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Messages - stockpuppet

Pages: [1]
1
iStockPhoto.com / Re: interview with Kelly Thomson
« on: February 15, 2012, 13:16 »
I wonder if we could get a real "insider" review from him today. That is, if he is outside of any nondisclosure agreements.   :-\

The bit I quoted reads to us like a subtle expression of dissent - if not directly then certainly in terms of the language he is using. As if he is subtly acknowledging what has gone wrong. The large classic competitor is Getty. He also seems to be saying that things were better when the development was in house. And he uses the past tense when he talks about people having felt "part of something great".

We always got buy-in from our community on where we were headed. They felt part of something great, so they really helped us grow quickly. Word of mouth is a very powerful thing.
We also got exceptional developers to help with that side of the business. It gave us the ability to come up with features long before the large, classic competitors did. It also meant we could execute quickly. We could go from great idea to live feature in a few short weeks.

2
iStockPhoto.com / interview with Kelly Thomson
« on: February 15, 2012, 11:52 »
Posted today but clearly from before his leaving was public. Interesting.

http://magazine.wpcrown.com/kelly-thompson/

Quote
We always got buy-in from our community on where we were headed. They felt part of something great, so they really helped us grow quickly. Word of mouth is a very powerful thing.
We also got exceptional developers to help with that side of the business. It gave us the ability to come up with features long before the large, classic competitors did. It also meant we could execute quickly. We could go from great idea to live feature in a few short weeks.


I wonder if there has been a recent change of plan at IS/Getty. In August and September last year the word from Kelly and JJRD was of exciting new developments just around the corner.

3
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Getty's 20%
« on: January 20, 2012, 09:44 »
This is that information vacuum which was not going to happen.

4
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Layoffs at istock
« on: January 19, 2012, 13:46 »
September 2010:

Quote
if one day I do not believe in iStockphoto anymore, I will be out of here in a snap. Faster than a speeding bullet.
- JJRD

5
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Layoffs at istock
« on: January 18, 2012, 11:53 »
Could the social media person/people have been among those let go?

Who is now wearing those shoes needs to quickly make sure that they get properly on board with Google+. What gets shared via G+ is now significantly affecting Google search results. Not Twitter. Not Facebook.

6
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Layoffs at istock
« on: January 18, 2012, 11:46 »
^ 20% for everyone and the content has to be supplied exclusively. Same as Getty, more or less.

7
iStockPhoto.com / Re: End of Year IS review Statistics
« on: January 14, 2012, 10:06 »
I can't help but think they are actually trying to push out all the contributors so they can use the brand name iStockphoto for older Getty images they wholly own.  They get 100% of the royalties for those images and minimal labor is involved.  Moving Getty images onto iStock is cheap and efficient.   

Getty sees iStockphoto as a portal with good traffic through which to promote what they think they can sell for the best price:royalty ratio.

No doubt they would like to own Shutterstock too.

8
This would seem to contradict the direction they've been headed with pricing.

If there were no more exclusives then wouldn't most of the Vetta and Agency prices drop back to micro level? All that would be left of the higher priced stuff is the the Getty content.

Plus, if there were no more exclusives most of the files would be on every other site. What other unique benefit could they tout to justify higher prices?

If they dumped exclusives the only way I'm seeing it would make sense would be for them to drop micro prices to compete with other micros then and dump a ton of Getty content on IS at higher prices to try and tap buyer's wallets.

Yes.

Most exclusives do not have many Agency or Vetta files. The option also exists for them to introduce an exclusive content option. Maybe with the site update.

9
Maybe they want most of the exclusives to go independent. That way they get to pay them less. It might explain them seemingly doing nothing to rebuild confidence or address legitimate concerns.

10
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Sales have tanked big time
« on: January 05, 2012, 15:45 »
In the monthly stats thread over there it looks like another month of mainly poor results from contributors

People who are doing okay or perhaps about the same as normal are less likely to post (that they are doing okay or just about the same as normal) for fear that their portfolios will come under scrutiny from the people looking for trend ideas. Especially given that there are still niches which are under - exploited. The people who are doing okay do not talk about it. This is why the vast majority of stock photographers never post on any forum.

In this economy I think you are doing very well if your current income has not significantly dropped. Almost no matter how much your portfolio has expanded (assuming you are a not an image factory employing slave labor).

11
Thanks for the helpful replies so far.

I always work in Adobe-RGB, in-camera and in PS, always shoot in Raw, convert and then set parameters in PS.

Do you upload Adobe RGB ?

12
Myself and another IS member would much appreciate the advice of this community. We have these initial questions about how best to prepare our portfolios for potential independence.

As far as we can work out it seems best to prep everything to a set of common standards. These are the questions we have so far:

Quote
Obviously you'd need to prep your files according to the lowest common factor, e.g. if some major agency accepts only 30 keywords, then you wouldn't want to stick more than that in your exifs.

1. What's the colourspace used by indies, sRGB, AdobeRGB? Reasons?

2. What's the keyword limit?

3. What's the safe limit for image titles and image descriptions?

4. Do other agencies have completely dumb search engines, i.e. is it necessary to insert various forms of the same keyword e.g. "running, runs, ran" and "apple, apples"?

Any advice appreciated. Lets keep this one friendly.

13
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Istockphoto Down For Maintenance or Hacked?
« on: November 29, 2011, 10:11 »
do people normally upload SRGB files to Shutterstock ? Do they convert ?

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