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Messages - jamirae
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526
« on: February 01, 2011, 15:39 »
well.. I'm still building my ports at SS, FT, DT, StockFresh (SF) and Alamy since quitting exclusivity at istock in october. I'm slow because I have very little time outside family and the job that pays the bill, but thought I'd provide an update on my status as a new independent.
IS - downloads are about equal to what I did in 2010 but the dollars are dramatically down since I went from 35% Gold canister royalties to the new RC scheme at an Independent level of 16%.
important to note that I only have about 1/10th of my port uploaded on sites other than IS right now.
SS - is great for downloads and it is my second best earner after IS.
DT - 3rd place for me with some decent earnings, but I think I need to work on the portfolio building and promotion there to make that one start earning more for me.
FT - haven't seem to caught on to FT yet, only a small number of sales, think I need to build my port more there.
SF - not one sale there. But then I noticed that the file with the highest amount of downloads there seems to be just '9 downloads' so I'm hoping they get their marketing going soon to promote the site.
Alamy - I only just got accepted there so haven't put any more images other than the initial 4 or 5 so no sales yet.
527
« on: February 01, 2011, 10:28 »
If that is the case then that's also bad management. If you're trying to maximise profits what is happening at IS is not the way to do it. Squeeze contributors, OK, but at least have a smoothly functioning site to maximise sales. IS has always had tech problems since I've been a contributor, it's just that these feel worse at the moment.
these are the worse I've seen since the 7 years I've been with iStock. worse in terms that they have gone on and on gong on what, several months now? I lost track.
529
« on: January 31, 2011, 15:28 »
Ktools has just shut down their support forums to new registrants 
Why would they do that? Weird...
Right...?!
When I tried to register for the forums it said they have disabled new forum registrations because 9 out of 10 of them were spam. As for the 10th - their legitimate customers - I guess we are SOL 
maybe you can email them and they will allow you to register. there's been a big spam bot hitting some forum boards, I know one that I help out with has been getting about 15-20 spambot registrants a day. But I just set it to 'admin approval' so I have to manually approve the legit new registrations which are only about 1 every few weeks or so. It appears they use the same forum software (from the screenshot I saw - looks like InvisionPowerBoard) and an upgrade would probably all but eliminate the spam.
530
« on: January 31, 2011, 15:19 »
just when I thought things were starting to settle down and work as they are supposed to.
That was your first mistake 
*sigh* you got that right.
531
« on: January 31, 2011, 13:25 »
It was working earlier, I did a lot of wiki-ing this a.m.; but it's not working right now.
Yeah, why don't they just put up a page that says "We don't want your business?" In my mind, it's analogous to turning customers away when the search doesn't work. Maybe I'm just being to picky
I got a twitter message from istock telling me it only lasted for 10 minutes. Not that this makes it any more acceptable.
532
« on: January 31, 2011, 10:52 »
"iStockphoto: Still the #1 Microstock Agency (in site bugginess)"
seriously. this is really getting out of control. just when I thought things were starting to settle down and work as they are supposed to.
533
« on: January 28, 2011, 19:08 »
Another buyer has left:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=297572&page=1
ostensibly on the 'price of Vetta/agency/E+' issues, but it's hard to say, as s/he admits that these pictures are 'better' in some way than the normal-priced ones. Like I could complain cashmere isn't as cheap as cotton knits. (and hey, moths don't attack my cotton knits).
interesting. And I think once buyers throw up their arms in frustration like this, go to another site and then find that they can get an image of just as good quality at a price they can afford (and are budgeted to pay) that they aren't going to bother coming back and having to monkey around with search filters, page scrolling and so forth. Most have stuck around because they believe iStock is the only game in town to fulfill their needs and I'm guessing that is mostly because they havent ever really had a need to look elsewhere -- until now with all the bugs and recent price hikes and favoring of higher priced images.
534
« on: January 28, 2011, 13:22 »
I think as an independent you need to do IS, FT, SS and probably DT to make it make financial sense.
+1
And anything else that has a really easy upload system (e.g. canstock)
easy upload system but also buyers/sales to go with it. "If you upload, will they come?"
536
« on: January 27, 2011, 17:13 »
Funny you should ask. I dropped my exclusivity (after 6 years having only been with iStock) in mid October (it was effective then). I was just looking at my numbers from last year to this year, and in terms of downloads I really do not see a significant drop. And while November and December were both down for me, with all the site issues since the F5 fiasco, I don't know that I could really count those, but they aren't down that much anyway and seem to be on trend with the past 3 years of decreasing downloads for me (despite more uploads and improvements in my work).
January is actually shaping up to be almost exactly the same as my download count for 2010. I haven't even uploaded all my work to other sites yet, but the ones I have uploaded to I am starting to see some decent sales. (except for StockFresh, which needs to bring in buyers still -they are too new).
ETA: I dropped mine based on business but there definitely was emotion involved. I just took a good objective look at my personal situation and decided that I may well fare better as an Independent. I have not and do not plan on removing my portfolio. There is a difference between dropping exclusivity and dropping iStock completely.
538
« on: January 27, 2011, 10:57 »
I tried turning off private browsing on my laptop in Firefox, but can't seem to do it nor get the search working.
Do you think iStock notified all buyers of this issue? If not, it could result in a significant loss of sales.
hahahahahahaha! of course they did NOT notify all buyers of the issue or of any issue. They just let them stumble on it and hope that the buyer just thinks it is "user error" and comes back later. contributors and buyers both have been asking iStock to send out notices and information about these issues but they refuse to send out an email because, according to them, their email list is too large so it would be too big of a deal to send it out. yes, that is how they responded despite the fact that the "Hot Shot" and other e-newsletters continue to be sent out. One would think you could easily put in a section about site issues and resolution of the issues (or at least "work arounds" for buyers) in any of these newsletters, but apparently that is too much to ask. They want to treat the blatant site failures/bugs/issues as an "elephant in the room" and only allow control conversation in the forums for those who happen to stumble in there and find it.
539
« on: January 27, 2011, 10:47 »
Correct me if I'm wrong, but is this the first time an admin has said that PP subscription royalties will now be based on Istock RC percentages rather than canisters? Seems like a pretty big deal to just add as a side note in a thread about technical glitches.
I am not in the PP but just assumed that whatever your royalty percentage is, that's what your PP royalty is. So why wouldn't it change then with the upheaval and switch to RC royalty calculation? or did they specifically say the PP would be based on canisters still or did they just never say? (until now, of course)
The thing is that they don't count PP downloads towards your iStock RCs because "they're not iStock downloads", and now, apparently unannounced, they're using your iStock downloads to calculate your PP cents-per-download. Previously, if exclusivw, the cents-per-download was based on your canister.
AKA having their cake and eating it.
ah yes. And it appears that it never has been a "fair" deal in the first place since the PP downloads also never counted towards your canister either, correct? so they are just continuing the shite-storm on contributors.
540
« on: January 26, 2011, 19:06 »
Ladies and gentlemen - we proudly present: The partner program fiasco:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=296742&page=1
To quote Andrew (Rogermexico): Any December royalties already paid out to should have been based on the royalty percentage you had at the time - your canister level then. We've had discrepancies in the first few days that have already been paid, where people were paid a lower rate based on their current (post Jan 11) iStock royalty percentage - we are tracking those down and will correct them.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but is this the first time an admin has said that PP subscription royalties will now be based on Istock RC percentages rather than canisters? Seems like a pretty big deal to just add as a side note in a thread about technical glitches.
I am not in the PP but just assumed that whatever your royalty percentage is, that's what your PP royalty is. So why wouldn't it change then with the upheaval and switch to RC royalty calculation? or did they specifically say the PP would be based on canisters still or did they just never say? (until now, of course) not trying to emphasize one over the other, just wondering.
542
« on: January 26, 2011, 10:33 »
This just in via Twitter from an istock employee:
Join the #iStock team! We're hiring for lotsa great roles in marketing, IT, UX and more. http://istockpho.to/2ZbaoB #jobs #ycc
Maybe they're putting the royalty cut profits to good use and will hire some IT folks that can actually get the site to work properly.
or maybe it means they actually had the cajonies to fire the incompetents who caused this major epic fail of a site design roll-out.
543
« on: January 25, 2011, 14:05 »
I've started your grass-roots marketing campaign. I always mention StockFresh as a place to buy images when I see people on twitter asking for good microstock agencies. usually the tweet is something like "anyone know good places for images (not iStock)?"  I've got high hopes for StockFresh as it's the cleanest design I've seen from a buying perspective and not too bad from the contributor side either, once I got used to the interface.
544
« on: January 24, 2011, 19:07 »
It's sure nice to see more familiar folks from the forums in Istock's glory days here on MSG....
Next think you know Peebert will be here and the world will be right again
And any clever clogs who is thinking of pretending to be Peebert will really have to crank up the rhetoric - Peebert made Gostwyck seem like the church lady!
that's terrifying. I think I'm glad I never 'met' Peebert
ah yes, Peebert invented the BanHammer.
545
« on: January 24, 2011, 18:10 »
546
« on: January 24, 2011, 18:06 »
mainly photos but some vectors as well.
547
« on: January 24, 2011, 17:25 »
I would post in Ray's thread, but I'm scared...
oh boy.. first "yawningdog" and now "upsidedowndog" -- someone's gonna say it so it might as well be me... Who let the dogs out?  - Niilo.. another one I've missed for your quick wit in the IS forums. yeah, I'd be scared to post in Ray's thread, too, if I were you!
548
« on: January 24, 2011, 14:33 »
I am pretty sure they took that side navi away so that the My Uploads page would fit better in the browser (width-wise). You can still get to "upload" but clicking on "My Account" in the bottom left, then click on "Contributor Tools" and it's right there. no need to go to sitemail for it.
Nah, it's just a bug. They specifically put all that stuff in the left column for the redesign.
a bug, seriously?! geezus. this is getting beyond ridiculous. perhaps they need to call Terminix rather than relying on the programmers.
549
« on: January 24, 2011, 14:30 »
You can still get to "upload" but clicking on "My Account" in the bottom left, then click on "Contributor Tools" and it's right there. no need to go to sitemail for it.
I can't find that in the bottom left - where is it?
I only see the Shop iStock links at the bottom left.
Here's a screenshot from mine.
550
« on: January 24, 2011, 13:49 »
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