Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on September 03, 2014, 15:02

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on September 03, 2014, 14:49

Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on September 03, 2014, 13:58
They want to sell the premium content at low prices.  It's the reverse of all the moves done in the past that were applauded that more correctly valued the content.

But exclusives have been complaining all over the place that they are not getting sales, so perhaps this is just recognition that the market won't pay the "correct value".

Perhaps they've been seeking out the wrong market.  Sales at Stocksy bear out that the right customers will pay for the right product.

I guess stocksy is cutting out its slice which is the snooty instagram artsy look a like photos.  But how long can that style last.  I remember when photos on white sold like hotcakes.   bruce always liked art photos over commercial sales success.  Only cost him 1 billion dollars!!  Istock with its original formula owned by bruce today would be like Coke.  Istock/getty motivation was to sell itself twice for $2 billion then $4 billion in the process it killed off its contributors and customers.  But don't say it wasn't successful in its goal. 

The subs introduction slashed my income by 1/3 and sales directly went over to subs.  This change will slash it again.  I guess water is coming aboard the sinking ship and the high priced execs need to earn their keep.  Copying others won't save them.   



 

Quote from: cobalt on May 15, 2014, 07:28
Even worse than I remember. link to data from moodys

https://www.moodys.com/research/Moodys-downgrades-Getty-to-B3-from-B2-Outlook-is-Stable--PR_285298

How could they ever pay this back?

Who, the new owners of the debt, because Getty sold their company to a wealth fund, who sold Getty to another wealth fund.   I don't guess they 2nd buyers of the declining Getty did their homework.  I could have told them for a fee, say $100 million and saved their behinds. 

I knew it was going badly for Getty was they were pumping up its business through squeezing out every dollar from Istock.  So now what?
If I wasn't heading towards 6 figures with IStock , until they began fleecing the photographers and buyers,  I would laugh.  But now the market is saturated and people are fighting for crumbs.  Subscription won't save there past screw ups.  The 2nd buyers bought a clunker.

Their stupid front page "support our exclusive photographers" is repulsive.   The 100% royalty day just rubs in how much money most photographers have lost.  But I know where the money went.  It's in the debt of Getty and the pockets of original owners and the next sellers. 

"you got to know when to hold them, know when to fold them"

Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on January 10, 2014, 19:21

Quote from: Ron on January 10, 2014, 18:57

Quote from: brm1949 on January 10, 2014, 18:03
Good luck Sean, I'm sure you will be pleasantly surprised at your returns on SS with the rep you have and your port. I'm only a small fish but compared to what IS does and is doing, real professionalism is plain to see. Enjoy your success. SS is really not a bad company.

7 year old images also show 7 year old clothing, hairstyles and interiors. Lifestyle is the toughest category, and Seans 7 year old images will be competing against new fresh up to date content, and millions of it. Its not going to be an easy ride, but I am sure with more and new content he will make a decent return.

A lot of it is more concept then lifestyle, which should help.  The really dated stuff, I'm avoiding.

  Good thing monkey business did not take this advice.  Most of the images theyt put on istock were taken with an outdated camera and lifestyle shots of 7 years old or more.  It did not seem to hurt their sales.  Generic clothing and looks don't change much even after ten years.  I have a photo from  1997 of me with friends that looks like it could have been from 2 years ago.  Only change is every one would look older now.

Same with the getty junk they sold as agency on IS.  That stuff was from the 1990s.  No one seem to notice.  The only dated item was the file size. 

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on January 09, 2014, 20:01
That's a surprise - but it does make sense. Trying to get a decent return must be almost impossible if you refuse to go on subscription sites.

It tells of the low sales on Stocksy and the lack of hope for it coming close to istock's income.

I wasn't expecting a pick up but the last 3 months were higher than last year.  Dec is already higher than nov.   Way higher than 2012.

Most of my files were moved to the higher collections and I am seeing a big advantage.  The main collection is worthless.   To many new files swamping that collection.  I don't see how the are going to manage that collection properly since new files are not selling and have no way to move up.  If sales continue like 2013  in 2014 I will be very happy.

Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on November 18, 2013, 23:57
Sounds like they admit that their projections from last year were terribly off, but they're desperate to keep contributors.

Odd comment considering your last couple of years.

    It does say Istock is not growing at all and is probably tanking.  Every comment on the forumns is happy.  Seems to me the exclusives should be conerned about the falling sales.

just a slow update  in the stats.

Replying to the topic..  Istock has jumped way back up into the the 200's in alexa traffic rank.   But I don't see anything on here talking about that stat.

Expectations were very high based on the previous IS success.  It seems the under current of IS promoting of the "artsy" stock shooter and ignoring the guy that sells 500,000 "too stocky" images has reared its ugly head.  A lot of the images look the same to me.  It's like the kids school who don't fit all look the same while  laughing at the popular kids for looking the same. 

Read the founding story.  A guy wants to sell fine art online, but can't,  then ends up with a stock site and I guess he never wanted as a commercially geared site.   Seams like timing was everything in 1999.   Now, its a much harder.   

I just wonder if they launched Istock part II would it slay the getty monster again.  Not a lot of happy contributors out there.

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on July 28, 2013, 19:16

Quote from: pro@stockphotos on July 28, 2013, 18:03

Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on July 27, 2013, 19:11
"Istock has partner programs. Thinkstock, Photos.com, Flickr etc. So now www.peopleimages.com is one of those. What is the problem? Why do you have such a hard time with that?"

And the PP is for everyone, generally speaking.  The PP is not marketing-speak for 'you can run your own site with only your content and undercut our prices'.  I'm not sure he understands what the PP is.

I think IS/GI bought peopleimages if Yuri is saying what I think he is saying.  If this is understood already sorry.  But I bet in the exclusive deal with lS Yuri probably had a Brinks truck back up to his door and drop of a lot of cash as he sold the site.  It's the only way he can call it a partner site.

Well, he told me, when he rang me up to say that I was painting an unfair picture of him, that he had managed to keep it.  So I suppose it is some novel kind of "getty partner site" definition.

Maybe they bought a non-controlling interest and when he said he kept it was a majority.  I know nothing about the deal but non billion dollar american corporation lets it  "i's" and "t's" without the dots and crosses.  If they bought into it they can call it a partner site. 

When Yuri says GI/IS have this business wrapped up with do you think he means.   I always thought he was wrong in not going exclusive at the start.  But now it looks like he was chased by GI/IS and it has paid handsomely for him.   


 

Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on July 27, 2013, 19:11
"Istock has partner programs. Thinkstock, Photos.com, Flickr etc. So now www.peopleimages.com is one of those. What is the problem? Why do you have such a hard time with that?"

And the PP is for everyone, generally speaking.  The PP is not marketing-speak for 'you can run your own site with only your content and undercut our prices'.  I'm not sure he understands what the PP is.

I think IS/GI bought peopleimages if Yuri is saying what I think he is saying.  If this is understood already sorry.  But I bet in the exclusive deal with lS Yuri probably had a Brinks truck back up to his door and drop of a lot of cash as he sold the site.  It's the only way he can call it a partner site. 

Not the end for me,  the change put a lot of my images in higher catagories and I am better off for it!

Quote from: Ron on June 14, 2013, 23:02
Whatever IS does, people stick by them. Its the Stockholm Syndrome. But at some point the love affair has to end, no?

Maybe not,  many companies are terrible.  Microsoft acts like your lucky to buy from them, Coke is 6 times the cost of copies.   Both are bigger than ever.   

Yuri going exclusive with getty is not a good sign for those thinking getty is going down! He is no dummy.

Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on June 14, 2013, 12:15

Quote from: ShadySue on June 14, 2013, 10:43
Not much evidence of vsual editor involvement.

Did anyone think they were going to go through 20 million files individually?   They can hardly keep up with the queue.

You are right, it is just a formula like best match.  Based on age/sales/views/etc to where your file goes.   I guess the inspectors will put new files into the categories??

Quote from: loop on June 09, 2013, 17:34
" the highest selling woman on IS" also happens to be a hell of a photographer, good at concepts, brilliant at execution, intense at work, way better at the craft than most of us. What matters what she was being before being a photographer?

I am just challenging the belief of a natural rise and a fair market place.  There has been a lot of behind the curtain stuff going on since IS began.  And Getty is way worse!!   If you believe this was natural tallent then how was she so far ahead of everybody just to get caught.  Like I said before sean outsould her 3 to 1 since 2010.  Go back and look his first images and you see a natural progression in ability.  Yuri had a warp jump from his first images in a few months.   There are people who figure it out and it takes years.   Then there are these unexplainable warp jumps in finished images. 

Quote from: sharpshot on June 09, 2013, 10:21
Hasn't his input here always only gone one way?  I don't have anything against Yuri, he is a great business person and knows how to use this forum for his benefit.  It looks like he has struck an amazing deal with Getty.  I just don't think Getty have thought about their other contributors but that's no surprise.

Look into the story of the highest selling woman on IS.  Let's see,  36 and trying to figure out what to do to make a living up there in the Canada.  I know I will go back to school and take graphic design classes.  Hey what this IS.  NO problem I will pick up a camera and instantly become the face of this stock site with no experience what so ever.   Cool, this is so easy.   Hey I just passed a million sales.  Great thing I went back to take that graphic design class.

Does this sound legit to you?   Or fair.  Getty is just putting the best stock photographer in a position to shape the business model back into their favor.   You have to remember the goal when getty was selling to the big hedge funds.  Profit in the short term to boost sales price.  No sane business would make yuri dominant in the search along with Monkey for so long  if it did not boost the income by double.   And it worked but it also built up the competition.  Now is the holy$hit moment where they have to fend off the comp and Yuri off SS is a big shot accross the bow.

Quote from: SNP on May 25, 2013, 02:28
there's really little sense to comparing the way an image would be treated in micro; Stocksy isn't trying to be micro.

there are so many great things about that front page photo. her expression is so genuine, it's warm and feel good, the red glasses are in the perfect spot IMO. and that the shot is at eye level as though you're seated right in front of her makes it really easy to connect with. completely different type of imagery, that's kinda totally the point.

it's just bad manners to so dismissively cut down another photographer's work with such trite comments.

You are right, it was bad manners to malign anohters effort.  What did you say about Yuri again?

The company could have just gone to the local park with an employee and laptop at sunset with an iphone to capture this image.

Quote from: sharpshot on May 21, 2013, 12:10
I don't get how Yuri was feeling the pinch earning millions a year?  He was doing great, unless he made it all up for that magazine article recently?  This is just a way for him to make even more money.  That's his choice, I'm sure we all have a price to sell out to Getty

NO ONE contributor or "house" matches Yuri in quality or production.  He is alone.  He is michael jordan of the NBA.   I have an email from him a few years ago stating that I was correct in commenting on the low payouts from SS and the like.  He asked me not to reveal this at the time but he was not happy.

So, this smacks the indies on here and the exclusives on here because the "not all eggs in one basket" ideal does not compute financially.  Yuri has the most sales possible and it is not working for him.  It also says that supporting competition makes prices paid to suppliers less.  This rule never sleeps.   If I was Yuri, I would have been pissed that Jon made 400 million dollars by undercutting the market place with largely my help.

If Yuri had avoided SS would it had made a dent and told others to avoid it too.  IS would have been stronger.   Basically, if you match Yuri in sales and production you to can live by different rules.  It's not like IS has been fair from the begining.  Lise was chosen to by the face of IS and those sales were made by a team.  Who knows what help she received.  There is a natural progression to the top and then there are these warp speed jumps.

My problem is he gives credit to getty for the growth!   What did getty do besides reduce the market share from 70% to what is now 25%.  How does he call that growth.  Allowing the other sites to thrive and now SS has replace IS in yearly revenue.  It had to be painful see the 2 billion dollars left on the table in the 3 years after the sale.  How many people had a chance to be a billionaire and passed.  I can think of a few like Bill Gates early partner that sold his 50% of microsoft for $500,000.   I do understand the getty threat but it wouldn't have been succesful because of the dislike of getty.

Quote from: sjlocke on April 21, 2013, 17:52

Quote from: pro@stockphotos on April 21, 2013, 17:22
I had hope this would be something it seems not to be.  It appears the venture bruce took up after IS is more akin to stocksy than IS.  As the curtain was pulled back and my hope faded so did their traffic and interest.  Maybe lighting in a bottle is more IS and less stocksy.  If they had combined IS original concept and a coop, then who knows.  I seem to remember IS rocketing off from the beggining.  Not years into it!!!

IS certainly didn't rocket off anywhere within three weeks of opening.

IS may have not in three weeks but it did keep those buyers who found it and their interest did rocket off.  The interest was there in this case but the product is not up to par and I think there was a collective sigh of dissapointment.  Take the bad aspects of istock, ie artsy promoted over usefull commerical value, and clickish, and that seems to be the only thing offered here.  I would stick to IS/getty/shutterstock for my needs if I were a buyer.   

To tell you the success of usefull vs artsy, Sean, you have outsold the queen of IS 3 to 1 since 2010.

I had hope this would be something it seems not to be.  It appears the venture bruce took up after IS is more akin to stocksy than IS.  As the curtain was pulled back and my hope faded so did their traffic and interest.  Maybe lighting in a bottle is more IS and less stocksy.  If they had combined IS original concept and a coop, then who knows.  I seem to remember IS rocketing off from the beggining.  Not years into it!!!

Quote from: sjlocke on March 29, 2013, 10:00

Quote from: Smithore on March 29, 2013, 09:36
I don't see any difference at all between stocksy and other microstock agencies,

I guess you're missing the point then.

At least looking at the first data on alexa  Stocksy is rocketing up in interest and traffic.  Considering the high end market that is being targeted and fair sharing on the commission, No wonder getty was so scared of this ideal.

Quote from: michealo on March 28, 2013, 17:33


Agreed, they have upped the % payout and they aren't just building exactly the same collection

kudos to them on both counts

Then why does every photo look exactly the same.  The entire collection could be from one photographer.  It seems that in stock photography the less usuable the higher the image is priced.  It reminds me how in high school all the kids that didn't fit in ending up looking the same as they made fun of the kids that all looked the same wearing the trendy clothes. 

Quote from: dingles on March 27, 2013, 01:21

Quote from: jsnover on March 27, 2013, 01:14
I cannot fathom why there is a small clique of Getty apologists who refuse to believe that what Sean has said is what happened. Even further, I can't understand why they'd waste their time on MSG to set us poor country bumpkins straight - those of us who take Sean at his word.

And as for Getty's side of things, their track record speaks for itself - it'd be easier to defend Attila the Hun and Vlad the Impaler as social workers at heart than to pitch Getty as the hardly done by agency scr*wed over by the evil SuperLocke.

Go and complain about us and Sean someplace else.

Wow, way to be inclusive. Who needs any other perspective...let all us little Lemmings get back to our smug...errr...snug little bubbles

Are you talking to getty or jsnover here??