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Messages - cthoman
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551
« on: June 11, 2014, 09:41 »
Did you see the movie Road Warrior? 
LOL. Like This...
552
« on: June 10, 2014, 23:09 »
Well, come to my country and try to live with $500 a month. You'll soon realize how poor you are.
That sounds like a tourism board slogan. 
553
« on: June 10, 2014, 20:20 »
Let's just say I feel better seeing the percentage of my monthly income coming from SS dropping as opposed to rising.
I think that is a healthy goal.
554
« on: June 10, 2014, 19:42 »
I guess it all depends on where are your $$ expectations.
Yeah if you don't expect or need a ton, then there are still possibilities. Most of the market seems to be tenuously held together by the notion that SS will always be a great earner. I see a lot of cracks in that theory, but that's probably the place to start for any new contributor.
555
« on: June 10, 2014, 14:13 »
"what would you peeps advice??"
Don't get into microstock.
Sad answer. If it's so bad, why are you still uploading?
Don't listen to these stupid advices.
I say focus on SS and IS which are the ones that really bring in the money.
And avoid DP, they are scammers.
I know this wasn't directed at me, but for the most part I'm not. At least not at the major sites. I recently rejoined some sites I previously left and the results at most of them were poor in comparison to the old days. And that was with a large batch of already completed images. I can't even imagine starting entirely from scratch today. I'd probably lose interest quickly and find something else. Unless you find some new hidden gem, you probably aren't going to have success. I'm sorry if that is a pessimistic view, but I think it is a reality that most new contributors will face. Normally, I'm a glass half full kind of guy, and I wish new contributors the best. That said, I think they should prepare for the worst.
556
« on: June 10, 2014, 13:06 »
I agree with her Majesty that image factories are doing way more damage to micro stock than newbies. You hear buyers complain about all micro pictures looking the same. Many of us upload pictures that don't have same boring look but they don't get viewed in the mass of factory uploads.
I guess I feel the opposite. I don't have a problem with the image factories. They are in it to make a bunch of money. They are easy to understand and they usually have expectations for how they perform. It's the other side with no expectations and tons of files collectively that scare me.
557
« on: June 10, 2014, 10:30 »
I have to assume the average earnings are a little bit higher than the baseline that 100 is set at. It certainly doesn't reflect in my numbers, but congrats to everyone that is making a bit more.
558
« on: June 10, 2014, 09:38 »
"what would you peeps advice??"
Don't get into microstock.
That's the advice I was thinking.
559
« on: June 10, 2014, 09:36 »
Of course boycotts work in other industries. They just don't seem to work in microstock. We can't organize and rally around a boycott with much more than a quarter of the contributor base, and we're in an industry where these companies could lose half of their contributors tomorrow and still stay in business. A successful boycott in microstock would require a lot more than 50% of us to take part, which will never happen.
I would say the most successful boycott would probably involve both contributors and buyers.
560
« on: June 09, 2014, 19:54 »
You want the answer again? Drop all agencies that lie, cheat and steal. Or take the abuse and be a willing victim. But don't complain about being a victim when it's a choice.
It's also called, put up or shut up.
I appreciate the input. That's not a solution that you are going to get many people to sign on to. There are a lot of smaller steps between that and doing nothing. I'd say those are the two extremes. That's why I asked. I honestly wasn't sure what actions people expected when they say these things.
561
« on: June 09, 2014, 16:47 »
I think everybody is looking at it from the wrong side. A business doesn't have to be big to succeed. After all, many microstockers with a few thousand images would consider that they are a business success even though they have a turnover of less than $100,000 a year.
If this company spends its money wisely it may well become a success within the terms it judges itself by. That might not mean it becoming a top-four microstock company. And it might not mean that it becomes a lucrative market for us.
Sites like Scanstock invest little and sell little, but they seem able to soldier on, presumably making a modest living for their owners.
This seems to be lost on a lot of people. I was hoping at one time that contributors would start to throttle back on the giant micro sites as they started having success on smaller boutique sites. A sort of voluntary exclusivity would start to emerge as more profitable markets were discovered. Unfortunately, those sites haven't really appeared in large numbers, so I'm not sure it is going to happen. It still seems like it would be the best outcome for the industry, but you can't make people submit to places that don't exist.
562
« on: June 09, 2014, 16:40 »
Action speaks louder then forum crying. Agency won't change until we make them change. If people complain but do nothing to change, they should just shut up.
I hear this a lot, but what is considered doing something?
563
« on: June 09, 2014, 14:41 »
I agree collectively they could choose to keep pricing at a level which would be sustainable to contributors. However some of them have chosen to go down the road that leads to the point of no return for contributors.
In my opinion shutterstock has lead the way in this regard when it comes to subs and as you can see they admit they have used this strategy to successfully gain substantial market in the micro stock photography market.
As a result we see other microstock companies following suit so that they do not continue to lose market share to a contributors who purposely kept pricing low as a business strategy to capture a larger share of the micro market.
I think we essentially agree (for the most part). I just have trouble laying too much blame on any one agency. We all trusted these agencies with the moral/financial decisions of our businesses thinking that our best interests were their best interests as well. In hindsight, that seems like a really poor decision.
564
« on: June 09, 2014, 11:52 »
Other than suggesting people upload 7 million images to a stock site that spends nothing on marketing and generates few sales, what would you like to see happen?
I think people are being realistic. It's great to see a site that lets you set your own prices and adds 20% to the topwhich is how it works in the real world, at least in NYbut they've got 40,000 images. Even Symbiostock has almost 300,000 now.
The sites that are successful put a lot of effort into marketing. Shutterstock is successful because they market the heck out of their site and keep reaching out to tap new markets.
Nobody will buy your product if they don't know it exists.
I think I agree and disagree with this at the same time.  Despite all the money spent, I don't feel particularly marketed or represented. I'm just along for the ride trying to pick up any scraps. On the flip side, some of those places that don't have the huge budgets seem to do a better job marketing my business just by existing.
565
« on: June 09, 2014, 08:41 »
It still multiples. So it's order of magnitude whether it's if you look at us compared to other stock marketplaces like an iStock or others, it's two or three or four times more expensive to not use Shutterstock. If you look at the higher end sort of more traditional marketed might be 6 or 8 or 10 times more expensive.
That seems kind of old. Those magnitudes don't really exist anymore. Most other agencies are cheaper now or the same deal.
Not so old, 6 or 7 months ago and as we can see Fotolia & IS were forced to make adjustments downward in order to compete. This has not been good for contributors as it degrades the value of the asset we pay for and produce.
To put it further into perspective, Jon is talking about SOD's when he mention this phrase. "If you look at the higher end sort of more traditional marketed might be 6 or 8 or 10 times more expensive."
Does anyone think it is beneficial in any way to undercut the existing macro market by 8 or 10 times?
Shutterstock's Management Presents at the Goldman Sachs US Emerging/SMID Cap Growth Conference
http://tinyurl.com/qcqszco
Nobody forced these companies to do these things. They chose to do them. They don't have to do them to compete. IS cruised along just fine without subs for a long time. As far as the benefit of undercutting macro, I've never sold in that market, so I'm not sure I'd be typing this if it was the only game in town.
566
« on: June 09, 2014, 00:33 »
It still multiples. So it's order of magnitude whether it's if you look at us compared to other stock marketplaces like an iStock or others, it's two or three or four times more expensive to not use Shutterstock. If you look at the higher end sort of more traditional marketed might be 6 or 8 or 10 times more expensive.
That seems kind of old. Those magnitudes don't really exist anymore. Most other agencies are cheaper now or the same deal.
567
« on: June 08, 2014, 17:57 »
They know a lower threshold of a significant proportion of respondents (which is a miniscule sample, of course).
From that, it's just tweaking the lines.
Just charge $2 and give the contributor $.70... Wait? Isn't there a company that already does that?
568
« on: June 08, 2014, 14:59 »
Totally agree here. This is where Shutterstock's strength lies. Finding customers, selling the value add of their various licensing options, aligning those options to a target markets and then marketing to them. It's all about building trust, enhancing the customer experience, making the customers feel that they are getting value and this results in customer sustainment. And in the middle of adding customer value, they pushed up our revenue instead of take it all for themselves, something Oleg needs to learn. SS success compared to, say, Fotolia, lies in superior vision followed by strategic and tactical alignment that INCLUDES its contributors as part of that broader strategy.
It would be awesome if they brought all that expertise to a better model. I'd love to have a fraction of that working to build my personal site or other sites.
569
« on: June 07, 2014, 16:08 »
It would be better than some other models, but it wouldn't be ideal. I know I try to look at price and royalties when deciding which agencies I do business with and how I do business with them.
570
« on: June 07, 2014, 11:32 »
I think using an established stock site is going to get you as close to safe as you can get. Those images have been vetted more, and they've been purchased repeatedly so they probably would have been pulled if there were issues with them.
If I made money off of every image that mistakenly made it through that vetting process, I'd probably be a rich man. That said, you are probably going to get better legal protections and legal guarantees from larger sites that offer them (even if the images themselves aren't as legitimately verified like buying direct from an artist).
572
« on: June 04, 2014, 11:19 »
Yuri has been asking the sites to raise pricing and sub pricing for years.
Me too, although I assume they aren't listening. I have no problem with him going off and getting a good deal for himself, but he might have gotten more of what he wanted if he invited the rest of us to help. He was never going to get it done by himself because no ONE contributor is very important.
I agree, though at the time the frogs were happily soaking in the pot. Luckily a group of Russians stepped up to change our collective mindset somewhat. I do think positive change is possible now.
That's a bit revisionist. By the time Yuri made his deal, the RC system was a few years old, other companies had royalty claw backs and many contributors had already opened up their own shops. Honestly, I thought he was late to the party.
573
« on: June 04, 2014, 09:52 »
I suppose it all depends on what your goals are.
574
« on: June 03, 2014, 17:50 »
Yuri has been asking the sites to raise pricing and sub pricing for years.
Me too, although I assume they aren't listening. I have no problem with him going off and getting a good deal for himself, but he might have gotten more of what he wanted if he invited the rest of us to help. He was never going to get it done by himself because no ONE contributor is very important.
575
« on: June 01, 2014, 17:25 »
Fees are below 50% because it's increasingly hard to sell images.
If it was so easy to sell online then try it out yourseld, build your own site, and see how much you're required to invest in advertising.
Done. The answer is not much. Can I get paid more now? Just because we have yet to see an agency hit the Top Tier while paying 50% or more doesn't mean it can't happen.
Turn off the 50 contributor cap and there would probably be a couple in the top tier.
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