Thats great, but the professional footage shooter is going to win this by a mile. SS wont pick a great story with a crappy video. Even if the story is the most compelling.,

Are you saying my gripping and dramatic puppet show isn't going to win?

4 - it's not clear how big this problem will be -- it may be that most buyers are only looking for 1 or 2 images at any time

This is probably true, but at the same time it would be nice to be the go to hub for images. So, I think there is something to be said for thinking of the concept in broader terms.

Looks like Fotolia is on the same path as iStock before, repeating the same mistakes iStock made.

I think Fotolia has been on that path longer. It seems people just don't care as much.

I'm confused. Surely all these are part of 'the alternative' to being iS exclusive?

Maybe, I was overthinking it. I just see a lot of people's fears about going independent as I don't want to sell my stuff on SS for subs prices or that classic factory strategy of I sell anywhere and everywhere. There's nothing wrong with those strategies, but a lot of people do want to have more control and be a little pickier about where they distribute to. That philosophy seems to be growing as well, so I see it as almost an alternative to the classic independent thinking.

Don't mistake my sentiments about Istock, I'm much more negative about the alternative than I am positive about exclusivity.  I think it's the (much) better option out of two poor ones.

Trust me. There are more than two options. I've pretty much chosen neither of the two you are referring to.

The sales threads happening now are unbelievably depressing.And the reports from the network grid are even worse and the majority of community interaction is no longer taking place on the istock forums. You don't seem to be using them yourself...

I assume they weren't offering us vector peeps 20% again because everything was peachy either.

Quote from: cthoman on August 12, 2013, 11:07

Quote from: tickstock on August 12, 2013, 11:02

Quote from: cthoman on August 12, 2013, 11:00

I make 0% of my income at IS, so I'm going with mathematically impossible. 

Can't argue with that.

In all seriousness, 30% I would think would be the point you should start looking at it. Anything below that seems like an unsafe bet.

Right now I'd say 20% is pretty much a guarantee and 10% isn't crazy (and for embermike, 5% is possible).  Minimally pricing differences are around 4x and royalty rates are 2x so without considering search position, moving up a level from higher RCs, higher PP earnings, Vetta, S+, or Getty you would be making 8x more per sale.  It's probably different for illustrators, I don't really have much of an idea what's going on there these days.

8 times your current? That's a fantasy land.

I make 0% of my income at IS, so I'm going with mathematically impossible. 

I may be a Pollyanna and I don't know what their books look like. But I think that if they shocked contributors with this type of goodwill, they would see a stampede of people returning to them. The goodwill would likely slowly spread back to the buying community, just as all of the bad will in recent years soured it.

I tend to agree with doing it positive. I think IS or DT seem to be in the best situation to actually be the contributor's choice agency, but so far they have taken steps in the opposite direction.

If I ran it, I might get rid of the exclusive program and pay everyone 40% or 50%. Simplify the pricing (for real). Maybe an $8, $16 and $24 size pricing. Then, probably add back in a premium collection of some sort. Maybe not though. Fixing the upload system definitely makes sense too. Maybe, just do it a simple FTP and have reviewers categorize images and make adjustments to titles and descriptions.

I think the problem in that theory is that contributors aren't necessarily a faceless herd of cattle and they don't necessarily sit still and wait. While you are busy playing games, things may move away from your business to another business. Isn't that what happened to iStock?

What about you guys?
Are you doing that well in sales on this website as Fotolia does itself selling your images at a low price?

I'm doing great! I deleted my portfolio about 3 years ago, and I've never been happier.

Quote from: cthoman on August 09, 2013, 11:10

Yikes, July looks ugly. Hopefully, that was an aberration and not the new normal.

It's a direct result of the price changes.  This is the new normal, since Istock claims the price changes are "forever". 

If I only looked at the download graph I would think I had a windfall month!

That's what I was wondering if it was from the pricing changes. That's pretty disturbing. Maybe, the volume will eventually make up for it, but the initial results on your sales look bad. If money is their main objective, this wouldn't seem to be too positive for them either.