Quote from: loop on June 19, 2012, 09:06
... Even if my protographer friends kept telling me that it was not possible make money with that, and that it wouldn't last (like many other photographers in the internet forums) , and even if my non-photographers friends kept telling me that it was not possible to make money through an internet offering...

Sounds like this thread. Those pesky dots...

Quote from: loop on June 19, 2012, 09:06
I (and many others in this forum), foresaw it. We got it right, without any doubt, and we connected these dots that others weren't utterly able to connect.

Foresaw what? That 98% of you will get shamelessly ripped off and create 100 page whine threads about how humiliating the whole thing is... and won't even come even on basic expenses... which actually means (the dots again) that you were simply giving your money to the owners of the site, just in a very complicated way involving a camera? : ) just wire the money next time...

Quote from: loop on June 19, 2012, 09:06
Now, many of these photographers that were making fun of us have surrendered  to microstock and are struggling to build portfolios there...

Sure, after it pushed out everything else. Those pesky dots again: those ppl never said that this isn't gonna a great business... for the site owners, and about 1.5-2% of submitters. Now what is a business that rips off 98% of it's suppliers... tadaaaa: a scam.

Quote from: loop on June 19, 2012, 09:06
I don't foresaw any significant income for this Yotola plan. And I think that I'm getting it right again.

goto 10

Quote from: loop on June 18, 2012, 22:54

Quote from: drugal on June 18, 2012, 20:08

Quote from: louoates on June 18, 2012, 18:54
Disclaimer: My apologies for this post. I am violating my own vow not to spend any more brain time on Yotola. A smart admin would delete this opinion.

I'm thinking that there is a huge group out there of wanna-be photographers who are unable to get accepted by the major or even minor stock sites. They've heard stories of vast riches being denied them even though in their mind they've been rejected unfairly. Yotola to the rescue! Yotola feels your pain. Yotola will give you your chance to shine. Yotola will never reject you. Yotola confirms that your hand-shaking, sunset,  and flower pictures will yield big dividends and that the other stock sites are ignorant and will rue the day they rejected you. How much will Yotola pay you? [SLAP UPSIDE THE HEAD!] You'll take whatever Yotola will pay you!

Yotola is communicating that the traditional micro stock sites ignore or avoid images that Yotola will prove to be successful sellers. Sweet music to those wounded by rejection. Yotola will provide proof in dollars that your resentments are well-founded.

My conclusion is that many in the rejected crowd will respond to Yotola's strategy. Enough to make a profit for Yotola? I would think not, unless they can also tap into the vast Facebook photographer market where the remainder of the clueless reside.

"hey I'v got these shots laying around doin' nothin'... even if they just make pennies it's more than nothin'... lets go upload!" sounds familiar? thats how microstock was born, so... who's crying 'scam!' now? duh. : )

The difference is that microstock delivers. Even a lot. And this new thing is arriving late and in bad shape.

I was talking about the start. IStock f.e.... what was it, like 5 cent commissions? Once again you ppl are incapable of connecting even 2 dots.Thats pretty severe, thats why you are pushovers

Quote from: louoates on June 18, 2012, 18:54
Disclaimer: My apologies for this post. I am violating my own vow not to spend any more brain time on Yotola. A smart admin would delete this opinion.

I'm thinking that there is a huge group out there of wanna-be photographers who are unable to get accepted by the major or even minor stock sites. They've heard stories of vast riches being denied them even though in their mind they've been rejected unfairly. Yotola to the rescue! Yotola feels your pain. Yotola will give you your chance to shine. Yotola will never reject you. Yotola confirms that your hand-shaking, sunset,  and flower pictures will yield big dividends and that the other stock sites are ignorant and will rue the day they rejected you. How much will Yotola pay you? [SLAP UPSIDE THE HEAD!] You'll take whatever Yotola will pay you!

Yotola is communicating that the traditional micro stock sites ignore or avoid images that Yotola will prove to be successful sellers. Sweet music to those wounded by rejection. Yotola will provide proof in dollars that your resentments are well-founded.

My conclusion is that many in the rejected crowd will respond to Yotola's strategy. Enough to make a profit for Yotola? I would think not, unless they can also tap into the vast Facebook photographer market where the remainder of the clueless reside.

"hey I'v got these shots laying around doin' nothin'... even if they just make pennies it's more than nothin'... lets go upload!" sounds familiar? thats how microstock was born, so... who's crying 'scam!' now? duh. : )

Quote from: cidepix on June 17, 2012, 19:33
sophisticated scam

"Trads" always said that microstock is an extremely unsophisticated scam.

Quote from: 7Horses on June 16, 2012, 19:10

Wizz Air is a low cost company with very very low quality, so it's obvious they don't want to pay for anything. 

now thats just seriously naive...

Quote from: OM on June 16, 2012, 09:46

Now either it's some sophisticated hack that FT hasn't discovered or contributor has a direct line to the top of almost every search. This example, combined with the massive over-exposure of some contributors on the first pages of search make me wonder if there isn't some sort of exclusive club in operation here. Still you can lead the horse to the water but you can't make it drink. Poor shots will not be bought and will gradually disappear from the first search pages but it does seem that some contributors there are getting a disproportionate opportunity to get their stuff in front of buyers compared to others.

I think that happens all the time, on most agencies. The owners and operators of these sites are the kind of persons who's preffered business model is to rip ppl off whenever possible, and they found a nice low maintenance cash cow model for with an easy-to-victimize crowd of mostly impotent whiners. Favoritism and similar things are trivial to these kind of businesses. That's why it's important to be anonymous if you need to express criticism, I don't think they will hesitate to make your port sink or lock you out if they have a grudge. I humiliated istock's village idiot on their forums because I just couldn't watch him needlessly picking on some timid contributor. I got banned from mail and forums (forever) got an email with 'personal messages', and my port abruptly started getting almost no dls.

Quote from: luissantos84 on June 14, 2012, 18:53
just found a picture of mine in a book and I never had an EL sale on it, what shall I do? DMCA letter? or other?

http://www.amazon.com/Anorexia-Nervosa-Dimensional-Psycho-Education-Mindfulness/dp/3848400383

Have lunch. RF licence is practically unlimited so you getting an EL is solely out fo the good will of the buyer. 

Quote from: stockmarketer on June 16, 2012, 04:53

Quote from: drugal on June 15, 2012, 21:55

You don't seem to understand (and I don't understand why this is so hard) that any kind of advertising is branding, even your local plumber's.

Um, no.  I've worked in advertising for many years, and regularly discuss with clients whether a given campaign will be branding or direct response.  These are the two primarily types of advertising -- institutional/branding and direct response/product advertising.  They really are distinctly different, with different primary objectives and different tones and messaging.  Branding ads aim to give you warm fuzzies about the company and keep them top of mind, or associate them with something positive.  Direct response or product advertising focuses on a specific product and wants you to take action in a specific way.  A simple Google search on the topic could help clear this up further and give you some good examples of both types, but I'll offer a few...

Think of the Chrysler ad during the Superbowl starring Clint Eastwood.  It barely featured the products, instead focusing on concepts and values Chrysler wanted you to associate with it.  That's institutional/branding advertising.  Then think of local ads for the Chrysler dealership in your town yelling about a cheap lease price on a new Chrysler 200 and urging you to come in for a test drive.  That's direct response/product advertising.  

Of course, these are black and white examples, and sometimes ads will be grey... trying to cover all the bases (perhaps like your local plumber -- though I'd argue that if he's urging you to call him to fix a leaky sink that's call to action rather than branding)... but people in advertising can typically spot the differences a mile away.

so? Branding works the same there too. It's function is not to give you warm fuzzies, but to make sure you get that it's about chryslers and not toyotas. I worked BTL by the way.

Are ppl in this forum stuck in some time vortex? Monetizing traffic is hardly a new model. Hey, do you have to pay to use forum f.e.?

Quote from: stockmarketer on June 15, 2012, 16:01

Quote from: drugal on June 15, 2012, 15:10
The first priority is to stand out, to be very-very-very easily recognized and told apart form the competition, at a glance. That's what branding is all about, this is the most basic principal of identity and ad design. I worked for years and years as an art director, and this was The Code to live by and it's perfectly logical too. We always avoided commonly used shots as far as possible. You get the same smiling blonde pop up on different brand ads, it's enough to confuse would-be-costumers on who's who, and the client might even deny paying for the work, saying it's useless coz everbody thinks the ad he paid for is from the 'other guy'. Very embarrassing.

This is a fairly narrow view of how buyers are using microstock.  In fact, I'd say any company or agency turning to microstock for branding is foolish, for exactly the reasons you point out.  Even if you bought a new image and used it to brand your company or client, that image could soon be bought by hundreds or thousands of others.  Truly professional agencies and clients instead turn to RM or shoot their own stuff for all the reasons you describe.

The people buying my stuff are not big companies using it for branding.  They're small businesses, consultants, bloggers, publishers, etc., using my images to help them make important points, to give them an extra punch.    They appear in sales presentations, brochures, web and print articles, etc.    I believe this is the type of use that makes up the bulk of microstock usage for all of us.  And I'll make the point again... these folks care first about an image with "punch"... something that effectively drives the point home... by and large they're not concerned about whether the image has been used before.

The proof is in my overall sales.  They've been rising steadily everywhere for the past four years, even at DT and FT up until the last few months when they implemented best match changes.   The market was not asking for these changes, at least according to my data.

You don't seem to understand (and I don't understand why this is so hard) that any kind of advertising is branding, even your local plumber's. I mean... isn't it kinda obvious that he wants attention for his stuff, wants ppl to remember his service offer, not somebody else... duh? For the rest: we used to buy RM, and guess what, as micro started to take off, clients directed us there. I didn't even know about istock for years after it existed, untill a marketing manager several years ago (wizz air) started sending over thumbails and links for pictures to use in layouts. You have no idea how frugal even giant companies are. Their corporate trained marketing ppl are told to push everyone to the edge for every penny. If they could charge you for working, they would do it (actually they are doing that more and more...) + as economy collapses and budgets shrink even more.

Quote from: stockmarketer on June 15, 2012, 13:23
I have to think that the average buyer's first thought is "find something good" as opposed to "find something new."

The first priority is to find an effective, powerful image that best communicates a particular message.  Best sellers are best sellers because they do this very well.  If a buyer does a search and sees a variety of images that have proven that they meet the immediate goal very well, isn't that going to be more compelling than a mix of unproven pictures that may or may not get a message across effectively?

I see what you're saying about the importance of something fresh, but I just don't buy that this is the #1 priority of the average customer.  I'm also a customer, and when I have to quickly find something, I'm not first thinking "I must get something that hasn't been used before."  I just want the best image for my needs as quickly as possible.

FT and DT are putting short term profit over the needs of its customers.  I believe it is backfiring.  For instance, my overall FT rank is much higher than it was one year ago, yet my earnings are about half what they were a year ago.  This suggests most or all the biggest sellers are also down about 50% since last year.  FT can't be coming out ahead with this strategy.

The first priority is to stand out, to be very-very-very easily recognized and told apart form the competition, at a glance. That's what branding is all about, this is the most basic principal of identity and ad design. I worked for years and years as an art director, and this was The Code to live by and it's perfectly logical too. We always avoided commonly used shots as far as possible. You get the same smiling blonde pop up on different brand ads, it's enough to confuse would-be-costumers on who's who, and the client might even deny paying for the work, saying it's useless coz everbody thinks the ad he paid for is from the 'other guy'. Very embarrassing.

Thats why you need a real 'relevant' sorting order, otherwise real designers gonna be pissed, beleive me. I remember years ago I saw that 'relevant' was pretty much the same as download / popular on many sites, so I had to go thru 50+ 80+, 100+ pages of search results, just waaaasting my time.

What makes you think that a graphic artist -and the customer he/she is workig for- would be happier with a shot / face that has already been plastered all over the place? It's contrary to what advertising, gaining attention is about. That's what they want to avoid.

 It's kinda' funny how people submitting to microstock sites see a scam warning here so "stay away", while it's pretty much the same stuff, just the pricepoint is zero instead of almost zero. If 'empty your hard drive here and make money on those shots just sitting around' was cool, what's the problem with this? It's basically the same message.

SS search seems to be pretty heavily oriented towards older files with few / no sales.

Quote from: Pixart on June 13, 2012, 16:12
It's all you serial uploaders they have lowered the limit for.  Mine is at 50 and they know there is absolutely no possibility that I will submit anything close to that.  

nope, I stuff in my 50 every week + generally have 150+ in waiting in edit on the site, and still got 50. But they have this ridiculous month+ long queue, while delivering the same amateurish standard of inspection by burger flippers like anybody else, that should jam thru thousands of shots a day. I guess it's in sync with their sales. I also like the nostalgic touch on their site, the speed their pages load takes me back to the very-very early days of the internet with dial up modems : )

http://www.hark.com/clips/xqbjpdcjhm-youll-have-to-excuse-my-friend-hes-a-little-slow

Quote from: gostwyck on June 13, 2012, 18:31

Quote from: lisafx on June 13, 2012, 17:52

Quote from: luissantos84 on June 13, 2012, 15:47
sorry pixeled but where is the negativity here?

Agreed.  Most of the posts I read (and posted) were supportive and encouraging. 

Rather odd to resurrect a thread from over a month ago just to make an inaccurate complaint about its content. 

Even odder that it has taken Pixeled nearly 3 years, since registering at MSG, to be inspired enough to contribute. I'm sitting on my hands awaiting the next pearl of wisdom which hopefully should arrive in early 2015.

Maybe he has a life.  Or maybe.. my favourite recently was this guy on flicker who exclaimed "wow great shot, she is sooo beautiful, sooo pretty" in 2010, now few days ago, 2.5 years later he faved it too.

Quote from: traveler1116 on June 11, 2012, 19:22

Quote from: drugal on June 11, 2012, 19:03

Quote from: traveler1116 on June 11, 2012, 17:54
I wouldn't worry about it too much a 1 credit XS for 9 cents comes out to a 23 credit XXXL for $2.07, aren't you selling those same XXXL files at SS for at most 38 cents or about 1.5 cents per credit?  Just a little different perspective.

..and it never goes as low as 9 or 6 cents...

Depends how you look at it is what I'm saying.  SS minimum size is equivalent to a 7 credit medium file on IS and the max size is equivalent to a 28 credit P+.  Therefore the vast majority of sales at SS would be the equivalent per credit royalty of between less than 1 cent (25 cents per download on a 28 credit P+) and 5.5 cents (38 cents on a 7 credit medium regular).  Either way they would be lower than anything on IS for an equivalent license.  I'm not saying SS is the worst either I think crestock is still selling subs for 25 cents, it's just that IS even with such a small royalty doesn't look as bad to me as most of the other sites when comparing similar sales. 

ShadySue I'm not sure there are really any number of 2004 credits out there but they offer fairly large discounts to big buyers, down to around 46 cents per credit.

subscription has two points for the contrib: entice buyers into downloading a lot, and get rid of the ultra low commisions coming from web sizes. Thats why it's just screwing the contribs at other sites than SS, because those still have tiny size tiny price regular dls besides subs. Thats means they use those when need a small pic for web, and subs just start to replace regular downloads of larger sizes... but I guess figuring out how a price structure works is beyond many...

Quote from: traveler1116 on June 11, 2012, 17:54
I wouldn't worry about it too much a 1 credit XS for 9 cents comes out to a 23 credit XXXL for $2.07, aren't you selling those same XXXL files at SS for at most 38 cents or about 1.5 cents per credit?  Just a little different perspective.

..and it never goes as low as 9 or 6 cents...

Hats off to sodafish btw! : ) That's quite an achievement

Quote from: sjlocke on June 10, 2012, 23:57
"A clicked on urbancow, and looking at the pics, zooming in on some I could only say "how on earth do you get thru with junk like that? I bet my azz the guy is an inspector"."

Hey dribble, 'urbancow' has been around since the early days of the site.  Perhaps you were looking at very old contributions and couldn't figure that out?

Poor try @ provocation. Btw I'v seen the same thing most of the times I'v checked a mobs.. inspectors port. The first time I read on the IS forum that this is happening  (comments deleted by the village idiot of course) I didn't give it much credit.  I thought it's too blatant, anyone can check... but when I did look, I saw a whole series of a girl on the couch with laptop (new shots <-- for the weak minded), just about every single shot focused behind her on the wall. Another 'I' port, faces swallowed by noise, and in another port even some ridiculous, incredibly low-brow attempt at being artsy with some kid in the dark forest all blurry and noisy, and so on. Some ppl just have rhino thick skin I guess.

Quote from: Serge.Black on June 08, 2012, 15:58
Istockcharts was closed, we made our table with the statistics of the authors Istockphoto.

http://www.microstocktime.com/tool/stats/is/

Welcom!

Total Statictics:

• There are 78 453 authors in the base in all.
• The size of the base is: 10 899 022 works.
• Total sales: 123 553 923 +

Great site btw, very interesting to see how this works out in numbers! congrats!

Something else: I re-sorted for sales and clicked around a bit on the first page. Now I don't anything about anybody there except for Yuri and Lisa, but I ran into something that I already pointed out some time ago, which I think is really shameful for istock. A clicked on urbancow, and looking at the pics, zooming in on some I could only say "how on earth do you get thru with junk like that? I bet my azz the guy is an inspector". I checked the profile, and voila, the guy is an inspector. What a slap in the face for istock contributors in general that this corruption so blatant, out there, you can spot it form a 100 miles away. Add to this that Lobo guy who gets payed for insulting the people who produce the money for his paycheck. Forget the getty hostile takeover, that site has been taken hostage by a shameless bungler mob anyway.

Quote from: gostwyck on June 09, 2012, 12:46

Quote from: drugal on June 09, 2012, 11:50

Quote from: gostwyck on June 09, 2012, 10:23

Quote from: aeonf on June 09, 2012, 00:25
^^ Which means the vast majority have never and will never reach pay-out !
IS is making millions out of interest alone...

No, we've been through this many times before. The cost of administrating non-performing contributors...

... is next to nothing. the net is going towards a pricepoint of zero for storage space f.e. ... you get more storage with a free mailbox, than what expensive comps had 15 years ago.

The cost is not storage. It's the up-front administration costs of approving/rejecting tens of thousands of contributor applications, reviewing possibly millions of crappy images the vast majority of which will not be stock oriented or ever sell and also dealing with all the inane emails to CR that probably result.

Thats still next to nothing. Reviewing contribs & shots? Something likt 10c-a-pop

Quote from: spike on June 07, 2012, 08:37

Quote from: luissantos84 on June 07, 2012, 05:20

Quote from: Yuri_Arcurs on June 06, 2012, 19:19
Well yes. Sales are few still, but regular and increasing. More than I expected. peopleimages.com will not be able to compete against the big buys in the marketplace. We are too specialized.
For the right kind of client we are perfect however. And we are starting to see that, because our customers are absolutely crazy about us. One actually sent me a pair of socks to my private adress, thanking me for finally giving them a "proper" workplace. There must be a pretty big built up pressure inside some of these designers.
Socks... Can you believe that!

I seriously believe you should keep that to yourself, if I was a buyer, even a very weird one I would like to have my privacy, but hey sure you won´t be fired because of this post

And how exactly did he violate the buyer's privacy? By saying "one customer"? Ya, that's enough to get his name, address, facebook profile, credit card nubmer, pin. And we all know which customers he's reffering to. Ah.

Maybe he is called One Actually. A son to mr. and mrs. Actually.

Quote from: cclapper on June 08, 2012, 23:39
I don't make $1 on a lot of my images...I make more than that. I have a small portfolio, but someone with 6000 images x $5, $10 or $15, well, that's not pennies. Multiply that by the number of contributors this is affecting. That's not nothing.

You can belittle the contributors who only have 100 images in their portfolio, who might just make cents on their images, but just remember, they are part of a multi-million dollar microstock industry. The copyright infringement problem affects a good majority of those contributors. That's not nothing. 

There are always going to be people who blow this off because they think contributors are powerless. Those people have the right to give up, sit around, and do nothing. But you shouldn't belittle people who think they should try to do something. Chances are, whatever headway they make, will benefit you. Make sure you tell them thanks when the time comes. 

Your RPD in micro is around $10?

Quote from: gostwyck on June 09, 2012, 10:23

Quote from: aeonf on June 09, 2012, 00:25
^^ Which means the vast majority have never and will never reach pay-out !
IS is making millions out of interest alone...

No, we've been through this many times before. The cost of administrating non-performing contributors...

... is next to nothing. the net is going towards a pricepoint of zero for storage space f.e. ... you get more storage with a free mailbox, than what expensive comps had 15 years ago.