pancakes

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Messages - pancaketom

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1501
Bigstock.com / Re: FTP Broken at Bigstock
« on: August 09, 2012, 11:22 »
Their FTP system seems to be broken - the ftp works ok, but then nothing happens for a long time. I gave up and used the web uploader. I took a few weeks off and when I came back the ftp images had been transferred over.

1502
It would lead to a very short tail and even more all of the images looking the same.

1503
General Stock Discussion / Re: Earnings in July 2012
« on: August 03, 2012, 00:36 »
Pretty good month for me a bit to my surprise when I added things up - only June 2012 had a higher total. Alamy was the star with strong performances by SS and Veer.  DT looks like it is falling off a cliff with both low numbers of sales and low RPI.

1504
Dreamstime.com / Re: DT's approval policy - your thoughts
« on: July 25, 2012, 11:29 »
I think that the DT search engine tends to lump similar files from the same contributor together, so rather than fix the search engine or create some sort of system that stacks similars they thought it would be easier to just stop accepting similar images.

I think they also hope that contributors will combine multiple images together so that we can get .35 for 4 or 9 or more images together instead of .35 each.

I can understand limiting truly similar images, but I think most contributors have had the experience of rejections of not very similar similars.

1505
Dreamstime.com / Re: DT still messed up?
« on: July 24, 2012, 14:04 »
For this month DT is pretty sad - the sales numbers are low and the RPD is low too - lots of subs (now all .35 too). At least the dry spell of nothing seems to be over. Still things at DT seem to have been worse for me the last 2 months. Hopefully this is temporary.

1506
General Stock Discussion / Re: future microstock
« on: July 23, 2012, 11:05 »
I think they need to fix the search and the spam issues and not accept images that have clear technical flaws.

It would be a rather large task to fix the spam issues, but I bet if they were serious and disabled serial spammer's ports that would get some attention.

1507
I'd use my 5-1000 f1.2 IS L - since we are in fantasy land.

Maybe I could use a heap of cameras with different sensor sizes to make up for the lack of different lenses.

1508
I agree w/ Lisa on this one (and plenty of other things too).

When sites do things I don't approve of I want to let them know. When they do something I do approve of I think it is important to let them know I (we) notice that too. I am still a little leery of "alliance" sales, but the fact that they are doing the right thing with referrals is worth noting. I think it should have always been this way and maybe they were dragged kicking and screaming to do the right thing, but they did do the right thing.

There are still plenty of things wrong that I will complain about though (like the fact that my sales are pretty weak this month and the repeated commission drops).

1509
Dreamstime.com / Re: DT down?
« on: July 17, 2012, 13:51 »
I got that but then reloaded and it worked...
keeping fingers crossed.

1510
I certainly think that any referral fees should be paid out of the DT share - since it is someone else doing the marketing that DT is taking their % to cover.

1511
Shutterstock.com / Re: Captcha Back?
« on: July 13, 2012, 11:12 »
BOO, I was glad when that went away. I thought the API would be where the bots went to get data so they could do away w/ the annoying illegible captchas.

1512
Are your images going to be exclusive?

I do think that a place that has quality niche images correctly keyworded (I am always amazed at the incorrectly named images on some sites) could do well, but I think it would be hard to attract exclusive submissions without sales and hard to get sales w/o images...

keep us posted on how things go. I always like taking critter pics when I am out and about. Unfortunately they rarely turn out as well as I'd like...

1513
I just poked around with the calculator a bit. I didn't know you got less on DT if you were a referred contributor although I thought they skimmed for referred buyers - both should come out of DT's take as a marketing cost.

I also was unable to get anywhere near as low as my lowest sales or credit amounts on IS - I suppose they would say it was due to "old credits" or something like that.

Still any effort to shed some light on these somewhat underhanded agency tactics is worthwhile.

I also notice he says IS rounds up to the nearest cent. I remember reading differently (unofficially), so I wonder what is correct.

Although it can be confusing sometimes it is nice the way Alamy reports the sale amount and any deductions. I think if all the sites reported sales like that we would be horrified by how much they are taking out of each sale.

1514
iStockPhoto.com / Re: hahahaha oh iStock
« on: July 11, 2012, 13:22 »


or maybe someone is skimming pennies (or salami slicing) like they did in Office Space and Superman 3??  They gotta fund those trips around the world somehow!


Who needs to skim pennies when you can take from over 50% up to 85%?


For once I am sort of glad I didn't have any sales during that period.

1515
I think my laptop has LED backlights for the screen - I have noticed no problems w/ it at all (although I do get "light" rejections from time to time, I did w/ my old computer too). I think the main advantage is lower power consumption - and if you plan on opening it up to tinker I think there is lower voltage inside.

1516
your link doesn't work even after you remove the period from the end.

How much slop is in the # of downloads reported by IS at those levels? I wonder if the revenue is down or up. Either way it doesn't look so good for the IS heavies - who in the past seem to have been very favored.

1517
Personally I'd love to see Getty and Fotolia crash and burn. I can see why others that still have lots of eggs in those baskets wouldn't be so happy.

There is definitely something wrong with the whole finance business though. Lots of smoke and mirrors and people that think they are the smartest people in the room * the money out and leaving a mess in their wake.

1518
General Stock Discussion / Re: How ya' doing?
« on: July 03, 2012, 21:39 »
Well, I wouldn't be quitting my day job - if I had one, but since I don't and it is a boolean question, I suppose it beats the alternative - but I still wish I got more.

1519
I wonder why they always quote the lowest amount we ever get. They never seem to mention the average $5 (at SS) OD download, or the $16.80 other downloads or the ELs. Last month I made about $.70 per download. With a stagnant port and no effort. Think what I could do if I really tried.

Same reason everyone at IS makes $.19 a download ;)

You mean $.07 don't you?  ;)

People always do seem to grab the numbers that appear to make their points though. It would be nice if we had and people used more meaningful statistics - like the average or mean or something.

1520
General Stock Discussion / Re: June Microstock Earnings
« on: July 02, 2012, 12:47 »
It looks like no obvious trends, it seems like some sites are doing well for people and horrible for others.

BME for me with BME at Alamy and SS making most of it - in fact it would have only been a slightly disappointing month with just those 2 sites.

DT ended up OK after a horrible start, still I have to go back to June 2010 for a lower # of downloads - the high RPD made it an ok but below average for the last 12 months there though.

Looking at the overall numbers I see no evidence of a summer slowdown, although it was mostly Alamy and SS which could easily slow down and make a huge difference.

1521
Dreamstime.com / Re: Dreamstime Subscription Plans Update
« on: June 29, 2012, 19:31 »
Maybe they should rethink this similars policy now that subs buyers are going to be buying so many more images...

I guess I should suggest that over on DT, not that they ever listen to me.

It just looks like a price drop for buyers and for us. At least it doesn't come with a commission % cut too, although if this moves subs buyers from SS to DT it won't benefit me any (unless I get enough regular credit sales of images that are higher level because of subs sales - doubtful). If it moves them from thinkstock, that is great.

It does come with a commission % cut more or less.  You will now get a less percentage of an image because they dumped the tire system.  No more 70 cent subs, just 30 or 35 cent subs.  DT simply caved in to the other agencies' pricing and realized a quick revenue scheme.  Those in here that say this won't be a big deal then why did DT make that move?  Revenue, margins.

The reason I say it is a price cut (for buyers and us) and not a commission % cut is that before a sub sale "cost" from 1 to 3 credits and we got 1 to 3X our subs commission (usually). Now the price has been dropped across the board to 1 sub credit. Had level 3 images still cost 3 subs credits but we only got the .35 that would have been a % drop too.

I didn't say I liked it or that I thought it was a good idea.

1522
Dreamstime.com / Re: Dreamstime Subscription Plans Update
« on: June 29, 2012, 12:37 »
Maybe they should rethink this similars policy now that subs buyers are going to be buying so many more images...

I guess I should suggest that over on DT, not that they ever listen to me.

It just looks like a price drop for buyers and for us. At least it doesn't come with a commission % cut too, although if this moves subs buyers from SS to DT it won't benefit me any (unless I get enough regular credit sales of images that are higher level because of subs sales - doubtful). If it moves them from thinkstock, that is great.

1523
123RF / Re: How is everyone doing on 123RF
« on: June 23, 2012, 14:52 »
They rank 6th out of 9 agencies for my portfolio. High acceptance rate, decent amount of sales. Their RPD is being helped by the new single image sales, but overall I do much better with Veer. I know this doesn't add up with the overall poll results, but I get an overabundance of EL's through Veer.

Same here, they are number 6 for me. June has been a BME but
I'll never rise above contributor level 2 / 35% commision which means a 15% cut.

Interesting that most of my ELs have been on Veer. It's number 3 for me right after SS and FT.

Going from 50% to 35% is a 30% cut.

1524
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Nice going, Istock...
« on: June 20, 2012, 00:30 »
Usually IS inspectors seem to be the most anal about copyright stuff noticing a little 5 pixel YKK on a zipper or something like that. I am sure they all miss stuff though.

1525
One thing I noticed while having the camera set up this way is that when I use my remote trigger (home-made wired, with a 1/2 press focus button and a full press shutter button and a switch for bulb) I couldn't focus without pressing the button on the back of the camera. I set up a user mode with the back button focus and one w/o the back button focus so I can switch between them and see what I like.

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