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Messages - gwhitton
76
« on: April 15, 2011, 15:10 »
When introducing a new system in beta status, these kind of bugs sometimes happen for non Fortune 500 companies. It is not very pleasant though, but we are working on delivering a good service.
the whole POINT of a beta test is that a small group of outsiders test the product BEFORE it's released on its regular audence. too many companies now think that by labeling something as beta they can get away with releasinbg untested programs on the public.
steve
Isn't that the truth! ;o)
77
« on: April 12, 2011, 19:34 »
In his original post he said that 90% of the contributors would be very happy with the deal that was offered. He is also taking it himself.
He just pointed out that he now better understood the bigger changes going on in the industry and the pressure everyone was under. So whatever rates we have, we shouldnt rely on them to stay unchanged forever. Nothing new there. We all know that there is a complete oversupply of images and that it is a buyers world out there.
Really no conspiracy. But you have to bother reading things yourself...
Difficult to read posts which have been removed.
But essentially, the bottom line is we're all screwed?
In which case, I'd like to see a bit less money wasting by/at HQ. Why is it only the contributors who are getting squeezed?
They squeeze you because they can....
78
« on: April 07, 2011, 22:21 »
Got three sales there a couple of days ago...all subs, at this rate I'll be able to cash out in about 12 years... ;o)
79
« on: April 07, 2011, 22:12 »
I had this image rejected a long time ago by iStock....they said I needed a property release from the artist. Needless to say I did not mess with it...not worth the hassle...lol
Give me a break....wow!!
80
« on: March 30, 2011, 21:23 »
Whatever we get percentage-wise, one thing is for sure, its better than Istock. And amazingly Shutterstock can stay in business, but Istockphoto can't without cutting to the bone. Oh I know we don't do it for the money...;o)
81
« on: March 29, 2011, 14:23 »
A better stunt for Nokia would have been to attach their phones to some weather balloons and kites like a few enterprising young fellows lately, and gotten some awesome pictures as a result. That's actually clever...where as this is a bad attempt at the gimmick that wasn't.
82
« on: March 22, 2011, 16:10 »
Filezilla and CuteFTP because they are free an easy to use....
83
« on: March 09, 2011, 22:33 »
Anybody remember the last piece of GOOD news from IS? I can't.
If your Getty its never been better....
84
« on: March 09, 2011, 15:38 »
Canstock definitely sold itself today as a place I will be uploading more to in the future. Just got one of those 19.80 (medium size) sales from Fotosearch. If this keeps up it will knock Dreamstime down to #5 on my list.
85
« on: March 08, 2011, 19:34 »
Alamy pays contributors better than other agencies, that's the No.1 reason we should support Alamy.
the No.2 reason is, via Alamy, you can sell your micro images in macro sites.
I was rejected to be a constributor of Inmagine months ago, they said they do not accept micro images.
And I happen to chat with an Inmagine customer service girl, who showed me a few their recent sales, I believe a lot of photographers can shoot that kind of photo, it's just a man's portrait, the price is over USD100.
So I came up with the concept: a lot of micro contributors are good in technique, but just don't know how to get into macro world to earn big dollar.
Until yesterday, I happen to found there are a lot of Alamy images in Inmagine.
So you know the idea now: you can have your micro images both in micro and macro, just via Alamy.
And I even found panthermedia images in agestockphoto...
These are all very good reasons to upload to Alamy.
What bothers me is that they only check one picture and reject all pending ones: either you upload very few pictures at a time - but it takes years to upload a large port - or you run the risk of mass rejections for no reason.
If you have decent pictures you have little to worry about. I uploaded 300 pictures there in the matter of two days and all were accepted. If I had waited for 10 to go through at a time out of worry, I would have been there for weeks. Not worth the bother, especially given what you have to do next.
86
« on: March 04, 2011, 16:20 »
There are various avenues to get exposure to the midstock market, besides Alamy.
Zoonar (sells to micros and midstock...but you have to choose the pricing for each image and stick with it).
Panthermedia (sells cheap subs and midstock).
Canstock (occasionally I will get a midstock sale through their parent Fotosearch).
Veer (is borderline midstock...but I get almost zero sales, so does it really matter. ;o)
Sorry, but aren't all of this microstock? Panthermedia is listed as micro, when I checked their site it says macro and zoonar is listed as a low earner anyway. I'd go with Alamy right away if they didn't have the 180 day notice before you're able to remove content. It's a shame wasting half a year of exclusivity if I wouldn't even make it to the first payout (but I'm aiming a lot higher of course)
Zoonar is whatever you want it to be. Depending on the price point you set for an image, their partners will either take it or leave it. They have three levels, micro, standard, or premium, that are then broken down by image size. http://www.zoonar.com/licencesPanther is mixed as well. I would consider these all Midstock doorways...whether you make a sale with any of them is another matter.
87
« on: March 03, 2011, 15:52 »
There are various avenues to get exposure to the midstock market, besides Alamy.
Zoonar (sells to micros and midstock...but you have to choose the pricing for each image and stick with it).
Panthermedia (sells cheap subs and midstock).
Canstock (occasionally I will get a midstock sale through their parent Fotosearch).
Veer (is borderline midstock...but I get almost zero sales, so does it really matter. ;o)
88
« on: March 02, 2011, 19:39 »
What exactly is wrong with SS uploads, I use it all the time....
89
« on: February 27, 2011, 20:56 »
So as the big portfolios are linked to BigStock, all those low-volume buyers paying $1-$3 commissions are now going to be seeing tons of images they could be getting for a lot less, next door at Shutterstock. This couldn't be just a gimmick to herd them over to subscriptions at Shutterstock?
How can I possibly be so cynical?
Stockastic, Take it from a small-time buyer, there is a chasm of difference between Bigstock and Shutterstock. Despite Shutterstock's cheap "per image" prices, none of their subscriptions will be cheaper than Bigstock for me, until I have such a high volume of image requests from my clients to warrant maintaining a continuous subscription to their site. And there thousands of others just like me.
90
« on: February 25, 2011, 19:38 »
I don't know who was in the US when Nancy Reagan bought new White House china during a recession. There was a huge uproar.
Believe me I am not a big Reagan fan...or should I say a fan of the Reagan myth. But the "china" in question was donated, not purchased by Nancy Reagan. Reagan also raised taxes 11 times...a little myth buster that some would prefer to bury in this day an age.
91
« on: February 25, 2011, 14:12 »
To prove my point above, I just got an $8.00 sale for a small image on Canstock, because of their relationship with Fotosearch, and I didn't have to lift a finger, other than the 10 seconds it took me to process the image that sold. That's not to suggest its all roses at Canstock, but its clear I will more than make back my effort in uploading there.
92
« on: February 24, 2011, 14:02 »
For the couple hundred images I have uploaded to their site, the sales for me are equivalent for mid-tier players like bigstock, canstock and veer. It mostly seems to be subscription downloads though, which is the disappointing part. But if you get a regular sale its a nice chunk of change.
Unlike Robert, I am not quite sold yet that their uploading is any easier, unless you have batches of the same thing. In comparison to a site like Canstock/123RF there are still way to many form fields you need to mess with to get an image through the process.
93
« on: February 23, 2011, 14:15 »
Robert,
I think all the extra clicking we now have to do to reach the menus is just as important. Is there a reason you decided to hide it up in the corner, rather than using the hover-over drop downs as before?
And thanks for the followup on the rest, its nice to see a responsive agency. Regarding subscriptions, I wouldn't mind seeing those images in one place too...primarily because that seems to be what I mostly get. Its like a 30/1 ratio for me, I don't know about everyone else though.
94
« on: February 22, 2011, 23:21 »
Why leave money on the table when different sizes bring different use opportunities and should require more cost? If vectors weren't infinitely resizable, they'd be sold the same way.
I agree with this. We may not like it, but different sizes are a mechanism to charge a premium for increased utility. It also offers the added benefit of providing for two markets, the low end user, and the high end user. It will also offer a way in the future for medium format digital users to differentiate themselves from the 35mm crowd that won't be producing 100MP images anytime soon.
95
« on: February 22, 2011, 19:01 »
cthoman,
To your question, should there be difference between "web" and original image in pricing? Yes. They aren't the same thing. The uses of the web-sized image are limited for obvious reasons.
Talking about the evolution of microstock, I personally wonder if eventually micro-RF doesn't turn into micro-RM, where you are a given some additional control over pricing based in particular on the entity purchasing the image. There is no way in my opinion that an organization like Vanity Fair/Wiley-Blackwell should be allowed to get away with paying cents for a magazine/book cover shot, when it has 10's of thousands if not millions of subscribers/readers. But at the same time there is a market for small-time bloggers, book authors, and organizations that can and should be served. And to expect them to pay $500 for an image is ridiculous, especially when its web-only size.
How exactly you would structure that usage model and its pricing I don't know, but I think its possible, and I think it can be made fair for all.
96
« on: February 22, 2011, 14:50 »
Robert, I think the forums here will provide an easier way to illustrate my points above. As far as the ajax/javascript problem I talked about, here is the screen in question, and its the same issue regardless of which of the various pages you are on. Basically what's happening is the pages load just fine, but the ajax/javascript progress bar keeps spinning its wheels for 5-10 seconds after the screen is loaded. And so you have to wait for it to realize it was done a long time ago, before you can do anything else.  Now lets look at this screen once its finished loading. You want to know what my first thought was, when this page finished loading yesterday? Where the heck is the navigation, and why can't I backup and go back to the screen I was just on. Oh I eventually found the menu system...but in order to get to any other page I either have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page where the menu is hidden from view and click, or I have to click the orange "open menu" tab in the upper right hand corner and then find the one I want. So in essence by moving to this new design you have added 2-3 extra steps every time someone once to move from one page to the next. That might not seem annoying at first, but if a contributor wants to spend any serious time on this site they are going to get annoyed really fast, especially when they knew it was alot faster before you changed it.  And as far as the earnings, I urge panther to seriously look at how others are displaying this information. The main problem I see is you give snippets of information across multiple pages, rather than consolidating it as much as possible on one. I get your point that you can't put everything there, and I really don't want to see all the individual affiliate sales, I think like you say that would be crazy. But there is some logical consolidating that could be done. What I like about the screen shot below is it shows me when the file was downloaded, what type of download it was, how much I made on the sale, a thumbnail of what was sold, and what terms were used to find what sold. Like Pather they put all the affiliate and "special earnings" stuff on a different page. But anything related to purchases of my own images they keep to single page...short, sweet and a time saver for the contributor. 
97
« on: February 22, 2011, 14:08 »
Robert, Will it ever be as possible to get a screen as simple as this one for showing sales? http://www.dreamstime.com/earningsYou'll notice everything is offered in one place. As it is, I find the revenue overview page almost useless. Why? It gives me a euro amount nothing more. So I end up having to visit the subscription payment screen anyway to see what is selling. Then if I want to see a non-subscription sale I have to go somewhere else (to "see" what sold). At least on the old site I did. Why can't this be made so...so much simpler.
98
« on: February 22, 2011, 00:20 »
Viseral,
I am curious where "here" is. I've lived in places that get -40 much of my adult life. It does tend to weed people out, but living in a hovel eating Chinese noddles doesn't sound like you have struck the lottery either. Of course there are some people who like to live in the high Arctic, I know quite a few. But if you're trying to cut costs, and be that unique photographer in a cheap and distant land, I would think there are far nicer places then what you describe. Just saying... ;o)
UPDATE: I guess I should read profiles more often, as I answered my own question. Seems you are just across the pond from me. I've heard of some amazing places over in the Far East. In particular Kamchatka. I knew of a fairly famous Japanese photographer that ventured there many times, before unfortunately falling victim to the very creature he loved.
99
« on: February 21, 2011, 22:58 »
You mean flooding the market, right, so if you upload to every single one of them, every little bit, exploring every avenue? when do you work? I mean surely you have to eat same as everybody else here or do you live in a country where you can survive on 3 sales/month, come on do me a favour, will ya?
Its exactly this attitude which have rendered agencies into having 10 million shots, totally clogged up wit say 80% of totally mediocre material, leaving a measly 20% worthwhile, its this attitude which makes us even read and write threads like this. To flood a market is the quickest way to destruction, didnt you know?
Still, read my above post, from a business perspective, for people who are trying to turn this into some sort of a living ( me? Im a fulltime freelance anyway), TIME, is money, big money and every business law in the world will tell you this and time well spent, is even better.
Hell, I dont care who submits to who, none of my business, just giving an opinion here and yes! CanStock, seam to be a very nice and userfriendly site but if I were to plonk down say only 300 of my best sellers, yes I would like to see quite a bit more in return for my time but, hey, thats me.
Time is indeed money. And I think you are correct that some agencies aren't worth bothering with. However, theoretically once you have put in x-amount of time uploading your images to a site that will be around for say 5-10 years, you shouldn't have to do any more work on a given image. So once you have recouped the 5-10 seconds of time it took you to upload a particular image in Canstock, all the rest is potential profit...forever (theoretically of course). Which means you have to choose wisely, and I think Canstock has enough big names behind it, that potential long-term return for my images is better than the time I put in. Particularly given their very easy upload system. Same reason I bothered with 123rf. If you have never done alot of reading on the Long Tail concept, its worth looking at. It applies somewhat to this situation, and is one of the reasons Amazon in conjunction with its Kindle and POD businesses is so profitable.
100
« on: February 21, 2011, 20:15 »
One of the biggest problems with the site in my opinion is it looks like a Soviet-era apartment complex. The owner really needs to look at what he's competing against, and realize the packaging as important as what's inside, if not more so. It isn't 1995 anymore.
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