|
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 - jamirae
Pages: 1 ... 23 24 25 26 27 [28] 29 30 31 32 33
676
« on: December 14, 2010, 12:48 »
But we've wandered off the OP and the broken promise from JJRD that it would never be possible to turn off exclusive files. Never means 'never', it doesn't mean 'sometimes'.
I knew it would happen (especially after I became exclusive!). 
Never in Gettyspeak means "until we change our mind".
If I was still exclusive, I'd be royally pissed. If this doesn't push some exclusives over the edge to drop their crown, not sure what will. I have a feeling there will be some major upheavals in the first few months of 2011 for iStock.
677
« on: December 14, 2010, 12:46 »
I have a feeling by the end of the day I'll be thinking more along the lines of wishing all the buyers would just leave iStock. you guys are right, they can't seem to do anything right these days and buyers are really starting to get pissed.
678
« on: December 14, 2010, 12:43 »
if anyone still cares about buyer's leaving istock (personally I wish they would stay...)
Why? I don't see much benefit for us to have buyers remain at istock. We'd do better if they migrated to sites like StockFresh, GL, etc.
well, for selfish reasons, because most of my port is still just at iStock.  but another reason because eventhough I am a small fish and now Independent, I think iStock will continue to be a good earner for me.
679
« on: December 14, 2010, 10:37 »
if anyone still cares about buyer's leaving istock (personally I wish they would stay, but after seeing of these types of post, glad I am starting to spread my eggs to other baskets) From this thread on iStockIstock is officially no longer a micro stock site. With price hikes it was debateable, but now there is no way to turn off the vetta and agency Istock is doing me a mass disservice.
I, like thousands of other buyers, will not be buying vetta and agency simply because they are the first images to display in a search. We must now WASTE valuble time skipping the said "collection" making it an unviable service.
I will be purchasing my next stock credits at another site so see if it saves production time.
Shame really as IS was good
680
« on: December 13, 2010, 18:50 »
I bet they get the commission cuts in January right
no kidding. they seem to have the "money for istock" working fine, the money for contributors, not so much. I keep thinking about a post I read in one of the threads about getting stuck in 'agency only' search results. Someone had posted something like "I bet if the buyers had been stuck in 'dollar bin only' or 'main collection only' search it would have been fixed overnite." I hate being so cynical-- but these past few months istock has given me basically nothing to be happy about.
681
« on: December 13, 2010, 18:46 »
What is most baffling is that the buyers seem to be mostly just sitting around waiting for things to get fixed. The buyer mentioned above is apparently on a deadline. So go buy some credits at another stock site and get the images you need there.
Makes me think it's not such a crazy idea that many buyers are completely unaware that images can be purchased elsewhere. It's no wonder new microstock companies have such a hard time getting off the ground. Some people think istock is the only game in town.
I suppose the buyers that have already gone to the other sites aren't bothering to complain in the istock forum?
there seems to be a few pissed off people posting on twitter. some contributors pissed about possibly lost sales when trying to reach the coveted RC goals and some buyers annoyed and pissed at the flaky way istock is pushing out changes.
682
« on: December 13, 2010, 17:39 »
so.. what are the guidelines at DT for editorial? I looked around the site and through the contributor FAQ but my ADD took over and I gave up looking for it. anyone know where those guidelines/rules for editorial at DT are? I'm wondering how they compare to istock. I do see that they accept sports and celebrities because I browsed the collection and saw a bunch of those.
683
« on: December 13, 2010, 16:10 »
684
« on: December 13, 2010, 16:03 »
This was just posted on Twitter by @istock:
"Fixes for the new search are being pushed. It'll take about 10-15minutes for them to appear"
685
« on: December 13, 2010, 15:59 »
IS have introduced a new search and it is not working at all for me. It gives me no results for even basic searches like Man. Well done IS messed up again!!!!
maybe you have a bunch of filters on or something. I suppose you already checked that. I'm not defending them, just knowing that they have lately had some not-so-user-friendly (or intuitive) settings that leave you trapped without realizing it.
686
« on: December 10, 2010, 16:44 »
Congrats Jami! Get ready to have some good sales. Things are hopping at Fotolia lately
thanks.. yeah, I was noticing that!
687
« on: December 10, 2010, 16:39 »
yeah, I can't help be worry. but considering they made the search update to be the big announcement, I'm not expecting much. Of course, the search should have been working when they launched the new site in the first place! I fear that all these little tweeks are going to be "too little, too late" for some buyers. A lot of them are frustrated and looking elsewhere already. Which is good news for independents, but sucks for exclusives.
it's clear to me that the direction of istock is to promote the high-priced stuff of Agency and Vetta. I'm guessing their large buyer base of small-time freelancers and organizations with low budgets will continue to move on to find cheaper stock products. iStock will be catering to the big guys that have deep pockets.
688
« on: December 10, 2010, 11:31 »
okay, just thought i'd let you all know that the problem was indeed my account not being validated. After doing the email validation, I waited two days and this morning I got an email saying that my account had been validated. So I checked, sure enough my member state is now "validated" and I have a green dot. and.. just checked, the FTP works flawlessly! thanks everyone!
689
« on: December 09, 2010, 13:38 »
(well, there was that and the 67 cent royalties which was completely demotivational to me. "Quit my day job" --- bah!)
Wait. So you pay $50 for the slim chance of getting 67 cents in return? Man, those guys are good with the marketing after all. 
Frankly, I can't see why ANYONE would defend this BS. You are PAYING a multi-million (billion?) dollar company just to have your photos on their website, and THEY STILL TAKE A LARGER PORTION OF THE ROYALTIES!! To even find this acceptable is ludicrous to me.
I can't really say. I dont know if the $50 Photographer's Choice program has a different royalty/payment structure. I would guess that it does. the 67cent royalties I got were through the iStock Photodisc program. I did, however, occasionally get some larger $20 to $60 royalties. But, again, I did not actively work at the Getty program. I only have 12 photos up there. By the way, the deactivated my account, but my portfolio is still live. I guess I can still get sales but I cannot add anymore to it. Of course, I guess I'll have to contact them to find out since they are obviously not going to be actively offering this information.
690
« on: December 09, 2010, 11:25 »
Or you could look at it that they are making people self-moderate their uploads. Yes, the price is a bit high, but if you upload just the best, instead of another tree, you might show success.
Keyword - MIGHT.
If some smaller, less well-known agency tried to do such a thing everyone would be screaming "SCAM", but because it's Getty...well...
not that I'm sticking up for this program, nor do I plan on joining it, but if you pay to place your product there it seems to me that you are paying for the buyer market that Getty has and promotion of your product. albeit, $50 per image is a bit steep - I'd think taking a portion of the sales price would be sufficient enough. but eh. whatever. In the beginning I had high hopes for Getty. They opened up the program to Golds right after I became one. I applied right away and was accepted. I was going to start planning Getty-specific shoots but then they raised the size limit and I was going to have to up-size all my images just to get them accepted. (yeah, I shoot with a Canon 5D - still produces too small of an image for what they required). I'm busy enough that I didn't get around to adding that extra step into my image processing so I never uploaded again to Getty. (well, there was that and the 67 cent royalties which was completely demotivational to me. "Quit my day job" --- bah!) I'm not losing sleep over the whole Getty thing. It was a nice thought and I would have liked to make it work, but there comes a time when I have to balance the work with the returns, and that just didn't seem to cut it for me personally.
691
« on: December 09, 2010, 10:55 »
Anyone can sign up for Photographer's Choice, you don't have to be on iSTock or Flickr to do it. You just have to think your investment of $50 per image will deliver a return on whatever percentage they are paying out for that (which might be more than 20% or might not, I don't know).
right. the option is that if you want to be with Getty, you can now simply apply through their other/regular channels. one of these options is the Photographer's Choice program where you pay $50 per image to sell it through that program. So you're not being forced to do anything, they are just canceling the original Getty "Quit Your Day Job" program with iStock and replacing it with the Vetta/Agency link. If you want to continue to contribute to Getty and were not selected as an active, participating photographer to stay in the existing program, your choice is to use the new Vetta/Agency exchange program or sign up to become a Getty contributor using one of the Getty programs.
692
« on: December 09, 2010, 09:18 »
haha.. that's a riot. So yeah, I just logged into my Getty account, or attempted to, and just a small box popped up saying "user account disabled." wow. thanks for the notice, folks.
I didn't really have anything there and have been trying to figure out how to get my dozen or so images off of Getty since I dropped my exclusivity at iStock. I guess my images still stay but now I have to contact someone to get them removed. kind of silly the whole thing. no instructions, no notice -- unless I had happened to wander into the Getty forum on istock, which I only did because I saw this. Business Communications 101: step one=communicate!
693
« on: December 08, 2010, 22:05 »
okay, the confirmation email finally showed up once I switched to my gmail account. so I validated the account and my dot is still orange/yellow. do i have to get manually "validated" by Fotolia or is this automated? anyhow.. my member state is now "(E-mail validated)" and I tried the FTP again and still can't login. I guess I'll check back tomorrow and see if my dot gets a paintjob to green overnight.
694
« on: December 08, 2010, 21:50 »
thanks everyone! I did know all those issues EXCEPT the one about the "green dot"! that may explain why the 6 files I uploaded through the browser have been pending for over a week, too. Anyhow, I am a Mac user and I have tried two different FTP programs which I use regularly when updating websites that I work on.. but both with the same results when trying to connect to FTP. I think the problem is the green dot. since it is yellow still and not green. I have been trying to confirm my account but I am not getting the confirmation email. I'll try changing my email address to a secondary one and see if that does it.
695
« on: December 08, 2010, 21:42 »
ok, so taking a step backwards...serious was obviously the wrong adjective. so I do apologize for the offense caused. absolutely not the intention. the discussion is about going forward and 2011 targets. whether any of us likes it or not, and this includes me because when I hit diamond next year only half-way through the year, my RC target will likely be beyond my reach....I believe that how much you upload and consequently sell is now clearly going to be a factor. it's already a factor and we all know it. but now our annual performance versus career-wide performance sets our royalties for the following year. so that being the case, I'm certainly going to be making even more effort to produce in terms of quality and quantity. I think it's the nature of what we do in microstock and if we don't do it, other contributors will. with the new system, we're very much pitted against one another in terms of the curve. saying that doesn't mean agreeing with it, but it's there and it's what we have to deal with.
you do realize that diamond has nothing to do with RC targets? unless you are simply equating what the current royalty system where a diamond level is 40% royalty to the RC targets. I suppose you could do that, but if you want to reach for that level in the RC system, then go for it, the color of your canister will allow you more uploads.
696
« on: December 08, 2010, 21:38 »
697
« on: December 08, 2010, 16:43 »
oh yeah, you are right. sorry, i did not make myself clear. I was referring to the 10% that is OWED. I know that they are doing away with it in January, but was only referring to the part that should have been paid all this time that has not and is currently owed to contributors who earned it.
OK. I see what you mean. I just misunderstood. Sorry.
no harm, no foul.
698
« on: December 08, 2010, 15:39 »
oh yeah, you are right. sorry, i did not make myself clear. I was referring to the 10% that is OWED. I know that they are doing away with it in January, but was only referring to the part that should have been paid all this time that has not and is currently owed to contributors who earned it.
699
« on: December 08, 2010, 15:24 »
Off thread, but I just got my EL bonus on three ELs. It's really scary to see how much we'll be losing post Jan 1st. 
that's great! I was really worried that they were going to come in and say "the 10% is unsustainable. so we're just going to hang on to that. we'll reevaluate it in 2011." seriously, I honestly don't think they would do that, but it wouldn't have really surprised me. I hope everyone else got their bonus cash as well and that little "fiasco" can now be checked off as finally being resolved.
700
« on: December 08, 2010, 11:55 »
another frustrated buyer just posted on the iS forums: As a freelancer web designer who uses iStockphoto a lot for comp art - but doesn't know too much about the processes here - I actually almost left today and went to Getty because all the photos I was getting were priced 55 credits for a Xsmall (and they had blue or orange camera icons - which I have no idea what these mean - but now from reading this thread I assume this means that they are from an agency and are about as expensive as Getty or Corbis).
After several frustrating minutes I figured out that the grey cameras meant more "normal" pricing (although xsmalls are now 5 credits? Geez...). I tried using the "exclude Vetta..." filter in search and still got almost all super expensive results with blue and orange camera icons.
I can tell you all that if you sell images on iStockphoto - we regular designer Joe's out here who are pressed for time and need to get in and out fast - just see these big prices and leave. If this is the way it's going to be and there's going to be regular pricing and deluxe platinum super pricing - then you need a working filter with a price limit so we don't waste our time! I really hope iStock takes these complaints to heart and fix the search, for crying out loud! They can implement code to double RC and reduce Vetta prices but they can't fix the sticky search issue? argh!
Pages: 1 ... 23 24 25 26 27 [28] 29 30 31 32 33
|
Sponsors
Microstock Poll Results
Sponsors
|
Show Posts
