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Messages - Jo Ann Snover
7051
« on: July 08, 2010, 20:12 »
I just noticed today that Thinkstock is now selling image packs. The pricing - which I assume will only appeal to those who want to buy the largest sizes where it's a bargain - seriously undercut's pricing on iStock's site for equivalent credit packs. I posted some details with a couple of examples on the iStock forums here. For independents, the 20% royalty rate at Thinkstock is a wash (not so for exclusives however). But given the big discount these image packs represent over the prices in iStock credits for the largest sizes, it will likely cut into income for independents as well.
7052
« on: July 07, 2010, 22:36 »
There's a forum thread here about upload problems. It isn't just you
7053
« on: July 02, 2010, 13:40 »
I'm exclusive at IS - June was down very slightly from May in both $$ and DLs but was up from June 2009 - 22% higher in DLs and 88% higher in $$. IOW, I think it was good for June (and there were no extended licenses shoring up the $$ this month)
7054
« on: June 24, 2010, 22:30 »
It's very cool - although there are are a few things it would be nice to have that aren't there now. I especially like the search where one of my images is first in the list! It's best match order - one of the things it'd be nice to change is sort order.
I think the primary idea was for buyers to be able to search and lightbox images wherever they are - buying happens elsewhere. One can imagine some future setup where an account has pre-set some location for downloads to be FTP'd to and the purchase could happen on the iPhone and the downloads happen remotely (i.e. from iStock to the designated place) so the files were there waiting for whoever needed them. Life in the cloud will be wonderful when it all works!
The stats stuff is pretty useless right now as showing "today's" numbers is meaningless until midnight Calgary time and you can't see most recent downloads if you see your account balance has gone up from the last time you checked. I'd really like to see my downloads in chronological order (it's OK to skip all the sorts and such from the my_uploads page; I'd just like to see the last few files sold).
I'm really happy to see this - it may only be a start, but I think that if buyers feel this improves their experience with the site, in the long run it'll be another of those things that binds buyers to a site.
7055
« on: June 17, 2010, 14:22 »
Thanks gostwyck. I tryed to get them through but they insisted on model releases for the dead people. I supplied them a property release, but a model release is a bit hard to get.... I think the rule for deceased subjects is that next of kin needs to sign the model release - child, grand child - someone living 
7056
« on: June 15, 2010, 17:40 »
I got e-mail this morning from "DreamStock.com Team" inviting me to join their new site. I guess they weren't being as careful about their "By Exclusive Invitation Only" list as they should have been or they'd not have wasted their time soliciting an iStock exclusive 50% commission seems reasonable, but their subscription business is unlimited downloads - 1 month for $99.95 - paying photographers 10 cents per download. They pitch this as a positive saying that because it's unlimited you'll make more money. They're insane if they think this model will last any amount of time. SS started that way (and I think 123rf did too) but it didn't take long before they imposed limits. Even if that price is limited to unlimited medium size, I just don't think it'll last. The email says this is a new project by DreamTemplate - they offer web templates, also with unlimited subscriptions. The email also says "Please note: this email is intended for you, we urge you not to encourage other photographers to join during our special invite program, we intend to only invite the best photographers for premium placement during this time." In keeping with their request, I'll urge anyone not to join as this seems like an insanely bad (for contributors) idea.
7057
« on: June 14, 2010, 20:26 »
The stats about total number of contributors are hugely misleading. I don't have the data to back this up for IS, but I'd bet that only a very small portion of the total are active contributors and only a small portion of those have a good size portfolio and any significant amount of sales.
A few years back some of us looked at what portion of DT contributors had more than 1,000 images and more than a few thousand sales (there was a specific number, I just don't recall it). It was a few hundred out of the many thousands total. Similarly BigStock at one point had a list of contributors you could sort by portfolio, and more than half had less than 5 images (again, my recollection could be off - it could have been less than 3, but the general point is the same).
This isn't to say that people who contribute 50 images and stop don't count (I think the sites love the folks who never reach payout), but that when there's an article about how much money you can make in microstock, a rush of people sign up, but most get bored or discouraged or something and just walk away.
7058
« on: June 14, 2010, 13:29 »
So for example, May 2010, DLs were up 23% over May 2009 but $$ were up $73%. For April 2010 DLs up 35% $$ up 134%
Great results Jo Ann but they do have to be taken in the context that you also added about 50% more images to your port in the last year.
I don't think it's quite that high (I added 730-something in 2009) but around that. I'm assuming that everyone else who's complaining of decreasing downloads year over year also added to their portfolio. Obviously if that's not the case then my numbers suck. Or if I added a bigger percentage than other people, then that would make a difference too. There's all sorts of variables we can't control for - I bought a 5D Mk II in January 2009 and so I've had XXXL files available since then (previously L was my biggest offering except for panoramas). I have perhaps improved a bit over the time I've been a contributor. Then there's the luck of the draw - my current best seller wasn't a hugely elaborate production although it did involve stitching 3 macro shots together. I still can't predict accurately which shots will sell and which won't. I could just be an anomaly and indicative of nothing other than my own income. I just thought FWIW I'd add one more data point to the discussion.
7059
« on: June 14, 2010, 12:08 »
I am curious - are your download numbers following the same trend as your royalty numbers? The reason I ask is because I am wondering how much istock's new exclusive pricing is affecting your trends.
I would love to get some idea how much the various exclusive pricing schemes are affecting income trends. It would be useful to know if there is a significant cost to remaining independent.
My downloads are up over the prior year (I went exclusive in August 2008 so that's an IS to IS comparison) but not by as big a percentage as my $$. So for example, May 2010, DLs were up 23% over May 2009 but $$ were up $73%. For April 2010 DLs up 35% $$ up 134% Exclusive plus plays no part in this as I haven't put any images into it (there are 3 Vetta rejects that got in automatically but they rarely sell anyway). I have a small number of Vetta images and obviously the higher prices there make a big difference.
7060
« on: June 14, 2010, 11:35 »
It's very hard, particularly for a non-factory, low volume producer like me, to look at a few months of uploads and see a trend one way or another. However, I do see a lot of positive things for me - but those could be a function of the fact that I have not been as successful as some of the other contributors - like lisafx - so my great month is her horrible one, if you see what I mean.
March this year was my all-time high water mark, but there were a couple of additional things that seemed much more encouraging.
-March 2010 beat the prior November (Nov is always my biggest month, typically with Dec #2 and Oct #3) which hasn't happened before
-May 2010 became my #2 month ever - didn't beat March, but did do better than Oct-Dec last year)
-I do find new images take a while to sell, but I have had a good showing (I think) for files uploaded this year. I looked at my last 100 sales and 21 were from uploads in 2010 and 35 from 2009 uploads (my portfolio goes back to fall 2004)
A handful of Vetta images can make a nice boost to income - I don't make a focused effort to shoot for Vetta, but if I were able to, I'd expect that to make a huge difference to income.
Things are a bit slower (first week of June especially with the holidays), but not dramatically so.
I'm cautiously optimistic...
7061
« on: June 09, 2010, 15:23 »
That's lovely. My Dad started reading that as he got older and in spite of us teasing him mercilessly about it, it seemed to appeal.
If I need to find pictures of celebrity scandals in the UK though, it's my first source - forget guardian.co.uk!!
7062
« on: June 05, 2010, 15:39 »
For all the people who opt out of subscriptions and alliances, there are many more new shooters (often with better cameras) who will take their place....
I recently got a job at a high volume place that cranks out newspaper circulars ...
They have a subscription at Shutterstock and at Thinkstock (which they were thrilled to find because of the low prices)....
and good luck with that.
Interesting anecdote about your new employer's buying habits - thanks. Change is a constant for our business - and from a buyer's perspective, particularly something like newspaper circulars, they'd be nuts to pay more than they had to. Fortunately, they aren't the sum total of image buyers (or I'd have made no sales). Change is coming to newspapers too - and in another decade I'd be surprised if anyone was producing all those bits of paper. Coupons won't be paper any more. We will need to be adaptable - I'm a low priced ho, not a cheapie or free one
7063
« on: June 05, 2010, 14:33 »
Lights.
If you shoot outside a lot, reflectors/scrims and hot shoe flashes, stands, umbrellas, etc. If you are in studio only, strobes.
Lights and a 5D Mik II would be wonderful, but if it has to be either/or, controlling and modifying the light will do more for your images than a new camera, great as the 5D Mk II is.
7064
« on: June 05, 2010, 14:15 »
I think that the SXC model worked because there were different pools of people contributing there versus at StockXpert (now iStock); there was a clear difference in searches between what you got for free vs. for money. How many people ever actually paid for an image when they started out with a free search, I don't know. FT, DT and IS have claimed that they do, but as contributors we have no insight into that at all.
When I was independent I never submitted images to free sections (I did offer to the free image of the week at various sites). 99.99% of the time, images were not rejected everywhere and I did not want to eliminate income somewhere else. I also thought the quality of the freebies was such that I really didn't want anything of mine sitting next to them - guilt by association, as it were.
If you submit a series of images and two get rejected (perhaps the noise was a little high or the lighting a little less good or the focus a tad soft - sites are getting very persnickety about things). Do you really want to compete with yourself by having the free ones that were not quite good enough out there? How could that possibly be good for your business?
Unless there was (1) something really concrete to show traffic converting from free to paid and (2) the ability to upload snapshotty stuff to the free section directly - i.e. something that won't compete with the paid stuff you upload - I can't see how it makes sense from the contributor's point of view.
7065
« on: June 05, 2010, 13:55 »
Microstock is changing, and for the simple apple on white or tape measure around the waist shot - of which there are thousands, possibly tens of thousands - buyers will get the shot the cheapest way possible. That's pretty similar to what happened with traditional agencies when micros came along - they could no longer charge high prices for easy to produce shots.
If you want to churn out high volumes of those types of objects and people on white, then you're stuck with modest returns from subs sites and better keep your production costs low.
For anyone hoping to compete on something other than price, putting your high quality stuff on the race-to-the-bottom sites doesn't help. You shouldn't think that 25 cents is better than zero, but that if you let it go for 25 cents, over time, you're eliminating your ability to charge more. If buyers need stuff that they can't get on the high volume sub sites, they'll go find them at the cheapest price possible (i.e. other micro sites, if not there, then macro sites, if not there then commission a photographer for custom work).
I don't (and won't) participate in the partner program - i.e. no Thinkstock or photos.com. My expectation is that doing so will slowly pull buyers away from the place where we get a good return on our work.
7066
« on: June 03, 2010, 10:50 »
Come on, if FStockphotos is good enough for Yuri, it's good enough for you!
Now there's a marketing campaign.
It was logic like that (although not Yuri in particular) that led me to contribute to Albumo and what a total rhymes-with-fluster-duck that was. And I gather some others signed up with Crestock because of Yuri's endorsement. That hasn't exactly funded the vacation in Tahiti as far as I can gather. People starting new sites need to talk about their marketing strategy and probably need to offer (a) completely pain free uploading and (b) some sort of upload incentive without a lock in. Why else would anyone spend the time? If I were still independent, I think my only other must-have would be the ability to delete my own files. Perhaps not everyone realizes that some sites don't let you do that. Even after whatever time commitments have expired.
7067
« on: May 27, 2010, 13:08 »
I had to use your link to look up my Samsung 245Ts - it says "24"WS Samsung S-PVA (LTM240CS07)"
I think calibrating your monitor acurately (i.e. with hardware support, not just eyeballing it) is more important than what type of technology the LCD uses - at least for the vast majority of us.
7068
« on: May 26, 2010, 14:39 »
In fact it's been bad since they changed the best match.
When was that?
The accurate answer is that no one knows, but there were (now locked) threads started about this at the end of April here and here. There was some discussion about whether this had to do with the intro of E+, but no clear bump for those files. And the search results appear to have settled back into better ranking of keyword relevance.
7069
« on: May 18, 2010, 17:41 »
Thanks for sharing, but in fairness, December is notoriously one of the very lowest earning months of the year, so a December to April comparison is going to be heavily slanted.
My December has consistently been 3rd top for dls and $$s for the three years I've been with iStock, with Nov being top and Oct being 2nd each time.
My pattern (2010 may be different as March broke a previous pattern by beating the prior November) has been November, December, October for the top 3 months of the year. I know December is horrible for some, but it's not universal.
7070
« on: May 17, 2010, 15:20 »
Just wanted to point out two things that have been going on over the last few weeks - a big ripple in the best match (nothing like best match 2.0, but some people have felt a big change in downloads) and seasonal changes (that March was acknowledged to be the Spring high point for the site as a whole when an admin said that although April was below March, as it had historically been, April '10 was up from April '09)
One of the things I contended with back when I went exclusive was the chaos of search engine changes prior to best match 2.0 and things were just awful for a few months. If I hadn't been committed to give exclusivity a serious effort, I'd have bailed after two month. Until you can compare a month with the year prior, it's really hard to make comparisons.
I don't know how long you've been building a portfolio on IS, but I've seen lots of oldies but goodies resurfacing in the last best match jiggle. People with newer portfolios seemed to be overly represented in the group who were hit negatively by the best match changes.
7071
« on: May 05, 2010, 12:32 »
I was saying, I think IS should invest more in faster development of CV. They should have more people more specialized in some areas who will develop CV. I don't think they have to pay huge money to genetic engineers, or linguists, or astronomers. I think they should pay some small money to more people who would help development of CV in certain areas.
Exactly! Better yet they could take advantage of the vast wealth of knowledge from their contributor base and allow contributors to suggest alternate meanings. Many contributors uploading in specialized areas know enough to suggest relevant terms. Istock would only need one or two people to approve or reject those suggestions. A simple google search would help them determine if the suggestion was valid.
Actually they do use contributors to help add terms and fix broken things in the CV - here is but the latest example. The system isn't perfect by any stretch of anyone's imagination, but they are trying to incorporate contributor feedback and address issues.
7072
« on: May 03, 2010, 10:53 »
Content Aware Fill is a great tool!! Look at these examples if you don't believe me... 
Adobe really was asking for that!!
7073
« on: April 30, 2010, 10:55 »
I think that's about what I expected, but it's good to see it in action with something more realistic than the demos.
I don't use spot heal at all, but if you use the healing brush and carefully pick the source you can get some very nice results - things with gradual tone or color variations that can be tricky to match up with the clone tool. My guess is that the content aware fill will be similar - if you're willing to spend a bit of time to work on smaller pieces (i.e. don't just try and replace the whole thing at once) you'll have a good new tool. But it won't be a push-button one-step way to remove a person, sign or other large object from detailed backgrounds.
7074
« on: April 29, 2010, 11:49 »
Some of the artists I know that would upload to IS, if there were Image-exclusivity, jeez! within their fields they would make the exclusive collection look like a photo-school....
Meaning the "real" talent's all elsewhere and the micros are all just amateurs earning pocket money from their snapshots for the fun of it?? If not that, what exactly does "look like a photo-school" mean?
7075
« on: April 28, 2010, 00:27 »
I don't know how long such things typically take, but a number of the iStock staff have been away at the event in Cannes last week and over the weekend which may have delayed things a bit more than usual.
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