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Messages - massman
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126
« on: September 10, 2009, 11:01 »
In the old days, you went to a shoe store and were met by a salesman who knew every shoe in the store.
More recently, you could go to a discount shoe store where you just looked at what was on the racks and made your own decision. That sort of worked because there were (if you were a guy) only a few dozen shoes in your size.
But yesterday I went to a gigantic new MicroShoe store. They had a big sign in front saying "choose from 16 million pairs of shoes". The employees had no idea what was in stock; but they had a cool self-service search kiosk. The shoes were indexed by keywords supplied by the manufacturers - like "black, "brown", "cool", "fashionable", "hot", "executive", "gambler", "athletic". The were all the same fixed price, only $5 a pair.
I left without buying anything.
You obviously didn't really need a pair of shoes. 
Or like most men, you need to grab the absolute first thing you see and RUN AWAY!
I take ages to choose a pair of shoes and then I wear them until they fall apart.
127
« on: September 10, 2009, 10:51 »
In the old days, you went to a shoe store and were met by a salesman who knew every shoe in the store.
More recently, you could go to a discount shoe store where you just looked at what was on the racks and made your own decision. That sort of worked because there were (if you were a guy) only a few dozen shoes in your size.
But yesterday I went to a gigantic new MicroShoe store. They had a big sign in front saying "choose from 16 million pairs of shoes". The employees had no idea what was in stock; but they had a cool self-service search kiosk. The shoes were indexed by keywords supplied by the manufacturers - like "black, "brown", "cool", "fashionable", "hot", "executive", "gambler", "athletic". The were all the same fixed price, only $5 a pair.
I left without buying anything.
You obviously didn't really need a pair of shoes.
128
« on: September 10, 2009, 09:52 »
Ok - so the trained, eagle-like eyes of microstock buyers can take in 160 businesmen at a glance, and spot the one that truly conveys their message, and they'll still be able to do that next year when there are 1600. There are still some crucial limitations to what the search functions on the microstock sites can do.
The microstocks aren't searching images, just a database of keywords, which in many cases are junk. They can't improve that situation without paying reviewers to re-keyword millions of images, which is never going to happen. The search engines can't apply any 'quality' standards to the image because that's all pretty subjective. They can't even determine what's in the image.
I doubt if each stock agency will be carrying 80 million images each this time next year.  I think the agencies also realise that image keywording and search functionality are critical for their success, especially as their collections grown even bigger. Even if there were 1600 results for a specific search query, it still isn't going to take that long to find the suitable/perfect image.
129
« on: September 10, 2009, 08:55 »
Scratch that one off my list then. Unless Santa is feeling super generous.
130
« on: September 10, 2009, 08:47 »
You can see the way buyers have found your images at DT, it's quite helpfull. When you look at these results you can see that most buyers use a 'string search' to find what they are looking for.
I have used these strings to see the search results, and in most cases the images returned are only in the hundreds. As Sean said, it doesn't take long to skim through to find a suitable image.
131
« on: September 10, 2009, 05:55 »
5000 a day, 35000 a week, 150000 a month.. how is someone even adding 100 a month meant to get found, at this point even the pro adding 1000 a month will suffer, but definitely has a better chance, but they will have to go from adding 1000 a month, to 2000 a month if these kinds of numbers keep going through the roof!
You seem to be laboring under the assumption that everyone is uploading "apples on white" or essentially the exact same subject matter. One would assume that good images on varying subject matter that can be found using specific keywords will be found.
I have to agree. I don't think the size of the collection is the problem, I think it's about how good your images are, how effective the search engine is and how the buyer enters their search query. Google being a case in point, I don't have too much trouble finding the info I want from tens of millions of pages, if I enter a logical search query.
132
« on: September 09, 2009, 10:14 »
Is macro the answer?
133
« on: September 09, 2009, 05:01 »
Seems to be working fine now.
134
« on: September 09, 2009, 04:57 »
One of the latest Sony cameras, I think it's the A500 or A500, produces HDR files (sort of). It will merge two exposures in camera, but only in JPEG
135
« on: September 08, 2009, 10:53 »
Ditto.
136
« on: September 08, 2009, 09:40 »
MBI sold Banana Stock to Jupiter for $20M a few years ago so she probably knows a bit about the industry. Anyway she's been uploading nearly 1000 images a month to micro for the last 18 months. From her sales in her first year on micro it would appear that she made about $200K, not bad from a standing start, and that will most likely be doubled or trebled in the second year.
Interesting and positive story. Who is MBI?
137
« on: September 07, 2009, 13:57 »
138
« on: September 06, 2009, 10:34 »
have anyone looked at the judge ross worst pics? there are some... uh pure and genuine crap, I wonder if people send pictures like those at some of the big 6 hahahaha
Without question. Even IS despite their 'high quality' ethic allow some dubious images through.
139
« on: September 05, 2009, 16:01 »
My question is if you have already produced the images and are selling them elsewhere, why would you throw ANY money away by not submitting to SS?
2 reasons I guess:
1. I feel like I'm helping SS undercut my own sales at other sites that pay more.
2. The 25 cent sales tick me off.
3. I don't want to support a model that is based on providing extremely cheap images. Microstock is already cheap enough, let's make people pay.
Yep, I gave up undercutting my own images too. In my opinion the best way to do business, is to set your own price, and never go below a level that is lower than that price. That's why I think the sites where you do set your own price are the best ones at the mo, that, and they don't do subs
If I only contributed to sites where I set my own prices I would have lost my house by now.
140
« on: September 05, 2009, 10:21 »
Over 4 years on and 3500 images later they're still amongst my best sellers. I guess that shows that I haven't improved much. 
I guess this could also show that microstock search engines prefer to show popular images to the buyers and why new images sink unless they catch on quick. I have lots of old images on SS that sell very well, I even had an image that had never sold before at SS sell the other day, it was over two years old. On the other hand at BigStock I only sell old images, new ones do nothing there.
141
« on: September 04, 2009, 11:11 »
^^
Good post. I agree with you, I see no reason for a plateau. Who was it that said "If you want different results you have to do things differently" or something like that.
Edit
Here it is.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein.
Ain't Google great.
142
« on: September 04, 2009, 07:38 »
$3M a year __ after taxes? As tax is usually the last thing deducted, after overheads, etc, you seem to be suggesting that that is pure profit.
This just gets better and better. No wonder everyone is heading to photography school now!
Forget photography school, I'm heading out to Kansas ... now, I just have find the yellow brick road.
143
« on: September 04, 2009, 04:39 »
Overall, though, my sales stats across the board have been stagnant since April. March was a BME for me, but despite adding almost 400 images since then sales are flat.
One could speculate that had you not added those images to your portfolio your income may have declined.
144
« on: September 01, 2009, 06:12 »
How was your August?
Depressing.
145
« on: August 31, 2009, 09:40 »
Copyrigth infringmenteis something that have to be dealt with by inspectors. Contributot can't know if the Eiffel tower Eiffel can'y be shot by nigth or if the Taj Majal can't be shot at five past noon. The file is rejected and that's all. If the file sneaks, it's the inspector's guilt, and the contributor can't be blamed.
Is it Eiffel Tower at night or Eiffel Tower at night during the light show that happens hourly or so? I thought it was the latter. I didn't know that Taj Mahal had this restriction - but then I have never been to India!
It is the actual lightshow that has copyright.
146
« on: August 27, 2009, 09:25 »
Keep your pants on! Whats the problem with waiting a couple of days?
147
« on: August 25, 2009, 15:03 »
I would take a different approach.
There IS money to be made in microstock. All one has to do is do some homework to see what people are buying and find a niche.
You will not succeed if you simply upload the types of things you LIKE to shoot and pay no regard to what buyers NEED. It may be tough for some to hear, but no one wants your rainbow or puppy dog shots.
Nor will you succeed if you look at someone like Yuri and decide you can do the same thing and make a fortune like him. To beat him at his game, or come anywhere near him, you have to do what he does BETTER than he does it. But he's perfected his processes. You're not going to come near him.
But you CAN succeed if you:
1) Find your niche - find out the types of shots that sell and are not currently flooding the market. There are underserved niches out there. I've been finding them, and so can you if you do your homework.
2) Be creative - approach subjects differently than anyone else is doing them. Again, if you're just doing model shots or static objects on white, your stuff better blow away everything else out there if you have any hope of succeeding.
3) Build your own style and you'll develop a following. When others catch on and start copying you, abandon that style and come up with another. To survive you must eveolve.
4) Concepts sell. The image should be symbolic of something meaningful to the buyer. It's not hard to figure out what concepts sell better than others.
Anyway, that's what I'd say. Not all doom and gloom. If someone has business sense and an ounce of creativity, he/she can do very well in microstock.
Best post I've read in a long while.
148
« on: August 21, 2009, 11:24 »
With StockXpert not paying contributors since the beginning of the month I might be better getting the .25 on istock. At least they pay contributors there.
Lisa, check your inbox. I was finally paid today, and so was another person in my IS CN. I suspect that everyone who had a pending request in was paid today (at least, I hope so).
Yup, I requested yesterday and got paid today.
149
« on: August 20, 2009, 15:04 »
My 400+ images from SV have been online for only about a week or so. 0 sales so far, but I'm still hopeful.
Somewhat troubling is that SV butchered many of my keywords. For example, I have an image of the Swiss Alps that includes none of these keywords: Alps, Swiss, Switzerland, mountain(s). So until we have the ability to edit our keywords, I'm afraid at least some of my images (I haven't checked many) won't be easily findable.
You should contact support about the keywords. Loads of contributors keywords were discomboobulated in the transfer from SV and was apparently fixed http://www.microstockgroup.com/veer-marketplace/update-on-keywording-issues-on-transferred-content/.
150
« on: August 20, 2009, 05:00 »
Which site pay less $$ per download now than they did 12 months ago?
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