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Messages - cobalt

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4701
Not to distract from this thread - but amazon to get in the stock business to sell photos, videos, sounds, templates....uhhhhh...Maybe we are lucky they are not doing this. Amazon would be instantly a huge dominating site.

Although - if they keep paying 70%...

Anyway, back to Yuris success...

;)

ETA: why isnt there a stock agency that sells via amazon? It is the biggest online market place in the world. Somebody must have tried to get into it??

4702
Thank you for sharing your experiences. Food for thought indeed! Interesting that SS pays less than 20%, didnt know that. So with 42 cents for my Partner program subscriptions (thinkstock)  I am getting a lot more.

The market has so many players, I wouldnt be surprised if there was more consolidation ahead of us.

4703
General - Stock Video / Re: Top Video Sites
« on: August 04, 2012, 12:59 »
Congrats! :)

Clipcanvas has a very beautiful interface and great statistics. Unfortunately I havent sold anything yet.

4704
General - Stock Video / Re: Top Video Sites
« on: August 03, 2012, 13:25 »
Volume of sales is also an important factor, or market share of the agency. If I had 20 sales or more on istock, even with my beginners files, this would make me believe that istock is by far the biggest market leader in video. Then exclusivity would be the only real choice for me - why spread files if there is one dominant agency with say - 70% market share?

Of course the video market is still in its infancy, maybe we will see a dominant site emerge in time.

I wouldnt be surprised if istock is the market leader in the high end part of the market, but sales volume and a big customer base is the basis for the future.

Anyway, I need to produce more, otherwise it will just be an interesting hobby. Great fun though and a lot more difficult than I thought.

4705
General - Stock Video / Re: Top Video Sites
« on: August 02, 2012, 04:44 »
There is no test for video. You just go ahead and upload and see if they take your files. They take the same file format as istock.

If I was exclusive and got the same rate as I do for photos and with the higher prices of istock exclusive files (even without vetta video) I would be making a lot more money on istock and would have remained exclusive.

But since we have to work ourselves up the RC scale, I see no chance of ever going over a very base level for video, because I will never produce enough video.

On the other hand, I am a video newbie and do not produce the extremly high quality, professional level video that istock is looking for.

I do still wish I could be all exclusive, but it has to make financial sense and for me it just doesnt.

I cannot upload enough good files in both photo and video to get to the same level of percentage as in photos. So I have to be independent with the weaker medium and spread my files.

But since we all dont know how the agencies are developing, maybe it is good to spread the risk a little.

4706
General - Stock Video / Re: Top Video Sites
« on: August 01, 2012, 20:53 »
just wanted to share my current stats. I havent uploaded much in the last 4 months, I have around 40 very simple clips on several sites.

Results so far: istock 9 sales 110 USD, pond5 3 sales 94 dollars, Shutterstock 5 sales 84 dollars, Fotolia 1 sale 2.1 credits?

I would expect istock to sell more files, because I have such a big photo portfolio there with regular customer traffic.

But even with such a small sample it is clear to me that video indepencence will earn me more money. The sites sell different files, too early to see a trend (one site sells more people, the other more xmas etc...)

I like that I can set my own prices on pond5, but I still find their interface and stats page confusing, shutterstock has a very organized dashboard. I still like istock best, but maybe I am just used to it.

For statistics I anyway check my downloads on stockperformer, makes my life a lot easier.

I have only been uploading for a few months, Ill know more about video when I have 300 clips online.

Just thought Id share for those interested

4707
General Stock Discussion / Re: June Microstock Earnings
« on: July 04, 2012, 16:17 »



So for "not really working" to get around 2000 USD (on average between istock+getty+thinkstock) is a very good income IMO and I am grateful.


So you're getting a 15$ RPD. Wow, that's really impressive :o

No, this figure includes also all the downloads from thinkstock and getty, so it would be a lot more than 150 downloads in total. But thinkstock is a sub site, so I get 42 cents per sale.

On istock my RPD is somewhere between 2-6 Dollars on average, depending on the collection. Vetta and E+ as an XXXL can give really high returns, but you dont get them all the time. Getty also sometimes has returns with over 150 Dollars for one license, but they also have licenses for less than a dollar.

My monthly returns has become a lot less predictable with the higher prices. Because one large sale or extended license of a Vetta file etc...can really have a strong impact. The 2000 is an average.

4708
Another private investor as the new owner? That would be very scary. At least if they went for an IPO they would be forced to have transparency.

What happened to the idea of being debt free, growing the business for the future and getting a real dividend from profits earned? Innovative leadership that creates new markets? It must be hard for the top people at istock/getty.

I wouldnt be surprised if the same people who invested in fotolia would try to et a stake in getty and then try to consolidate the microstock market by merging us all...

Anyway, news like this depresses me, time to get to work and think about something else.

4709
General Stock Discussion / Re: June Microstock Earnings
« on: July 03, 2012, 15:59 »

[/quote]

thanks for sharing! I understand what you mean but in the past you made a lot more no?
[/quote]

Yes I did, although it is very hard to compare, because the return per download was much lower. My best year was 2009 and unfortunately I didnt upload much after that.

If I could get back to those levels I would be very happy, but obviously I wont find out unless I upload a lot for at least two years. I also need to increase the quality of my work, there is so much more competition now.

4710
General Stock Discussion / Re: June Microstock Earnings
« on: July 03, 2012, 15:12 »

[/quote]

you are one of the biggest examples of iStock disgrace, having 60k downloads all time and only 150 sales in June is just incredible, dont know how you can keep up the faith in them really..
[/quote]

In the last three years I have uploaded less than 900 files. Half of those were leftovers from older shootings. Basically I am not an active contributor for many reasons.

So for "not really working" to get around 2000 USD (on average between istock+getty+thinkstock) is a very good income IMO and I am grateful.

I will be more active in the coming months, but what I find very scary is people who are uploading 1500 good files a year and reporting a loss in downloads and royalties. So I am not sure if I really should make a big push at shooting and uploading or if it is better to look at other income streams first and accept that even with regular uploads Ill probably be stuck with the returns I am getting now.

4711
General Stock Discussion / Re: June Microstock Earnings
« on: July 03, 2012, 02:33 »
It would be nice to see a comparable pie chart with the reported results from msg. I know that because of the low amount of data it may not tell the real picture but if someone was to follow this over a longer time period I think it would give interesting insights.

I am really worried that exclusives might be leaving or simply deciding to focus on other business and stop uploading (without officially giving up exclusivity).

Without the exclusive collections, what is the reason to prefer istock over the competitors? I believe the collections plus a lot of very interesting content from Getty (Hulton Archive etc...) is the thing that will attract a certain type of clients that are willing to pay more.

So I hope that there still is enough new talent choosing to go exclusive, to keep istock fresh and interesting. I know it is not for everyone, but some people and their portfolios are doing extremely well at istock, inspite of all the negativity. I hope by next year Ill be one of them (again).

4712
Off Topic / Re: Who Is This?
« on: June 29, 2012, 06:04 »
This made my day! Thanks Barb! :)

Now please do something interesting with the site racephoto...fate is calling you!

4713
Shutterstock.com / Re: SS IPO - It's Done
« on: May 15, 2012, 13:27 »
Thanks traveller, so the royalties paid out will be much lower.

4714
Shutterstock.com / Re: SS IPO - It's Done
« on: May 15, 2012, 13:11 »
Is the 45 million cost of revenue supposed to be what they paid out to contributors in that year?

In January 2011 kelly said istock was paying out 1.7 million a week, roughly 90 million a year.

This would mean that Shutterstock is paying out half of what istock is paying their contributors.

I hope I misunderstood that, I would find that very, very scary (from an istock exclusive perspective).

4715
General - Stock Video / Re: Top Video Sites
« on: May 11, 2012, 01:35 »
I know, they fixed it quite fast.

Happy Uploading!

4716
I like it. Very modern minimalist design and very useful. I also appreciate that they add the contributor!

Works for me :)

4717
iStockPhoto.com / Re: iStock surveying buyers again...
« on: May 10, 2012, 01:50 »
microstock just takes advantage of selling digital products in a globalized world. The same reason why most iPhone apps cost between 99 cents to 4 Dollars. The prices are so low because they are planning to sell in extremly large volume, ideally with millions of downloads.

By continuously raising prices you decide to leave the mass market.

Maybe this is the best way to go forward, I dont know. But it will be really interesting to see what SS does when they get the money from their ipo.

 

4718
iStockPhoto.com / Re: iStock surveying buyers again...
« on: May 09, 2012, 18:34 »
"more images from professional photographers"

That question stuck with me as well. Makes you really wonder what they think of us.

The text otherwise reminds me of feast - bercool writing that leaves me confused.

Well, I hope something useful comes of it. At least they are following up on the customers.

4719
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Thinkstock Image Selection
« on: May 06, 2012, 13:15 »
If you are independent, then everything that istock accepts will be mirrored on thinkstock. there is no selection process. if something is not transferred, then it is a software bug (one of many) and will probably get moved at a later date.

4720
Hi Lucato,

had a look at that zero download light box - I agree, there are a lot of lovely files in there, that deserve more attention. And if you really have over 3000 files in need of new exposure, your move makes a lot of sense.

Had a look at my portfolio, I have 480 files with zero downloads and maybe another 500 files with very few downloads, but many of those are either old files from when I started out with stock or the less attractive files from a series.

Thanks to stockperformer it is quite easy to see how my portfolio is doing and usually over 2 years most of my stuff will get sold.

I really need to upload more, that is my main problem right now.

With video it is different, I already have more sales and money from going independent than from being exclusive, so for me this was a good decision. It might be different if I got the same royalty rate like my pictures, but as a newbie to rise through the RC levels is impossible if it is not your main subject. I am sure this is what the RC system really wants - only be exclusive with your strong subject and spread your files for the weaker ones, so istock can get a bigger share from your second media types.

I thought it would have been good to convince artists to remain fully exclusive, but if that was their intention, they would have improved the RC system a long time ago.

But for photos I think istock is still doing a good job at selling them, it is not their fault if I dont upload enough.

4721
All the best to you! You are very brave and many here will follow your results.

To see that getty/istock is being burdened with tremendous debt by its owners, while cutting down support for the artists and no visionary goals and directions in sight, who knows what will happen.

At the moment for me this si no option. I need to be able to produce in high volume before I make any decisions and I really want to focus on video this year.

4722
Thanks! Sorry for the broken link.

Quite depressing to read. How much more could they have made if they had grown the business, especially the community side of it. Considering what has just been paid for Instagram and the market seems to be ready to (over)pay for Facebook?

4723
another article. nothing really new.

isnt it great that our work can be used for large loans to pay off other debts...instead of investing in our marketing or infrastructure?

http://www.pehub.co20097790m/141056/hellman-friedman-with-380-mln-dividend-from-getty-images-makes-back-nearly-all-of-its-money/

4724
This is scary news, although not unexpected. Especially for me as an istock photo artist. If SS has fresh money and a dedicated leadership...what will getty do?

Especially if they plan to enter the news and editorial market?

I hope istock/getty come up with some fresh new ideas :(

4725
Very interesting! Good luck Yuri, you have good ideas and know how to execute them.

If he treats his artists well and generates sales this could be a really positive influence in this market.

Will you take video?? ;)

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