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Messages - hatman12
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1076
« on: May 15, 2007, 17:23 »
Andres's numbers only serve to underline the enormous gap bwtween the market leader (IS) and DT (who to their credit are doing good work); he has had 32,000 downloads in total, whereas at IS the top people (Lise Gagne for example) have 500,000 downloads. Admittedly IS got started a year or two earlier. But nonetheless the difference between the two is a factor of fifteen.
I believe he has about 50,000 downloads at FT but then I don't believe any of DT's numbers.
1077
« on: May 15, 2007, 17:20 »
I agree with that completely Kosmik; I don't have any filters on any of my lenses.
1078
« on: May 11, 2007, 11:15 »
Yes, this is an astonishing achievement. An example to us all.
When asked on iStock if he is 'the world's most downloaded stock photographer', his reply was 'no - that honour goes to my friend Andre Rodriguez'.
1079
« on: May 11, 2007, 11:12 »
They didm't have a content filter, which is why they couldn't accept nudity. Perhaps they now have a filter available.
1080
« on: May 10, 2007, 15:57 »
Yes, the approval process at StockXpert is fussy. But on the other hand for an agency with such a small number of images (500,000 approx so far) they appear to be making good progress.
Already after only a coupla weeks with them I can see improving sales and a high payout per download and relative to total images.
I believe that if anyone is going to give iStock a run for their money it will be StockXpert and possibly DT. Of course we have Corbis to look forward to as well.
Yes, I've had images rejected at StockXpert that have been accepted elsewhere; it's frustrating but the best thing to do to shrug one's shoulders and move on. StockXpert know their market, and I'm interested to read that they have started to mail Jupiter customers to increase promotional activity etc. They are NOT going to risk their relationship with long established agency customers by accepting anything that doesn't fit with their standards. In a way this is very good news - it shows that if we are serious about becoming a success in this industry we can rely on agencies like iStock and StockXpert (and increasingly DT) to filter out the rubbish and allow customers to concentrate on high quality images. That can only be good in the longer run.
1081
« on: May 10, 2007, 14:43 »
I can't imagine why anyone would want to try to log in to BigStock in the first place.....! 
1082
« on: May 08, 2007, 13:09 »
Approaching 150 downloads, and just popped back to see when I started this thread.
I hope I have now passed the newbie pain barrier at IS and can look forward to increasing momentum as my portfolio builds and more buyers become confident in my stuff.
Of course sometimes it just depends on what search algorithms they're using from time to time, but hopefully a diversified portfolio will help resolve that.
1083
« on: May 08, 2007, 12:51 »
Well I have been pleased with my progress at DT since joining on 31st Jan; gradually increasing portfolio size and gradually increasing weekly total downloads; a nice progression.
Yesterday was the first day in a long time without any downloads, and coincides with the new search mechanism. My portfolio is 'clean' and I have an 80% acceptance rate; nonetheless, whenever agencies change their search algorithms it seems that hard earned progress tends to come to a dead end.
I hope that over time the new search will improve my progress, but perhaps there will be some pain to experience first.
1084
« on: May 03, 2007, 16:48 »
Stunning. Well done Sharply.
1085
« on: May 02, 2007, 16:09 »
What I'd really like to see all the agencies do is to give me the choice of which image sizes I want to sell. Some of my stuff has taken a long time to create and is intended for large size only; I really don't want customers to be able to download small sizes of those images, but of course they can because I have no control over the matter. I'd like to be able to tick boxes when I upload, so that I can choose whether my image should be sold at all sizes or just sizes I select.
1086
« on: May 02, 2007, 12:58 »
Yes, thanks sharpshot, and to everyone else for their comments.
I'll shut down my account with BigStock; $70 a month for 2,000 images is an appalling result (no offence intended sharpshot - your portfolio is excellent and sells well elsewhere), and with the amount of uploading work involved that probably works out at a return below most western countries minimum hourly wage. I'm a bit of a perfectionist and I reckon every image of mine takes a couple of hours for finishing, keywording etc, so $70 a month for 4,000 hours work just doesn't stack up. Okay, I know I'd be doing this work anyway for the other agencies, but you know what I mean. I'd rather spend the time creating more images and submitting them to agencies that can actually sell product.
With sharply's focus on ROI and other statistics I can see he'd rather shoot himself than generate this poor return. I think I'll join him. On the other hand I'll just close the account.
I want to be able to focus on just three or four agencies, not all of them. I'm happy with IS and DT, optimistic for StockXpert, suspicious of FT but making sales, and I'm playing the game at SS (but SS doesn't figure in my long term plans). Corbis will be along soon. I certainly don't think BigStock cuts the mustard, particularly as sharpshot's portfolio is way above average quality and diversity.
1087
« on: May 02, 2007, 12:46 »
I don't think music is their thing, but 3D animation etc might be.
A couple of things struck me: first, although the results appear to be good, the press release the previous year spoke about downloads running at an annual rate of 16 million or one image sold every 2.5 seconds. These latest numbers annualise at only 14 million or so, so it appears that there has been a slow down in sales.
On the positive tack, any expansion into other areas will increase customer traffic generally, so that's good. Note also that they are talking about 'other forms of licence' which might mean an entry into the exclusive unique image market (I believe this is called RM). It would make sense for customers to be able to choose between RF and exclusive use of an image.
1088
« on: May 02, 2007, 05:35 »
I see in the April results thread that BigStock doesn't seem to figure very highly in most peep's income results. I opened an account with BigStock when I started off in this nusiness back at the end of January, but within three weeks I got a feel that 'something was wrong'; no views, no downloads, just dead.
I haven't uploaded anything there since then and I imagine I've now got through the 90 days notice period. So I'm thinking of closing that account.
Anyone got any positive experiences, or reasons to be optimistic for the future?
1089
« on: May 02, 2007, 05:09 »
Someone posted an excerpt from Getty's first quarter results. Thought I'd grab it and reproduce it here:
iStockphoto continues to perform very well -- and for those of you up in Calgary who are keeping count, its two so far. So iStockphoto continues to perform very well and there were over 3.5 million images downloaded in the first quarter. As a reminder, there were 2.5 million downloads in the third quarter of last year and over 3 million in the fourth quarter.
The video product which we launched late last year, iStockvideo, is doing extremely well and is exceeding our expectations. Average prices at iStock are increasing as we are adding new file sizes, reducing some of the discounts offered on volume credit purchases, and we are also of course improving the quality, relevance, and range of imagery.
I would like to stress that we are only just getting started with a business and a business model that is ripe with opportunity. The growth opportunities for this business over time outweigh any worry about the cannibalization impact that it could have on traditional stock photography.
...
Moving to iStockphoto, we are pleased with the results from iStockphoto. In fact, we still feel that we are just getting started. We have begun the process of upgrading the iStockphoto technology infrastructure and we have plans relatively soon to quadruple our capacity. This should be yet another indicator of our optimism for this business.
iStockphoto started as an English-only site and it has significant growth opportunity around the world. We began offering the service and the site in foreign languages late in 2006 and we are continuing with this expansion in 2007.
We have a number of other initiatives underway at iStock which I am just not going to talk about now. Okay, Ill give you a hint; they include product enhancements, additional licensing models, and further international expansion. After all, why would we just stop with still imagery and video? We also have plans to increase marketing for iStock as the year progresses.
I hope I sound pleased and excited about this business because if I dont, Ive not done a good job of communicating with you.
1090
« on: May 01, 2007, 18:15 »
Welcome back Pen. Glad everything went okay.
1091
« on: April 30, 2007, 14:02 »
Having just joined StockXpert I thought I'd take the advice given by Steve-Oh and try the weekly news posting facility. For those not aware, this allows contributors to post an informative news/image item which then appears on the home page.
So I wrote a small piece about my 'businessman in paradise' series then added a link to an image.
Steve-Oh reckoned that this facility would help to boost sales. Well I don't know about sales, but over the last two days views have shot upwards; the image in question went from zero to 67 views in two days. And of course views of all my other images also went north.
I don't know if it's coincidence, but I've had my first two sales at StockXpert overnight, at an average commission of 75c. That's a good start and a good average payout. Funny, but the two images sold were nothing to do with the paradise series (doh).
For those here on StockXpert I recommend using the news posting facility if possible - it seems to be a good way to boost activity, and contributors are allowed to make a new post each week thus keeping up the momentum.
1092
« on: April 30, 2007, 05:38 »
Oh that's good. Thanks for letting me know. That's already my biggest seller on SS.
BTW Freezing - I saw some penguins on a box of kleenex tissues in a store here in Brisbane today. Looked remarkably like your work. Couldn't find the image in your SS portfolio though. It's a couple of big king penguins with lots of little grey fluffy baby penquins in the background.
1093
« on: April 28, 2007, 19:23 »
Yes, I also plot the trends, probably in a similar way to your system sharply, except that I only plot weekly and I use 4 week and 10 week moving averages to suggest short term and intermediate trend.
My most informative charts are those that plot weekly income divided into total unique images online ($ per image online) and DPI % (weekly downloads per image online). I can use these numbers to project future income based on production; for instance if I know that my $ per image online is a non-volatile $1.50 I can easily project that 2,000 images should produce a weekly income of $3,000. It is the volatility that is the unknown quantity, and as with any business plan it makes sense to do some Delta stuff and assume a worse case, a best case and various points inbetween.
1094
« on: April 28, 2007, 16:24 »
Well I'm celebrating my 100th download at iStock this morning.
I uploaded my very first microstock picture to them on Feb 5th and it's taken 78 days to get to 100 sales. That's probably good progress, but it feels like sh*t given the amount of work needed to get there (I hadn't shot an image for sale in my life before the end of January).
The first 50 sales took exactly 50 days, and the second 50 have taken 28 days. Progress, particularly given that April was a slow month for everyone.
What I really need is to get to 1,000 a week......(!)
Next weekend I enter the next phase of my microstock project - I'm setting up a studio for the first time and I've got two models booked for 'businesswoman' sessions. I've got a week to try out the kit, get the exposure sorted, make sure the background is burned to RGB 255 white, plan the images, get the props....
Nobody said this would be easy........
1095
« on: April 28, 2007, 06:26 »
Get rid of this guy please leaf.
1096
« on: April 27, 2007, 21:29 »
I can't remember sharply - I applied and got approved back in February but never used the account and actually asked them to shut it down. I dropped them a quick email a couple of days ago asking if they could reinstate my account and they said that was fine; I was up and running very quickly.
If I recall correctly my original approval thing took a few days.
BTW I've been looking through the new uploaded images and it seems that StockXpert are attracting very good quality - perhaps some good players are getting the same impression as we are that StockXpert will be one to be with over coming years. The various web sites in different languages, subsidiary of Jupiter and Haan all help the credibility I suppose.
1097
« on: April 26, 2007, 22:13 »
Yep. Presently 89 submitted, 79 accepted. Now 13.20 Australia time.
I get amused by the different rejections at different agencies; one rejected by StockXpert but accepted everywhere else, has a background of a selection of international currencies; StockXpert's rejection is "Please remove Malaysian Ringitt - sorry, bank regulations"!
1098
« on: April 26, 2007, 16:22 »
Sharply, I submitted my first 49 images early this morning (05.00am Australia time) and at the time of posting this message (07.30) 45 images have already been accepted and are online.
1099
« on: April 26, 2007, 13:39 »
That's a good move. Well done, and thanks for keeping us informed Steve.
1100
« on: April 26, 2007, 12:44 »
Well I opened an account at StockXpert yesterday and I'll start uploading today.
This decision is prompted by several observations: firstly the Alexa charts, even though they might not be truly representative, do show StockXpert making good progress; secondly, StockXpert according to those charts has gained ground on FT and now seem to be ahead of them; StockXpert appears to be gaining ground against the others as well (albeit at a slower pace); you all know that I do not trust FT, but StockXpert appear to be professional and trustworthy and we have steve-O here which is a good sign; lastly the commissions at StockXpert are competitive and appear to be higher overall than FT.
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