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Messages - Gizeh
26
« on: March 20, 2009, 08:01 »
Hi there, the upload speed of my DSL connection is quite slow and I look for a smart solution for automated FTP uploads over night. Is anyone using a NAS (Network area storage) as a FTP client for uploading pics or videos? I heard that this is possible but it is not easy for a beginner to configure a NAS accordingly. Isn't it a cool idea to turn off the computer over night while the NAS is independently doing the job of uploading?. The NAS uses about 20W while a computer would have a power consumtion of 150W or more. If you are not familiar with NAS technology have a look at an often recommend device here http://synology.com/enu/products/DS107+/index.php
27
« on: November 21, 2008, 03:49 »
You can hear quite often that budget RF brands like Gettys Photodisc are on a decline because a lot of customers in this segment have moved to microstock and the remaining buyers have become much more price sensitive.
Just wonder whether this offer is really beneficial for contributors or regular Getty contributors are no longer interested in submitting to the Photodisc collection and Getty needs new undemanding contributors to fill the gaps?
28
« on: October 23, 2008, 13:59 »
Jupiter had only one strength which was their subscription business. My guess is we will see Getty aggressively moving into subscriptions by using the Jupiterimages brands including StockXpert.
No good news for contributors.
29
« on: October 13, 2008, 03:16 »
Do you have the capital to sustain a loss-making operation with sufficient cashflow to effectively market the business at the same time?
Our operation has been in the black for some time now...
WOW, not even out of beta and already profitable? This sounds almost like magic.
30
« on: September 04, 2008, 05:15 »
Agree that knowing more about image lifecycles would be extremely helpful for those serious about microstock.
Still I think a good guesstimate is almost impossible because looking at data from the past can be completely misleading in a fast moving world like microstock
Today one of your images might compete with 10 similars, tomorrow it might be 11, 100 or 1,000 similars. Who knows? Also search engines at agencies are in a permanent flux. You might have a favourable ranking today but find your images at the bottom tomorrow.
IMHO making predictions in microstock is as reliable as forecasting roulette numbers (the bank always wins that is for sure).
31
« on: September 01, 2008, 11:34 »
Lets assume you are a board member of the Microstock Artists Alliance (MAA) and someone comes up with the bright idea of abolishing any kind of copyright and giving away every picture for free.
Would you let him join?
32
« on: August 25, 2008, 05:53 »
What are your opinions about the pricing trends for footage? As of today IS is charging 75$ for a HD clip and SS and StockXpert charge only 50$. Getty prices start at around 300$.
Are the 50$ prices just the beginning of a price war? Or will SS and StockXpert raises prices when they have gained traction?
Last not least: What is the contributors role in this game? Aren't we the driving force promoting a price war? By giving the same clips to IS,SS and StockXpert we actively support the 50$ price and might even be responsible for IS lowering its prices.
Wouldn't it be smarter to temporarily give our first-rate clips only to IS and let the others have only second-rate clips until they raise their prices to the IS level?
33
« on: August 22, 2008, 03:45 »
I think pretty much every macro that has middleman does this kind of %.. It does suck, but it's also business.. If there weren't cuts there wouldn't be distributors..
Of course distributors are not bad per se but photographers should be aware that there are a lot of shady distribution schemes with only one purpose: Bringing down the photographers cut.
34
« on: August 21, 2008, 08:58 »
Meaning even if your contract says 50% you could easily end up with something between 5% and 20% of the actual sales price.
In all fairness they state you get 50% of the nett price and in my experience so far they're good to their word.
You get 50% of what they receive after the middle men have taken their cut. Don't confuse this with 50% of the actual sales price paid by the customer. Example: Customer pays 100$ Middleman takes 50% commission Net Revenue of Inmagine 50$ Your cut: 25$ Your actual commission: 25% and not 50% This procedere is quite common in Macrostock sometimes even involving several layers of middlemen/ distributors.
35
« on: August 21, 2008, 03:48 »
AFAIK Inmagine is the mother company of 123RF.
Have no first hand experience with them but it looks like it is one of the companies working heavily with intransparent distribution schemes and a lot of middlemen. Meaning even if your contract says 50% you could easily end up with something between 5% and 20% of the actual sales price.
Not my cup of tea.
36
« on: August 19, 2008, 12:55 »
Most microstockers seem to have a pretty low opinion of their own value. Our main investment is our precious time and not a few bucks paid for equipment.
Some shootings might be fun but please don't tell me you enjoy things like processing, uploading or keywording.
It is no rocket science to occasionally track the time invested and get a ballpark figure for your hourly earnings. Some might be shocked by the results...
37
« on: July 29, 2008, 14:02 »
Everyone seems to worry about ELs but what is about selling L sized images for 30cent?
In the not so far future every regular image buyer will have access to one or more subscriptions. At that point our pay per download income from larger file sizes will have evaporated if we don't act now.
I started submitting small files to SS long ago and from now on I will only submit 800x600 files to StockXpert.
38
« on: July 28, 2008, 03:36 »
hey Gizeh... which sites have made you fill in this paperwork to get paid?
I talk about the main businesses of Getty and Corbis in the U.S. It is different with their micro spin offs as they are not american (Istock-Canada, snapvillage-Ireland).
39
« on: July 28, 2008, 03:18 »
Bateleur... my strong suggestion is to NOT upload at all or pull your images from PhotoShelter. Any US company that requires you to fill this in..and they ARE NOT witholding tax, has no real understanding of their own (and international) tax laws.
Strong words but do you know what you talk about? Getty and Corbis handle this issue exactly like Photoshelter. Guess there must be a reason for this besides not understanding tax laws.
40
« on: July 28, 2008, 02:32 »
Guess this move is just a sign that Jupiter is struggling for survival and that healthy relations with contributors are not on the priority list. Don't forget that Jupiters stock price went from $10 to $1.25 within two years.
Just hope Jupiter will fail with this attempt. Short term gain at the expenses of contributors gives no good karma and would in the long run damage the total market.
41
« on: July 16, 2008, 03:00 »
No. "textbook" would be an essential keyword. The rest are spam.
Please do a search for 'book' and 'school'. About 90 per cent of the results qualify for spam according to your definition. This includes a lot of younger images too.
42
« on: July 15, 2008, 09:54 »
You might have a point regarding the term 'indoors' but shouldn't 'school' and 'education' be essential keywords for a textbook shot?
43
« on: July 15, 2008, 06:29 »
What is your experience with IS rejections related to 'wrong' keywording?
I had several weird rejections in the last weeks. Example: Submitted a studio shot of a textbook. It got rejected because it had 'education', 'school' and 'indoors' in the keywords. Come on...
Is this a new approach for penalizing non exclusives?
44
« on: June 26, 2008, 10:24 »
Pixart was absolutely correct when comparing microstock to insurance sales. There are few professions that have the ability to produce what is known as a residual revenue stream.
There is one small but critical difference: In insurance sales you know exactly what you will get as long as the customer is not terminating his contract. In microstock there are too much unknown factors for making any serious predictions. Will your images be found in 2010 within a sea of billions of images? How about prices in general and especially the increase of subscriptions? Will our percentages go up or down? Thinking of microstock as an residual revenue stream might be a good motivation for uninformed beginners but no one serious will count on that in an instable market like ours.
45
« on: June 08, 2008, 07:15 »
I would say if you are a pro and honestly don't feel you can compete with the wannabe hobbyists then you aren't much of a pro and should probably think about getting out yourself 
You mean just produce more, better, faster, reduce your costs to the bare minimum and all problems are gone? Is this a business strategy or a head-in-the-sand policy? What about those creating perfectly competitive images but still expecting a sharp decline in revenues due to subs evaporating their profits? Are they mediocre losers? Or are they smart business people taking even unpleasant decisions before it is too late? Future will tell...
46
« on: June 06, 2008, 07:49 »
No I mean that there aren't many sites that focus on single sales now, they're all adding subscription packages.
Finally got it! My current list looks like this. Low End: SS, DT, FT, 123 Mid: IS with subs, StockXpert w/o subs High End: Alamy and hopefully soon some others
47
« on: June 06, 2008, 05:49 »
Give images with a medium production value only to sites focussed on single sales and offer the very best stuff only via macro agencies like Alamy or Photoshelter.
That statement is fast becoming redundant.
Meaning what? Do you disagree or do you feel this is already common knowledge?
48
« on: June 06, 2008, 05:10 »
A lot of people in the stock industry use the buzzword 'production value' when judging about the quality of an image. This is a mix of criteria like time and effort for shooting and postproduction, ease of imitation by others, market demand, availability of releases, etc.
Looking at the frustrating TIME example it might be a good idea to adapt this model.
For example put only stuff with low production values on sites with lots of subscription sales. Give images with a medium production value only to sites focussed on single sales and offer the very best stuff only via macro agencies like Alamy or Photoshelter.
This would allow you to play at all price points without different outlets cannibalizing each other.
49
« on: June 04, 2008, 05:49 »
Thx for this excellent link. BTW Yuri Arcurs has posted a gloomy comment below the article mentioned. Is he right?
quote:
"2008 will be the year it happened. What it is and how intensive it will hit is a very unknown factor. Microstock agencies are having problems just paying for online traffic because the return they get from their sales are so small. Back a year ago, everybody thought that the natural solution to the low-pricing would be to put prices up. This was the main reason I ventured into micro full-time. It now looks like another drastic idea has approach: Instead of putting up prices, micro agencies decide to keep competitive and launch low photographer commission subscriptions, that gives a larger cut to the agency but has an estimated photographers commission as low as 10-15%. So now that the micro-market is in trouble, ironically because of their low prices, how will pay..? We, the photo"
50
« on: June 03, 2008, 04:19 »
IMHO there is only one answer to stuff like this: Treat the agency like it is treating you. If SS does not see us as serious business partners why should we differ?
To begin with two very simple point:
1. Send your winner images only to those agencies respecting you.
2. Downsample every file to the minimum file size (4MB at SS) before giving it to any shady agency. This would make the usage e.g. for calendars much more difficult and clients looking for quality files would need to move on to more contributor friendly agencies.
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