I don't count by sales (it's tedious, as you have to open those files that maybe have sold twice or thrice) but for income. Judging by income, today seems slow, bot just a bit slow.

Quote from: lisafx on January 11, 2012, 12:36

Quote from: michealo on January 11, 2012, 11:59

Quote from: Cogent Marketing on January 11, 2012, 11:51

I think Istock are STILL excluding indies on certain searches and favouring crowns.

so it is beneficial to be exclusive, now that surprises me, who would have thought ...

Can you point me to where near total exclusion of non-exclusive files in searches was touted as an exclusive benefit?  I've been on Istock for 7 years, and while there was always an exclusive bias, customers used to be presented with a reasonable choice of indy images too.    

Customers expect "best match" to best suit their search terms, not to be a way of further padding the company's bottom line.  If a customer wanted to see only exclusive images, that has always been an option.  No need to incorporate it into best match.  GOOD exclusive images and talented artists have always been able to stand on their own without rigging the game.

It's not about "riggin the game" its about not "bleeding out" as promoting indies in the IS best match was a slow but quickening death.  Who knows if relegating indies to TS is going to work? But, I remember for a long time here the reporting of SS growth at the expense of IS.  Would you expect IS to see these internal numbers and just continue along this strategy while it benefited only independents and IS loses more market share.   It doesn't bother me to see indies upset with istock for protecting its market share.  I guess one of your baskets is braking eggs.  

I agree. Showing exclusive content in the first pages instead of commodities seems the right way to go. That's not good for indies, but on the other hand they are reporting not selling at IS and selling a lot at other sites and so, the damage for them is minimized.

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on December 29, 2011, 18:54

Quote from: loop on December 29, 2011, 18:28

Great, now your boss now that a stock photo is worth 0.35 cents and not a cent more than that.

Better than iStock, where he would know it was worth 8c and not a cent more than that

(assuming, that is, that your logic makes any sense)

Loop does have a point, it makes no sense for us to steer buyers to a site that pays us .38 and I do not steer anyone to SS or other low paying sites.  Thou, your point is equally relevant .38 is preferable to .8

What about reading carefully before writing? I wasn't talking about comissions, but price payed by customers.  What they are being told it's woth a file, xs or xxxxl. Try again. Read slowly if necessary.

In my opinion, main reason from losing some buyers is price. Yes, there was a difference in price years ago, but the one we have now exceed the limits of microstock and goes to midstock (almost macro for agency, just seeing this prices can scare budget buyers, true), while other stay where they were (ALL AT 35 cents!!!) or have gone up a couple of cents.  But at least istock sell our files at a decent price.
Most of the people talking of other reasons at the thread Lisa quotes, are contributors and buyers, mostly small buyers. They are disgruntled as contributors: it's undersatable. But as buyers they are just a tiny fraction. If you look at IS threads most buyers complaining are complaining about prices, and almost nothing more.

Quote from: imageegami on December 28, 2011, 14:06

Best match at iStock no longer finds the most relevant image, rather it locates most relevant image from a very small subsection of the collection. This is not in any customer`s best interest so there is now yet another incentive for customers to move on to other sites. They are the authors of their own demise.

Don't forget to include in your list... the oh so cleaver section of arrogant exclusives that routinely call buyers stupid!

Obviously,nobody has called the buyers stupid, but your rant seems to point to some kind of deep frustration. Vent on, if that makes you feel better.

Quote from: JillLang on December 28, 2011, 08:51

This change has just killed my business there!  IS used to be so good for me.

You'd better get used to it. As Baldrick has suggested this appears to be far too deliberate to be an 'accident' with unintended consequences. I doubt if it will change significantly any time soon unless it impacts overall sales. Even if it invokes buyers' protests Istock have proved themselves to be pig-headed enough to ignore them for several months before reluctantly taking any remedial action.

Even if the best match is modified I view this change as an act of desperation that does nothing to serve the buyers' interests and is a painfully obvious attempt to cling onto exiting exclusives. Yet another example of Istock introducing a short-term, self-interest policy that is likely to cause longer-term damage to the business. At best it will only delay the inevitable by a few months anyway.

Has anyone else noticed that some search words/phrases seem to have virtually disappeared? Try a search on 'roast lamb' for example. I'm getting zero results even when using different PCs and ISPs. Same with 'lamb (mutton)'. The phrase 'lamb shank' only generates 5 results although there are well over 100 within the library. I'd assume that there must be other similar issues.

This best match is not better not worse than any of the precedents. In some aspects is better (more original content on front of costumers), in some worse (less cheap files in front). I don't think many customers will even notice it.  And yes, it's better for some contributors and worse for other..., but that's another matter, completely different.

I'm almost at half what I got on 26 D last year, but maybe it's not fair comparing with last year, because these were the dates when the big credit card fraud took place.

Quote from: markrhiggins on December 24, 2011, 07:42

they can search by age but this will also get mostly excusive images nowdays. lol

Must depend on the search. By age:
business: at this moment, the top 23 are all indie
Health, at this moment, top 20 are indie
New York has 3 exclusives on the top line, otherwise about the top 30 or 40 are mostly indie, although that is skewed slightly by batches of videos by two indies having come through all at once.

Yes, it seems that someone is confusing wishes with reality, lol

Quote from: briciola on December 22, 2011, 09:45

"I was shocked a few years back when best match was so utterly dominated by Yuri.."

Well they fixed that!  A search for business man shows page upon page upon page of exclusive files - so Yuri's shots are deemed of less interest to buyers than thousands of exclusive images, many of which have no sales???  They really need to rename if from best match to 'bolster exclusive sales'
What a joke

Perhaps their market surveying said that buyers are tired of seeing the same thing they see everywhere else.  So they are giving the buyers what they asked for.  Who knows?

Exactly, and being recent exclousive content, can't also be in TS.

In fact only a couple of days back, I was speaking to one of the mentors, founders of the entire stock-industry back in the early 80s, whishing him a merry X-mas, etc. In touching this subject, he said: "be happy you never signed the dotted line for exclusivity, they are showing the signs of a company in deep trouble and they are not going to exist in a years time and thats when their remaining exclusives will have little option but to go with Thinkstock, if they still want to sell pictures, that is".
Just want to point out, this person is still a shareholder with major influence in the stock-world.

Considering that 99.9% of these "mentors, founders of the entire stock industry" are the same ones that several years ago were saying and repeating that a) microstock would never take off and couldn't never offer quality content, b) digital photography never would replace film, this new prediction can be considered a garantee of success and future for istock.

Maybe they want to put fresh and  unseen at any other competitor site content on front. Probably too  early to say but, for the moment, it works well for me (btw, I reached my RC time ago, no need of help). I suppose newer exclusives, specially factories, are way more favored. On the other hand, Vetta and Agency seem pushed back. I've observed that when V & A are on front, maybe I sell less, but I earn more. Anyway BMs are not forever at istock, another shifts in the future will benefit another people.

You can not change what is. Just deal with it. Exclusives at IS should try to get accepted at SS. You do not have to put images for sale, just get accepted. I believe most may get a shock. Many if they put up their best ten by downloads would not get in. Standards have lifted.

Being accepted at SS or elsewhere is not the problem. Having one ex-exclusive that has been rejected is just anecdotal; actually SS has made things easy from exclusives to be there and open accounts, and thet wouldn't have done it if not interested. Just imagine sodafish or Aldra not accepted. The real problem is the change of model, passing from 3,5 or more than 5 (my average per download at IS) to subscription cents. I can't avoid thinking that at least two (or three) subs agencies with the selling power of SS would be needed to match earnings as exclusive. And there's just one SS.
(And making the same, more or least at one site than another only have some meaning if you have the same number of photos at the sites compared. If not, it's meaningless)