I like the CV idea. They just ignored it for years and stuffed whatever they wanted at the front of searches.

Quote from: cthoman on September 11, 2013, 11:47

Quote from: tickstock on September 11, 2013, 11:38

Hence the lowering of prices of nonexclusive content and increased exposure for Thinkstock, I'm sure most people will blame Istock but really what caused them to change?

They were competing just fine for several years, so I don't think Shutterstock has much to do with it.

I think Shutterstock has grown a lot in the last few years.  At least here many people that have been around for a while are saying Shutterstock is taking a much larger % of sales than they used to.  Curiously to me, as Shutterstock goes up overall earnings for many seem to be declining.  Any connection there?

I can't speak to much of that. My SS numbers are very different from most.

My point was that IS wounds seem self inflicted. They punched contributors and customers in the gut at the same time, so their reputation which used to be great went to garbage. They can blame SS for taking their customers and contributors, but really they just handed them over in a bloodless coup.

It doesn't make me happy that it happened because it messed everything up for me, but it happened.

Winter is still some months away, but stock sales are falling like snowflakes, with falling RPDs or sales across multiple sites.

What does one do?

a.  Keep griping and keep uploading - business as usual ! 
b. Go exclusive to one agency of choice
c. Be non-exclusive and upload to as many agencies as physically possible to spread income effect
d. Say hasta la vista to microstock and commit effort elsewhere to substitute the income
e. Go independent such as own site or Symbiostock

The best option from the above .. or smthg else...?

I'm going to say a little bit from each column.

That interview is laughable.  He should have given it on stage with a microphone and a brick wall behind him.

"We also have a love and respect for the product, which is a problem, to be honest. I'm often told by critics that we're not customer-focused enough, and it's true. Every decision that we make, the first question that we ask ourselves is not: "Is this good for the customer?" It should be the first question. Instead, it's: "How will our contributors and partners react? Does it make sense for them? Is it the right thing to do in the long-term?""

That and those two groups could actually be the same people. Or did I just blow their minds?

If that theory is correct why not just sell on the one site that gives you the best returns?  I think it's clear that buyers switching  isn't going to make up the difference in lost sales. Look at how nearly 100% of this forum said nothing would happen when Yuri left all those agencies, no buyers would follow.

It's not an all or nothing proposition. It's a balancing act.

^
I prefer the bad Shutterstock RPD with hundred of downloads every month to the excellent Dreamstime one with two downloads a month

My earnings have actually been fairly comparable the last few months between the two.

SS buy GI, that would be like 2 galaxy's colliding

I was thinking a dinoshark that spits sharknadoes, but either way, it sounds like a disaster.

SS might indeed have the money to buy getty, especially in two or three years when they have grown even more and also have a flourishing high end creative business. But to make those business cultures compatible would take a lot of work. Much easier for them to slowly win over customers and artists and just do their own thing.

The advantage with online customers and digital assets is that they can move around very fast.

Which also leaves Getty the chance to achieve a turnaround and head back for growth if they really want to.

Hopefully, I've finished my rocket ship by then, so I can escape. 

To me the most telling statistic is how leveraged the company is.  As I understand these things, first H&F and then Carlyle saddled Getty with increasing amounts of debt to finance their purchases of the firm.  So Getty goes from a leverage of 1.5 before the H&F acquisition to 3.2 afterward, and then from 6x when Carlyle buys it to 7.1 in June.  That's less and less sustainable, and is a combination of declining revenues and increased debt.  I'd say both are self-inflicted; SS and others are just getting the benefit of disastrous decisions by Getty and its past and present owners.

I thought saddling acquisitions with debt was standard operating procedure for private equity firms.

Driving the price down?  Not my experience at all.  When I joined, SS was paying .20 per subscription download and there weren't many options for anything else.  Now they pay almost twice that, not counting all the on-demand and other non-sub sales.

That's still a very small increase considering it could be 10 to 100 times more.

I thought there were two criteria in the polls - the first was that more than 50 people had to report results against an agency for it to appear in the lists with earnings ratings. Then the amount of the rating just depends on what you fill in as the earnings that month. So, if 50 of us reported earning $5, we would appear down at the bottom in the low earnings.

So all it takes is for us to report, even if it is zero

Steve

That was my thought that all it takes is 50 people, but maybe it works differently. I apologize too if I highjacked this thread.

Imagine someone wants to write a story about pregnancy, or wants to build an entire website about it. A collection would be a perfect way to go to
1. save money
2. keep a layout
3. get enough image material

I agree. I have set them up on my site as well. I wish I sold more of them, but it is nice when they sell.

http://www.mystockvectors.com/designfiles.php

Thanks everybody.

- is it a good idea to upload to pond5 if you are already there through 123rf?

- do they remove duplicates or keep both when you upload directly?

- do you recommend uploading directly?

Have they got their vector upload working yet? I don't remember hearing anything other than "soon", but that was awhile ago.