Quote from: WarrenPrice on August 15, 2013, 12:22

Quote from: jcpjr on August 15, 2013, 11:41

Had a huge day Tuesday. Yesterday had 4. Today one so far. Really bad. Had better sales over the past weekend then I did the past two days. Too much search tweaking in my opinion.

I'm seeing the same inconsistency.  Makes me wonder if the "real time" update is working.  I noticed last night that sales (on the world map) are popping up in bunches.  Then long periods with nothing?

Just a thought.

Same problem here, I did great over the weekend, but today is terrible.

Hmmm __ things were normal for me 3 hours ago and now sales have slowed. SS must have done a massive change to the sort order in the meantime. Not.

Interesting that they posted a link to MSG. It suggests that they are happy for the discussion to continue ... but don't want any potential legal ramifications if it got out of hand on the DT forum.

Well, if the one he likes is 40 credits, that's what the cost is.  If it's more important that it doesn't cost 40 credits, then he can pick a cheaper one.

What surprised me, when I did a search on 'post-it note', is how many images depict a piece of yellow paper ... secured by a drawing pin. Isn't that missing the point of what 'post-it notes' are and how they're supposed to work?

It was actually the invention of a 'glue that doesn't stick to anything' that led to the 'post-it note' being developed by 3M.

If you had a modest portfolio of 500 Apple shares, you would have made over $11,000 just in one day. 

Firstly $250K of Apple shares is hardly 'modest'. Assuming a balanced portfolio of no more than 10% in any one investment it suggests a 'modest' $2.5M in overall savings.

Apart from that you would also have lost a lot more than $11K if you'd bought your 500 Apple shares at their peak of $700. A 'snapshot' of what might have happened if you'd done this or that on one particular day is pointless and irrelevant ... unless you actually did it.

Quote from: Gannet77 on August 11, 2013, 12:50

Well, I would consider myself a fairly "average" exclusive, but like ShadySue, I don't make anywhere near $2500/month on iStock, and even my BME isn't close.

I suspect it's a case where the sample size and variation is such that the average isn't very representative;  it is likely skewed by a few very high earners against a large number of moderate sellers.  I would think the median figure given in the poll, $12,405/annum, is much closer to the experience for most of us.  Certainly it's a lot more like mine.

There are a lot of people doing it full time and $12,000 is nowhere near enough for a full time living so I'm pretty sure there are many people making more than that.

Gosh! Thanks for that. You really know how to do your research don't you? At the risk of paraphrasing you, "I'm pretty sure" that you haven't got a * clue what you are talking about!

You are just pulling numbers, any numbers, out of the air and using them to support your hilarious and absurd assumptions about the obviously failing Istockphoto and the income of their unfortunate and gullible exclusives, of which sadly, you are one (but probably not for too much longer).

I'd get rid of the exclusive contract in it's present form, and offer the option for exclusive images or maybe exclusive shoots (this to prevent people putting similars elsewhere).

I'd abandon all the scams, and put some effort into demonstrating that IS is a company that can be trusted.

Great idea. I think I'd appoint you as the next GM of Istock.

The use of your image is not illegal if it is only displayed as a option for buyers. Some sites do this legally. They can offer your image for sale on a print or canvas but only need to buy the license if it is sold for that use, not just offered as a choice. I have a photo on (only) one microsite (so it's easy to track the sales) that is offered as an option on a chain of sites that sell canvas prints and every time it is sold I get a license sale. They are required to purchase an extended license every time the image is sold, and they do. I'm not saying that is the case here, but some print on demand sites do follow the rules.

I guess it depends on the source agency but I'm not even sure that an EL is always required (assuming that only one canvas print is being bought) they might just need to buy the image at full-size. Some years ago Istock started selling prints from their own site (and DT too if I remember correctly) and no EL was required back then.

Quote from: ShadySue on August 10, 2013, 18:37

Quote from: tickstock on August 09, 2013, 18:54

A few years ago the average exclusive was making $30,000 per year (or $2500/month) so lots of exclusives now have their income under represented in the poll.

Where do you get that figure and how are you working it out?

When iStockStats was working (preRCs), for a long time I was always around position 1880-5 in downloads. That was among all contributors, not just exclusives, and at that time there were said to be IIRC something around 4000-5000 exclusives. So I'd say that put me a bit above the average for exclusives for downloads. The top people would be earning much more, but some of the top downloaded togs were indies, just like now.
I can assure you that as an apparent 'average' exclusive at the time, I was earning quite a bit less than half of that.

So, where are you getting the 'average exclusive was earning $2500pm' figure from? No doubt a very few at the top were earning more than that, but I doubt very much if even the 'average earned by exclusives' was anything like that.

From the yearly poll here, should be about the same people answering the monthly poll so I chose that group.   I meant it to be the average of people that participate on MSG, all the numbers would be much lower if you took into account people that uploaded 1 image in 2005 and never thought about it again.  Your numbers would be for the median contributor not the average.

How utterly ridiculous. That's the most laughable 'extrapolation' of a tiny, non-representative, self-selecting, non-verifiable piece of 'data' I have ever had the misfortune to observe. 

I was aware my sales at IS had increased, and money had decreased, but looking at the graphs side by side really brings the point home better than words... 

My own graphs are almost identical in shape. At least we can enjoy the rueful irony that IS are actually losing more than 4x the money that we are.

I'm guessing that IS really had little choice, but to take the painful medicine, in order to stay in the game.  Unfortunately they probably haven't performed the operation skilfully enough to have the effect that they really need. 'Main' collection files are now cheaper than they need to be whilst the majority of exclusive files, at 10x more for a Medium image, appear over-priced relative to the Main collection. I can see buyers hoovering up the Main collection images (which at these prices does nobody any good) whilst ignoring the more expensive ones. That'll probably lead to more exclusives handing in their crowns ... and so on.

I think the future is going to be much worse for Istock though. I (stupidly) uploaded about 100 new images to IS a couple of months ago. Since then those images have garnered about 15 sales for a total of about $10. That works out at about 5c per image/month. Yes ... I really did say 5c/image/month. Most of the images don't appear to have appeared on the PP yet but the few that did have earned a paltry $5 more. I find that incredible. If the insultingly low royalties, on pathetically low prices, weren't enough disincentive to starve IS of new content then surely the lack of sales will be. I can't imagine why any independent contributor would bother to upload to IS again.

By way of comparison the 100 images uploaded to SS at about the same time have earned well over $200.

i don't think he's gonna fire anyone, his goal could be to create a 1 million images portfolio so he might hire another 100 guys if needed.

you all think his belly is full but i've the feeling this is just the tip of the iceberg, the deal with getty allows him to produce expensive shots for getty and leaving the cr-ap for istock and thinkstock, win-win scenario.

No. He 'hit the wall' as an independent, as we all do, he was just a bit later than most of us because he kept upping his production rate. Unfortunately you can't keep doing that forever. You can't just keep 'employing another 100 guys' and expect it to pay off. It's painfully ironic that Yuri's 'solution' to the issue was to tie himself into a dwindling agency. Big, big mistake.

A 'Main Collection' image at IS, at medium size, is now 3 credits. An exclusive image (not Main Collection) at medium size is now 30 credits. Is a 10x differential, between main and exclusive, sustainable? Nope. Quite frankly you might as well start another agency for exclusive content. You just don't get the same customers, with such different budgets, all happily shopping in the same place. It doesn't work like that.

Quote from: Xanox on August 01, 2013, 15:43

...as confirmed by Yuri it seems SS has no plans to raise our fees or to launch a new expensive product line.
and frankly speaking i would do the same, their core business is being the leader in low cost so they better avoid risky adventures in news, reportage, midstock, etc...

So... have you heard of Offset?

No ... judging by his misguided posts, it would appear that Xanox hasn't heard anything at all for at least 5 years.

I think you are picking unrealistically low numbers.  All those Istock/Getty contributors sell their work for around $75/dl.  Video downloads average well over $100/dl.   The estimate in 2011 was that Istock had revenue of $350 million, my guess is that number has increased although not as fast as it did in the past.   I think it's very far fetched to think that overall Istock has lost more than 50% of it's revenue in a year and a half when it seems much more likely they've grown by a substantial margin.  FWIW the average DL in 2011 was said to be over $16, maybe $20 is more realistic for now?

Don't forget that Getty themselves flatlined, during the H&F ownership, between 2008 and 2012. Getty's turnover was $950M on the last published figures so, if Istock really did grow to $350M, they would have been Getty's major earner at nearly 40% of their total. It's possible but I'd think that Getty might have taken better care of such an essential part of their empire.

I doubt that video, audio and Vetta+ sales are a particularly significant proportion of IS's total revenue __ I'd guess that they might account for 10% or 15% at best.

All we need is for a few more exclusive and independent contributors to advise the average price paid for their own images during July. Those would be real numbers that we could work back on.

Do I think that Istock's revenues have massively declined over the last couple of years? Yes I do and there's lots of evidence for it too. I know lots of long-term independent contributors, like me, whose income from Istock has dwindled to a fraction of what it was just a couple of years ago. Then there's all the ex-exclusives who have left in the last year or so. Why did they do that if incomes weren't falling?

Here's 'Pesky Monkey', a regular uploading exclusive contributor since 2007 with over 10K files and 170K+ sales, in this month's sales thread;

"$ down 25% and DLs down 56% compared to July 2012."

From the evidence that I see it is entirely possible (I'd even say probable) that Istock's revenue has halved since it's peak. That's why they keep sacking the boss.