Quote from: Allsa on May 18, 2014, 18:46

Quote from: Sri on May 06, 2014, 18:25
Thanks for starting this topic luis. I have also been trying to get the right machine for me as i was so sick of my dell laptop, specially their support in my country.. Pathetic. Probably dell providing good support in states and Europian country but not in asia.

No Dell is not providing good support in the US - their support is downright horrible! Dell has lost me as a customer forever. They treat their customers like dirt.

oh. Sad to hear that. HP is also an US company but i dont hear much from Americans about them. Its support is better in my country. I have a HP printer and even after rough use, its working perfectly and its support has been great so HP probably my next brand. When i was buying dell, i was so optimistic about it but HELL. Completely regretting. Now i think the brand which advertise more (in my country), are not so good

Quote from: ethan on May 09, 2014, 20:31
Cannot say I have but I have noticed a drop in SOD's or ODD's but what I have noticed (over the last three months) is that my earnings/downloads are "definitely capped" every single day.

At first I thought it was a co-incidence, so I ignored commenting on it but just continued to monitor it.

After watching it closely and saying nothing (over the last 12 weeks) I am convinced that SS are regulating my income.

I have precisely (and I mean precisely) between 4.5% - 5% of my total portfolio number downloaded every single week day (Mon-Fri).

Without any exceptions. On weekends it drops to 2% - 3% per day. Consistently.

Furthermore, even with the combination of Subs/ODD/SODs, each day my earnings (for each day) are within a tolerance of 5% of all days in that week.

I remember reading over on the SS forum (about a year ago) from a very long standing and experienced contributor "that when SS start rationing incomes that's the beginning of the end for me, I'll close my account"

Genuinely, I think that is what their doing, certainly to me and my portfolio. And I stress again, this has been consistent for the last three months. And I continue to monitor it, and every week the numbers confirm it.

This week for example, the same downloads within a margin of 3 downloads every single day and I'm talking between 35 - 50 downloads everyday. No way is that a co-incidence over a three month period. No way. And that even includes Bank holidays, the tolernaces are too close to say they're accidental, they're programmed !

You cannot rationally explain the pure consistency of downloads/income per day over such a period. For me it's basically a flat line, it might be a high line, but it's still a virtually flat line.

You have gotta hand it to the software guys at SS - they're doing a great job in rationing my standard of living, ergo - my success.

And finally, and even more kudos to those software guys, they allow me just a 1- 2% growth each month, just enough to get my BME and the the occasional BDE, hence the virtually "flat line". Clever. Very Clever

I sometimes wonder is that just to keep me quiet?

Well enough, I don't think so

#bustedSS

SS lovers vote me down, SS haters vote me up. I actually don't care. I'm stating the facts in my own case, if I could show you my numbers I know you would believe me.
This is a fix.

i have been experiencing similar events. And i am seeing this from the end of 2013. To add that, i see that when i delete some of my images or footage, there are sudden few downloads of images or footage respectively. I was hesitating to post such things publicly assuming its my own thing and that people wont believe. But its true for me. I also think that shutterstock read this forum and if there are really some tricks in ss dl then they will change it temporarily.

Quote from: shudderstok on May 08, 2014, 08:49
@sri - even though i question his sudden utopian altruistic views and hypocrisy of wanting to suddenly be paying fairly, i really doubt he is out to screw people over in any way.

No he will not screw people purposely but he will not hesitate to leave stocksy contributors screwed if gets millions of money again.
The example/story was to show that people should trust those who have some ethics. If people/photographers want just short term benefits and satisfied with quick earning for short period like amateur photographers then they can definitely join stocksy,shutterstock or anyone because they have some different regular income. What about those who rely on these sites for all income. Can they bear with all stuffs that sites doing. Yes nobody knows the future what an agency will do with its contributors in coming years, but trusting one who has some well known past. ''No regret if one gets diddled for 1st time but for second time following same steps proves him really a fool.''
*Just an old saying. Not intended on any person.

Hah. I wont believe on the land lord of a colony where i once bought a home. I did everything to improve our colony and residence for years and then came to know that the land lord sold the colony to a gang of goons, who started spoiling the colony, my neighborhood and my house. The colony has become a place of bad people and their wrong illegal deeds. I spent all my money i secured whole life, to buy this house. I spent so much of time to improve it. All worthless. Colony is not worth living for my family.
  Now i heard that the same old landlord has created a new colony and selling buildings with much facilities, Will i buy my new home from his new colony ? NEVER.
   This was just an example what i feel about istock and Bruce's new stocksy.  Bruce has not started new agency for the sake of photographers. He created this because simply he wants to make millions again and so he wants create another successful agency to sell it again in future.
Now you will ask then why he is giving 50% commission, 100% of ELs etc etc, because if he started an agency with same price, same 20-25% commission, who would have joined him. And if no one joins, how will he get images. No image, no sell, no profit.
There are many istock exclusives who are unable to leave IS despite their bitterness with the IS/Getty because they have already spent so much time, effort to build their portfolio there. Take the note now that sooner or later, same cycle will continue with stocksy and its contributors what happened or happening with Istock.
Now you can start giving me negatives.

Thanks for starting this topic luis. I have also been trying to get the right machine for me as i was so sick of my dell laptop, specially their support in my country.. Pathetic. Probably dell providing good support in states and Europian country but not in asia. After searching a lot and considering my budget, i have decided to Hp envy tower pc as i want a work horse for my images,footage and games also. But seriously dell laptop was nightmare for me. Do let us know in this thread when you decide and buy one

Quote from: Ariene on April 12, 2014, 15:14

Quote from: Sri on April 12, 2014, 14:43
i like zazzle because of their products and my sales but dont like the people behind the site. So i dont upload there anymore, no more income from zazzle for me.

Would you tell me more about it? I'm thinking ab. Zazzle...

just sent a pm to you.

i like zazzle because of their products and my sales but dont like the people behind the site. So i dont upload there anymore, no more income from zazzle for me.

Ok so from flickr discussion, it appears that flickr contributors' submission will be  reviewed for getty house 'Moment' which include Moment RF, Moment RM, Moment Open, Moment Select, Moment Vision and Moment Mobile.
So not just mobile shots.

Does it mean the getty-flickr contributors can now submit only mobile shots to getty ?!?!

Yeah.. i also received their email...

interesting. Thanks for the link.

Good for you. Congratulations.

yes. And i thought getty will now remove images from FAA but they wont. And their crown holders can still continue submitting their images to PODs but my intuition says they may change it in future.

I thought photos.com has been closed but i got a mail from getty, from which it appears, getty has some different plans for its domain photos.com.They have annouced this in getty/flickr forum too and there is also a discussion going on there. The mail/annoucement is-

"We are delighted to announce that we are expanding our product offering to serve consumers with our own wall décor product. A curated selection of our photography on gettyimages.com will now be available for purchase in high-quality frames and finishes from Photos.com by Getty Images. Working in partnership with experienced print production and fulfillment services, we are in the process of building a high-end wall décor offering. As some of you may have noticed, we are retiring the current Photos.com licensing platform. We are doing this in order to repurpose this valuable URL to serve the destination for Getty Images' consumer offering. We are preparing to announce and launch Photos.com in a few weeks and will be able to provide more detail then. In the meantime, here is a brief overview of why we are launching this consumer offering and how the collection is taking shape.

Wall art and décor is a multi-billion dollar industry and growing. Historically, iStock and Getty Images have catered to business customers and yet we know there are millions of consumers who visit our sites daily to view our imagery. This presents a huge opportunity to convert these photo enthusiasts to buying customers, thus opening the door to a significant new revenue stream. Major players currently include Art.com and Great Big Canvas, with online retail sites like One King's Lane and Fab driving even more growth in this segment. We are seizing this opportunity to convert Photos.com to a product tailored to consumers. The products will be limited to matted and framed images printed on paper and a variety of other surfaces. (We will not be selling loose prints, posters or merchandise).

How will consumers know about this new offering?
Consumers will have the ability to purchase some of their favorite images as wall décor on Photos.com. We have planned an aggressive marketing campaign targeted to consumers including social and affiliate marketing campaigns. In addition, visitors on gettyimages.com who see an image they would like to purchase as a print will now be directed to Photos.com via a "Buy" button that will display in the detail screen of any image that was selected for Photos.com. Our pricing will be reflective of the premium quality of the product, and contributors will earn their normal royalty for consumer products (details about pricing will be available within the next few weeks).

Curation
The market for wall décor is specialized and we know that not every great image is right for print customers. In order to showcase the best, most fitting imagery for this product, we are carefully curating the imagery that will be available on Photos.com. We will be choosing from amongst eligible images in Editorial and Creative (RM + RF) collections on Getty Images.com including Flickr, Photographer's Choice, and iStock E+ (note: we are not planning to include Vetta at this point).

Building Momentum
Through site tracking and analysis, including information we glean from keyword searches, we are in a great position to analyze the activity we generate. We will leverage search trends to inform ongoing content curation as we build the business. We are very excited to begin to serve consumers and will provide a follow-up announcement with more detail and answers to your questions in the next few weeks."

ha ha ha... Loved it. (Your cartoons)

what the timing

so basically photos.com came inside IS covering exclusives too !

when i started selling video in 2011, SS immediately started selling from my 1st batch while i had to wait a long time for 1st sale in p5. But now p5 is outperforming any other site. Interesting thing is, ss rejected some of my videos with a reason 'limited commercial value, do not resubmit' and those are my best sellers in p5 now. lol