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Messages - gostwyck
5026
« on: April 28, 2009, 20:46 »
Google understands "women's health".
Absurd comparison __ I think you'll find that Google has been around a bit longer than FT and has a couple more employees deployed on SEO too. Google does SEO; FT sells image licenses. I think FT sells many more image licenses than Google.
5027
« on: April 28, 2009, 12:43 »
I just did a search to see what it would pull up....search term was womens health..Fotolia pulled up 24 hits..some had to do with womens health not many..same search on iStock...848 results..most had to do with Womens health.
Then I used womans health spelled with an a...Fotolia pulled up 47 files...all they show is womans leg's, faces and lips...good greif that doesn't even relate to womans health.
iStock pulled up 2929 and the pictures were more along the lines of womans health. I personally don't consider an isolated image of a woman licking her lips or one of legs with high boots on them relative to womans health. this were on the first results page.
If you use 'female' and 'health' then you get plenty of results at FT. Their search engine is 100% accurate to the actual keywords used __ so therefore the use of woman, womans, women, womens, female and females as search terms will all produce different results. The IS search instead tends to group gender terms together (woman, female, etc) as well as singular and plural terms. Each facilty has its advantages and disadvantages and both require some knowledge on behalf of the user to obtain the best results.
5028
« on: April 28, 2009, 05:43 »
The title itself is contradictory. You don't sell anything by giving it away for free __ you just undermine your product and the greater market for you and everyone else.
Giving images away for free is an act of desperation IMHO. If you think your work is worth nothing then why bother doing it at all? You'd be better off turning your hand to something of value rather than working for free.
5029
« on: April 26, 2009, 20:03 »
Exclusivity doesn't mean that they inspect your stuff more loosely. AFAIK they inspect all images the same across the board, you just have more uploads and faster inspection times as an exclusive member.
No, sorry __ that might be the theory but it sure isn't how it actually works. Courtesy of the zoom feature it is painfully obvious that exclusives can get away with noise, artifacts and lack-of-focus that I wouldn't even dream of uploading (anywhere at all). Some of them are so piss-poor I wouldn't even have them in my portfolio if they paid me to do so. One of the obvious differences is that exclusive images cannot be rejected for keywords but those from independent contributors can. Judging by some of my own recent rejects for keywords I'm pretty sure that some inspectors don't actually understand English at all __ either that or they're just being vindictive or protective of their own portfolio.
5030
« on: April 26, 2009, 15:31 »
Nice one! The music works very well with it too. What was it?
5031
« on: April 24, 2009, 12:10 »
Not here!...spam go away!!! 
I'd agree. This is supposed to be a forum for the discussion of issues not your personal free advertising space. If you want to advertise your products or services then the professional thing to do (as you keep lecturing everyone else about) would be to pay for one of the advertisement slots. Simply starting new threads every other day to pimp your own site/services is just spam.
5032
« on: April 23, 2009, 07:01 »
Yes but there's precious little detectable pattern to it. The best-selling image of a series on one agency can often be the worst performer at another agency and vice versa. I cover a wide range of subjects too and again I can find no pattern as to whether particular subjects do better or worse at each agency.
5033
« on: April 22, 2009, 18:22 »
What is National Trust and what kind of properties do they own?
Are they some kind of banks with branches everywhere or some landowner who owns (public) places and/or parks?
Claude
Let me Google that for you; http://tinyurl.com/c9wkqx
5034
« on: April 22, 2009, 17:13 »
Took about 20 secs to find out which so why not just say?
It only took me 10... but I'm a fast typist. 
I'm obviously very slow __ 30 seconds.
5035
« on: April 22, 2009, 17:01 »
I'm only surprised that they haven't acted much sooner (and heavier by demanding compensation too).
They have their own very high quality photo agency which has been stocked by commissioning the very best UK photographers over many years. Being commissioned by the NT is about the highest accolade you can get __ on a par with Getty or Nat Geographic paying you money up front for a shoot.
5036
« on: April 21, 2009, 19:53 »
Why restrict yourself to uploading only? If you could include doing the photography for me too, at 30c a pop for each uploaded image, then I might be interested ;-)
Since when did 'Australian' become a language anyway? I'm even more concerned about your ability to actually do the job now. I'd have thought command of English to native-Degree standard (including good knowledge of American variables) would be an absolute prerequisite of offering this service.
As an Englishman who has visited the US many times over the last 20-odd years I'm still regularly learning US variables. For example my images of 'lasagne' (how the Europeans spell it) never sold particularly well until I started including the US version of 'lasagna' within the keywords. There are hundreds of such details and it is absolutely essential to know the significant ones if you are to maximise sales.
5037
« on: April 21, 2009, 19:33 »
You should do a graph showing the amount of potential revenue lost designing graphs
Excellent idea! Mind you many of us should do one for productivity lost participating in forum discussions too. Doesn't actually seem to do SJL much harm though.
5038
« on: April 21, 2009, 18:43 »
And according to the forum codes I've been thaught, one should adress other participants of the internet forum in the exact way that person spells his/her nick. I'm sorry for writing FlemishDreams' nick with small letters, but would request that you all spell mine without large letters. Unless you're angry with me. Not that anyone has used my nick here, just mentioning it since we already are far out in the forest picking berries.
To be honest I hate this modern 'texting' trend of ignoring the basic rules of grammer (like not using a capital letter to indicate a proper noun for example). It's not big or clever and it doesn't make you look cool or trendy either __ just uneducated, lazy or stupid or all of the above. It is simply decending to the lowest level of ignorance/sloppiness of the participants and it is utterly laughable to call it a 'forum code'. A 'code' indicates some sort of standard but of course if it ever actually genuinely attained 'standardisation' __ then the ignorant, lazy and stupid would ignore those rules too.
5039
« on: April 20, 2009, 19:50 »
The saddest part of this doomsday theory is that ,for us newbies, it could mean we would never get to enjoy the spell of good income from contributing to microstock.
Yep __ I guess it's pretty much all over if you missed the boat! Never mind, it looks like designing App's for iPhones is 'the next big thing' judging by all the hype in the media. Staggering money being made apparently. Makes microstock look like mere bagatelle. NB: Sorry to Sean and others for the use of the apostrophe in 'App's'. It's just how I was brought up.
5040
« on: April 20, 2009, 15:07 »
If the top seller in microstock is moving toward other revenue streams, it probably means that the rumored point of diminishing returns is a reality we will all have to deal with. I don't think most of us as individuals are anywhere near at that point, the trendline on my graph is still very positive. I think it more proves the case that microstock is simply not that easy to scale-up as a business model __ something which I am not sorry about at all. It's a shame that people have to be so f*ing greedy when you can actually make a good living at this without wrecking the industry that provides it. In unregulated industries there's always some individuals who will 'overfish' until there's no fish for anyone. Personally I'd like to see upload limits to a maximum of 50 images per week at all established agencies as IMHO no individual contributor can consistently produce more genuinely different and creative images than that. Personally I'm happy enough to bimble about, doing my own thing and taking lengthy breaks for travel, etc whenever I choose. I've never had a 'job' before when I could just drop everything and pretty much disappear for months at a time without even noticing a significant drop in income. No need to even have a phone with you provided you can get on the internet once a week. The longer this lasts the better as far as I'm concerned.
5041
« on: April 20, 2009, 09:38 »
BTW, if one abbreviates 'professional photographers' to pro's, this is correct because the apostrophe indicates that an abbreviation has been made.
No, it isn't, although some will accept it as correct:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostrophe_(mark)#Use_in_forming_certain_plurals
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostrophe_(mark)#Greengrocers.27_apostrophes
Eh? You should have read the article more thoroughly Sean __ in my view it is both necessary and standard practice to use the apostrophe to clarify the omission in the word 'pro's'. From your article; Apostrophe showing omission An apostrophe is commonly used to indicate omitted characters: It is used in contractions, such as can't from cannot, it's from it is or it has, and I'll from I will or I shall.[33] It is used in abbreviations, as gov't for government, or '70s for 1970s.
5042
« on: April 20, 2009, 07:14 »
... I just wanna ask why IS doesn't accept images like these any more...at least doesn't accept my images that are even slightly more saturated.
You might need to go exclusive if you want stuff like that accepted ;-)
5043
« on: April 18, 2009, 16:51 »
It might have something to do with a couple of minor issues commonly known as 'supply' and 'demand'.
5044
« on: April 17, 2009, 05:47 »
I had my one of my BDsE so I'm pretty optimistic about it. Same here. Looking good so far.
5045
« on: April 15, 2009, 05:39 »
... I thought you guys are here in a forum to help each other out? This forum is a general photography forum. I feel I fit just fine in here.
Yes we help each other out __ but we don't charge for it. Perhaps you could do the same?
5046
« on: April 13, 2009, 20:38 »
Surely people don't really fall for such baloney?
5047
« on: April 12, 2009, 00:27 »
5048
« on: April 10, 2009, 06:18 »
The only math I need to know is that I would be making A LOT MORE if Fibtolia hadn't decreased their commissions
No. The math you need to really know is the effect of the increased marketing that FT state they intend spending on __ and that'll take time to show. What I do know is that the agency who have always paid the lowest % commission (IS) have always generated the most income for me from my port ... and the agency who paid the highest % commission (CanStockPhoto) generated next to nothing. What is important to me is how much income each agency actually generates for me from my portfolio. Other details are largely irrelevant.
5049
« on: April 02, 2009, 19:30 »
Yep, a total waste of time, even when portfolio size and dollar amounts are included.
I challenge everyone who contributed to this thread to describe how they've been able put this information to effective/valuable use.
Challenge accepted. I use them to confirm whether or not I should upload to various agencies and general monitoring of the overall market as it affects others comparative to my own results. I'm also interested in how newbies find things too as an indication of current ease-of-entry and therefore potential future competition. It's all good as it happens. If you do this for a living how could you not find this information interesting and useful even if you have to apply your own weighting to the various responses? If not why bother with such forums at all if you just want to live in your own bubble? If you and Sean are not interested in such information then I challenge you to explain why you bothered to waste your valuable time clicking on the thread in the first place?
5050
« on: April 02, 2009, 13:37 »
I never understand the point of these percentage threads since you can have different numbers for different amounts of time at different agencies. You don't know the amount of royalties, the number of images added per month or anything. I can't see how these stats are any use at all.
True enough they are not particularly reliable indicators on an individual basis, especially from those with small portfolios or few sales. However collectively they do at least give some indication as to how the total market is being shared out between agencies and which agencies may or may not be worth bothering with. I'd assume that even exclusive contributors like yourself would find them useful for monitoring IS's overall market share?
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