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Messages - Jo Ann Snover
5726
« on: January 12, 2012, 18:32 »
Lisa, I can't help myself (sorry!) but it's Baldrick, not Balderick
as you were
5727
« on: January 12, 2012, 18:28 »
At the HQ 'lypse in 2009 I signed an agreement that I would only sell the 'lypse images at iStock. That was an official 'lypse and was not free.
In Tokyo (last year? two ago?) I believe there was a fuss because they tried to say that any images you shot on your own - i.e. out in the evening or on a day before or after the lypse - had to be exclusive to iStock too. That seemed totally insane given that they weren't paying for anyones' travel or expenses. Don't know how that came out.
I get P+ royalties on most the 'lypse images, but there's nothing in the agreement you sign about keeping the higher exclusive prices (it does mention the requirement to keep those images on iStock even if you leave exclusivity.
My thinking was that if iStock went out of business I could sell them wherever I liked, but otherwise I'll adhere to the deal I agreed to.
5728
« on: January 12, 2012, 01:38 »
I saw this thread was updated, went to check and there was another sub from yesterday posted - this one at a whopping 26 cents! So now I'm at 3 x 25 cents 1 x 26 and 1 x 83 for an average of 36.8 cents
This is basically playing out the way iStock's subscriptions did - given that buyers apparently try to max out their allowance on the days they buy, we end up with minimums. If they don't buy on weekends that all goes into Veer's kitty. The hoo-ha about the theoretical windfalls in practice means very little.
Disappointing.
ETA that another .25 sale posted for 1/12 makes the average 34.8 cents
5729
« on: January 12, 2012, 01:27 »
.
5730
« on: January 12, 2012, 01:20 »
If you haven't already, read dpreview for detailed information on specific camera models. I'd second the comments made above - Nikon or Canon would be fine choices; the lenses is where your long term investment will be. I have a 5D Mk II and several good lenses; once I was able to understand the difference in what I shot with the same camera and a crappy lens and a really excellent one, I decided I'd go for the best lenses I could justify even if that meant waiting a bit. I wouldn't buy a cheaper zoom lens right away - if you stick with this you'll soon realize its limitations and want something much better. I've had Canon cameras for many years and part of the reason they feel comfortable to me is that I am used to how they work; perhaps if my first camera hadn't been a Canon AE-1 Program I would feel equally comfortable with Nikon. I don't know given the company troubles that anyone would be well advised to consider Olympus at the moment. I can't emphasize enough that the "perfection" you have seen in microstock pictures is a result of many things, only a small part of which is the camera gear that shot it. Lots of people take a run at microstock thinking that if they just get the "right" answer about equipment they'll be all set. I could give my gear to many people who'd take the same rubbish with it that they did with their point and shoot - it'd just be 21 MP of rubbish. You should probably also have a read at the Strobist blog to see what you can do creatively to light things with a hotshoe flash and a reflector or two (i.e. very low investment lighting solutions). The Lighting 101 section is good if you're new to that area. There's a world of difference, even with great camera gear, between a well lit and poorly lit shot.
5731
« on: January 11, 2012, 15:08 »
Like that, but much better with bulldozers, lots of electrical wiring and that nifty straw hat 
5732
« on: January 11, 2012, 15:05 »
I agree. Showing exclusive content in the first pages instead of commodities seems the right way to go. That's not good for indies, but on the other hand they are reporting not selling at IS and selling a lot at other sites and so, the damage for them is minimized.
Exclusives will not thrive long term with this approach - and I can and did say this while I was exclusive too. Unless iStock turns into a specialist boutique - in which case a whole lot of the exclusives will have to go too as their content is too generic - being the store with the smallest choice of any site just isn't a way to go. I realize you think that it's OK as long as the indie stuff is there somewhere, even at the back of the bus, but as buyers don't look through more than the first few pages most of the time, it'll look as though it isn't there at all. You'll lose more by frustrating customers than you win by being up front, IMO - it's the buyer that counts. Why send the buyer elsewhere, even for independent stuff? How does that help iStock?
5733
« on: January 11, 2012, 14:56 »
Whatever the political or IP implications, it looks like World's Greatest Microstock Model is boiling down to a battle between Lisa's husband and Yuri's girlfriend. They both seem to be everywhere. I wonder who will win?
Forget win-lose, they should get (photographically) together! It'd be fun to concoct a photo story - a book even - where these two models are the leads. Sort of a cross between the Flat Stanley travels and a typical boy-meets-girl/loses-girl rom-com. How we work in the boy cross dressing may be a challenge...
5734
« on: January 11, 2012, 12:25 »
None of the edstock2 files are in Exclusive+ but all of those in edstock are. Given they all (both portfolios) seem entirely ho-hum, I can't visually see much of a difference, but perhaps it'll be cheap vs. expensive in edstock2 vs. edstock?
5735
« on: January 11, 2012, 10:40 »
So what's the point of edstock2? Why have two accounts not one? And as far as broken promises, it'd be easier to list the ones they've kept, on the other hand the weasel words of "...there is no plan..." are the alert that they reserve the right to do whatever they want at any time. We have only ourselves to blame if we choose to believe anything said by a demonstrated snake oil salesman. They can't be trusted to do much except screw up every software release or new feature
5736
« on: January 11, 2012, 10:34 »
If you look at the example here, Getty apparently thinks it can sell the same image at $10 - $350 via its own site verus subscription or $20 (image pack) via Thinkstock. This is two BMW dealers a few blocks apart selling for $70,000 or $4,000 (again using the ratio of actual prices from Getty and TS image packs).
5737
« on: January 11, 2012, 10:27 »
Is this one of their limited term deals (1 year or 3) or an outright sale of copyright? Depending on what it makes you everywhere (not just at DT) I'd say more than a few hundred. I'd also look at the content and whether you're likely to have any troubles for selling similars (as an example, my home and garden is a prop/set in many images; making a similar, even inadvertently wouldn't be hard).
5738
« on: January 10, 2012, 23:44 »
Your press release is pure class - it says what needs to be said, without sugarcoating or any hint of animosity. Hope 2012 as an independent is a good one for you.
5739
« on: January 10, 2012, 19:51 »
There are lots of things about where Getty thinks it's going with Thinkstock that I don't understand (put more bluntly; I can't see how it could possibly be a good idea). Case in point is their current free image which is from the Stockbyte collection. It's on Getty Images priced from $10 to $350 and also on TS where you could buy it via an Image Pack for $20. It's even credited with the photographer's name, so it makes it very easy to find elsewhere.
5740
« on: January 10, 2012, 17:19 »
With all the bugs and high prices - how much incentive is there for customers to come to istock?
I've found for several weeks now that the search does not function properly at Istock. I can search using one term but then cannot cannot add further words (to the box on the LHS). So I can search on 'businessman' for example and get 186K results but if I want to narrow the results, say with 'reading' ... absolutely nothing happens. It's the same on both my newish laptop running Win7 and my PC running XP Pro. I use Explorer 8 as my browser. Anyone else finding this?
Chrome on a Mac works fine - I get from 166K photos to 4K photos if I narrow the businessman search. I think there were a bunch of bugs IS acknowledged in IE8 and said use IE9 as a workaround while they fix it. I took that to mean there was a minuscule chance of getting a fix (it was accompanied by lots of mumbling about why IE8 wasn't a good release...)
5741
« on: January 10, 2012, 17:16 »
For months, I had 1 image at TS. I just recently made 10 images Photo+, and all but one (the best seller) showed up at TS right away. I tell IS I want to sell these at higher prices on IS, and they immediately dump them in the bargain bin at TS.
So for independents, Photo+ is just a sucker bet, a quick trip to TS instead of a boost in price. This agency is now officially brain-dead.
It's possible it may have just been coincidence. If I wanted my portfolio at TS, I'm not sure what I'd do to get it there - I now have 17 files at TS (of 2500) and none of them are Photo+. I made an image Photo+ a day or two ago and it hasn't shown up at TS. I don't know how IS is doing overall at getting the entire indie collection at iStock over to TS/photos.com, but I'm assuming they're nowhere near finished. Unless they're attracting new buyers, the earnings for those long-term supporters of the partner program are going to drop when they get all the files moved. My take on the big hit (if there is one) to SS is that it would come when (if?) they forced all the exclusive content at iStock onto TS/photos.com. At that point there'd be something other than a Getty discount that TS offered that SS didn't.
5742
« on: January 10, 2012, 10:23 »
It's possible that the 15 files are newly approved and not yet indexed. In the dollar bin, I'm not sure how to search for a user name. I did try edstock2 in the refine search box on the left and got four images!! None of them from edstock2 - the Woodstock seems to be what the search in its wisdom matched edstock2 with.
5743
« on: January 10, 2012, 10:21 »
Go to the photos landing page (link up top) and then you'll see the dollar bin link on the right under the Browse heading
5744
« on: January 09, 2012, 11:50 »
... Anyone here going to miss it?
No. Back in the beginning - when Tim and Dawn started BigStock - it was helpful to give them feedback about the site, problems, suggestions, etc. They were pretty active. Even before they sold it to SS it had become a ghost town for the most part.
5745
« on: January 09, 2012, 10:50 »
...ETA, yes I can, it could just be that they are getting less uploads now, so yeah you could be right.
Total files 10103507
Waiting approval 43078
from their own statsThat's a fairly low number for the queue, which has been up in the 80K 90K range see here for example.
5746
« on: January 08, 2012, 18:41 »
I don't know of any company that pays their sales team or even their distributors based on how long they've been there. There's a monthly quota and it's all about performance. Those who don't hit quota either make a lower percentage or don 't get paid at all. Weaker salespeople leave because they can't afford to stay. This is sales 101.
The sales analogy is completely off base. Sales people don't build the product, they just flog it (and I used to work in pre-sales support for a publishing software company; I know the sales reps work hard, but they don't create things). And the sales reps who don't perform usually get fired before they can quit.
Okay, let's try a different model. Any model you can think of. Walmart. Do you think Walmart values products, and their creators, based on sales volume and profit or how long the supplier has been supplying? If a product creator stops producing sellable products then what? Regarding sales reps getting fired, that's the old way. The new way is most sales reps positions are based on performance and when reps miss their quota their pay is gradually lowered until they quit. This enables companies to reduce paying unemployment and other costs.
You keep coming back to the time issue - and iStock never gave anyone more money for having been around a long time. It's all about measuring the money you brought in - the old way was lifetime and the current way is loosely related to how much money over the last year. I say loosely because the charts are not linear for any given media (look at the gap between the top two levels for photos vs. for illustrations) and they are hopelessly unfair when you compare money in for illustrators vs. money in for photographers. It's even worse if you compare total money delivered to the compay for anyone foolish enough to still be contributing in multiple media.
If they felt so inclined they couild have a scheme that paid you for the current six months based on the last six months' earnings. That would be really dastardly. The rate you earn for the the first six months (typically slower except for March) gets you lower royalties for the high selling half of the year. You then earn a higher royalty rate but only for the slow selling half of the year.
What you're missing is that all the iStock schemes so far have been pay for performance - no longevity pay for anyone ever. What makes the 6 month scheme more or less fair than the current RC system? IMO the RC scheme was an attempt to move the overal payout for the contributor base to 20% and given that iStock wanted to keep exclusives it had to figure out some way to pay a lot of people less. It wasn't about weeding out poor performers.
On top of that, iStock was never paying for contributors having been there a long time - it was always for sales. Go take a look at how many people have been there ages and have sold squat - there's a large group.
They are paying top commissions, 40%, to a lot of diamonds whose main contribution is that they have been there long enough to reach a diamond canister and are not necessarily good performers
I don't know what you mean by "a lot" but there are around 900 diamonds and 45 black diamonds out of over 38,000 contributors. The reality is that most of those 38,000 won't make diamond no matter how long they hang around. There are under 10K bronze and under 4K silver, and that's with iStock having been around over 10 years. I think it's just a myth that the real problem was a world where everyone ends up diamond and poor iStock goes broke. That would never happen.
Also, sales is an inherently short-term thinking business. Many software companies had problems with sales reps booking business that cost the company way too much over the long run, making it much less profitable. One of my favorite quotes from a sales rep with whom I once worked, referring to this issue was that he'd be long gone by then.
I'd agree.
Even someone whose volume of images produced is lower than the factories but who doesn't cost the company much (in terms of images that don't sell or masses and masses of rejects) can be a big asset over time, particularly if they fill out the collection. They're profitable, just not high volume. Having more non-factory contributors also helps your collection stay fresh looking - you have a wide variety of looks and styles, not just one or two.
This is not about volume of images produced. It's about revenue generated from each image, whether it's 100 or 10,000. I've seen some newbies with 100 images that are producing exceptional work and are doing incredible download numbers.
It is not about revenue generated from each image, it's about RCs generated per year, per medium. iStock doesn't care if you upload masses and masses of images to get your RC totals (easier to do for an exclusive than independent, but if you hang around long enough you can build up some numbers). They might at some future point start to set royalties on the basis of having a high number of successful images, but right now they don't
5747
« on: January 08, 2012, 17:02 »
I don't know of any company that pays their sales team or even their distributors based on how long they've been there. There's a monthly quota and it's all about performance. Those who don't hit quota either make a lower percentage or don 't get paid at all. Weaker salespeople leave because they can't afford to stay. This is sales 101.
The sales analogy is completely off base. Sales people don't build the product, they just flog it (and I used to work in pre-sales support for a publishing software company; I know the sales reps work hard, but they don't create things). And the sales reps who don't perform usually get fired before they can quit. On top of that, iStock was never paying for contributors having been there a long time - it was always for sales. Go take a look at how many people have been there ages and have sold squat - there's a large group. Also, sales is an inherently short-term thinking business. Many software companies had problems with sales reps booking business that cost the company way too much over the long run, making it much less profitable. One of my favorite quotes from a sales rep with whom I once worked, referring to this issue was that he'd be long gone by then. Even someone whose volume of images produced is lower than the factories but who doesn't cost the company much (in terms of images that don't sell or masses and masses of rejects) can be a big asset over time, particularly if they fill out the collection. They're profitable, just not high volume. Having more non-factory contributors also helps your collection stay fresh looking - you have a wide variety of looks and styles, not just one or two. It's a small thing, but lots of people used to volunteer their time in the forums - people who weren't on staff and who weren't paid. In an environment where you put everyone on the treadmill - and in competition with each other - lots of that just stops. If you could just turn the crank on the stock photography machine and crank out the images, perhaps the sales rep analogies would be closer. The other big disconnect is that in the case of stock agencies, they can put their finger on the scale and influence what sells by how they present the offerings to the customer. Sales reps don't have to contend with that. I could produce 10K images a year and if the best match results that were given the last two weeks of December were in place, it wouldn't amount to squat, even for someone like Yuri or Andres.
5748
« on: January 08, 2012, 12:53 »
I don't think they would gamble with a company that has a turnover of what, $300 million?
I'd say introducing the RC system was a major gamble. Istock stood to gain a little, if it worked, or potentially ruin the business if it didn't. With sales down by 20% in 2010 and probably continuing to fall further it's looking like one gamble too many.
Not a major gamble if done correctly. Which I would imagine the goal was to keep high performers at the same % levels and drop the % for poorer performers. For the poorer performers does IS really care if they get angry or leave? I'm guessing not.
It stings to be recognized as a "poorer performer" but I believe that I'm exactly the type of contributor iStock wanted to get rid of. I'd made it to 40% royalties but wasn't selling at the rate of the factories or stars like Sean and Lise. As had been noted in other threads, there was no "exit survey" given when the 30 day notice was given - they just had no interest.
5749
« on: January 08, 2012, 12:35 »
Can't state the source but it came from a friend of a few inspectors.
They have a rating of 1 to 5 and this rating is another paramater which gets taken into account (out of many others) in the best match.
Believe it or not is your choice but it does seem logical to me.
In 2004 (when I started) those initial ratings were explicit - you saw them. The default on a file was 3. You might get a 4 with a comment ( here's an example of that). Another example here. I also once had an initial rating of 1 on a raster illustration that I guess the inspector didn't like - I can't link to that as I deactivated it, furious at the 1 rating. It was a temper tantrum but for a while that file was my best seller at SS, so that made me feel better. I do have a file with an embarrassingly not-white background that got an initial 2. And in this initial 2 on an uninspired shot they noted the focus could be better - something BigStock also used to do. I don't remember when they stopped the initial ratings on all files, but it may have been when the ratings were being used to game search position. After that you'd only see it if they gave it an initial 5.
5750
« on: January 08, 2012, 04:02 »
Nah! I hear Lisa's had it with her remodel (didn't she say something about remodel from hell?) - he's driving the dozer at the house and she'll have a great new series of images. Not many people will have those
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