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Messages - cthoman
Pages: 1 ... 60 61 62 63 64 [65] 66 67 68 69 70 ... 145
1601
« on: December 18, 2012, 14:18 »
The blog works decent. I probably should dedicate more time to it, but it's hard to make time for everything in the day.
1602
« on: December 18, 2012, 09:58 »
You can get money upfront or watermark your comps, but I'd say if you don't have the extra time to freelance, I'd probably avoid it.
1603
« on: December 13, 2012, 20:48 »
Looks like GL.
1604
« on: December 13, 2012, 15:15 »
Nobody is exclusive at SS. I really dont think you can compare any praise heaped on Oringer to the way we wooyayed at istock.
The independents can just sit back and relax and see which agency rises and falls. their files are everyhwere.
That's definitely true. But when you see people saying SS is over 50% of their income, it definitely looks like they are setting themselves up for the same situation regardless of exclusivity.
1605
« on: December 13, 2012, 12:19 »
What happens when Shutter Stock stop growing?
Are you trying to insinuate that things change and we should plan ahead? That's crazy talk. 
1606
« on: December 13, 2012, 10:35 »
Thanks everybody for the posts. I probably won't write anything for a couple weeks. Hopefully, more people will trickle in here in that time.
1607
« on: December 13, 2012, 10:07 »
Who would you want to become the dominant force in microstock? The nameless, greedy, lying f*cks at Istock/Getty or the honourable Mr Oringer, who publishes his financial accounts every quarter?
I'm going to go with neither. I actually don't think there should be a dominant agency at all. If nothing else, this iStock lesson should teach us that you want an agency that actually represents you and not some crowd-sourced juggernaut.
1608
« on: December 12, 2012, 21:03 »
All I can do is tell you once again that the overall business is meeting our expectations. The reality, as some of you have pointed out, is that there is an ever increasing number of contributors over time, and more content in the collections. This is why I maintain that the primary focus of most of the people who work on iStock should be on bringing more new buyers in the door.
Wow! That is the most awesomely honest thing I have ever heard. This isn't just a problem for iStock. It's an inherent flaw in the business model of microstock for contributors. It's great to hear an agency actually admit this. Hopefully, some of them start working to solve it or they will be replaced by an agency or agencies that do.
1609
« on: December 12, 2012, 13:29 »
I was hoping to write a blog article on IllustrationInfo.com containing people's personal stock sites. So if you run your own personal stock site, feel free to post it below. Please include: Name of Site URL Owner/Artist/Photographer A brief one or two sentence description Here's mine: MyStockVectors http://www.mystockvectors.com/Cory Thoman MyStockVectors is a premium collection of cartoon vector illustrations by artist Cory Thoman. Feel free to write your own blog article as well. The idea here was to promote each others sites on a bunch of different websites. Hopefully, people will take time to participate and provide their info.
1610
« on: December 12, 2012, 10:22 »
So what's the direction now? Downwards with a nice zoom  I'm still heading for a commission cut next year and I still feel no motivation to upload new images. If they revised this year's RC targets, to reflect the facts that they've sent buyers to Thinkstock and diluted sales with all the Getty images, I might start to think they're really changing.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain... This all seemed like smoke and mirrors. Are people really going to forget about everything else (like income) with a couple site upgrades? That can't possibly work... Can it? Or is the goal to just string people along for a little bit longer? It all seems very odd.
1611
« on: December 10, 2012, 17:23 »
Yeah, it doesn't really matter to me either. I made my decision to leave a while ago. If they fail, that is probably good for my business. If they don't, it won't affect me that much. Either way, it doesn't really matter, but I don't really see them making any drastic changes to improve the situation.
That said, I'd say if you really want to speak out, then do it with your images and take your business somewhere else. Call me cynical, but I think any heartfelt speeches will just fall on deaf ears.
1612
« on: December 10, 2012, 14:51 »
I remember learning at university that the number one most common problem in all hierarchical organisations is the inability of those at the top to actually listen to the people at lower levels. Communication flows downwards very easily, but all the routes upwards are blocked. As soon as I heard that, I realised that indeed that HAD been the major problem in a lot of companies I'd worked for. Such a shame that this still continues... it's all just wasted opportunity.
I think the problem with this thinking is that we aren't on the bottom. iStock or any other agency works for you, the contributor (not the other way around). Their sole purpose is to sell your work and make money for the both of you. When they cease to do that in a reliable or profitable way, it's time to fire them. That really should be the message delivered to RR. Everything else is background noise.
1613
« on: December 09, 2012, 13:23 »
Its getting ridiculous. They dont need any help with straightening things out. The Getty people have got tons of experience and have probably forgotten more then anybody else will ever learn.
How difficult can it be?
Just remove this RC nonsense. fix the bugs/glitches, etc. Make it worthwhile for independants to return and ofcourse, take care of the remaining exclusives.
jeez, you dont have to be a brain surgeon for this.
It's tough when you don't actually want to do any of that.
1614
« on: December 08, 2012, 18:02 »
i've never understood the "dont want to compete with my other ports" argument -- someone who's buying on A is not going to know anything about your ports on B C & D. and most are not looking exactly what you have in image x when there are similars elsewhere. so removing your images from a site has basically 0 effect
the other argument is that leaving images on a site generates sales with no payout, but any site i leave is generating so little income that's of little consequence also
so i rarely actually leave a site, i just ignore them
It's probably a coincidence, but almost every time I delete a site, some other site will step up to fill the void the next month. But, you are right. Some buyers just buy at one site and don't look around. That said, there are also a lot of buyers out there that come in through Google. So if your image only exists at a couple places, those are the places that search engine traffic will bring up. I think people often underestimate the power of search engines to bring in traffic. Obviously, the agencies don't because they seem to spend a lot on Adwords.
1615
« on: December 08, 2012, 16:08 »
The only people left (buyers and contributors) are the true believers and those that want the "good old days" back. Everybody else has moved on and they aren't coming back.
Interesting how you know what everyone is making at iStock and what they would make as independents, maybe you could share where you get your figures?
You read the same things I do, so I don't have any special insight or sources. I'm sure there are still people that are doing well at IS, but the trend seems to be down for most contributors. Clearly, there is a lot of frustration, otherwise this thread and the tons of others wouldn't exist. I have no idea what exclusives will make as independents. They may do worse (I'm not bullish on DT, FT or SS either), but I don't see why anybody would expect things to get better at IS at this point. It's been 2 years since things started to decline there. Whatever issues they had with buyers in that time probably will never be resolved. I can only assume those buyers have moved on to new sources for their image needs. No psychic powers here just general observations based on what people share.
1616
« on: December 08, 2012, 14:34 »
At this moment no agency is doing all that brillant and they have all got their differant problems. Right now IS have got the right timing to do something constructive here, try to capitalize on the situation. I hope they realize that.
That opportunity was 2 years ago. They blew it. The only people left (buyers and contributors) are the true believers and those that want the "good old days" back. Everybody else has moved on and they aren't coming back. Neither are the "good old days". I don't see how they can repair the damage even if they were sincere about doing it. Unless, they have invented a time machine.
1617
« on: December 08, 2012, 12:15 »
1618
« on: December 08, 2012, 11:55 »
I remove them, so that I do not compete with myself on other sites.
People think that it costs them nothing to have their ports floating here and there.
It might cost a lot. In sales you never get paid for, in undercutting other agencies, and in strange and random even illegal distribution of your images.
I agree. There is something to be said for "herding" buyers to the sites you actually want to do business at. On the other hand, money is always a factor in any decision to pull the plug, so I'm in the depends on the situation camp.
1619
« on: December 08, 2012, 11:39 »
1620
« on: December 07, 2012, 18:36 »
Its an honest post. the best I have read in the whole year, actually.
If they continue being frank and honest without a condescending tone towards the "silly little artist who shouldnt worry his pretty head over business", they might have a chance to recover.
Unless they start speaking in dollar signs, it doesn't really matter. We are still, by far, the number 1 microstock site revenue-wise. That may be true as a corporation, but not so true for most of us.
1621
« on: December 07, 2012, 12:14 »
This topic really veered off the cliff.
1622
« on: December 06, 2012, 12:50 »
Yeah, I don't understand your fixation here. The buyer buys an image, the amount covers the licensing and costs of transaction. Do you think the seller is supposed to have two wallets? One for incoming payments, and some other wallet that holds money he made from mowing lawns, to pay the transaction fees? It's all the same bucket.
I don't understand a lot of what happened in this thread. It seems like some people are really digging to find some nefarious scheme. It's cool if you have some doubts about the company. I know I do. That's healthy, but this conspiracy stuff is kind of annoying.
1623
« on: December 06, 2012, 11:05 »
w. t. f. ...well for around here? 
That one definitely needs to come off the banned list. It's just too useful. FL - Fotolia
What's FT
Following the FT rule, Dreamstime would be DS, Shutterstock SR, Stockfresh SK and so on.
Most people seem to use FT. FL is Florida, although I guess BS means something else too. And, B.M. (best match) is... umm... well, actually that's not much different.
1624
« on: December 05, 2012, 20:01 »
I can't believe he means 1,000 images that aren't on other sites?
Ideally, I think if you had that you would probably get the best results. It seems like an honest answer. Especially for their advertise only plan. The more competition (SS, IS, DT, etc.) you have for a particular image, the less likely you are to get it downloaded somewhere where you get 100% royalty (Ktools, PE, Photoshelter, Photodeck, etc.). I think most contributors should be holding images back for themselves.
1625
« on: December 05, 2012, 12:44 »
I was thinking about starting a thread like this to set up a link exchange for artist run sites, but I never got around to it. Anyway... my site, MyStockVectors, is in my signature.
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