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Messages - dnavarrojr
Pages: 1 2 3 4 [5] 6 7 8 9 10 ... 17
101
« on: September 27, 2010, 18:52 »
102
« on: September 27, 2010, 18:38 »
I am primarily interested in it for footage as well. And I'll be honest, you need to seriously consider a flat fee. $20 a month, $30 a month, something like that.
Find yourself a data center in the U.S. (there are many) that does not charge for bandwidth. That was iSyndica's problem... The "price per upload" model for footage does not work. If you can put together a package with unlimited transfers for a workable fee, the footage people will flock.
103
« on: September 27, 2010, 08:07 »
PhotoShelter is stills only, isn't it? They don't support footage?
104
« on: September 27, 2010, 07:36 »
This is a major bummer. It was especially useful for footage and I loved/used their analytics daily.
105
« on: September 15, 2010, 12:10 »
fair enough. but it's my guess you're all happy to watch David flounder while you wait it out to see what happens, so he truly is the only one putting his money where his mouth is and I think it will be to his detriment. I hate to see a valuable contributor do that to himself out of misguided loyalty (not because you don't deserve his loyalty, so don't nail me to that cross please, but simply because it is far too early to be jumping ship).
I think iStock has not been given nearly enough credit in this. that you feel a revolution is the only and best way to get them to listen...anyways, whatever. I'm beating my head against the wall. good luck David, sincerely. I do believe you've made an error and I truly am sad to see you go.
i would agree that removing your portfolio in September/October over something which doesn't take affect until January is acting a bit brashly. Particularly if iStock is a significant amount of your income. However, I would also agree that suspending uploading of new images and openly courting buyers to use other agencies is a fair tactic to use. Nonetheless, he has listened to his conscious and he obviously knows the impact it will have on him. I applaud him his decision and courage. I only wish my iStock portfolio wasn't so minuscule so that my leaving iStock would have as much meaning as him leaving does.
106
« on: September 14, 2010, 00:28 »
I am wishing StockFresh well. I actually liked StockXpert and did well there. But lets not lose sight of the fact that SF is a business and they're back because there is money to be made. They are not philanthropists who are looking out for the best interest of artists (the inability to opt of of subs shows artists interests aren't number one). So it's best to not have any illusions about them. They seem like good people with good hearts and intentions, but remember they sold out before, so anything is still possible.
It just seems like their not fully committed to it either... Why would it take 3 months or more to approve artists? What's the point of even approving artists if you are still going to review each and every image uploaded? It seems like they know what they like and don't like and they know what's good and what's not good, so just mass approve everyone and reject the crappy images. Unless the purpose is to control the number of images being submitted because there isn't enough money behind it to hire reviewers, in which case an approval process makes perfect sense, you don't want the 2 to 4 month image approval times like DT or IS.
Deposit Photos didn't make anyone go through an approval process. They just accept what they want and reject what they don't like every other agency out there and look how quickly they built up their portfolio (of course, the bounty for referrals and payments for approved images also helped). Heck, I've got more sales on DP than I do iStock.
Now with this iStock thing SF is probably being flooded with applications and images which is going to make the situation worse for those who haven't been approved yet.
107
« on: September 13, 2010, 17:44 »
Peter, you have your work cut out... 
I really don't appreciate all of the sarcasm and the intonation that I am stupid.
You need to check around a little. Currently, my images, after they reach a certain age, automatically go into the FREE section at IS. There used to be an opt-out for that, but it magically disappeared a while back. I only found out about this after checking the FREE section on my own. Then I had to delete them all. Now, I have to check periodically to make sure there are none there.
You should be ashamed of yourself for making me look like a total idiot for asking those questions after what just happened at IS. If you think I am going to blindly trust ANY agency right now, you're the ignorant ones.
I gotta agree, you didn't understand how things worked and instead of trying to give an explanation of the relationship, he had to be a total ass.
108
« on: September 10, 2010, 19:09 »
If it's not about money, how about ALL of the management at iStock pledge to take a 25% pay cut to show their solidarity with artists?!?
109
« on: September 10, 2010, 10:57 »
I am on the video side and will retain my current level in 2011. That being said sometimes I am jealous of Non-Exclusives. I started video there when video started at IS. I did a ton of research and the only people I could find on the web who were making any decent money was IS exclusives. So I closed my accounts everywhere and went exclusive. It has been good for me. My medical job was cut in April of this year so iStock is what is feeding my family. Now if you think that is easy street think again! I am not holding out for any change. I just need to focus on getting good content out there. If I dropped my exclusive in 2011 I would go from 35% to 18% ahh could you afford that? I just can't afford it and I can't find a Cat Scan job in my area at all. I can relocate as there are medical jobs out there if I have to. Wish me luck and I have been fighting for all you non-exclusives. I feel the bottom of the barrel should be 20%
You have to do what's right for you, that's true of everyone. And trust me, I know of which you speak. I got laid off for a second time a couple of years ago and have been living on unemployment, occasional consulting jobs and my stock sales. Fortunately, I never got sucked into exclusivity anywhere. So I've got stuff on numerous sites. That was wonderful during the summer slump because when sales plummeted most places, a couple of places took up some of the slack with sales I wasn't getting last year. I wish you sell and hope you can keep up your level the following year as well.
110
« on: September 10, 2010, 10:43 »
111
« on: September 10, 2010, 10:40 »
I'm still evaluating, but right now I'm leaning strongly toward dropping my exclusive status at iStock come the first of the year.
Yeah, well I'd evaluate very carefully. I know of two reasonably high selling exclusives who dropped exclusivity last year, they're now back on IS with their tails between their legs, back as exclusives. Your income will plummet, I kid you not, I've seen one of the figures. If you have a few years to spare to crawl back up the rankings elsewhere ( an increasingly hard task) and your IS income is just pocket money it may be worth a punt, if you have more to lose than pocket money I'd be very careful. Most of the people here pulling their work are very small fishes making a huge amount of noise completely out of all proportion to their sales. They will miss the loss in income more than IS will miss them.
What a load of crap. The potential is there for even MORE income by diversifying. You cannot say definitively for every single exclusive that they're income will drop MORE by dropping exclusivity over staying and taking it up the rear.
112
« on: September 10, 2010, 10:15 »
Encode your video in QuickTime .MOV format using the "PhotoJPEG" codec at 85% to 95% and remove the audio track. That is supported everywhere.
You can just do it with QuickTime if you have Pro version. You might try the free trial of Sony Vegas, it's fully functional for 30-days. Or search for MPEG Streamclip which is used by many hobbyist stock footage people.
The biggest advice I can give you with footage is BE PATIENT. It can takes months sometimes for your first sale, depending on how saturated the subject is for your clip.
113
« on: September 10, 2010, 10:10 »
You upload your files to iSyndica once. They turn around and upload your files to all of the agencies you support. Essentially saving you the time/effort of having to upload each file to each agency you support. For stills it's not that big of a deal, but footage files can be so large it's a HUGE time saver.
In addition, they track your downloads/sales on many sites and give you one-stop reporting. A very handy feature.
114
« on: September 09, 2010, 22:32 »
It's all well and good if you can actually get approved to sell images. I did get a very fast response after I used the form (thanks for the quick response), but all I got was an apology that things are moving slow and a request for more patience.
I actually enjoyed StockXpert for the most part and did fairly well there with footage. I hope you'll get back to selling footage.
115
« on: September 08, 2010, 22:37 »
Still waiting for approval hmmm 4 months by now...way too long.
Yeah, it's been 3 or 4 months for me as well. I emailed them several times to inquire what was going on, but apparently I needed to use their form because I never got a response. Just tried their form, so we'll see what happens.
116
« on: September 08, 2010, 22:29 »
Ditto... The folks at Stockfresh don't answer emails... I'm not impressed so far.
Not sure where you wrote, but we haven't received any e-mails from the address in your account. If you use the online form, we will definitely get it.
I used the form this time... we'll see what happens. I am curious as to why it takes months to approve applications.
117
« on: September 08, 2010, 10:04 »
So, for whatever reason... Most of the photographers in my local camera club are Nikon shooters. So I call Nikon to see if we can get a rep to speak at our convention next year. They promise to come up with someone, then never return any of my calls for the past month now. I call Canon this morning and within 30 minutes they call me back and offer me 4 speakers at their expense. So guess who will be demoing cameras at our convention?  The Nikon people in our group are very loyal, but they're extremely pissed that Nikon blew us off.
118
« on: September 08, 2010, 08:38 »
1st January: delete all photos
I would never delete my photos from IS. I have too much time invested in uploading and keywording etc.
It would be much better to inform the clients about other sites where photographers are treated more fairly.
It is stupid to completely remove a revenue source until/unless other sites can take up the slack. You are MUCH better off just stopping uploading to iStock and continuing to collect revenue from your existing work.
119
« on: September 08, 2010, 08:30 »
I think there would be real poetic justice if contributors went all out to support Stockfresh and enabled them to triumph after what Getty did to the remains of StockXpert. I believe they're paying 50% commission.
I'd love to do that. But I'm waiting for my application to be approved since several months now... 
Ditto... The folks at Stockfresh don't answer emails... I'm not impressed so far.
120
« on: September 08, 2010, 08:28 »
All of this reminds me of why I love Shutterstock.
All this reminds me of why I have always loved Dreamstime too. Achilles makes a conscious effort to create a level playing field for contributors new and old, the opposite of what IS has always done.
Agree (while there could have been some weaker spots).
However far more importantly - this moves make it very difficult for the fairer sites to survive and compete. Their fairer (to contributors) strategy means they have less (and probably far less) money to use to grab market share.
I disagree. With an expected flood of artists dropping exclusivity, they'll pick up thousands upon thousands of new images (new to them) and with their already lower price-point they'll be MUCH MORE attractive to buyers. iStock survives on its exclusives, it's what gives them their power. Which is why upsetting the exclusives this way makes so little sense.
121
« on: September 07, 2010, 23:22 »
Is there any way of limiting a particular image on Shutterstock to Enhanced License? I have a newsworthy image that might prove to be in demand as the anniversary of the event approaches. It sort of rankles to see the license royalties at $.25 for this particular image.
Nope. SS is all about subscriptions, so they're not going to do anything to deny their subscribers access to everything.
122
« on: September 07, 2010, 23:21 »
I don't believe anyone threatening to drop exclusivity will do it.
Nobody? Not one person? Really?!?
123
« on: September 07, 2010, 23:03 »
...
124
« on: September 07, 2010, 17:34 »
It's all about the designers, and if you guys really want to make a statement, it's going to have to be with buyers. Frankly, istock probably doesn't care if a few people delete their portfolios or stop uploading. If they are going to feel any impact from this, it'll have to come from buyers. If you're a designer and purchase stock images, look elsewhere from now on. If you know people who buy from istock, let them know what's going on and that they could actually save money AND support artists by taking their business elsewhere.
This is very smart Mike. I have been looking into getting a site built and had been trying to decide which agency to link the images to. Had been considering Istock just this morning. I will be choosing another site that pays a decent % instead.
Also, my current business cards have the link to my IS portfolio. I will be changing that and ordering new cards ASAP.
Maybe not much, but if everyone with their own site or blog did the same thing it could have some impact. And what about the industry bloggers? Hopefully they will be vocal about these changes to warn buyers.
Someone else said it, but it bares repeating... MANY iStock exclusives are going to drop their exclusive status and flood other sites with images that use to only be available on iStock. I think Buyers will notice this, especially since prices are lower on most other sites.
125
« on: September 07, 2010, 17:25 »
I think this thread can now be closed
Yeah, I don' think anyone will ever be going exclusive with iStock again...
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