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Messages - Linda - YayMicro
26
« on: April 19, 2013, 06:29 »
Charl: Thank you! We try to listen and address concerns, our contributors are our most important partners. Shiyali: Thank you! We try our best. noodle: You're right - the bottom line is the most important part. Hopefully we'll get sales up, and in new segments. m@m: We understand if anyone would like to wait. The adjustments will be made as we see how the image deals sells. @roede-orm: You'll see some in this forum, and we've gotten several supportive emails. People appreciate that we try to target new segments, hoping it will increase their overall earnings. @somethingpretentious: We'll keep it simple for all our customers, giving a royalty free license. Most corporate customers need high-res images, so we don't expect them to shift. Remember, we want to make money as well  And for the commission - we've been clear about 50% on image sales and 1 / $1,3 on image deals. After increasing our prices the last couple of years we saw the need to increase the commission as well, and you now get $2 for high-res downloads. @Phil: You are right, it don't look like it will add up to 44%. If we sell only 10-packs of images and none of the 100 and 500 it won't be either. But if this happens we will adjust the commission again to get an average ≈ 50%. Our system don't support different commission on the same image sized deals, and that's why we have to use an average. At the end of the day a part of this will have to be trust, until we get a better system. If you don't feel you can trust us I would recommend you to hold off on giving us the responsibility to represent your images until there is enough trust in place. Music and images are very different products, and images have much broader and varied segments and uses. Our main focus is on new ways people use both technology and images, trying to adapt to the changes. Low prices and low commission cut in $: It's difficult / impossible for a company to have low prices and high commission in $. If we sell an image for $1 it's limited how much we can give out in commission. What we focus on is to give a fair cut of our earnings from each customer ≈50%, not on giving a fair commission based on dollars / image. We might not agree on this, and I can only say that our goal is to give a fair share of the earnings. All the money coming in to YAY goes to running YAY and trying to get an even higher growth rate. And we haven't cut your commission, we've raised it for all image deals, giving you $2 for each high-res dollar - and aiming for a ≈50% on all our deals. And of course we don't see price as the only way to get new segments. It's a mix of features, including price. We'll release new services this year that better incorporates all this. Price is an important feature for non-commercial users, and it's difficult to get them to pay considerably more for image than for any other service they use - especially when most still consider Google images as "free images". It's a complex process, and we are trying out different solutions and mixes in order to 'get it right'. @cthoman: It didn't - but it's one of several considerations. @luissantos84 Thanks  @Zelfit: Our commission is 50% on credit sales, 50% on partner sales and an average of 44% on image deals. @Microbius: Thank you! We know that all of you won't agree with us, but we still think it's important to have this discussion. Giving you an opt-out from YAY will make things easier in the future, making it easier to take action if you disagree in the way we do business - and easier to join in when you see the huge success we'll have and how much money all of us will make
27
« on: April 18, 2013, 08:35 »
Sorry I'm confused (it's late 
small image packs
10 images = $9.90 = $0.99 ea
100 images = $59 = $0.59 ea
500 images = $199 = $0.398 ea
our commission is between $0.13 to $0.20 per sale but is also 44%??
Yes, I know - it's a bit confusing! What we've done is to look at our total earnings from image packages, and then try to get the $-cut as close to 50% as we could. It doesn't look like 44%, but in reality - when you sum up all images sold, all earnings and all commissions it is. Ex. if one customer buys one of each the total number of images are 625. The total cost is $288, and the total commission paid is 625*$0,2=$125. $125 of $288 ≈ 43-44%. Hope this made sense. And, if we see that we sell more of one package we'll try to adjust!
28
« on: April 18, 2013, 08:11 »
It is good that you are open for discussion. Thanks.
I see problem not in overall prices, but in author's commission.
Our system today doesnt allow for a percentage cut on image deals, but we will try to tweak the fixed price to reach an average percent I think an average percent looks like average temperature of patients in hospital.
You have good price for large packages, but I'm sure that 100 and 500 image packages will be extremely rare purchase. They are expensive and make good income, but rare. Commission for small packages still quite low.
For Mid and High resolution 10, 25 and 50 packages will be the most popular and they give 17%, 20%, 25.25% percents for author. Everything that goes below 25% makes me sad.
I think it can only be fixed by using fixed price for each package, not for whole category.
Same thoughts for small size - price for first 2 packages can be little higher, for example: 0.25$, 0.22$, 0.2$, 0.2$
Yes, we thought about this - but we have to set the same commission on each size deal. What we'll do is to adjust the overall commission over time when/if we see any changes. So: if we mostly sell small deals, and the amount we get in and the amount commission you don't add up to ≈45-50% we'll readjust.
29
« on: April 18, 2013, 06:28 »
Hi again!
As we said a couple of days ago, we wanted your feedback on our new product. Weve gotten a lot of feedback, some positive, and some negative. Many of you have several concerns, and well try to address these.
There are two issues here,: price and commission. Although they are closely related lets look at them separately first.
Pricing of images:
This has been a controversial topic since the rise of microstock. When the first sites appeared the prices were around $1 for a high-res image, competing with prices reaching $1000 for traditional agencies. Many microstock photographers deliver as high quality as professional stock photographers, so no wonder microstock agencies gained huge market shares from traditional agencies. Then the market developed into what we see today: Large microstock agencies control the traditional image market and have increased the prices, smaller microstock agencies tries to compete by keeping the price low, and traditional agencies are mostly focusing on RM-collecting and low-price subs from microstock partners. Growth is mainly achieved by taking market shares from competitors, or expanding into new markets, such as Asia.
At YAY we try to find another way to grow our revenue. We strongly believe that images and the way images are licensed must adapt to the changes we see in our society. Both the music and the film industry are working hard to find different ways to turn (illegal) users into buying customers. According to industry experts, as much as 85% of images online are used without a legal license. While Getty has chosen not to pursue the private market, neither to stop them from using image or by tempting them to license images, we at YAY hope to change this.
Our market research efforts tells us that people using images illegal would like to use legal images, but they dont have an offer suited for their needs and economy, so they end up lending what they find on Google images. Most of you have seen blogs citing the source of images, hoping this will make up for the lack of license.
So, we find ourselves in the same situation the music industry did years ago. Once Napster and other music sharing sites took off, it was assumed that users would not pay for material no matter what, and the solution was to work harder on copyright protection and lawsuits against wrongdoers to scare people into buying their products. In hindsight its very easy to see that this period was extremely bad for the music industry, billions where lost, and nobody was happy. But the problem was eventually resolved: First by services such as iTunes letting you buy and download music, and today streaming services like Spotify are one of the main reasons the music industry is growing. The commission rates, paid per stream, are small, but the number of users ready to pay a small monthly fee is huge, and artists are making more money than they used to.
So isnt the image industry totally different than the music industry? Yes and no. Its our belief that today it is. Its mostly business-to-business industry with large agencies and corporations buying most of the images. These companies expect value for the images they use, giving them a return on investment.
At the same time your average blogger just want their post to look good. They dont have a budget, and are not nearly as willing to pay good money for an image. But, you better believe they are many, and the total sales potential in this market is large (low-priced images in high volumes).
Our first move in trying to adapt is to release image deals for small and medium images. Small images are intended to web use, and our main target segments here are bloggers and people who run their own web site. Currently web sized images are 2% of our sales. Clearly, we dont have a product that web users wants paying $1,95 for one web sized image is not something anyone in the market is ready to do.
When we set the prices on our new deals we looked at it two ways. First, how much cheaper should web sized images targeted to non-corporate customers cost? And more importantly: How much do we think these people are willing to pay? Based on our data and experience we decided to begin with a price of $9.90 for the smallest image package, giving the customer web images for $1. So we are back to the roots of microstock, but this time with much smaller images.
After getting feedback from our photographers we sat down and discussed for hours and hours. Are the prices to low? And we concluded that we are confident that a baseline price of $1 for a web images is not to low. But be assured, we will test our prices, and monitor what customers we get. We dont want to charge too little, or too much, and we dont want our high-res customers to shift to web. As a smaller company we can turn around and change prices if we see that this isnt working.
What we did see is that we give too much discount to customers buying 100 and 500 image packages. So we have decided to raise the prices of these deals for all three versions.
The small 100 image deal will go from $39 to $ 59, and the 500 deal will go from $159 to $199. The medium sized images will go from $199 to $299 and $999 for 500 images. And for the high-res images 100 deals go from $399 to $599 and 500 from $1599 to $1999. The lowest price for an image is then $0,4 for a web sized image and $4 for a high-res.
We believe firmly that images should be priced low to reach new segments, but we agree that giving up to 70% discount for buying a larger image package made little sense.
And this leads us over to the next discussion:
What should the commission be? We really do want to be a fair agency, and we really want to make a lot of money for our company and photographers. Creating something great, and a company we can be personally proud of is very important for us three founders.
Still, with low image prices comes a low commission per image. The only way we can make a fairer deal is to make sure that we give what we consider a fair cut of our earnings, and to make sure that our earnings are high. As we wrote, we think well reach a new segment and high volume with targeted product towards new segments.
We have decided to aim for a commission as close to 50% as we can get it. This is for all image deals.
Our system today doesnt allow for a percentage cut on image deals, but we will try to tweak the fixed price to reach an average percent. The way we calculate the average percent is to sum all the image deals, example for web images: If you buy one of each, the total of images are 625. The total cost is $288. Then we see what the total sum of commission must be in order to reach the desired percentage.
Given limitations on our system were not able to reach 50% blank, but were close at 44% commission on all image packages. On all partner earnings and credit sales its 50%.
And in $ this means that well increase our commission on all image deals as following:
Small images package from $0,13 to $0,2
Medium images package from $0,65 to $1
High-res images package from $1,3 to $2
(Provisions are paid in EUR)
Nobody has complained on our commission on high-res images, but if we want to be fair and focus on a percentage cut its obvious we needed to raise this as well.
We know some of you disagree on the direction were going. We are working hard to give you more control of your images. Currently you can opt in and out of all our partners. Soon you will be able to opt in and out of YAY as well you can be a part of our partner programs, but not sell your images at YAY. Why? We dont want to force anyone to agree with our strategy, and we dont want to loose you as a photographer. We hope youll give us time to prove that our concept and direction is the right one.
What we can promise you is that well try to let you know what is happening, the reason behind our decisions and well aim to have an open discussion. We will also try our very best to be fair. Low prices might not be fair for many of you, but we hope to make it up by having high volume, giving you a high cut of earnings and in total provide you with a good income from YAY.
And, nothing we do is set in stone if it dont work, well change it!
Bjorn, Jan and Linda
YAY Founders
30
« on: March 25, 2013, 16:00 »
Good - I found your e-mail, and it's just a delay due to the weekend. We normally don't answer e-mails on Saturday and Sunday. I've asked for your account to be activated, and it should be ready soon! Linda
31
« on: March 25, 2013, 15:43 »
To become Contributor on YAY I should make the verification the email address I registered with.
Their message says:
"Email verification
You should have received an email to verify your email address ([email protected]), please click the link inside the email if you got the mail. If you haven't received such an email, please verify that the email is correct and click here to send a new one."
Well (hmm not so well), I did not receive any email, I have clicked to ask a new one and nothing arrived, I have written to them and I did not get any answer.
Are they sleeping?
Yay! Wake up! 
Hi! If you can send me your username and/or email I'll check into this for you and activate your account. We do have some cases where people don't get the confirmation email, and we haven't been able to figure out why. It's not in the spam folder. I'm not sure if we got your email since I don't have your address. Usually you'll get an answer within a couple of hours during weekdays. Thanks, Linda
32
« on: September 21, 2012, 04:09 »
Hi! Yes, I can see that my response was a bit unclear. Editorial mages that are rejected with "Missing model release" are images we find to be Creative images. But of course you should also get this information at the same time. I'll make sure our reviewers all know how to do this to avoid any further confusion. And since we have several people reviewing there will be some mix up, especially after a change in policy. I can only apologize for the frustration this may cause, and try to avoid this in the future. The main rule for editorial is: Newsworthy - it should have a clear editorial purpose. When you take images of non-celeberites or "non-news", go for crowds, be specific in your description about place and date. Avoid images that looks like a normal creative image. An editorial image must have something more to it in order to be accepted as editorial, a feature that's difficult or impossible to get from a creative image. Hope this helps! And please let me know if you experience any more mixed reviews! Cheers, Linda Hi!
Just to clarify - we don't demand model releases for editorial images. If an image is added as editorial but the content is not editorial we'll ask for a model release, and that the image should be marked creative.
If you take an image of a crowd on the street you should make sure that it's a crowd. 2-3 people in a street does not make an editorial photo, in general. You should also make sure that the description includes date and place, including street name and the like.
YAY Images
i had several images accepted years ago that suddenly got bounced and needed model releases, also, some new editorial were bounced saying they needed model releases ALSO -- here's part of the email responses you sent:
>>> If people in an image are recognizable, and it's not a news image you will need model releases. Blurred faces alone is not enough to ensure this. We are stricter on this now, as there is a general move towards stricter policies. We don't want YAY or any of our photographers and customers to experience a law-suit.
>>>>>Editorial is not a category for random public images. The image must have a clear new value, or show a specific situation to illustrate an editorial article. Especially when it comes to images of single persons or small crowds there need to be a very specific setting in order for an image to be editorial. The image should not show anything that easily could be shoot as a creative image with model releases.
As for street scenes and the like I will recommend you to go for large crowds, and to make sure to specify place, time, names of streets, buildings and the like.
====================
the requests for model releases didnt say they would then be accepted as creative, so maybe i misunderstood you, but the replies were ambiguous. if you're changing your definition of editorial, that's your choice but it's definitely confusing -- eg from a recent submission:
identifiable image of street musician - accepted as editorial, no release
images of skiers at top of slope - unidentifiable - "need model release"
overview of a ski village with dozens of skiers - accepted as editorial, no releases
several shots of crew unfurling a sail high on a tall ship, unidentifiable, different angles & composition - some accepted, others rejected as needing releases
33
« on: September 20, 2012, 03:06 »
Hi!
Just to clarify - we don't demand model releases for editorial images. If an image is added as editorial but the content is not editorial we'll ask for a model release, and that the image should be marked creative.
If you take an image of a crowd on the street you should make sure that it's a crowd. 2-3 people in a street does not make an editorial photo, in general. You should also make sure that the description includes date and place, including street name and the like.
Cheers,
Linda
YAY Images
34
« on: September 06, 2011, 08:06 »
Finally, the upload is up and running again! Bjorn just sent all photographers a personal update, so check your e-mails for more details. Thanks, Linda
35
« on: September 06, 2011, 08:05 »
Is there an easy way to see how much I made at Yay in a previous month. I can get the bars to show on the stats page for each month but the actual figure isn't there and hovering doesn't bring it up so I've had to guesstimate for my August earnings. Am I missing something?
Our sales stat page isn't all that good, and I think the only way is the one you described - but we'll come with a new one this fall! Our apologies! Linda
36
« on: September 01, 2011, 16:09 »
Get a lot of FTP errors - did upload 5 images but continued disconnections thereafter - maybe not quite ready yet?
Website uploads seems to be OK.
Hi! We're soon ready for submissions again - the FTP and web-upload are both up. But, we are still testing. We'll send you notification by e-mail + post it here in MSG when ready. I think it will be within 12-18 hours. Linda
37
« on: August 30, 2011, 08:42 »
Thank you for the update Linda. Might be just good contributor/supplier relations to keep us a bit in the loop when you do these types of things. Had to endlessly check to see if we can upload again, while a simple email with your short explanation here and "we will let you know when you can upload again" would have been nice.....
We sent an e-mail to all photographers before we stopped the upload - and we will of course send a new e-mail to all contributors when it's ready for new uploads. It shouldn't be long now Linda
38
« on: August 30, 2011, 02:41 »
I had a API sale a few days ago but I don't know what that is and when do I see how much I earned with that sale?
If you give me your username here - or e-mail it at [email protected] - I can take a look for you. Linda
39
« on: August 30, 2011, 02:36 »
No need to worry - we don't! Our servers are not down - we have suspended uploads since we need to do some maintenance and improvement. This is due to our ever-increasing image base (now 1.530.000 images directly uploaded to YAY!) - and a high increase in traffic ( http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/yaymicro.com# click on "Max" to see the development). Upload should be back as normal within 1-2 days according to our CTO Bjorn. There is nothing wrong with the site, so the sales are not affected by this temporary stop in uploads. We are working on a better reporting system for API-sales, and you will find information and statistics by the end of this fall. Thanks, Linda
40
« on: August 23, 2011, 05:04 »
Yes, we are temporary not accepting any uploads due to site maintenance and upgrade. The upload should be available within a couple of days. We apologize for the inconvenience! We've had a very large increase in traffic, combined with over 1.5 million images uploaded directly to YAY resulted in a bottle neck effect. Upload should be back within a few days, and I'll make sure we'll both e-mail and post it online! Thanks, Linda
41
« on: August 23, 2011, 04:50 »
I have Chatted to live support.. Mailed support..
Told that (as seen), Editorial Images sent to Photoambry ar marked as regular RF files..
I don't want my Editorial images to be sold as RF.. as it is clear copyright infringement.. who are responsible if they sale and are using in a wrong way ? should we poll out the API program until it is fixed ?
Hope action is taken..
Hi! I understand your concern, and as you say - Photoambry are not marking the editorial images with the right license. We have talked with them, and all editorial images will be removed. Because of the more complex licensing of editorial images we have decided to not sell editorial images through our API. We have taken steps to remove them from our API, but this will take some time. There is no need for you to remove your portfolio from the API, as we'll make sure to remove all editorial images. As for any legal concern - this is solely Photoambrys responsibility. You and YAY have given them the proper legal information regarding the image, and will not be held responsible. To avoid any complications we monitor the sales to see if any editorial images are sold. Hopefully this issue will be solved within a few days. Being one of the first API-partners added there will be some mistakes. On the bright side, this helps us avoid doing the same mistakes with larger partners! This fall we'll be up and running with Age, ImagineChina and several other agencies. Cheers, Linda
42
« on: August 17, 2011, 10:20 »
I'm new to Yay so I may not understand something. I have to admit that this system is little bit weird to me. I can understand that you won't send us money unless Yay is paid by their partners. But I would really appreciate if I can see exact amount that I have made instead of "api sale" info. All I know is that I will receive 50% of something but as it is very difficult to find out what size was downloaded - in fact I know nothing. So waiting for reports looks little bit like a waiting for lottery draw.
Yes, I know - you get way to little information at this time. We are working on a better system for reporting what you have earned, and hopefully we'll have it in place in a short while. We have to prioritize our time and efforts, and currently we are using all our resources on getting the agreements, and getting them up and running. We hope you all agree with us that it's better to earn more money and have a temporary poor reporting, than have an excellent reporting system, but no sales. I'll get back to you as soon as we can improve the reporting! Thanks, Linda
43
« on: August 17, 2011, 10:16 »
Hi Linda! I'm just curious - what has to be "negotiated"? If they are a vendor and used our images already, wasn't a deal already in place? I guess that's where I'm confused as to the negotiation part, unless i'm misunderstanding something here, which is very possible.
Hi LivingLife! The deal has come to the end of it's term, and are open for re-negotioation. We, of course, would like to get a higher commission, and there are other smaller issues to negotiate around. Linda
44
« on: August 17, 2011, 05:53 »
Hi Linda,
any news on this one? Have you received the report for Q2 or will we have to wait longer?
thx
Hi! We've got the sales report for Q2, but not the payment. It should be in place shortly, and payment hopefully by the end of August. We are still renegotiating, and will update you when we have reached a new agreement. thanks, Linda
45
« on: July 19, 2011, 07:06 »
Hi!
Just wanted to answer the question about the waiting. Jan and I have both pushed for faster reporting and payment, but unfortunately Ingram has been slow to respond. We are waiting for the next report to come this week, so hopefully we'll have the payment for the next quarter ready soon. IF there are further delays we'll have to use our collection bureau. We're also renegotiating this deal to improve the terms for YAY and our photographers. Hopefully we'll get a new agreement suitable for all parties.
For our new deals the reports will come in monthly. We will then send an invoice, and when this is paid we'll transfer the amount accordingly to the different photographer accounts. I'm not sure if you will see downloads and prices in real time for API, or if you'll see it after we receive the reports - I'll have to talk with our CTO Bjorn. No matter, I think our new solution will be much better for everyone involved.
As for the lower commission - I suspect the lower sales might be due to migration of customers from the high-priced Ingram collection to his new microstock site. Hopefully the new API agreements will increase everyones sales again this fall/winter.
Thanks,
Linda
46
« on: July 11, 2011, 08:02 »
The best way to get news directly is to follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/join.yaymicroWe will send out newsletters when new deals are going live, and for other important. The Facebook/Twitter feed is for keeping you updated on the progress we have, small and large events etc - an informal communication channel. A for third party payment: we got the payment today, several weeks late. The payment should be made to photographers this week. Cheers, Linda
47
« on: June 16, 2011, 13:14 »
Why are you removing accepted files? Three of my files have gone from accepted to pending review. One of them has over 100 sales on other sites; what is going on?
We sent a lot of images back for re-approval today. But, most of them (90%) is because the images are too similar to other images in the portfolio. There might also be some images sent back that shouldn't be. If your images are rejected, and you feel they should not have been - please e-mail me at [email protected]. I'll make sure to look into it for you. Remember to keep the images in the rejected folder, and include your username in the e-mail. Thanks, Linda
48
« on: June 16, 2011, 09:39 »
We are still waiting for payment from our distributor, but it should be out shortly. Linda
Is it us? If yes, the payment should be there already, or at least it's in the wires :-)
No, you're an API-payment - so it's not you. Linda
49
« on: June 16, 2011, 08:11 »
We are still waiting for payment from our distributor, but it should be out shortly. Linda
50
« on: June 16, 2011, 08:10 »
Hi! You'll get information on the price range on our API-for-photographer page: http://yaymicro.com/api-details.actionAnd we're working on giving you better numbers on API sale and stat-page. Hopefully we'll have it in place soon! You are ensured to get a 50/50 split of what we get, at all times. You do not get the money on you account before we've received payment from our distributors, as we need to protect our cash flow. Thanks, Linda
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