This is silly, the fix is meant to be about getting the right files in front of buyers.

There is no way they can ensure that every one of their exclusives have their files all moving up the search. The idea that a better search means any particular person's files will be higher up is a complete logical disconnect.

The "right files" will be different for everybody.

No matter how many times they tweak it some people will be happier and some will think it still has too much of this and not enough of that.

Is this about the right files for buyers or right files to increase sales?

I'm once again called a TROLL in this forum by the crowd of do-gooders shocked to realize iStock and the whole microstock industry entered a downward spiral that will soon leave you guys grilling burgers at McDonalds.

It's 3 or 4 yrs i'm pointing out that this would have been the obvious conclusion and that the only way out was to stick to RM but you guys were always so positive and full of hope like children with rosy glasses, sure to have found the new gold mine and that it would have last forever.

Now you're all pants down crying out about falling sales and all you can tell me is i'm a known troll and agent provocateur, banning me and telling me to F off.

Hahaha, you're just all patethic and you deserve to be scammed by Getty and their other cronies.
You reap what you sow and i'm the one having the last laugh.


Farewell.

Farewell. What will your new name be when you come back in a few days?

really? I have the feeling that most exclusives hate "subscription" agencies, perhaps joining FT or DT exclusivity

I love subscription sites and they love me too.

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on December 10, 2012, 21:10

If IS went under I wonder how a massive flood of new images at SS and other sites would affect everyone elses sales.

it can't be good for us.. if all of them were to go non-exclusive they should also lower their expectations as there is gonna be a lot of competition..

Well, anybody that's hoping for IS to fail may want to think about how that would affect them.

Sorry to warm up an old thread. I'm interested to know if anybody has tried putting their stock photo portfolio on photoshelter and if it was worth the investment in time and money. Thanks.

I'd say it's worth the effort if you know how to get traffic to your site. Photoshelter provides the platform, not the marketing. Also obviously depends on the content. To me it's worth the investment.

Do you guys put your RM images also in FAA for sale or just microstock images and find art pix ?
What about smugmug or photoshelter ? Any one doing well salewise in these two sites ?

Photoshelter is a pretty good system but they do zero marketing to buyers. They provide the platform and it's up to you to get people to your site.

So there's Zazzle, Ebay, and similar places but in my experience the buyers there want cheap stuff like $1 magnets which isn't worth the time to bother with.

What places do bigger spenders buy stuff at? Like canvas wraps or things that are over $100. 

I feel Rebecca is just the messenger. She is testing the water for her bosses. I wonder what is cooking for the new year.

Good possibility. The new owners may have finally looked under the hood of what they just bought and told her to fix the mess they just found. They thought they bought a vintage Ferrari they could flip for a profit and found out it's a bondo'd kit car.

Perception goes a long way toward success. Look at Apple.

She talks as if their lack of communication skills are my main concern. Seriously?

That's what I was thinking. So are they now just going to have more people telling us more frequently that something is still broken? And it was supposed to be fixed but is still broken? And is was already fixed but is broken again?

I think she's missing the underlying causes of the anger and until that is addressed more communication is only going to result in even more communication.

Ladies nad gents,

one small step down in Your RCs,
BIG step up in IS total earnings.

Simple ...

More shoots, less talk ...

Enjoy.

So if you doubled your portfolio size in a year, say from 3,000 to 6,000 images, and your income still dropped off a cliff, let's say in half, your solution is more shoots and less talk?

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on December 02, 2012, 09:25

I'm hopeful but am not expecting much from E+ on Getty. My regular RF on Getty used to get excellent RPI a few years ago but it is now comparable to IS. That's not a bad thing but it's now more of an extra revenue stream than a great opportunity.

Plus I was doing some searches and E+ doesn't seem overly well placed on search results. Just about every other collection including Flickr seems to be ahead of E+. So unless you have images that are really unique or have little competition the E+/Getty thing may not help sales much.

Yes but Paul, in all honesty. I had a wade through all that the other day. Getty nowdays is very, very much conceptual and in every category. Now these E+, no doubt they have come over on automatic transfer, not reviewed a second time that is.
It shows!  the majority of these E+ files have got that sort of "look" of micro. You know like lets say a dentist with patient, dentist doesnt look at what he is doing but instead gives a giant Colgate smile right into the camera, posing.

not exactly overly creative, is it?  I even saw a surgeon standing in the theatre, giving the thumbs up , in fact on every other shot its the silly thumbs up. Its outdated.

Agreed. With as strict as Getty is I'm surprised E+ stuff isn't being reviewed. But it goes the other way too. There is a ton of stuff I've seen on Getty that already exists on micro.

So the shift will continue. Traditional photographers who have a bunch of ordinary work will probably find themselves slowly pushed out of Getty and micro shooters who have high value work will do will probably do well with E+ on Getty.

Then there's the gray area of E+ stuff that probably shouldn't be E+. I'm pretty sure a lot of that will work itself out. Contributors who just tag anything E+ will probably find those files will stop selling on IS and not at all on GI. They will then remove the E+ to try and jumpstart that file's sales on IS again. 

It will take some time, years, to shift everything around into its appropriate value level.

Every month my IS portion of sales drops.  PP goes up "just" enough for me to stay at "the norm"  The norm has been for the last four years at least.  I hate to say it but PP has saved my can from recurring revenue dump every month.  November was despicable from an IS standpoint.  SS up by $75 over best month so BME there.  All other sites (FT, DP, PD, CanStockPhoto, BigStock, SF, Alamy, 123) all avg, no BME's here.

Maybe PP is going up because it's the reason regular sales are going down.

Pretty interesting read.

Especially that a major attraction to subscriptions is being able to download without having to get managerial approval every time an image is needed. I thought price would be the biggest reason but it looks like it's actually convenience. Time to raise prices on subscriptions!