|
MicrostockGroup Sponsors
This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.
Messages - jamirae
Pages: 1 ... 10 11 12 13 14 [15] 16 17 18 19 20 ... 33
351
« on: April 07, 2011, 12:59 »
weird but maybe he decided to stop selling through istock and it was no mal-intent. could be anything, so no real sense in speculating when the only fact known is that his port is not available on istock any longer.
352
« on: April 06, 2011, 21:24 »
I don't know where he's from. But I'm from Arizona.
well then you know of the crazy politics here in AZ -- I was making a sarcastic reference to that after all crazy politicians that are in this state. 
353
« on: April 06, 2011, 17:19 »
The call is over, quoting Rogermexico:
"We've just finished the phone call with the Vector group. We are going to do some email follow up with them on a few things. In my opinion it was a really productive discussion. There will likely be a few days with little news so give them some time and space. From the iStock side, we intend to make a post next week with a proposal to the whole Vector community. Thanks Nico_blue, daveturton, johnwoodcock and sodafish for having the discussion!"
was this also video or just vector?
354
« on: April 06, 2011, 16:30 »
Somebody clue this guy in on politics. He'd fit right into the truly disturbed community.
are you sure he's not from Arizona?
355
« on: April 06, 2011, 16:29 »
when most of them are one-person graphic designer shops with very limited budgets
Is that the case? Can you provide a link to where that info and stats are published? The only people I've directly come across in my professional life who use istock don't fit that demographic so I'm curious to know how you come to that conclusion. I'm not saying you're wrong, I'd just like to see the evidence.
I'm a one-person graphic design shop who used to use iStock. I also have several on-line associates who are one-man shops who have migrated away from iStock. They moved onto other agencies at least a couple years before me.
I think it's all anecdotal stats and how istock really grew based on these small designer shops when their motto was "the designers dirty little secret." I found iStock back in 2004 and was doing freelance web design to supplement my income - so I was a one-(wo)man shop and used istock pretty much exclusively. soon afterwards I became a contributor and used my small earnings to convert to credits and buy images that way. it was great back then.
356
« on: April 06, 2011, 13:32 »
great publicity! ahhahaah! what a numskull. and I tried to go to the main page of the loserphotographers.com website and the account has been suspended. who's the loser now?
haha!
357
« on: April 05, 2011, 22:54 »
are you still looking for contributors?
358
« on: April 05, 2011, 17:24 »
This sounds an awful lot like a leveraged buyout, only one done after the fact of taking ownership. In an LBO, you take out an enormous loan using the company to be acquired as collateral. You get the company for virtually no cost, and the company gets to pay off the massive debt you incurred to make the purchase. Successful, profitable companies get turned into struggling debt payment machines, and a few villains emerge with lots and lots of dollars.
Every time I see one of these, I become a little less fond of capitalism.
Thanks for the synopsis, Disorderly, and thanks JoAnn for the articles. This sounds like exactly what is happening.
Jami, I did read your story about being unable to get your images off Getty. Really horrifying. From what I can tell in your case, it sounds like it was their policy that you could leave, but in practical terms you are stuck because they won't delete your images. I am still wondering if they are instituting an official policy that nobody can leave. You know, kind of like the mafia. 
yep.. I think JoAnn hit it on the head and Disorderly translated it for us all nicely. does sound like the current operation. wrt Getty -- yes, I think I'm at the Hotel California there - "you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave"
359
« on: April 05, 2011, 16:50 »
Can Getty contributors usually delete their images when they want or is it like some of the microstock sites, where we are locked in for a period of time?
I'd like to know the answer to that one too.
These are not the cool moves of a confident and successful business but instead appear to be knee-jerk reactions to a situation that they don't have control of.
Yes, you are right. They resemble nothing so much as a chicken running around with its head cut off. Every day a new initiative to compensate for the last colossal screw up (which started as the last new "initiative") 
see my post above. I have not been able to get my images off of Getty, despite trying. I first thought I'd get them removed as soon as I canceled my exclusive contract with iStock because that was how I got in there in the first place (part of that "quit your day job" thing way back when). Now I am told my contract is canceled but my portfolio remains with no way that I can see to remove it, despite contacting them directly.
360
« on: April 05, 2011, 16:18 »
Because they DO generate income! its basically a great agency and lets say that when this " bad luck" has blown over, it will all go back to normal.
I hope so.
i hope so too. yes, I still contribute to iStock because they are still a good sales outlet for my work.
361
« on: April 05, 2011, 14:40 »
you know, I have to say that I think it's a really dangerous game referring customers away from sites you dislike TO sites you happen to like at any given time. a) I think it's unprofessional and looks petty, b) I think it's as slimy as the business practices many of you are criticizing. it's a move that can only bite you in the a55 eventually. but whatever, that's not how I do business.
I also can't imagine dragging my clients into my relationship with my agencies. who does that? seems quite ridiculous to me. no matter how I feel about my agency (ies).
don't get your undies in a bunch. I did not give a referral because I dislike istock. I'm doing it to help the buyers and show them they have more options. They asked for referrals to other stock agencies, I was giving them a referral. It's not like I added something like "well istock really sucks so go try this place instead" there was no malintent toward istock. I still refer folks to istock from my blog as well so don't try to call me out as doing something slimy when all I am doing is helping a customer who asks for it.
sorry then. your earlier post sounded a lot like posts from some of the other contributors who are ACTIVELY campaigning against iStock via every medium they have at their disposal. regardless of what agency we're talking about, this practice is sure to backfire.
Seriously, i have better things to do then to actively campaign against istock, especially since i still contribute there.
362
« on: April 05, 2011, 14:37 »
you know, I have to say that I think it's a really dangerous game referring customers away from sites you dislike TO sites you happen to like at any given time. a) I think it's unprofessional and looks petty, b) I think it's as slimy as the business practices many of you are criticizing. it's a move that can only bite you in the a55 eventually. but whatever, that's not how I do business.
I also can't imagine dragging my clients into my relationship with my agencies. who does that? seems quite ridiculous to me. no matter how I feel about my agency (ies).
Yeah, I agree with you totally. Next time 3 bitter angry people ask me for alternatives to Istock I will tell them to man up and stop complaining. If they complain about prices, customer service, site usability they shouldn't be allowed to purchase photographs anyway.
I think it's obvious that's not what I'm saying. I'm talking about contributors bragging about actively campaigning to buyers to get them away from iStock (and FWIW, I would say the same if it was being done to any other agency). it's a silly game to play IMO.
Bragging? I was not bragging. I brought it up to point out how buyers are reacting to istock's latest push on high priced imagery. You really should be directing your anger at istock for driving away customers and causing them to seek out other companies in the first place.
363
« on: April 05, 2011, 14:27 »
Could a greasemonkey script be used to enable buyers to exclude v/agency ?
evenso then you get into the whole issue with having to teach buyers something new and make them add some script thing to do something that the site should already do for them. geez.. even amazon lets me sort by price for goodness sake. I just don't get why there's such a resistance to providing customer service over pushing high-priced products on people who don't want to pay for that sort of thing.
364
« on: April 05, 2011, 14:24 »
you know, I have to say that I think it's a really dangerous game referring customers away from sites you dislike TO sites you happen to like at any given time. a) I think it's unprofessional and looks petty, b) I think it's as slimy as the business practices many of you are criticizing. it's a move that can only bite you in the a55 eventually. but whatever, that's not how I do business.
I also can't imagine dragging my clients into my relationship with my agencies. who does that? seems quite ridiculous to me. no matter how I feel about my agency (ies).
don't get your undies in a bunch. I did not give a referral because I dislike istock. I'm doing it to help the buyers and show them they have more options. They asked for referrals to other stock agencies, I was giving them a referral. It's not like I added something like "well istock really sucks so go try this place instead" there was no malintent toward istock. I still refer folks to istock from my blog as well so don't try to call me out as doing something slimy when all I am doing is helping a customer who asks for it.
365
« on: April 05, 2011, 13:45 »
I see that failure to sign terminates the relationship. Hasn't done anything for me. Seems like a great time to get out of Getty.
okay.. apparently me either. considering that I emailed istockgetty on Jan 5 with the request to terminate my istock-Getty contract and received a reply from istockgetty representative that said "consider this email confirmation of your termination." I emailed them again to ask if there was a waiting period so that I could being uploading my content elsewhere. No response until I asked again about 3 weeks later: on Jan 31, my images still appeared on Getty. so again I asked what was the hold up - is there a waiting period like the 30days on istock. I was told that getty could take up to 60 days, afterwhich I was free to do whatever I wished with my imags. over the weekend I received the email inviting me to sign this new contract. I thought "what the heck, I terminated with them on Jan 5." I hadn't paid much attention, but noted on the calendar that it is now well passed the 60 day mark so looked up my port on Gettyimages.com and what do you know.. they are all still there and I have $30 in my Getty earnings account. Of course I have not signed the new agreement - I have no desire to get into that mess but I did email istockgetty yet AGAIN to basically ask "what?!" of course I was nice about it but it's starting to irritate me and I feel like my small portfolio of images on Getty are being held hostage. Although, I pretty much think my end of the contract has been met and I can do what I want with my images since their 60days is clearly up.
366
« on: April 05, 2011, 13:29 »
FYI, update from Andrew:
"We're continuing the Best Match dial turning also. We're working on getting to a set of results where Vetta and Agency are less prominent than they are now but slightly more prominent than they were last week."
Sigh... why don't they quit turning dials and give customers clear option to search Vetta and Agency only, exclusive stuff only, or search anything and everything sorted by good old relevance? Seriously, if I was an Istock buyer I'd be so pissed - I really don't appreciate being fooled or tricked into buying one thing or another. I'd go shop some other place - I think lots of them went to shutter, I had 3 ELs today already:)
Yup, nothing pisses me off more as a buyer than companies that don't give me the option to filter out price points I can't afford. I'm sure that's why they came up with ThinkStock, try to shuffle the price conscious customers there instead of losing them to a competeing agency
I referred 3 pissed off customers to other agencies yesterday. people tweeting things like "can anyone recommend a cheaper place for stock imagery other than istock? they've gotten outrageous lately" yeah.. business is picking up for the competitors! I guess money from a happy, loyal customer is not what makes istock happy. 
367
« on: April 05, 2011, 10:28 »
Maybe others have already pointed this out, but I just noticed a couple more recent posts about CC fraud involving iStock here: http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-403-265-3062/5 I imagine only a very small percentage of CC fraud victims would post over there so it seems to me that there's probably still a fair amount going on....
There's one "recent" post from April 2nd. Nothing else is anything we haven't already seen and discussed.
that's what I was thinking, but that last one from 4/2/2011 about the charge being posted 3/29/2011 is a little worrying. If one person looked up and posted on this website how many others got a charge that did NOT bother to search online and post about it? I thought the fraud was under control, but if there was fraud that posted as recently as 3/29/2011 that seems to be an issue.
368
« on: April 04, 2011, 18:43 »
Can people also complain about their crappy customer service and their rudeness?
to be honest the only rudeness I've seen is on the forums from the likes of Lobo, whenever I've contacted customer service directly they have been very polite.
369
« on: April 04, 2011, 14:32 »
Behind-the-scenes special deals are made with companies and they get deep discounts. So yes, apparently $.50 per credit is entirely possible.
still I think you should call them on it. make them tell you it was a special deal - then keep that documentation for when/if you decide to have an audit done - just in case.
370
« on: April 04, 2011, 13:25 »
You got called a cheerleader because you called someone else a hater.
It's this level of debate that makes this site such compelling comedy.
that may be but in reality there really is a lot more to the discussions here than silly name calling. it is a great forum for being able to express your opinions without getting your topic closed or deleted.
371
« on: April 04, 2011, 12:32 »
I'm not a lover or hater. but I do think it is at least a good thing that iStock is even talking to them. I do hope something good comes of it, but if history is any indication, it might only be a nice gesture with no actual change in istock's side of things.
overall if iStock didn't pull this crap in the first place it would be ideal. I see them making small attempts to prove that they are still the "nice guys" that so many of us were proud to be associated with, but it just looks more and more like the nice guys are out and those are in charge are simply "all business."
please prove me wrong, iStock. Do something good for contributors.
372
« on: April 03, 2011, 15:51 »
okay.. wow. the slider is all the way at the bottom under "display preferences" .. how weird is that. I didn't move mine, it was in the middle and I searched on 'desert' the results were vetta followed by agency.. and pretty much that was it on the main page.
this will certainly help my sales on the other sites as it will definitely drive away customers who freak out on the outrageous pricing.
373
« on: April 03, 2011, 15:48 »
OK I've found the slider now and it was totally to the right. Putting it to the middle makes my images dissapear!!!
Exactly!! I was just waiting for you to find that slider. BTW, the middle setting is going to be their default.
i can't find it. where's the slider? seriously.. are buyers supposed to know this  ? is the default the middle of this slider thingy?
374
« on: April 01, 2011, 18:51 »
With the new raise, IS exclusives get $.38-$.46.
I am a little confused. the getty pricing relates to CANISTERS? I keep seeing postings here refering to diamond and gold level commissions, but I thought that the RC level was what counts now not the color of your canister? sorry.. I feel like a total nooob.
375
« on: April 01, 2011, 15:38 »
April Fool, eh?!
Pages: 1 ... 10 11 12 13 14 [15] 16 17 18 19 20 ... 33
|
Sponsors
Microstock Poll Results
Sponsors
|
Show Posts
