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Messages - cobalt
5101
« on: July 19, 2011, 01:28 »
RT
I find your comments and those of the other posters above very offensive. This subject is of interest for many people, especially the istock exclusives.
If you personally dislike Shank than please take your sandbox fight elsewhere. Or just ignore him, problem solved.
I really don't need you to police a thread I am interested in.
Please stay out of threads if the subject doesn' interest you.
5102
« on: July 19, 2011, 01:24 »
A thread ignore button seems like a pretty silly solution to me. Everyone can see clearly who starts a topic, don't want to be involved, don't read it.
I regularly ignore threads about other agencies that don't relate to me, I've also seen an amzing amount of whining and nonsense threads here. It's not like it is any thing new.
You can ignore anyone you don't like, it works like a charm.
You all cry that Lobo is too strict on istock, now you want even more than he does.
There may be a lot more exclusives coming here in the future, I think you need to get used to it.
5103
« on: July 18, 2011, 19:23 »
I have another question for buyers:
Are you using the istock dollarbin? How often do you look there? are there any other sites that have a Dollarbin?
I am wondering - what if the contributors had a personal dollarbin? The files that get deleted from the main search because they had no sales in 3 or 5 years, instead of sending them off to another stock site, or maybe in addition to that - why not offer a dollarbin for every contributors? (Of course only if they want, it should be possible to deactivate it)
A general Dollarbin would probably become too large if say, every year 10% of the collection (non sellers) are moved there. But if the dollarbins are spread over all the contributors and there is no central search function, it cannot become a threat to the main collection.
It would however, encourage the buyers to check out the individual profile pages a little more and encourage them to bookmark the individual artist. This again helps to interconnect the buyer/artist community.
If you have a main collection with 20 million images, why not have 2 million files (10%) spread out all over the site in personal dollarbins?
of course you can add additional restrictions (not more than 10% of the portfolio), what doesnt sell there in 12 months gets deleted etc...
Personal Dollarbins - is that an interesting idea?
5104
« on: July 18, 2011, 17:56 »
"I've been exposed to the most beautiful photography and when I'm staring at photographic artwork in a gallery, whether it's out loud or in my head, I can pick the image apart in detail without having any indepth knowledge of photography. "
That makes you a great Image Editor. Anybody can be an editor, just like anybody can be a food critic or reviewer for books. If a company will pay you for it is a different matter. Chosing designers as editors would be a very good idea.
We are mixing two different jobs here.
Image (or video, flash, illustration) Inspector is something else. Its a very technical job although you of course need a good understanding of visual communication as well. Although I am a trained image inspector, I doubt I would make a very useful video inspector although I have seen loads of movies in my life. maybe with enough training I could learn it, but there will be loads of videographers to choose instead of me.
Maybe compare it to a senior building manager or Safety Inspector. Of course anyone can appreciate the beauty of architecture or interior design, but you need very specialized training to notice the fire hazards, if the right building materials have been used, why the pipes are clogging up fast, where the tension will strike in case of an earthquake, if escape routes are wide enough for people to pass in a panic. Is the software that runs the airconditioning compatible with the other software used in the building? Is a heating with Pellets, gas or solar most efficient? And what about the latest legal requirements in bulding insurance policies?
Depending on how technical this job is who will you train for this position? Someone who has a background in engineering or a hairdresser? The hairdresser can obviously learn the job, but it will take him much longer.
Something along that line. Maybe you can come up with a better comparison. But I think you understand what I am saying. Obviously we dont need to agree :-)
5105
« on: July 18, 2011, 16:37 »
The forums are a great place for artistic talent from all walks of life to meet up. Having fun together, leads to meeting up together, shooting together etc...it also makes all shootings cost efficient, because we teach each other, model for each other, share any other costs...etc.. so the community has a strong financial effect IMO. If you always had to hire assistants, pay for workshops and tuition, pay more for the models, had to research all locations yourself and pay for using them...had to pay a specialist for "medical shootings", "sports shootings" instead of getting all the detailed subject related info for free from a fellow istocker...we would have to sell at Macrostock prices to make it work.
So apart from the fun, the forums serve a very important business function, especially when it comes to image production and social media marketing.
From there communication and reputation spreads into the wider visual community.
I am now spending more time here than on istock and I have rediscovered other forums, not just stock related. Will this affect my work? I dont know.
The forum community was an important part of the decision to be exclusive to istock. If I signed up today, I dont know what Id do.
5106
« on: July 18, 2011, 16:23 »
Forum traffic is strongly dependent on what you make of it.
If they wanted more traffic on site, they would create it. istock is a pioneer of building a web 2.0 community, so they know exactly what they are doing. If they allow the traffic to move elsewhere, it is because they feel comfortable with it.
The facebook istock community is alive and well, but it is more like a walled garden, not many new people get in there. And there are other networks/circles/twitter that people use.
I miss the old istock forum community, but I am also having a lot of fun on facebook.
And there is always the microstockgroup :-)
5107
« on: July 18, 2011, 14:57 »
"comments posted by the community of artists and staff."
You already have the answer. Also now that the RC system has made us all competitors the activity is moving behind closed doors on facebook or other forums. Educating the competition isnt a good idea.
5108
« on: July 18, 2011, 10:52 »
"the demand is still the same it's just that the supply is outstripping demand"
If they told you that "demand is still the same" they have admitted that they are not adding customers.
If you hire a salesman and he tells you he couldnt find any new buyers this year while the competition can - would you pay him a bonus?
The world economy hasnt stopped advertising, there are loads of countries and business that are still not using stock.
They can of course wait until someone else does the hard work of opening up a new marketand then buy the agency with the client contracts. Maybe for Getty that is indeed a cost efficient strategy. Although I wonder why it would still be cheaper in the days of the internet. It should be a lot cheaper to grow organically out of your own business.
But istock used to be really good at growing their own business into new markets. I mean they are adding png and editorial to reach out. But unfortunately at the moment Shutterstock is doing a much better job at attracting the buyers.
5109
« on: July 18, 2011, 10:44 »
I just signed up! See you all in Berlin!
5110
« on: July 18, 2011, 10:07 »
Will,
if you want to do stock just do it.
You cannot know if you will be a good stock photographer unless you try. And noone is stopping you from selling prints, shooting weddings or exploring anything else while doing so.
Stock photography requiers technically very clean images. I teach a class on stock photography at a school for photography that specilizes in art. The reason they want me there is because the technical demands of stock are good preparations for assignment work later.
Plus, the students can earn a little money on the side. Certainly beats serving coffee or working at Mc Donalds as a side job.
Also remember that stock is not limted to photography. I would anyway suggest to take a DSLR that does video and look into shooting video on the side.
If you work as a pro photographer you will get many clients that will ask you if you can "do the video as well", obviously unaware how much work that is. But many photographers will provide it as an additional service, so you might as well take a look at that.
It is also not true that the commissions are going down. the returns per sale have gone up a lot in the last 6 years, from a few cents to over 30 Dollars or more depending on size. Number of downloads have dropped with the price increases, but if you do make a sale, you will be getting a lot more money than i did when I started in 2005.
It is true that it has become a lot more competitive, but there are plenty of buyers out there.
5111
« on: July 18, 2011, 06:42 »
Roxx,
a pro is someone who lives of their work. There are loads of people who make a full time living doing stock. For them taking on an assignment is the thing they do on the side...and only when it really is worth it.
Personally I enjoy the freedom of working on my own time, not having to run after clients, not having to run after my money after doing my job, not having to waste my time educating clients why I can do better work than their neighbour "with a good camera".
A good portfolio brings in money even if you are ill, or while you are on assigment. You can even can take time out to train in new fields (video, 3D) without worrying where the money will come from in the meantime.
Maybe some people want to wait until they are retired before they get into stock, but I prefer the freedom that comes with stock. To be at the beck and call of clients isnt for everyone.
Nobody is forcing you into stock, but stock is certainly a very profitable business if done right. As an assigment photographer you probably have never properly understood how the business side of stock works or you wouldnt be ignoring all the money that you can make in that market.
ETA: Sean put it better...
5112
« on: July 17, 2011, 17:31 »
Well Jam must be a fan of his. 7 posts on msg and 5 deal with the shank...
5113
« on: July 17, 2011, 17:26 »
Why? He is a well known member in the community with quite a remarkable development, including his portfolio.
by the way - who are you? and your port?? Whats that like??
5114
« on: July 17, 2011, 17:18 »
Because if you know how things can happen it is lot easier to see. Not all files are perfectly clear yes/no acceptance/rejections, there is a lot of "grey area". How much "grey" is acceptable will depend on the agency and their training priorities.
Agencies can also chose from a wide pool of candidates, why choose someone for a job who has no previous experience? Who has never picked up a camera or made a video or a stock illustration?? I am sure you can train many people to be inspectors, but it will obviously save time if you take people who understand what is necessary even before training begins.
Maybe there are agencies out there, that will hire anyone, but I find that hard to believe.
5115
« on: July 17, 2011, 14:54 »
A simple "Follow this artist" button without the need to accept seems like a nobrainer to me.
I also hope they bring back the possibility to look at the latest uploads of the artists you like. Again, I dont know why they removed that feature.
5116
« on: July 17, 2011, 14:45 »
A reviewer needs to be an expert at the medium he or she is handling. So those who inspect photographs have to be photographers. They dont have to be the worlds best artists with tons of prizes, but they need to understand what they are seeing. To be able to understand how image faults occur you have to know how they are created.
An Image editor - now that is a different thing.
They have to decide on the commercial quality of a file, add them to different collections an agency has or put together lightboxes for buyers or special markets.
Sometimes the Image inspector will also be an editor, but they dont have to. Might be better to keep these jobs separate.
As for the reviewers rejecting files because they compete with their own...I am sure any agency will immediatly fire a reviewer who does that. When you inspect, you inspect. It has nothing to do with your own portfolio. And what would be the point anyway? Unless you get all reviewers to reject the files that compete with your portfolio, your colleagues will be the ones accepting the files from your "competition". Besides, nobody has a crystal ball, how would you even know if the file will sell???
Of course, reviewers are only humane, and will make mistakes, but personal portfolio preference isnt something I would worry about. Id worry more about how many cats with red eyes the poor reviewers has seen on that day, if you are submitting cat files...
Seriously, reviewers love to accept images. It is a lot more fun than rejecting a file.
5117
« on: July 17, 2011, 11:58 »
Ive been looking a lot at the itunes and amazon stores and wondered what we can learn from it. The most important insight it gave me how extremely important it is to establish yourself as a "brand", as an artist, so that people remember your name, your portfolio, your style.
No matter how many artists there are in the itunes music store - there will also be new songs and new bands and their success in the store is directly linked to the strength of their brand.
Musicians of course do a lot of outside efforts to create a following - concerts, events, interviews, website, fan events. But they always have a recognizable style. Billy Ido did make a Xmas Cd, but usually they stay within one genre with recognizable elements.
But for the stock artist I think it is important to really see your portfolio as your webshop, that you want to draw your own loyal following of buyers to. Even if people try to copy your style, you will still be way ahead of them if you offer a very comprehensive, well executed portfolio in your favorite subject. If you move deeper and deeper into a theme either by subject (everything about animal vets) or a special style (all grungy food shots) it should help your portfolio survive longterm.
You can even combine different file types (photo, video, vector...) around a certain subject or a certain style.
Doesnt mean, you cant shoot other things in between, but a speciality is important.
From this I would suggest that it is in the interest of the agencies to strengthen the customer awareness about the individual artist. Many customers are not even aware that the images, like music, are produced by individual artists. When I started buying images, I thought the images are produced by the agency. And apparently Getty has a large collection of images that were shot for them.
So just like world of music can survive with a sheer endless number of songs because we all have different music tastes, I think stock sites can hold a huge number of content to cater to different visual tastes.
On istock we already have "friends" what used to be called creative network. But unfortunately a lot of the networking in the visual community is moving towards facebook. This is good for facebook, but not for the traffic on istock. Nobody is going to search facebook for stock artists.
In general I hope agencies encourage both buyers and sellers to spend as much time on the site as possible. That will again minimize the risk of the buyers going elsewhere. And for the artist it might be helpful if they received more information about their customer type. For instance we could be given information in which countries our images were sold. Or at least the information: private buyer/commercial buyer.
We could use this information to become more aware who our buyers are and target them better. Not just with images, but with all social media. For instance, if I know my Xmas images where mostly being bought by private individuals, I would maybe create blog posts about private christmas ceremonies, home decoration etc...if my buyers are more commercial clients, I could create a blog post that focusses on easy xmas cards for companies (just an example, you can probably come up with something better).
So encouraging the artists to think of their "brand" and to educate the buyers that they are working with as individual artists encourage both to interact, could help manage huge amounts of images.
You go from just "doing searches" to matching up "visual interest groups".
So the networking function should be encouraged and enhanced, looking at the circles on google seems like an interesting soltuion. Otherwise - how about allowing buyers to collect artists with personal notes somewhere. And please add a simple anonymus "follow" function. As a buyer I dont always want to "network". Sometimes I just want to follow without being seen (and without announcing to a competing webdesigner which artists I prefer).
5118
« on: July 17, 2011, 10:57 »
"I assume you mean that revenues are holding steady, rather than actual download numbers?"
Yes, download numbers are down, but money is steady or even up, especially with V/A specialists.
"I think the breakdown I feel has/is happening can be attributed to prioritizing short-term bottom lines over protecting our brand in the long run."
maybe, i think they are genuinly trying to make all the different agencies under the Getty umbrella work together in a sensible way. But I do believe they have underestimated the power of the competition. You cant just intentionally be ready to lose buyers - you have no control over where they sign up. many contributors have the impression that there is quite a bit of arrogance there - about "cheap buyers"and how much better it is to strive for the "honorable high paying clients".
However the only thing that counts is the commercial value of an image. istock is a business, not an art club. I remember reading an interview with someone from corbis a few years ago, where they admitted that the most successful image they had in that year was a close up shot of fresh green grass.
I love artistic images, I really do. And it is great that they present two specialized collections on the front page so those looking for cover art can find them easily. But the "sort by downloads" search tells you what style the buyers want. The more you deviate from that, the more established clients you lose.
Or in my model: looking at the stats tells us that if there is too much expensive wine in the search, the coffee buyers are flocking to the coffee shops - pretty fast.
Personally I am very sceptical if it is worth dividing up the buyer streams to so many different sites (with the exception of subscription). If istock is the biggest brand with the most traffic, why not find a way to integrate all the content there? You will still need the Getty site because it is an established brand for editorial and high end Rm/RF, but shouldnt all other RF content be handled from istock??
I know they move content around a lot and sublicense to many different agencies. This seems like an old business model to me, from the catalogue days and when buyers couldnt easily compare what is on offer worldwide with a mouse click.
Wouldnt it make a lot more sense to very aggressively push one site? With the help of different collections, their sales teams can internally target specialized or regional markets. And for the regional markets, give more autonomy to the regional "stores" when they reach critical mass. Or language based stores.
But because it is all done under one brand you minimize internal rivalries and it becomes a lot easier to streamline it all from the top down. Especially the flow of communication has to be efficient. Communication problems are a very serious issue that costs tons of money because low morale lowers work effiency. Just look at how frustrated the contributors and obviously many buyers have become. It will also work the other way: if the contributors become positive and inspired, I am sure they are also good at handling the customer psychology well. You cant separate the one from the other. Either you understand how people tick and can inspire them towards your goal, or you cant.
Then of course there is the effect of social media, blogs, comments...the reputation of a company has a net effect on sales. That is why companies spend so much time and money carefully designing the reputation they want to have as a company and what they can do to achieve it.
So if they are pushing many different sites, the reputation of all these different brands have to be carefully controlled and balanced against each other. It sounds like a very expensive endeavour to me. Which makes it understandable why they would like more money from the artist (in addition to feeding their owners).
If it works - all hails to them. By the stats and the money we will judge...business is more transparent these days than ever before.
For me as a contributor the most important thing is that they keep bringing in many, many new buyers. Dilution is always a problem, but there are so many buyers out there that still dont use stock, I am not worried about dilution for the next ten years.
But if they "sacrifice" buyers as a contributor I get squeezed from two end - more images on the site and less buyers to buy them.
Current best match looks good. I hope everyones salary at HQ is strongly tied into traffic, growth and buyer numbers, not just revenue. If Dreamstime and Fotolia overtake istock in the stats I will be really depressed.
5119
« on: July 16, 2011, 15:59 »
Not necessarily. There is a huge world of business people who have never heard of stock. Certainly here in Germany there is loads of room to grow. The webdesigners of the world may know about stock sites, but all the smaller business companies?
I know that many people steal images from the web, but once the time you spend searching for the right file from image sites like flickr is more expensive than going to a stock site...plus whenever countries start paying attention to digital content rights.
China, India, South America, Middle East???
5120
« on: July 16, 2011, 14:04 »
Another question:
Amazon and iTunes must have lots more products than we have files.
any other commercial sites that have to handle large number of files and sort them for their customers?
Is there anything we can learn from them for stock sites?
5121
« on: July 16, 2011, 13:58 »
"a partner program model that includes only bargain images will never be able to compete"
I agree, especially if they are trying to position Thinkstock as a viable alternative to Shutterstock. Personally I wouldnt mind adding some of my newer files, if I get the option. The non exclsuives already have all fresh files there.
Otherwise any "bargain" outlets can have older and non selling files. I mean, that is why they will be cheap. But i didnt see Thinkstock as a place for old files.
Do you think old files really have to be moved to another site? Couldnt it all be under the same brand?
is the dollarbin such a threat to the regular collection?
I am worried that supporting many, many different sites is extremely expensive, and leads to weakening of the brand. I think this is Seans main argument against the PP program, in addition to his objection to subscriptions in general.
The problem I see is that you cant predict where customers go, if they cant find what they want on your site.
Instead of the "bargain" site you are preparing for them, they might decide to go to the competition.
5122
« on: July 16, 2011, 12:14 »
Actually I dont think there are too many images on the sites. Quite the contrary, i think there is loads of stuff missing.
Think of how many different jobs there are in the world? Just count the different areas a medical doctor can specialize in? Or a gardener? Or a builder? Or restaurants???
All the different professions and all the different business of the globe need stock images for their advertising. Many need very specific images, showing regional content (people, locations) Others always need the latest technical gadets or clothing styles.
All the different festivals of the world? Even Xmas is celebrated differently around the world.
Or family relationships? Images that make you feel "at home" will be very different across the globe.
But many of these images will not sell in the high volume necessary to keep them in the main search. And buyers in emerging markets will also not want to pay higher prices for a rare image. anyway, it can be supplied from a local artist with regional production costs.
So I believe it will become very important to develop the "local face" of a website. I know istock can be searched in 12 different languages and in some countries they have their own office (and newsletter etc...).
I predict that the regionalization of the agencies will become a lot more important in the future.
5123
« on: July 16, 2011, 12:03 »
"I don't want someone who thinks they know my business and my clients better than me making decisions for me."
best match is always an assumption of what you might like. That is why it is called best match.
What you see in the search now, is what the company thinks you will like to buy. There is programm that goes over the hundred thousands of files that are in the database and comes up with a selection for you.
All stock sites do this now.
Cas, I have a question: how often do you as a buyer go to the artists portfolio? Do you ever look at their landing page? Do you read the artists bio? Do you look at their lightboxes? Do you bookmark an artist and make notes about their speciality?
5124
« on: July 16, 2011, 09:23 »
I agree that all options should be available for you as a buyer to set the way you like. But why should you get the same initial best match like someone in China? Or Africa?
I am thinking of general searches like "business team" where a buyer in China probably cannot use a best match that serves up all American business teams. I know this buyer could add "chinese" to his search, but how many people will do that? What if he compares the results to a chines stock house that immediatly gives ethnic results and where he would add "american" if he wants to target the US.
5125
« on: July 15, 2011, 18:30 »
It is scaring many people but at the same time I know a lot of people who are reporting excellent sales. There doesnt seem to be a general drop, at least not among my friends. My own sales are very stable.
But the general loss in traffic is scary. Of course all sites are slowing down for the summer, so the graph goes down at the end.
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