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Messages - Jo Ann Snover
6776
« on: January 15, 2011, 13:54 »
Particularly those who have to cower in anonymity because they fear reprisal from their agents for speaking their mind ...
I'm curious who is the one "cowering in anonymity" when we all know (and respect!) Sean but you have no website, portfolio links or anything else to identify YOU? Something about a pot and a kettle comes to mind, but in this case the kettle isn't even black!
It's not that hard to work out who I am, it wouldn't take a plane scientist much less a rocket scientist
& I wasn't referring to Sean but rather Gostwyck, to whom my most recent reply was directed to ...
Sean's an iStock exclusive and they aren't the agency that has taken reprisals against people speaking out in off-site forums. One of the other agencies has. They are a pain in the butt, but it's the reality. There are a number of anonymous people here who have been around microstock a while, have portfolios at most of the big agencies and have a lot to lose if they get their account cancelled at this agency that doesn't take criticism well. Don't blame the anonymous posters, blame the agency that plays hardball. I do know who Gostwyck is, but I have no idea who you are. And I do think that one anonymous poster calling another out for being anonymous is a bit rich.
6777
« on: January 15, 2011, 13:50 »
Thanks to Jim for making it a guest post - and to Leaf for making that happen.
It says a couple of key things about how Daniel has achieved his sales volume, and talks about the exclusivity decision. Without the higher upload limits of an exclusive, Laflor could not have increased his portfolio as he did in 2010. I think an independent diamond gets 38 slots a week, and even at 100% approval rate that would net you slightly more than 1900 images in a year.
Certainly a partnership or some sort of sharing deal with another photographer to help keep expenses under control would be a big assist in making this profitable (versus just excellent revenue). Given iStock's exclusivity rules, it would seem that Yuri and Daniel's arrangement is just about the ideal - Daniel pushes the shutter button and he's the legal copyright holder. His images look very much like Yuri's, but as long as Yuri's OK with that, iStock has no say in having many "similars" out there on other stock sites.
Certainly all food for thought.
6778
« on: January 14, 2011, 17:33 »
That's easy to say, not so easy to do. You're asking people to stop making a living from microstock and potentially move to a site that might not make them anything. I've been with Alamy, never made much money there. I make a modest living with microstock sites. Why should I give that up because of your moral objection to microstock?
You might as well have said "Hello Mr Troll. Would you like a nice banana?"
I do hope the microstock business doesn't collapse completely - I'd so miss your delightful (if sometimes biting) sense of humour 
6779
« on: January 14, 2011, 13:03 »
I liked the idea of ethical crowdsourcing, but honestly don't see how this idea could possibly end up being a successful business. At 30K competitions a year, they'd have to sell the photos for a lot - or charge the camera clubs a ton for these competitions in the cloud - to make any money.
Even if you forget the thought that camera clubs will deliver lovely black & whites to hang on a wall vs. the type of stock that gets bought, even if you don't worry about model releases, IP and other legal issues, even if you ignore the issue of not many camera clubs in some of the locations that sell a lot of stock, aren't the club members going to lose interest if one or two of the members always make the sale (the sjlocke of Celbridge Camera Club)?
6780
« on: January 14, 2011, 10:48 »
...I hate to say this, because it's curt and contrite, but if you (meaning anyone, not you personally) don't like what Getty is doing, "you" can always go someplace else. ...
A lot of people who didn't like Getty did go elsewhere. Problem is, Getty bought elsewhere and so now they're back at square one. I find the comments on child rearing to be most strident and dogmatic from people who don't have children. No skin in the game, as it were. It's much easier to opine about who should do this or that and how everything can be fixed if only you have the right [fill in the blank] and we all have absolute freedom of choice when none of it really touches you. The fact is that Getty is a very predatory outfit and having bought up a lot of the competition are beginning to turn the screws on suppliers. On top of which, Getty's obnoxious terms then become "industry standard" for other agencies to follow (with the bleat that they have to, to stay competitive). I've registered the fact that you don't like us complaining - or trying to do anything about - what's going on. Point noted. You can now move on and straighten out some other problem and leave us to it.
6781
« on: January 13, 2011, 23:06 »
I doubt anyone has the money to take the contract through the courts to see what's enforceable, but it's quite possible that lots of these terms aren't, even if we signed the contract.
These types of take it or leave it (adhesion) contracts may be deemed unconscionable if they are essentially all to benefit the party in the stronger bargaining position (that wouldn't be us, the contributors). All those unfair terms are really the big dog growling and snarling loudly to get all the little dogs to stay in line.
I think the simple way to deal with the silly clause about rejects is to make your mind up which shoots go where and don't submit anything to iStock that you want to sell elsewhere. If there's a reject that you really care about, ask permission and they'll probably give it.
6782
« on: January 13, 2011, 15:32 »
Is the person on the PC currently working as an Istock programmer?
Nah - far too advanced to be one of theirs...
6783
« on: January 13, 2011, 15:16 »
...My eyes glazed over after about the fourth paragraph.
So you passed your health screening for this week! What other response could there be to this sort of tangle? @Lisa - thanks for the fence Just trying to think through my options and see what the landscape looks like today - it's been over 2 years since I was independent and lots of royalty rates have been altered since then Whether independent or exclusive, what Getty is up to has an impact on our business. Seemed prudent to try and get some data as they are wholly useless at sharing info with us (beyond the happy talk newsletters which are info free). I think the next step is likely to be a removal of the opt out on the partner program (to feed TS and Photos.com). That'd probably prove to be the proverbial straw for me.
6784
« on: January 13, 2011, 12:21 »
I used to do pre- and post-sales support for publishing software and I completely get this - it's lovely
6785
« on: January 13, 2011, 10:50 »
Perhaps this is good news, ITLR. As you suggest, business at TS must be less than expectations.
Weren't they conceived to go after Shutterstock's business? SS has shown significant growth this year, so apparently it isn't working.
We thought they were but that doesn't seem to be the plan at all. They could have discounted heavily on subscription rates to attack SS but they didn't, they just matched the pricing. That won't lure anyone anywhere. As with many things Getty, the master plan remains obscure.
So photos.com - relaunched - undercuts Thinkstock pricing - cheaper image packs and cheaper subscriptions. But you get fewer sizes and a smaller collection (Comstock images are at Thinkstock, for example, but not at photos.com). Given photos.com as such a spectacular name for a stock photography site, why is that the clipart.com-equivalent in the Getty stable? Thinkstock is the higher end cheapo site - see here for some more on my attempts to figure out how these all fit together.
6786
« on: January 13, 2011, 03:34 »
I've been browsing on Thinkstock, photos.com, Jupiter Images, Punchstock and Getty Images trying to get my head around where each of these sites now within the "Getty Family" fits. Potentially, content from iStock could be on more than one of these sites, although I don't think any one image could be on all. They've apparently tried to make pricing tiers and put content only a few places. Apologies that this is a bit long, but I think as contributors we need to understand what Getty's doing to be able to make decisions about whether and where to contribute to their (many) collections. You can get the same image at very, very different prices depending on where you shop - even the Image Packs sold at the various sites aren't priced the same. If I were a buyer, I think I'd find this whole thing miserably confusing - not sure where to go to get the best price. Thinkstock's image packs start at $59 for 5; photos.com charges $14.99 for a 5 pack. So if you chose to purchase an IS image it could be $12 or $3 depending on which family site you shop at. Plus there are subscriptions... A Comstock image at Thinkstock will cost you $12 (max size at that price) via an image pack, but at Jupiter Images or Getty, the same will cost you $370. Check out Comstock 86501880 as an example (same image number on all - it's as if they were coordinating things  Photos.com doesn't appear to have these images. Then I looked at Punchstock - they have the Comstock image up to 3156 x 3156 (i.e. not the max size of 4385 x 4385) but they're selling at a discount - $236.25 instead of $315 for the High res 3156x size. I think I'll still take it for $12 though - cheaper and I get the 4385x maximum size to boot. I don't see how you can have content at $370 or $12 depending on which of Getty's stores you happen into - how does that make sense? Agency Collection images show up at Getty, Jupiter Images and iStock (RubberBall Productions images, for example). These don't appear at photos.com or Thinkstock. The price for images (the ones I looked at from the Agency Collection; Comstock images at Jupiter are cheaper, for example, maxing out at $370) is the same on Jupiter & Getty at max of $525, but at iStock that'd be 200 credits for Agency (which would be $300 if you paid $1.50 per credit - cheaper if you buy in bulk). If I get this image at Punchstock, it's on sale at $393.75 for the largest size 104302851 at Getty, Punchstock & Jupiter, 14628640 at IS as an example Rubberball image in case anyone wants to look. If you click on the Subscription link on the top right of a Jupiter page, you're taken to Thinkstock (where you can't buy a subscription to the stuff that's on Jupiter, but I guess buyers will figure that out) . I don't see anyone linking to photos.com - not even Thinkstock, which does have a link to clipart.com (dregs vectors) IS partner program images are at Thinkstock and photos.com, but the prices are cheaper at the latter. Example: 104787028 at Thinkstock & Photos.com. $299 for one month subscription at TS or 3 months at photos.com; image packs $12 or $3 per image if you buy a 5 pack. You don't get the largest size via photos.com I can't find that particular image at IS, but one that size would be 15 credits, or $15 - $22. So it looks as though Photos.com is at the bottom of the barrel in terms of pricing and has the least content. Then there's Thinkstock with some of the content at the higher end sites and some real bargain prices if you go for image packs. Then there's IS which is a bargain or not depending on what type of content you're shopping for. Then there's Getty/Jupiter/Punchstock with the same nominal prices but things are on sale at Punchstock (25% off until March). And IS contributors (via the partner program and/or Vetta/Agency mirroring) will get 20% of the sale price. At one point 20% looked terrible, but for an independent (not counting Yuri), 20% is now a step up! However, if you were at 18%, your royalty on $20 would be $3.60 whereas 20% of $12 is $2.40 and of $3 is 60 cents (better than 25, but still pretty crappy). Even at 15% of $20 - $3 - you're better off. World's gone bonkers
6787
« on: January 13, 2011, 01:42 »
I posted about this in the IS thread on this topic, but I found these quotes in the press release to be really disheartening. "Recognizing that some of today's customers have limited budgets to bring their creative projects to life, Photos.com is a convenient way to access and license affordable imagery in an instant," says Nick Evans-Lombe, Chief Operating Officer of Getty Images. "Photos.com offers 2.5 million images from a wide range of excellent photographers at substantial savings, enabling small businesses to enhance how they market themselves to their customers." Isn't that what iStock once was - the affordable solution? And from photos.com's facebook page (where they're trying to drum up buzz about the new site) someone asks about contributing images to photos.com. This is the response "Photos.com currently isnt accepting photo contributions. Nevertheless, wed love to see the photos. If youd like to upload to our Photos.tab please do. Be sure to include the credit " Isn't uploading through iStock and turning on the partner program the way to get images to photos.com? I realize the "portal" has been busted for many months, but you'd have thought there'd be some mention of that being the way to go. But no. Still no more information on where these weekly uploads of exclusive new content are supposedly coming from. Lisa, you should ship me that fence you used to sit on when trying to decide about exclusivity - I need to sit on it a bit while I decide if I should jump off
6788
« on: January 12, 2011, 17:01 »
JoAnn, your "The response" link is taking me to an IS permalink page. ??
Sorry about that - I've fixed the link. I copied from the wrong place...
6789
« on: January 12, 2011, 14:51 »
And here's another future Dreamstime customer posting of his problems at IS... I posted in the keywords forum that they should be sending out e-mails with apologies and some suggested workaround for known problems to buyers to help get them through this mess. The response was that the forum thread with faceted search bugs was already there! Aargh! I am so frustrated at the lackadaisical attitude about everything! Where is the professionalism or sense of urgency - or even compassion for the frustrated buyers?
6790
« on: January 11, 2011, 15:49 »
Until they get the flow of images to and from IS working again, it's probably moot, but all this nonsense about Thinkstock/photos.com and IS addressing different markets and pools of buyers seems to be exposed by the fact that all three now offer essentially the same options. Subscriptions and pay per download.
The only real difference is how much the contributors make on the deal. I think it behooves us (and possibly the calculation is different for independents from IS exclusives) to figure out where we get the best deal and then support those and not the rest.
I wasn't in the partner program and don't intend to start. Given that Thinkstock and photos.com are going after SS's business, I'd think that independents would do best supporting SS and leaving these two Getty offshoots alone.
6791
« on: January 11, 2011, 15:23 »
But any kind of exclusivity, image or artist, at 20% royalties is of no interest to me. And that's where Getty's going. So I'd go independent rather than deal with that.
6792
« on: January 10, 2011, 19:52 »
I actually heard the term "second world" on the radio this morning - I was listening to the BBC world service (in the US) and they used it in a story about some in Croatia not wanting to join the EU. There's a referendum coming up, I gather. I'm fairly sure they were referring to Croatia and the countries around it as second world.
6793
« on: January 10, 2011, 18:49 »
There's a ton of value, IMO, in improved search position. I'm not sure whether these lightboxes generate any traffic with buyers, but I'd bet a lot less. Favoring a special group still isn't the right way to run a business (vs. a banana republic) but it may be that it doesn't affect the rest of us half as much as preferred search position. At the moment, getting search to actually work correctly is the biggest obstacle in our way. Next priority is making it so buyers can turn off the special collections (Vetta and Agency) if they want to. After that, I don't think I'll care much what they fill their favored few lightboxes with
6794
« on: January 10, 2011, 18:45 »
Lots of things sound simple until you consider the volume of transactions that can be generated by scammers running mindless scripts and programs. These guys can overwhelm a defense by simply generating more questionable transactions than IS, or any web company, could possibly review individually, leaving the agency with a choice of shutting down or letting all transactions complete.
Don't underestimate the difficulties a web seller like IS might face if they're being systematically attacked by crooks with technical skills and unlimited time.
Somehow amazon (and other big web businesses) keep their doors open. There has to be someone they can hire or a consultant with whom they can consult. This isn't a problem unique to them, so they should be able to develop industry best practices in fraud prevention and detection. Just like their best practices in software development, testing and deployment.... oh, they're still working on that....it'll be fixed - soon.
6795
« on: January 10, 2011, 15:05 »
There are so many outstanding issues - site bugs and various other things that have come up - that admin just doesn't seem to be staying on top of. I don't know if they're there in the office and looking at the forum traffic and just ignoring it; or so busy with some hair-on-fire other work that they aren't looking; or they've looked and don't see there's any issue but choose not even to say that in the forums.
It's pathetic that they can't even respond.
And as far as filling out support tickets, their recent tactic has been to close them as dealt with as long as they've said in some forum post that they will deal with it at some future (unspecified time).
The only announcement they seem to be on top of is that the new royalties will get implemented this week. Oh woopee!!
6796
« on: January 08, 2011, 20:16 »
Based on several other contributors' comments in the IS thread, and my single suspect sale, home remodeling seems to have been the subject favored by this thief. I was happy, but my pride slightly wounded that the Boxing Day Heist didn't include any of my images The idea that the image is probably going to end up on some server being downloaded for free is what really bugs me. Don't know how to get that fixed.
6797
« on: January 08, 2011, 14:39 »
They made a TV show from the movie. I tried watching it. It was reasonably cute and funny, but I only watched a couple of episodes.
To be honest, in light of the current US economic situation, I just don't find the outsourcing of jobs to be a suitable subject for light entertainment. It is too depressing.
Oops - edited "to" to "too". 
I didn't want to look at the sitcom version, but my husband TiVo'd it and suggested it might be better than I thought. It was truly awful. I left after about 15 minutes. Dreadful writing, posing rather than acting, low quality production, none of the charm that the movie had. If you get a chance to watch the movie, it isn't making light of people losing their jobs at all. The Seattle based guy who's sent to India is training his own replacement and trying to set up the Indian operation. It's more about the individuals involved than the politics of the move to cut costs by moving to lower wage countries.
6798
« on: January 08, 2011, 14:20 »
I have one of the sales today that was at the maximum size (L - it's an old file) at a $1.20 credit price. The sale was made at 1:20 this morning. The other sales for today are all smaller (good news and bad, I guess I can't report one sale as a potential fraud, but if some of you have a bunch of them are you going to report it to IS?
6799
« on: January 07, 2011, 23:44 »
I was trying to be deeply sarcastic about the poor quality of their software - that their fixes often weren't and contained more bugs to boot. If it wasn't that, perhaps it was that it's the Orthodox/Coptic Christmas Day today.
I do think that the many search bugs have affected sales, even though this is typically a fairly slow time of the year.
6800
« on: January 07, 2011, 23:11 »
Gostwyck - In some ways I think it's hard to compare istock and ss. Two very different stock model sites in many ways. You can't quite rock up and just buy a one off picture on ss unles you have a monthly sub. ...
Actually, you can. You can buy a pack of 5 images for $49 - use within one year. It's true that IS's subscriptions never took off, but all the other stock sites have tried to combine subscriptions and PPD. I don't think anyone has made the combo work particularly well, at least for contributors. In the time since I was active there, I've read SS contributors saying that their quantity of PPD sales has risen, but it's still a sauce not an entree as far as I can gather. The fact that Getty starting using IS to push Thinkstock subscriptions suggests that buyers are not quite so separate. SS has just done the subscription thing so well that they remain king of the microstock subscription hill - the one to beat. I still think of them as Wal-Mart not Neiman Marcus, but Wal-Mart pulls in the customers pretty well too
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