frankly I don't think Lobo should care, and I doubt he does. I'm also amazed how many people here who regularly complain about iStock have no clue who Lobo is, what his name is etc. so much for understanding the agency you're contributing to. he is indeed a real person, just one person...not like scout.

I've had my own run ins with Lobo, but most of the time we've either exchanged helpful sitemails or simply left it at agreeing to disagree. he's quite a nice guy in my experience and I would NEVER want his job because I wouldn't be able to contain the sarcasm for more than one day in his role.

incredibly ironic how rude, sarcastic, belittling and uninformed people are with one another here -and yet many some of those same people are claiming to be hurt or affronted by Lobo's sarcasm.

FWIW I regret bothering to express my honest opinion.

I hope you will continue to post here. this forum is a schoolyard much of the time. but embedded in the insults and sophomoric reactivity is a lot of good info. I find your posts valuable and intelligent. it's extremely frustrating to watch posters like you getting bashed while other serial posters here do little but state nonsense and hurtle insults and receive standing ovations for it. keep posting please. it brings at least a little balance to this forum.

The new appointment has presumably not been employed to be the best friend of 7 million members. I am relieved that we did not get something in the style of an inaugural address. We just want her to quietly get on with the job. Beyond that it would be dotty to try to divine potentially negative nuances from a brief understated introductory 'hello'. She said something about working towards better serving the clients. Good. That's what matters.

I wonder what people expect today - other than to hope that the business as a whole will be run to be successful including iStockphoto as a part of that. It's their business. iStockphoto is mature. It is a still a fantastically democratic entry point - nothing like that existed all those many years ago when it was first developed. But that was a very different time and a very different economy. We might as well be remembering the 60s. Times are very different now.

Look today through the work which is coming online via iStockphoto and flickr. Much of it is amazingly high end top notch and creative stuff. From people who never post anything in any of the forums. Or look at 500px, tumblr or your favorite Flipboard feeds etc. Whilst we are posting our opinions on the forums there is a whole new (and old) generation of amazing photographers and designers who come without this sense of pre entitlement. The challenge and inspiration should surely be to try to make better work rather than moaning all the time ?

I usually agree with your posts....but I'm afraid I disagree about the new and old generation of amazing photogs & designers WITHOUT a sense of entitlement. I think the sense of entitlement is at an all time high. new contributors (in general) seem to think this is easy money. thankfully most of them get bored after the novelty wears off and they see how much work it truly is.

Her "about me" post was very much one from a corporate manager not any sort of inspirational leader.

 I completely and utterly support the notion of making the site better for buyers - easier to navigate and to find the images they want at the price they want to pay. However I think it might have been wise to say something about contributors if in fact you had any thoughts at all about them as part of your management of Getty's crowdsourcing division (the site formerly known as iStockphoto)

I agree

There is truth in that. I'm not happy about the flexible exclusivity given to some members, when I work hard to honour my exclusivity agreement, which forces difficult limitations on selling my work. I hope the new management realizes the significant longterm value of prioritizing suppliers. Otherwise quality work will become less and less available to agencies. All it takes is one very prominent disgruntled contributor to lead by example.

There's only so much business you can do selling P&S crap files on flickr

these big shifts are very unsettling to say the least and I'd prefer it was just done without these tidbits of impending announcements about what I think will be a major paradigm restructure in which they're going to separate out files into collections. I think as Paulie said above, we're looking at a splitting out of content into tiers...and I suspect it won't be optional anymore where files go. I'm not happy about that.

if I play devil's advocate - I do welcome a restructure that includes divvying out content wisely into collections if it means that content will get more and broader visibility. however, if any content starts being mirrored in a greedy attempt to get paid at all levels, then I'd feel as negatively as I do about the current incarnation of the partner program.

in regards to Kelly - I'm fortunate to have met him in person before this shift happened. Kelly is an accessible, kind, genuine and truly nice person. He's intelligent and accomplished, but incredibly humble and unfortunately I think that has worked against him in terms of communicating with the community. we're a very tough crowd. I don't know what his new position entails, so I have little to say about it. but I wish him the very best in Manhattan.

hmm, I wonder if it was an oversight or a comp used accidentally. I've had an image in the Drudge Report, which they bought legitimately and they're high profile enough that I can't see this being a case of stealing an image. definitely follow up with the agency....

Then there really wasn't a point to the thread was there? Being exclusive doesn't mean I question less, in fact it means I'm risking far more than you are. That risk is a calculated risk that is almost always cut down to cheerleading or blind faith by many (certainly not all) posters here. I'm sorry you don't feel exclusives have a valid POV....because I guarantee that we're far more aware of what's happening on iStock than many of those here who simply join the negative chorus without any firsthand contributor knowledge.

lol...Chris Farley....nothing beats that guy in a Chippendales costume

pros are businessmen, even more so then photographers and most collegues of mine and old pros are supplying to micro, RF, etc. I cant see many turn their nose at money.

Exeption being perhaps the worlds, two or three most successful and famous RM, stock-photographers.

I agree with this. I would add there's also a group of 'self-proclaimed pros' who turn their nose up at anything other than what they currently shoot. they've probably sold a few good RM files or shot a couple of big weddings and think they're are above shooting stock...whatever, there are twits in every industry. not my or your problem, right....

Quote from: SNP on July 21, 2011, 08:22

I had no idea so many people here were such twits when it comes to geography. we're only the second largest country in the world in total area. you might also want to read about country codes before making such silly statements...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country_calling_code

Actually I am very good in geography, and I know Canada very well. Still, Canada uses the same code as USA, therefore my joke.

And since we're talking about geography, Brazil is not a Spanish-speaking country and our capital is not Buenos Aires.

I certainly wouldn't refer to Brazil as Spanish speaking, nor do I think they suddenly annexed Argentina's capital city...I don't know who did, but it wasn't me.

"The Istock forum will never again be the place it once was.Sad for some but of no concern to the majority.The negatives have outweighed the posatives these past 18 months.They will be further developments this year.I might of inadvertly mentioned some of those in the Istock forum and a slight panic ensued along the line of me being a whistle blower.That was never going to be the case..."

The forum is a business tool, how can doing business be negative??

The customers are not going over to Shutterstock because they like the Shutterstock forum more. There is very little forum traffic compared to before but that is not bringing the customers back.

Are you trying to say that they are planning to close the forums down???

I would take just about everything shank is saying with a big big grain of salt...in London, at one seminar we all had a brief discussion about the tone communication (or lack of it) has taken in the forums. a few contributors expressed their frustration with forum communication and TPTB responded with feedback about their perspective, and that was that. Shank seems to think he was privy to all sorts of big secrets...guess the rest of us must have been snoozing during those disclosures  

um, no, we're not Americans....we're North American......big difference.