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Messages - VB inc
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526
« on: January 20, 2011, 12:41 »
They should make it easy for us to upload: no categories, no boxes to tick, fields to fill... just FTP and forget. Lightburner makes it even easier now.
As much as I would like to support small sites, I don't have the time to go through their ugly upload process.
Why bother? I dumped a thousand images that had made me thousands of dollars elsewhere on a new fair-deal start-up agency and they haven't sold a single one of them in a year. All these agencies are the photographers' friend until they make a mark on the industry, then half of them turn against us. Make a small site big, the way we did with iS and SS and Fot and DT and you don't know what they will do to you. And before they become big, you won't earn much anyway.
bingo!.. it seems their only friendly or trustworthy (never trust agencies) when their desperate for buyers
527
« on: January 20, 2011, 12:34 »
Think on the bright side people.
This move will surely eliminate some of your future competition if your already doing pretty well in micro. If your struggling, this hobby might not be worth your efforts anymore. Everyone acknowledges that this market has too much supply.
yes, money is the root of all evil.
528
« on: January 12, 2011, 13:03 »
i think its really sad whats going on at istock. with all these new collections, they have raised prices, and reduced commission percentages. Now theres talk about vectors having their own vetta like collections as well as editorial. All these new collections will just push further down the "main" collection that is there. This will surely annoy buyers on budgets since they will spend longer time searching and some will leave and never look back.
529
« on: January 07, 2011, 18:46 »
i'm really happy with this announcement since i will be going up a level now for vectors at 35%. I missed the original absurd target by less than 3 thousand credits and would have made it if my last three months weren't so terrible. Still dropping a level for photos but that's not a big deal for me. Overall a pleasant surprise for me.
530
« on: January 05, 2011, 00:09 »
manhattan, new york city
cigs $10-11
1 br varies wildy but probably averages out to around $2500 a month (also very hard to find a place without a broker which will cost you 1.5 months rent)
Beer $7-8
531
« on: January 04, 2011, 13:56 »
I did the same test when I became exclusive and all of the files I checked moved up in best match placement. That was only in September.
Wishful thinking, or maybe you just happened to monitor mainly the images you knew were 'on the up' whilst subconciously ignoring your lesser files that were simultaneously on the way down.
Like I said earlier it's not a mystery and, whilst we might not be able to actually write the algorithm for the best match, we can certainly prove the effect (or otherwise) on exclusive images via a few sample searches. Anyone who has the ability to count from 1-50 can see for themselves. It's not Enigma code-breaking stuff.
Funny how exclusives all desperately want to believe they are being helped by the best match despite all the evidence against it.
You should really do your test over again without the bias of the first (200 images) page on any given best match search. jump to page 3 or 4 for more accurate relevant results of how many are exclusive or not. A great stock image will sell no matter what whether its exclusive or not. I would like to think that more than 80% of peoples portfolio do not show up on the first page of best match search and if it does, well, they are super stars. Excluding the supersellers in your portfolio, more than 50% of your income would come from the other files which do get a significant bump if your exclusive. Why would anyone go exclusive if it wasnt for this increased exposure? Dont forget price plays into best match and non exclusive files are always cheaper than exclusive files moving them further back. Why do you think agency and vetta is all over the front page?
532
« on: December 28, 2010, 17:12 »
i wouldnt be surprised if the culprit was somehow involved in microstock. maybe a contributor or an exclusive really upset over the sep announcement
533
« on: December 10, 2010, 12:23 »
Probably a little off topic since the OP cares about payouts and not the actual buyer market in china since i dont think there is a large enough market yet. In 5 years, i think there will be.
Are there enough content creators right now in china? Is the chinese government making money off them? taxes and such? Im not familiar with the process there but I cant see the leaders of that country doing anything to protect western intellectual property rights that they dont make a penny/yuan on. Im sure its like this in any country where the govt has no stake losing revenue due to copyright infringement.
534
« on: December 09, 2010, 16:21 »
The buyer works in a company = The Buyer shops where he/she is used to, as long as he/she can find the images he/she needs.
The buyer is a poor freelancer paying for the images himself/herself = The Buyer might shop around for lower prices.
And...
The buyer works in a company = his/her boss says the budgets been cut and the buyer needs to start watching pennies.
The buyer is a poor freelancer = the client says the budgets been cut and the freelancer needs to start watching pennies.
I've been in both positions. 
If we're talking about istock, I think what you have experienced as a buyer might not be the majority of the buyers on this site. Especially now with agency. I think the majority of the money spent on stock footage comes from larger companies who are used to paying traditional prices and is really enjoying cheap micro prices. Only when vetta came, buyers noticed some sort of change in pricing. The designers that work in these firms have no choice to shop around because the company has an account with steep discounts and they buy huge packages. A couple of friends of mine are designers in these fortune 500 firms and they dont really care about the price themselves. whatever works for their projects. Im really interested in what the percentage of small buyers there are in micro land. Spending less than $500 a year would be a small buyer in my eyes. i used to be one before contributing.
535
« on: November 23, 2010, 15:47 »
thats you... Im sure reviewers take one look at your sn and get the big approval stamp ready. Your already in the club so this would be the last thing for you to even think about.  What are the rules for inspecting at istock? or anywhere for that matter. Is there a way for anyone to find this out? It seems highly plausible that inspectors would be more generous to approve their colleagues and friends while rejecting most of their competition for very minor things that could go either ways.
Of all the stuff that goes on at IS, this could be the lowest thing on my list that concerns me.
536
« on: November 23, 2010, 15:20 »
What are the rules for inspecting at istock? or anywhere for that matter. Is there a way for anyone to find this out? It seems highly plausible that inspectors would be more generous to approve their colleagues and friends while rejecting most of their competition for very minor things that could go either ways.
537
« on: November 22, 2010, 14:38 »
were you around in 2008 when illustrations went to the back of the bus in the best match?
I was a buyer for years and only starting contributing around 2008
538
« on: November 22, 2010, 12:09 »
im an illustrator too and after the f5... my sales dropped 25%. really worrisome trend. The only positive thing we had going b4 the f5 was our complex files got the vetta bump. they take that away from us too. Our files are now buried under agency and vetta. Im an exclusive there but that is almost meaningless since i am a second rate exclusive in that club and i believe for profits sake, istock is slowly closing its doors for the majority of the contributors that that gave their success. Now they are letting in others and giving them the exclusive crown special status and uploads thousands of agency images at once which immediately shoots to the top of the broken searches that only shows agency stuff.
Crazy times on istock... Lets stay on that crazy line and lets pretend for a second i was istock . My desperation for more sustained profits leads me to create an f5 update where I have the ability to tweek the best match to my favor. Can i write code that automatically puts a certain contributors files 200-500 images down the regular search order? What if its certain contributors that are very close to their next target level for next year which will result in thousands of dollars difference.
I was on track to get to the 35% for vectors there when they announced that fiasco. All i have is speculations since there is lack of transparency
539
« on: November 22, 2010, 11:34 »
God why is this crappy site still around?? Its the most offensive site out there for contributors. You guys really need to stop contributing to this bs site even if its a hobby for u guys since it creates the impression to the general uninformed public that you can get vectors for dirt cheap and time spent creating them isnt valuable. you are really working for pennies. Sites like these really hurt professionals in the long run.
540
« on: November 14, 2010, 19:57 »
Great thread and congrats to all the people building a store for their own work. Here's mine using Ktools:
http://www.mystockvectors.com/
Hey nice site! I would love to hear that your site is doing well! Then maybe more artists can have their own and get away from the agencies ripping us off.
541
« on: November 14, 2010, 15:12 »
Do you think that Istock should never have gone above selling Large images for $1 then, other than perhaps adjustments for inflation? Was it 'immoral' or 'deceitful' for them to have done so? After all they were making plenty of profit even at that price.
To me, you are comparing apples to oranges. Of course I think all of the sites should try to move the prices up, both for their own sake and for contributor's sake. But having so many different prices points on the same site (IS), to me, is smoke and mirrors. Companies that produce a product often times market it in Walmart or Target for one price, but if they market it at Neiman Marcus, they can mark it up hundreds of percent more, because of the clientele. I get that. But IS is doing it all under one roof, and the result is just confusion and the appearance of deceitful practices. Just IMHO.
But hey, it's all about getting away with whatever one can, right?
I think istock is trying to capitalise on the major corporate buyers they now have with deep pockets. Placing Agency and Vetta files in front of the searches probably annoys buyers with smaller budgets. Istock has to do it all under one roof since the traffic and money is there. istock created the microstock market. i think getty is trying to kill it.
542
« on: November 13, 2010, 15:32 »
Unions wont work with this business model. Unless u get 100% of contributors willing to yank out their files or disable them, there will always be people that benefit greatly now that their buried file on page 100 appears on page 1. Currently, this crowd sourcing model has too much supply for the demand. I really dont get why some contributors celebrate 10 million files or 20. less piece of the pie for all
543
« on: November 11, 2010, 15:54 »
i hear the person that leaked this info to the media got fired... haha
544
« on: November 11, 2010, 15:53 »
This is what a company should do...
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20022318-93.html?ref=nf
Well I got my adsense banned with them a little while ago because someone started clicking my links. This was a person I know, but not something done at my request or with my knowledge - basically someone who had decided they wanted to "help me out". I had to ask around to see what happened because google don't actually give you any reasons about what's happened. Their response was to close my account and refund the balance to advertisers (about $60 which had been built up over about a year). Their "appeal" mechanism is an automated form that you can fill in, which automatically sends back a response a few days saying your appeal has been denied - again with no other reason or correspondence.
From what I've heard, this experience has also happened to much larger adsense earners.
In microstock terms, its the equivalent of an agency shutting you out, taking all your money and never answering any inquiries as a result of an event that you have no control over. Google may be really good with the PR, and have fuzzy slogans, but from what I've seen now, at the hard edge they're nothing but a ruthless advertising business.
They are trying to prevent fraud and it should be a black and white issue when it comes down to that. Im sorry about your case but if im google, i would have done the same thing because letting that happen would be an invitation for so much more fraud. The person that tries to help you out is really at fault but very hard to prove you werent involved so they make it black and white it seems.
545
« on: November 10, 2010, 18:21 »
who uses aol anymore?
546
« on: November 10, 2010, 18:18 »
547
« on: November 10, 2010, 14:28 »
This is terrible and it absolutely devalues the creative industry. Designers, illustrators, photographers are all artists. I cant see how much cheaper you can whore your (mediocre) talents out for. I dont even agree to the SS subscription model and seeing this makes me angry. Never mind that the samples shown are quick simple to make designs thats probably ripped off from somewhere else online. What it does is to increase general perception that creativity isnt worth much. The untrained eye which is the general public cant tell the difference between a good business card and a great business card. Same thing goes for a logo.. its branding.. its thought... creativity... now packaged up in 32 pieces for a couple of cents...
Who buys all this anyway??? people who will sell it somewhere else
end rant...
548
« on: November 09, 2010, 18:56 »
Given that they have mulltiple openings for App developers, it just seems like they have some incompetent IT staff. I would expect IT to be top priority for any company that deals in financial transactions online after maybe marketing. What else do they really need to do besides those two.
Maybe the top IT people from istock are still the same people who started with the company in its infancy and isnt qualified to oversee an operation the size of istock.
549
« on: November 08, 2010, 20:44 »
there goes my conspiracy theory!! Worst monday in over a yr... feels like a sat.
550
« on: November 08, 2010, 18:02 »
i got one at 3:32pm... the last one i got was from 10:32 am so i was suspicious... its is an extremely slow day here for me...
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