Quote from: jbarber873 on December 05, 2010, 01:43


  I was a shareholder with Getty until about 6 months before they got taken out. The stock was climbing like mad until the last year before the buyout, but they started getting a lot of questions in the conference calls about RF taking away the RM share. At that time, Getty was trying to up the price of RF and got no where with that strategy. They came in with a couple of bad quarters and the stock fell through the floor. All this time, they kept saying that RF wouldn't hurt RM. Microstock wasn't an issue at that time, it was just declining revenue from RM. They didn't have an answer, so they just stopped taking questions. Most private equity firms try to turn a company in 3-5 years, after putting in new management and improving operations. That's the spin they will put on it for the roadshow- how they are positioned for growth with a profitable microstock model in a dominant position in the market. It's been off the analyst radar for so long they will only be able to judge the growth from getty's numbers. Anyone with an insight into the microstock business can see that Getty is sacrificing the future for the present jump in earnings, but no one on the street is going to say that, because Getty will sue them. ( it's happened to more than one analyst recently). The bottom line is that the present owners will cash out, and the new owners will wonder what happened in a few years. H&F knows they have to dump this company because it's a declining asset. It's just a question of waiting for the IPO market to heat up.

nice post. whether intentionally or not, it sums up and adresses number of things that I think are important.

"All this time, they kept saying that RF wouldn't hurt RM." <->  "Microstock wasn't an issue at that time" <-> "just declining revenue from RM"

sure, there's no connection whatsoever. That's logical.

"sacrificing the future for the present jump in earnings"

That sums up micorstock. The "present jump" is exceptionally deceptive (if someone isn't very bright I guess) there becouse for most ppl getting involved it's an amazing jump: a jump from 0... or a jump from 'not even dreaming' that they could make money with their images. it's a bit amusing how those guys after being involved in it for a few years are complaining about dilution of sales value when they see trends like collages sold as one image... which is just a sub-scale repetition of what they started doing originally.

Quote from: rubyroo on December 04, 2010, 18:25
Whatever happened to 'innocent until proven guilty'?
   

thats criminal law, not business : )

that's awful. But you guys alwasy look for a very rational explanation as if ppl worked that way. god knows what happened, someone at SS doing a secondary inspection with a lightyear long que might just be a bit too conservative, etc... BUT seeing the 'range' of pictures thriving on SS, this supposed to a some misunderstanding.

there will always be argumentless people  who's last refuge is saying others have complexes : ) what happens if istock falls? nothin'. after a while, other places get somewhat more dl's. the content is so generic it makes no differene whatsoever.

Quote from: Smiling Jack on December 03, 2010, 16:52
Hi-a little bit off the subject -  But I get a lot of rejections for " focus not wher we think it should be or the white balance is off" Now I can understand a "either or" rejection but not both together. If they can't tell which is which how can I? 

thanks for any help
Smiling Jack

They push buttons, and one ofthem says that : )

Quote from: Herg on December 02, 2010, 19:51
... Soul destroying. ...

You really should seperate your photo's general / artistic value from getting accepted at these place. Being rejected by a microstuck site doesn't say anything about the quality of your shots.

Quote from: gaja on December 03, 2010, 08:42
Nettiquette 101: Do not talk shite about another person, and certainly do not do it in a thread where he/she is not participating. Lobo might do a *** job, but he is a human being like any other. There is no need to get personal, and doing so only reflect badly on you.

How does insulting people with remarks on the forum and on sitemail, and then using your 'admin powers' banning them from both so they can't reply put up with your version of nettiquette? In case it's hard to comprehend: the latter is the real shaitty thing. He can go on trying to mock and insult people forever for all I care as long as they have their choice to retailate. He's gonna be pulled apart like warm bread in that case. There is a huge difference between what 'anyone' and payed(!) admin can and supposed to do. I personally think it's also worth noting: this happens on the forum of a site doing supposedly serious business, to the people doing business there. Threads are locked with an insult, about problems affecting people paying their bills. How about that, hmm?

so apparently a comletely public photo can be dragged into publicity. : ) amazing that this concept of the mentally challenged still pops up after 10+ years of internet : )

You are a bit oversuspicuos there imho, it's simply the volume. Probably delivering the downloads is the absolute priority, so the rest may lag in all sorts of ways. What it may show is that they don't invest that much into infrastructure, which is not a great surprise from a microsite.

Quote from: ShadySue on December 01, 2010, 17:46
My take is that some of those 'forced into' the Agency collection were of a pretty 'average' standard. I don't really follow doings in Agency closely as it's not relevant to me, but most of those I've seen getting in from iStockers have been good, though some seem to me 'average' - but what do I know.
Vetta is all smoke and mirrors. At one time, wrong keywords seemed to be almost a necessity, but it's not so bad now.

Agency simply comes from getty's executive order that istock do not dare to try to sell their pics at dollarbin prices. Vetta is a childish joke, I just browsed into it from the front page advertising that rouge lightbox in it. Wonderful stuff. It's 'artistic level' with that kitschy plastic appearance and infantile oversaturated my little pony colorpalette is almost on level with a village fairs shooting gallery visually. Just almost, not there yet. : ) There were two really cool shots on two pages, but the rest would make anyone not raised in a * barn wanna poke his own eyes out with a couple of crowbars.

Quote from: helix7 on December 01, 2010, 21:47
A lot of the arguments in this thread in favor of midstock pricing (equipment costs, production costs, travel costs, etc) sound an awful lot like the arguments in favor of RM and traditional RF pricing a bunch of years ago.

The trads must be laughing their asses off at us while we cry "Photos are too expensive to produce to sell them for just $1!"

it took something like 3 years for reality to pop up from behind the forced fanboy yipee attitude while getting totally ripped of. I saw how the bunch was prone to even lie about how things are going just keep the face, playing the  lameass wow-imkool-sellingmypicturz character even picking on people who bother with flickr and real citique community sites, when I first started to investigate them on a photography forum (not this one). It was a very tarnsparent act, wouldn't fool a blind 5 year old, and being the no bullscheise guy, when I did more than schratch the surcface they suddenly turned into hissy little vampire chimpunks in an instant, full of pent up frustration : ) It was kindergarten without the cuteness...

Quote from: SNP on December 01, 2010, 19:13
you win, your mathematician is better than mine. like I said, who cares?

if only I had a penny for every too-good-for-microstock 'pro' I've heard complain about not being able to get their images accepted on iStock--and then decided they are just too good and too 'pro' for microstock. it's a silly, and old argument based on dated ideas.

Try reading back to at least have a vague idea of what we were talking about... thx : )

Quote from: SNP on December 01, 2010, 17:43
my husband is a mathematician. so what.

Is he running BI at large net business? I guess your definitosn of a pro shooter is someone who learned to get a good histogram or smthng like that : )

Quote from: ichiro17 on December 01, 2010, 17:30

Quote from: Perry on December 01, 2010, 14:43

Quote from: ichiro17 on December 01, 2010, 13:50
Why would iStock/Getty buy StockXpert if it was making so much money and then promptly shut it down?  I'm not sure why its so hard to think of the other side.  I'm not saying that I'm 100% correct, but you're reasoning doesn't make sense

Wasn't StockXpert just a part of Jupiter Images (that Getty acquired) ?

So? they still shut this 'money making machine' (according everyone on this forum) down in favour of what seems to be other strategic objectives

Maybe because they didn't want their own competition? It's sad when you have to explain the obvious : ) I did ask the one of the owners of StockXpert whether they sold it because it wasn't making money for them, and the answer was prompt and short: no, StockXpert was making large profits, because runinng a stocksite is a really low cost adventure. Is that concept so hard to grasp? Really? Just ridiculous... : )

Quote from: Perry on December 01, 2010, 14:23

Quote from: molka on December 01, 2010, 14:14

Quote from: Perry on December 01, 2010, 14:12

Quote from: molka on December 01, 2010, 14:01
okay, estimate the cost of this:   (and effort? - what is that?)
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_fQ_dSgvRe_E/TPPpONUfCOI/AAAAAAAAAF4/HEJvnGM81rY/_MG_7541.jpg
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_fQ_dSgvRe_E/TPPo13gs9kI/AAAAAAAAAF0/hlDk1wl__PU/_MG_7540.jpg

"effort" is how much work, time, skill, patience, photoshop work is needed for creating the shot.

I'd say your images may be in the highest category (at least in the medium category); released model, outdoor location with lighting and a classic car. Requires scheduling, planning and time.

that's your cost estimate?

it's cost and effort. It may not have cost you $$$ if the model is your friend and the car is yours. But it clearly has taken you much more time and effort to create these images than shooting an isolated apple.

It's also very much about perceived cost/effort. "How much money/work would be required if I shot a similar image myself?".

I  only wanted to address cost, because affort... honestly I can't even comprehend that. F.e.: I remember once i wanted to shoot some christmas baubles because other than a few packshots at work, I hardly done any object shots, I wanted a little training for myself. It was very hard, became a total mess with the setup, trying to hang stuff, akward reflections.... It got me totally pissed and I gave up. : )) Compared to that, this was easy. See? If you had that job of setting an initial price upon inspection, you'd be the most hated person on earth : ) If you had a phone line ppl would be screaming at you 24/7 "do you know how * hard it is to set this up??" : ))

Quote from: Perry on December 01, 2010, 14:12

Quote from: molka on December 01, 2010, 14:01
okay, estimate the cost of this:   (and effort? - what is that?)
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_fQ_dSgvRe_E/TPPpONUfCOI/AAAAAAAAAF4/HEJvnGM81rY/_MG_7541.jpg
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_fQ_dSgvRe_E/TPPo13gs9kI/AAAAAAAAAF0/hlDk1wl__PU/_MG_7540.jpg

"effort" is how much work, time, skill, patience, photoshop work is needed for creating the shot.

I'd say your images may be in the highest category (at least in the medium category); released model, outdoor location with lighting and a classic car. Requires scheduling, planning and time.

that's your cost estimate?

Quote from: Perry on December 01, 2010, 13:44

Quote from: molka on December 01, 2010, 13:35
how do you estimate cost / effort looking at an image?? artistic quality... there are probably a handful of people in any city who can judge that (or none)

It's easy. It doesn't have to be anything too exact, just for example three categories:
3=expensive/hard (a group of people in a location)
2=medium (decently lit objects, one person in studio etc.)
1=cheap/easy (brick wall in available light)

Artistic quality is a bit more difficult... also the "needed images" factor is a bit difficult.

Artistic quality could be as following:
3=high (a "stopper", an image that looks interesting, images with emotion, creative images)
2=medium (more elaborate object shots, good solid people shots)
1=low (isolated on white objects, basic people shots)

But the main point was that the that's only the starting price, the price will go up or down depending on the demand. Of course the system could work without a special starting price, but it might take an unnecessary long time for the image to hit the "sweet spot" because the system would only allow relatively slow price movements.

My fluctuating price system would be very rewarding for images that are in high demand and punish bad stuff. It would encourage people to submit quality instead of quantity. If you hit a jackpot with your image you could have an image that both sells well and sells at a high price.

okay, estimate the cost of this:   (and effort? - what is that?)
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_fQ_dSgvRe_E/TPPpONUfCOI/AAAAAAAAAF4/HEJvnGM81rY/_MG_7541.jpg
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_fQ_dSgvRe_E/TPPo13gs9kI/AAAAAAAAAF0/hlDk1wl__PU/_MG_7540.jpg

Fotolia does smthng like that, don't they? you can increase your prices if you want after reaching a level. Yuri wrote increasing his prices a lot hardly effected sales. That shows the shots are too cheap. (doh, what a discovery).

how do you estimate cost / effort looking at an image?? artistic quality... there are probably a handful of people in any city who can judge that (or none)

RM could be extended for variable web usage, based on seo rank / alexa rank - commercial / non commercial, etc. Even more power to google : ((

Quote from: Perry on December 01, 2010, 12:31

My solution for the modern world where print is in decline: One price, one size (some sites are already trying this). Let's say $10 for a image, regardless of size. The big sizes gets cheaper and the small sizes more expensive. The current relation between size and price is just stupid. The sites should really give up the "cheap images from $1" thinking.

They are not trying, SS has been doing that for ages now... but with a very low price of course : ) The buyers love it, and SS makes a lot of money. The contributors... not so. As always.

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on November 24, 2010, 03:18
Yes I also have a friend who has an uncle who knows... absolutely nothing about running a microstock site.

You don't need to buy the unsustainable crap. It's pretty simple. The more the site grows over time the less the profit margin. Could they have gone on for 50 years with the old model. Probably. But if I owned a business, ran the numbers, and saw my profit margin dropping year over year, I'd make some changes. They wanted to make changes, and they did. It sucks for a lot of people being on the receiving end of the changes, but hey, that's business.

As far as them making a nice profit on people with poor performance, I doubt it. There's a breakeven level and the people who are taking severe commission cuts are probably close to it or below it.

well he's not an uncle, but someone I talk to almost everyday and he is a high level mathematician, BI expert at a large net company. Direct insight into payment systems, operational costs, storage cost, HR, coding, you name it. He runs them basically. There you go.

"But if I owned a business, ran the numbers, and saw my profit margin dropping year over year, I'd make some changes."

That in itself sounds ok, but given the context, it's the old greed scheme that it has to grow, and grow rapidly if possible. To this extent, it doesn't work. They do make money even on seemingly poor performers, this is a low cost business unless you advertise like crazy and they don't.

"Ultimately, it's the perceived value of the image regardless of what it cost to create."

yep, and thats very apparent in micro galleries where you often see pretty hq setups used to create junk, thats what I was talking about. It would be pretty hard to convince higher class creatives -or anyone- that they should pay a lot for a shot with crap lighting, composition and confused looking semi ugly ppl because it's a 24 MP L lens shot with strobes. Costs? The guy spent money on creating junk? He (she) is a pest, who has, and uses resources to create even more visual litter, that's the last thing the world needs. I don't think we need more licencing schemes. Just raise prices, or get rid of RF. but... how do you do any of those??

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on December 01, 2010, 04:07
While they may not have gotten the collections right, they got the idea right. Prices need to go up overall and especially for premium content.

Why should a group of models shot with a $5K 24MP DSLR be the same price as a brick wall shot with a $100 2MP pocket camera?
....
The problem is that I don't think IS knows where the line is between premium and average content. They'll continue experimenting until they find it.  At least somebody is trying.

but right there you seem to display the same attitude as IS an the rest, that has higher class creatives rolling on the floor laughing (or crying) when IS 'staff' tries to separate a real premuim content for them: coming up with only technical parameters. IS and SS is full of xxxxxxx MP 'model' shots that could make a graphic artist rather stare at a brick wall (any MP), or carve his eyes out with his nails like dr. Weir in event horizon, beleive me. : )

Quote from: jsnover on December 01, 2010, 02:36

Quote from: molka on November 30, 2010, 23:52
What you are wishing for is RM. Interesting how microstockers -which is based on RF- dream about RM in the name of fairness, after they underminded that licencing scheme and pricing. What a facepalm. : )

While it may be true that RF undermined RM, RF at trad agencies long predated microstock.

I think tightening up the licensing terms for a standard license (and reducing the print run limits a bit) makes sense, but you can't realistically do RM licensing on a mass-market scale. Extended licenses - as prepackaged RM rights - have worked well with microstock IMO.

"but you can't realistically do RM licensing on a mass-market scale."

getty and the like have millions of RM images. Extended license sucks for two reasons. It doesn't seem to cover some serious ATL print ad usage for example in most cases, if the print run is not large, altho it would be fair to ask a higher price for that stuff, like in RM. Second: almost nobody takes it seriuosly, because almost nobody takes the sites or it's contributors seriuosly, sadly. I garantuee you there many pictures purchased for EL type usage witout EL, because frankly, they dont give a fck, many don't even know about it. Tineye ain't gonna find you billboards in Hungary or south France. Actually tineye won't find you most of the stuff on the net.

Quote from: nosaya on December 01, 2010, 00:14
Not exactly RM. At least as I understand it RM specifies exactly how long an image may be used.
Also as I understand it RM often requires an image not be made available for anyone else to license during that use period.

Please feel free to correct me if I am mistaken about this.

You wanted more money if the pic is used in something 'big' (otherwise you feel ripped of). Well that's exactly what RM does. Interesting how it gets reinvented. It can exclusive for a time period, and it should be for any self respecting company that doesn't want their 'face' to pop up in the competitions ad, and that means even more money for the shooter.

Quote from: nosaya on November 30, 2010, 22:14
SJLOCKE:

So, trying to raise prices to a mid level is bad... Micro pricing is bad...  What's the answer?

I think the answer is fair pricing for better images (Vetta), fair commission for the contributors AND a better licensing model.
A national magazine (Time) should not be able to get away with running a cover image and only paying a few pennies + extended license. Neither should a national or multi- national be able to put a model's image on a multi- million dollar product (Shampoo for instance) and only have to pay a few dollars + extended license. That is just highway robbery.

A cheap image for a blog is fine. A cheap image for a website that will be changed out in a few weeks, also fine.
We need to have a better license set up for the use of our imagery.

What you are wishing for is RM. Interesting how microstockers -which is based on RF- dream about RM in the name of fairness, after they underminded that licencing scheme and pricing. What a facepalm. : ) I was amused to see that Istock, as * dumb as they always are, even have this designer spotlight thing, where ppl can see their images used in maybe even multi million dollar campaigns, and ponder upon how they got 5 bucks for 'getting involved' : ) Epic fail.