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Messages - Jo Ann Snover
5276
« on: July 31, 2012, 15:42 »
I think a coop is a great idea. I joined Warmpicture early on for exactly that reason. It's been a bumpy ride. I remain interested in participating if a viable alternative to the big agencies presents itself.
One caveat is that I would not be able to be artist exclusive, but I would be willing to produce some exclusive content, assuming that the site was a serious attempt, and assuming I could make it un-exclusive at my discretion if the site doesn't take off.
+1 I joined WarmPicture after I left exclusivity with IS. I've had some sales there but as Lisa mentioned, it's been a bumpy ride. One big thing is that although Dan has invested a ton of time and money in it, the software that runs the site just isn't great. And given the massive fixing it required, even if the upgrade to the new version of Ktools offered better features, it wouldn't be simple. I often wonder if there isn't some way to take a nice site - like StockFresh - and use that as an artist's collective. Seems to me it's never going anywhere as a competitor to the existing agencies, but the site looks decent and operates well... One of the aspects of WarmPicture that helps a lot is that it doesn't take anyone who wants to join - it has to be someone with an established portfolio and sales track record. That allows people to upload without an inspection service - but you can't do that if you take people who might upload images with logos, unreleased property or people, etc. I rather like the idea of using the existing agencies as a training ground - schooling contributors in all the no-nos for royalty free stock - and then letting them graduate after enough sales to a self inspection service. Us using the agencies would make a nice change from them using and abusing us 
5277
« on: July 31, 2012, 01:08 »
I think if you look, L and XL went down too - from 45 to 40 and from 48 to 45. XXL went from 55 to 50
5278
« on: July 30, 2012, 23:25 »
When you talk about "sales drop", I think we need to differentiate two things. DLs drop, yes, very badly; revenue drop, heck, no.
I guess my question was, from iStock's point of view, if the strategy of upping the price of E+ was working well - that the drop in downloads was more than offset by the rising prices - why would they cut prices?
5279
« on: July 30, 2012, 20:00 »
So are we to take from this change that the higher E+ prices (esp having so many in such a short time) had resulted in sales dropping? I can't think of any other reason they'd do it. So far, they've left P+ prices alone, thank heavens. As far as XS files getting cheaper, I think when you jack the price up so much higher for the smallest size - XXL sizes, E+ is double exclusive price; with the old pricing of 12 credits, E+ was triple, and it's now down to 2.5 times - perhaps you hope to have the buyer pick a larger size to get "better" value? There's a local ice cream store that has three sizes and the medium size is only a few cents more than the small. It always feels like such a waste to order the small size, which is I'm sure what they intended. Problem with that strategy is that many people will just go somewhere else for ice cream And I still see a decent proportion of XL and up sizes being sold, whether for bus wraps or magazines, who knows, but I think the demise of large size sales isn't here yet.
5280
« on: July 30, 2012, 18:27 »
Not sure which software you're using, but within limits, Photomatix is pretty decent at removing ghosting as a result of grass/leaves/etc. moving in a multi-exposure HDR. You indicate the areas that have ghosting as part of the process - it's not perfect (I just finished cleaning up some areas in trees that it didn't manage to handle, but it wasn't bad)
HDR will do something slightly different from a ND filter, but that's certainly an option to consider for a very windy/mobile situation. This forum is focused on selling images as stock, and with HDR the main issue there is not going crazy with the surreal look or you'll find most of the agencies won't take the image.
Welcome to the forum - do you have a portfolio at any of the stock sites yet?
5281
« on: July 30, 2012, 14:22 »
They took the Veer images off Alamy, which left us with no current problem, but the big unresolved issues for me were (a) where does it spell out what portion we get of money made via partner deals (and I don't want my regular Veer royalty if that leaves them with a huge part of the total) and (b) they can't upload Veer images to sites where we'll be competing with ourselves - sites where we can upload directly or where other sites are already partners - without giving us an opt out. Veer has been completely silent since taking the images down from Alamy.
The fact that their contributor communications make iStock look talkative is also not good, IMO. We had to find out about the Alamy thing because contributors noticed and kept following up - other than saying "my bad", I never saw anything remotely like Veer committing to do better in the future
5282
« on: July 30, 2012, 12:11 »
It's a weekly limit, and it used to be 50 for everyone. A month or so ago some people started to see lower limits and we have no clear idea why. I still have 50 and I haven't uploaded to Veer since the Alamy debacle - no word from them about that, the changed limits or just about anything. When you're trying to upload a whole portfolio, 50 a week is tedious. As I've put that on hiatus until there's some sign that Veer is taking contributor issues seriously - that they can't just do whatever they like with our content without asking or compensating us fairly - I've temporarily stopped caring
5283
« on: July 26, 2012, 09:12 »
I am fairly sure SS uses automated software to detect uploading again something that was previously approved and later deleted.
I deleted many of my images from SS when I became exclusive at IS and then later uploaded those again when I returned to independence. With the first of these I got a rejection notice that said something about it being a requirement to include a note to the reviewer explaining why you were uploading something again that was previously in your portfolio.
My reason was that I had been an exclusive and was now returning - what will you put??
5284
« on: July 24, 2012, 11:34 »
Things have seemed OK for the last few days, but like Dan, this morning I can't load the dashboard, even with a couple of refreshes.
After the utter debacle of the Alamy partnership I had expected some sort of follow up communication from Veer - via blog, contributor newsletter or here. Then with these outages, I looked for something in the blog. Nada.
Are they just walking away from this - no new development or fixes and just let things chug along hoping to pull in a little more cash from their investment? I stopped uploading when the Alamy thing happened and haven't restarted - waiting for some sort of statement of where they're going with partnerships (and our royalties on such deals).
I periodically get a burst of optimism about Veer - that perhaps it has a future as a top middle tier site. Not feeling that right now.
5285
« on: July 23, 2012, 22:54 »
I think things have changed in the last year or so - once, I think there would have been more of an effort to work things out. But contributors are now costs to be controlled, not partners.
I think it's (once again) sad to see how iStock is treating contributors, but I'm glad that the person is going to get on with trying to improve his situation vs. just hoping that somehow iStock will wake up to the dreadful way he's been treated and change what they're doing.
5286
« on: July 22, 2012, 20:21 »
My original post was more coherent then that. Not sure what happened.
It looks as if you used language that the forum doesn't approve of It automatically removes swearing, racist stuff unless you fool it by inserting punctuation or numbers, etc.
5287
« on: July 22, 2012, 16:15 »
I worked in retail a long time ago - but what's your point? If you have some additional insight to offer, then please offer it. Otherwise, what does asking about our employment background do to shed any light on the issue?
5288
« on: July 22, 2012, 14:10 »
There was a lot of discussion about this sort of use a few years back when it first came up. I'm still not thrilled that the store doesn't have to buy any sort of license at all to show the images in their web store, but as far as notion that the print sellers are making hundreds or thousands, that's just not what's happening.
They charge for the print or wallpaper, but they have costs for paper, ink, amortizing whatever printing equipment they buy, staff and shipping in addition to the cost for the image. In theory, with this print on demand setup, if they sell a second print they must buy a second license, but I doubt the agency ever polices this.
If I recall, Fotolia's argument was that the purchaser of the print could buy a license to the image and then take that to get the wallpaper or print made, so why shouldn't it be OK for the shop to make the purchase on the buyer's behalf. There is certainly a logic to that you can't argue with given a royalty free license.
5289
« on: July 20, 2012, 20:01 »
...How does one get a CSV from IS?
From the user_view.php page, click on the Stats tab and you'll see the CSV button. If you want to get monthly totals for the year, you have to select Monthly from the drop-down list and then select CSV button. As far as I know you can't get details per file (i.e there's no CSV button the file download list) but this might help you to find an administrative adjustment which possibly is the missing money. Their accounting is hopeless - lots of things that we have had some info on (like the back payments for EL licenses for exclusives a while back) they got wrong. They acknowledged it was wrong but said that as it was a bit over they were going to leave it as is! I don't think there is any excuse at all in saying that the amounts are small, however that does reduce the incentive to fight them over things.
5290
« on: July 20, 2012, 14:36 »
Do you know where this software is extracting the two pieces of data that don't match? You'd have to spot check something to be sure that this isn't a bug in their code (with respect to scraping data from iStock). Have you looked at IS's own CSV data to see if that helps explain anything?
As the others have said, I don't use Microstock analytics and wouldn't give my login information out to do so, so I have no experiences to offer.
5291
« on: July 19, 2012, 12:02 »
I don't have many refunds, but yesterday I received one for a sale from February 18th for $7 - they did give me the file number. I know they've refused to provide reasons (which they once did) and refused to answer support requests for a specific reason, but I think it is just outrageous (a) to allow a refund so long after the sale and (b) not to be specific about why.
And as far as not responding to support requests, I've had that experience too - I have a ticket from May 4th that I've added an inquiry to June 4th (ish) and July 4th (ish) to ask please to get an answer of some kind. Silence - being ignored really gets under my skin (but it's not as important as this guy getting so many refunds).
5292
« on: July 18, 2012, 22:19 »
My first page (200) by best match looks reasonable - more new files up top but 17 flamed images on that first page.
However, the old non-sellers on that first page include dollar bin images along with the "regular" and P+ files - I thought dollar bin was separate, but perhaps they're messing with results as they plan to include dollar bin in search results in the near future?
5293
« on: July 18, 2012, 14:16 »
I'm sure his stuff will do well anywhere he chooses to sell it. I wonder what was the final straw for him (not that it matters, but I'd love to know 
5294
« on: July 17, 2012, 19:59 »
I don't remember anyone hitting the jackpot before - very glad for you as it's a nice surprise.
For that to happen on a Monday (vs. a weekend) seems like a bad sign overall. I assume most new subscription buyers will go for Thinkstock vs. IS subs even if they want to stay in the Getty family.
5295
« on: July 16, 2012, 15:15 »
Belated congrats to both of you on the $10K milestone.
Some part of the split between subs and everything else depends on when you started. I was with SS from November 2004, so my all time totals include a lot of early sales at 20 and 23 cents per (23 cents was an early-contributor bonus that survived until the base rate went up to 25 cents for all). At the beginning, no ELs or on demand to bring the total up.
Also, I have a 3 year gap from 2008-11 (exclusivity at IS)
But my all time totals are 71% subs, 14% ELs, 12% OD and 1.5% singles and a 39 cents RPD. But if you look at July so far it's 77 cents and June was 73 cents, and the split for June overall was 46% subs.
Another way to look at how earnings have increased is that I made nearly as much in the last 12 months at SS as I did there for 2006, 2006 and the first half of 2008 (and my portfolio is the same size or smaller than it was then). The raises may have stopped but the sales volume and higher prices have kept earnings up.
5296
« on: July 16, 2012, 14:07 »
I'm happy to see the change but have mixed feelings about DT's "See, we listen to you and improve things." message.
It is true that this isn't the first time that DT has responded to contributor feedback by changing a program - going back to early days when we protested the 1 year hold on uploaded images and they cut it to 6 months. At that time we were able to do it in the DT forums as the "ban all dissenters" mentality wasn't so strong.
But they didn't make the change in response to contributor feedback or they'd have done it in November 2011 when various people complained in their forums - and I wasn't thrilled then about the way they tried to fob us off with the notion that it had been this way from the beginning but a bug had prevented it from being implemented. Lee's blog and persistence provided the kick in the backside that just coincidentally opened up their ears to contributor feedback. That's not dialog, but just a little power play arm wrestling where DT figured the PR black eye wasn't worth it.
It's just depressing that without the big stick, the right thing seems to be so elusive to so many of the agencies.
But thanks to Lee and Tyler - shining a bright light on bad behavior is a great second best to the agencies treating contributors reasonably just because we're long term partners in a good business.
5297
« on: July 16, 2012, 13:42 »
thinkstock is 20-30% of my sales at IS, i would think twice before removing my pics from TS.
i also don't see the point about all this negativity on TS ... as if selling a photo for half a dollar on IS or SS was so much better ?
if you do micros you accept you will sell for a pittance, period.
While I was exclusive I was very vocal about how bad for exclusives TS was - I haven't changed my mind about that at all. I won't rehash the debate, but the bottom line is that I believe it's part of Getty's plan to wean exclusives from their higher royalty rates and get everyone to 20% max for RF across the board. Just as I can't see turkeys voting for Thanksgiving, I saw no reason for exclusives to help Getty out - and even if the end result is inevitable, delay is good and in the interim the holdouts won one increase for exclusives in the TS payouts as IS tried to tempt more to supply the site. However as an independent, my only choices were to put up with TS or remove my portfolio from IS. Given that, I've been pleased to see the total rising each month from TS. I don't know that there's any growth in the site overall as I think my increases reflect the increased availability of my port (they're now up to 1,700+ of 2,500+). So it's like adding another agency the size of 123rf or DT each month to my totals. I'm not worried about increased theft potential as my work's all over the place as it is. So it's a bit of extra cash from a situation that isn't good for contributors. Given I don't think I have any influence over the long term anyway, I'll take the cash in the short term
5298
« on: July 15, 2012, 15:32 »
I haven't been able to access the dashboard (other parts of the site work) since last weekend or so. It's really not of much concern as sales are so sluggish there, but I find it rather telling that they leave something broken for so long - and no blog entry or any other indication this matters to them in any way...
5299
« on: July 15, 2012, 10:19 »
I don't have any direct skin in that game, (IOW no real reason to care if Yuri succeeds or fails with his own site) but I think that he sells a one-look plastic fantastic type of stock. It's hugely successful but it really is so homogenous. I can't see it becoming dominant unless he broadens his reach a bit.
5300
« on: July 14, 2012, 21:25 »
Really doesn't matter whether they care or don't, it's what they do that matters. And my guess is that in typical corporate fashion they'd say it is still the plan but the implementation has been delayed. IOW it isn't a broken promise.
The flip side is that no one (or almost no one) will believe them if they say in the future they're going to do something - they'll wait until something actually happens to act. That is the only rational response when faced with someone who has repeatedly not done what they said they would. Even with the recent PNG announcement and shelving there were people who made files available in anticipation of the launch (as iStock requested) only to see that work wasted when the project was cancelled.
Possibly they feel that now they have (potentially anyway, if they can ever get the connector working properly) plenty of Thinkstock content with the forced inclusion of all indie files and thus have no need to try and provide an incentive to get people to participate?
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