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Messages - OM
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551
« on: October 23, 2012, 19:08 »
Yup. SS faster than FT on my last upload. Maybe my upload isn't large enough to be of any importance. 
552
« on: October 18, 2012, 19:45 »
Clearly uploading works..........hope it keeps up for you in sales. I've sorta given up on FT. Started at the beginning of 2008 (I think). Uploaded regularly in the first couple of years to (gasp!) 200 images but success spurred me on to increasing that to 300 before the rot set in.....ie upload more for same reward or less reward. Now, I upload occasionally and also delete some never sold stuff so that the 300 stays the same! This Pilgrim's (lack of)Progress can be seen vividly in the charts: Interestingly, dl's held fairly stable until recently but also took a big hit in the last couple of months. Earnings up to start 2012 were influenced by the fact that I used to be exclusive there.
553
« on: October 16, 2012, 17:12 »
Well 6 days later guess what I have in my Account now??? $17.70 Like WHAT!!! I lost $0.30 in 6 days and did not make any money!
I think I might just delete all my images!
thats shocking, the only explanation is really in the searches that is connected to the regular uploading which for them isnt enough in your case, I dont think that 150 images in a year is low but I believe FT is really wanting a few files every week even if those dont sell much, pretty much that will somehow get you a better placement in terms of searches...
your latest file is from the end of January 2012
It may indeed be the number of recent uploads that helps get you pole position in searches. In the example I quoted above where every keyword produced a position on p1 for that one image, I noticed that the contributor uploaded/had approved 290 images in the last week and 1,300 in the last month. Wow! Seems to work for them too. I counted 1,000+ downloads for those 1,300 images submitted in the last month. Per ardua ad astra an all that stuff but I'm afraid I'm not joining in that sort of competition........I prefer my own pace.
554
« on: October 16, 2012, 07:20 »
I'm new to SS (July '12) but it's already motivating me to create more stock for them! Initial submission........all 10 accepted. Following submission of 30......all accepted. Following 20+.........95% accepted and rejections for acceptable reasons. Following submission...90% accepted and the last submission only 50% accepted......of which, 50% of the rejections I can see their point (sort of).......but I'll know better for the next submission.
Just over 100 images since the last acceptance 7 days ago and my month total is already $50+. 
New stuff sells. Older stuff keeps on selling and although the majority of sales are subs there's sufficient ODD's and SOD's to keep me happy..........even an EL in the first 50 days! Yes sirree, SS is motorin' 4 me. Think that means I luv 'em right now!
Great to hear that your having a good experience at SS! Being as you joined in July you don't actually have anything that even remotely qualifies as 'older stuff'. For me that's my new stuff. It takes at least 6 months for images to properly establish themselves in the sort order. My 'older stuff', as far as I'm concerned, is from 2004/5, but they still contribute on a daily basis. Good luck with it!
Thanks. I didn't really mean 'old', of course. It's just that I have regular sales of images from my initial submission whilst getting regular sales from the 'latest' images. For me the SS-model appears to work as newbie and only time will tell whether my sellers of today will have longevity.
555
« on: October 15, 2012, 20:28 »
I'm new to SS (July '12) but it's already motivating me to create more stock for them! Initial submission........all 10 accepted. Following submission of 30......all accepted. Following 20+.........95% accepted and rejections for acceptable reasons. Following submission...90% accepted and the last submission only 50% accepted......of which, 50% of the rejections I can see their point (sort of).......but I'll know better for the next submission. Just over 100 images since the last acceptance 7 days ago and my month total is already $50+. New stuff sells. Older stuff keeps on selling and although the majority of sales are subs there's sufficient ODD's and SOD's to keep me happy..........even an EL in the first 50 days! Yes sirree, SS is motorin' 4 me. Think that means I luv 'em right now!
556
« on: October 14, 2012, 17:39 »
Unlike SS where plurals are unnecessary, entering a singular or plural at FT brings up a different set of results on the first page. On FT UK try entering eg. golf ball or golf balls.
Another peculiarity of FT (UK) is that some images come up on page 1 of search with every single keyword entered. Have some time on your hands and want to try entering these 17 keywords separately? I started with 'cheese' but found that one image appeared somewhere on P1 for each of its keywords entered.........not even spammed keywords for this one!
alcohol, appetizer, beverage, camembert , cheese, dairy, dairy products, dinner, drink, food, fresh, freshness, glass, red, wine, wine, wineglass
557
« on: October 14, 2012, 16:34 »
558
« on: October 13, 2012, 08:35 »
559
« on: October 12, 2012, 18:15 »
I don't know about anyone else, and it could just be luck, but I have had a couple of good days since the announcement...even got an EL today. Keep it coming, it will almost be like a raise.
My sales were better before the IPO so I suppose it's like they say in the world of the stock market, "Buy the mystery and sell the history."
560
« on: October 12, 2012, 10:23 »
You are correct when you say that newer images are still selling from Emeralds ports. Some of my newer files are selling very well but virtually nothing of more than 6 months old is selling. Everything older than that is nowhere to be found in the searches. If I stopped uploading for 6 months I would barely have any sales at all.
Absolutely. I'm a tiny player in this big world but I had a couple of very good, regular sellers at FT (both subs and dl's). Suddenly (around March this year) they all stopped selling completely. Now that I'm no longer exclusive there (whadda fool I was), those couple of ex-best sellers at FT are once again my best sellers at SS (both subs and dl's).
561
« on: October 12, 2012, 09:00 »
My Fotolia sales is down 15 to 18% compared to last year, but only in August, September and October. Before that, I still had monthly growth of about 5%. I am Emerald. So the theory of Emeralds being punished severely does not apply to me, unless you call 18% "severely" (and if you do, how would you call Lisa's -90%?). Of course, -18% does not make me happy, as Fotolia is my n2 seller!!
I do notice that 90% of my Fotolia sales happen during my (European) working hours, so I suppose the main % of their buyers are European, and so am I.
Up until a month ago, I did a fair bit of poking around at FT search and I agree with your observation that FT has not been specifically targeting the higher ranked contributors for exclusion from the first pages. On the first pages of most searches (mostly food related) there was a liberal sprinkling of emerald and gold contributors' images. However, I got the impression then that most of the images to come up on the first pages were recently uploaded, to the exclusion of best-selling images from the past (which can be found under 'downloads' filter which very few customers appear to look at). Hence the loss of many long-time contributors images from the 'relevance' search and their drop in income as a result. Looking at the search now, it does seem to have become more 'balanced' in that more images with actual sales are amongst the predominantly new images on the first pages. However, there are some weird anomalies with the search. It's almost as if the algorithm hones in on particular images and brings them up on the first pages of search time and time again for many of the keywords associated with that image. Here's what I just looked at at FT UK site: Entered 'bread' as search word and this brings up the first page: http://en.fotolia.com/search?k=bread&filters[content_type%3Aall]=1&submit.x=22&submit.y=7 Now about halfway down that page there's this picture of a woman with a bag of shopping but no bread in sight (there's another shot by the same contributor also on that page where, in close-up, the bananas have been exchanged for a baguette so the contributor has just used the same keywords...anyway....): http://en.fotolia.com/id/44897352 Viewed 15 times sold once but on page one of my search 'bread'  ? Bizarre! There's lots of keywords and I've pulled out 'full', 'shirt', 'salad' and 'bear' as not especially relevant to the photo and entered them each separately in search........now each of these keywords produces that same photo on either the first or second page of the search: http://en.fotolia.com/search?filters[content_type%3Aall]=1&k=full&offset=50 http://en.fotolia.com/search?filters[content_type%3Aall]=1&k=shirt&offset=50 http://en.fotolia.com/search?filters[content_type%3Aall]=1&k=salad&offset=50 http://en.fotolia.com/search?filters[content_type%3Aall]=1&k=bear&filters[content_type%3Aall]=1&submit.x=18&submit.y=14 I have no explanation but I have tried this with other searches and get similar results. Often there's an image which is totally incongruous to the search and yet these images keep popping up on numerous first few pages of search. Methinks FT should change its name to Serendipity #13...........lucky for some, unlucky for others!
562
« on: October 12, 2012, 06:40 »
As if to prep me for the IPO email, I had a BDE on SS the day before the IPO with 19 dl's of which 3 were ODD's..........that may not sound a lot but I only have 100 images there. So, I'm a fan and the letter was a nice gesture. (When you're used to FT, anything is a vast improvement).
563
« on: October 12, 2012, 06:29 »
564
« on: October 04, 2012, 19:16 »
if so I dont understand why many top contributors keep on whining when they arent producing enough? does that mean that IS is doing the right thing? same goes for FT lately right? again searches depending on regular uploading, it aint a passive job thats for sure
I think you are confused Luis. The "top contributors" who are "whining" are not the people who have hardly uploaded in years. The "top contributors" by definition, are aware this "ain't a passive job" and have continued to up their games technically and keep uploading regularly.
In my case, if I am one of the whiners you are talking about, I did admit I haven't uploaded as much this past year as the prior 6.5 years. Definitely dropping from uploading 1k pictures per year to 500 is a drop, but 1) it is still a fairly consistent effort, and 2) the sales drops started before my production slipped, and were partly responsible for my lowered output.
The point is, when producing at your top capacity still results in drop in income, why knock yourself out?
I'm not going to whine about what happened at FT but describe what happened to my mini-folio as I get the impression that this happened to a lot of established contributors but on a larger scale. I had 3 top-selling (for me anyway) photo's that suddenly (over a two-week period) stopped selling completely. They didn't decline slowly, they just fell off their twig........zero and haven't sold since. The total sales were 400+, ~150 and ~140 and sold regularly with dl's up until March 2012 (around when FT changed the search). I wasn't a regular uploader but most uploads went unviewed and unsold anyway which didn't much inspire constant uploading. Unconvinced by the argument that my 'old' files were dated and that FT justifiably demoted them from the search, I joined SS at the end of June and two of the old FT 'dated rubbish' have become among my best sellers at SS with both subs sales and ODD's. Still not a single sale at FT in that period. In September I uploaded a small number of new files to FT and SS simultaneously, of which one has become my fastest/best seller at SS with 30+ sales since approval (subs and ODD's). The same image at FT has sold 9 times (all subs) and nearly all the other images in that upnload to FT haven't even been viewed! From Feb 2008 until March 2012 I was totally exclusive at FT and increased my small portfolio size (200) by 50% from 2009 to 2012. Here's a quarterly chart of credits earned: Q3 2012 was 65......
565
« on: October 03, 2012, 18:42 »
For me FT was the biggest drop and they used to be a great earner. However these last three days have been reasonably ok so I am considering uploading again.
Me too. Shockingly bad. Down 91% from Sept 2011, which was down about 50% from the prior year.
At this rate, FT are on their way to complete irrelevance for me.
Yes I dont know what they are doing anymore? since the IPO business they seem to have lost all interest and now I suppose they just want to take their money and run.
I'm not sure but I don't think FT IPO'd. The owner sold a 300 million chunk of private stock to KKR investors. IMHO owners know the best time to sell!
566
« on: October 03, 2012, 17:08 »
My intention was not to imply any form of conspiracy but merely to highlight the technological inadequacy of whatever algorithm they're using.
And the other option was, they aren't using any of this technology so the whole contention of "technological inadequacy" and the forum debate is just a nice what if scenario?
They have to be using some technology; after all there's not some geezer/geezeress sitting there behind a machine deciding which 'suggested' to show you when you view an image.
567
« on: October 03, 2012, 09:57 »
Sometime last year as an FT exclusive, I opted out of sub sales for a month as a test. Soon cured me of that aberrant mindset. Virtually no sales at all. Prior to my 'experiment' I had been getting both DL's and subs sales. Can seriously damage your placement in the pecking order too for the longer term.
568
« on: September 24, 2012, 06:30 »
Anyone thinking they are getting zero sales on a Saturday? I thought I was until I clicked on the day and a bunch of DL's showed up. I think SS has a bug.
Thanks for that tip. I'm new to SS and didn't realise that the date was a live link. Tallies exactly with the pics on the world map. That's a relief. Phew!
569
« on: September 23, 2012, 10:41 »
I'm sure the "related image" algorithm just uses keywords and if we see something that's really, really unrelated it's most likely caused by the same spam that results in searches pulling up stuff with no relationship to the search term.
At SS I would agree that it's 'keyword' based and I find SS 'suggestions' to be very good generally but at FT I'm not so sure 'suggestions' are keyword based after finding this combination. I'll say straight off that there are a few keywords in common with the main shot and the eggs on plate with knife vector (cutting, cutting board and a few others) but looking at the images as a whole the 2 images have a few visual things in common: the rectangular background shapes and tones, the two faces and two egg yolks and the knife in the vector could be recognised as the girl's arm in the main photo. But whatever algorithms they're using whether keyword based or optical pattern recognition, they're making a total nonsense of 'suggested' in this case. If you're looking for images of a couple in a kitchen, you probably don't want to be presented with most of the 'suggestion' offered here.
570
« on: September 20, 2012, 08:47 »
My intention was not to imply any form of conspiracy but merely to highlight the technological inadequacy of whatever algorithm they're using.
571
« on: September 19, 2012, 19:19 »
What I meant by that was some sort of 'optical pattern' recognition that relates totally unrelated and unrequested images to one another as in 'suggested' alternatives for eg image of hamburger (although the search was for 'bread'). Or maybe it is a keyword thing in the previous example whereby the software relates 'aids' to 'assistance'. Mebbee they're the same in Spanish (contributor from Spain). I dunno. 
572
« on: September 19, 2012, 17:18 »
OT but FT is presumably using optical software to place its 'Infinity' series images on search pages. http://en.fotolia.com/search?k=aids&filters[content_type%3Aall]=1&submit.x=0&submit.y=0 Search subject is 'aids' and on that page you'll find 3 'Infinity' images that have absolutely nothing to do with 'aids'. They're images of a round European table with seats. AIDS is not in the keywords either (unless 'assistance' counts)..........however, I reckon the table with seats around it looks to a machine like some models of an aids virus particle. That's the only explanation I can think of anyway.
573
« on: September 19, 2012, 05:45 »
I had a strange one in a recent submission. I got an email with most of the batch approved but one shot had been rejected with no reason given. When I looked at the submission on the site, the 'rejected' image had actually been approved and started selling almost immediately. The only thing that I can think of is that in a previous submission, I had already 2 images that were similar and that maybe a machine had rejected the third shot based on either keywords or optical similarity but that decision had been over-ridden by a senior (human) reviewer. Thought the discrepancy a little strange but as I'm fairly new to SS, I don't know how things are done there.
574
« on: September 15, 2012, 12:23 »
The life span of images has more to do with the agency search engine than the image itself. I was with DT for years before branching out into other agencies and many images that had stopped selling years ago on DT suddenly flew off the shelves at places like SS. The only explanation is that the images were no longer showing up in search results on DT as they tend to favour new material.
I am considering deleting all my old material that no longer sells, wait a year or so and reupload so that they're fresh again.
Agree. When FT changed it's search to favour new uploads, most of my best selling images just stopped dead. No half-life, no anything except no more sales. After I went to SS in July, one previous best seller on FT has once again become my best seller but now on SS. Fortunately, it's an image that doesn't date too quickly and I see no reason for it to stop selling in the near future. If only these half-life destroyers would go and do something useful like work in the nuclear industry, the world would be a safer place!
575
« on: September 12, 2012, 18:49 »
My first DSLR was a Nikon D80 (10Mp CCD) which I've still got and like (40K shots and still going). You can get a good one used for under $200 I would think + standard 50mm f1.8 for say $80.
A much better buy (also with an eye on 'versatility') would be the Canon 5D full frame as proposed by gostwyck. I sort of regret having Nikon because only Nikon lenses can be used.
A Canon camera + adapter can be used with just about any lens including old M42 Pentax lenses, Olympus OM lenses etc some of which are excellent as long as you don't mind using the lenses on manual.
A friend of mine recently picked up an ancient 35mm f3.5 Pentax M42 at a market for 10 and discovered that at f8 in the studio that it's the sharpest corner to corner lens that he owns. Far superior to his Canon 28-70mm f2.8-4.0 zoom. The only thing I doubt is that you will be able to get a 5D body within your budget. Price here in NL seems to be between 400 and 500 at present. Good hunting.
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