Review times suck and I started getting a few rejections here and there, but can't complain about sales.

I had a long discussion via email with them on their review problems and they just blew me off.  I think it is time I part ways with Pond5, not that they will care or even notice, but purely on the principle that what they are doing is just bad business practice and a waste of my time.

How it all started:

1.  I purposely submitted and extremely sharp image of an Anhinga( bird).
2.  It was rejected for focus
3.  I called them on it
4.  They sent me bad an unsharp part of the image where the depth of field had shifted.
5.  When I submitted the eye of the bird and head at 100% and totally sharp they just dropped the conversation.  They knew I was right but didn't want to back off their decision.  That my friends is just bad business.

Sorry that sucks.

Obviously, what they are looking for is something entirely in focus with no depth of field.

It�s amazing how much negativity they are spreading in such a short time. Just a few weeks or three months ago people were only complaining about long review times, but otherwise were satisfied with pond5. You can always use more sales, but people felt at home.

Now there isn�t a single board where people are not complaining bitterly.

Who is now in charge of pond5? Do they now have a management that has never worked in the stock industry?

Instead of changing everything, why didn�t they add an additional site to experiment with and then very gradually implement what works on pond5, after discussing it carefully with contributors?

Why drive people to explore the competition? I don�t understand their goals at all.

Shutterstock, Videoblocks and Adobe are probably ordering champagne every week, this is an unexpected gift for them. And if istock had vision, they would use this opportunity to announce a new royalty system to attract all the content that has avoided them.

I would love this to happen but I can't recall a time where they did anything in favor of the contributor.  The only thing is that if they realize the delta between revenue loss that's linked to how much profit they are losing.  They are reaming us with horrible commissions, so a lot of people pulled content and no longer upload there. But what if they recognize this?  By increasing royalties to some higher level, they attract more content that ultimately yields higher gross margins.  The problem is that they would never offer royalties that even comes close to competing with P5. 

Let's hope, new posh office on Park Ave. in Manhattan will inspire curators to work harder.
 

Quote from: KnowYourOnions on April 04, 2016, 10:35

Let's hope, new posh office on Park Ave. in Manhattan will inspire curators to work harder.
 

Do you really think curators work in this office? Once there was a talk about P5 outsourced curation to an Indian company.

I was super cynical.
They are all in Czech Rep. 
https://www.facebook.com/groups/720805501262878/?fref=ts

I suppose there will be less competition if they reject so much but I still don't get why they haven't gone through the collection and removed all the lower quality clips they accepted in the past.  Having the highest standards now wont make the site more appealing because it was already full of clips that all the other sites would of rejected.

They should communicate with all contributors to let us know exactly what they want now because I don't see the point in uploading if there's a good chance of 100% rejection.  They should also let us know that they are committed to keeping the 50% rate because with so many things changing, that's the last thing left that will make me want to carry on uploading.

My number one selling photo on Shutterstock and Fotolia can't get accepted at Pond5. It's rather a mystery, but at least their rejection notices make some sense compared to Fotolia, which just gives you a list of a dozen possible reasons they might reject any photo.

I just had a badge of clips reviewed that were submitted 6 weeks ago, all of them were approved.

Official reply just in today:

lawrence 21 Apr 2016 16:51
Hey folks! Not sure if I posted in this thread yet. I can confirm that the curators are tightening their acceptance parameters as we grow and evolve. Some pieces of advice from us:

1. Look at the clips from your own batch that were accepted, and use that as a guide for what we are looking for from you.
2. If you feel clips were mistakenly or wrongly rejected, please do write in to [email protected] with the clip IDs and why you think there may have been a mistake. We can run them by the curators for a second look. Please be aware that sometimes the decision is final, and each time we send clips for a second review, the queue becomes longer.
3. We realise frustrating things happen when acceptance patameters change. That's why our curation leads are working on a comprehensive guide to add to our Artist Resources - this will be an anvaluable resource and something to help you consider what exactly we're looking for when we curate.

I hope this helps! Please be assured, we value you guys and we want everyone to do well, from the jack of all trades artists to the b roll folks, to the full time stock shot professionals. Building a strong, high quality marketplace with things that are likely to sell will help us all do better.

https://www.pond5.com/community?forum=715&thread=52442241

I don't upload new content for a while, sales are at such low level that I don't see any point in investing my time with pond5.I will wait few more months to see what will happen with sales and then decide is it worth to keep my videos there.Past two months sales are 
down almost 75%

It�s amazing how much negativity they are spreading in such a short time. Just a few weeks or three months ago people were only complaining about long review times, but otherwise were satisfied with pond5. You can always use more sales, but people felt at home.

Now there isn�t a single board where people are not complaining bitterly.

Who is now in charge of pond5? Do they now have a management that has never worked in the stock industry?

Instead of changing everything, why didn�t they add an additional site to experiment with and then very gradually implement what works on pond5, after discussing it carefully with contributors?

Why drive people to explore the competition? I don�t understand their goals at all.

Shutterstock, Videoblocks and Adobe are probably ordering champagne every week, this is an unexpected gift for them. And if istock had vision, they would use this opportunity to announce a new royalty system to attract all the content that has avoided them.

To be fair there's one person that has been complaining at every opportunity about everything Pond5 does and starting threads for the purpose. The problem with this forum is that many of those contributing do nothing other than use it for a sounding board for negativity.

I can't see that things have changed that much in terms of sales or reviews at Pond5. Obviously they're now starting to reject a bit more, but lifting the standards of contributions isn't necessarily a bad thing. I haven't seen complaints from anyone that has a high quality portfolio - if that happens there's more to be alarmed about.

There were some big site changes last month that will have an impact, but its far too early to really know how those will impact sales if at all.

People are complaining on all groups in all languages and you think that one artist is creating these complaints?

They just have to go through their rejection list, every time their curators are not "impressed" and reject a large batch, the artist will complain somewhere. All that negative energy comes from their own actions.

Their rejection list is their karma list.

The artists vent in one of the many public and closed groups in the community. What is being written here and on p5 itself is just the tip of the iceberg. Most community communication went underground after the Getty Google deal and DPC, but the overall activity is the same. If anything, I�d say it has increased, because information of who is worth uploading to, is what people live from.

I don�t remember p5 ever creating such negative vibe so drastically. They always had a good reputation.

For many sellers 300 dollars a month is a full time income. Might be nothing if you are from New York, but there is a huge world of sellers out there that really feed their family with their stock income.

Again it is their company, they can do whatever they want. I don�t think there is anything we can really do. It will be several months until the new management has implemented whatever they want to change and until they acknowledge the impact of what they did.

ETA:

Have you ever heard Amazon or ebay say to their sellers: "We already have too many people selling chairs and your selection does not impress our employees. Please sell these chairs with one of our competitors and we hope you can impress us next time"

No? Because they are marketplaces, they provide a framework but every seller is responsible for their own success.

They never micromanage a sellers port, which is why they have this explosive growth.

If you micromanage, you are not a marketplace.

My point was that about half the complaints on this forum come from one poster who finds some negative comment to make about anything Pond5 does regardless of what it is. On other forums yes there's some complaints about poor sales and rejections, but there's also plenty of opposite sentiment. Also when i look at the complaints, I see the same people posting in multiple forums and making the same points wherever they go.

If you buy into sales threads for any agencies you'll find the same views at any given time. Best match algorithms change or there's variation in sales - its part of the industry and if your portfolio is at the size or quality where its making $300 a month, its far too small to get any idea as to whether this is normal fluctuation of if something else is going on - change in best match maybe?

I don't check every forum in every language - I don't have time to. The nature of forums and this industry is that people like to talk about their failures and rarely successes. What I read on the Pond5 forum is a mix of people that are happy that there are new standards and those that aren't. The discussion then descends into whether rejections of videos shot at f22 are warranted. The other forum on Pond 5 is a repeat of the same people posting and really only a handful of the same points being made over and over.

The comparison with Ebay and Amazon aren't really relevant, no matter how many times you repeat it. You're never going to have thousands of sellers going out and making their own chairs when they've never made a chair before. Also there's a rating process and way of buyers getting their money back if they get products that aren't up to scratch, which usually involves a cost to the seller in terms of shipping. If you think just anyone can set up shop and list products on Amazon like this, you're mistaken. The other big difference is that these sites are selling to a consumer market, whereas stock agencies are mostly to businesses.

From my perspective I think Pond5 made a mistake in letting through a lot of the content on for so long - in video its much more difficult and time consuming for buyers to sort through thousands of clips and try to find material they want. If they constantly find substandard clips, they'll go somewhere with better curation.