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Messages - Difydave
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501
« on: November 11, 2011, 07:10 »
When there are reports of two sales on a weekday for a contributor with a proven PF containing thousands of images, then whether that contributor is exclusive or independent there is something seriously wrong. It may not be wrong from iStock's perspective, but it's very wrong from any other view. My own sales were bad that day, and I know there are others in the same position.
Really it can't go on like this. "They" can do what they like of course to maximise their profits, but in the end it's not use to me and a lot of others like me seeing no real possibility of growth, and the nasty suspicion that if we see any growth it will somehow be taken away. I'm sure they have no real concerns any longer for whether individual contributors are exclusive or independent.
There are lots of us uploading, and seeing at best no growth. This has been going on slowly for years, but this sudden drop we have seen since the end of Summer is something new, and seems to have come at the same time as the huge influx of "Edstock" and other images from outside iStock itself. It doesn't bode well for the future.
502
« on: November 09, 2011, 09:15 »
This really is getting to the point where to mix metaphors, the grass is looking greener not having all my eggs in one basket.
Hmm __ look at the bird in the hand before you leap too.
 Sort of look before you weep?
503
« on: November 09, 2011, 08:46 »
My sales during UK business time are pretty much non-existent. Also sales during UK night time, when I used to regularly have one or two.
On some test best match searches, the results didn't seem to be much different from in the US, but I was choosing the sort of images I'm represented in, not the more 'stocky' stuff.
You can remove the "pretty much" for me at the moment. Nothing at all since some time yesterday early evening (UK time). Yesterday was very poor as well. This really is getting to the point where to mix metaphors, the grass is looking greener not having all my eggs in one basket.
504
« on: November 09, 2011, 06:07 »
Seems to be running around 5-6 days for me recently.
505
« on: November 05, 2011, 12:19 »
It still seems to me that the biggest problem with the search is that they're trying to push the content they want to sell, rather than the content that people want to buy. As far as I know this never works long term with anything.
The only thing is of course that we don't know what is really happening to sales. We can only see a part of the story, we don't see any of the "new exclusive" Agency suppliers results for instance. It might be that the search they have now is giving them the best return.
Hi Dave!
Well according to Lobo, this new best match, etc, is supposed to be exactly what buyers want and are looking for? so, according to that, if thats what they want to sell? they are taking the buyers for idiots, mind, after listening to many buyers in the IS forum, seems a pretty dismal and diletantic bunch anyway. They probably got their budget from a flee-market vendor.
Hi Chris I always assumed that comment had an element of the political in it. "We know what the people want and that is what we are giving them (whether they want it or not)" sort of thing.
506
« on: November 05, 2011, 06:23 »
It still seems to me that the biggest problem with the search is that they're trying to push the content they want to sell, rather than the content that people want to buy. As far as I know this never works long term with anything.
The only thing is of course that we don't know what is really happening to sales. We can only see a part of the story, we don't see any of the "new exclusive" Agency suppliers results for instance. It might be that the search they have now is giving them the best return.
507
« on: October 30, 2011, 07:54 »
I agree with you, I am sure IS is not only site using search algorithms fine tuned to localized markets based on ROI database datamining and I would not be at all surprised to see them manipulate search algorithms based on payout scales.
The visible analytic's the sites use on the buyer side are getting fatter and more sophisticated every year!
If they ever did this it would be an extremely severe breach of trust. Basically you are saying if you are higher up in the payout scale, istock will slow you down and show your files less in a best match search and push files from a contributor on a lower percentage level.
They already have the RC system that allows them to decide how many 40% artist they want to have, by increasing the targets anyway they like, but to then add another "filter"/downgrade via best match would be terrible.
So many people on the team are contributors as well, it would demorailze anyone if best match got abused that way.
It would probably also be very difficult to keep something like this a secret.
No, I just cannot imagine them doing that.
No one really knows. A lot of people are seeing a significant drop though. This must be either a drop in overall sales at iStock, or a drop for a significant number of people, a lot of whom seem to be on higher royalty rates. You can see why with the way things have gone in the last 12 months that people might think the worst, particularly when you think about things like how the wording of the agreement was changed to "distributor" from "agent", freeing them (in my opinion at least) of any need for treating all their contributors equally. I'm not saying they are actually doing anything to boost sales of the content they prefer to sell, just that past performance shows they are capable of doing whatever it takes to maximise their own profits.
508
« on: October 29, 2011, 08:42 »
I am reasonably convinced the current Best Match has some sort of daily change to the algorithm. That change is intended to stir up images that got buried by the old best match. Some days I see a few images sold that haven't sold in years. Other days I see extremely low sales (perhaps for years I didn't contribute much). So this best match may be "set" but it includes auto changing components on a day by day basis. My opinion.
I think you're right. the order of my own PF was quite different the other morning to later in the afternoon when it looked more "normal". When the best match was changed less often, my sales normally used to take a day or two to get back to normal afterwards. I don't have any idea why, but I saw it happen lots of times. With these rapid changes now, nothing has a chance to settle down. I wouldn't mind quite as much if the best match was giving the occasional really good day, but that hasn't been happening recently.
509
« on: October 29, 2011, 04:54 »
each week keeps getting worse and worse for me... i'm now down about 40% in weekly $ earnings from 'normal'.
Same here. This is my fourth really bad week now. The last three have been rescued at least to some extent by ELs and the PP. This week has been bad though.
510
« on: October 25, 2011, 15:10 »
I must be the odd one out, I've already beaten my 2010 income.
That old expression about not looking a gift horse in the mouth comes to mind
Everyone's experiences are going to be a little different - mix of photos and other media (or not), few mega-sellers vs. broad base of good sellers, seasonal specialties, whether you uploaded at a time when a glitch favored (or hampered) future best sellers, best match luck of the draw when a new file catches or doesn't - it's a long list. Certainly those with a substantial Vetta/Agency presence can have the potential for big wins.
It's not like I'm talking about a massive forecast drop personally, but it's a worrying trend downward. When the generally accepted best time of the year turns out to be naff as well it gets even more worrying. I've got this nasty feeling that your earlier comment about "When, not if" is right. I've had that feeling for a while now. Painful though the cure may be, I don't know how much longer I can watch this happening.
511
« on: October 25, 2011, 13:19 »
I am fairly certain that even if I had stayed exclusive, my 2011 income would have been lower than 2010,
I think you can be certainly certain. My 2011 income is going to be less than 2009 .... 
I'll beat my 2009 income, but not by much. Although if the rest of this year is like this month so far, I might well be under.
512
« on: October 09, 2011, 06:22 »
Saw this funny post today:
Marie LePage , Oct 06, 2011; 05:38 p.m.
My fiance are running our side business without it being business. We aren't charging anything. Now we're moving into a phase where either we charge $ and the client donates that $ to a charity OR the client and we do a service exchange. This keeps us away from the whole accounting, actually having a business thing.
However, is there a way to make a little money on this? Like is there a website where we could post all the pictures from, say, a birthday party, and then we can give out this site to all the attendees and they can order the prints from there, resulting in us getting some kind of cut? This also fixes the problem of everyone wanting a disc of all the photos from us.
We are very new to this. So feel free to state the obvious and redirect my efforts if I am doing this backwards or something.
http://photo.net/business-photography-forum/00ZQyh
What a great "business" where you don't charge anything! I wish I had a business like that, lol. And what a revolutionary thought - a website you could post pictures on where people can order prints. I wonder why no one has ever thought of that one before.
I'm no accountant, but if I had a "business" like that I'd be worried about the tax people coming and taking a look at what I was doing. If you're self employed then you can't just do a "service exchange" you should account for the service received at a reasonable market value. http://thefinancebuff.com/bartering-and-taxes.html discusses the case in the US, but AFAIK it's similar elsewhere, certainly here in the UK. Also I'd wonder about the case of not charging the client but telling them to give it to charity. Again I don't really know for sure, but if you're telling someone what to do with money they owe you then it might be considered to be "yours" and so taxable.
513
« on: October 09, 2011, 05:56 »
. . . If I could make forum posts, I'd add something to my old suggestion about detailed downloadable sales/refund data. If we can't get detailed reports we have no way to keep track of this stuff. And IS has demonstrated repeatedly that they can't get it right either.
For what it's worth I mentioned the need for proper accounts in the thread about missing PP payments on the iStock forums. I reported my missing payments earlier in the week, haven't heard anything back from them yet, and of course there's no easy way to check if the money has been added without going back through the sales again. What we could do with is proper accounts!
514
« on: October 07, 2011, 14:10 »
Yeah, I think I had the same sales last Saturday! It was OK-ish up until lunch time here in the UK, and then it crashed. Nothing since!
515
« on: October 04, 2011, 11:59 »
516
« on: October 04, 2011, 04:55 »
I always thought the finest whisky is the one in the glass you are holding.
Perhaps not at this time in the morning though!
Yeah, after a few shots, they all taste the same, dont they? I always polish off a few after an IS-best match, how about you? 
Yeah I need a couple after the best match changes too, but the way they've been changing at the moment I'm up to a bottle and a half a day! Had to switch to a supermarket's own blend. Like the best match it's hard to swallow!
517
« on: October 04, 2011, 04:08 »
I always thought the finest whisky is the one in the glass you are holding. Perhaps not at this time in the morning though!
518
« on: September 30, 2011, 05:58 »
While millions of people have either lost their jobs completely or have had to take a serious cut in pay, there are still companies that can afford to pay 55 credits for a small size image? Somebody's still rolling in the dough. 
Doesn't look like anyone has felt the need to download it yet.
519
« on: September 23, 2011, 06:54 »
Again, several years ago there was a thread about a new best match. Several people who had been doing OK suddenly found themselves not doing so well. "Bitter" came on the forum to calm things down. His comment to one contributor was along the lines of "We'll see what we can do about that" I've often wondered whether they can weight individual results, but ultimately that would kill sales of new files from new contributors. . .
520
« on: September 23, 2011, 06:40 »
True, but in the old days they actually used to rate files 1-5. Now AFAIK the rating is only a five and puts the file automatically in Vetta. I haven't had that happen yet!
521
« on: September 23, 2011, 06:27 »
Used to be, way back in the mists of time, that inspectors used to give a file an initial rating. That stopped five or six years ago. You could see the rating, but I can't remember how. Whether they give files any rating now, I don't know.
522
« on: September 16, 2011, 05:35 »
The whole point of best match from a buyers perspective is that it gives good quality usable content with minimum time and effort.
Oh, screw that. It's not about the buyers, heaven forfend: it's all about profitability.
Keep up at the back!
I never fort of that! Dammit you noticed me at the back of the class!
523
« on: September 16, 2011, 04:52 »
As I said before, if they put enough of this sort of material in and give it a preferential placement, they'll end up with the best match search looking as if it only has content from a few people. Some searches are already like that, not with necessarily "Edstock" but with all the other "Agency" stuff. No good saying buyers will find the other material. If a large amount of buyers looked farther than best match then this thing of putting preferred content up front wouldn't work in the first place. I'm afraid that with sales seemingly going the way they are we may be seeing buyers finding it all a turn off. The whole point of best match from a buyers perspective is that it gives good quality usable content with minimum time and effort.
524
« on: September 14, 2011, 14:34 »
It's absolutely terrible. Still dire sales. Sept=on track for being crapper than Aug.
On day average, I'm almost 1/3 down on August, and it's not getting better. Even the few sales I get are smaller sizes on average.
Yeah, last week was bad for me. Worst week for a long time. This week started off OK-ish on Monday, but it's been downhill since.
525
« on: September 14, 2011, 03:58 »
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