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Messages - Hobostocker
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476
« on: October 07, 2014, 02:40 »
confirm.
i've bad myopia and if i use contact lenses or i take off my glasses my images look a bit less yellow, say 5%, no big deal but it's visible if i look carefully.
i was interested since a long time about LASIK but there are so many drawbacks i gave up with it.
too much trouble and too many risks.
477
« on: October 07, 2014, 02:35 »
once you've a 500$ laptop with non-IPS screen and sRGB ICC profile installed you can get a decent result about colors but not about contrast. contrast is also an issue on IPS monitors from what i've seen so far. for anything else the real problem is the printing but this because of the conversion in CMYK and the paper. when i go in my print shop next door the colors are good even on the cheapest paper (FUJI printer), but the contrast is never the same i see on screen, it's more punchy, let's say a 5-10% more, it's visible and in some cases very visible maybe 20-25% more. said that, if i display my pics on any cr-ap monitor in web cafe or with friends it usually comes out good. spending big money on a calibrated monitor ... i don't think it's overestimated and more of a marketing thing. i worked on printing gear in the past and dealt with color calibration when DTP was still a joke, let me tell you there are only a few rare cases where you really need calibration, to make stock images even an Acer laptop for 400$ can do, just get used to non-IPS screen and keep at one meter distance ... i don't wanna sound like a cheap charlie but neither i'm impressed by the high end gear .. what you see on YOUR screen will never be the same you see in normal situations with cheap screeens. using cheap screens has this benefit, if it looks like sh-it you can bet it will look like sh-it anywhere else 
478
« on: October 07, 2014, 02:17 »
There is one sports site I am reading regularly which has 22 ads blocked.
yeah or try cr-ap like Time Magazine or Huffington Post, 25-30 javascript calls and each page is around 1MB ! i can't believe people can browse the web without at least some pop-up blocker and flash disabled. Flash in particular is the worst thing even invented and since now it's a dead man walking it's being replaced by flashy HTML5 videos and other sh-it that goes even beyong Flash and is harder to block.
479
« on: October 07, 2014, 02:14 »
Those flickering animated GIF sponsor banner ads on this site drive me nuts. I have to slide my browser over to block them out all the time. Just plain annoying as hell. Guest I am too visual -- perhaps like most of us. The place is starting to look like a Christmas tree.
use Firefox with the QuickJava addon and deactivate Animated Images (the "I" icon). you can do it in other ways also but it's more complex. while you're at it you can also disable Flash and Javascript, that's an even better option, and install Ghostery on top of this.
480
« on: October 07, 2014, 02:10 »
The whole RPI/RPD discussion is fine and all, but in the context of this discussion, it's kind of pointless, no? The OP is making almost nothing as an iStock exclusive. It doesn't matter what the average RPD at SS is, it's still better than nothing.
actually it's the RPD being pointless if you don't make any donwloads ... the RPI is just a generic catch-all performance indicator. in this case i think he's getting a raw deal because there's an incredible oversupply of travel images now. either that or IS is particularly bad for Travel. the only way to know is to upload in other agencies and see the difference.
481
« on: October 07, 2014, 02:04 »
Please excuse me whilst I tear my hair out in public here instead.
if all else fails dump your portfolio on Alamy and see what sticks. jokes apart, you've a great port, can't believe it's selling peanuts ! i'm sure you can do well in any RM agency and of course on SS.
482
« on: October 06, 2014, 00:55 »
but as we can see, nothing will ever change radically, they're only acting on a case by case basis.
best scenario, they will close Google Images in germany, but it will still work in all the other countries.
483
« on: October 06, 2014, 00:54 »
they're also removing images from German newspapers : Google Decides to Remove Text Snippets and Thumbnail Images of Some German Newspapers Because of Legal Action http://www.webmasterworld.com/goog/4705762.htm
484
« on: October 06, 2014, 00:53 »
485
« on: October 04, 2014, 07:33 »
How long will Getty customers to figure out this hack?
in my experience, the typical RM buyers are not begging for the cheapest deal, they're willing to pay a premium for the photo that better fits their needs.
486
« on: October 04, 2014, 07:30 »
Our budget doesn't support this sort of pricing.
irrilevant. they're a potential buyer only as long as they can afford our products.
487
« on: October 03, 2014, 13:47 »
the 40k and above are the zero budget shooters saturating the libraries.
Problem is the saturators are killing the pro images that attract the buyers in the first place.
At some point MidStock needs to establish itself again or the libraries will become stale as the pros will have moved on.
but agencies are buyers think otherwise.
488
« on: September 26, 2014, 21:18 »
The secret is not in the number of keywords, but in a creative image with keywords that represents them. Simple as that. I speak this by pure observation of my pictures and images of others. If you make something new and interesting, real quick this will be at the top of the rankings, or at least on the first page of the search.
yes. if we look at the best sellers they all have a common pattern : they instantly look good at first glance, even at thumbnail size, no matter if they were buried among 100s of similar thumbs, they just stand up among the crowd.
489
« on: September 25, 2014, 00:10 »
Demotix would be the best of this kind, better than Alamy but that wouldn't be too hard.
demotix is no more, now it's a bunch of guys working in an office owned by Corbis. talking about sales, i know guys who made good sales there but the event they were shooting was quite a lucky strike, it's not the norm, and then they moved to serious agencies like Getty, AFP, and Reuters and they would never upload anything on demotox now. in any case, it's a good way to get the foot in the door but you just won't be able to compete with the big agencies unless you're very very lucky to be the in the right place at the right time and uploading the pics in real time, tough job and not many satisfactions, too much trouble and little money, do you really want to be in this business ? think again. there's nothing paid worse in general than News photographers once you consider the required effort in time and money and energy.
490
« on: September 25, 2014, 00:06 »
I wish there was one that took sports and paid. I'd be happy. Otherwise Hobostocker covered the answer, for print media. People can deny that film photography is dead. Magazines are dropping like flies. Newspapers can't hold out and stay afloat without digital outlets and subscriptions.
The bottom line of print media is advertising. No subscribers, no numbers of people reached, no advertising = No Magazine or Newspaper.
Has one of these upstarts ever produced anything of value for contributors? I'd like to know which one.
print media is dead as a medium for News. news now are in real time, and mostly free. it like when TV killed the Radio in the past century, radio is still alive but only for some specific market niches, no more all purpose and mainstream like before. we can't blame advertisers either, they just go where they get more bangs for their bucks, i would do the same. value for contributors ? yes, travel magazines still sell but you also see tons of photos from thinkstock and SS subs, they're all slashing budgets to the bone and even using iphone snapshots for free, quality is down the drain but if that matters 99% of these mags were total trash even in the 80s as far as i'm concerned, i don't buy a magazine or a newspaper since maybe 2 yrs and feel great at the idea i'm not feeding these crooks. they way they use our photos to sell their sh-it is disgusting to say the least and it's a shame our pics will help boost the tourism of such places. even the travel guides have never been so bad as today, i won't miss them if they all go bankrupt and people are left with online sh-it like Tripadvisor. national geographic ? * it .. they're just resting on their laurels but it won't last forever, the most arrogant magazine in the world, full of sh-it to abysmal levels, unseen in the entire history of publishing. so, what we're seeing now in general is that many old professions are just going to disappear and will not be replaced in the future as there's simply no money on the table and you know what, it's a good thing and the world will be a better place without all that sh-it sold in newsstands. all we can do is to accept it and move on with our life.
491
« on: September 24, 2014, 23:47 »
We'll decide which stock video/photo hosting site will survive, not them.
yeah, it's always a game a of supply and demand. but it can take many years to reach critical mass. many suppliers are leaving stock or leaving a specific agency becaue it's no more profitable but as long as they keep their portfolios there nothing is going to change soon. the agencies will still make profits even without a steady supply of fresh new images/videos. or at least, this will be the case for a long time until buyers get sick of being served with the same old stale cr-ap but are we sure this is a problem for buyers ? i see lots of stuff sold on Getty that was shot 20-30 yrs ago and nobody complains. the irony is that photos are timeless and can potentially sell forever if they're so good, but in the actual stock market this benefits agencies more than suppliers. no matter what, but until the cash $$ is split 50/50 agencies will always win the game and laugh all the way to the bank. i mean find me another industry where the salesman earns up to 80% commission for each sale ! either selling photos is really one of the most daunting and difficult jobs in the world or we're just being scr-ewed royally. and we're talking about selling for pennies, not for big bucks. how hard is going to be selling pics for 500 or 1000$ ? how come art galleries and photo agents split 50/50 ? are their clients "easier" than ours ? i see photo exhibitions where the cheapest iphone "fine art" snapshot on a 2$ frame is sold for 250 bucks and nobody complains, we're talking about sh-it that wouldn't even be downloaded for free on Flickr. i had a neighbour making a living shooting dogs and selling prints, yes just photos of * dogs and his clients loved it. how many other proofs we need this industry is totally ripping us off ? we're not even the mcdonalds or walmart of photography, at this point it's bulk sales from china like on Alibaba or dodgy deals on Ebay.
492
« on: September 24, 2014, 11:37 »
Yep, I agree SD price is not scientific... It was something to spark some discussion, meybe I'll get rid of it. 
interesting. do you plan to make a windows port in the future ? p.s. price is not the issue at all for this sort of apps, it's the features that matter. for a professional, 30$ or 100$ is no big deal if it saves time as promised. if you app is really good and has UNIQUE features you should sell it for 99$ or 199$. but if not .. let me remind you there are already decent free alternatives for stock uploading.
493
« on: September 24, 2014, 11:20 »
even with the very best possible keyword strategy, how much are the sales going to increase ? 10% ? 20% ?
how long is going to cost to rekeyword your entire archive ? what if they change the algo tomorrow ?
moral of the story, the only thing that makes sense is shooting more and more since it's a numbers game anyway.
i remember some posts by alamy contributors with archives larger than 100K images, the algos have been changed a few times, the agency has now millions of new images, they have rekeyworded part of their archive, end of the story no big deal in terms of views and sales while those seeing major ups and downs are the ones with small portfolios.
same with google : trillions of web pages indexed but the top tier sites are always in the top-30 at least, no matter the algo hacks every 6-12 months.
conclusion : it's 2014 guys, search algorithms have reached a good standard nowadays, there's no way to cheat and expect it to last long.
494
« on: September 24, 2014, 11:08 »
journalism is a moribund industry apart for business/sport/gossip/celebrity, their days are numbered.
as for citizen journalism, great, but then again where's the money ? the problem is not to get the foot in the door with iReport and similars, that's OK, the problem is to make a living.
for anyone interested, the only serious and useful web site about photojournalism i can recommend is Lightstalkers.
495
« on: September 24, 2014, 11:00 »
their business model is flawed and they know it, but they won't take any action unless they're forced to make a sudden U turn due to falling sales.
this can take years but ultimately it's unavoidable, it's a common pattern in many other industries too.
496
« on: September 20, 2014, 22:27 »
maybe i'm old school but i hate these modern rating systems.
if you agree or disagree just explain your opinion, i mean a forum is for discussion, it's not Twitter or FB.
497
« on: September 20, 2014, 00:55 »
Not sure but it seems you are still ignoring the fact that there are thousands and thousands of customers not belonging to the design firms and publishers with employees and office and all category. You call them cheapskates, they are just different customers, with different needs, which should come with different pricing. You want to get rid of that market altogether so it seems, probably shooting yourself in the foot, losing a lot of revenue.
you would be right if your analysis could be backed by hard data, how much of our sales are actually coming from the bottom feeders ? nobody knows, it could be 1% as far as we know, or 50% for some obscure niches. if they were really so many then it would be obvious from the number of sales in the cheapest price range but this is not happening, in the best scenario they're probably just 10-20% of the total. remember the Pareto's law ... 80/20 ... the top 20% of the buyers paying off 80% of our sales. who cares if we lose the bottom 20% ? let them move to Thinkstock or Flickr and good riddance.
498
« on: September 18, 2014, 05:03 »
I wonder if Hobostocker loves to pay premium prices for anything he purchases? I wonder if you pay top dollar for fruit or bread and milk? Or do you check the pricing and buy smart? If so, aren't you doing the same as what you accuse the 'cheapskates' of?
If I throw a dinner party I buy good quality meat from the butcher, if I cook for myself, supermarket will do, as an example.
There is a need for all kinds of images, in all kinds of situations at all levels of pricing.
hahaha absolutely, i'm a cheapskate king if we talk about money, and if i had to make some low cost project for web or print i would probably never buy stock images too, i'll rather waste one week lifting pics on Flickr just for a matter of principle. BUT .. here we are talking about design firms and publishers with employees and office and all, these guys will ask at the very minimum 500$ for a cheap brochure to their clients and yet they're horrified at the idea of paying 5-10 bucks for a high res images they need and that their clients like ! i'm the first saying buy cheap and sell high, that's no problem, but enough is enough ... especially considering the fact that in design and publishing photos are so important and take so much of the whole space ! there's certainly a need for rock bottom cheap imagery of postcard size, but it doesn't mean the market can sustain or provide such demand when it becomes impossible to make a profit or even recoup the production costs involved. give them an inch and they will take a mile.
499
« on: September 18, 2014, 01:43 »
I told you so !
now FT and DT will follow suit as well.
in a few weeks from now the cheap as-s buyers will have nowhere to go, either they buy full res images or they're back on Flickr where they belong.
this is great news for us as it means finally the agencies are trying to raise the bar, it's not much but better than nothing and a step in the right direction.
500
« on: September 17, 2014, 04:13 »
Demand doesn't meet supply, supply meets demand. So if iStock wants to price itself out of the market another supplier will be there to pick up the disaffected customers.
i think they know it and it's part of their marketing plan, keeping the rich buyers and leaving the cheapskates to the other agencies. after all if they're serious about exclusivity it makes sense, for the trash they've already Thinkstock. problem is, ideas are dime a dozen, it's the execution that matters and IS is doing a mess since the last 4-5 yrs. compare it with SS, a simple and clear vision, a well executed business plan, a "no BS" approach, clear guidelines and easy pricing.
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