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Messages - nicmac
Pages: [1]
1
« on: June 27, 2011, 09:10 »
Ouch I hadn't tried that bottom slider. That's nasty. Can't wait to read about sales results.
2
« on: June 26, 2011, 14:29 »
Well the good thing is that photos of the lower price range are still included in the higher range searches. So it gives the buyer the ability to filter out vetta + agency if they want to, which many of them have been asking for a long time. And even if they wish to see these, they'll still be able to see the lower stuff as before... As for perception, most designers work with their budgets in mind first and foremost.
Did they change the best match again around Wednesday? Sales are about 40% of what they were these past many weeks since that day... I hope it's not related to the price finder...
3
« on: April 12, 2011, 09:12 »
And it seems that the bug they had on the Hemera collection is back this month... Endless loops of sales come in for astronomical revenues! Which means they'll remove the sales in 48 hours and then keep our revenues locked for another couple of months... while they "fix" it...
4
« on: December 10, 2010, 11:44 »
When I checked my numbers this morning, I was like "Oh! some partner just woke up and sent on year's worth of sales to close the yearly books." But, err, it is in my case the same 45 sales repeating over and over...
5
« on: October 03, 2010, 20:02 »
I'm in! awesome thanks Peter!
6
« on: September 30, 2010, 23:18 »
I've had over 250 photos accepted at Bigstock since June and strangely enough only a couple seem to be selling over and over while the rest doesn't. I uploaded mostly best sellers at IS and SS so I'm surprised by this kind of secular performance. Their rates are nice though with the lowest commission at 50 cents - none of these insulting 19-22 cents sales you get at IS or FT.
You do not mention Veer, and you should. I've had steady sales there with great commissions and their dash for cash promotion brought me over $850 just for uploading, and I think they'll become a major player in the years to come. For the short time they've been active in microstock the seem to be doing very well and are worthy of our attention.
7
« on: September 23, 2010, 15:59 »
sales were relatively normal for me until this week. Week days are like week-ends all of a sudden. Not good. SS and Veer have been good to me though 
8
« on: September 16, 2010, 10:47 »
Same happened to me: I had two sales last week ($2.40 commission) that suddenly disappeared 5 days later from my $$ total while staying in the sales graph.
Do they refund customers if they're disappointed with their purchase?
EDIT: it is refunds and you can see them by choosing the Display as Table in statistics.
9
« on: September 16, 2010, 10:44 »
Looks like they'll be done with the D4C soon... had over 100 images accepted this week from the last week of June. They must be pushing hard to lower the inspection times so that it doesn't turn off new contributors. Maybe. Sales were up every month, but not so good in September for me. I even had a couple of commissions suddenly disappear a few days after the sale.. odd..
10
« on: September 11, 2010, 12:06 »
People are doing what they think that they can afford to do in regards to this. If we really all wanted to destroy IS, well then we would have to do all of the above at a precise moment, plus a lawsuit. But for most, the right moment is not now, but more like February or March after we see the real results of this.
Thing is, I don't want to destroy Istock... and I don't think I'm alone in not wanting this major player to go down the tubes overnight. Isn't something like this exactly why we're not exclusives? We should just pat each other on the back and congratulate ourselves for making the choice we did and openly encourage better managed companies to help them take the lead. Istock has already lost the trust of their "cult" as someone else put it. That's a lot of word of mouth that will in the long term make sure that karma does its thing.
I went exclusive recently, partly because I was sick of being slowly screwed by 10 different agencies - and went to the one that didn't seem to have screwed exclusives quite so much in the past. Uploading to 10 different agencies does involve a lot more work, and you simply can't say to buyers "go here" because all of the options have major drawbacks from a contributor point of view.
Personally, I'm willing to work more to preserve a healthy competitive market. I've worked a long time for a corporation and having competitors is super important. Otherwise the companies feel, with good reason, that they can do anything. People have been looking at Freshstock or Veer to rise up to the challenge... a big 6 would be excellent in my views. With none of them really rising too far above the others, thus becoming a target for a takeover from larger corporation which would force them in turn to have a change in management philosophy the way it all happened at IS since Getty acquired them or downright shut them down, which happened to StockXpert. This is a great first move for our future: making sure that a healthy competition keeps going between the agencies.
11
« on: September 11, 2010, 11:36 »
I think I'm caught up on the latest on the threads about the latest changes - to sum it up, IS haven't changed their position, and the vast majority are still unhappy. Both exclusives and non-exclusives.
At the moment we have:
- an Avitar campaign going
- a petition thread: http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=252382&page=1
- people contacting buyers
- people twittering / blogging
- individuals cancelling exclusivity
- individuals deleting portfolios
etc. etc.
KK's last thread is titled: "Where we go from here". To me the line that stands out is: "Tuesday was iStocks "bridge" day, and we crossed it full on." It sounds like they not only crossed it, but burned it down behind them.
To make any change this time we're going to need more than a pettition or new avitars. Rather than everyone running in different directions we really need to come up with a co-ordinated and professional response to this from both exclusives and non-exclusives.
People are doing what they think that they can afford to do in regards to this. If we really all wanted to destroy IS, well then we would have to do all of the above at a precise moment, plus a lawsuit. But for most, the right moment is not now, but more like February or March after we see the real results of this. Thing is, I don't want to destroy Istock... and I don't think I'm alone in not wanting this major player to go down the tubes overnight. Isn't something like this exactly why we're not exclusives? We should just pat each other on the back and congratulate ourselves for making the choice we did and openly encourage better managed companies to help them take the lead. Istock has already lost the trust of their "cult" as someone else put it. That's a lot of word of mouth that will in the long term make sure that karma does its thing.
12
« on: September 11, 2010, 10:27 »
Of course there's the other ridiculous theory going around that they came up with this evil plan in order to drive out non-exclusives. If that was their intention they wouldn't have shafted exclusives as well. They would have thrown in a sweetener instead and enticed non-exclusives to join the other side.
Actually I think independents are collateral damage, since the beef seems to be the growing number of folks to reach the 35-40% mark, or expected to in the near future, which is certainly not the independents. But had they messed only with their exclusive structure, the headlines would have been "Istock screws their exclusives" which would have been incredibly worse. With the damage done to our wallet, they're appeasing a few of their exclusives who would have gone even more berserk trashing IS reputation, but more importantly killing the awful headline. Of course making more money during a PR operation certainly made that decision more obvious. Being on the receiving end of this PR op, though, plainly sucks.
Exactly. Since the day Getty bought IS, their path has been to transform IS to Getty, and that path NEVER included non-exclusives.
I get what you're both saying but if that was the case, woudn't they have reduced the commission of independents and left exclusives as is? That way independents would have either jumped ship or become exclusive and exclusives would have been happy. Their current structure now will force quite a few exclusives to leave as well, maybe not in a hurry, but they'll definitely consider alternatives in the next couple of months.
Just to temper a bit, I don't think IS doesn't want non exclusives, in fact if you read between the lines KK hints that making an exclusive plan the way they did was kind of a mistake. Besides if you only have exclusives, then they're nothing special. I mean to a lot of buyers, the fact is you'll find most of the better photos from the top agencies at IS plus exclusive content, which is a big draw. They don't have to go to three or four places. Plus the independent work is cheaper so that's another tier in pricing. Cut it off and all of a sudden they're really not competitive anymore and become a luxury item, which would be attractive to many but would certainly cost them their leadership position. So I think IS do want independents, but do care more about the reactions of their exclusives. We are at the bottom of the pecking order, but it doesn't mean that they don't want our business.
13
« on: September 11, 2010, 09:11 »
Of course there's the other ridiculous theory going around that they came up with this evil plan in order to drive out non-exclusives. If that was their intention they wouldn't have shafted exclusives as well. They would have thrown in a sweetener instead and enticed non-exclusives to join the other side.
Actually I think independents are collateral damage, since the beef seems to be the growing number of folks to reach the 35-40% mark, or expected to in the near future, which is certainly not the independents. But had they messed only with their exclusive structure, the headlines would have been "Istock screws their exclusives" which would have been incredibly worse. With the damage done to our wallet, they're appeasing a few of their exclusives who would have gone even more berserk trashing IS reputation, but more importantly killing the awful headline. Of course making more money during a PR operation certainly made that decision more obvious. Being on the receiving end of this PR op, though, plainly sucks.
14
« on: September 10, 2010, 15:58 »
I'm not sure I believe it either that it is unsustainable. My point was more of why come up with a solution that makes everyone mad? There had to have been a way to do it that would make more or most people happy to drown out all the negatives.
Well if they want to keep the brand but change the content, that's one hell of a good way to do it.
15
« on: September 10, 2010, 15:56 »
I still think that they're moving to a different model. Kelly's release ( http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/61173/20100910/istockphoto-gets-ire-of-contributors-over-new-payment-scheme.htm) might be true, but he's not really talking about the present contributors and collection... He's talking about Getty moving in their shots and photographers which will sell for a lot more and in turn create a larger royalty total. If the Istock brand is strong and has a larger buyer base why not use that to sell the great quality photographs that have a hard time selling at the old banner?
16
« on: September 09, 2010, 11:41 »
Oh, if only Veer could get their act together and make their way through the Dash for Cash queue already... I'm loving my time there (and the royalties) so far, but this 3-4 months inspection time will kill any chance they'd have to get new talent at this crucial time.  Another thing that's pissing me off here, and not many people are talking about it, is that silly "Communication problem" with Thinkstock. The simple truth is that our photos are being held hostage there. There simply is no way at the moment to get them removed... Or am I missing something? Now it looks like a part of the plan all along to keep people locked in. Getting suppliers locked in (isn't a bit part of artist exclusivity exactly that?) ... while weeding out the poor performers, low producers and new talent by beating them up until they can take no more and leave on their own free will... Looks like a big identity crisis is going on there. Or is this all meant to be a transition towards another format where they choose their suppliers? A kind of mix between RM and RF? Take the brand away from what has become micro into a new format? Or they're just plain greedy and didn't expect any concerted effort from us dogs, to bite the hand that feeds us. Meanwhile, we'll stop upoading at Istock and start uploading and promoting FT again which if I'm understanding well has pulled a similar nasty stunt not too long ago. Maybe when SS does something of the kind next we'll all go back to uploading and promoting IS in outrage over their abusive business sense decision. I guess we shouldn't do that dance. Let's not go back to upload and promote FT. Let's look at others... Fresh, Veer, BS, SS, Alamy, 123...
17
« on: September 07, 2010, 16:41 »
One has to try to understand the strategy here. So let's see. The only way the vast majority of contributors will make the same or more despite their royalty rate going down is if they raise the prices by more than that cut. Maybe that's coming.
What I see here though, in the now, and this is purely my musing, is an effort to get the large customers slowly used to the idea of paying more for more elaborate and expensive artwork, in other words getting them accustomed to buying from Getty directly or from their other macro collections. Of course lost Getty customers who saved by buying from IS will slowly be brought back to macro at the same time. The success of Vetta and the implementation of the agency proves that this is working.
At the same time, they are trying to convince their best selling photographers and exclusive farms to contribute to macro, while discouraging the rest from submitting, even to micro. They've got the numbers and it probably won't hurt them that much to have the small guys rant and leave IS, even if that small guys turns out to be most exclusives and non exclusives below diamond. In any case, by force of habit, most contributors will take the bullet and keep submitting... to preserve their lifestyle. It's all just a news cycle anyways, and people will stop their turmoil in a couple of weeks and settle back into their routines.
But hmm... moving good customers and best selling photogs to Getty... not caring about the rest at all... discouraging new and small contributors... Separating their collections in tiers according to production value...
Sounds to me like Getty slowly wants to move out of the micro business, and hurt it good on the move, taking away big names and big customers with it. Perhaps they didn't buy Istock to help it flourish? Perhaps they bought it to recuperate what they could and then slowly choke it to death... hoping to do it in a way that would prove how micro is inferior to all serious, sensible art buyers in the world. Perhaps in their view it would be great if eventually they all blushed in shame after someone recognized that they used some cheap stuff from micro in their prestigious publication...
After all, let's not forget that the brand that Getty is trying to polish and grow here is... Getty.
Huge gamble. I do hope that I'm completely wrong, here by the way. But we've all seen this happen over and over in other industries, so why not in this one?
18
« on: August 12, 2010, 11:24 »
I had a EL sale last week with a 60$ commission. Pretty promising :-)
19
« on: July 26, 2010, 17:35 »
Just my two cents, but at the moment there is a 3 months+ delay for the transmission of images from Istock to TS. There is no way to upload directly to TS. IS still has horrendous uploading limitations and new material is not doing well there these days (I had new images go through in 2 days, which as a non-exclusive seem to be a strong indication that many are not uploading until the next best match shake).
That means that loads and loads of new material goes to SS and others way ahead of TS, if it ever gets there. Buyers are bound to notice eventually and go where the fresh stuff is, IMO. I'm starting to think that driving customers to subs might backfire on Getty and actually help SS once buyers shop around a little and look at what's available to them out there.
20
« on: July 26, 2010, 15:01 »
I have been drawn to this thread because of google as well. I'm experiencing the same thing, with my new photos selling very well and fast on SS but infuriatingly badly on IS, with identical descriptions and keywording. My good sellers from 2008 and 2009 are still going strong, but it seems near impossible to have a photo soar to a good seller status with the new material. I'm still hesitating over going exclusive, I admit to being attracted with the vetta pricing and commission raise for all sales, but with SS and TS sales soaring and IStock being stagnant, although a top earner, well.. err.. I'm hesitating even more. Is the market definitely moving towards subscription based services?
21
« on: January 20, 2010, 09:55 »
I'm with you in regards to sales drop. December ended up at 35% of my usual sales and now January is shaping up to be even worse. I don't understand the logic behind this drop as my sales are booming at SS. Perhaps I don't have the right files fore large January sales at Istock. Any thematic trends? Winter? easter? Spring?
22
« on: December 20, 2008, 10:06 »
WME for me. None of my new files have sold at all since early November, despite selling well at SS and StockXpert. My sales are now a third of what they were in October. For what it's worth, I started uploading in March 2008 there so my whole pf is pretty recent. I'm really, really hoping for a change: Istock was my favorite site and I was this close to trying exclusivity (I hit bronze in early December... talk about timing). Now it all seems so scary, with such fluctuations...
23
« on: November 14, 2008, 01:28 »
what I don't get is this: They've changed the best match last week of October, and my sales have remained steady, then all of a sudden around November 6th, they dropped to almost nothing, although views are coming in at the same rate as before. Did they remove the "buy" options from my images on that date ??   (non-exclusive here only contributing for the past 8 months)
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