|
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 - Jo Ann Snover
3651
« on: February 28, 2014, 19:38 »
In our 'class action' some time ago I deleted out of protest almost my entire (small) portfolio from IStock, with 10 images left. I hardly earned a thing, especially not around September and October. However, IStock is deducting $11.70 over the next six months - which is MORE than I actually made with them during the "overpaid" period 
Which is the best evidence to date that this is the equivalent of the "estimated meter reading" for energy bills instead of measuring your actual usage. Unless they are covering a broader period in this initial funds reversal than they said, no matter what they did in screwing up the books, you couldn't have reversed an amount larger than you were credited.
3652
« on: February 28, 2014, 14:09 »
I was an exclusive at iStock for 3 years and during that time the "Partner Program" was introduced.
My view from the beginning was that this was a drive by Getty to to dilute iStock as a presence and to dilute exclusive contributor earnings so in the end everyone would get 20% royalties and no more. I opted out and was among others advocating for an opt in versus an opt out; as so many initially held out, iStock sweetened the pot and upped the earnings to try and get more content opted in. All moves in the right direction, but there were several major problems, IMO.
The biggie was that sales in the partner program did not count towards your cannister/RC totals which meant that over time, any shift from iStock to partner (and the marketing was all directed to moving business away from iStock to Thinkstock; nothing ever directed buyers back to iStock from Thinkstock) would make it harder to earn the higher royalty percentages.
Based on what we'd seen at other sites, this notion that it was new business and different buyers is largely a crock - people switch, and in this case they're switching to a site that pays you less.
For exclusivity to have any market usefulness, your content can't be spread out all over the place - and Getty has turned "exclusive" into a virtually meaningless term at this point.
Getty strong-armed their contract contributors into accepting forced movement of RM and RF content to RF and Thinkstock - they were furious but had to leave Getty completely if they didn't want this. People have seen how all these moves over time have increased Getty's take from the gross and decreased that of the contributor.
So bottom line for me was that I saw no reason to help Getty undermine my earning power. Events subsequently removed a lot of the choices, including opting in or out.
When I switched back to being indie in the summer of 2011 I was forced to be in the partner
3653
« on: February 28, 2014, 12:26 »
JoAnn, you have some serious stones to have posed for that and uploaded to your own account. Being in microstock, you must have plenty of opportunities to use it! 
I'm shameless!! I have pictures of my face with seborrheic dermatitis and bell's palsy; I've found my images in ads for Xanax and showing how well I'm doing after my heart attack (I was gardening in the image and the visiting nurse service apparently helped me a lot). But many of the micros wouldn't take the "bird" image - too rude  iStock was OK with it and I had a note saying any buyer who wanted the English (two finger) version to site mail me
3654
« on: February 28, 2014, 10:15 »
Showing solidarity of spirit with a deactivated file from IS 
3655
« on: February 27, 2014, 21:19 »
I translated the comments with WOM = word of mouth and chit = excrement
My thoughts would be that buyers won't be looking at whose "chit" they see in a search (and that's what's most likely, not what contributors do and view their own portfolios) - the idea that they'd waste more time discussing "chit" with other buyers seems unlikely.
3656
« on: February 27, 2014, 16:38 »
http://pdnpulse.pdnonline.com/2011/03/stock-photographers-advocacy-group-saa-shutting-down.htmlYou might want to read more about that as it seems hard to imagine that if they can't keep that going it'd be possible to get something going for microstock contributors. The other huge issue, IMO, is that there is such a divergence of views and interests that I don't know what core of issues you could get a group to rally around - and I assume pay for.
3657
« on: February 27, 2014, 11:21 »
They pay around the 15th of the next month if your balance at the end of the prior month is $50 or over - so I got paid on Feburary 13th for my balance at the end of January
3658
« on: February 27, 2014, 10:35 »
I think it's a great idea. I do see some searches though where it's really clear why these images have never sold. I'm guessing it's particularly the case in relatively low volume keywords where there's not a ton of new stuff. I'd love to post some examples, but I don't think that's an appropriate thing to do in this case - let's just say that if you were looking for fodder for those "crazy stock photo concepts" web sites, this would be a great way to find them
3659
« on: February 26, 2014, 18:02 »
A database numbering overlap? There's a phrase that goes along with "he misspoke himself" and "rightsizing" and other lovely euphamismsThis sounds as if they were merging the multiple sites' systems into one and the coding for image pack in the new combined system was the same as the one for subscription on the old; or that the conversion of old to new was done incorrectly. Whatever the specifics of the mistake, why wouldn't you keep an eye out for any anomalies in the first run or two after making changes? Paul Cowan (Baldrick's Trousers) pointed out what turned out to be the problem November 13, so the statement saying that it was a review of processes that led to them finding this problem at the beginning of January is passing strange. http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=357474&messageid=6956518I'm glad they decided that they needed to say something about had happened, possibly as a result of PetaPixel picking up the story?, but they could have acknowledged this problem back in November if they'd been paying any attention to what their contributors were telling them.
3660
« on: February 26, 2014, 12:54 »
Hmm.... as soon as you see that the new girl has skills in "impactful growth initiatives" and has a "remarkable ability to drive impactful results" you know that nothing has changed.
You'd think changing the wallpaper on the landing page would be an impactful result, and not one that required "remarkable ability", either.
Ms. Rockafellar left Getty last October, according to her LinkedIn profile. Not sure who was ticked off with whom, but she doesn't list a new job, just "Expert in large scale business and technology project management.", and I seem to remember something from last fall where she wrote she was taking a break from the coroprate grindstone.. She'd been with Getty for 10 years and running iStock finished her off, apparently
3661
« on: February 26, 2014, 12:40 »
As Leo said above he "will maintain Symbiostock with every Wordpress release."
And what if he decides to go on holiday for a few weeks and there is a significant security issue ?
And what if there's an earthquake and what if there's a flood and what if... Clearly things can and do go wrong. The major "businesses" of our existing stock agencies have, with a few exceptions, had major software disasters (I'm thinking Fotolia V2.0, iStock's disambiguation after the Getty CV was introduced, most of iStock's "improvements" in search and every fall for the last several years at iStock) that rendered their site, slow, insecure, subject to credit card fraud (think that Christmas/New Year at iStock where no one was home for about 2 weeks). These disasters happened with paid staff, corporate structure and in some cases parent companies with deep pockets. What all the opining by those who don't have Symbiostock sites reminds me of is the type of comment and advice non-parents give parents about how they should be raising their kids. If only you do A, B and C, everything will turn out just fine. It's easy for them to say because other than being a kid, they have no experience on the subject - on the other side of the fence, as it were, as a parent. Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but some are informed opinions and some are just hot air. Life is messy and sometimes you have to take that leap and give things a try - if I weren't willing to jump of a cliff now and then I wouldn't be married, I wouldn't have kids and I wouldn't have a Symbiostock site. I'm well aware that everything could go tits up. I worked in software organizations for a lot of years and I understand most of the issues and risks involved. But listening to a bunch of know-it-alls sitting on the sidelines with nothing at stake just lobbing criticism and doom-and-gloom is irritating. Let's just stipulate that the critics are wonderful sooth-sayers who have it all figured out and the rest of us with Symbiostock sites are the naive kids who just wont listen to your sage advice. You go and get on with whatever else it is you have to do and let the rest of us work on our sites, or not, in peace. Find someone else to bless with your great wisdom - please!
3662
« on: February 25, 2014, 20:26 »
Someone here can tell me how combine my pixmac portefolio image with my video on my pond5 account ?
It was a while ago that I asked Pond5 about combining accounts and they said they couldn't - they didn't have the high res files. I had pixmac files mirrored there which they could immediately remove, but I'd have to upload them again to Pond5. The letter apparently said the content will be moved, but it may be it'll be moved into the 2@xxx account, not your "real" Pond5 account. I have a 2@jsnover account although it's empty - I asked pixmac to leave a week or so ago after finding my images on ImageTrail (via Pixmac). Unfortunate timing as I would have kept the $12 if I'd have had the files moved to Pond5 
3663
« on: February 25, 2014, 19:48 »
I haven't seen that e-mail yet, but I would like some explanation how to upload to P5. I have continued uploading my photos through PM and I understand the procedure is more complex at P5.
Also, I assume we will have a profile page, dashboard, etc. at Pond 5 now?
Your pixmax porfolio is here (2@ is the prefix for pixmac; 123rf was 1@ I think - each site had its own number) https://www.pond5.com/artist/2@lisafx
3664
« on: February 25, 2014, 15:23 »
Hard time for my finger this wk, after Depositphoto deactivation, I'm on with Istock.
Sean Locke's Greasemonkey script works very well, thank you for your work.
http://www.microstockgroup.com/18688/18688/msg305339/#msg305339
It was a hard decision but I will close my account.
It may seem stupid but i feel so much better and proud of that.
If you haven't already closed it, perhaps you want to leave an image or two to keep the accountt open (so you keep access to your stats)?
3665
« on: February 25, 2014, 13:51 »
3666
« on: February 25, 2014, 13:24 »
I mean, in the first place the money was put there in error and it was obvious to many of us (though iStock took its while to figure it out...). And I am really surprised how someone can simply "overlook" that he "earned" hundreds of dollar more than in usual months.
There was no certainty that the money was put there in error - some of the initial concern was that the prior months might have been incorrectly too low given what people saw in Sept/Oct. There was certainly a hope that the increase was actually growth in the Partner program, although apparently - according to iStock - that was overly optimistic. We have at times - admittedly not many at iStock in the recent past - seen substantial growth that was actually growth. I also think that it's more than passing strange that some people with big reversals now see months that were much worse than "usual" - not returning to the expected amount based on prior track record. A lot of businesses say "sorry" when they mess up - which clearly iStock/Getty/Thinkstock/photos.com did in this case - with some sort of comped item of value or a credit. They don't do this to be nice but because they want to continue a positive business relationship. iStock has an unparalleled (with the microstock agencies as the comparison group) string of c*ck ups some of which resulted in large "recoupments" (credit card fraud), some of which resulted in lost sales (picking the busy fall time to trash the site functioning and performance). No one likes being treated as if they and their small business don't matter, and a lot of the anger here is, IMO, a reflection of that.
3667
« on: February 25, 2014, 11:19 »
I think the thing to be constructively asking for is a better system of reporting from now on. That makes much more sense than people venting. A constructive conversation is better than an angry stand off.
Yeah, asking for better reporting and constructive conversations have worked so well in the past there.
This request has been made, and as noted, totally ignored http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=270162&page=1If you look at the thread and various comments, that was constructive and detailed. The issue is not the lack of constructive suggestions, it's a power struggle and giving contributors information would (a) require work on Getty's part and they spend the bare minimum on iStock to keep the site running, (b) cause them lots of grief because there would then be a basis for more complaints about the errors I'm almost certain they're making (they can't calculate percentages correctly because they can't do the right thing with money given their use of floating point calculations as but one for-instance of their accounting mess), and (c) be transferring one of their levers of control back to contributors (with whom it rightly belongs).
3668
« on: February 25, 2014, 11:09 »
Jo Ann. Is only 40% of Shutterstock's revenue coming from Subscriptions? A little over a year ago they said that in a conference call that 60% was from Subscriptions, but recently I've been hearing that it is "about 50/50." If the subscription business has really declined to 40% that a much more rapid transition to "Image On Demand" than I thought. In the recent conference call they said Enterprise was about 15% of revenue and Video about 5% to 6%. That would make Image On Demand 40% of the business. Does everyone agree that the way the revenue breaks down based on the royalty statements they are receiving?
Thanks for all your comments.
I can only look at my own numbers, and obviously if you're looking at number of downloads vs. $$ the picture is very different, but for me - and I think I've seen some other contributors posting here in the monthly sales threads showing similar numbers - it's been a pretty steady shift away from subscription revenue towards the SOD and OD category. But who posts here is a small subset of SS total contributors. The other factor to consider is that I'm earning their top rate and the effect of the SOD/OD increase is greatest there. Also, I don't do video so I have no input there.
3669
« on: February 25, 2014, 11:03 »
I got the newsletter last night and honestly have no clue what it means. I have asked to join the FB group though so we can chat there
3670
« on: February 25, 2014, 10:48 »
What a shame there isn't someone on the inside who's seen the books willing to level with contributors to get this straightened out - I don't see legal action as a practical option (long time; large expense and Getty has a pile of lawyers who could stop harassing customers and turn to contributors instead). Essentially, what you're saying is: even if they're doing something illegal, we can't do anything about it. I have a tendency not to believe that.
I don't think that's at all what I said. Legal action (i.e. civil suit by contributors) isn't practical, IMO. Unless there is a contributor who's been hosed who is also a lawyer willing to pursue the case pro bono, the expenses of legal action would be so great relative to the amount of money we could recover that it just makes no sense. The fact that Getty has deep pockets and a history of abuse in this area just makes things even less appealing. The burden of proof is lower in civil cases than criminal (balance of probabilities versus beyond a reasonable doubt) but there's still the issue of having any information (versus just a hunch) to work with. Hence the hope that an insider would spill the beans so we had something concrete to work with. Saying one option makes no sense is not equivalent to saying do nothing.
3671
« on: February 25, 2014, 00:27 »
if the terms of download and refunds are 14 days then they are 14 days. not roughly 70 to 85 days.
seems like you guys just love to nit pick anything IS or GI.
You should read this. You can re-download a file at any time - no time limit. http://www.istockphoto.com/faq/downloading-files#faq-redownloadingAnd we're not talking about refunds, but paying more to get a larger size of a file you already licensed. And for what it's worth, I was advocating this when I was an iStock exclusive - as were lots of other iStock exclusive contributors, not just customers. This is about offering good customer service. What it seems like to you is your business.
3672
« on: February 24, 2014, 23:28 »
...Curiouser and curiouser... 
How can this be legal?!
Fortunately or unfortunately, being an incompetent boob isn't illegal I looked at Elena's Thinkstock portfolio versus yours and she has 13K+ there (StockXpert plus iStock) and 8K+ on iStock. You have 6K+ on iStock and 5K+ on Thinkstock, I assume because their busted connector was not delivering everything to the PP. These recoupment amounts could well be guesses versus calculated numbers - they've done that before (while I was exclusive they pulled the extended license bonus months too soon and then had to pay it back; they got the numbers wrong and when I wrote to support they said they knew but that as it was a little over they were just going to leave it alone). But it isn't portfolio size that would match you and Elena up. What a shame there isn't someone on the inside who's seen the books willing to level with contributors to get this straightened out - I don't see legal action as a practical option (long time; large expense and Getty has a pile of lawyers who could stop harassing customers and turn to contributors instead). In the IS forum, one person said that if 9,000 contributors were to have money "recouped" and if on average the amount was $75, they'd be netting $675K. I'm guessing that's a low average given that all the $10 and under claims have been eliminated from the pool. If the average was $112, they'd collect a million dollars. Has there been even a hint as to what they claim happened? I don't count saying that there have been overpayments as useful information.
3673
« on: February 24, 2014, 22:58 »
I cannot think of any reason to deny size upgrades - at any time. Downsizing is different and should be handled by whatever refund policy an agency has.
This has been suggested for years and at one time I thought there was agreement from iStock (when there still was such an entity) that it was a good idea.
I have to imagine that Getty does this for Getty Images clients, so perhaps it's just that they can't be bothered to implement the feature for the small business site.
3674
« on: February 24, 2014, 16:46 »
Going to a site and seeing Valentine stuff promoted 10 days after the holiday looks ridiculous. Locking contributor threads doesn't alter what buyers and prospective buyers will see.
3675
« on: February 24, 2014, 16:41 »
Why are they suddenly concerned about the impact of the clawback? They never were before. For instance, they took $150 from me in one blow back in 2012. That, aside from all the refund payments that can jump into hundreds or thousands of dollars.
The only reason I can think of that they'd suddenly get misty-eyed about contributors is that they are vulnerable (in some way we don't know about) to charges that they're responsible for this eff-up. Offering something would then reduce the likelihood people might pursue this and significantly reduce the size of any "angry mob". They're trying to protect or immunize themselves, IMO. And I agree that they should just forgive $50 of whatever's owed across the board rather than full boat for those over and freebie for those under $50 owed.
|
Sponsors
Microstock Poll Results
Sponsors
|
Show Posts
