Subs account for 65% in number of downloads but less than 25% in earnings this month.

I'm not very happy with the overall trend at StockXpert compared to a few months ago, but it is still ahead of DT for me and I like the occasional $7.50/$5 commission for XL/XXL downloads.

I'm not sure however that subs do cannibalize ppd.

Quote from: Microbius on January 30, 2009, 13:40

Quote from: Gannet77 on January 29, 2009, 21:20

Quote from: Microbius on January 29, 2009, 17:18
how do you get your data removed from the charts? just curious as some people aren't listed but I can't see an easy way to request removal.

You can sitemail multimedia_de (on iStock) and ask to be made anonymous; your figures may still be included but no identification.

Thanks!

It seems that Lise Gagne has been removed from the list: Yuri is now #1 

Quote from: whitechild on January 30, 2009, 10:33
Also, I am trying to attract buyers as well. My list of referrals at IS is growing too.

Well, for $10 per referral I wouldn't bother with that myself.

Quote from: whitechild on January 30, 2009, 10:29
I will catch as many of them to become my referrals, and make a profit, just like I am doing right now.
The list of my referrals is growing 50% of my income at SS comes from referrals right now

This is a possible business strategy indeed 

Quote from: whitechild on January 30, 2009, 10:05
You have nothing to lose here, that's why I said this is just paranoia...when you are afraid of things that can't hurt you.
There is always a limit about everything in life

I mostly agree as I explained in a previous message: most information shared here and there will not hurt any good/creative contributor.

But as you say: there is a limit.

And this limit is not the same for everybody as some are more exposed than others or have more to lose.

I would be interested in knowing your position in a few years when your microstock earnings are sufficient to pay for your house. Then a flow of millions of contributors from China will come to microstock through chinese agencies with $0.01 commission per download. And chinese contributors will come here to ask you how to do a good isolation.

Quote from: whitechild on January 30, 2009, 09:45
So, araminta, your example cannot apply to this situation here. It's not equivalent. If there is a bug like this, to double your sales, I would say it would be equivalent to situation of doubling the number of contributors, and decreasing your sales for 50%

It's relevant to the fact that the more you have to gain/lose from a piece of information, the less you are eager to share it. It's about the fact that it is easy to say "you are greedy" when you have nothing to lose, but everything to gain in sharing 

And some information are quite important for some niche contributors: I would like MISHA to share how he is doing that: http://www.istockphoto.com/file_search.php?action=file&lightboxID=3362561&removeCache=1... but I guess he won't 

Concerning sharing, I feel myself somewhere between Yuri/AVAVA and Sean... the truth is always somewhere inbetween.

But I have a question to all sharers: let's say tomorrow you find a simple way to double your sales at IS by just adding a specific keyword in all your photos (e.g. a bug in the best match algorithm which would then put all your images at the top).

Would you share this information here?

Quote from: goldenangel on January 30, 2009, 02:47

Quote from: madelaide on January 30, 2009, 02:11
PS: I am in a very comfortable position, as photography is not a significant source of income for me.  But in my professional life as an engineer I always shared information, even to colleague...

Exactly my experience as well. I am an engineer too and I am blessed to work in a team where knowledge sharing is understood to be beneficial to all...

In any company, sharing knowledge between teams is not only necessary, but it is required. The company you are working for ask you to do the best to improve its business and sharing is a good way to make the company more efficient. The company does not care about the fact that you may compete with your colleagues for promotion and you are not supposed to keep information in order to be in a better personal position: it would be a reason to fire you I would say.

But do you share information with the guy working for your company's competitor?

Not a good example IMHO 

Hi Tuilay... it's a pleasure too 

Quote from: Tuilay on January 29, 2009, 19:52
and if the newbies are so good that they are taking that bigger chunk. you better get your rear ends up that light table and improve your photography. no more easy meal-ticket , if you can't keep up with the competition. I think Yuri and AVAVA know that, and they welcome that competition.

If a newbie is so good, he will take the big chunk without having to use the information shared here.

Microstock is not rocket science: it is not that complicated to figure out what are the possible path to success. Sharing here will only help people to see those paths: success is not about knowing the path, it's about being able to actually follow it and you will not learn that here.

Quote from: cdwheatley on January 29, 2009, 19:09
The ever growing number of contributors is a concern though. Not because of the competition but because mathematically the pie shrinks when someone new comes on board.

I don't think the maths are so simple: 90% of the pie is taken by the top N contributors (N=1000?)

Sharing is not such a big deal for me if you intend to compete for the big portion of the pie because your competitor do not need the information we can share here and any one who need this information will only compete for the small portion (with a few exceptions maybe).

Yuri and AVAVA understand that well IMHO.

+80% and flying high 

Taking into account my sales and various comment from contributors as well as some announcement from IS admin, it seems quite clear to me that best match 2.0 is already here since almost the beginning of this month, but not fully enabled: this is an ongoing process which will last a few weeks to be fully implemented I guess.

I don't know why it should be considered as hypocrisy: everybody is free to choose to contribute to mirostock or not and purchasing from contributors who decide to sell their photo for $1 does not mean that you intend to sell yours for that price.

I don't see any problem here.

And you should have told him that you find his photos not very good... it's somehow hypocrite to write it here while not telling him your feelings 

Unless you are so lazy that uploading at 5 agencies is a nightmare for you (but you already do it for 50% of your images if I understand well), I don't see any good reason to be exclusive with fotolia or with any other agency.

I would bet you are loosing money here.

I'm sure there are many copyright issues at Zazzle, but you have to consider also that many celebrities or companies do publish goodies through Zazzle too.

http://www.zazzle.com/brands
http://www.zazzle.com/music

Parameters passed in URLs must be separated with a &:

http://www.istockphoto.com/file_search.php?action=file&lightboxID=4242201&refnum=breathe112

Quote from: sjlocke on January 23, 2009, 02:15
Just curious how this matters about anything.  "Remember what you did for them as a newbie"...  I've answered a lot of questions about various things to people's emails, and aside from getting the occasional "thanks", I'm not sure if any of them remember what I passed along, or how it is supposed to affect me now, aside from them competing with me.

So, what is their good memory supposed to do for me someday? 

It is more about what do YOU think of yourself: I'm now old (I didn't say wise) enough to consider that the most important is not what other think about yourself, but how YOU feel about yourself.

I prefer not to have to consider myself as an a**hole as Elena said 

I agree with Elena.

Yes, Darth Vader use it to freeze Han Solo.

Quote from: FlemishDreams on January 22, 2009, 19:53
The only defense is to do concepts that are not that easy to copy. Renders are. My best sellers for over a year on SS still is a set of waterfalls deep in the jungle you need a motorbike for, and it's also not easy to find beautiful Nordic models for the Yuri Arcurs copiers.

Using a 3D software with a waterfall&jungle library and some cute Poser girls... sometimes in 2012... 

You have to consider that stock agencies prefer to be too restrictive rather than too loose.

Copyrights laws are so complex that everybody seems to have a different opinion on what is copyrighted or not: as soon as there is a doubt, I would say that most agencies may decide to reject the photo.

Well... I really try to be productive... 

Everybody agree (hopefully) that you have to improve your photography skills to become a better microstocker: "newbies" come here to learn from "oldies" (am I wrong?)

But I also think that it is important to be able to analyse your sales too to take any decision concerning your portfolio (what kind of photo do sell, which agencies are the best).

But I guess that not everybody agree with me : newbies seems not to have to learn anything on this point

For those interested in improving not only their photography skills, but also there ability to analyze their sales  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margin_of_error
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_significance

From the standard margin of error formula, if a contributor has for example 30% sales coming from DT and 20% sales coming from IS, he would say "DT is better than IS".

If the number of downloads is around 10, the standard error on those percentage is something like 15%... which means that DT is between 15-45% and IS between 5-35%. It is thus quite possible that IS is a better performer than DT.

If the number of downloads is 1000, the error is 2% which means that DT is between 28-32% and IS between 18-22%: DT is here a clear winner, no question.

I think that 1000 is a typical sample size used in polls such as "Who are you going to vote for? McCain or Obama?". This give a result with a 2-3% margin of error.

It would indeed be a lot simpler to ask to only 10 US citizens... but the result would be just meaningless.

Quote from: whitechild on January 22, 2009, 17:14

Well, the person who poster this thread has 100 sales on DT, and I have 127 which means:
1. I am more qualified to talk about DT, or
2. We both are not qualified to talk about DT, or
3. You should quote the first post in this thread, to cut it out from the start
4. Something else..

I personally think 1000 is too much. I can say from this point, that I have 127 DL's on DT and 31 DL's at FT and I started FT before DT. I think it's enough for statistics. Also, until average photographer gets to the point of 1000 images online, several agencies wont' be online anymore, and some of them will be born.
That's why I think much less is enough for statistics.

Well, I would not argue with you; feel free to give any statistics you want: as I said before, I have no problem with that.

I guess my post is not clear enough, but I will try again to explain the whole idea: the question is not to decide who is qualified to talk about anything. Anybody is qualified to talk here for me.

This is not about a subjective distinction between who is allowed to talk and who is not, this is about a mathematical/statistical  law.

I guess that if everybody here is interested in knowing what are the "Big 4", it is because it is interesting from a business point of view to submit to the most profitable agencies.

If someone say "DT is far behind IS", this could be an important piece of information for anybody here.

The problem is that with 6 downloads at DT and 9 at IS, it is quite possible that tomorrow or in one week, the very same person write here "IS is far behind DT". I could easily show you how correct I am here: it would cost me a few dollars to purchase 6 pictures from his portfolio today at DT and tomorrow the contributor will have 12 sales at DT and 9 at IS.

Let's say that tomorrow IS announce that only exclusive contributors will be allowed to submit at IS and all other accounts will be closed. My question is: should this contributor decide to become exclusive or not? Should he base his decision on those statistics?

Quote from: whitechild on January 22, 2009, 16:36
Oh, I will have 1000 downloads in 5 years or more (except on SS)....

Until then, you should thus take your own statistics with a BIG grain of salt