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Messages - michaeldb
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451
« on: November 22, 2011, 14:12 »
This is an interesting example of a company that was once small, hungry and innovative becoming huge, corporate, and overly cautious. I believe iStock was the first to offer vector files, and now they're the last to finally move away from this 13-year-old format.
Good point. It's an amazingly complete transition, from one extreme to another, in less than a decade.
452
« on: November 18, 2011, 17:09 »
However, it doesn't look to me like the donations would be tax deductible for US contributors? If so, then if I pay 30% taxes and itemize deductions (which I do) and I give a donation to, say, Operation Smile, I can give them 30% more than if I gave a donation via DT to its charity. Right?
True, however DT is matching our donations, so effectively that is 100% more to the charity (rather than 30%) if you go through DT.
Good point. Thanks.
453
« on: November 18, 2011, 15:30 »
...Nice initiative and a nice thought, especially around X-mas times. Some agencies do have a heart and that makes a very refreshing thought.
I agree 100% However, it doesn't look to me like the donations would be tax deductible for US contributors? If so, then if I pay 30% taxes and itemize deductions (which I do) and I give a donation to, say, Operation Smile, I can give them 30% more than if I gave a donation via DT to its charity. Right?
454
« on: November 18, 2011, 15:08 »
For me, the management of the two sites has been completely different from the start...
True. To add to your list: iStock rejected whole classes of images because they didn't fit iStock's idea of itself as an art gallery, or something. For example, all vectors consisting primarily of text (e.g. a word cloud, or a business form) were rejected as a matter of policy (although many such images were in fact accepted when submitted by iStock Pets). Those images, rejected by IS, have earned hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars for SS. On the other hand, IS accepted raster illustrations with text as main element (e.g. 3D renders), but insisted that 3D renders be of models created entirely by the submitter. No use of the millions of high-quality models for sale for the purpose of creating commercial images was allowed by IS. Again, such images have made millions of dollars in revenues for SS. iStock has never been able to figure out whether it is a snotty-middle-school-girls'-clique-slash-art-gallery or a business. SS has not seemed to suffer from that problem.
455
« on: November 18, 2011, 14:52 »
... I decided to drop my exclusivity...
Let me be the first to welcome you to the wild, wonderful world of image independents! I think you will enjoy it.
456
« on: November 14, 2011, 14:21 »
Serious customers will never use pirated pictures; and those who do use them wouldn't have paid anyway so most of the time pirated pictures aren't truly a "missed income". This is a crucial truth which many of us fail to understand. Copyright infringement is not really considered to be 'theft' under the law because there is no 'loss of use'. If you steal my car, I cannot use it; if you copy my image, I still have the image. I have only suffered a loss only if the copier, or someone he give the image to, would have otherwise paid me money to use the image if circumstances were different. We who make money from royalties only do so because real businesses in 'civilized' countries are afraid to use our intellectual property without paying us for licenses. We will make more money when there are more such businesses in more countries. Piracy may be relatively irrelevant.
457
« on: November 14, 2011, 14:01 »
We all know that threats of punishment don't seem to have much effect on big time pirates, most of whom live in countries where IP rights are weak. Probably in the long run the best way to bring infringers over from the dark side is if they can make more money by selling IP than by stealing it.
Maybe that is what is going on here?
458
« on: November 14, 2011, 13:54 »
...Most of what we/they produce is crud; then again, as Theodore Sturgeon so trenchantly observed, 90% of everything is crud....
How true. Amazon doesn't seem to review e-books the way microstock is reviewed, so there is already a lot of spamming and copyright infringement. And among the 'real' self-published e-books, even the popular ones, a lot of crud is evident. But then most of what the Big Publishers publish is crud too, if crud of a different sort. I love the democratization and opening of the IP markets. If Getty was in charge, I wouldn't even be doing microstock. Down with the gatekeepers! If the Big Publishers begin to fall, I will watch with glee 
459
« on: November 13, 2011, 20:25 »
...As far as amazon and books, I think that they're in a different phase (courtship) with suppliers - where the micros were a few years ago. As soon as the business model is established and amazon's very successful at it, I wonder if the "success of the supplier" chit-chat will survive. It's the rare business that continues to behave decently once they have all the power in a relationship.
Good point. For the time being Barnes & Noble and Apple (with the iPod as a platform for e-books) provide serious competition for Amazon in self-published e-books. Will they be to Amazon what SS and DT were to IS, and keep the market open for independent self-publishers?
460
« on: November 13, 2011, 18:16 »
Amazon's Kindle prices for many titles has increased about 50% during the last year. Amazon says, "The publisher sets the prices."
Actually, Amazon originally set the price for big-publisher Kindle e-books to a maximum of $9.99, while paying the publisher as much as $15 royalty. Amazon took a huge loss on millions of ebooks in order to establish the Kindle as an ebook platform. Imagine iStock paying you a $3 royalty on a sale which paid iStock $2  Unlike what most people believe, Amazon does not have a history of making big profits. Bezos has always been willing to take losses to establish Amazon in new markets (and investors have often raised h*ll over this). If you self-publish an ebook on Amazon now and the price is $2.99 I believe that Amazon pays a 60% royalty. Again, quite a bit different from most microstock agencies.
461
« on: November 09, 2011, 13:50 »
There was really no need for ironies, though... They were unavoidable. 
+1 
462
« on: November 09, 2011, 13:47 »
Good thread, I have been wondering how Nov is going for others.
It's off to a very slow start for me, but I have not been uploading much and my few Christmas images are 3-5 years old. Since so many people here are doing well, I have to chalk up my bad Nov start to not submitting enough, I guess.
463
« on: November 04, 2011, 16:35 »
Less than 1%. Maybe a lot less.
464
« on: November 03, 2011, 11:41 »
This change will probably hurt my sales on DT, which have already been on a downward trend for a while. The reason is that I do vectors mostly, and the prices of vectors are so high on DT that virtually no one buys the eps files there as PPDs. I can only sell them as subs or as JPGs. If DT cut their vector prices in half, I think my revenue there would increase. As it is, reduced numbers of subs sales will probably hurt me there
465
« on: November 02, 2011, 17:56 »
I know it's a small thing, but when I see careless mistakes on the front page of a web site...
On the home page you have, "Stationary Launch your project identity and branding..." I think you mean 'Stationery'. On this page you have 5 steps, but no step 3, instead you have two step 4s. http://www.masterlance.com/how-it-worksIn general, the concept of the business is not bad. Crowdsourcing designs using microstock would provide a market for microstockers. But I think you would need to differentiate yourself from crowdspring and 99designs which are estblished in the 'crowdsourcing designs' space. That would be hard. It would be the problem ebay's competitors had: Even if they didn't like ebay, buyers went to ebay because that's where the sellers were; even if they didn't like ebay, sellers went to ebay because that's where the buyers were. You would face a similar problem in competing with crowdspring and 99designs. Still, it might be worth a try if you could find some new angle to leverage. I think a lot of designers are not really very happy with some of the things at crowdspring and 99designs.
466
« on: November 01, 2011, 19:58 »
If you have 3ds max there is no point in downloading blender, which won't do anything significant which Max won't and has the reputation of being hard to learn.
Almost all 3D modeling software will import vector files, but not the latest Illustrator files, just eps 10 usually. The 3D programs convert the vectors to polygons or to NURBS (if you have Maya or Rhino or MOI or some other NURBS modeling sofware). It is like the way that 3D programs import text (fonts being the same sort of thing as vectors).
Often the meshes created from imported vectors into 3D don't render very well, and forget about modifying the meshes very much, they will be very hard to work with using your normal Max tools.
If I were going to start in vectors, I would just download the trial version of Illustrator from Adobe, I think you can still do that for free. Virtually no one doing vectors for money uses anything else, although it is in many ways a piece of junk (like most Adobe software IMO). Illustrator has a 3D function which lets you use 3D-like rendering tools to add depth to your vectors. It's very buggy though, was never really supported in subsequent versions after it was added to Illustrator. Still, I use it sometimes.
I often make vectors in Illustrator and import them into NURBS modeling software. It is like using Illustrator as a 3D modeling program.
467
« on: October 27, 2011, 16:20 »
...Over the last ten days I have actually deactivated 2 blue flames and numerous red flames, simply because I have a much better use for them, I found them way down in the best match and no way they are going to generate any revenue from there. However, one of the issues was, they had to be removed from IS and sure enough, its already paying off.
Exactly. The less I submit to IS and the more I deactivate the more money I make elsewhere. When I deactivate a 'flame' image, in the little box to give a reason why I am deactivating, I type, "Not suitable as stock."
468
« on: October 27, 2011, 16:11 »
The only answer is to stop outsourcing...
Um, I think microstocking is outsourcing (the real meaning of which is getting the company's work done by sources outside the company). We should be careful what we wish for?
469
« on: October 26, 2011, 13:14 »
It was interesting seeing the video. It really highlights the disparity between what I think is going on there and what they think is going on.
"iStock runs like a well-oiled machine." Interview with Kelly Thompson, iStockphoto / Getty Images October, 2011 Interesting to hear Kelly Thompson's job description, the details of his promotion. If his performance at IS was a success, what would be the definition of 'faillure'? No more traffifc on the site at all? Nico_blue's earnings dropping to 2004 levels? All Illustrators leaving the site? The worldview of Getty is a very different one than that of most microstockers, that much is certain.
470
« on: October 25, 2011, 17:41 »
Regarding advice to those IS exclusives thinking about going independent:
I'm not sure that waiting until after December would be good advice for everyone. For most people who don't have a lot of Christmas images, December is by far the weakest month. And for me last year January and March were very strong on all sites (except IS of course) - I would not want to sit out those months in 2012.
Secondly, regarding large % loss of income, no doubt. But another thing to consider is that on the non-IS sites, newer images often have very significant advantages. If I didn't have to resubmit and were given the chance to suddenly make all my images 'new' on all sites, I would do it (except on DT). Back in the day, there were threads on the SS forum about removing and resubmitting images just to make them new.
If my income were back to 2006 levels at IS and I was a crown-wearer and considering going independent, I would get started as soon as possible. Especially if I were a vectorist I wouldn't hesitate a minute.
471
« on: October 23, 2011, 13:57 »
GL: took them all, even put a few in their "GL collection". I think my last sale was in August.
GL has the best reviewing in microstock, so I am guessing that indeed your images should have been accepted at all sites. IMO the microstock industry has a real problem with reviewing. I think the philosophy should be something close to this: 1. If it is legal
2. And if it has no real technical (as opposed to subjective) issues which are not apparent in the thumbnail (and so might give a buyer a real excuse to say that they didn't know what they were getting)
then accept it and let the buyers decide if they want to buy it or not.And if the inventories of microstock sites get too large (although I am not sure what that means really - too many choices? - how can you have too many choices?) then cull them by deleting old images which have not sold.
472
« on: October 21, 2011, 21:16 »
October is on track to be my worst month on istock in 5 years (since December 2006). That's pretty pathetic to say the least.
That is beyond crazy and shocking. And coming from one of the great microstock portfolios. December 2006 is less than a year after I started microstocking. I am literally shocked.
473
« on: October 21, 2011, 21:07 »
I am much less worried about images disappearing and reappearing only from our ports than something weirdly wrong and inconsistent with the search overall and different search placement when searching with and without vectors etc. etc.
A very, very good point. I used to complain about IS's best match roller coaster when it suddenly drowned my images, and others complained for the same reason. But what may have been worse was that it inflicted bizarrely inconsistent search results for the customers. How could they tell if they were being shown the 'Best Match' results they were used to or something not so 'Best'? They couldn't, and they went elsewhere to search.
474
« on: October 16, 2011, 13:54 »
I've only been back as an independent since June and one of the nice surprises is how much of my revenue at SS is coming from on demand sales, extended licenses and now the single image sales. On many/most weekdays, my on demand sales (in dollars) are larger than my subscription sales.
This post caused me to look at my SS stats, and I was surprised to see that ELs, ODs, and the new 'Single Downloads' comprise 46% of my October sales. I had not noticed that only 54% of SS sales now come from subs.
475
« on: October 16, 2011, 13:32 »
...according to our logs we had significant activity from Calgary last Friday so I would guess an opinion is forming.
The Dark Lord of Mordor is gathering his orcs, er I mean lawyers.
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