Quote from: heywoody on October 06, 2013, 10:39

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.

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.

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

I've just cleaned up this thread a bit. 

oops

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.

yep, what a joke!

If you type a string into the search box at the top, it returns exclusive matches only.

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?

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)

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

They made a page with scrolling text. woo-hoo

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.