2. Even worse, the smallest pay-as-you-go credit pack is 12 credits, meaning anyone that wants to purchase just one exclusive 'detailed' vector at 14 credits, will be forced to buy the larger 26 credit pack - personally I think this is terrible news. I wonder if a lot of buyers will simply purchase non-exclusive 'detailed' vectors at 10 credits, rather than being forced to spend all that extra money on 26 credits that they may not require?

While a customer is a customer and a dollar is a dollar, I don't think iStock worries too much about very small buyers [1]. Looking at my own sales, it seems that very, very few are in the 'small credit bundle' market. Only you can check your own dl stats to see if your buyer demographic is significantly different.

[1] e.g. it's the smaller buyer who feels it most when prices go up, and complain on the forums, to no avail. It was the smaller buyers who were complaining about iStock introducing logos and saying they would not buy from iStock any more if it happened - presumably iStock's bean counters saw that they were comparatively small fish.

I always thought it was a little silly that the bar was ever dropped to 250. At that level, there's nothing all that exclusive about exclusivity. Anyone can do it. Even 500 doesn't seem too difficult.

I guess it was to stop people from considering uploading elsewhere. Some people who start submitting to multiple agencies become iStock independent later; others find that iStock does not provide enough of a %age of their total to make exclusivity an attractive option.
If iStock sets the bar quite low, maybe a highish proportion of newbies (pure speculation) don't try elsewhere.

Kelly Thompson is promising significant dollar increases to exclusives under the new deal.

Quote

There is one thing I want our exclusives to take away from this. We are confident that with the new Exclusive prices, you'll have the chance to see some significant increases in your payouts � more than enough to counterbalance any delay in your next 5% canister increase.

It's not a promise, it's an opportunity - we're taking a chance. We read into it what we like, e.g. the 'become exclusive' hype which says "you WILL see a difference" - and we all choose to assume it means a difference for the better.

3.  Credit price increase.  Great for istock, great for contributors.  At least on the face of it.  For us non-exclusives this will be the only raise we get at IS.  But Sean makes an excellent point in the IS thread - this is not the ideal economic time to be squeezing customers.  Could backfire and send more to the competition.

And I guess they'll be hoping that they'll go to photos.com

When I applied they said ten days, but it was about a week. But I've heard of it going beyond two weeks since then. I guess there are just too many people applying.

LOL That's why they need to stop doing this it's almost embarassing

One company (e.g. Alamy) couldn't stop while others (e.g. Getty) are still doing it.

I'm currently exclusive, though my sales have been in freefall all year. E.g. this is my best month of the year, and my downloads are 30% below Nov 07 and over 50% below Nov '08. so I may have to revisit - if only time weren't so much of an issue.
However, what I dislike most is the doublespeak, for example, on the enticement to become exclusive, it says:
"Protection and resolution
Exclusivity makes it easier for us to protect our contributors. We can better enforce compliance issues when we know an image came from us and must follow our licensing agreement."


However, in the actual badly-written, ambiguous and obfuscating Exclusivity Agreement, it says:

"Notwithstanding the foregoing, given the exigencies of the stock photography business and the prevalence of royalty-free content, iStockphoto cannot take responsibility for the compliance by purchasers and licensees of the terms of such agreements. Accordingly, you acknowledge and agree to the possibility of Exclusive Content being used in a manner that is not contemplated in this Agreement or the Content License Agreement or any distribution partner license agreement, and you agree that notwithstanding any rights you may have to pursue the licensees of such Exclusive Content at law, iStockphoto shall have no liability to you or any person claiming through you for any breach by a licensee of the terms of any agreement respecting Accepted Exclusive Content."

So basically, if someone uses one of your models and portrays them as a member of the British National Party (as has happened) or the KKK (nearest US equivalent, which AFAIK, hasn't happened), any legal case is on your own and at your own expense, even if exclusive.

IMO, that is grossly misleading (the 'enticement' vis a vis the actuality) and unfair - and basically gives buyers carte blanche knowing that individuals are unlikely to have the wherewithal to pursue. I have heard of cease and desists for inappropriate web uses, but what happens if, as in the BNP scenario, the photo is distributed in print to thousands of homes?

lizworld
I realised today that I'm so far out of the loop that I didn't even know 2012 was a movie until I read your whole post.
Is the movie showing in English in Rio?

Me2. I wondered why my pupils keep asking me if the world was going to end in 2012! Tx for the info.

Oh man, it's American Thanksgiving this weekend isn't it?   

I think it's next weekend (Thursday coming?)
I hope I'm wrong, though, as it would be easier if my Freaky Friday had been Black Friday.

Also on Istock if you go into one of your images and look at the keywords the first 3 are the ones most often used in the searches that resulted in sales.

Sorry to be nitpicky, but isn't it that the keywords are rearranged in the order of popularity, rather than just the top three (although these will be the 'top three' of the list, of course)? If you click on 'more like these', it's the top four keywords that are used.

Quote from: ShadySue on November 18, 2009, 18:32

Quote from: jalap on November 18, 2009, 17:46

I had several butterfly images on istock, paper kites and painted ladies as well as several other varieties.  I painstakingly researched the names and keyworded them appropriately.  My images were tagged, though for inappropriate keywords because I had the words "painted" and "lady" in the keywords or "Paper" and "kite".  Since the image had neither lady or paint, nor paper nor kite istock removed them.  I have also had keywords removed for other things such as an emerald cut diamond had the word emerald removed because it was not an emerald but a diamond.  I had an image of a child waiting at a bus stop.  The word bus and stop were removed. 

Painted and lady should not have been in your keywords for exactly the reason you give above. If you keyword 'painted lady', the CV maps it to Painted Lady Butterfly.
However, IMO, paper and kite, especially kite, should have been left in. I see that 'paper kite' is one of these phrases that someone has added as a 'legacy' term (odd name, I always think) which mean they're findable if someone actually types "paper kite" in quotation marks. I'd ask for kite at least to be replaced in your keywords and you could consider sitemailling ducksandwich to ask for 'paper kite' to be put in the CV.

Originally, I thought the Dreamstime keywording philosophy ... separating phrases into single words ... was ridiculous but now think their approach makes a lot of sense.  I've never used the iStock CV approach but, from the above, it doesn't seem the "best" approach to keywording. 
I found something else that I like about Dreamstime.   

Actually, the CV, though sometimes frustrating, is probably what I think iStock does best. Does someone wanting a photo of a 'lady' (unfortunate example; I guess no-one searches on 'lady') want to see photos of butterflies? Does someone wanting a photo of a bus want to see photos of bus stops with no buses in the image? By comparison, Alamy's is pretty shocking. I don't know anything about Dreamstime, so won't comment.

@ gill - I do agree with you, and have correctly keyworded virtually all of my species (I can think of one eagle photo off hand which was even at the time under identity disputation!) and put in the scientific names. I can assure you that on iStock, these are seldom used. I wiki like crazy, for al the good it seems to do.
As it happens, I have a blue butterfly, correctly keyworded with its English vernacular name and its scientific name. I have two versions of the photo, one 'in situ', one isolated. On each of them, the top keywords are blue and butterfly, and the correct names are very low down (iStock sorts keywords in order of popularity as part of its Best Match algorhythm. Of course, this isn't helped (for new buyers) by the fact that if you want a Blue Salamis Butterfly, you'd have to know to type "Blue Salamis" in quotation marks, similarly if you use the scientific name, you'd have to somehow 'know' to put "Salamis temora" in quotes, as it isn't in the CV - as mine are the only two images of same, it's not a candidate for putting into the CV.
Well, if it's any consolation, today I sold a photo where the buyer presumably was looking for "Yellow-throated Longclaw" as that's still at the top of the keyword list. However it's the first time it's been downloaded in almost two years, and it's sister image not at all, which is why I now send that sort of thing to Macro.
However, there is at least one site where you can get absolutely top notch nature images, correctly keyworded, from top international nature photographers free at a small size (fine for powerpoints) provided it's for educational or charitable use, you credit the site, and you keep the watermark on. :-)

I enrolled on this forum thinking I might get into micro/macro stock, but decided it's not for me, I'm going to go the hard a yellow insect has a latin name, and someone who really wants to buy it will be searching for the latin name, not "a yellow insect".

You're right of course, but one thing I've learned is that obscure yellow insects (or other less well known wildlife), no matter how well keyworded won't sell enough on micro to make uploading them worthwhile (unless you were shooting them anyway). So the best thing to do with these is send them to Macro. I hate saying that, as I edit a wildlife newsletter for a local group which can't even run to micro prices (obviously not able to run to a bulk discount for lower prices, it's a Catch 22 - the biggest companies get the lowest prices), but there you have it.
BTW, I just searched on 'insect' on iStock, photos only, by downloads. The top selling insect photos are generic 'butterflies', 'bees' and 'ants', which proves my point.