|
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 - Xanox
Pages: 1 ... 11 12 13 14 15 [16] 17 18 19 20 21 ... 23
376
« on: June 01, 2013, 07:42 »
what do you guys expect ? Alamy is specialized in Editorial ... look what sort of images are used in newspapers every day, look at book illustrations, they dont need any "shiny" micro/RF style stuff.
the BBC site in particular is now using a sh-itload of Getty and Thinkstoff cr-ap in every article, some of the images could be lifted from Flickr or Instagram and i wouldnt notice the difference.
377
« on: May 30, 2013, 10:14 »
For me it's Fredmiranda.com forums, where real people, real professionals and honest discussions are common. Seems fear of retribution from agencies and viewers isn't a problem there? Sportsshooter.com is all professionals and all real names. People need to submit a request, proof of professionalism and be sponsored to be a member there. Then they charge by the year also.
If this forum is to be taken seriously, and as professional information, it should be populated by real people.
LightStalkers is another serious pro forum and the reason they require you to use your real name + link to portfolio is because half of the forum is about people hiring photographers/stringers for assignments. no money asked over there but you can only join by invitation.
378
« on: May 30, 2013, 10:05 »
considering most of the actual SS buyers were previously alienated by istock and left in droves, why should they ever go back just to save a few pennies ?
too late for IS, they shot themselves in the foot and how long it lasted ? 2 yrs ? now they're a dead man walking and desperate to recoup market share, sorry but the golden age of IS is finished and they can only blame themselves.
379
« on: May 30, 2013, 10:01 »
considering how easy is to publish images on the web this law is unenforceable and therefore it's useless.
besides, you don't go in prison but you just pay a fine.
i think it's because lots of people have enough of random guys taking snaps with their mobile phones and posting cr-ap on FB and Twitter.
380
« on: May 30, 2013, 07:29 »
urilux = U r i Lux = You Are ?? Light
381
« on: May 30, 2013, 07:18 »
Definitely worth trying it out for a month. Might even discourage the use of multiple accounts.
exactly
so where's this army of evil trolls hiding behind multiple accounts ? by all means i'm the only official and long standing troll here. if you want to go the way of the Alamy forum i'm afraid this forum will quickly die of boredom and lose at least 50% of the active users but feel free to try it out. as for the right to anonymity, well there would be not even need to discuss it ... the whole idea of privacy is a lost cause with the many Facebook, Twitter, etc ... forums are the last bastions of privacy.
382
« on: May 30, 2013, 07:11 »
Riiiight!!!!  So the sensor, type of lens, etc, etc. has no effect. We should all be shooting with little instant cameras and save a bundle on expensive equipment then.
a mid-end camera will suffice. try the new Nikon D7100 for instance, the sensor is almost on par with the D600, 24 MP and no-antialiasing. very very nice output, but many of you guys will think it's a toy as it's only priced 1200$ or maybe even less. wrong ! you can make amazing things with that toy and a good lens. and in any case nowadays the image is just the "first step". it's with LR & PS that you craft the final product. i'd say PS is 50% of the image today or even more considering how you can make selective editings at pixel level. yeah there's plenty of old farts still screaming about film camera but F-k it .. it's 2013 ... there's nothing better than PS or LR they're more important than cameras actually and lenses are certainly above cameras too. cameras are more and more irrilevant, only your combined skills count. never as today it's all about the photographer and not about his gear.
383
« on: May 28, 2013, 10:42 »
I have acquaintances who think that the only people who use e.g. PS (etc) are those who can't 'take a decent photo with their camera'. It's what Michelle Obama calls 'a conversation'.
yeah and i've friends who disdain anything not shot a medium format film camera. and then you look at their super boring images, technically perfect, but booooring.
384
« on: May 28, 2013, 10:40 »
i've all Topaz filters and they're great, not as great like NIK but still great.
i see no reason to do it all by hand, no matter what he PS freaks say.
they're just angry because their skills are becoming more and more worthless.
let them bark at the moon and try Topaz or NIK, there's nothing better than these two companies in the PS arena.
385
« on: May 28, 2013, 10:10 »
i've read today there are rumours Yahoo is bidding to buy HULU for 600 or 800 million $ ... it seems they're going to make an assembly of media startups in order to add social features and full integration, that would be a vertical offering nobody so far managed to do including Google, we will see.
the same rumours say Yahoo is also going to buy a couple mobile startups to further enlarge their service on the mobile platforms.
my opinion ? it's 100% BS, smoke and mirrors ... all these services will be kept together under the new Yahoo umbrella with duct tape and iron strings, some will quickly go down the drain, and now it's obvious their real plan is to fool investors into a big fat sellout, it's all a big strategy to add "value" to the worthless Yahoo.com
i mean, if Tumblr can't monetize and is bleeding money, why should Yahoo do any better ?
if Hulu is for sale as they realized it's not worth 2 billion and they're struggling to find buyers for 500 million .. where's the big deal on that ?
is people aware that only 0.2-0.5% of web users ever click on a advertising banner ?
that means 99.5% dont give a sh...
at least Hulu is a pay-per-view service, finally a solid asset in the Yahoo arsenal, they will need it when it will be time to sell the farm.
386
« on: May 25, 2013, 00:20 »
there are already rumors about using Flickr as a storage for pirated warez using steganography and embedding data into images or videos, the files will look legitimate but inside there will be RAR/ZIP files, there are already apps for that.
387
« on: May 25, 2013, 00:13 »
well, it's not far from truth, there's plenty of dic-ks who sell some cr-ap on Ebay from time to time and then claim to be "e-business experts" and self employed entrepreneurs !
388
« on: May 24, 2013, 04:26 »
I am quite sure ANY agency you give the axe will be very relieved...
at least they replied, some other agencies dont even answer to emails.
389
« on: May 24, 2013, 01:50 »
Well done!! I know a guy who joined the house collection at the same time as I did. He uploaded four Sci-fi pics to another RF agency. They refused them for some reason.
However they got accepted in the house-collection and only a few months ago they sold for 6K, Euro that was.
Funny but you just cant tell, can you. 
for sci-fi and science images just join SPL agency and they resell with Getty. 6K euro ? 8000$ ? that's a great sale.
390
« on: May 24, 2013, 01:47 »
This is the most F*** Horrible photo website design I've ever seen.
by all means it looks like a ripoff of 500px.com ... but 500px is still loooking a lot better and you can even sell prints and digitals over there.
391
« on: May 24, 2013, 01:45 »
where's the scandal ? there are certainly millions of images with FAKE model release !
first of all about travel, i can't believe all these RF images of street monks and beggars have a real release.
392
« on: May 23, 2013, 00:47 »
maximum 640px + big watermark in the center of the image.
393
« on: May 23, 2013, 00:47 »
Short this stock.
not yet. more M&A will come soon, probably about music, social, maps, and e-commerce.
394
« on: May 22, 2013, 14:35 »
Got you!
yeah, but my analysis is NOT a critic on Yahoo ! if i was risky enough i could even buy some Yahoo stock now as i'm sure it's going up at least as long as the market will believe their BS before the final implosion. i mean .. as a comparison FB makes a net gain of around 1$ per user per year ... these numbers are even below scratching the bottom of the barrel in advertising terms but since they've such a huge volume it's in the order of billions of $. it's a business, no matter if it looks shady, it's indeed shady and not based on solid foundations, but for some time it's going to be profitable. they will never attract the attention of conservative investors like warren buffett but for there's indeed money to be made for them and for their risky investors. in 2001 i was already convinced Yahoo would implode and was sure companies like ebay and amazon would survive instead. it's taking a long time but guess what, amazon is here to stay and so is ebay, they're selling real things, not hot air like FB or advertising space like yahoo and google. google, that's a whole different story, but yahoo's days are numbered, i mean it's already a joke of a company compared with its market value of 3-4 yrs ago. merissa mayer boasting to be the new CEO of such a company is in fact a big downgrade compared to her previous position in google, no matter if she makes more money now, even a random VP at google is worth the nr.1 in yahoo or AOL.
395
« on: May 22, 2013, 14:16 »
Hi All,
The speculation here is all over the board but I will just offer my own feelings if I was in Yuri's shoes. Move all my content to Istock and retire. If you do the math ( you all make money at this ) just add up how many images he has and how well they sell and the numbers are off the hook. Whatever he paid his team to produce was paid for out of past returns over the years of production so he is clean to shut down and make his retirement money off the sales of 100,000 images. If I was Yuri I would shut down and move onto something new. Quitting while you are ahead is not quitting it is smart, but that is an older guy talking who just wants to smell the roses for a few years My 2 cents
he's still relatively young and ambitious, why should he stop now ? makes no sense. besides, he certainly agreed with Getty to provide a minimum number of new images per month. as far as i know it's the norm for other agencies under getty. his new agency is his "baby", why should he get bored seeing it grow to new heights ? maybe in 10 yrs from now, but not now. many here fail to realize Yuri so far was the only microstocker really "thinking BIG". that's why he's not happy with what he achieved in micros and the new getty deal is just the start of the next step. and he's not stopping there, he's got all the skills and the qualifications to become a serious player in the stock industry as a major agency in the future. it's ridicolous that most of the guys posting here are completely missing the whole logic on this. Yuri wanted to succeed from the start and he had the skills to do it, no matter if on micro or macro or whatever, that's not the point. he's the bread winner and you guys are the losers, that's the moral of the story, no matter if this discussion goes on for 50 more pages.
396
« on: May 22, 2013, 14:07 »
Why would SS increase their $0.38 commission when several sites were paying $0.25?
Apple and Amazon make billions selling digital products from which you keep 50-70% of a sale. Stock photography instead is one of the only industries where the distributor gives you as low as 15% of a sale. And on top of this, some of the market leaders had the guts to claim this model is financially "unsustainable". THIS is the market we're in, guys !
397
« on: May 22, 2013, 13:59 »
Why would SS increase their $0.38 commission when several sites were paying $0.25?
SS now is on Nasdaq, it's a public company, their mission now is not to survive but to GROW over time, that is making profits for their shareholders. in order to so, either they grow their customer base or they cut costs or both. simple as that. where in this equation do you see any space for raising fees to photographers ? nowhere, as the growth in buyers will be achieved by massive and aggressive investments in marketing and this leave photographers completely out of the scenario as there is no correlation between how many contributors and images you have and you sell and how many buyers you're able to supply and to keep under your wing. now, how much profit exactly ? at the moment they claim to have a net profit of 28% which is huge for a Nasdaq company. and it aint go on like this forever, this is not normal, and this is not sustainable. in a normal scenario SS will stick with a 10-20% net profit and be happy with that. of course they could push things even further and reach a 40-50% net profit .. that would mean cutting costs to the bone and paying us a pittance ... say 0.10$ per image or less. it's doable, they've nothing to lose, in the worst scenario the insiders will sell their shares and bye bye ... now again, where do photographer fit into this scenario ? NOWHERE ! we're the very last ones in the food chain.
398
« on: May 22, 2013, 11:15 »
CEO of Yahoo announces there's no such thing anymore as professional photographers.
oh wow, how is she at qualified to announce this?
and argh, holding such a high global position.
after all she had to leave google because they had no plans to further her career, which in business-speak is a polite way to say they had enough of her BS and told her to find another job elsewhere. i've no idea either about what she's exactly qualified for. not a single google product has been launched by her nor she made a name for herself attached to a successful google service and all she's doing at yahoo so far is collecting PR fiascos and alienating her own employess with draconian rules against working from home. her position is not even high nor global considering how bad Yahoo is performing now compared to the past, by all means it's a small company with no vision and no solid business model, all mouth and no trousers. why not allowing Flickrs to sell their images as stock for instance, what about prints and upsells for everybody, wow there would be soooo many ways to monetize Flickr but they dont ! and now they've even removed the Pro accounts because they think advertising is where the money is ... Flickr as a gigantic "google images" with ads sticked all over the place and pages that take forever to load. all i can read around is an army of angry Flickrs leaving in droves and same for the Tumblrs moving to wordpress and rightly so. and i fell Yahoo's grand plan is just started, they could pretty much buy the NYT now that they've set up offices in their building or even CNN or the whole AOL or who knows, they're in full frenzy now and drinking champagne and this smells of web 2.0 bubble from a mile away.
399
« on: May 22, 2013, 10:53 »
Marissa Mayer will end up like Carly Fiorina or Carol Bartz .. booted out from angry shareholders or even fired with a phone call ...
she's the latest in a string of failed CEOs at Yahoo, the company itself isnt even sure about what's his core business now and this should give you a hint about what they have in store, it will be all about M&As, smoke and mirrors, just as AOL does, it's the same Ponzi scheme seen a million times on Nasdaq.
and indeed their stock value will rise quickly, Mayer will be praised for the great results, but nobody will remind you it came at the cost of wasting billions, i mean real money not stocks, even the Tumblr guy wanted to be paid in US$ not in yahoo stocks which says it all !
that's a very bad sign from any perspective, if he believed the stock value of Yahoo would go up why opting for cash ?
let's face it, there's no difference from today's yahoo and the old Tripod, Lycos, Geocities, Hotmail, Ask.com .. we're in the middle of yet another web 2.0 bubble.
the only and i mean ONLY solid social media company around is ... drumroll ... LINKEDIN !!
400
« on: May 22, 2013, 10:44 »
Well there isnt really. Unless you turn to the world of commissioned photography. I do not think uploading to micros or other stock sources counts as being true pro photography.
as long as you pay all your bills just with earning from photo sales you're indeed a pro photographer. of course there are pros earning 1000$ per month and pros earning 10 millions per year but that's not the point. even the lamest wedding photographer is a pro if he can live just with that.
Pages: 1 ... 11 12 13 14 15 [16] 17 18 19 20 21 ... 23
|
Sponsors
Microstock Poll Results
Sponsors
|
Show Posts
