https://www.shutterstock.com/blog/shutterstock-contributor-app-new-look

I think I must be having a cranky day, but I read this (it was linked from the contributor home page) and wanted to throw things.

I like the contributor app. It's great that they have it (Adobe - it'd be great if you had one too).

But I wouldn't go as far as saying the app "...has received yet another exciting update" when they've just changed the background from black to white!

This color change "...ensures that contributors receive a consistent Shutterstock visual experience across all platforms". Do they realize that contributors care about sales? Exciting is a $75 SOD, not a white background instead of black.

Instead of writing inane blog posts, how about asking contributors what useful features or stats they could add to the app? Something contributors could actually use...

Off to do something useful

Mat figured out the problem with my account - it may not apply to other people though.

My problem was that I haven't uploaded in 2018. I've been busy elsewhere and didn't realize that in addition to the sales minimum, I needed at least one upload approved in 2018. I've uploaded a small batch and should see my code shortly.

Thanks again Mat for your assistance

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on August 23, 2018, 12:11

Quote from: MatHayward on August 23, 2018, 10:39

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on August 22, 2018, 23:20

Is there anyone else who is qualified who hasn't received a code?

I'm in that situation, but wondered if the codes didn't all go out at once for whatever reason and they're not yet done.

A suggestion would be that in the contributor section on Adobe Stock, they could note that you were qualified/not; coupon issued (and perhaps put the number there as well as in email) or not. It'd save wear and tear on support staff

I've heard from a number of contributors who did receive the code in email but overlooked it when it arrived. The name of the sender is CompEXT. Double check your inbox and if it's not there, check your spam folder. If not there either and you are sure you are qualified please open a case via the Adobe Stock Contributor Portal.

Thanks,

Mat

I've checked and searched and nothing from CompEXT.

I didn't see anything about opening a case, but used the Contact Us from the contributor part of Adobe Stock, which I hope will get to the correct people

Yes, that's what I meant about opening a case. I'll look into this for you today and will let you know what I find.

-Mat

Mat, you're a treasure! Thanks.

I don't have an answer yet but did get an update to the case I submitted this morning (and that was by using the "Contact Us" link from the bottom of my Contributor Account page).

Mat confirmed that I am qualified but that my name was not on the list of codes sent out. Possibly others were similarly skipped.

Is there anyone else who is qualified who hasn't received a code?

I'm in that situation, but wondered if the codes didn't all go out at once for whatever reason and they're not yet done.

A suggestion would be that in the contributor section on Adobe Stock, they could note that you were qualified/not; coupon issued (and perhaps put the number there as well as in email) or not. It'd save wear and tear on support staff

AI so these companies don't want customers/users using their brains?

Lordy what a dumb world 

I sneer at the Getty announcement largely because I believe it to be buzz-filled hype. Lots of software gets the AI label slapped on it when it's nothing of the sort.

However, if it were real, there's a lot of good in saving human brainpower for things that only it can do. I'd argue it's truly smart to use the best tools you have, not waste your own brain power on something a machine, tool or piece of software can do equally well.

The issue is that robots are still falling into fountains and "AI" software struggles to match the claims made for it.

And nobody has to use this assist if they don't want to.

From a contributor point of view, if this partnership with vizual.ai is costing Getty money, it's a bad idea unless it brings in lots of new business in some way. More mouths feeding from the income trough.

Look at the Dance Steps legal tangle to understand that you can get caught up in litigation even if you offer to take down the offending photo from your agency or site

http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/doubt-about-when-model-release-is-needed/msg512201/#msg512201

If I were you, where you think there is an issue, offer it only with an editorial use license, not commercial use. It will limit your sales potential, but also your legal risk.

Unless you are a lawyer and/or have tons of free money and time to spend on legal issues should they arise, I'd suggest that any money you might make licensing the photo is too small to make taking the risk worth it.

You just have to decide how risk prone/averse you want to be.

Andy and Stephanie Sitt appear still to be at the helm of Inmagine, 123rf's parent company, but they're busy with all sorts of offshoot projects and it looks like minding the store at 123rf is not a priority

Some of these other projects are as far from running stock agency as you can get, such as this 3 day blockchain training "powered by Inmagine" they ran in July:

https://ethereumdevtraining.peatix.com/

Other things seem closer to their original business, such as the acquisition of Vectr and Story & Heart last November, although their overblown descriptions of Inmagine: "...a global leader in the creative industry, continues to strengthen its global creative ecosystem" don't alter the fact that they don't do much with the businesses they acquire

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/inmagine-expands-global-creative-ecosystem-030000433.html

Other than a rather garbled blog post about bug fixes and improved speed, it's not clear what Vectr has done as part of Inmagine's stable

https://vectr.com/blog/updates/welcome-vectr-version-1-19-app-gets-twice-faster-and-multiple-bug-fixes/

Inmagine also partnered with GliaCloud:

https://www.enterpriseinnovation.net/article/inmagine-and-gliacloud-partners-ai-based-video-creation-613900786

Earlier in 2017 Inmagine had acquired Pixlr from Autodesk as part of this "ecosystem" expansion:

http://pixlr.com/blog/123rf-acquires-autodesk-pixlr-to-boost-the-worlds-creative-ecosystem/

At the time, one of the big things needed was to remove the requirement to use Flash

https://www.androidpolice.com/2017/04/26/pixlr-popular-photo-editor-autodesk-sold-123rf/

In January of this year, the Pixlr founder joined Inmagine group to run development on Pixlr

https://vn.123rf.com/pressroom/press-20180129.php

Whatever he has done, Pixlr still requires Flash (I just went to their site to try and run it and it complained that I don't have Flash - something no one in their right mind should still be using).

The group is still hiring - look at the list of openings on the right:

http://startupjobs.asia/job/39836-inbound-key-account-manager-hong-kong-market-others-inmagine-group-malaysia

Bottom line is that there is a lot of activity, PR buzzwords and big talk from Inmagine, but when it comes to actually delivering on promises, they fall way short.

I assume that's why they weren't able to sell the group or take it public, two other things talked about in trade rags a couple of years back. Perhaps they hope if they keep issuing press releases about new things - like blockchain training - no one will notice that existing parts of their business are withering on the vine for lack of attention...

...I wonder if it has anything to do with them merging with Getty...

Not sure what you are referring to. I wasn't aware of any deal between Canva and Getty - do you have a link to a press release or story?

The only recent article I found was about an integration with Dropbox which is unlikely to have much of an impact on sales

https://www.bit.com.au/news/canva-integration-coming-to-dropbox-498475

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4193034-shutterstock-sstk-q2-2018-results-earnings-call-transcript

Motley Fool commentary on yahoo finance

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apos-made-shutterstock-lose-money-010100808.html

In Oringer's statement, he mentioned custom pricing pages, something I don't remember hearing about before:

"In addition, in our continued efforts on localization, we launched customized pricing pages, landing pages and Express Checkout experiences tailored to different customer segments. We also invested in a number of global marketing initiatives to drive additional traffic and further accelerate top line growth. We plan to continue to invest in these marketing activities and expect them to pay out over time."

The enterprise business grew 34.9% in the quarter and represents 41% of total revenue. As I see much lower volume of "Single & other" sales that I used to, I wonder if there's a subset of contributor content that's offered in the enterprise segment. If that's the case, all that growth doesn't help me (or any contributor whose content isn't offered in that segment).

The e-commerce segment grew 11.6% in the quarter (I think that's the subscription sales, and possibly the "On Demand" ones too). Customer base grew 7.5%, paid downloads by 6% - which must mean that each customer is downloading less than before, on average - and the image collection by a whopping 41%. Given that some (possibly large) portion of the new content is unsaleable stuff that should never have been approved, that doesn't have as big an impact as it appears, but they're still pursuing policies that will drive down incomes for lots of established contributors. Talking about total payouts to all contributors is just a meaningless smokescreen, IMO.

The growth in revenue per download (10% in real terms, excluding currency fluctuations) suggests SS is selling more video - cause they're only cutting prices on images (at least for the portion of sales where we have a clue what the prices are).

67% of their revenue came from outside the US, about half of that from Europe.

Royalties to us were 26.8% which they describe as essentially unchanged.

They said product development costs were up 38% - "Product development costs increased 38% versus the second quarter last year, primarily due to higher personnel and consulting costs related to building a more expansive customer platform." Elsewhere they talked about moving to AWS

SilverHub Media apparently went into administration and SS had invested $4.8m in them - I don't know anything about this other than it was started by a couple of ex Getty people. The SS report talks about "impairment" of their investment and elsewhere that they've written off $4.8m. A google search mentioned the company being in administration

https://photoarchivenews.com/news/silverhub-media-hits-administration/

Although they said that Custom was important for the future, the response to a question on actual revenue was "Custom was not a material driver overall to the business on a year-to-date basis or in the second quarter but it has contributed some relatively minor amounts compared to the overall enterprise business"

They also mentioned that moving to AWS wouldn't hurt costs over the long haul and that they'd implemented things such that they could move to other cloud suppliers if necessary (who knows if that's a goal or currently real)

"And once again, as a reminder, we've done this in a manner that gives us flexibility, so while we're very confident in the folks at AWS and the pricing that we're getting from them, we have done this in a way that gives us the flexibility to utilize other cloud providers in the future because we've done this with the technology that allows us to containerize it and move it around if necessary."

I was independent (2004-8) then exclusive (2008-11) and then independent again. The days of being treated with respect by any agency are long gone, so don't expect anyone to welcome you warmly

You can make decent money, depending on what you have to sell, how big your portfolio is, and in part, whether you have existing accounts at SS and Fotolia (now Adobe Stock) to reactivate. That matters because you can start with a higher commission rate instead of the base. Also, do a search on SS on keywords for a few of your top sellers and take a look at what you'll be competing with. If you don't think your work stacks up, possibly you might have trouble with going independent.

Dreamstime is fading into irrelevance, I'd give DepositPhotos a wide berth (balance of scams and problems to earnings seems wrong). Alamy can work, depending on your portfolio, but I find it much more variable (good months and dry spells). 123rf used to be a decent second tier site, but they're struggling and I think the owners are trying to sell (and they cut royalty rates again recently).

Good luck

The agencies set the rules for submissions and although they base those on laws - often taking the most conservative subset of laws in a handful of major countries where they license stock images - it's not a legal decision but a policy one. You need to meet their requirements, even if you think they're being too picky. They're managing their legal risk and don't want to spend profits on legal expenses.

So some agencies will ask for a property release for anything identifiable, even exteriors shot from a public place. If the setting isn't identifiable, and you remove all logos, some agencies may be willing to accept shots without a property release.

The default - which will limit your sales - is to submit them as editorial if you have no releases and can't get them. If you think the place you were interning might be interested in a license to use all the photos for free in return for signing a property release for you, it's worth asking. You'd still have to remove all logos from all equipment, but you'd probably have some useful commercial stock as a result.

I also recieve this mail. I have my tax form aproved on January of this year. I contacted support and they answer me "We apologize for any confusion this email might have caused. Since having an approved tax form on file is a new requirement for all of our Contributors, this message was meant to be a reminder for those that have not provided one to do so. If you have already submitted one and it has been approved and is on file, you may disregard this request."

I received a similar reply this morning too.

This was better - less confusing - than the original email, but they've managed to muddy the waters by including language I don't see on my Tax Center page "...and is on file," My page says the date on which my most recent W-9 was approved, but says nothing at all about whether it's on file or not.

I assume this is just their way of saying "once we have processed the approval of your file internally and updated the status in your account data" but when you send messages of this sort you need to use the language that's in use on the web site where people go to check.

Or, in the support reply, confirm that your account is all set instead of saying that this was a reminder for those who have not provided a form and if you have already submitted one...

Of course, better do the check up front and only send the email to those contributors who actually need to take action...