|
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 - gostwyck
4851
« on: June 17, 2009, 09:29 »
I think, after gutting it all they can, that they'll turn it into a really cheap pay as you go site. Pictures for a buck with 10 cents going to the contributors. I can't see that happening at all. How many contributors would accept 10c a pop? It would also devalue the industry as a whole (as they are doing to some extent with JIU/PC).
4852
« on: June 17, 2009, 06:55 »
I would keep StockXpert as cheaper site, to compete in price with FT and DT, allow exclusives to send content there (different content of what is sent to istock, obviously), and use intensively the site to attract buyers looking for exclusive content to IS. And I would close the free stockexchange site or reduce it to even more crappy content.
That's a good option. They could have the images from IS that are destined for JIU/PC.
4853
« on: June 17, 2009, 05:35 »
It is an interesting dilemma that Getty have with StockXpert.
Judging by my own sales, in proportion to the greater collection, StockXpert appear to have annual sales of about $4-5M. That might be chickenfeed in comparison to IS and Getty but nonetheless it is still a valuable asset and it is probably higher than the sales of JIU/PC combined too.
If they close StockXpert down then they lose the value of their asset and StockXpert customers are probably more likely to go to DT/FT/BigStock as they are a closer fit price-wise than IS. Giving the competition a boost is not going to be a particularly attractive option. On the other hand if they don't continue to invest in marketing and infrastructure for StockXpert then it will probably die a slow death anyway.
I can't really see the sense in boosting JIU/PC (with IS images) whilst at the same time ignoring or killing off StockXpert. All 3 companies are still competing for customers against IS __ unless you believe the market is firmly segmented price-wise. In that case you might as well support StockXpert and JIU/PC as they are primarily competing against other agencies. My guess is that they haven't got much choice but to support StockXpert into the future.
What would you do if you were in charge of Getty?
4854
« on: June 16, 2009, 20:22 »
It's dead. Game over. No point in submitting anymore. Financially it's a joke __ just not worth the time & effort and it's going to get even worse too. Ah well __ we had some fun anyway.
Move along now. Nothing to see here.
4855
« on: June 16, 2009, 16:13 »
LOL. If that's the case maybe we should have all jumped at the (possibly-as-low-as) 3 cents that was originally proposed 
Staggeringly there really were people convinced that the 22% was the better deal __ and silly old mathematics wasn't going to convince them otherwise.
4856
« on: June 16, 2009, 15:45 »
Although I am baffled to read a couple of fairly successful independent contributors on istock's forums asking how to opt in to this or complaining that they thought they were opted in but aren't. 
So was I. It's not the first time I've been totally perplexed by one of those individuals though. Strange that he now want's his entire port there via IS although to date he has less 20% of it there via StockXpert. It's like 25c is more of an incentive than 30c to him. Hmm.
4857
« on: June 16, 2009, 14:18 »
The point for me is they already have my images there, they are selling well. Getty can clearly afford the .30 they are already paying me, but they want to hose me out of a lousy .05 per sale just because they think they can.
I agree with the others here who have mentioned they are going to do everything they can to support Veer in hopes of providing an effective counterweight to Getty's attempts at monopoly.
I think this is going to backfire on Getty & Co. The way they're messing about with the JIU/PC customers is just going to drive them into the arms of the competition. I wonder if they've written to advise them that 3M images are shortly to be removed from the library? The PC forums might make interesting reading in 89-odd days! Surely SS, DT & FT are the real counterweight to Getty? Veer will have do to extremely well (and spend an awful lot of money) to get anywhere near the current market share of those three within the next 3-4 years.
4858
« on: June 16, 2009, 05:33 »
They said that they are going to build photos.com on the Getty CV.
They said that we would be credited on our images too. Of course it never actually happened (did anyone really believe them?). I'd assume to introduce the CV would require the existing wholly-owned content to be manually disambiguated. That's not going to happen either.
4859
« on: June 16, 2009, 05:08 »
Well done Lisa! Very well deserved too, I also appreciate your input here.
4860
« on: June 16, 2009, 05:05 »
The CV provides structure. Sure it needs to be constantly developed and evolved but is a positive step. How else to account for multiple synonyms , languages, regional variations ? Some of the other sites maybe missed their chance to build in something similar or to otherwise provide some sort of structure. Getty did not suddenly come to the CV. The idea of CVs, the thinking behind them had been developed over years. You probably find that your own keyword database structure begins to look like a sub-set (or in some instances a super-set) of roughly the same sort of structures ? In whatever software you use to manage your keywording. Ours certainly do.
I'd agree __ but the structure and control needs to be on both the keywords and the search terms (as happens at IS). At JIU/PC neither the keywords or the search terms are controlled so IS images will presumably be significantly disadvantaged by effectively having many fewer effective keywords. For example plural search words will bring up different results at JUI/PC to the singular term __ but plurals have generally been stripped out of IS files by the CV. Same with different regional spellings, etc.
4861
« on: June 16, 2009, 02:56 »
I suspect that there may be an assumption within the Getty world that contributors who had opted-in to JIU/PC via StockXpert will simply continue to do so via IS. I don't think that it is actually going to work out that way.
I suspect that there may be a lot of unhappy JIU/PC subscribers in the near future who suddenly find themselves with a lot fewer quality images to choose from, what is there will be harder to find because of the IS CV and many light-boxed images will have disappeared too. Any 'boost' to JIU/PC may prove to be a short-lived phenomena.
4862
« on: June 16, 2009, 02:43 »
^^^ Exactly.
The 'Big Six' (probably soon to become the 'Big Five') are paying out something like $8-9M PER MONTH to contributors __ about $100M per year. Even under the current economic conditions that figure is still accelerating too.
If you already happened to own a camera, a lens and a PC (as most of us did)then submitting to microstock was effectively a risk-free operation.
Hundreds of amateur photographers around the world have been delighted to give up their 'day job' and are now able to earn a living, many of them a very good living, working from their home as professional photographers.
It is simply absurd to describe the agencies as 'parasites'.
4863
« on: June 15, 2009, 13:40 »
Not a member, so I can't see it. Can you post it here?
Not much to see; We understand that you have been waiting for news regarding any changes to your Stockxpert account given the recent acquisition by GettyImages, and we would like to thank you for your patience. Our goal is to keep you all informed about changes and opportunities with plenty of notice in order to minimize the interruption of services for you and our customers.
In the upcoming weeks, there will be changes at Stockxpert.com for contributors who have 'Opted In' for licensing to our Photos.com and JIUnlimited subscription program. This licensing program will be cancelled, and uploads of Stockxpert images to Photos.com and JIUnlimited.com will be discontinued. You will continue to receive your Photos.com and JIUnlimited subscription earnings until this change has been fully implemented. We expect this process to be complete in about 90 days.
As we phase out Stockxpert images on Photos.com and JIUnlimited, the plan is to introduce images to Photos.com and JIUnlimited from the iStockphoto collection.
As you may already know, iStockphoto is the industry leader in microstock. If you are not yet a contributor to iStockphoto, we would encourage you to apply, and start building your iStockphoto collection. It is a great opportunity for you to increase your earnings and visibility, while engaging in one of the world.s largest and most dynamic creative communities. iStockphoto provides a wealth of information and ideas for you to grow from.
To learn more about contributing to iStockphoto, go to: http://www.istockphoto.com/sell-stock-ph ...
Once again, we want to thank you for your continued support, and we will provide you with updates as they become available.
Best Regards,
The Stockxpert Team
[email protected]
4864
« on: June 15, 2009, 12:05 »
Yep __ just had the message myself. I hate to sound cynical but of course this means that they'll be saving themselves 5c for every download of an independent contributor's portfolio. Not only that but, because of the IS CV, I'd imagine that a lot fewer images will actually appear in search results for a subscriber to choose from. I'm opted out of both schemes anyway.
4865
« on: June 15, 2009, 10:13 »
No, things are fairly steady for me. I'm at 300 sales so far this month although subscriptions do seem to be growing stronger at the cost of PPD downloads.
I've already exceeded my total sales for June 2008 which itself was 300% up on June 2007. In my view FT is growing much faster than any other agency.
4866
« on: June 13, 2009, 06:41 »
Sales are always a direct result of exposure. Putting it another way, a mediocre image with good exposure will outsell an outstanding image with poor exposure by a very large margin.
True __ but there's not much you can actually do about it
This is why knowing the ins and outs of each agency's search engine is so important.
How? Even if you understand the search order algorithm there's not necessarily anything you can actually do about it. Apart from gaming the system by buying (or having someone else do it) your own images you can't influence where your image appears __ and that route will most likely end up with you being banned.
Once you know how to make an image that is 'good enough', exposure and keywording become the most important aspects to success in this industry. Definitely not the case __ image saleability is by far the most important factor. It's just a matter of luck on whether it gathers a few early sales. Even if it doesn't happen immediately it can still take off later. An image I uploaded to IS in 2005 performed disappointingly in comparison to everywhere else __ until this year. Between 2006-8 it sold just 80x __ but has sold 190x already this year. Go figure.
4867
« on: June 13, 2009, 06:15 »
On dreamstime, for example, where we can track our portfolio exposure, I have been steadily losing ground as a % of the whole collection, despite uploading constantly and having several BME's in a row.
At least for the moment overall sales are still keeping pace with the additional supply.
This has been happening almost since microstock began and accelerating ever since. I remember Hidesy at IS, about 3 years ago, declaring her target to be maintaining 1% of the collection. Needless to say she couldn't keep up __ she's now down to 0.24%.
4868
« on: June 13, 2009, 06:03 »
Fair enough, you can idolize whomever you want, I'm not stopping you....but I don't see Yuri taking any digs at sjlocke... just sayin..
I don't see sjlocke taking any digs at you either ... just sayin ..
4869
« on: June 13, 2009, 05:48 »
Can anyone tell me how to find what sells best on microsites?
Yep __ try doing a few searches. The pictures with the biggest numbers where it says 'Downloads' are the best selling ones.
4870
« on: June 12, 2009, 16:18 »
It's good stuff Jonathan ... but what I don't understand is why you are doing this?
I'd like to feel I've learned a bit about stock too and I'm always ready to help someone out with a specific query. However I'm certainly not going to spend my time on free comprehensive teach-ins telling people how to compete better with my own portfolio. Why would I? I just don't understand how this benefits you?
4871
« on: June 12, 2009, 15:25 »
If the best they can do is advertise the now have more of what everyone has, well...
If you were in Yay's position wouldn't you? Whether you like it or not Yuri is a brand in his own right. Retailers are largely full of the same stuff too __ for example the electrical retailers where I live all seem to have TVs by Sony, Samsung, Panosonic, etc, etc. The truth is there's almost always a relatively small number of producers of stuff intended to appeal to a world-wide market. Why should microstock be so very different?
4872
« on: June 12, 2009, 14:14 »
Just reveived the Yay newsletter and find that Yuri is now putting 20,000 images there. I wonder why he waited so long?
Maybe he was waiting for them to offer some good money to do so. It's not unusual for a big player to be offered financial inducements to upload to a new agency.
4873
« on: June 12, 2009, 14:07 »
They don't show the download numbers, but if you sort a search by downloads, then the Infinite collection pictures seem to appear in the right order, thus you can derive the approximate number of downloads. Not sure that this is really true or if they are presented there in some random order, but I would assume that FT would not put effort in programming something like that (after all, sort by download is just a simple database query...)
Interesting idea but it's easy to prove that it doesn't work. Do a search, sort them by DL's and then pick an Infinite image that appears to have definite no of sales (say either 43 or 42 because of it's placement amongst the other images). Now click on another of its own keywords to bring up another search, sort again by DL's and see if it appears in between images with the same number of sales __ it won't. It appears to prove that Infinite images are indeed 'placed' favourably within any search criteria.
4874
« on: June 12, 2009, 13:05 »
I think the success of Fotolia's Infinite Collection is because of this - it isn't because of quality, that much is certain.
I'd agree on the quality issue but, out of interest, what makes you think that FT's Infinite collection is a 'success'? Obviously download numbers aren't visible and I'd always assumed that their favoured search order positioning was due to them being placed rather than having earned it __ although that was just a guess based on their apparent saleability. Funnily enough I was chatting to a buddy recently who buys his stuff at FT and he was both angry and confused why he was suddenly being asked to pay 10x more than he was used to for an image. He wasn't aware of the Infinite Collection and he didn't appreciate the way he was introduced to it.
4875
« on: June 11, 2009, 10:42 »
A stream of emails to Fotolia (tech support and management) have gone unanswered.
Have you tried phoning them using the number in the top LH corner of your screen? It might be much quicker. I really don't know what to make of these stories without hearing the other side of things. It hardly makes sense that any agency would simply ban individuals without good reason __ after all they are trousering 60%+ of the sales revenue and they would just be encouraging exclusivity with their biggest rival. I can understand that FT would probably not want to discuss individual cases on a public forum but it would be good to hear something from the management.
|
Sponsors
Microstock Poll Results
Sponsors
|
Show Posts
