|
MicrostockGroup Sponsors
This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.
Messages - Jo Ann Snover
5926
« on: December 02, 2011, 16:38 »
...and Veer might reject an image with "isolated" other than to mean "remote".
There are tens of thousands of isolated images on Veer with the isolated keyword
5927
« on: December 02, 2011, 12:57 »
As I'm in transition (as it were), I can't make some of the comparisons I'd like to, but here's some facts I've pulled out of my re-done earnings spreadsheet (the old one was beginning to look like one of those houses that's been added on to too many times and is in danger of falling over) November 2011 wasn't as good as Nov 2010 - 40% drop in income. Up 26% from October, so things are (in general if you don't count iStock) moving in the right direction. The good news (such as it is) is that my iStock downloads dropped 60% from Nov 2010 levels, so something made up the difference, primarily Shutterstock. Except for some nasty months at the end of 2008 (a best match shift that made my life miserable for a few months) I have to go back to December 2007 to find a download number as low as Nov 2011 at iStock. SS was my #1 earner for Nov 2011, beating iStock by 20%. IS was 33% of the month total and SS 40%. SS was up 60% over October 2011 where IS was down 5%. 123rf and DT both did well, at 12% and 6.5% of the total. Veer had an extended license sale which was great, but the temporary boost in their contribution to earnings is probably just that. For me, looking at the reports of golds and diamonds in the iStock stats threads with drops over Nov 2010 of 15% to 50% in income, I suspect I'd have had a big drop in income, possibly around the 40% I had as an independent, but this way I'm in the process of building up my income elsewhere, versus just hoping something good happens to turn IS around. So all in all I'm content - not happy, but cautiously optimistic that if IS does really hit the skids, I'm reasonably buffered from the worst effects.
5928
« on: December 01, 2011, 22:52 »
I've been with 31 sites since I started RF. To me. The one that has the less bells and whistles gets my 6200 Images. Take a 6 question "Test" why? Zip submission? 25%? Thumbnails? Capitalize certain words? Im sorry But I can't go through all my stuff that has no Problem anywhere else and change stuff for one site. It's just not cost effective for penny stock. If I was starting out? Probably But c-mon Guys. Keep it simple and clean FTP,Then add releases One at a time or hundreds By clicking on the ones that apply. I think sometimes sites get to carried away with OOOO we can do this and that. Clean,Simple and elegant is the way to get anyone you want. trust me.
Just My Opinion.
Submissions of photos do not require making thumbnails and you don't have to change any titles. The zip file is only for the application photos - everything else can be uploaded via FTP. I don't like the release system much, but as they don't mind taking a batch FTP'd to the photos folder with a collection of releases in the release folder (where some releases don't apply to some of the images) it's actually not as hard as it sounds. The big issue with it is that you can't check if you forgot something by looking at anything on the site. At any rate, I'm not campaigning, just pointing out that it's the info text that needs updating as it's misleading with respect to stock photos.
5929
« on: December 01, 2011, 15:58 »
I only uploaded Adobe RGB (my default color space) while I was exclusive. For the 4 years prior and since leaving, I convert to sRGB for upload and everywhere gets that, even iStock.
I don't think any site other than iStock (but I'm 99.9% certain that even if some others do, not all do) correctly handles generating sRGB previews from AdobeRGB uploads, even when your upload has an embedded profile (which it should).
While I was exclusive, thankfully not for the whole time, I fell into the foolish practice of using iStock CV terms in my keywording, so phrases like Residential Structure that no human would ever enter in a search, found themselves in my keywords instead of house, home, residence, etc.
I'm assuming all your keywords are in your files, not in Deep Meta.
I would keep phrases - such as New England, New Hampshire, outboard motor - which some sites (e.g. Shutterstock) support but others (e.g. Dreamstime) don't. However I would make sure that I have the stem words where applicable too - picnic basket, picnic, basket for example.
50 keywords is a max many places and the minimums are as low as 7, I believe.
Big Stock has a foolish 7 word minimum on Titles and descriptions, but I just deal with that ad hoc on the few occasions the only sensible title is too short rather than putting the "stuffing" into my file. What's in the file is there for the long haul, make that sensible and deal with site foibles (if you even bother uploading to BigStock; it's not performing all that well for me) when you need to. I think DT has a 5 word minimum.
PhotoDune won't allow numeric keywords. Some of the sites won't allow combinations they consider potentially dangerous - sexy and child for example - so if you do nudes or sexually explicit images you may need to edit.
5930
« on: December 01, 2011, 13:53 »
The slack I suggest cutting for sites is directly proportional to revenues generated by those sites  Given how few of my files are live on PhotoDune, I'm impressed to see 3 sales in a week. Perhaps I'm a cheap date, but I thought I'd share my overall sense of encouraging signs to those ready to walk given the bugs and frustrations. Your mileage may vary (and if PD are buying my files to make me say nice things, buy more and I'll say even nicer ones 
5931
« on: December 01, 2011, 12:39 »
Seven months of lab tests and they failed to realize that the whole system would fail? I think it's a massive red flag that they need to look at their "laboratory" as a testing environment before they try any more big site upgrades - the lab is clearly not able to predict actual usage (and of course there'll be a few bugs with anything new, but not complete collapse).
This also totally avoids the question about why anyone gave them permission to shift infrastructure on the site during the busy season? Was it blind optimism that it'd just work so that made it OK? Were the decision makers aware of the risks of site downtime and went ahead anyway? On the face of it it seems completely insane.
I have to assume that some Getty initiative is behind this - getting on a common platform - and they just don't care about some lost sales given their objective (which they won't share with contributors). All I can say is that they must think it's something really good for them (which likely means equally bad for contributors) to be willing to take this kind of risk.
5932
« on: December 01, 2011, 12:15 »
I thought I'd go take a look at your site and am had some trouble finding the content license agreement. I found it at the end of the Membership Agreement - probably not the best way to organize your agreements.
I read through the Membership Agreement and it seems to contradict the front page in that it says that AYCS gets a commission of 45% on sales. If the contributor gets 75% as the home page says, then the buyer gets to pay 120% of the price to keep everyone happy?
There's also language in the membership agreement that says that AYCS will send an invoice for their commission to the "User" - I assume the contributor - which suggests that the user somehow takes the payment directly? There's also talk of partial payments - that seems insane in the world of microstock. I don't want to be dealing with payments or the buyers - that's what one uses an agency for.
The call for offers is something other sites have tried before, but so far all these schemes haven't worked well. People can do work in response to a "call" but there's no requirement for anyone to pay for anything, so it often ends with both parties pretty ticked off.
The content license includes rights - unlimited press run, for example - that would normally be an extended license at other microstock sites. In light of those terms, prices would have to be much higher, which seems not to work well for buyers who might just want to purchase for web use. It appears that a license to print for resale (an extended license at most other sites) requires contacting AYCS "for separate license and pricing" - meaning it's handled as a one-off?
There's some truly bizarre stuff in there, including from 5.b/ The Licensor warrants that: "The image(s) will be free from defects in material and workmanship for 30 days from the date of license" Pixels will start deteriorating after 30 days? What exactly would a defect in material be for a digital image - these aren't slides?
You need to get someone who is fluent in English to go over the site; it's riddled with incorrect usage and that just doesn't look professional.
I think you need to be a bit more clear about what sort of marketing you're planning to do for the site and its content. 75% (or 55% or whatever it is) is meaningless if there are no sales. If you're expecting the contributor to promote their own work then be up front about that.
Doesn't seem ready for prime time to me.
5933
« on: December 01, 2011, 02:25 »
To the best of my knowledge they have never done anything to compensate contributors for lost income, so I can't see why they'd start now. They're hell bent on cutting costs and don't care if contributors leave (the site or exclusivity); if you looked at this event from their viewpoint, what would they think they would gain by spending more money to say sorry to contributors?
5934
« on: December 01, 2011, 02:07 »
My November stats didn't update with sales from Wednesday. Noticed that my November totals have moved into December totals, despite not selling any images yet in December.
Is anyone else having problems?
What I see is my stats from this morning sometime in the December slot and updated stats (including today's sales) in November's row. I'm assuming the December row will get cleared out in a few hours
5935
« on: November 30, 2011, 21:25 »
They've upped the ante - 15% vs. 10% - I assume because the site's been out so long.
I really, really wish that when they give out "sorry" discounts it would come fully out of iStock's unreasonably large share of the gross and not mine as well. It's bad enough that I can't sell if the site is down but then when we can sell again, it'll be with some lowball royalty amounts.
I don't begrudge the buyers a discount at all; I just don't want to fund it when it is 100.0% iStock's fault.
5936
« on: November 30, 2011, 20:11 »
I've done my share of complaining, but I think you have to cut PhotoDune a little slack as they're sincerely trying to help people who encounter problems and generally offering reasonable workarounds. When I started with SS in 2004 Jon was still inspecting and they were just getting FTP up and running. It was a buggy mess for a little while but look how that turned out If you abandoned all sites with bugs or irritants, you'd give up on submitting anywhere. I only have 150 files online (got started early last week) and I've already made 2 sales, so for me, I have the incentive to keep working with them on whatever issues there are.
5937
« on: November 30, 2011, 20:02 »
@gostwyk
5938
« on: November 30, 2011, 19:34 »
With the version of the text that said it was 1979 again in English, we had what appears to be the original monster stuff in German. In French, in both cases, completely different text.
Google translate makes this of the French section: "t seems that we meet at this time a temporary problem, but we work hard to resolve it quickly. To wait, we want to offer you 10% off your next purchase of 50 or more credits, using the Coupon Code below." No 1979 and no bats in the belfry. Do they think the humor (and I use that word loosely) in English won't play well in France?
I detect a whiff of burning hair...
5939
« on: November 30, 2011, 16:53 »
I just tried to log in from my laptop and got the "whoops" screen after I clicked the button, but it did log me in anyway - was the "whoops" for the wretched "are you a buyer or signing up as a contributor" screen perhaps? Yes, I know I can answer it and make it go away, but I haven't.
At any rate, it was late morning here (Pacific Time) before I saw my balance change and after a reasonable Monday and OK Tuesday, it looks as if today's a total washout at IS. Unless there are sales but we're not seeing them.
How would we know? I realize there are some in the Help forum insisting that they can look at various iStock-generated screens and be certain they are getting accurate reports of sales, but that's just illogical daydreaming.
5940
« on: November 30, 2011, 16:07 »
... And who knows, perhaps the PP will be a barn buster and I'll make it up there
It's almost a six percent drop in what you get paid for each DL, of course.
When I see those 12 cent royalties (admitedly not all that often, although I only spot check every now and then), 28 cents per would be an increase
5941
« on: November 30, 2011, 16:05 »
.. SS is now going to be face to face with TS with the exact same content. The only differentiator will be price and TS is lower.
Not so. Take a look at any of the big independents and you'll see they have thousands more images on SS than on IS. Start with Yuri. On top of that there are the "rules" of iStok inspection which rule out so many things (and I'm not talking about quality here). SS doesn't follow the same rules.
5942
« on: November 30, 2011, 12:49 »
I'd be a bit worried about it taking so many attempts to get accepted at SS and would definitely postpone dumping exclusivity until you've been accepted at SS (I agree with the previous posters that it will be a critical part of your independent earnings)
5943
« on: November 30, 2011, 12:19 »
It was looking iffy, but I finally reached my RC goal within the past week, so I will stay where I am.
The bad news for me is that unless they lower the targets, I won't keep my 18% for 2012. The good news is that a 1% royalty rate drop for a site whose declining sales look to be increasingly irrelevant to my monthly totals isn't so drastic an event. And who knows, perhaps the PP will be a barn buster and I'll make it up there
5944
« on: November 30, 2011, 10:55 »
Some of us had no choice, really and I was one of them. I thought November was the date for the move into TS, but so far I cant see any of my shots over there. Maybe they forgot? one can always prey.
they seem to be slowly getting moved over. I had 3 there yesterday morning, 4 by the afternoon, and this morning I just checked and now I have 5 on there. No particular order of the, either, it seems.
That's what I see - no images before, but this morning I have 8 images there. No apparent order for choice of which ones are there (no correlation by date, title, sales total, anything)
5945
« on: November 30, 2011, 10:51 »
...one can always prey.
Getty's strategy in a nutshell - lovely typo! (I think you meant pray )
5946
« on: November 30, 2011, 10:46 »
You are just appointed CEO of iStock, outline your first 3 actions ...
1) Try and negotiate an independent status for iStock, sort of like Native American treaties for nation status within the US (although we all know how well that worked out for the Native Americans even when they got it in writing). 2) When those negotiations fail, resign. With Getty's history of bare knuckle treatment of photographers, illustrators, musicians (Pump Audio), etc. and H&F's need for cash driving everything, I can't see any upside for anyone with a conscience. 3) There is no step 3 - who wants to be in charge of iStock vectors moving to clipart.com or other soul-crushing attempts to squeeze a bit of cash out of what's left of a good name?
5947
« on: November 30, 2011, 10:33 »
How could SS offer exclusive content without charging customers more? It's not transparent, but from the way they raised royalties in the past, they always put prices up first, waited a month or so to see how things shook out, and then raised our royalty. They needed to see how download patterns were in practice given the new prices - I assume the worry is that if you put up prices then buyers will be more likely to download their full allowance which would leave you broke.
In the current market, I think SS has been the refuge for buyers who've had it with rising prices elsewhere - they offer stability in the form of a known monthly spend on images. Unless all the other agencies go on a round of price hikes, I can't see how SS could raise prices. And as for some images costing more than one download, DT's already hinted they may modify that as they've had negative buyer feedback.
I don't think there's exclusivity, even for images, in SS's future
5948
« on: November 29, 2011, 17:59 »
Using Sean's great GreaseMonkey scripts I can turn views off, so I couldn't tell you anything about mine. I do recall a bug some months (a year or so??) back where images got bazillions of views for a short time. There was some contributor concern about whether that'd hurt files in the best match results (too many views no sales) but nothing was ever done AFAIK when the bug fix was made. Given they're pushing "fixes" at the moment, I'm sure they're pushing a bug or two along with...
5949
« on: November 29, 2011, 17:30 »
When I saw the title of this thread I wondered if my calendar was wrong and it's actually April Fool's Day.
That's when the site will be fixed and running smoothly
5950
« on: November 29, 2011, 17:12 »
Many searches are sprinkled with totally unrelated items.
I'm still wondering if that's a 'feature' rather than a fault.
Years ago a long ex-contributor emailled me to suggest I should do that in my lightboxes, apparently to show buyers I do different sorts of stuff. It's an established marketing ploy with a name, (I Googled it at the time, but of course, I can't remember it now.)
If iStock thinks that they can get people who search for tropical beach to buy a picture of an isolated dog, empty car trunk or a home thermostat, they're even more delusional than I give them credit for
|
Sponsors
Microstock Poll Results
Sponsors
|
Show Posts
