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Messages - Jo Ann Snover
3401
« on: May 08, 2014, 13:56 »
Hi Jo Ann,
Sorry about that - your ticket was accidentally grabbed by a member of another team and didn't initially make it to Content. There is an internal email thread to re-route the ticket to the right place. You should hear from Vincent or a member of the team if you haven't already.
Best,
Scott
I haven't yet, but thanks for looking at this. I would suggest, even if it did get to a different team, the person who received it didn't read it. One of my pet peeves from a variety of companies' customer service efforts is getting off topic answers that suggest that no one bothered to read the question. If it's software that's "reading" the incoming e-mails, it needs an upgrade 
3402
« on: May 08, 2014, 12:38 »
But why? With all the erosion policies they've spewed on exclusives over the last year or so what is the real motivation here? Yes, it's positive.....but what is the real reason?
I'm assuming that Ms. Desmaris wanted to do something for this Small Business week. Getty isn't one of the sponsors, and I couldn't see Ms. Desmaris on any of the webinar lists. Doing anything one time is a much cheaper way to boost morale than anything ongoing - like paying exclusives their contract percentage on all sales, including Vetta and Getty. I hope there's a nice big payout to exclusives on that day, but I don't see this in any way signaling a change of heart in the Getty drive to cut costs and get all royalties to 20% maximum.
3403
« on: May 08, 2014, 09:43 »
You guys all realize that unless you've been 'accepted' by curation - and notified of that by email - your photos don't show up in search, right? Did you all get that notification?
I have not, so i'm not uploading anything more for now.
I did get an e-mail saying my gallery would be featured. I uploaded 30 images up front so they'd see a decent representation (and I hoped so they'd like and thus promote my gallery). And regarding upsizing, I haven't change the size of anything, and I hope they're not upsizing anything.
3404
« on: May 08, 2014, 01:09 »
No need to get a new host or domain - it's just trying to be "helpful" for those who are starting from scratch. I had hosting before starting symbiostock and had installed another copy of WordPress (I had one already in a subdomain for my husband's blog) into a subdomain. Because I wanted my stock site's url to be top level - not stock.mydomain.com in other words - I bought another domain name and mapped it. If that makes any sense For Bluehost, you can use their tools to make a sub domain and install wordpress which makes it very easy. One thing not to do is use the WordPress feature to specify a subdirectory for the WordPress install - it messes up all sorts of Symbiostock URLs and doesn't work.
3405
« on: May 08, 2014, 00:57 »
https://crated.com/joannsnoverI decided to upload a few (30) and see what happens. The IPTC read doesn't grab the titles, only keywords and description (I sent them feedback)
3406
« on: May 07, 2014, 20:05 »
I just sent them a message - and added that I won't be renewing as a result (I've been a member for many years).
I doubt they'll care, but as you say, can't hurt to make our voices heard
3407
« on: May 07, 2014, 18:23 »
So one of the photographers I got in touch with - who has over 8,600 images - has just opted out (keeweeboy) and he told me he got another photographer to opt out too. I asked if it was OK to post this here (he said yes) as he doesn't participate. Reminds me of an ancient TV commercial "I told two friends and they told two friends...."
3408
« on: May 07, 2014, 15:07 »
Anyone who has had a review of a very large file that was "tack sharp" (or in their estimation, very sharp) should send a link to the original images or the batch number to the support team at [email protected]. That creates a ticket in our system which can be tracked and resolved.
I thought I'd give this system a try - after a lot of acceptances, I had a batch of 11 rejected today - all apparently not in focus. The reply I got back, while prompt was nonsensical. Here's the reply and my query below: "Hi Jo Ann, Thank you for your email. I'm glad to hear you're interested in becoming a Shutterstock contributor. For all information pertaining to submitting images, please follow this link: http://submit.shutterstock.com/Also, you may email all contributor-related questions to [email protected]. Please let me know if you have any additional questions. Sincerely, --------------- Original Message --------------- From: Jo Ann Snover Sent: 5/7/2014 3:22 PM To: [email protected]Subject: Not sure if this is the same place as the contact form... If it is, this is a duplicate request. I (contributor 249; account e-mail [email protected]) just had 11 images rejected for improper focus. I want someone to look these over as I think the rejection is bogus. Batches 45969983 (10 images) and 45969896 (1 image) These are 21 MP originals, carefully process and are not out of focus. Theres no arty DOF stuff in any of them. thanks, Jo Ann" How could anyone have thought I was asking to become a contributor? I included both my number and account e-mail right up top? I did also use the contact form, so possibly that goes somewhere else and might get a relevant answer.
3409
« on: May 07, 2014, 11:10 »
Bruce doesn't say which year the margin was 70% but when I joined in 2004 it was pre-exclusivity and everyone got 20%
3410
« on: May 07, 2014, 10:47 »
I don't know much about profit margin or what it exactly means, maybe someone could explain that. I see according to Motley Fool that Shutterstock has a profit margin of around 11%, how is it possible that iStock had 6 times that? http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/sstk/guru-analysis/fool
I'm guessing that iStock's expenses - back at the beginning of microstock - were much less, particularly for marketing/advertising, but also for all the technical stuff. Remember then it was English only, BitPass or credits, pre-Akamai (following the truck crash in the snow that took the site down for a day or two).
3411
« on: May 07, 2014, 09:50 »
I made a screen grab of what I posted on KelbyOne's Facebook page saying what I thought about them promoting the DPC - I'm assuming they'll remove the comment. 
3412
« on: May 07, 2014, 09:43 »
I was already unhappy with NAPP (National Association of Photoshop Professionals) - now merged with Scott Kelby's lynda.com-like training site, KelbyOne. They just jumped right on board the Creative Cloud bandwagon - saying they'd told Adobe how customers would hate it but now it was really great for us all. Members pay them money each year, but then they just suck up to their corporate buddies. So I've been thinking I wouldn't renew my membership when it expires later this month. This morning's e-mail promoting Fotolia's Dollar Photo Club sealed the deal for me. KelbyOne is just a marketing/PR arm for Adobe and other corporate friends.  "KelbyMediaGroup members like you can get preferred admission to Dollar Photo Club; just choose "KelbyMediaGroup" when asked which stock agencies you currently use - but hurry, places are strictly limited!" Certainly designers are their members, not just photographers, and arguably (until enough photographers pull out of DPC) DPC is a great deal for designers - dirt cheap photos and illustrations with only a $10 a month commitment. The "NEW VIRAL" video is the marketing video I'd posted a link to earlier. It's had 400K views which isn't bad, but most certainly isn't viral (I think they'd have needed to include a cute cat for that!).
3413
« on: May 06, 2014, 17:16 »
Microstock agencies are doing what they've been doing from their beginning (this time it's Fotolia) - lowering prices and devaluing our work. Aren't the agencies that we all work for the ones who cut the traditional stock prices and almost completely changed the stock photography market? Aren't we, microstock contributors, the ones how made profit out of this, since we were the ones who never made it into traditional stock, or weren't even aware of its existence?
Therefore, we could all see this coming. Even more, we all participated in this, nobody is innocent. We all agreed to work for 0.25$ ten years ago.
I don't think you have the history of microstock even close to accurate, and as a result have come to an inaccurate conclusion. The huge differences are that microstock wasn't offering the same thing to the same audience at lower prices. Microstock expanded the market by bringing new buyers who couldn't previously afford either stock or custom photo shoots. The shots were initially of very variable quality and for the most part had much lower production values. For some buyers that was a plus because it didn't look as plastic fantastic as some high end stock. And just as a point of order, 10 years ago Shutterstock paid 20 cents a download, not 25 and iStock paid 10, 20 or 30 cents depending on S-M-L. Dreamstime was 50 cents on the $1 (and I forget if they had two or three sizes). CanStock was a little higher at first. What Fotolia is doing is offering the same buyers the same product at a lower price - and they didn't ask the owners of the content if it was OK with them first. The lower price part of that is not only the low royalties but the lack of volume - you can buy in for $10 making it a massive giveaway as they get the high volume price for low volume purchases. It's very very different.
3414
« on: May 06, 2014, 14:41 »
I have it on very good authority that Fotolia are contacting key contributors in an attempt to persuade them to remain opted-in to DPC. I don't know the content of those conversations but I wouldn't be surprised if inducements are being offered.
No reason we can't do the same. I just fired off an email to someone I know was still opted in. He has 10k images on FT, hope he'll opt-out.
If anyone can directly contact any folks that are still on DPC, why not do it? It's painstaking to do this one email at a time, but it's better than not doing anything.
I've been doing that. Sometimes it's hard to find current contact information. But I have outstanding e-mail requests that I still hope to hear back from - you never know when people are traveling or ... A couple of earlier contacts have resulted in opt outs so asking nicely can't hurt.
3415
« on: May 06, 2014, 14:37 »
I just wanted to point out something positive - a really excellent job by Shutterstock of presenting search results for more general terms with a large number of hits. I know it's inspired by what Google does, but among the agencies, I think this is by far the nicest arrangement of results (click thumb for full size)  It's visually enticing; there are a selection of refinements presented up to (again visually) and there's even a different season on the far right - in other words it's not just similar phrases but something more thoughtful. If you do more narrowly scoped searches you just get the results, so perhaps it's based on the number of results? That seemed to be the case with some serches, but new england beach (with just over 1,000 results) gives the nice set of alternates up top, but maine beach, with 1,900 results doesn't so there's something more. Honestly, it makes the other agencies look really lack luster by comparison. Kudos to Shutterstock for a job very nicely done
3416
« on: May 06, 2014, 13:59 »
Thats shocking if true.
I have reason to believe it's true - and it's in line with what they've done in the past. A combination of threats and carrots. It's hard to say when you've hit rock bottom with unethical behavior by agencies, but Fotolia keeps trying to set the low water mark
3417
« on: May 06, 2014, 11:10 »
I know I could get 3600 images up on all the sites in a week if I had to.
Good luck with that theory.
If you drop exclusivity you have 30 days to get things ready. Hopefully you have all your images keyworded before. You can upload everything to all the sites in advance and then within that first week you should have nearly everything completed.
You can upload to some of the sites ahead of time, but not all. In particular, what you need is for it to be possible for your inspected images not to go on sale right away. SS lets you opt your portfolio out so you can do that. For DT I had to have support suspend my account (what they do when investigating reports of copyright or plagiarism) - and I made sure I wasn't going to have some sort of black mark on the account as a result. DT has upload limits (although at the moment they've raised them so high you'd be able to upload 3,600 except if you're a newbie). You'd be lucky to get a few hundred images through the inspection process in a month - it's very slow right now. For those considering leaving exclusivity, I think it would make more sense to take advice from people who submit to sites other than iStock when planning how to submit to sites other than iStock
3418
« on: May 06, 2014, 10:15 »
My experience is old - I left exclusivity in June 2011 - and in addition to the differences in portfolio and exclusive experience, a lot has changed in the last three years, so old experiences are less relevant. It took me 18 months to match my peak iStock exclusive earnings - Oct - Dec 2012 matched Oct - Dec 2010. Some caveats: i was indie from fall 2004 to Aug 2008 and had my account at SS from before, so I didn't have to start at 25 cents; I had left Vetta and never submitted to Getty so I wasn't losing high priced downloads. On the other side of things, Fotolia wouldn't have me back (because of my prior organizing efforts with their intro of subscriptions) so I did the 18 month turnaround without one of the big 4. I used to describe myself as one of the iStock middle class - not one of the high flyers, but a diamond exclusive, so not a peasant either You won't be able to know up front how things will unfold. You can listen to other exclusives explain their view and some always-indies do the same. When the explainers are anonymous (regardless of their reasons for being so) you can't know if they're taking home $5K a year, $20K or $120K from stock photography - obviously if you're earning over $100K a year as an iStock exclusive, it's a ton harder to replace your earnings than for lower income levels. It's true that you can't trust any of the agencies much - although Getty has the longest track record of hosing contributors, having started before the micros got big enough to get in on the act. I don't think there's a knight in shining armor anywhere out there at the moment. If you're even thinking about becoming indie, work on your metadata (get it into the images and un-CV-ify it; people search for home and yard, not Residential Structure and Front or Back Yard)
3419
« on: May 05, 2014, 14:27 »
...someone who signed up for Dollar Photo Club - twice. Once with his real name and e-mail and once with a totally fake one. Both were accepted. So much for the PR rubbish about the $10 level having a ~30% acceptance rate...
I hate to defend DPC, but 2 signups are not at all enough to base any conclusions on. It is entirely possible that both of that person's attempts to sign up were legitimately within that 30% acceptance rate.
I understand it's possible, but the odds are poor that (a) both are within the 30% and (b) you're doing much validating when you allow fake e-mails on sign ups (which would seem to be a path to future credit card fraud and other not nice things).
3421
« on: May 05, 2014, 12:13 »
It depends is the only honest answer.
I have had a few panoramas where I got the best results doing two automated panoramas - right and left groups - and then I blended the two together manually.
I've had a few where just leaving one image off at one end produced a better automated result and then I tacked on the one that the automated process couldn't quite get right.
I have also done a full automated merge and then layered one of the original files over the middle to deal with incorrect cracks and earthquake like shifts in the middle.
I take things as far as I can with the automated merge and then do the rest by hand. I don't use a panoramic head on my tripod, so possibly the answer would be different for that situation.
3422
« on: May 05, 2014, 12:01 »
I got in touch with Ruth Black via e-mail and her 1,177 (yummy cakes and sweets) Fotolia images are now opted out of DPC
3423
« on: May 05, 2014, 01:29 »
It's a rolling 12 month count, so as of May 1st, for example, you'd count April 2013 to April 2014 - and you'd have 0 sales for April 2013 through September 2013. See the answer to Question 1 at the bottom of this page: http://www.123rf.com/contrib_structure.php
3424
« on: May 05, 2014, 00:19 »
http://www.microstockgroup.com/123royaltyfree-com/opting-out-of-api-partner-sales/msg200516/#msg200516That post says 50% but since then 123rf implemented a graduated royalty scheme where you make different percentages based on your last 12 months' sales. The trick is that you have no idea what the items are sold for or what 123rf gets from the total. And as explained there they refuse to make a list of the sites included in the partner program. As far as I know you can't see from your downloads report whether a sale is from a partner or 123rf - you just see a number. I opted out because I don't like my work being spread around to random sites without me knowing where they're going.
3425
« on: May 04, 2014, 20:15 »
OK, I didn't check out the way they were offering stock until I happened to notice a typo and went in to edit it. (I had checked that I was interested in principle in RM, but hadn't looked further.)
So, for RM, they have:
Packaging, publishing etc: "Minimum units: 10,000".
Huh, so someone with smaller needs (200 boxes, 2000 print run, whatever) has to purchase a minimum of 10,000?
That might be normal in the US for all I know, but not in smaller countries.
You can make your own licenses (I haven't) - the idea is you get to set whatever you think works in terms of price and terms.
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