using Getty.
Every one of the images that I resubmitted were accepted and sell at the other 12 other sites that I upload to so in my opinion shouldn't have been rejected at IS in the first place.
Their standards were too high at one time but judging by what people are saying in this thread and some of the examples I've seen, they don't have any now. It's a shame they've gone from one extreme to the other. Perhaps they're just accepting everything to get the queue down but that's not a good idea.
I agree that it's a shame but I rarely put anything up unlesss it is more or less perfect or different engough from everything else that a slight imperection could be over looked and Iused to get really annoyed at their silly rejections. They can't seem to get anything they do right these days if they are going so far the other way.
I agree with you, and personally I try to do the same.
I have already deactivated most of the "bad" images that I have uploaded, as I have uploaded these images only to make some kind of test. (I don't know if using Delete from DeepMeta will completely remove the image from the site?)
The problem is that if iStock will continue to accept anything, even the images of very bad quality, the good and the best images will finish to disappear in a kind of big melt of images without any value…
-
Luckily most of the other sites don't think like that. Buyers would soon give up on microstock if the quality was abysmal. There's nothing wrong selling for $1 if you can sell lots of times. I'd still rather have 150x$1 than 1x$100. Unfortunately you'll never understand that, far too complicated for a macrosaur :)
So this latest istock policy is probably going to lose them more buyers but I think they'll probably go to other microstock sites, not to RM. If they're used to paying lower prices or don't have the money to spend on the higher priced sites, they're not going to start using Getty.
we will see.
if we look at how it all started, buyers only came to micros because of the ridicolously low prices, they never gave a sh-it about quality in the first years of iStock.
the actual micro quality is very good, even too good in some cases.
i don't think the average buyer will notice a big difference if iStock starts relaxing a bit the QC.
i see no reason why clients should leave in droves, the only mass migration so far has been from IS to SS, but never back to RM.
price is still king for the sort of cheap-as-s micro buyers, they would even pay 1$ for Flickr snapshots if they could.
-
The problem is that if iStock will continue to accept anything, even the images of very bad quality, the good and the best images will finish to disappear in a kind of big melt of images without any value…
that's the price to pay to keep the archive "fresh".
-
Luckily most of the other sites don't think like that. Buyers would soon give up on microstock if the quality was abysmal. There's nothing wrong selling for $1 if you can sell lots of times. I'd still rather have 150x$1 than 1x$100. Unfortunately you'll never understand that, far too complicated for a macrosaur :)
So this latest istock policy is probably going to lose them more buyers but I think they'll probably go to other microstock sites, not to RM. If they're used to paying lower prices or don't have the money to spend on the higher priced sites, they're not going to start using Getty.
Every one of the images that I resubmitted were accepted and sell at the other 12 other sites that I upload to so in my opinion shouldn't have been rejected at IS in the first place.
Their standards were too high at one time but judging by what people are saying in this thread and some of the examples I've seen, they don't have any now. It's a shame they've gone from one extreme to the other. Perhaps they're just accepting everything to get the queue down but that's not a good idea.
I agree that it's a shame but I rarely put anything up unlesss it is more or less perfect or different engough from everything else that a slight imperection could be over looked and Iused to get really annoyed at their silly rejections. They can't seem to get anything they do right these days if they are going so far the other way.
I agree with you, and personally I try to do the same.
I have already deactivated most of the "bad" images that I have uploaded, as I have uploaded these images only to make some kind of test. (I don't know if using Delete from DeepMeta will completely remove the image from the site?)
The problem is that if iStock will continue to accept anything, even the images of very bad quality, the good and the best images will finish to disappear in a kind of big melt of images without any value…
Using delete from DeepMeta will not affect the image on the site in any way. You have to deactivate them online.
-
I like headlines like this.
-
I make more money on BS than on IS. The reason why that is significant is because my BS port is a whopping 8 images and my IS port is 84 images :o for a newbie istock is a waste of time... I get getting zero traffic on my IS images.
-
I make more money on BS than on IS. The reason why that is significant is because my BS port is a whopping 8 images and my IS port is 84 images :o for a newbie istock is a waste of time... I get getting zero traffic on my IS images.
With so little images any selling data has not meaning at all.
-
I agree that it's a shame but I rarely put anything up unlesss it is more or less perfect or different engough from everything else that a slight imperection could be over looked and Iused to get really annoyed at their silly rejections. They can't seem to get anything they do right these days if they are going so far the other way.
Funny that, from the other end of the food chain, I do exactly the same. I don’t believe there’s much technically wrong with what I submit to MS – certainly pretty much everything gets accepted at SS, DT and FT so either IS was right and everyone else wrong or they were just ridiculously picky about certain types of submissions. I’m sort of tempted to send in a few recent images that were accepted everywhere else and which they haven’t yet had an opportunity to reject, just to test the waters. The P+ thing is annoying me a bit but was getting a couple of payouts a year there with 25 images (that is definitely past tense) but, bad as they are now, a few hundred images might yield DT / FT level returns which is still better than the mickey mouse sites.
-
I make more money on BS than on IS. The reason why that is significant is because my BS port is a whopping 8 images and my IS port is 84 images :o for a newbie istock is a waste of time... I get getting zero traffic on my IS images.
With so little images any selling data has not meaning at all.
It could be the best 84 images the world has ever seen. I know a few ports with only a couple hundred images that rake in the money. Its all relative.
-
When I started with iStock a few months ago it was quite difficult to get photos accepted.
...
My conclusion is that now iStock accepts everything and anything ...
This is not good news I think
Is it only my impression or other forum's users feel the same?
At a little over 3 years (and roughly 750 each of uploads and downloads), I still consider myself newbie to microstock. I'm scratching my head to figure out how/why you are drawing any kind of conclusions based on a few months of experience.
-
Dear IS and SS (and especially the former) please stop accepting EVERYTHING. It is disheartening for photographers to do their best when you accept a series of 20 images of the same author and subject and good quality images get buried.
SS - over 120,00 images during the last week alone? This is too much.
IS, I am seeing a lot of images with questionable quality being accepted. Some exclusives can't even keep up with the numbers competition. People with beautiful portfolios and 2000 images over six years can't upload 200 images per week as the quality of their portfolio will suffer.
You are creating an unhealthy competition with a focus on quantity over quality (and the falling sales stemming from that). That is why specialised agencies like Stocksy will do better as their quality control is still very high. Do something now. Please.
-
that was fun soundworks, believe it would be interesting to hear SS and IS regarding this matter, actually I believe we all know the answer (half million submissions at IS in the last 25 days), asking them to stop or saying please is just ridiculous sorry, believe you should know they have the fork and the cheese, too bad but stocksy ain't the salvation
-
and here I thought I was getting better (almost 100% Acceptance Rate) in my photography skills only to find out out that my photos still suck but they will take them anyway... :(
-
When I started with iStock a few months ago it was quite difficult to get photos accepted.
...
My conclusion is that now iStock accepts everything and anything ...
This is not good news I think
Is it only my impression or other forum's users feel the same?
At a little over 3 years (and roughly 750 each of uploads and downloads), I still consider myself newbie to microstock. I'm scratching my head to figure out how/why you are drawing any kind of conclusions based on a few months of experience.
1) my (personal) conclusion is that *now* iStock accepts everything and anything. And this seems to be confirmed by some users with a lot of more experience than me about iStock, answering to this thread.
2) if you read well the last sentence you will see that it is a question. This means that I am not quite sure of my (personal) conclusion, and this is the reason why I ask to other people with more experience about microstocks than me what they think about it, and if their conclusions are similar to mine.
3) nobody is perfect ;)
-
I hereby propose that Leaf should change the title of this section to "Top Tier - Big 3.5".
DoI: I've got a tiny port at iS but it's doing OK relative to its size because of the PP sales. RPI is just shy of $1 per year. But as soon as I make payout...
-
There's only a top 1 for me, the rest are way behind. Looking at the poll results, it looks like that's the same for most non-exclusives now. It feels like being almost exclusive with SS and I really don't like that. They've been good to me but I liked istock at one point and that all changed. So I'll be spending the rest of the year working mostly on my non-microstock portfolio on alamy and doing more video clips for Pond5.
-
Is this recent acceptance really the right way up?
http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-25071293-buenos-aires-argentina.php?st=1a678e9 (http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-25071293-buenos-aires-argentina.php?st=1a678e9)
(My comment is only about the orientation.)
-
I make more money on BS than on IS. The reason why that is significant is because my BS port is a whopping 8 images and my IS port is 84 images :o for a newbie istock is a waste of time... I get getting zero traffic on my IS images.
With so little images any selling data has not meaning at all.
It reflects what I see as the performance of new images on iStock. A lot of them never even get viewed (possibly entering the search on the second, third or fourth page because exclusive files are reviewed quicker) and then they just vanish down into the depths of the search. If nobody ever sees them it doesn't matter a fig whether they are brilliant or rubbish.
The upload date default is actually a severe distortion of the search. Files should appear by approval date, not by upload date. That way at least they could hope for a few seconds on the first page of the most recent search, which might get a sale, which might give them a chance to battle into contention on best match.
-
.
-
Is this recent acceptance really the right way up?
[url]http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-25071293-buenos-aires-argentina.php?st=1a678e9[/url] ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-25071293-buenos-aires-argentina.php?st=1a678e9[/url])
(My comment is only about the orientation.)
Of course, Buenos Aries is about 90 degrees down the left hand side of the world. Didn't you know that?
-
Is this recent acceptance really the right way up?
[url]http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-25071293-buenos-aires-argentina.php?st=1a678e9[/url] ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-25071293-buenos-aires-argentina.php?st=1a678e9[/url])
(My comment is only about the orientation.)
Of course, Buenos Aries is about 90 degrees down the left hand side of the world. Didn't you know that?
8)
I had serious doubts about the orientation of a group of photos which was accepted last week, but it was 'marginally debatable' as there wasn't a definite ground or sky or other obvious feature in the images.
-
Is this recent acceptance really the right way up?
[url]http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-25071293-buenos-aires-argentina.php?st=1a678e9[/url] ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-25071293-buenos-aires-argentina.php?st=1a678e9[/url])
(My comment is only about the orientation.)
Of course, Buenos Aries is about 90 degrees down the left hand side of the world. Didn't you know that?
8)
I had serious doubts about the orientation of a group of photos which was accepted last week, but it was 'marginally debatable' as there wasn't a definite ground or sky or other obvious feature in the images.
I have taken the precaution of grabbing a screen shot of that .... don't really know why. Maybe to remind myself that the inspectors are always right.
I see stuff going through now with no composition, no subject, no (not limited) commercial value, severely under-exposed .... everything. I'm just completely bemused by it. It seems to be like Flickr where anybody can dump whatever they like,
-
I'm afraid I've posted that pic in the "incredibly fast inspection" thread so it probably won't be around for long.
-
I'm afraid I've posted that pic in the "incredibly fast inspection" thread so it probably won't be around for long.
Indeed, it's already 'not available for download'.
-
I've just looked at another port via a 'cheers for quick inspection' post and it's another that looks like a series of stills from a celluloid movie. Even in a 'spot the difference' competition some of them would leave one flummoxed.
In answer to the OP: I haven't a clue, but it must be significant of something.
-
I'm afraid I've posted that pic in the "incredibly fast inspection" thread so it probably won't be around for long.
Indeed, it's already 'not available for download'.
And I got a sitemail telling me my post was deleted and I "should know better" than to post someone else's work in the forum.
Lol!
I wrote back pointing out it was the inspector I was criticising, not the photographer. Perhaps I'll get banned again.
Oh, Kelvin did say that the file had already been "earmarked for deletion" so perhaps Lobo had picked it up from this thread already.
-
^^
I saw a note from EvilClown that it had been accepted in error and the inspector had notified it. They must have changed the system, because I remember at least once having an acceptance which was cancelled within a couple of minutes, so 'presumably' then an inspector could him/herself cancel a genuine error.
-
Having looked at some other photos I have to conclude that there must be quite a number of inspector "mis-clicks" (as they are apparently called) awaiting correction.
-
The upload date default is actually a severe distortion of the search. Files should appear by approval date, not by upload date. That way at least they could hope for a few seconds on the first page of the most recent search, which might get a sale, which might give them a chance to battle into contention on best match.
This is exactly the way it works, and has for a long time. With such large differences in approval time now, it's very easy to see. Do any popular search (e.g., 'business') and look at the results sorted by age. Exclusive file numbers start with 252, indies with 251 or 250.
-
The upload date default is actually a severe distortion of the search. Files should appear by approval date, not by upload date. That way at least they could hope for a few seconds on the first page of the most recent search, which might get a sale, which might give them a chance to battle into contention on best match.
This is exactly the way it works, and has for a long time. With such large differences in approval time now, it's very easy to see. Do any popular search (e.g., 'business') and look at the results sorted by age. Exclusive file numbers start with 252, indies with 251 or 250.
Yup, I had a batch of Scout-overturned files last week, and they're showing as my most recent by Age, even though they were uploaded a couple of months ago.
-
The upload date default is actually a severe distortion of the search. Files should appear by approval date, not by upload date. That way at least they could hope for a few seconds on the first page of the most recent search, which might get a sale, which might give them a chance to battle into contention on best match.
This is exactly the way it works, and has for a long time. With such large differences in approval time now, it's very easy to see. Do any popular search (e.g., 'business') and look at the results sorted by age. Exclusive file numbers start with 252, indies with 251 or 250.
Ah, well, I'm not paying close enough attention then. To be honest, I spend hardly any time looking at iStock other than looking at my latest sale list.
-
First I sent pictures that were rejected a few months ago. All were accepted without any problem.
Then I pushed a bit and I sent pictures whose quality was questionable. All accepted.
I pushed the envelope further, I sent blurry pictures, moved, noisy, with artifacts, etc.. All accepted
I did it again with others of the same kind ... All accepted .........
My conclusion is that now iStock accepts everything and anything ...
This is not good news I think
This is great fodder for my upcoming talk to designers which includes a slide about the different aesthetics of various RF agencies.
The other thing it has me wondering is where Getty stands on Inspectors. They are paid, so they are a cost center to be reduced. I have friends who are Inspectors and I don't want to see that happen! If it did, I think you would see more of iStock's best moving on from exclusivity.
Getty must consider, if inspection standards at iStock become virtually nil, no reason to pay skilled people to evaluate images and you can outsource checking model releases. Inspectors on the other hand might be inspecting so quickly now because with lower standards, possibly make up for lost sales by rapid clicking tons of new content in. If they are instructed to lower standards that naturally speeds up their pace.
-
How are Istock getting around the model release requirements? Lots of the indies flooding the site with their back catalogues of work may not be able to upload a shiny new Istock release for each shoot because it was not required prior to Sept. 2009.
Have they also relaxed the model release rules? Not relevant to me, but I am curious if they've relaxed them after being such hard a$se$ for so long. I remember what a PITA it was to get a release for every single time I shot my husband or daughter... :P
-
How are Istock getting around the model release requirements? Lots of the indies flooding the site with their back catalogues of work may not be able to upload a shiny new Istock release for each shoot because it was not required prior to Sept. 2009.
Have they also relaxed the model release rules? Not relevant to me, but I am curious if they've relaxed them after being such hard a$se$ for so long. I remember what a PITA it was to get a release for every single time I shot my husband or daughter... :P
The back catalogues aren't necessarily of models. Can't answer your exact question, but there are release rejections:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=354189&messageid=6900631 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=354189&messageid=6900631)
I also had a rejection for needing a PR; no PR was needed, but I had to bother someone unnecessarily to get evidence of that, and it's now with Scout.
-
How are Istock getting around the model release requirements? Lots of the indies flooding the site with their back catalogues of work may not be able to upload a shiny new Istock release for each shoot because it was not required prior to Sept. 2009.
Have they also relaxed the model release rules? Not relevant to me, but I am curious if they've relaxed them after being such hard a$se$ for so long. I remember what a PITA it was to get a release for every single time I shot my husband or daughter... :P
I'd imagine that most of 'indies flooding the site with their back-catalogue' are the image factories such as MBI and the like. They probably use their own generic MR and will likely be highly organised with their paperwork too (unlike me!). Most of them upload to hundreds of agencies as it is so they need to be organised.
If IS can 'relax' the exclusivity arrangements for Yuri then I'm sure they can find a way of relaxing the rules for other big players too. A nod's as good as a wink to a blind man, as they say.
-
If they raised the commission for distributors they would get more of both. Quality and Quantity.
It's the last try to avoid the inevitable step...raise contributors earnings.
it will happen...
-
So istock morons still want a model release with every handful of shots? That was one of the big reasons why I stopped bothering with that site.
-
If they raised the commission for distributors they would get more of both. Quality and Quantity.
It's the last try to avoid the inevitable step...raise contributors earnings.
it will happen...
I agree that they need to raise commission percentages but I can't see them doing it. They've only been thinking about how to make as much money as possible from the site in the short term. They didn't consider how damaging all these changes would be. To change strategy now, they would have to admit that they got it wrong and I just don't see them doing that. Istock can't be sold off, as its too integrated with Getty, so there's no chance of getting new owners that are more focused on a good long term strategy.
-
How are Istock getting around the model release requirements? Lots of the indies flooding the site with their back catalogues of work may not be able to upload a shiny new Istock release for each shoot because it was not required prior to Sept. 2009.
Have they also relaxed the model release rules? Not relevant to me, but I am curious if they've relaxed them after being such hard a$se$ for so long. I remember what a PITA it was to get a release for every single time I shot my husband or daughter... :P
No that is the only thing that they haven't relaxed. I haven't had a single technical refusal but have had a few for model releases.
-
The upload date default is actually a severe distortion of the search. Files should appear by approval date, not by upload date. That way at least they could hope for a few seconds on the first page of the most recent search, which might get a sale, which might give them a chance to battle into contention on best match.
This is exactly the way it works, and has for a long time. With such large differences in approval time now, it's very easy to see. Do any popular search (e.g., 'business') and look at the results sorted by age. Exclusive file numbers start with 252, indies with 251 or 250.
Yup, I had a batch of Scout-overturned files last week, and they're showing as my most recent by Age, even though they were uploaded a couple of months ago.
If you get theasis' latest browser script
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=352385&page=1 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=352385&page=1)
There's an option to order your upload page by approval date. Just hover over the blue "DL" button the script gives you at the top of the page for options.
-
How are Istock getting around the model release requirements? Lots of the indies flooding the site with their back catalogues of work may not be able to upload a shiny new Istock release for each shoot because it was not required prior to Sept. 2009.
Have they also relaxed the model release rules? Not relevant to me, but I am curious if they've relaxed them after being such hard a$se$ for so long. I remember what a PITA it was to get a release for every single time I shot my husband or daughter... :P
No, I don't think, last week they asked me tree times a MR for photos already provided with a MR…
They asked me a property release for some images of church (asked for some of them, but not for all of them… [same church of course])
They refused me one photo because of "This file contains legible information such as names, signatures, license plates, phone numbers, identification numbers, etc. "… In fact there was a board with written "Please close the door" on a door………
-
I'm afraid I've posted that pic in the "incredibly fast inspection" thread so it probably won't be around for long.
Indeed, it's already 'not available for download'.
And I got a sitemail telling me my post was deleted and I "should know better" than to post someone else's work in the forum.
Lol!
I wrote back pointing out it was the inspector I was criticising, not the photographer. Perhaps I'll get banned again.
Oh, Kelvin did say that the file had already been "earmarked for deletion" so perhaps Lobo had picked it up from this thread already.
Well, here's another sideways acceptance:
http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-25071502-buenos-aires-argentina.php?st=bf10631 (http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-25071502-buenos-aires-argentina.php?st=bf10631)
Maybe it's the Next Big Thing after instagrams.
-
Maybe it's like sideways video for vertical ad display on monitors?
-
And the lighting on that... I would have deleted it from my camera, if I'd even bothered to take it in the first place.
Please, iStock, put your standards back in place. I can handle rejections...
-
And the lighting on that... I would have deleted it from my camera, if I'd even bothered to take it in the first place.
Please, iStock, put your standards back in place. I can handle rejections...
You guys are just being mean now.
I mean, come on, isn't this a perfectly wonderful image of Highway one:
http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-25106230-highway-one.php?st=3d83e3b (http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-25106230-highway-one.php?st=3d83e3b)
Perhaps some of the other half dozen in that port titled "Highway one" aren't quite this good, but they're all fine examples that I'm sure Getty is proud to have in their collection.
-
And the lighting on that... I would have deleted it from my camera, if I'd even bothered to take it in the first place.
Please, iStock, put your standards back in place. I can handle rejections...
You guys are just being mean now.
I mean, come on, isn't this a perfectly wonderful image of Highway one:
[url]http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-25106230-highway-one.php?st=3d83e3b[/url] ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-25106230-highway-one.php?st=3d83e3b[/url])
Perhaps some of the other half dozen in that port titled "Highway one" aren't quite this good, but they're all fine examples that I'm sure Getty is proud to have in their collection.
He hasn't got any sales yet. Probably because of his keywording.
-
Not the end for me, the change put a lot of my images in higher catagories and I am better off for it!
-
Not the end for me, the change put a lot of my images in higher catagories and I am better off for it!
Unless the buyers, who weren't informed about the changes in advance, vote with their feet and move once their current credit bundle expires.
Conversely, I had two photos of the same subject taken on different days with very different lighting, previously both just E files. One has sold steadily, and was made S+. The other had no sales and was demoted to Main.
The demoted one got its first sale this morning.
But we cannot know:
Did that one sell only because it was in the Main collection?
Would the buyer have bought it or the other one at S price, but not S+ price (so both iS and I have lost out).
If my file hadn't been in the Main, would the buyer have bought one of the several indie files in the Main collection, so iS would have made more?
All imponderables.
-
And the lighting on that... I would have deleted it from my camera, if I'd even bothered to take it in the first place.
Please, iStock, put your standards back in place. I can handle rejections...
You guys are just being mean now.
I mean, come on, isn't this a perfectly wonderful image of Highway one:
[url]http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-25106230-highway-one.php?st=3d83e3b[/url] ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-25106230-highway-one.php?st=3d83e3b[/url])
Perhaps some of the other half dozen in that port titled "Highway one" aren't quite this good, but they're all fine examples that I'm sure Getty is proud to have in their collection.
You're right, but I don't mean to be critical of the contributor - I'm as guilty as anyone of trying to get a picture when the lighting just isn't right.
I just wouldn't have expected iStock to accept it. I've often uploaded a borderline image if it's the best I have, but I usually do it without any great expectations and no small surprise if it gets accepted. My complaint is with them apparently dropping their standards so drastically, after making such a big deal of their strict requirements in the past.
-
I just wouldn't have expected iStock to accept it. I've often uploaded a borderline image if it's the best I have, but I usually do it without any great expectations and no small surprise if it gets accepted. My complaint is with them apparently dropping their standards so drastically, after making such a big deal of their strict requirements in the past.
It's a total mystery, and I'm sure there's a Dark Plan behind it.
-
Ok that they have lowered the criteria for their selection but why they are accepting the whole series from the same shoot.. this will badly affect those who have a habit of sending selected 1-2 images only from a single shoot. I used to learn from the rejection from IS. Probably IS has acquired some buyers / curators from alamy. In fact alamy also accepts technically correct images..
are they going to keep those images in Main ? or image bin... dustbin or whatever
-
I just wouldn't have expected iStock to accept it. I've often uploaded a borderline image if it's the best I have, but I usually do it without any great expectations and no small surprise if it gets accepted. My complaint is with them apparently dropping their standards so drastically, after making such a big deal of their strict requirements in the past.
It's a total mystery, and I'm sure there's a Dark Plan behind it.
Yes, there must be.
it seems totally insane what they are doing, but there must be a plan.
Or at least a reason.
Even an ever so low reason.
They had a base of strictly sorted quality pictures ( at least thats what they claimed) now they are doing their best to dilute it.
And why would they?
Is it so important to have many new pictures.
Or is it so that many new images of poor quality, can be used to qualify the rest?
Maybe the answer is in the timing, where many things reviel their true faces:
The come up with new categories/ collections, new upload limits and new lesser quallity demands at the same time.
So are they just collecting pictures so the customers can compare good and bad and such be motivated to buy the expensive high quality stuff?
-
I'm trying to remember -- didn't it end last year? Or has it been even longer?
There are so many threads about "the end" that I can't tell when it was ... or when it is supposed to be?
Oh, wait, maybe it was December 21, 2012?
::)
-
NO!
I know why.
They want to compete with the low performing agencies.
All those agencies who take in all kinds of crap.
They want to be able to say... WE have it all, from crap to splendid. Authentic to styled.
There is no reason to go elsewhere, everything can be found at istock.
I bet their next step will be to have super low prices on the low grade content.
-
I'm trying to remember -- didn't it end last year? Or has it been even longer?
There are so many threads about "the end" that I can't tell when it was ... or when it is supposed to be?
Oh, wait, maybe it was December 21, 2012?
::)
we are having a solid case of istock procrastinating and us suffereing from wishfull thinking.
-
NO!
I know why.
They want to compete with the low performing agencies.
All those agencies who take in all kinds of crap.
They want to be able to say... WE have it all, from crap to splendid. Authentic to styled.
There is no reason to go elsewhere, everything can be found at istock.
I bet their next step will be to have super low prices on the low grade content.
They have built in a Value Bin to the collections, but it doesn't seem to exist as yet.
-
They will put it on google then.
-
I just wouldn't have expected iStock to accept it. I've often uploaded a borderline image if it's the best I have, but I usually do it without any great expectations and no small surprise if it gets accepted. My complaint is with them apparently dropping their standards so drastically, after making such a big deal of their strict requirements in the past.
It's a total mystery, and I'm sure there's a Dark Plan behind it.
+1
On another side, they are also releasing the standards for Vetta acceptance. It is easier to get in than it used to be. Also, I have sold more vettas in the last 10 days than in the last 9 months (normal sales are getting a new free fall though)
-
Thanks Liz, Gostwyck, Fotographer and Beppe for the answers related to model releases.
Good to know that though they have all but eliminated technical and aesthetic standards, the time-consuming and inconvenient model release policy is still firmly in place. ;)
-
I have already deactivated most of the "bad" images that I have uploaded.....
Good move.
If we start to dump everything to a site it would degrade our collection and our brand as we have our names on every photo. There is little point to have our bad photos competing with our good photos. The time uploading them is better served in producing new photos.
-
It really feels like they are in the final death throws. I have only 2 dls this week, both Vetta. May as well just shut down the shop and let those buyers go to Getty. Also there is the inability to do basic functions like credit contributors within 2 months of a sale. And the search sort function not even working. And the total reversal on the PP program inclusion for exclusives which seems like a desperate attempt to right a ship already blown over by not paying attention to which way the wind was blowing, despite pleading from the crew. And the total abandonment of the inspection process, which makes me somewhat embarrassed to even be on the site. Everywhere I look I see a pitiful inability to function and desperate attempts to stay alive. Like a fish in a bucket struggling to breath that makes a forceful but meaningless flip. Or a prize fighter that has had one too many blows and is now punching the air. Pitiful to watch really. I don't wish it on them, but that's what it looks like to me. Something about to die.
-
My sales have actually been strong lately...I've only been in the microstock game for two years or so, but things seemed to have picked up the past month or so
-
My Exclusive sales have crashed too, far more than the usual summer slump. It's getting close to sell the house and get a job time.
-
I have noticed that since the 999 upload limit change the quality of accepted art has decreased. I took advantage of this to push through a range of stuff that previously would have been rejected. I also wonder if this helps to account for a sales slump with my images now competing for shelf space with tones of new C grade images. I've only had one rejection since the new upload limits were applied.
-
IS has a new chief now as it seems: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/getty-images-names-ellen-desmarais-general-manager-of-istockphoto-215622531.html (http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/getty-images-names-ellen-desmarais-general-manager-of-istockphoto-215622531.html)
The latest changements seems to be her merit. Sad that these things does't get announced somewhere on IS - but not surprising anyway ...
Sad also that there are desperate moves being made by the management like the hiring of the BCC, new management instead of simply listening to contributors and making business with heart, mind and ethics instead of blind actionism.
-
Great. Someone who hasn't heard of "images"
"iStockphoto democratized the stock industry a decade ago, freeing creatives everywhere to create beautiful communications on a budget in brand new ways." Ms. Desmarais said.
What communications did your camera produce today?
Never mind, at least iStock is part of the plain English campaign: "Desmarais has a track record of coupling data-driven strategic thinking and analysis with strong management skills to advance impactful growth initiatives."
And:
"Ellen is a seasoned pro at growing global businesses and brands and has demonstrated a remarkable ability to drive impactful results," Mr. Klein said. "iStockphoto's inspiring collections and user experience are better than ever and I'm delighted to have such a strong leader to advance the business into its next era.
Where will I find this "better than ever user experience"? I'm having trouble locating it.... Oh, it must be that my second PP sale for May has popped up.
Please can I have an inspiring and impactfully driven PP result that will advance my bank account into its next era?
(PS: Just realised that by "communications" she means "artwork" not "photos". I don't know what photos are called, or what was brand new about having photos available).
-
Come on, you know as well as I contributors aren't users in iStock's mind...we are just slave monkeys they throw peanuts two on occasion. They could care less about a contributors user experience.
-
Come on, you know as well as I contributors aren't users in iStock's mind...we are just slave monkeys they throw peanuts two on occasion. They could care less about a contributors user experience.
Hmmm, so I read this post on the Best Match search on iS (BTW, have they disposed of Search Fairy and Old Ladybird, or are they on extended leave?):
"I just searched for "vector" and "christmas". On page one of the search results (using Best Match) 48 of 50 images are from the same user, and they're all from 2006-2009 and none of them has sold very much."
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=353233&messageid=6915700 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=353233&messageid=6915700)
So I searched on Vector Christmas, Best Match, and found a lot of photos of cupcakes by the same author, i.e. not Vectors and not Christmassy. Not 48 out of 50, but several other photos apparently keyworded Vector.
The search experience nowadays is dreadful for wannabe or might-have-been buyers.
You'd think they'd wait until it was all working before releasing news releases. Or at least search was working, I know 'it's all working' is totally beyond them.
-
Their best match has been destroyed...I'm not sure if they can get it back at this point. There is a preference for older files and for some reason they group all the same contributors work...and a lot of stuff is not relevant enough for the first pages. They also have so many poorly keyworded files from these"ingestions" which are clearly just added into IS blindly. Not to mention, video search results come up with many dated SD NTSC and PAL files that may of been top knotch in 2005, but just look sad today.
-
I wonder what's happened to The Great Communicator, Rebecca. Does this change mean that communication will now take a back seat to impactfulness?
Anyone heard anything about her?
-
The only one really communicating is Lobo.
-
Long time ago when iStock came up with some fresh idea - like Microsoft deal - I tried to convince myself that I'm too stupid to understand their brilliant strategy. You know - they are the masters of universe or at least their deputies and I'm just average designer and poor microstock photographer. The vision of brilliant strategy disappeared quickly. And vision of ANY strategy disappeared later. They just desperately try anything that could bring some buyers back. It's hard to tell what is happening to iStock - their steps have no logic (I still don't understand their new policy of accepting every snapshot and its benefit for buyers) and I doubt that anybody on this planet including insiders knows what's going on.
-
The only one really communicating is Lobo.
that explains a lot ;D
-
The only one really communicating is Lobo.
And that's only to tell us there's no news.
-
I wonder what's happened to The Great Communicator, Rebecca. Does this change mean that communication will now take a back seat to impactfulness?
Anyone heard anything about her?
I was wondering the same thing. Although Getty have announced her successor as Istock's GM they didn't mention what happened to RR. If my sales at IS were anything to go by then I'm guessing she didn't get promoted!
At least she's not tweeting her rage until her fingers bleed anyway;
https://mobile.twitter.com/rrockafellar
-
watching all the news from istock come in - especially the PP issue - makes me wonder if istock has cashflow problems. just a feeling at this point though.
(I could care less, not being a contributor there anymore, but I know some people on here are and earn significant money there, for them I am worried a bit - hope I am wrong though).
-
The only one really communicating is Lobo.
Surname: Lobo
Name: Tom[m]y
-
The istock story is quite interesting.
They came up with a new concept and earned a lot of money for quite some time.
It was too easy money in a booming market and they developed a set of bad and expensive habits and a sick company culture. Such as arrogance towards contributors and customers and the ever appearing low business ethics.
They have offended so many contributers and cheated so many customers with pricing that of course noone trusts them anymore.
Its characteristic that it began to go bad when the market stopped booming as the financial crisis set in, and we recieved the famous "not sustainable" anymore message and they began to prey on the contributors and customers, by lowering commisions and raising prices.
They should have "leaned" the organisation instead.
-
It is really strange why they can´t pay out the PP sales. I mean they have been doing it for years, what is the problem now?
After all those weeks it is really hard to believe that it is an IT problem. More likely that everything was put on hold until the new manager comes in to make decisions.
-
It is really strange why they can´t pay out the PP sales. I mean they have been doing it for years, what is the problem now?
After all those weeks it is really hard to believe that it is an IT problem. More likely that everything was put on hold until the new manager comes in to make decisions.
plus they terminated the normal payouts for a time.
+ they lowered prices
+ they took everything in
its obvious isnt it? they are changing back their business model, and trying to keep the boat afloat by all means until they get customers again.
My guess is that they have lost 75% of their customers. Just a guess based on what people report from their sales.
-
It is really strange why they can´t pay out the PP sales. I mean they have been doing it for years, what is the problem now?
After all those weeks it is really hard to believe that it is an IT problem. More likely that everything was put on hold until the new manager comes in to make decisions.
You mean, until she decides whether to pay people their dues? I really hope it hasn't come to that.
-
No, not when to pay people. But to make decisions with priorities in IT for instance. That would definetely be a decision for the general manager.
If they have cut down the IT team and their resources must be spread over many issues, then it is likely that the distribution of their time and attention is decided by the general manager. And if they had a new manager coming in, then it is normal that decisions are delayed.
-
you guys are scaring me with your conspiracies.
although, given that nothing has been said or resolved about the Google debacle, I can see how one presumes they are conspiring to rip us all off (even further than 85%)
-
I don´t think there is a conspiracy not to pay us.
Just problems with technology and it´s management and of course the level of priorities...
-
^ agree, but there are plenty of conspiracies and even an "is this the end" thread.
I think it's just - as has been said aplenty - good ol' fashioned incompetence. phew. :-\
-
No, not when to pay people. But to make decisions with priorities in IT for instance. That would definetely be a decision for the general manager.
If they have cut down the IT team and their resources must be spread over many issues, then it is likely that the distribution of their time and attention is decided by the general manager. And if they had a new manager coming in, then it is normal that decisions are delayed.
But she's still only a GM, not a CEO. She won't be able to do anything Getty doesn't want - and I suspect Getty still has a deep-seated contempt for microstock.
They haven't had a coherent approach to anything since Bruce left. And I wonder where the new collections plan came from? The timing of it is wrong - if it had been Rebecca's master plan it would probably have been mothballed so the new GM could reassess it. It happened before the new GM arrived. I think there is a whiff of Getty about it.
Here's a wildly speculative idea ....
How about the storm over Google Drive having severely embarrassed the Getty top-dogs? Klein decides that Rebecca has failed in her mission of bringing the amateur snappers at iStock under control and demands to know who leaked the story - he gets pointed to the thread started by Sean Locke. He sacks both Rebecca and Sean and takes personal control while a new GM is dug up. People tell him Sean is too big a loss - so he demands to know who there is who can be bought out to replace him and the name Arcurs pops up. "Give him anything he wants but make him a replacement exclusive!" thunders the great man. He looks at the sales figures and sees buyers are seeping away. Having been told for years that exclusives are the heart of iS and all the best artists, while the indes are the rubbish anyone can get anywhere he sees that exclusive sales bring in much more money than inde ones and hits on the idea of bringing back customers by accepting all the old rubbish the other sites have got ("allow 999 uploads a week and don't reject many!") and then sacrificing the indes to lure buyers with the cheap rubbish they are buying elsewhere. Once the buyers are back, they will be lured by the brilliant exclusive material which has always shown it sold better than the other stuff, so the losses incurred on cheap inde sales will be made up for by a surge in exclusive sales.
Thus, in a six-month hiatus while Rebecca is replaced, Getty shows the iStock lot how things are done when professionals take charge, and everything will be up and running in time for the new GM to take over and keep this strategy and the main collection prices in place FOREVER! Any tech problems that crop up in the interim can be sorted by the new woman when she eventually arrives, that mundane stuff doesn't need brilliant strategic thinking.
Well, that's just a bit of creative writing, probably nothing like what's really happened, but it's fun to speculate.
-
you forgot the bit about how the main collection (of indie content) was just slashed by over 50% ???
(but it was a great read.)
-
Sounds about right, problem is the indie work is as good as the exclusive work so they will end up cannibalizing their own sales. My guess is income will drop on both sides of the fence.
-
Sounds about right, problem is the indie work is as good as the exclusive work so they will end up cannibalizing their own sales. My guess is income will drop on both sides of the fence.
Yes, but they won't have told him that down the years, while they've been justifying the exclusive programme to him.
And I never suggested that it was a plan that would actually work.......
-
my bet is if you produce good work consistently your sales will be good. if i did not know any better, i'd say IS is simply trying to compete with the micros on their own level and up the ante a bit on another level. the days of micros just being micros is nearing an end, i think getty sees this clearly. let's remember, it's not all about us as contributors (though we'd like to think it is), rather it's about the buyers - this can't be disputed. i think the direction IS is taking is making it a one stop shop for all buyers of all budgets. sure if buyers are only budget conscious then there are certainly other sites to go to, but most buyers are on a budget of time, and they want to get the best imagery they can, regardless of price. time is the new currency and i think IS is betting on this, and i think they will win the bet going forward long term. this is not to say what they are doing to contributors is acceptable, but it is to say going forward long term they are doing the right thing for the buyers, who in turn buy our images. i have seen both sides of the coin from micros to trads and this i feel is a very happy meeting point of both pricing points in one shop. it's still too early to tell of course and i hope i am right. i think this move will certainly sort the "crapstock" that has become acceptable as of the last few years and lean towards more quality work which is sorely lacking more often than not on the micros.
and please, don't turn this post into a micro versus trad argument, or an IS versus all the other micros argument, or a getty is the best argument. this is not what i am saying. so please, don't twist it into an argument of convenience.
-
iStock are at a major crossroads.
Contributors are an important part of the equation - if exclusives see their income become sustainable they will stay - but that is a big IF . If sales keep falling at recent rates they will hedge their bets and ditch the crown to maintain some income stability - if that happens the high quality work starts dropping into the lowest tier and sales cannibalization starts.
They are walking a tightrope, one side is keeping exclusives happy - the other is a negative sales spiral.
Like the old chinese curse says 'may you live in interesting times'.
-
Lets face it, someone has to say it.
Istocks real problem are the exclusives.
They are paid 10 times more than out in the cold competition in the real world.
Therfore they are 10 times less motivated to improve.
Its the truth, its a factor. 10 times is ten times.
The exclusives might once have been an asset, they were good once and they provided unique pictures.
But it does not take many years of hard competition outside of the istock glasshouse before a lot of imagery is created that far surpasses istocks. It happened. Customers saw it and moved.
And then istock sits back with a lot of overpriced non competitive content. And they even raise prices during a period of financial crisis clinging to the glasshouse concept.
Add to that their shaking hands with all decisions and very poor communication, then the collosus of clay is in danger.
And I hope they will die, I detest them for all their abuse and borderline fraudulent business etics.
-
iStock are at a major crossroads.
Contributors are an important part of the equation - if exclusives see their income become sustainable they will stay - but that is a big IF . If sales keep falling at recent rates they will hedge their bets and ditch the crown to maintain some income stability - if that happens the high quality work starts dropping into the lowest tier and sales cannibalization starts.
They are walking a tightrope, one side is keeping exclusives happy - the other is a negative sales spiral.
Like the old chinese curse says 'may you live in interesting times'.
but i think if you are exclusive, you will get the added bonus of having your images double dipping on getty as well. time will tell for sure, but so far this whole shuffle has done me ok, downloads down a bit, but income up overall in the first month, and that has not factored in the eventual getty sales. this whole thing sucks for non-exclusives, but that is also the choice they made to market their work, for better or worse. i for one will run full steam ahead and hope for the best.
-
iStock are at a major crossroads.
Contributors are an important part of the equation - if exclusives see their income become sustainable they will stay - but that is a big IF . If sales keep falling at recent rates they will hedge their bets and ditch the crown to maintain some income stability - if that happens the high quality work starts dropping into the lowest tier and sales cannibalization starts.
But the exclusive stuff isn't that great, anyway. All you've got to do is sell 500 shots to join the programme. The approval standard for both was meant to be the same though there were some signs that it was tougher for indes in the past. It's a false dichotomy.
I really don't believe you can mix Walmart and Harrods counters up in the same premises and make a success out of it which, as Shudderstock suggests, appears to be the current strategy. Rather than being all things to all men they risk being nothing to anybody.
-
Lots of IF's Shudderstock - you'll just have to wait it out and see what happens.
For me as a former exclusive with a fair amount of work over at Getty, sales fluctuated wildly from September last year - sometimes chopping my income in half even with a steady stream of new work.
There is no easy answer in the long term for anyone - saturation is the biggest problem artists face and the doors are open wider than ever now. There is only one clear winner in this pyramid scheme - and its rarely the contributors.
I'm hedging my bets while the storm brews on the horizon.
-
if you think saturation is bad today wait 2-3 yrs when the images on sale will be 30-40 millions.
this is no problem for RM as the variety of subject is pretty much infinite but it's THE problem for RF micro, who needs another million photos of shaking hands and smiling businessmen ? not the frustrated buyers, i guess.
-
'
-
I tend to agree, all the low hanging fruit has been picked - newcomers don't realise this and the dilution continues to accelerate.
I think it's going to be musical chairs over the next few years with higher production images moving from micros into higher priced agencies.
Not sure how iStock's one stop shop approach is going pan out, trying to be all things to all people might actually compound their problem.
-
if you think saturation is bad today wait 2-3 yrs when the images on sale will be 30-40 millions.
this is no problem for RM as the variety of subject is pretty much infinite but it's THE problem for RF micro, who needs another million photos of shaking hands and smiling businessmen ? not the frustrated buyers, i guess.
It is a problem for RM because while the subjects may be infinite the amount being spent is not. If the RM collections treble in size and the spend is unchanged then the RPI will drop by two-thirds.
-
I love the exclusive versus indie argument. I do agree that exclusive content doesn't mean it is quality. In fact overtime once you hit the sales quota you can become an exclusive...there is not review of the quality of your work...the only thing was the acceptance rate had to be at a certain percentage, but with the lax inspections, that is now moot. The reality is there is good exclusive content and bad exclusive content...same as there is good indie content and bad indie content. The collections are an illusion of paying more for quality...not a reality. For a while when Vetta content was well curated, the quality was usually up, but now there is a lot of crap that has deteriorated Vetta.
I agree though, you produce quality work and are willing to put in the effort then you are better off regardless of your label.
-
if you think saturation is bad today wait 2-3 yrs when the images on sale will be 30-40 millions.
this is no problem for RM as the variety of subject is pretty much infinite but it's THE problem for RF micro, who needs another million photos of shaking hands and smiling businessmen ? not the frustrated buyers, i guess.
It is a problem for RM because while the subjects may be infinite the amount being spent is not. If the RM collections treble in size and the spend is unchanged then the RPI will drop by two-thirds.
Exactly. The problem is always going to be worse for RM. As the quality and quantity of micro continues to increase then so they will also take an ever-increasing share of the total money spent on stock imagery.
-
There are kids out there with buck teeth and flat foreheads who do a better job running their ant farms.
The complexity involved with having to deal with them either as a buyer or a contributor is a weakness that IS have tried to sell as diversity and exclusivity. The recent "simplification" of their collection into main and other spurious strata, plus the price drop feels like a continuation of a knee-jerk strategy and is not a game changer IMO. If it doesn't work I forsee the break up of the collection altogether into new agencies grouped around exclusives, indies and perhaps a higher tier collection based on the old Vetta - parts of which GI will keep or sell off as they see fit.
I forgot to add, in line with other comments, I don't think exclusivity has been a big selling point for buyers for some years now.
-
Exactly. The problem is always going to be worse for RM. As the quality and quantity of micro continues to increase then so they will also take an ever-increasing share of the total money spent on stock imagery.
the limit of microstock is it can only be profitable and sustainable with selling a cheap image many times.
and therefore this is possible only with mainstream subjects.
but the mainstream (or "low hanging fruits") subjects are not infinite !
as you can see all the niches are already saturated and because of the restrictions imposed by agencies and by the RF licence itself there's a ton of good subjects that will never make it to micros and will be only available as RM or editorial.
micro's perimeter of action is very small actually and not all the niches are taken.
do you see any solution for that ? i don't.
and unless they dump half of their archive into an even cheaper separate colletion the situation will only go worse for suppliers.
on the other side it will take 100 yrs before the same phenomenon applies to RM.
i agree you aint making money anymore with pics of the Tour Eiffel on RM but apart the top-selling destinations and places anything else is still ready to be covered in depth, many of my RM sales are about obscure subjects i've no idea why and how they will be used but they would never be found on IS or SS and that's the point.
-
It is a problem for RM because while the subjects may be infinite the amount being spent is not. If the RM collections treble in size and the spend is unchanged then the RPI will drop by two-thirds.
in my opinion the trend in RM will be about being more picky or offering "creative collections", that's the new alamy's strategy for example, a creative side for pro photographers and a generic "editorial" side for the many others who use alamy as a dump (and they're many !).
RPI : that's not an important factor in RM as it is for micros, what matters are the monthly sales and despite all the bad news we read here they're pretty stable in the RM world, those who suffered most were the ones shooting subjects that now are top sellers on micro RF but it seems the agencies recovered pretty well, it's you guys having this blind belief that price is THE factor, that's certainly true for cheap designers and their cheap customers but in the rest of the world buyers see nothing wrong paying at least 50 bucks for a picture they need.
-
It is a problem for RM because while the subjects may be infinite the amount being spent is not. If the RM collections treble in size and the spend is unchanged then the RPI will drop by two-thirds.
in my opinion the trend in RM will be about being more picky or offering "creative collections", that's the new alamy's strategy for example, a creative side for pro photographers and a generic "editorial" side for the many others who use alamy as a dump (and they're many !).
In many cases it's impossible to tell why something on Alamy has been labelled 'creative' and others have not. I can see that from my own 'creatives' as well as those from others.
I don't think being 'creative' in Alamy gains any more cash - AFAIK, creative images can also be sold sub-$6.
-
Exactly. The problem is always going to be worse for RM. As the quality and quantity of micro continues to increase then so they will also take an ever-increasing share of the total money spent on stock imagery.
the limit of microstock is it can only be profitable and sustainable with selling a cheap image many times.
and therefore this is possible only with mainstream subjects.
but the mainstream (or "low hanging fruits") subjects are not infinite !
as you can see all the niches are already saturated and because of the restrictions imposed by agencies and by the RF licence itself there's a ton of good subjects that will never make it to micros and will be only available as RM or editorial.
micro's perimeter of action is very small actually and not all the niches are taken.
do you see any solution for that ? i don't.
and unless they dump half of their archive into an even cheaper separate colletion the situation will only go worse for suppliers.
on the other side it will take 100 yrs before the same phenomenon applies to RM.
i agree you aint making money anymore with pics of the Tour Eiffel on RM but apart the top-selling destinations and places anything else is still ready to be covered in depth, many of my RM sales are about obscure subjects i've no idea why and how they will be used but they would never be found on IS or SS and that's the point.
Unfortunately you are wrong on both counts. Both micro and RM markets are governed by the laws of supply and demand. Over-supply will continue to outstrip the growth in demand in both markets for the foreseeable future ... probably forever. Both markets have probably peaked for all but the newest of contributors. RM has been in severe decline for years and most likely that will continue, even for your obscure niche subjects.
-
Here's a wildly speculative idea ....
How about the storm over Google Drive having severely embarrassed the Getty top-dogs? Klein decides that Rebecca has failed in her mission of bringing the amateur snappers at iStock under control and demands to know who leaked the story - he gets pointed to the thread started by Sean Locke. He sacks both Rebecca and Sean and takes personal control while a new GM is dug up. People tell him Sean is too big a loss - so he demands to know who there is who can be bought out to replace him and the name Arcurs pops up. "Give him anything he wants but make him a replacement exclusive!" thunders the great man. -snip
Well, that's just a bit of creative writing, probably nothing like what's really happened, but it's fun to speculate.
I had actually pondered if Sean wasn't part of the Yuri deal. Getty was salivating at the idea to own Yuri but he must have had his own demands. Sean was one of his top "competitors" (if you can call it that) and never bowed down and worshipped the guy. Probably drove him nuts the way Sean kept it real. "Sure, I'll sign with you, but not until....."
-
RM has been in severe decline for years and most likely that will continue, even for your obscure niche subjects.
Ilike obscure niches because 1) you are usually not competing against the image factories and 2) while the demand is low, so is the supply, which means your chances of a sale might be as good or better than with one of the big-selling subjects. That said, if a niche is so obscure there is no demand at all, then you're not going to get a sale, and the competition in obscure niches, if there is any demand at all, will tend to grow propotionately with the size of the collection. So niches are subject to just the same process of being undermined as everything else.
-
well i dont mean really obscure stuff, it happens sometimes but most of my stuff is about travel and my best sellers are still people, lifestyle, and markets.
as for Alamy, i written too much against them already and i rest my case about their creative collection being a joke from top to bottom.
-
Unfortunately you are wrong on both counts. Both micro and RM markets are governed by the laws of supply and demand. Over-supply will continue to outstrip the growth in demand in both markets for the foreseeable future ... probably forever. Both markets have probably peaked for all but the newest of contributors. RM has been in severe decline for years and most likely that will continue, even for your obscure niche subjects.
RM will never die, all the archival images are only available in RM agencies, and so pretty much any kind of stuff that doesnt have the typical micro look.
and what about celebrities ? that's either getty or rex features, not micros !
what will become harder is for people with small portfolio to make sales or even get noticed in the sea of new images.
in my opinion you cannot stay afloat and relax in RM without at least 10-30K images on sale.
and yet plenty of guys expect to get rich with 500 well edited images.
that could work on Getty for a while but it won't last long, the turnover of new stuff added every month is impressive, in the end quantity is becoming THE factor rather than absolute quality or uniqueness.
i don't give a sh-it about my obscure subject, it's only cr-ap i dump on Alamy as that's the only agency where there's a demand for it but i could never survive just with unconventional stuff and it's also a pain in the a-ss to keyword.
the markets have not peaked at all, the industry is getting bigger not smaller, the issue is for us .. is the party over or there's a chance to stay afloat in the future ? i'm not very positive about it but i can tell you i don't see any drop in sales since a long time, just the usual seasonal ups and downs.
-
Xanox, you need to separate out the prospects for the agencies from the prospects for the suppliers. Neither RM nor microstock is going to die. The companies we supply will continuing licensing images to designers who need them and accumulating mountains of cash. But that doesn't mean that the artists supplying the images will get good money. It all depends on how big the supply becomes and what happens to prices. Of course, if you've got a monopoly on stock images of Marilyn Monroe then you're made, regardless, because there will always be demand for that. But travel photos are a different matter. You run the risk of being a victim of dilution as other people add pictures of places you've been to, however obscure they may be.
-
If you look at the development of the huge stock factories, it is possible that they will control the market quite soon. Individual artists can´t compete with their volume and often their quality.
So there will still be 150 000 new files every week, but they will probably be produced by a small number of factories.
This whole "community driven content" buzz will soon just be impactful marketingspeak.
-
I notice a new trend within my customer base and that is : They want stock-like photos with their employees as models in offices they own and situations their customers recognize. Not the fancy and slick looking girl on the phone. But real people with real customers
-
I notice a new trend within my customer base and that is : They want stock-like photos with their employees as models in offices they own and situations their customers recognize. Not the fancy and slick looking girl on the phone. But real people with real customers
Any business collateral which I see always has had their own employees, offices and customers.
-
If you look at the development of the huge stock factories, it is possible that they will control the market quite soon. Individual artists can´t compete with their volume and often their quality.
So there will still be 150 000 new files every week, but they will probably be produced by a small number of factories.
This whole "community driven content" buzz will soon just be impactful marketingspeak.
It would be interesting to have some financial insight into the "image factories": their revenue, cost structure and bottom line for the owners.
-
I notice a new trend within my customer base and that is : They want stock-like photos with their employees as models in offices they own and situations their customers recognize. Not the fancy and slick looking girl on the phone. But real people with real customers
Hmmm. In my experience they want that only when they happen to have a particularly photogenic employee as their sales manager (preferably a full-figured blonde) or front-of-house staff. They don't tend to want that so much when the staff have BMI's of +30, however efficient at their jobs they might be.
-
Xanox, you need to separate out the prospects for the agencies from the prospects for the suppliers. Neither RM nor microstock is going to die. The companies we supply will continuing licensing images to designers who need them and accumulating mountains of cash. But that doesn't mean that the artists supplying the images will get good money. It all depends on how big the supply becomes and what happens to prices. Of course, if you've got a monopoly on stock images of Marilyn Monroe then you're made, regardless, because there will always be demand for that. But travel photos are a different matter. You run the risk of being a victim of dilution as other people add pictures of places you've been to, however obscure they may be.
well, it's gotta be very hard to make your own private monopoly in a travel niche.
there are certainly some cities that sell a lot more than others, Paris, Venice, New York, London, just to name a few, but there are literally millions of images already on sale about that, even if you specialize on it and you live for instance in Paris for years there's no guarantee you can make a living just with that and besides most of the stuff will be more about Street photography than proper Travel photography.
while some lucky guys who made hundreds of photos of the Beatles and Rolling Stones are still selling like hot cakes today for all the others it's not so easy, celebrities come and go, and the evergreens are just a few dozens.
the point is always the same, why should agencies ever have a reason to raise our fees ? what do they get back from being fair with us ?
i can't see any way for single photographers to negotiate better deals nowadays, either you're an agency or an image factory or you're one of the few cases who can dominate a niche (say, aerial photography and other expensive stuff), for anything else the only option is to accept we're just plebeians in their eyes and why it should be otherwise if our sales make barely the 0.00001% of their total ?
-
Good lord! We actually agree for once! (It's just a pity it's not about something more positive).
-
I notice a new trend within my customer base and that is : They want stock-like photos with their employees as models in offices they own and situations their customers recognize. Not the fancy and slick looking girl on the phone. But real people with real customers
Hmmm. In my experience they want that only when they happen to have a particularly photogenic employee as their sales manager (preferably a full-figured blonde) or front-of-house staff. They don't tend to want that so much when the staff have BMI's of +30, however efficient at their jobs they might be.
I come across this all the time, except they somehow think I can magically transform their ordinary staff member to look like Yuri's Emma, cos I'm using an expensive camera that takes good photos.
-
I come across this all the time, except they something think I can magically transform their ordinary staff member to look like Yuri's Emma, cos I'm using an expensive camera that takes good photos.
Tell them to fire all their employees and make you the casting director for the new wave of applicants. ;)
-
I come across this all the time, except they something think I can magically transform their ordinary staff member to look like Yuri's Emma, cos I'm using an expensive camera that takes good photos.
the irony is a good camera with a sharp lens could actually enhance skin imperfections, spots, scars, yellow teeth, and make the staff looking even uglier, i've read the same complaints about porn actors some time ago regarding the use of HD videocameras.
-
What I have noticed at iStock is new work doesn't sell, page after page of new uploads with zero downloads - over supply is becoming a real problem - I experienced it back in September but I don't think I've ever seen it like this.
Fixing declining sales with new work looks like a near impossible task now - established contributors appear to be slowing their uploads too - waiting for evidence of returns on production costs and sitting it out I guess.
-
What I have noticed at iStock is new work doesn't sell, page after page of new uploads with zero downloads - over supply is becoming a real problem - I experienced it back in September but I don't think I've ever seen it like this.
Fixing declining sales with new work looks like a near impossible task now - established contributors appear to be slowing their uploads too - waiting for evidence of returns on production costs and sitting it out I guess.
Oversupply is a problem, but also new files, since September, have been sinking very fast in the Best Match. It's not worth uploading unless it's something with little/no competition.
Also, keywords are apparently only being checked by keywordzilla, and then only in my port, and wrongly (of course 8) ). There are some large portfolios blanket uploaded whose keywords, title and/or description are appalling. Means they will never be found for what they are, but they pollute real searches with their false keywords.
I just looked up Mara River, and the most recent uploads (showing as a best match search, but it was actually age) were taken several hundred miles from the Mara River, and had no river of any description in them.
But I could call out ports which are much, much worse.
-
If you look at the development of the huge stock factories, it is possible that they will control the market quite soon. Individual artists can´t compete with their volume and often their quality.
So there will still be 150 000 new files every week, but they will probably be produced by a small number of factories.
This whole "community driven content" buzz will soon just be impactful marketingspeak.
It used to be in the United States that you had hundreds of family owned farms that did business with everyone, then big business got involved and it turned into a corporate venture, the farms were turned into companies, smaller farms were purchased and in time the idea of a family farm has gone to the wayside as the big company farms have taken over. I see a similarity here. Very soon we will see just the Stock Factories turning out thousands of photos a week and we as the single contributors will be pushed aside.
Everyone have a great week and stay safe!
-
It used to be in the United States that you had hundreds of family owned farms that did business with everyone, then big business got involved and it turned into a corporate venture, the farms were turned into companies, smaller farms were purchased and in time the idea of a family farm has gone to the wayside as the big company farms have taken over. I see a similarity here. Very soon we will see just the Stock Factories turning out thousands of photos a week and we as the single contributors will be pushed aside.
That analogy doesn't apply. Mega-farms can use economies of scale to bring down the unit cost of production compared to relatively inefficient small farms. That does not work in stock photography. The photo-factories, with their studios, their staff and other overheads, have a far higher unit cost of production than individual photographers operating on their own from home.
The photo-factories will actually be the first to shut down once they realise that they are not getting a return on their new content. They are not going to continually pour $K's into new shoots if it becomes obvious that they are losing money from most of them. Of course their portfolios will still be there and whoever owns them will either retire, scale down their operations or move on to new enterprises.
As it stands photo-factories have always been somewhat limited to popular (high selling) subject matter. It is simply not worth their while to tackle most niche subjects as the returns are neither high enough nor fast enough.
-
It used to be in the United States that you had hundreds of family owned farms that did business with everyone, then big business got involved and it turned into a corporate venture, the farms were turned into companies, smaller farms were purchased and in time the idea of a family farm has gone to the wayside as the big company farms have taken over. I see a similarity here. Very soon we will see just the Stock Factories turning out thousands of photos a week and we as the single contributors will be pushed aside.
That analogy doesn't apply. Mega-farms can use economies of scale to bring down the unit cost of production compared to relatively inefficient small farms. That does not work in stock photography. The photo-factories, with their studios, their staff and other overheads, have a far higher unit cost of production than individual photographers operating on their own from home.
The photo-factories will actually be the first to shut down once they realise that they are not getting a return on their new content. They are not going to continually pour $K's into new shoots if it becomes obvious that they are losing money from most of them. Of course their portfolios will still be there and whoever owns them will either retire, scale down their operations or move on to new enterprises.
As it stands photo-factories have always been somewhat limited to popular (high selling) subject matter. It is simply not worth their while to tackle most niche subjects as the returns are neither high enough nor fast enough.
They may not actually be losing money overall, but they might find the RPI rises if they move their content to high-price outlets. You know, professionals dealing with professionals to achieve mutual sustainability and impactfulness.
-
It used to be in the United States that you had hundreds of family owned farms that did business with everyone, then big business got involved and it turned into a corporate venture, the farms were turned into companies, smaller farms were purchased and in time the idea of a family farm has gone to the wayside as the big company farms have taken over. I see a similarity here. Very soon we will see just the Stock Factories turning out thousands of photos a week and we as the single contributors will be pushed aside.
That analogy doesn't apply. Mega-farms can use economies of scale to bring down the unit cost of production compared to relatively inefficient small farms. That does not work in stock photography. The photo-factories, with their studios, their staff and other overheads, have a far higher unit cost of production than individual photographers operating on their own from home.
The photo-factories will actually be the first to shut down once they realize that they are not getting a return on their new content. They are not going to continually pour $K's into new shoots if it becomes obvious that they are losing money from most of them. Of course their portfolios will still be there and whoever owns them will either retire, scale down their operations or move on to new enterprises.
As it stands photo-factories have always been somewhat limited to popular (high selling) subject matter. It is simply not worth their while to tackle most niche subjects as the returns are neither high enough nor fast enough.
While I can appreciate your opinion, I still see that the photo-factories will be able to turn out more photos at a lower cost than a single operator, they will put them out faster and at a lower cost and in some cases the photos will be better as you will have SME's (subject matter experts) to handle each small part of the process. I understand that the commodities are not the same, food vs photos, but I still see that in time, there will be very few photographers on their own out there unless they have a very specialized set of photos or themes. Look at iStock, now a part of Getty, which is part of the Carlyle Group. I see it as just a matter of time, maybe not today, tomorrow or in the next year, but in time.
But even with your analogy of the situation, the photo factories will flood the market, dilute the pool and make it so the single photographer can't make a living off it or won't want to put in the time to get the Pennies on the dollar that they were making. Even if there is a scale back on the new content from the factories, the photos that are there will make it a sea of photos which are mostly from the factories, thus the chance of some of us making a sale is limited at best.
Again, this is my opinion and I actually hope that your view of this is what happens.
Have a great day!
-
That analogy doesn't apply. Mega-farms can use economies of scale to bring down the unit cost of production compared to relatively inefficient small farms. That does not work in stock photography. The photo-factories, with their studios, their staff and other overheads, have a far higher unit cost of production than individual photographers operating on their own from home.
I'm not sure. If they 'hot-studioed' surely that would share the cost of the studio and lighting, equipment etc between many. Provided the models are willing, there's no reason why a studio can't be used 24x7, but no one 'tog can do that. There are different ways the financing could work.
-
While I can appreciate your opinion, I still see that the photo-factories will be able to turn out more photos at a lower cost than a single operator, they will put them out faster and at a lower cost and in some cases the photos will be better as you will have SME's (subject matter experts) to handle each small part of the process. I understand that the commodities are not the same, food vs photos, but I still see that in time, there will be very few photographers on their own out there unless they have a very specialized set of photos or themes. Look at iStock, now a part of Getty, which is part of the Carlyle Group. I see it as just a matter of time, maybe not today, tomorrow or in the next year, but in time.
But even with your analogy of the situation, the photo factories will flood the market, dilute the pool and make it so the single photographer can't make a living off it or won't want to put in the time to get the Pennies on the dollar that they were making. Even if there is a scale back on the new content from the factories, the photos that are there will make it a sea of photos which are mostly from the factories, thus the chance of some of us making a sale is limited at best.
Again, this is my opinion and I actually hope that your view of this is what happens.
Look ... photography generally ... just does not scale. It never has and it never will. That's why if you need portraits done, some wedding photos or a commercial shoot there are no big corporate giants to turn to. It all happens, mainly on a local level, via self-employed individuals or the owners of tiny businesses with very few employees.
Stock photography is no different. If stock photography did scale ... then why don't the agencies do it all themselves, produce their own content (or at least the majority of it) and keep all the sales revenue for themselves? The answer is because they know that they couldn't possibly produce the content as cheaply, as efficiently and as risk-free (to themselves) as we can.
The 'photo factory', as a business model, is inherently flawed and is unlikely to survive for too much longer __ 5-10 years at the outside. In the meantime they have done much damage to everyone else and they have simply accelerated the demise of their own operations and the ability of individual stock photographers to earn a living.
The fact that there are only 5-6 acknowledged 'photo factories', out of supposedly 30K-odd contributors, should tell you much about how unfeasible the long-term prospects of such businesses are. Most of us have considered the idea of scaling up our businesses and have quickly dismissed it as unworkable. When talents such as Sean, Lise and Lisa (and many other Black Diamond level contributors) turn down such an 'opportunity' to grow their businesses and their incomes it should be obvious that there isn't much of an opportunity there.
-
there's also a lot of "being in the right place at the right time" to factor into what we do. I'd like to hope that gives many of us an edge.
-
there's also a lot of "being in the right place at the right time" to factor into what we do. I'd like to hope that gives many of us an edge.
and what about accomodation and meals ? if you work for yourself you can travel on a tight budget and eat junk food but who would work for a company that let you sleep in a 1-star hotel and eat at mcdonalds ?
same for transportation, will they fly you first class or give you third class train tickets ?
-
and what about accomodation and meals ? if you work for yourself you can travel on a tight budget and eat junk food but who would work for a company that let you sleep in a 1-star hotel and eat at mcdonalds ?
Arrgghh __ I hate to see such excess and wastage. Before you eat a cheap meal ... you must first shoot it for stock. Then you get to eat it cold, sitting at your PC, whilst processing and uploading the images.
-
and what about accomodation and meals ? if you work for yourself you can travel on a tight budget and eat junk food but who would work for a company that let you sleep in a 1-star hotel and eat at mcdonalds ?
Arrgghh __ I hate to see such excess and wastage. Before you eat a cheap meal ... you must first shoot it for stock. Then you get to eat it cold, sitting at your PC, whilst processing and uploading the images.
Is there anything other than a cold meal???? and I like your thought process on this!
-
I own a microwave ;D
-
I own a microwave ;D
"If it doesn't 'ping', don't eat it."
-
and what about accomodation and meals ? if you work for yourself you can travel on a tight budget and eat junk food but who would work for a company that let you sleep in a 1-star hotel and eat at mcdonalds ?
Arrgghh __ I hate to see such excess and wastage. Before you eat a cheap meal ... you must first shoot it for stock. Then you get to eat it cold, sitting at your PC, whilst processing and uploading the images.
That's why I do so little food photography. Empty plates don't sell that well and for some reason, the food seems to vanish before I can photograph it. I have less discipline around food than Homer Simpson :)
-
That's why I do so little food photography. Empty plates don't sell that well and for some reason, the food seems to vanish before I can photograph it. I have less discipline around food than Homer Simpson :)
Similar story here, except it's my family I have to worry about. When I cook a nice meal, they don't want to wait for an hour while I photograph it and then serve it to them cold ;)
-
That's why I do so little food photography. Empty plates don't sell that well and for some reason, the food seems to vanish before I can photograph it. I have less discipline around food than Homer Simpson :)
Similar story here, except it's my family I have to worry about. When I cook a nice meal, they don't want to wait for an hour while I photograph it and then serve it to them cold ;)
An hour? And they have to wait? Make more and feed them first. That's how it works (bloomin' amateurs ;) )
-
That's why I do so little food photography. Empty plates don't sell that well and for some reason, the food seems to vanish before I can photograph it. I have less discipline around food than Homer Simpson :)
Similar story here, except it's my family I have to worry about. When I cook a nice meal, they don't want to wait for an hour while I photograph it and then serve it to them cold ;)
An hour? And they have to wait? Make more and feed them first. That's how it works (bloomin' amateurs ;) )
LOL! They're already spoiled enough. Don't want things to get out of hand ;D
-
What I have noticed at iStock is new work doesn't sell, page after page of new uploads with zero downloads - over supply is becoming a real problem - I experienced it back in September but I don't think I've ever seen it like this.
Fixing declining sales with new work looks like a near impossible task now - established contributors appear to be slowing their uploads too - waiting for evidence of returns on production costs and sitting it out I guess.
Exactly my thoughts. My return on time invested for new files does not justify the work it takes. Competition has gone up exponentially over the past decade.
Some have mentioned the ease of getting photos accepted. I agree. However, perhaps iStock has learned that the vast majority of the sales will be used in a fairly small web image and the buyer cannot see noise, overfiltering, and all the other things that can bring rejections. I think they are looking for a image first and quality less so for internet use. Look at all the ads have edited photos to make them contain all the previous no-nos we worked so hard to avoid, and iStock worked so hard to reject.
-
can you blame them? if some clients only use files for the web... then we should all be shooting at 800ISO and taking a chillpill. but instead we're all working for the one client who wants a billboard....
-
It is sort of always the end for istockphoto, they always do something so we think the end is near.
But they never really die.
That is, because they do not produce value for their customers or contributors, but because they exploit both, and they prey on every data they have in any way imaginable.
Im sure, even I if I have only one picture there, Im being made a profit on in some mysterious way.
Like they might sell numbers of contributors or use the numbers in a lawsuit.
call it smart, call it state of the art and up front business.
it is not, it is nothing but explotation, and it does not produce value for anybody.
-
can you blame them? if some clients only use files for the web... then we should all be shooting at 800ISO and taking a chillpill. but instead we're all working for the one client who wants a billboard....
With the screen used for billboard you will not see the noise too ;)
-
I really cant stop expressing my frustration.. what . is going on with istock curators.. do you see they are accepting not just 1 or 2 or 5 but 10-15 similar ... not even similar but exact copies of images from same contributors and that too from a single batch...??? I just see a newbie's port and his recently accepted images are- 20 images of isolated tomatoes.. 1 tomato, 2 tomatoes- white background, 2 tomatoes- blue background, 3 tomatoes ....... and .....
when i joined IS, they were not accepting the images which are now best sellers for me in ss .. shame.
-
My sense of the review policy at IS was always that aesthetics didn't come into it. Other sites would pass something that was less than technically perfect if there were other merits in the submission based on a sense of judgement . Now that technical standards have been relaxed at IS, they seem to have no inherent sense of what is good or bad because they have never had to actually use their jusgement.
-
The only rejections I'm now getting are for TINY evidence of potentially copyrighted material - I used to think Istock were tough but fair
-
yes. Rejections are coming only for things like potential copyright. Then they go to executive reviews and then remain pending for weeks. 1st line of curators are sending images more frequently to executive reviews now. I have had not faced any executive reviews for last 1 year but now my 6 images in last 1 month have reached to their executive curators (and all were passed) still 4-5 more images are waiting in executive review line.
I wonder if they are so relaxed for review of video files too ? because i find they are still strict for footage and dont give any relaxation.
-
While I can appreciate your opinion, I still see that the photo-factories will be able to turn out more photos at a lower cost than a single operator, they will put them out faster and at a lower cost and in some cases the photos will be better as you will have SME's (subject matter experts) to handle each small part of the process. I understand that the commodities are not the same, food vs photos, but I still see that in time, there will be very few photographers on their own out there unless they have a very specialized set of photos or themes. Look at iStock, now a part of Getty, which is part of the Carlyle Group. I see it as just a matter of time, maybe not today, tomorrow or in the next year, but in time.
But even with your analogy of the situation, the photo factories will flood the market, dilute the pool and make it so the single photographer can't make a living off it or won't want to put in the time to get the Pennies on the dollar that they were making. Even if there is a scale back on the new content from the factories, the photos that are there will make it a sea of photos which are mostly from the factories, thus the chance of some of us making a sale is limited at best.
Again, this is my opinion and I actually hope that your view of this is what happens.
Look ... photography generally ... just does not scale. It never has and it never will. That's why if you need portraits done, some wedding photos or a commercial shoot there are no big corporate giants to turn to. It all happens, mainly on a local level, via self-employed individuals or the owners of tiny businesses with very few employees.
Stock photography is no different. If stock photography did scale ... then why don't the agencies do it all themselves, produce their own content (or at least the majority of it) and keep all the sales revenue for themselves? The answer is because they know that they couldn't possibly produce the content as cheaply, as efficiently and as risk-free (to themselves) as we can.
The 'photo factory', as a business model, is inherently flawed and is unlikely to survive for too much longer __ 5-10 years at the outside. In the meantime they have done much damage to everyone else and they have simply accelerated the demise of their own operations and the ability of individual stock photographers to earn a living.
The fact that there are only 5-6 acknowledged 'photo factories', out of supposedly 30K-odd contributors, should tell you much about how unfeasible the long-term prospects of such businesses are. Most of us have considered the idea of scaling up our businesses and have quickly dismissed it as unworkable. When talents such as Sean, Lise and Lisa (and many other Black Diamond level contributors) turn down such an 'opportunity' to grow their businesses and their incomes it should be obvious that there isn't much of an opportunity there.
Good post
-
I've just been sitting around quietly the past two years or so, being annoyed with all the things that doesn't work properly at iStock, so I thought it's time to actually do something. Share my thoughts on how to improve the site with the people in charge. But how the heck do you get in contact with Ellen Desmarais? I'm not a paying member at LinkedIn so that doesn't work. Does anyone know her e-mail?
-
They'd much rather spend $$$$$$ on consultants than listen to their customers/suppliers who might tell them the unpalatable truth
-
I've just been sitting around quietly the past two years or so, being annoyed with all the things that doesn't work properly at iStock, so I thought it's time to actually do something. Share my thoughts on how to improve the site with the people in charge. But how the heck do you get in contact with Ellen Desmarais? I'm not a paying member at LinkedIn so that doesn't work. Does anyone know her e-mail?
I invited her to link to me but she ignored me. We have several mutual acquaintances (since I work in advertising).
-
She hasn't exactly made herself available to
contributors the riff-raff. If we're lucky, she'll throw us some cake.
-
She hasn't exactly made herself available to contributors the riff-raff. If we're lucky, she'll throw us some cake.
I wouldn't eat it if she did; too late as far as I'm concerned.
-
She hasn't exactly made herself available to contributors the riff-raff. If we're lucky, she'll throw us some cake.
That would be some of the cake she took off my table when she cut commissions.
-
You know, I've being doing these guys an injustice calling them stupid because I haven't been looking at the big picture. People who reach the top of the corporate ladder often have fairly flexible morals / ethics but are rarely stupid. Revenues at IS. have to be down after some of the crazy "initiatives" over the last year but I wonder how much IS contributes to the corporation compared to TS and Getty and what the knock on effects have been there. It's beginning to look like like IS is just there to triage images for other parts of the organisation. In terms of telling them everything that's wrong, they are either doing it deliberately or don't care but, in any case, they KNOW ALREADY.
-
I've just been sitting around quietly the past two years or so, being annoyed with all the things that doesn't work properly at iStock, so I thought it's time to actually do something. Share my thoughts on how to improve the site with the people in charge. But how the heck do you get in contact with Ellen Desmarais? I'm not a paying member at LinkedIn so that doesn't work. Does anyone know her e-mail?
Here's another executive. Maybe you'll have better luck: http://fabulousfemalenetwork.net/crowd-sourcing-creativity-and-photos/ (http://fabulousfemalenetwork.net/crowd-sourcing-creativity-and-photos/)
-
You know, I've being doing these guys an injustice calling them stupid because I haven't been looking at the big picture. People who reach the top of the corporate ladder often have fairly flexible morals / ethics but are rarely stupid. Revenues at IS. have to be down after some of the crazy "initiatives" over the last year but I wonder how much IS contributes to the corporation compared to TS and Getty and what the knock on effects have been there. It's beginning to look like like IS is just there to triage images for other parts of the organisation. In terms of telling them everything that's wrong, they are either doing it deliberately or don't care but, in any case, they KNOW ALREADY.
You're probably right... it's not likely they've missed that sales are down with 30% (or whatever it may be) in one year. Or that tens of thousands of buyers have left. But that only makes it weirder... why aren't they doing more? It makes you wonder what their plan really is. It's like they want to die.
The 50% price cut is the only thing they've done that actually means something (not saying it's great but at least it's a change). All other changes are so petty and tiny. New logo, adding "by Getty Images" under the logo, removing a few icons here and there, starting Feast and Fuel... is that really important when the search doesn't work, prices are too high, the loupe images takes 4 seconds to load and the site is running on slow outdated software? Makes you bitter...
-
The site performance is a killer argument like they really don't care about the buyer experience at all. There is probably a certain logic in using IS as a feeder for TS and Getty - I have no info on the relative size of the revenue streams but suspect this is where the money is for them.
-
The site performance is a killer argument like they really don't care about the buyer experience at all. There is probably a certain logic in using IS as a feeder for TS and Getty - I have no info on the relative size of the revenue streams but suspect this is where the money is for them.
Funny about ThinkStock.... I never made $$ there only enough to pay a few road tolls ;).
And, I about fell off my chair when I herd others did! I've always looked at TS as stealing revenue from my istock port.
-
The site performance is a killer argument like they really don't care about the buyer experience at all. There is probably a certain logic in using IS as a feeder for TS and Getty - I have no info on the relative size of the revenue streams but suspect this is where the money is for them.
Funny about ThinkStock.... I never made $$ there only enough to pay a few road tolls ;).
And, I about fell off my chair when I herd others did! I've always looked at TS as stealing revenue from my istock port.
I'm trying to look at this from the point of view of Getty - just looking at my own volumes, I wouldn't be at all surprised if TS was selling as many subs packages as SS.
-
Replying to the topic.. Istock has jumped way back up into the the 200's in alexa traffic rank. But I don't see anything on here talking about that stat.
-
Replying to the topic.. Istock has jumped way back up into the the 200's in alexa traffic rank. But I don't see anything on here talking about that stat.
Interesting. More customers thanks to to 50% price cut on photos? Personally I'm not seeing any increase in sales but I'm only selling vectors (which are way to expensive by the way).
Edit: Just looked at Shutterstock, Fotolia and Dreamstime and their diagrams look the same.
-
Replying to the topic.. Istock has jumped way back up into the the 200's in alexa traffic rank. But I don't see anything on here talking about that stat.
Isn´t that just the normal rise after the summer holidays? Shutterstock has the same increase.
-
Replying to the topic.. Istock has jumped way back up into the the 200's in alexa traffic rank. But I don't see anything on here talking about that stat.
Shutterstock and Dreamstime stats jump sharpely at the same time point. Therefore I think it is reasonably to conclude that we are looking at a change in the way the stats are collected or recorded.
I could speculate that it might be something to do with Facebook but I won't. Or maybe I just did :)
-
What happened on July 15th?
(http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/1039/ul5g.jpg)
-
I've just cleaned up this thread a bit.
-
What happened on July 15th?
([url]http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/1039/ul5g.jpg[/url])
Yuri left.
-
oops
-
What happened on July 15th?
([url]http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/1039/ul5g.jpg[/url])
what are we looking at there exactly (i.e. what is the y-axis)?
-
What I find most striking is how the Partner Program has overtaken iStockphoto by a wide margin, at least for my account. My PP revenue is 80% higher than my base iStock revenue over the last 3 months. Base iStock revenue has become quite insignificant to my monthly earnings totals.
-
What's this all about?
It's getting cheers on iS forums.
It headlines "Bring your original idea to life with content only available from iStock."
When you search in the search box, it takes you to iStock, and gives a regular iStock search, Exclusive, pseudo/quasi/faux-exclusive and indie content as usual.
I'm clearly missing something. Again.
http://discover.istockphoto.com (http://discover.istockphoto.com)
-
yep, what a joke!
-
I guess it could be a beta for some version of the site that leads to a search only on exclusives (and pseudo/quasi/fauxs), but who knows?
-
If you type a string into the search box at the top, it returns exclusive matches only.
-
What's this all about?
It's getting cheers on iS forums.
It headlines "Bring your original idea to life with content only available from iStock."
When you search in the search box, it takes you to iStock, and gives a regular iStock search, Exclusive, pseudo/quasi/faux-exclusive and indie content as usual.
I'm clearly missing something. Again.
[url]http://discover.istockphoto.com[/url] ([url]http://discover.istockphoto.com[/url])
It's just a entry into the site for a certain marketing campaign. I got it a few weeks ago in an email - it might have been part of the "free the creatives" thing.
-
If you type a string into the search box at the top, it returns exclusive matches only.
Not when I did it: I got the lot.
-
/
-
I just went back to check it out. It's changed since I saw it. I almost laughed when this one came up: "Every single image on iStock has been closely inspected by our editors for artistic merit, technical excellence, uniqueness and a whole lot more."
Isn't that a "truth in advertising" thing?
-
If you type a string into the search box at the top, it returns exclusive matches only.
Not when I did it: I got the lot.
I just tried again, and got the same thing you did -- everything.
So it doesn't work consistently, but it does work sometimes. I am shocked. ;)
-
Replying to the topic.. Istock has jumped way back up into the the 200's in alexa traffic rank. But I don't see anything on here talking about that stat.
I am not sure that more visits on the site imply automatically more sales (it should, but it is not a rule)
-
Replying to the topic.. Istock has jumped way back up into the the 200's in alexa traffic rank. But I don't see anything on here talking about that stat.
I am not sure that more visits on the site imply automatically more sales (it should, but it is not a rule)
Is it just me? I'm seeing SS in the top 200 and iS in the top 400. Istock made the top 80 once, if I recall correctly. Also, the fact that all the sites' graphs show the same pattern - and it doesn't seem to be reflected in sales - strongly suggests that it is an artifact created by Alexa's sampling methods rather than a real change.
-
What's this all about?
It's getting cheers on iS forums.
It headlines "Bring your original idea to life with content only available from iStock."
When you search in the search box, it takes you to iStock, and gives a regular iStock search, Exclusive, pseudo/quasi/faux-exclusive and indie content as usual.
I'm clearly missing something. Again.
[url]http://discover.istockphoto.com[/url] ([url]http://discover.istockphoto.com[/url])
They made a page with scrolling text. woo-hoo
-
What's this all about?
It's getting cheers on iS forums.
It headlines "Bring your original idea to life with content only available from iStock."
When you search in the search box, it takes you to iStock, and gives a regular iStock search, Exclusive, pseudo/quasi/faux-exclusive and indie content as usual.
I'm clearly missing something. Again.
[url]http://discover.istockphoto.com[/url] ([url]http://discover.istockphoto.com[/url])
They made a page with scrolling text. woo-hoo
A conceit which was horrid in its first iteration a few years back, and isn't any better nowadays.
I know, I know, it's for the weans.
-
I had only 5 sales this week and only 13 this month. I don't have a big portfolio but that is the worst week since 2007 in the first month I started. I went to see if maybe I had new competition in my favorite search. No photo sales on new uploads in that subject since May for my competitors and 4 for me. I used to get 3 a day on that niche alone. And it's a major industry. I got a little boost out of the similar images thingy even though I did not like the way that was executed. Now it seems like selling well is over. I got no Getty royalties last month. I don't see an exit strategy. I am not selling my photos for a buck. My images are not generic and also sell in the decor print market. I have recently uploaded some exciting images from a sector of the oil industry that was never covered in stock before. Very little action. I also have cornered other market niches. They have all fallen dead, despite being popular six months ago. Maybe it's nervousness about the economy. Maybe it is the end.
-
According to DM, I've had 96 views since Monday.
Long gone are the days when I could easily get that number of sales M-F, mind you these were my glory days: Oct - Dec 2008.
Nightmare sales last fortnight, other than one goodish day (relative to the rest). Too many weekdays with 0, 1 or 2 dls.
You just know that when an exclusive BD is reporting non-holiday weekdays with 2 or 3 sales, the rest of us are doomed.
-
Interesting factoid: "Yuri" is showing "greater than 25,000 sales" on 78,000 images since the new identity was created in April. I'm rather surprised to see that one of his top business images is selling in the 10cr-55cr price bracket.
I don't know if they are still showing the downloads in jumps of 1,000 the way they used to (i.e. more than 25k also means less than 26k), if they are it suggests that he is selling around 5k a month, which would mean averaging considerably less than one sale per file per year. That's surely way below his long-term average just at iStock, let alone replacing the thousands a day he reportedly sold on SS plus the other sites he's pulled out of.
I wonder if he is still happy about the deal he struck.
But if sales have collapsed for Mamamaart and Yuri, where has the money gone? Is it still in the Getty group or is it leaking out elsewhere? And how come the iStock exclusive figure is still so high in the poll results? It's all rather confusing.
-
you are missing the other account and also the millions he must have got paid ahead
SS alone with 4k sales a day makes 120k sales, lets pretend he had 1$ RPD that is 120k a month or 1.44M a year
so yep 5k downloads at IS even at 20$ RPD its only 100k $
-
My point is that regardless of whether he has one or two accounts, a huge portfolio from an acknowledged industry leader simply isn't generating a significant number of sales on iS. If all was well at iStock I would expect a portfolio of that size and quality to pull in hundreds of thousands of sales a year and, apparently, it no longer can.
-
My point is that regardless of whether he has one or two accounts, a huge portfolio from an acknowledged industry leader simply isn't generating a significant number of sales on iS. If all was well at iStock I would expect a portfolio of that size and quality to pull in hundreds of thousands of sales a year and, apparently, it no longer can.
indeed! anyway I am not worried with iStock/Yuri's lack of sales ;D
-
.
-
you are missing the other account and also the millions he must have got paid ahead
SS alone with 4k sales a day makes 120k sales, lets pretend he had 1$ RPD that is 120k a month or 1.44M a year
so yep 5k downloads at IS even at 20$ RPD its only 100k $
I would gnaw of a limb for 100k a month ;D
-
you are missing the other account and also the millions he must have got paid ahead
SS alone with 4k sales a day makes 120k sales, lets pretend he had 1$ RPD that is 120k a month or 1.44M a year
so yep 5k downloads at IS even at 20$ RPD its only 100k $
I would gnaw of a limb for 100k a month ;D
Don't forget your 100 employees!
-
you are missing the other account and also the millions he must have got paid ahead
SS alone with 4k sales a day makes 120k sales, lets pretend he had 1$ RPD that is 120k a month or 1.44M a year
so yep 5k downloads at IS even at 20$ RPD its only 100k $
I would gnaw of a limb for 100k a month ;D
Don't forget your 100 employees!
yep!
-
Maybe iStock drives buyers to his other site, where IIRC the prices are cheaper and bigger-budget clients can have personalised image editing.
-
Maybe iStock drives buyers to his other site, where IIRC the prices are cheaper and bigger-budget clients can have personalised image editing.
It would be a very bad thing for iStock if that was happening.
-
you are missing the other account and also the millions he must have got paid ahead
SS alone with 4k sales a day makes 120k sales, lets pretend he had 1$ RPD that is 120k a month or 1.44M a year
so yep 5k downloads at IS even at 20$ RPD its only 100k $
I would gnaw of a limb for 100k a month ;D
Don't forget your 100 employees!
Emotionally and rationally the difficult thing for Yuri to do is let everyone go; sell of most of the equipment and get rid of the studio(s), etc and allow the money to build for as long as possible and call it a good run. It's seems obvious from where I sit.
-
My point is that regardless of whether he has one or two accounts, a huge portfolio from an acknowledged industry leader simply isn't generating a significant number of sales on iS. If all was well at iStock I would expect a portfolio of that size and quality to pull in hundreds of thousands of sales a year and, apparently, it no longer can.
I pointed this some days ago, when through a link I saw that in the top download there aren't its files, nor in day, week or month section. But you may consider like luissantos wrote that he got some money after the agreement by GI. Also seems that he pointed more in RM licenses through GI, potentially more lucrative. Not to mention the files "exclusive" that aren't really exclusive. Maybe things are better for him and he recovered quickly the loss income from other agencies but this deal appear like a boomerang for GI. Seems like if some that would consider to go exclusive, before must contact GI and get special treatment or the usual rules aren't enough to go exclusive with more earnings.
-
Judging by the number of files I have, and the number of files I sell monthly (even in this not very promising October) I cant't believe Yuri is jus selling 5.000 a month with a 70.000 highy commercial portfoilio. I would have 2x or 3x ratio over him, and my portfolio is not so commercial at all.
-
.
-
you are missing the other account and also the millions he must have got paid ahead
SS alone with 4k sales a day makes 120k sales, lets pretend he had 1$ RPD that is 120k a month or 1.44M a year
so yep 5k downloads at IS even at 20$ RPD its only 100k $
I'm pretty sure Yuri wasn't earning anything like as much as people assumed (or as much as he claimed either).
To drill down a bit further into the numbers, Yuri's father claimed Yuri was averaging 3-4k downloads per day on SS. I think it's safe to assume he meant weekdays not weekends when downloads (for me) are generally about 20% of weekdays.
Taking the mid-point would have Yuri generating 3500 sales per weekday and 700 on weekends or 18.9K per week. That makes 982K sales per year and, at a realistic 80c per download, would mean an income of $786K annually. Of course that doesn't take into account vacations and seasonal lows either but let's ignore that for easy numbers.
Most independent contributors report SS earnings to be 40-50% of their total. If that was also true for Yuri then his total microstock income, before exclusivity, was likely to be in the range of $1.5M - $2M, most probably at the lower end of that range if not below.
When Yuri brags about his income in the various interviews, being "way ahead of $5M and now heading towards $10M", I believe he is actually referring to total earnings since he started microstock. Funnily enough if he was earning about $1.5M annually before he went exclusive then I would absolutely expect his total earnings to be above $5M and below $10M.
I very much doubt that Getty had to persuade Yuri with cash handouts to go exclusive. I think they just knew which buttons to press to appeal to his ego. You know the sort of thing "But Yuri, professionals deal with professionals."
-
When Yuri brags about his income in the various interviews, being "way ahead of $5M and now heading towards $10M", I believe he is actually referring to total earnings since he started microstock. Funnily enough if he was earning about $1.5M annually before he went exclusive then I would absolutely expect his total earnings to be above $5M and below $10M.
I was thinking about the same thing while writing my post here today, as always Yuri playing the show-off act
-
When Yuri brags about his income in the various interviews, being "way ahead of $5M and now heading towards $10M", I believe he is actually referring to total earnings since he started microstock. Funnily enough if he was earning about $1.5M annually before he went exclusive then I would absolutely expect his total earnings to be above $5M and below $10M.
I was thinking about the same thing while writing my post here today, as always Yuri playing the show-off act
To be honest I'm slightly sceptical about the accuracy of 3-4K downloads per day too! His sales ratio, compared to mine, would have to be double on SS what is actually is on DT. Both of us stopped uploading to DT for a couple of years too so we both had much larger portfolios on SS.
-
When Yuri brags about his income in the various interviews, being "way ahead of $5M and now heading towards $10M", I believe he is actually referring to total earnings since he started microstock. Funnily enough if he was earning about $1.5M annually before he went exclusive then I would absolutely expect his total earnings to be above $5M and below $10M.
I was thinking about the same thing while writing my post here today, as always Yuri playing the show-off act
To be honest I'm slightly sceptical about the accuracy of 3-4K downloads per day too! His sales ratio, compared to mine, would have to be double on SS what is actually is on DT. Both of us stopped uploading to DT for a couple of years too so we both had much larger portfolios on SS.
I know a Spanish contributor getting around 500 downloads per weekday at SS with a 35k portfolio, mostly people as well
-
Judging by the number of files I have, and the number of files I sell monthly (even in this not very promising October) I cant't believe Yuri is jus selling 5.000 a month with a 70.000 highy commercial portfoilio. I would have 2x or 3x ratio over him, and my portfolio is not so commercial at all.
It looks like he added 65,000 of those 78,000 since the end of jun. And 20,000 of those files are only 1 month old.
Good points. I'd assumed they'd put all the images up at the start. It makes a lot more sense that these haven't been online for all that time.
-
.
-
...I very much doubt that Getty had to persuade Yuri with cash handouts to go exclusive. I think they just knew which buttons to press to appeal to his ego. You know the sort of thing "But Yuri, professionals deal with professionals."
They have effectively given him a big cash handout by allowing him to carry on selling on other sites while being "exclusive". So they obviously had to do a lot more than just appeal to his ego.
-
...I very much doubt that Getty had to persuade Yuri with cash handouts to go exclusive. I think they just knew which buttons to press to appeal to his ego. You know the sort of thing "But Yuri, professionals deal with professionals."
They have effectively given him a big cash handout by allowing him to carry on selling on other sites while being "exclusive". So they obviously had to do a lot more than just appeal to his ego.
it is amazing, 5 months after and he still has portfolio at DT and MP ???
-
...I very much doubt that Getty had to persuade Yuri with cash handouts to go exclusive. I think they just knew which buttons to press to appeal to his ego. You know the sort of thing "But Yuri, professionals deal with professionals."
They have effectively given him a big cash handout by allowing him to carry on selling on other sites while being "exclusive". So they obviously had to do a lot more than just appeal to his ego.
Maybe they took a Dragon's Den/Shark Tank share in his other site. He did hint once on here that it is a Getty Partner so eligible for the 'only on iStock' label on iS, though at the same time skirting the issue of his images on other sites. (82100 still on Mostphotos, 35,107 on DT, 45,702 on Superstock; 61,239 RF on Alamy as of this moment). Seems he had a very low risk exclusivity deal. He is now off Pixmac which erodes my theory that iS redefined 'exclusivity' for him as to mean "not at SS". Also seems like he wasn't allowed to add more to his other ports since mid July.
Added: Oops, Luis, your checking was faster!
-
it gets even better, I would be quite upset if I was exclusive...
-
When Yuri brags about his income in the various interviews, being "way ahead of $5M and now heading towards $10M", I believe he is actually referring to total earnings since he started microstock. Funnily enough if he was earning about $1.5M annually before he went exclusive then I would absolutely expect his total earnings to be above $5M and below $10M.
I was thinking about the same thing while writing my post here today, as always Yuri playing the show-off act
To be honest I'm slightly sceptical about the accuracy of 3-4K downloads per day too! His sales ratio, compared to mine, would have to be double on SS what is actually is on DT. Both of us stopped uploading to DT for a couple of years too so we both had much larger portfolios on SS.
Everybody's sales ratio compared to everyone else is much higher on SS than DT - strange isn't it ;)
-
When Yuri brags about his income in the various interviews, being "way ahead of $5M and now heading towards $10M", I believe he is actually referring to total earnings since he started microstock. Funnily enough if he was earning about $1.5M annually before he went exclusive then I would absolutely expect his total earnings to be above $5M and below $10M.
I was thinking about the same thing while writing my post here today, as always Yuri playing the show-off act
To be honest I'm slightly sceptical about the accuracy of 3-4K downloads per day too! His sales ratio, compared to mine, would have to be double on SS what is actually is on DT. Both of us stopped uploading to DT for a couple of years too so we both had much larger portfolios on SS.
Everybody's sales ratio compared to everyone else is much higher on SS than DT - strange isn't it ;)
my all time DT earnings are around 10% of SS
-
When Yuri brags about his income in the various interviews, being "way ahead of $5M and now heading towards $10M", I believe he is actually referring to total earnings since he started microstock. Funnily enough if he was earning about $1.5M annually before he went exclusive then I would absolutely expect his total earnings to be above $5M and below $10M.
I was thinking about the same thing while writing my post here today, as always Yuri playing the show-off act
To be honest I'm slightly sceptical about the accuracy of 3-4K downloads per day too! His sales ratio, compared to mine, would have to be double on SS what is actually is on DT. Both of us stopped uploading to DT for a couple of years too so we both had much larger portfolios on SS.
Everybody's sales ratio compared to everyone else is much higher on SS than DT - strange isn't it ;)
What Gostwyck meant was that if he sold five licenses on SS for every one he sold on DT, Yuri was said to be selling 10 licenses on SS for each that he sold on DT.
They have very different portfolios, though, so there are lots of variables that would affect the sales ratios.
-
Subtlety sometimes doesn't work :) I meant it the same way gostwyck did. Photog A claims sales 10 times more than photog B on SS, yet photog's A's sales on DT, IS, FT etc tend to be in the same ballpark as photog B