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Messages - gbalex
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927
« on: August 04, 2013, 16:41 »
Finally got around to doing my totals. Even worse than I had imagined. So sorry to hear that Lisa I was hoping that you had dodged the bullet, unfortunately some of my friends are expiring the same. My sales have been down at SS for 4 months now. You might find this info interesting http://bits.shutterstock.com/Snip Now suppose you are so diligent that you keep rolling out A/B tests, this time testing a fancy search ranking algorithm. Two weeks later you see that there is a $0.10 increase in dollar spent per visitor for the test variant compared to the control (i.e. existing search ranking algorithm) variant. If the increase is real, with 100K visitors each day, thats $0.10 100,000 = $10,000 dollars extra revenue each day. Now, lets add a twist: you need five extra servers to support that fancy algorithm in production, and the servers cost $10,000 each to buy, and another $10,000 to run per year. You want to make sure its worth the investment. Your stats tell you that you currently have a p-value of 0.3, which most people would interpret as a nonsignificant result. But a p-value of 0.3 means that with the new ranking algorithm the net gain in extra-money-making probability is 0.7 − 0.3 = 0.4. With the expected size of the gain being $0.10 per visitor, the expected extra revenue per year is $0.10 100,000 0.4 365 = $1.46M dollars. The rational thing to do is of course release it.
928
« on: August 04, 2013, 11:40 »
Working fine and has been working fine for many months.
It works for some submitters and not others. You have been making these type of comment frequently in threads where people are reporting problems. If you want to know why you rub some people the wrong way, this post is a perfect example. Instead of using your head to realize that there ARE numerous site bugs affecting some submitters; you use it as an opportunity to brown nose SS and to feign you own success. Your comment is in poor taste and completely inaccurate.
929
« on: August 04, 2013, 11:31 »
This amazing new business will most likely be like almost every other tech startup, a big failure.
Let's hope so. If it succeeds, it will be a significant step toward further degrading the value of photography and artists' copyrights.
+1 The site owners are the only ones who will benefit, it will further degrade content value for the rest of us.
930
« on: August 03, 2013, 20:58 »
I just tried SS and can't get in at all.
+1 Just tried to upload again and no dice.
931
« on: August 03, 2013, 17:47 »
There is no istock, it's just part of Getty. I think trying to work out what revenue istock makes when its so intertwined with Getty is a waste of time. Don't think there's any doubt that Getty is bigger than SS but that leaves room for SS to grow.
I agree, they are one in the same. http://www.stockmarketstudy.org/wordpress/tag/sstk/page/2/Snip SSTK Questions/Answers So our strategy is really volume leadershipRoss Sandler Deutsche Bank Would you talk about that for a sec, the landscape because weve taken a lot of questions about it, as the IPO was happening in the sense, but you guys are now officially that the largest online royalty free inventory business out there. How would you characterize the competitive landscape today versus maybe a year ago, between a few of those bigger guys that you just mentioned and some of the smaller? Which are you more focused on if at all? Thilo Semmelbauer So our strategy is really volume leadership and Ross, youre quite right that in volume terms, we delivered more downloads, paid downloads last year than all of Getty combined. And Getty is certainly continues to be the revenue leader in this space. If Getty is sort of in the $800 million to $1 billion revenue range, we think the market is somewhere in the $4 billion to $6 billion range, just for stock imagery. And given our size, $170 million last year were really still a very small player in a large and growing market, and we see opportunity for several big players continuing to dominate in the market. So and obviously we want to be one of them. In terms of changes in competitive dynamics, Id say in the last year, not significant changes. Getty continues to be a big player. Numbers of years ago they bought iStockPhoto. From everything we can tell, Getty is not growing but they continue to generate lot of cash. Its a strong business. There are always new players popping up and disappearing because as Tim mentioned barriers to entry are very low in this space but barriers to scale are high and were not really seeing were not seeing anybody else anywhere close to where we are.
932
« on: August 03, 2013, 17:26 »
Tried to upload 3 times and each time it failed.
Have not had a sale in over 24hrs, something is up.
933
« on: August 02, 2013, 11:50 »
936
« on: August 02, 2013, 09:43 »
i don't think he's gonna fire anyone, his goal could be to create a 1 million images portfolio so he might hire another 100 guys if needed.
you all think his belly is full but i've the feeling this is just the tip of the iceberg, the deal with getty allows him to produce expensive shots for getty and leaving the cr-ap for istock and thinkstock, win-win scenario.
No. He 'hit the wall' as an independent, as we all do, he was just a bit later than most of us because he kept upping his production rate. Unfortunately you can't keep doing that forever. You can't just keep 'employing another 100 guys' and expect it to pay off. It's painfully ironic that Yuri's 'solution' to the issue was to tie himself into a dwindling agency. Big, big mistake.
A 'Main Collection' image at IS, at medium size, is now 3 credits. An exclusive image (not Main Collection) at medium size is now 30 credits. Is a 10x differential, between main and exclusive, sustainable? Nope. Quite frankly you might as well start another agency for exclusive content. You just don't get the same customers, with such different budgets, all happily shopping in the same place. It doesn't work like that.
Honest question. Why do you think Yuri jumped ship and why did he choose IS? Yuri has built up a very successful business, and we cant say he is not business savvy or doesnt know the market. Why would he make this decision at this moment?
That is a good question, I would say that Getty solved some problems for him and helped him move forward with some business goals. He mentioned in another thread the challenges he was having in regard to peopleimages, it could very well be that Yuri solved those challenges with this deal. Could also be that a light came on when he realized what A/B testing and the new SS board would do to his income. I don't think we will see Yuri sitting back sipping port. He enjoys building things and is very successful doing so. We do not have all the information, Yuri has been meeting with owners for years and he may be making decisions based on facts that we have no knowledge of. I would be surprised to find that he is truly biased toward Getty, if so that would be unfortunate because you miss important facts when you are biased. It would be a shame to find that someone who has come so far; has become so biased as to put that bias first, while twisting every fact to suit that bias. If so maybe he should meet with gostwyck and they can pound it out of each other.
937
« on: August 01, 2013, 19:36 »
Looks like SS's stocks are bouncing back, so the Yuri effect, as he would like us to believe, was very temporary:
as confirmed by Yuri it seems SS has no plans to raise our fees or to launch a new expensive product line.
and frankly speaking i would do the same, their core business is being the leader in low cost so they better avoid risky adventures in news, reportage, midstock, etc
their strategy will be about cutting costs to the bone even more than now, as for their new collection i'm afraid they've something nasty in store, like all-you-can-eat mobile pics or whatever cheaper than chips.
in any case they can't stay idle, public companies usually announce something new every quarter to keep high the investors's attention span, no matter if it's all smoke and mirrors as in most of the cases, see the recent jump in FB's mobile profits, anyone following the industry knows very well the ugly truth and it will all crumble soon like a sack of potatoes.
at this point they could also find the money for some M&As .. including buying FT or DT, we'll see but it would be a logical step.
You might find this info interesting http://bits.shutterstock.com/Snip Now suppose you are so diligent that you keep rolling out A/B tests, this time testing a fancy search ranking algorithm. Two weeks later you see that there is a $0.10 increase in dollar spent per visitor for the test variant compared to the control (i.e. existing search ranking algorithm) variant. If the increase is real, with 100K visitors each day, thats $0.10 100,000 = $10,000 dollars extra revenue each day. Now, lets add a twist: you need five extra servers to support that fancy algorithm in production, and the servers cost $10,000 each to buy, and another $10,000 to run per year. You want to make sure its worth the investment. Your stats tell you that you currently have a p-value of 0.3, which most people would interpret as a nonsignificant result. But a p-value of 0.3 means that with the new ranking algorithm the net gain in extra-money-making probability is 0.7 − 0.3 = 0.4. With the expected size of the gain being $0.10 per visitor, the expected extra revenue per year is $0.10 100,000 0.4 365 = $1.46M dollars. The rational thing to do is of course release it.
938
« on: August 01, 2013, 19:14 »
Has there been a consensus regarding a compatible, reliable and affordable hosting provider. I am very interested in building a site but do not currently have a hosting provider.
I looked at a few of the threads but there does not seem to be much info about providers yet. What is your experience now that you have your sites up for a while? Are you happy or not happy with your provider?
939
« on: July 31, 2013, 11:24 »
as for Yuri, what the F guys ... he got the foot in the door with IS at the right time and at the right place, found his own "gold mine" and executed his business plan better than all the other players, when the sh-it hit the fan instead of whining too much he started his own agency and now he took the right move joining Getty.
How is this "with IS at the right time"? I'd have thought that after 2 years of contributors reporting falling sales at IS, who are now on their 3rd boss in two years and with IS being forced, by market pressures, to reduce prices massively for about 80% of their collection ... this is anything but 'the right time'.
Do you remember 'old-and-bold' stock photographer Ron Chapple dipping a toe into microstock back in 2007? Reportedly he spent $600K generating about 15,000 new images for microstock. Although his stuff sold very well he rapidly came to the conclusion that the returns simply weren't there in microstock and, much worse, the barriers to entry for competitors were too low for future income to be reliable. Instead, after 20-odd years producing stock, he gave it up and started Aerial Filmworks instead, doing custom shoots for major clients from helicopters. Now that's a businessman.
Seems odd for Yuri to have spent all that time and all that money starting his own agency ... only to end up exclusive with IS a few months later? It strikes me as a sudden change of direction rather than following a carefully crafted masterplan, although granted, having his own site might have strengthened his hand in negotiations.
It's still too soon to tell whether Yuri's move has been a good one or not. Personally I think IS are now in full retreat from the threat of SS. As well as the new boss and reduced prices we've also had the unlimited uploads and reduced quality thresholds (as many are reporting). What next for IS? Their own subscription plan perhaps?
The fact that he developed a highly functional site was key Stocksy Co-op Thread http://www.microstockgroup.com/stocksy/bruce-our-night-in-shining-armor-stocksy-co-op/msg297789/#msg297789Snip I love the idea and It is strikingly similar to something I discussed with IS management back 4 years ago and strikingly similar to a business model we have been developing for www.peopleimages.com. hmmm... Our only problem and something that have caused almost a full-stop actually and that we have been trying to solve for the interim is: how do you market, promote and service a platform for which you are not making any money? With a Co-Op owned site you can't even get VC investment. This site will portray Bruce as a gregarious individual and a community supporter, but that might just be the primary outcome. Sales don't just "appear". It was Getty's team that drove Istock to the success it is today. Istock had a revenue of 10mil USD when sold to Getty despite being a first mover in microstock and having been around for 5 years.
940
« on: July 31, 2013, 07:16 »
Sound at all familiar Snip The Stock Artists Alliances ongoing Investigative Shopping Project revealed these hidden, often layered, sub-distribution arrangements. Photographers who had been puzzled by surprisingly low licence fees now had an explanation; many had been unaware that the revenues they received were often a meagre single-digit share of the licence fee, rather than their contracted royalty rate. When asked directly about these practices and the lack of transparency, the company line was always the same: these deals are essentially none of your business. SAAs study also suggested a troubling degree of accounting errors, as most of our investigative buys failed to be reported to artists until we contacted the company after a year or more of waiting. In 2007, a controller-turned-whistleblower gave SAA internal accounting documents, alleging that one major library owed several million dollars to contributors in back royalties. The company was dismissive of the accusations but SAA contacted hundreds of artists and substantiated the claims, leading to much of the monies owed being paid. Back in the studios, the professional photographers anxiously watched the steady decline of their royalty revenues, commonly experiencing a 30-50 percent drop over the past few years, to as much as a 90 percent drop today. Once valued contributors, they found themselves increasingly marginalised. With their trust in the distributor relationships reduced, and a loss of confidence that investments in image making would be recouped, professional photographers started to drop out. Sadly, this was the root cause behind our decision to close SAA this year. As the stakeholders have dwindled, it was no longer economically viable to run a trade group dedicated to protecting their interests. SAA will officially shut down at the end of 2011. http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/opinion/2072022/stockpiling-trouble-stock-industry-ate#ixzz2aclYw3nK
941
« on: July 30, 2013, 21:06 »
Good post with thought behind it Leo... so different than the non stop micro background buzz.
Who can blame Jacob for parking his images where he feels they will hold their value best. He worked hard and non stop to build his brand. It is pretty clear that the sites have no interest in protecting the value of our assets. In their race for market share, they are perfectly willing to drive the value of our hard work down to quickly fill their pockets. They do not want to wait the 20 or 50 years that companies did in the past to build net worth. They are perfectly willing to take it out of our own hides in the short term.
I think people are so quick to find fault with Yuri that they take his comment's out of context. For instance I suspect that this comment was NOT an insult to other microstockers but a reference to his own decisions over the last few years. "and desperately trying to hold on to ones own wrong ones"
The marketing hype does get old and is offensive considering the state of the market. In any case I am finding the non stop snooping into other peoples ports and business counter productive. Minding everyone else's business has become a trend here and on other micro sites. The fork in the road is getting closer and we should be taking Leo's and Jacob's lead of focusing on our backup plan; what ever we individually decide that should be.
942
« on: July 29, 2013, 09:34 »
A critic is a man created to praise greater men than himself, but he is never able to find them.
― Richard Le Gallienne
943
« on: July 29, 2013, 00:12 »
I like to be selective with the images I upload. Some sites do display your rejection rate for the reviewere and that does influence how they view you in terms of quality. They are likely to reject a larger percentage of your images if they know that your submit quality is sub par and other reviewers routinely reject your images.
944
« on: July 29, 2013, 00:09 »
My sales on DT this month exceeded my sales on SS, FT & 123. SS dropped to 3rd place.
945
« on: July 28, 2013, 10:19 »
Jon is bit of a mathematician, analitical mind. I have a close firend like that also working at a really large web corp, serious math guy, they are the people you need if you want to run a large system optimally. Jon figured out neat price / volume numbers for the packages buliding on the 'average customer behaviour', mostly the minor shortcomings of human nature: forgetfulness, poor judgment on how much resources they really need and likely need, how attracted they are to package numbers that sound like a bargain but they never actually use it up, how you can more easily get people to pay a lot if the business runs in small incements (most people simply can't count)... etcetc
Good points, Jon also initially built the site himself and kept it simple to avoid high overhead costs. Until recently he did not tinker with the search leaving it up to the buyer to uncover good content. Until recently producing good content was rewarded because of a buyer driven merit search. Now I strongly suspect they are using the search to shift more sales to new contributors. Ditto the bold for contributors who also do not keep track of how much they spend to contribute content to the site.
946
« on: July 28, 2013, 10:07 »
A relatively large number of contributors on SS have noted their sales have been down for the better part of this year. Many theories have been advanced for this, such as search engine bugs, a massive influx of new contributors (mostly from IS) and several other ideas. Here's another one that I gleaned from a financial publication.
In the July 22 issue of Barron's, page M5, there an interesting article regarding Shutterstock's performance on the stock market. I'll not go over the entire article; however, I will quote the section I found of interest. "However, sales and marketing expenses fell in the first quarter of 2013, even though they've been rising sharply, an average of 60% in the past three years. The company noted that advertising will increase for the remainder of 2013 and beyond."
It appears this may have been done as an accounting strategy in order to allow the appearance of income growth during this period. Barron's goes on to say "If sales and marketing had grown at their customary pace or even half the annual average, little or no first-quarter growth would have occurred." This would have put a damper on the rapid rise of Shutterstock's (SSTK) growth in the market.
I think most would agree that if you don't have a strong sales and marketing strategy, and the financing to execute it, in today's competitive environment your overall sales are going to suffer. They did say that they were going to increase advertising for the balance of 2013 and beyond. This may be at least part of the reason contributors (myself included) have noticed the beginnings of an uptick in sales over the past couple of weeks. Hopefully that will continue. It will be interesting to see just what the sales and marketing numbers were for the second quarter when SS issues their next report in August.
Does anyone read the documents they file with the SEC? If so do you think they are lying in those? Revenue is increasing, downloads are increasing and they have a nice cash reserve. They have plenty of funds for advertising. Revenue and downloads increased despite decreasing spend on advertising. They may be using the search to spread sales to less expensive submitters to increase revenue, but if the download numbers they are reporting are correct sales should be way up for everyone. The site is buggy as hell therefor some submitters may be seeing lower sales because of those, but sales numbers in general are up on the site. 10Q 3/31/2013 http://www.secinfo.com/d11MXs.x17an.htm#1stPageSnip Liquidity and Capital ResourcesAs of March 31, 2013, we had cash and cash equivalents of $107.0 million, which primarily consisted of money market mutual funds and checking accounts. Since inception, we have financed our operations primarily through cash flow generated from operations. Historically, our principal uses of cash have been funding our operations, capital expenditures and distributions to members. On October 4, 2012, we made a final distribution to the LLC members constituting approximately all of the cash generated from the operations of the LLC, since the last distribution to members and any other cash and cash equivalents on hand at the time of the distribution, other than any amounts received under the term loan facility, as described below. Following this final distribution, no additional distributions were made to members of the LLC prior to the Reorganization. Additionally, following the Reorganization, our tax rate and related tax payments have increased significantly as we became subject to federal, state and additional city income tax. We entered into a term loan facility in September of 2012 that provided for a $12 million term loan. Following the final distribution to members described above, the borrowings from the term loan facility were used to fund the short-term capital needs of our operations following the final distribution to members described above and our IPO. On December 24, 2012, we paid down $6.0 million of the term loan and on March 25, 2013, we paid off the remaining outstanding balance of $6 million. As of March 31, 2013, we have no outstanding debt. Additionally, we believe our existing cash and cash equivalents and cash flow generated from operations will be sufficient to meet our working capital and capital expenditure for at least the next twelve months. We plan to finance our operations and capital expenses largely through our operations. Since our results of operations are sensitive to the level of competition we face, increased competition could adversely affect our liquidity and capital resources, both by reducing our revenues and our net income, as a result of reduced sales, reduced prices and increased promotional activities, among other factors, as well as by requiring us to spend cash on advertising and marketing in an effort to maintain or increase market share in the face of such competition. In addition, the advertising and marketing expenses used to maintain market share and support future revenues will be funded from current capital resources or from borrowings or equity financings. As a result, our ability to grow our business relying largely on funds from our operations is sensitive to competitive pressures and other risks relating to our liquidity or capital resources. On October 16, 2012, we completed our IPO of 5,175,000 shares of common stock, including 675,000 shares sold as a result of the underwriters exercise of their overallotment option, at a price of $17.00 per share. The IPO resulted in net proceeds to the Company from the offering of approximately $81.8 million after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions, and before deducting total estimated expenses in connection with the offering of $4.9 million.
947
« on: July 27, 2013, 17:34 »
But we ought to come up with some zingy term that expresses our frustration with the way they currently control the market and exploit creative producers.
How about "sites I no longer do business with"? 
I'm on that train for a couple of years. But that's only because I said, "I'd rather sit for nothing than work for nothing." I'm self employed and have other income and pretty simple, I'm not needy and desperate enough for them to take advantage of me. When they pulled the rug out, changed the rules, changed the levels, and dropped commissions... AND told us the business was unsustainable with the original promised contract? For another one it was open treats towards contributors. Sorry, I won't take that.
Yes it is like drugs. Promise of happiness and escape through chemicals.
What Microstock agencies sell (with the help of people on the forums who brag about earnings, and recruited for referral income ) is H O P E.
A dose of reality and looking at financials for each individual might be good. Only you can decide if you are making money or treading water, until you drowned. That means, add up expenses and time and see how it worksvs actual income and what goes into the bank.
Making a profit? Best wishes, go for it.
Completely agree and nicely put. I often wonder how the IS exclusives that jumped ship because of those bragging about stellar sales at SS are doing.
948
« on: July 27, 2013, 12:10 »
Of course they want us to copy his images.
Why are we even talking about the images still left on DT. We should understand why they are there if we read the contract when we signed up. Is anyone surprised that DT is keeping images that bring in income as long as possible?
IS knew the deal also, we should ultimately be upset with IS after all they are once again the ones who put things in place to make all of this possible.
949
« on: July 27, 2013, 09:33 »
DT is not playing ball, he could only delete 30% of his portfolio and has to wait 6 months before his staff can remove the other images. But IS/Getty didnt want to wait 6 months for him to join them, so they cut him some slack.
perhaps they are, looking at his account only about 1k files were uploaded close to 6 months ago, so we are talking about 34k files that should have been removed, again the distribution team has guilt not Yuri
You can disable all files approved more than six months ago at any time. You are allowed to disable 30% of files uploaded in the recent six months however 70% must be kept online for six months from their approval date.
What method do you use to analyze the age of yuri's content?
950
« on: July 26, 2013, 00:42 »
...What is wrong with saying that the Audi's service package was not up to snuff, he tried to negotiate better terms and service with the auto dealer and they ignored his needs. Therefor he decided to part ways and is simply sharing why he felt the need to do this. There are sites all over the net offering customer feedback on cars, what is so wrong with discussing dissatisfaction with a business partner which fell short in fulfilling their side of the business arrangement...
Nothing wrong with it if Yuri just stated it as such. And did so respectfully.
Instead he came out with his comments about "professionals work with professionals", implying that neither we nor the microstock companies he left deserve the distinction. And then tossed his ego around suggesting that he is the most significant thing to happen to microstock.
We can respectfully state their reasons for disliking one company or another and do it while leaving our egos at the door. Well, most of us can, anyway.
Agree with you about checking ego's at the door, they often do more harm than good.
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