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Messages - ShadySue
14251
« on: January 31, 2011, 09:39 »
Out of curiosity, what exactly do you mean by wiki-ing?
Keywords.
As in by using the report inaccurate keywords function?
Yes, it's called wiki-ing.
14252
« on: January 31, 2011, 09:31 »
Out of curiosity, what exactly do you mean by wiki-ing?
Keywords.
14253
« on: January 31, 2011, 09:08 »
Is this just me or is Search over at iS not working this morning? Should be a great sales day to get the week started off right!
It was working earlier, I did a lot of wiki-ing this a.m.; but it's not working right now.
14255
« on: January 30, 2011, 18:12 »
I remember a discussion in the past about this, indeed BigStock puts this restriction - it would be much more edible this way - but it is actually impossible to enforce.
Like TS saying buyers can only use them during the duration of their subscription. How could that every be policed? Added; ..."at micro prices"
14256
« on: January 30, 2011, 17:42 »
Policing this is impossible at micro prices, and especially when people might post their images to many agencies.
14257
« on: January 30, 2011, 08:02 »
Must admit I can't see how this is any different to the "Request New Content" forum on IS, other than it being much more complicated and not being addressed to a stock-shooting fraternity who understand the technical requirements, etc.
On the IS forum there is a magazine that every month gives out 3 recipes and requests vertical and horizontal shots of each. The 'lucky winner' gets to sell ... er, two images for their trouble. Oh, nearly forgot, they also get a 'credit' and a copy of the magazine too. Invariably the recipes are in tiny niche subjects which are unlikely to get many further sales (apart from the fact that the recipes themselves have all been done to death anyway). It always amazes me how many contributors beaver away in response to the request.
Here's one of the posts. Never in the field of stock photography have so many mushrooms been stuffed (with macadamia) by so many for so few potential sales. Makes me wonder who is getting the greater stuffing __ the mushrooms or the participants?
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=260401&page=1
thats phenomenal, if it wasn't for actually seeing peoples responses I wouldn't have believed anyone would respond. For at least one recipe what they are paying wouldnt cover the cost of ingredients and electricity for me (let alone my time), but oh I'd get a free magazine. Bragging rights of being taken for a ride.
Indeedy: always amazes me too, but there's one born every minute. But to be fair, some people say they do the challenge because they like the look of the recipe and will enjoy preparing/eating it anyway. I'm way too food faddy, and anyway, "Life's too short to stuff a mushroom".
14258
« on: January 30, 2011, 04:56 »
congrats - that must have been a nice surprise on the earnings page  . I have been having more and more respect for Alamy lately. I really like that they show you a breakdown of how their commissions are taken and 40% for a distributer sale isn't bad at all. Alamy gives 60% if it is an on site sale... we the photographers should be supporting them full force.
I couldn't agree more...especially considering they donate over 80% of their profits to medical research.
To be pedantic, it's a range of charities including education and conservation as well as medical research.
http://www.alamy.com/medical-research.asp
Not in any way wishing to denigrate the charitable donations, but maybe they could commit a bit more money to marketing, then maybe they'd get more sales and so they, we and the charities would get some more actual .
This was discussed quite a bit once before in this thread
http://www.microstockgroup.com/alamy-com/alamy-gives-to-charity/
My main point being, how much they donate to charity has nothing to do with how much they spend on advertising.
To simply things greatly....
If they generate 1,000,000 in sales in a week or month or whatever, pay photographers $600,000 they have $400,000 left over
Let's say they spend $100,000 on office workers, they now have $300,000 left over
Now comes their advertising ... they spend $290,000 ... They now have $10,000 left over which is their profit.
Alamy says they give 89% of their profits to charity, that means they give $8,900 to charity and the owners keep $1,100.
If they increased their marketing budget by $9000, they could still give 89% of their profits to charity.
My point was only that I wish they would spend more on marketing so that they'd sell more and make more. % of profit only means so much: bottom line is far more interesting for me. One person could give 90% of their disposable income to charity, and it would only be $10, someone else could give 1% and it would be 100,000. Who benefits the charity more?
14259
« on: January 29, 2011, 18:20 »
I think istock calculated in that some of the buyers will leave. But just like they don't care about the smaller (non-vetta) shooters (and maybe even WANT them to leave) they probably dont care about the small buyers either. As long as the big budget vetta-, agency- and big corporate buyers stay they dont seem to give a ****. [/quote] And even give the big buyers deep discounts - and suggest they try out Thinkstock. Is there any joined up thinking over there at all?
14260
« on: January 29, 2011, 17:36 »
congrats - that must have been a nice surprise on the earnings page . I have been having more and more respect for Alamy lately. I really like that they show you a breakdown of how their commissions are taken and 40% for a distributer sale isn't bad at all. Alamy gives 60% if it is an on site sale... we the photographers should be supporting them full force.
I couldn't agree more...especially considering they donate over 80% of their profits to medical research.
To be pedantic, it's a range of charities including education and conservation as well as medical research. http://www.alamy.com/medical-research.aspNot in any way wishing to denigrate the charitable donations, but maybe they could commit a bit more money to marketing, then maybe they'd get more sales and so they, we and the charities would get some more actual .
14261
« on: January 29, 2011, 17:15 »
Ironically, the first best match photo on that page isn't even 'exclusive' price.
Maybe they weren't looking for a cruise ship though.
I thought cruise ships were now banned from the collection. Or is that SS?
Quite a long time ago, a couple of years anyway I think. So much so that one of my CN members who actually got a PR got it rejected at first because the inspector assumed she couldn't have, without actually checking (rejection overturned).
14262
« on: January 28, 2011, 19:43 »
It might be something with shutterstock.
If you change the search in field to crestock it works
Maybe shutterstock's doing something to block it. It's not a tool I've used, but I think it used to take more than two agencies into account (?)
14263
« on: January 28, 2011, 19:42 »
BTW, I read the thread before the other agency name was redacted by Mr. Moderator. It was Veer, and the other XXX is for Corbis, Veer's parent.
Regardless of the slightly odd way of expressing his/her frustration, I think the message we keep getting over and over is that buyers at budget prices are feeling ignored/frustrated/priced out of the market. I honestly don't see why having premium collections necessarily results in this - as long as you don't get stupid and greedy and try to push the premium material down everyone's throat.
I hope to see those collection filters in operation very soon. The fact that all the other Getty sites don't offer any sort of ordering of results is not filling me with confidence that we'll see them back at iStock, but we'll just have to see if they do what they said they would and get them working again.
I really wonder whether the few who have posted their concerns/complaints are the only ones (so iStock can afford to lose them) or indicative of a larger number who just leave without saying goodbye.
14264
« on: January 28, 2011, 19:40 »
Ironically, the first best match photo on that page isn't even 'exclusive' price.
14265
« on: January 28, 2011, 19:00 »
Another buyer has left: http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=297572&page=1ostensibly on the 'price of Vetta/agency/E+' issues, but it's hard to say, as s/he admits that these pictures are 'better' in some way than the normal-priced ones. Like I could complain cashmere isn't as cheap as cotton knits. (and hey, moths don't attack my cotton knits).
14266
« on: January 28, 2011, 18:17 »
I couldn't find brown horse.
Maybe it only keywords Yuri's content-matter?
14267
« on: January 28, 2011, 12:40 »
Hopefully they take their magnificent site problems into consideration when they ever-so-fairly set next year's goal posts  .
The site's been fouled up since F5, and even more so with the launch of 'facetted search'. However, they won't need to 'take that into account', because the targets are a movable bell curve (such as teachers used up to about 1990), with points based on how many contributers they are prepatared to tolerate at each percentage point, and the need not to 'lose' their top independent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_curve_grading
14268
« on: January 28, 2011, 12:02 »
in that case , can't i just set a policy where a RM image downloaded can be used only once ? without any additional agreements on intellectual property rights or whatsever.
How would you monitor this? It's essentially unpoliceable.
14270
« on: January 28, 2011, 10:52 »
Hi,
What do you guys think of rights managed images at microstock cost ?
The micros won't do it because the expense involved in administration would be very high. iStock can't even stay sustainable with the royalties they were paying us last year. On the other hand, Alamy's prices are falling to such an extent that a customer with a bulk discount deal can get an RM image for less than they could get an iStock EL (unless they had a big bulk discount deal at iStock).
14271
« on: January 28, 2011, 06:56 »
I thought it was a research job, not a photo job. You find images to match the list and identify them. Not providing anything but the list. If that's not it, then I agree.
You will need to return to me a spreadsheet with the list of tips and image file names.
Reminded me of the time my sister went for a job as a sous chef at a Glasgow hotel which had just been taken over. Just about the only thing she was asked at the interview was how the kitchen should be set out, which she thought was extremely odd, but as it was just thrown at her, she answered as best she could. Of course, the interviewer was taking copious notes. She subsequently met two other people who had been similarly interviewed without getting the job. Quick, easy and free kitchen planning hints from the practitioners before even bringing in a kitchen specialist! That's exactly what this scam looks like.
14272
« on: January 27, 2011, 09:30 »
They can't tell you......what your targets are........
Well except for telling you that despite your sales numbers going up in order to get the same percentage of commission that you did last year you need to sell 500%+ more, now there's a target 
If you don't like it, you have the free choice not to work with them, and doing so does not require sacrificing your entire income as it would if your boss in a 'real' job was a four-letter-word.
Agencies ARE business partners, if you're not happy doing business with them, then don't, it's as simple as that. You are the market (or at least one side of it), and the market ultimately decides
My comment was to point out that agencies can and do set targets, not quite sure why you pointed out the obvious fact that we have a choice to sell there or not.
Plus for some people stock shooting, and maybe only iStock (or other) is their entire income.
14273
« on: January 27, 2011, 06:58 »
There was this thread about it: http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=291522&page=1If it's any consolation, I sent a pal over to see that I was now 'a Getty photographer', and all he got was a message to 'upgrade his browser', which isn't a possiblity as he's on an 'unusual' OS. But he wasn't a potential buyer, so no harm done.
14274
« on: January 27, 2011, 05:45 »
Well, some other person posted on that thread on a totally different issue, so Lobo leapt with joy on that excuse to close it, instead of e.g. deleting the other person's thread and dealing with it offline or moving that post to a different thread.
14275
« on: January 26, 2011, 20:34 »
The only real, documented way to do it nowadays is being apprenticed to one of the Big Sellers. I understand Sean's hiring. 
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