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Messages - Jo Ann Snover
6826
« on: December 23, 2010, 15:00 »
Another apparent fiasco:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=284542
More of a software "we didn't anticipate the consequences of our actions" type thing. I'm glad to see that they are upping the value of the collections, and picking up the bill for it. Aside from the reporting fiasco, this is a plus on both sides.
I no longer have any Vetta images, so I've no skin in this game directly, but it seems to me there are two worrying aspects to this. One is that they didn't take a few minutes to think through a proposed change - this shoot from the hip mentality continues in spite of the many times it has caused problems. Two is that they're playing with the redeemed credits the contributor earns - reducing them, effectively - as a way to deal with the side effects of a misguided price increase (when they doubled Vetta prices and then halved the sales). It used to be that the legal guarantee earned a contributor 100 RCs (even though no cash in royalties). So for an old Vetta sale of a Large with a legal guarantee, a contributor would have received 40 + 100 RCs, but now it's just 70 - half the RCs for the same items. I honestly doubt that very many buyers were purchasing the legal guarantee, so giving away something of dubious value "free" would not have enticed me, but they can at least try to advertise they're sweetening the pot at the higher price.
6827
« on: December 22, 2010, 19:01 »
They were a day early - doesn't entirely wash out the 5 days late from October, but if they can do 4 more payments a day early, we'll call it even 
6828
« on: December 21, 2010, 17:36 »
Thanks JoAnn and Gannet77 for the replies. The wait and see approach seems to make sense in your cases. I have just been surprised by some of the people I am reading in the Istock thread who are talking about taking cuts from 40% to 25 or 30% yet still seem to be planning on staying.
I do have to decide what to do about illustrations though (I have a very small number) - go independent for that or leave them exclusive and take the 25% royalty that's all they qualify for now things are split by media.
As I remember, illustration was one of the reasons you went exclusive, wasn't it? Seems like illustrators have gotten a particularly raw deal in the last year - omitted or pushed to the back of searches for awhile, and now required to come up with way more RCs. It's really good they will be separating illustrations for photography in the exclusivity agreement now.
As they say, that was then, this is now! I spent the first half of 2008 reacquainting myself with illustrator and uploading vectors - and planning to become exclusive (which I did in August 2008). However somewhere in the spring illustrations started to show up at the back of the bus in searches and new files were getting a huge boost in the best match. I stopped illustrating and stared uploading a bunch of photos that I hadn't processed from the previous 6 months. Since then, illustrations have received one raw deal after another at IS, so that old idea stayed dormant.
6829
« on: December 21, 2010, 13:07 »
For those exclusives who are going to be getting big pay cuts, are you going to stay exclusive?
I can't imagine getting a 20% pay cut from a hugely successful company, through no fault of my own, and staying loyal to them.
I can look at my situation two ways. (1) I'm getting a 12.5% pay cut (from 40% to 35%) - plus the harder to measure cut in ELs with loss of the 10% bonus; or (2) I'm at the same royalty level as for the bulk of 2010 - 35% - where I have had a really great year for me. I had a few Vetta files for a part of the year (February to September). I had initially opted out of Vetta as I wanted to make diamond and figured that the download count would be higher at the lower prices. I changed my mind earlier this year, but opted out again once they required content go to Getty. I don't want to assist Getty in the drive to 20% royalties everywhere, and that's what this enforced move to Getty of Vetta/Agency is about. So, I have no loyalty whatsoever to IS any more. I'm so angry that they couldn't be content with a thriving, growing business where both they and contributors were doing well. But I think that there's good reason to think I have one more year (possibly more, but that depends on how things play out in 2011 and whether they ever fix the search engine) to make more money than I did the year before. So enlightened self interest says stay for a while longer. No woo yays, but we can do business. I do have to decide what to do about illustrations though (I have a very small number) - go independent for that or leave them exclusive and take the 25% royalty that's all they qualify for now things are split by media.
6830
« on: December 19, 2010, 11:46 »
People can obviously choose to do things that are against the rules and hope they don't get caught. With the large number of inspectors, it's possible that you may get away with submitting images marked no resubmit.
However, if they catch you, you risk having your upload privileges revoked. I don't think that's worth the risk, but everyone's risk tolerance is different.
As far as entering things over, your keywords should be in your image (for your own sanity) so the work is in checking the boxes for disambiguating (it should remember those, but the software's lame and doesn't). Perhaps now Franky (DeepMeta developer) is under contract he'll make resubmitting from DeepMeta a feature and that issue will go away.
6831
« on: December 17, 2010, 10:42 »
...Maybe it's not deliberate sabotage, but it does sometimes seem like they're being willfully ignorant and careless with their prize.
An alternative theory may also be valid - that the high-ups know exactly what they're doing, namely, pump and dump. ...
I don't know what the heck management is thinking, and I have seen lots of indicators that long term success is being sacrificed for 2010 profits, however... This search fiasco just doesn't fit the cash grab model. Why would Getty/H&F authorize spending on new search if they were just profit taking? I wouldn't unless it enabled some new cash-grabbing feature and I haven't seen that so far. Also, given iStock's terrible track record with software - I don't think they've ever rolled out anything new that worked respectably out of the gate - why would anyone let them hose sales at a busy time of the year? It would have been so simple to wait until early January to totally eff up search with the new code and it'd probably have been fixed by March when the next busy patch typically occurs.
6832
« on: December 16, 2010, 17:31 »
There are several threads on the iStock forums about missing emails. I don't think it has anything to do with whether or not you use DM.
No response from iStock about the problem, other than one post by vcr mentioning they are looking into it (that was several days ago).
I only mentioned DM to indicate that I know there is activity, just not getting to see WHY they are rejected. 
Probably much higher priorities than fixing an email problem. 
You can go to my_uploads on IS and look at your rejected images - the reason given in the e-mail is also there
6833
« on: December 16, 2010, 11:23 »
... What a disgusting company.
+1 To have a company policy of cheating your suppliers and using your lawyers as a way to fend off any claims is repugnant.
6834
« on: December 15, 2010, 13:40 »
I am utterly lost as to why a buyer complaint isn't equally valid whether the buyer only purchases, or contributes as well. I don't always agree with what's done by admins in the forums, but I usually at least get it. This one I don't get.
Typically, ad hominem attacks surface when you can't attack on the issues - i.e. they're almost always a sign of a weak case.
I can see why IS is defensive, given that they have effed up the search changes - both in how broken search is and in once again delivering new code at a truly terrible time. Not the absolute worst time - that would have been in early November - but early December (typically a very busy time in my years there) and on a weekday, not a weekend.
If they could put some of the energy into working on fixes (i.e. not just going home at 5pm and leaving the buggy search and no admins to respond) that they do into insulting buyers, we'd all be better off.
6835
« on: December 15, 2010, 11:23 »
lisafx has the same name, but a good number of people here are anonymous because some sites - notably FT - have closed accounts on the basis of things they didn't like said here (yes, an off site forum). It's really unfortunate, but understandable in the circumstances. You may find you start to recognize people by their postings, however
6836
« on: December 14, 2010, 20:33 »
But the Vetta only filter has been in advanced search since the start of Vetta. I don't much mind about that migrating to somewhere easier to see as it should avoid buyers leaving that checked inadvertently.
Any buyer who wants to look only at Agency & Vetta should be able to do so - and they probably won't be all that interested in the rest of the collection anyway. Selecting only the dollar bin has been possible for ages too, so I'd like to see that added to the collections choices once they finish coding this stuff.
The biggie is separating out exclusive from independent in the main collection - that's the one that caused all the fuss when exclusive prices went up and exclusives were concerned they'd be at a disadvantage. I don't expect that to happen even if IS allows Vetta & Agency to be excluded again. Given the massive price difference between those and the other stuff, I honestly don't think they have a choice. Buyers will eventually make them see sense on that one.
6837
« on: December 14, 2010, 14:48 »
Projecting the rest of December (and assuming they don't totally shut things down with bugs in the new search), it should end up being about 38% - above the 1/3 it represents in length, but not 50%
6838
« on: December 14, 2010, 11:43 »
I got a very similar response from one of mine on Friday - Sen. Murray also voted for the Baucus amendment, but that needed 67 to pass and it fell short. She says she'll keep working on it. Haven't yet heard from Sen. Cantwell...
6839
« on: December 13, 2010, 21:13 »
So it looks like they've changed the DL numbers under my images. Anything with 100 to 499 DLs says >100. It doesn't change until you get to 500 DLs then it says >500. My image with 1300+ DLs now says >1000. Talk about rounding down...
I'm not sure if this is a bug or feature, but I already put in a comment in the bugs thread that says it is a very bad idea if this was intentional. A tremendous number of files are between 10 and 100 downloads. It used to be you could see >60 >40 - now it's >10 until it's in flames. Forget the contributor end for the moment, if buyers care at all about downloads as a way to gauge what's popular (my notion is that this gives them a sense of comfort when they aren't sure if they should buy something or not) there's a whole range of images that now look essentially the same and which used to show a little more precisely where the image stands.
6840
« on: December 13, 2010, 17:15 »
I see that the editorial pictures must have the same acceptance standards as the general collection.
That'll rule out a lot of genuine natural light images, then.
---------------------------
I agree and it does not make any sense. Since technical standards need to be the same and they won't take news/sports/celebs, it seems their version of "editorial" is commercial stock with the logos not cloned out.
Everybody rush to shoot your favorite toys/Iphone on white background!!!
I think there's a lot of editorial of various cities and activities in well known places with lots of unleleased people around - lifestyle, not sports/news/celebs. Picadilly Circus and Times Square become viable, for example. And my portfolio is full of genuine natural light images, so that's not an issue. Some cityscape or beach shots that previously were refused without model releases will now be usable. I can't have as much fun with post processing though I don't do events or celebrities anyway, so this opens up a lot of additional material in locations I'm currently shooting stock.
6841
« on: December 13, 2010, 16:34 »
I can't get any search results at all, in either Firefox or Safari, but rogermexico posted that they're pushing a fix in about 15 minutes, so I hope that will change shortly
6842
« on: December 13, 2010, 11:20 »
This request asks for 3 illustrations for the purchaser to use to get approved on IS. Isn't that essentially fraudulent? The name on the account is asking for approval as an illustrator and what they're using to get approved, even if they own the copyright to the purchased items, isn't something they created. So later they upload work from other people - perhaps of differing standards?
If that sort of approach were allowed, you'd have to ditch the initial approval and go to a system where your account gets suspended if your approval rate drops below a certain percentage.
And I agree, if I had the ability to produce 100 15 credit vectors, why would I let someone else make money from them?
6843
« on: December 11, 2010, 11:29 »
...Is it broadly accepted that if you want a photo of your weans you take them to Walmart?
The US is huge and diverse. I wouldn't say that Walmart photos are universal. There are chain photo studios - some national like Olan Mills (I think that was big a decade or two ago); in our area there's a local chain, Yuen Lui. They do an OK job at the basic studio stuff. Walmart is probably cheaper. There are some areas of the country - like the Seattle area - where there are very few Walmarts (fights to keep them out in lots of places. Then there's people like me who just loathe the canned look of studio shots and won't take their kids even though their in-laws keep dropping hints
6844
« on: December 10, 2010, 18:25 »
Incredible, still no thread on the IS forum...unless there has been and it's been squashed like a bug so as not to ruin the big, exciting F5 news!
There are two, but not much activity in either - here and here.
6845
« on: December 10, 2010, 15:49 »
I'm a bit behind on the iStock postings. Are they making another announcement on Monday or is this about an announcement in the past? If it's coming up this Monday...you'd better take the weekend off to enjoy your final days of freedom!!
The meat is unhelpfully buried in the middle of the thread, but here's a part that's talking about what's coming Monday Dec 13th. Earlier in the thread they said it was something for contributors.
6846
« on: December 10, 2010, 15:37 »
Gostwyck's always blunt, but if you bowdlerize the language, the content's generally solid. I have a very hard time dealing with the multitude of "thank you's" when long overdue bugs get fixed. And at this point, any mention of news for contributors on Monday has me clenching every muscle in anticipation of another round of bad news. They thought the partner program was good news. Then they pitched September 7th as good news for most contributors. Their ideas about good news and mine don't line up. I honestly feel that my exclusive status is in the intensive care unit on life support and I just read that the gang that put me there is coming for a friendly visit on Monday And I like having a place it's OK to say that without being told I'm a ball buster and having my posts deleted (both of which happened on IS forums).
6847
« on: December 10, 2010, 13:49 »
It might just speed up the inevitable if one of you with the repeating sales reports it to IS support. Incompetent though their IT is, they'll figure it out eventually.
I find mistakes with earnings to be really, really worrying though. We've had the EL problems, subscription sales that were delayed more than 1 day, the rounding error in subscription sales for certain royalty levels and now this. It's bad enough they can't lay out a web page straight, but the money has to be right.
6848
« on: December 08, 2010, 18:22 »
I just had a series of photos rejected with the following message...
* PENTAX K100D native resolution = 3008 x 2008. Your file is 2704 x 2801. As part of iStock standards, we only accept files at their native resolution. *
This was an isolation photo. All I did was crop off the excessive white space on the left and right edges.
If you use the crop tool, vs. just drag a selection rectangle around the wanted area and select Image>Crop, you can end up enlarging the image inadvertently, depending on your settings. Given the dimensions you gave, that may be what you did. I have ISO 3200 images accepted - there's no automatic rejection because of ISO. Perhaps they mentioned noise?
6849
« on: December 08, 2010, 17:26 »
The real problem with your own website is how to drive traffic to it. Not as easy as some might think.
Operating independently, that's true. But following from Ron's comment in the interview, suppose a search engine giant like Google served up the images and collected the cash and paid us royalties. People go to search engines to find things. They only go to microstock agencies 'cause that's how you make the purchase today. The old days of custom research and knowing what images might meet a client's needs are gone. If the search engine could easily deliver both paid and free content and process the transaction when it was paid, I think buyers would find that useful. The back end of maintaining standards (legal, model release, avoiding copyright infringement, etc.) isn't trivial, but I'll bet someone with deep pockets who wanted this business could work something out with one of the existing agencies to be an outsourced processing "shop". It'll be interesting to watch and see how things develop over the next few years.
6850
« on: December 08, 2010, 14:41 »
To play devil's advocate for a second, how hard is it to switch your search to downloads instead of best match? That eliminates a lot or all of the Agency and Vetta. The best match has rarely lived up to its name, and I've always assumed many buyers (at least mine) don't use it.
I'm sure some don't use best match, but enough do that regardless of how easy it is to sort by downloads, best match changes are a very real assist/threat to us. I'll give you an example of an old file - uploaded in November 2005 - that sold quite well elsewhere, but never much at IS. 14 sales in its first year, 10 in its second and 3 in its third. In June 2009 something shifted (possibly best match 2.0, but I don't know) and the image started selling - 67 in 2009 and 121 so far this year. I'm obviously happy when an oldie that was overlooked gets a new lease on life, but it underlines for me that it isn't just about the quality of my images.
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