Quote from: gbalex on September 25, 2010, 12:59

I think it is naive to believe that Istock did not open dialog with some of the very top producers before the announcements and I would not be surprise that communication is ongoing because of the consequences to the bottom line should those contributors decide to leave. Not rocket science by any means.

On the contrary I think it is naive to assume that they did. Perhaps Lise G. was informed but then she's a fairly senior Admin anyway. Clearly the RC scales were carefully constructed to ensure that the top-selling exclusives would not be upset however those individuals are harnessed by their extraordinary incomes anyway. If your portfolio is earning several hundred thousand dollars per year, as many of them are, then you're unlikely to be going anywhere by choice.

For the most part we are making the same point and I agree. The top earners have no incentive to leave unless of course istock changes the royalty structure in the future so that the very top contributors take a major hit and so far that is not the case, nor is it likely unless the bottom line becomes dire.

Any dialog would be to reinforce those points and to discuss details such the introduction of the agency collection and so on.

A man to be respected, he walks the walk!

They locked down the new thread about Mondays arrival of the Agency collection.

Lobo locked down the thread and edited the contents of the thread orininator.  It looks like he changed the title as well.

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=259011&page=1

I think it is good they are driving more of us to this site where we have a chance to fully expore options and express our feelings. 

Clearly they are taking care of their top money earnings, most of whom we have heard nary a peep from. 

I have never seen this article before today and thought it was a really good - honest to goodness - interview, that others who have not seen it would also be interested in:

http://www.abouttheimage.com/2723/interview_with_istockphoto_founder_and_ceo_bruce_livingstone/author2

Bruce's choiice of favorite book is interesting

ATI): Favorite Book?

(BL): 33 Strategies of War by Robert Greene (http://www.amazon.com/33-Strategies-War-Robert-Greene/dp/0670034576

"Its lessons are presented self-help-book style in chapters titled "Maneuver Them into Weakness" and "Seem to Work for the Interests of Others While Furthering Your Own"... notably, the final section on "dirty" warfare is one of the book's longest"

Quote from: lisafx on September 23, 2010, 18:17

Quote from: Randy McKown on September 23, 2010, 14:20

The thing hardcore micro-shooters might be interested in knowing is that even if these shooters fail horribly at switching to non-stock portraiture, they can still produce an income from 1 weeks work equal to what they made in micro over the entire year.

Quote from: Randy McKown on September 23, 2010, 15:54

You can be at the very top in micro and quickly fall to the very bottom in portraiture. If you are producing highly marketable micro images of people then chances are you're doing everything a normal client will look at and think .. those photos are so bad it's not even funny.

Randy, I don't doubt the trends you are talking about.  You are in a much better position than I am to know what's going on in portraiture. 

However the two statements above seem to be contradictory to me.  Someone who is able to make the same at portraiture or weddings in a week as they would have made in a year in microstock is a really unsuccessful microstocker.  Definitely not the "very top". 

Also, I really don't see how the lighting and people skills learned photographing people for micro would not translate to portraiture.  Certainly the flat, stereotypical "micro" lighting might not be ideal, but anyone who has become skilled enough to get to the top of the micro market shooting people should have also picked up the skills to light practically any location or create most studio lighting they need for portraits.  And surely the skills of directing models should translate to portraiture too. 

What am I missing?

It's because in the first post I wasn't referring to top micro shooters .. more like those who fall into the $2000-3000 a yr range .. which is probably still above the average micro contributors level. In the second post I was just emphasizing on the fact that the two types of consumers targeted are completely different. A top contributor would need to completely re-invent their personal style or else they would quickly drop to the bottom of the barrel. Not saying the top shooters couldn't do it .. just that they would need to take the time to develop the new style.

It's less technical and more the style/atmosphere of the compositions where a lot of people have said they had trouble. You get to where you have a personal style that just comes natural and then you have to suddenly change it.

The people skills required are also a lot different because in many cases you will be manipulating two different emotions in multiple people at the same time. Take grad portrait sessions for example. You need to be controlling the seniors+friends emotions and also the parents, specifically the mom. For the grad you are controlling an upbeat atmosphere .. keeping it fun, exciting, pre-selling product concepts you want them to buy to make all their friends jealous.

At the same time you need to be manipulating the mom in reverse. You want her to enjoy watching but at the same time you want her standing there a bit depressed .. making her realize that her child does not depend on her as much anymore and forcing her to think about things like soon she won't see her child as often .. they'll be off to college, etc.

Once you get in the sales room you kick this depression into overdrive. My goal with every mom is to make her cry because I know the harder she cries the more she is going to spend because it is her last attempt to hold onto memories of her child as a child.

Tackle a client with a micro session psychology and they will be a $400 client .. the other method will almost always double or triple that figure. This is where shooters really need to make adjustments when switching over. It's not about keeping things flowing and upbeat. It's about creating an emotional bombshell.

It is clear from your description that I am not cut out for non-stock portraiture, the thought of regularly making Moms cry would make me want to quit on day one.

I think it�s naive to believe they�re going to cruise through this.  Theywouldn�t be banning members from their forums after letting everyone rant and rave if they weren�t worried about their reputation being ruined... which it is.  Nicknames like �isuck� will stick around for a long time.

As for your sales, why would you, individually, feel such a drop just yet?  It is the point I was making earlier about not feeling the effects till next year.  Buyers... the ones who have already decided to leave, are still probably using up their credits.  I agree with you on your comment about contributors threatening to �take clients away�.  That�s insulting to buyers.  I�m sure they will make up their own minds but you have to remember that there are a lot of contributors who are also designers who will not only stop buying, but will spread the �isuck� message throughout designers� circles. 

Also I don�t see this as a microstock apocalyptic event either but I do mark September as the month that istock made the worst decision out of a bunch of consecutive screw ups that will lead to them falling next year.  I don�t believe istock necessarily will become extinct.  I predict Kelly, who�s management and communication skills are embarrassing, but who�s following direct orders, will be made the scapegoat and sacked next year and replaced with some new hot shot who will make promises to get people back on side.  I just don�t reckon many will trust them again and will have settled elsewhere by then.

I think you could be right on this one, it happens far too often.  It could be that Kelly has very little say in the matter, sometimes key people stay on to try to protect the business they helped build and its loyal employees only to find that there is very little they can do to mitigate the damage and a little bit of them dies with each nasty change that they are required to implement. 

If 1000 buyers leave and each buyer buys 2000$ a year in photos, which could be pretty substantial that would mean that $2 million in revenue disappears.  If iStock has revenues in excess of 200 million, that would mean that approximatley 1% of business goes.  That is nothing more than the general ebb and flow, or maybe just slightly higher than that.  Those 1000 buyers are small little ants compared to the whole pie.  A small change that no one will even see.  And the few buyers that have already said they would leave probably don't combine to spend 2 mil.  Even at 10 million in lost revenue, I don't think that the impact is going to make that big of a difference. 

And to address the blufish point - I'm not saying I'm discounting everyone's opinion based on port size, I'm taking the credibility of the opinion of only contributors based on port size unless they indicate that they have some other information that they base their arguments on.

Another point was made that these changes are way radical:  no they aren't that radical.  And the outcome can be easily anticipated using buyer behaviour and contributor behaviour - especially similar to that from previous events.  May not be identical, but may be close enough to make it worthwhile using past data.  We do NOT operate in a vacuum, and these events are NOT mutually exclusive. 

The global recession could be a game changer.

Talk to a few advertising agencies and maybe a few of the people who work for them and ask them how business is doing?  Then ask them if price matters?

what does it matter who I am? you can see my sales performance on iStock and you are breaching an unspoken rule here. we don't call each other out based on anonymity here no matter how much we hate one another...many of us are anonymous here for our own reasons, usually simply as a tool to keep things from showing up in google searches on our businesses. so I'll thank you to respect it.

So if you are not affected everything is great, however if someone else has negatives from your actions or veiwpoint that is perfectly fine.

The reduced royalties rates for everyone else and not yourself; must fit in the same category as you not wanting your name mentioned and yet you had no problem outing someone else who may also want to remain anonymous.

I think the real reason you are here is to protect your port, you have no problem with other people leaving because they are taking a hit from low royalties as long as the buyers stay to buy images from you.

It seems that you are here to intimidate and apply pressure on those who would encourage buyers to find outlets which pay the majority of contributors fair rates.

I noticed that you did freak when the first images in the agency collection showed up and you had a strong reaction to the nasty files, now if more of those appear I would expect that you would not approve of istocks move because you seem to feel that those images will negatively affect your sales.

Off Topic, but some observations about Web Traffic. The public traffic announced by sites like compete, cubestat, alexa are measured by PC's that have one of their toolbars installed. I doubt any serious contributor or buyer will have one of those installed. To start with, they take up screen real estate. Wherever I saw those installed, it was in public netcaf�s or with ignorant users. They obviously don't measure the target market.

The only ones that can pinpoint the origin and quantity of traffic on a website like iStock are the admins. They can have Google Analytics installed or their own analytics tool. Not the traffic by itself is important but the bounce rate. Only iStock can know that. They are never going to share this info since it might benefit competitors.

I agree that compete, cubestat, alexa give an incomplete view at best.  And the site owners and admins are the only ones holding the true numbers.  

While I find hawk_eye comments regarding the number of SS submitters thus completion spot on. Judging from his meter and his numerous negative comments to ward anyone who is vocal about IS royalty cuts AND the many other negative changes that have transpired. I think most of his venom toward people who are very upset at receiving significant cuts in royalties are related to his fear of losing sales himself.  He does not view the changes as detrimental to himself so he supports the IS approach of shut them up and let them eat cake!

.

This graph showing traffic to secure.istockphoto.com should make you feel better

http://siteanalytics.compete.com/secure.istockphoto.com/

                                Unique Visitors      Monthly Change     Yearly Change
istockphoto.com           1,663,169            -3.47 %               -19.48 %
secure.istockphoto.com      130,328            -32.83 %               -64.69 %

Period

I feel bad for the Istock admins.  The ones who have been there for many years and have a relationship with contributors.   They are not the ones making these (terrible) decisions, and I would be willing to bet most of them are as sick about what's happening as we are. 

There are a lot of questions, but I think most of us already know the answers to them. 

1)  Is there any room for negotiation on the royalty %?  No.
2)  Is the Agency collection going to have some lousy pictures in it, and are they going to be bumped ahead of good content from legitimately exclusive contributors?  Yes. 
3) Are Getty collections allowed to enjoy the benefits of exclusivity while being sold all over the internet at other Getty and non-Getty sites?  Yes. 
4) Do the folks at Getty and their bosses at H&F care what contributors think, or how much they've invested in the success of the company?  No. 
5) Do H&F care about the long term financial health of Istock or its contributors? No.

How are they supposed to come on and tell us that?  As bad as it is for Istock's image to have contributors upset and speculating all over the forums, it would be worse to actually tell us what's really going on.  Because what's going on is just plain ugly. 

There is no good news to give us and more bad news or empty corporate double talk isn't going to help matters, so better to remain mum.

Unfortunately I agree, before they released all of this good news they knew what the response would be and what questions we would have.  They have made their decision based on numbers and they are not going to change their mind or make themselves look worse by admitting the cold hard facts!

If we continue to support them we are slitting our own throats!

My mistake sorry!