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Messages - MetaStocker
1
« on: December 11, 2012, 07:21 »
No, no new names, now i'm just tired, game over.
And by the way, it's depressing to notice there are stockers fully agreeing with me but they only do it via private messages as if they were scared to do it in public for whatever silly and coward reason.
2
« on: December 11, 2012, 06:57 »
I'm once again called a TROLL in this forum by the crowd of do-gooders shocked to realize iStock and the whole microstock industry entered a downward spiral that will soon leave you guys grilling burgers at McDonalds.
It's 3 or 4 yrs i'm pointing out that this would have been the obvious conclusion and that the only way out was to stick to RM but you guys were always so positive and full of hope like children with rosy glasses, sure to have found the new gold mine and that it would have last forever.
Now you're all pants down crying out about falling sales and all you can tell me is i'm a known troll and agent provocateur, banning me and telling me to F off.
Hahaha, you're just all patethic and you deserve to be scammed by Getty and their other cronies.
You reap what you sow and i'm the one having the last laugh.
Farewell.
3
« on: December 11, 2012, 03:33 »
Metastocker,
could you please keep your hatred of women to yourself? You are really just making a fool of yourself, as if youre uncontrolled hormones are in complete overdrive.
Gender has got nothing to do with the quality of a manager. Neither does their religion, their skin color, their age or their body height. Or any other sizes.
Leadership comes from proving yourself and getting results.
Hatred and uncontrolled emotion can never bring results.
She's the one doing interviews about how a female exec like her is supposedly making a difference, not me, she's obviously yet another feminist in management, all i'm doing is stating the obvious.
4
« on: December 11, 2012, 03:02 »
I'm an old school guy and can't get used to desktop applications being called "apps". So if it's for a phone, do we call it a "phone app" or maybe an "app store app"?
I was in software development for a long time, but got out of it last year and recently removed VS2012, XCode and the rest from my hard drive. Nirvana!
My experience is that doing something like a 'plugin' always requires inside-track support from the big boys (Adobe in this case). The publicly available tools and documentation never cut it; to really get anywhere you need to be on the inside track - you have to 'matter' - i.e. your plugin would have to be something Adobe actually wants to happen.
WP8 could be a serious opportunity right about now. The tech press keeps putting it down, discouraging developers, but I think it's going to come on strong.
Programs, Applications, Apps, whatever, technically they're just either "native code" or "runtime applications" or "just in time (JIT) applications" or "interpreted scripts" or "JIT compiled/pre-compiled scripts" etc. However it turns, indeed Adobe is making it tough for PS plugin devs, my feeling is if you don't pay to join their partner program (and it seems devoted only to software houses friendly with Adobe) or ain't go far. It's not at all like writing a plugin for MS word. All it would take is provide public access for PS APIs but they don't want, as the plugin market must be a gold mine and they don't want newbies messing around. Fully agree on WP8 and if i start getting on with WinRT and the emulator i could even buy a WP8 phone to make some commercial apps, we'll see, after all WinRT is basically a wrapper for the old .NET Compact
5
« on: December 10, 2012, 15:40 »
"That said, the #1 priority for today, as it has been all weekend, is Best Match, which Mary and the engineers are looking at and working on as we speak. Please stay tuned."
What a farce.
An IT/ICT illiterate female announcing that another female (Mary) will take over the Best Match issue aided by their eunuch engineers.
I've seen first hand what kind of disasters females in management can do, you better leave the ship before it sinks like the Titanic.
And she must be really desperate to ask for help in the forum as it's backfiring big time.
6
« on: December 10, 2012, 15:33 »
And actually i'm wondering if i could make more money writing photography apps or PS plugins rather than selling photos
Me too. But I just keep reading that the all the money in apps goes to a handful of developers with mega-hits. I think the days of the profitable one-man app ended long ago - and maybe they never happened. Successfull apps and plug-ins are big projects like any other money-making software. Sure it would be fun to create an app that other photographers started buying and using... but wait, I'm only getting 50 cents a sale - it's a familiar feeling, somehow... 
Actually i was referring about DESKTOP apps. I don't even own a smartphone but i could start developing on WinRT/WP8 using the emulator in Visual Studio 2012. PS Plugins are a BIG mess, the CS6 SDK has near zero decent documentation, you basically use it as a hook to include your own standalone app (as a DLL). Said that, you must be an expert in Computer Graphics algorithms, and that's not the case for me, i can have the raw idea but i should simulate it using Math tools like MathLab etc you can imagine how long it can take do all this from scratch alone, and not surprisingly there are very few free samples of PS plugins around, the few ones i've found are about very simple stuff, nothing with complex layers and complex tunings. For instance, there are excellent PS tutorials around that required maybe 20-30 manual steps, wouldn't it be good to make a PS plugin out of it ? Yes, but ... this can really take ages if you have to develop your own standalone app to simulate PS commands, as PS doesn;t give a common API ! the only way you can batch is using PS actions, but on a PS plugin you can't ! So you must do it on your own with the .NET framework, now imagine coding from scratch algos for radial blur etc etc ... c'mon .. it's crazy unless you use 3rd party libraries with ready made CGI apis and that's another big mess anyway ... you've no idea how complex it can get, not to mention if you want to port it to OSX it must be recoded in Objective C using Cocoa framework. I've the nasty feeling Adobe is keen on keeping PS developming difficult to master as they know it's a gold mine and they don't want the market to be flooded by small plugins as in the past or as now with the 1000s of LR presets.
7
« on: December 09, 2012, 03:11 »
With such a leadership like this, IS is destined to hit the rock bottom soon and being relegated as a sub-collection of Thinkstock.
8
« on: December 09, 2012, 02:58 »
This plugin looks scary, too many important missing features and by the way it makes no sense to sell without watermark so it's not free at all.
However, there's a good reason to use a proper e-commerce solution or K-Tools etc : Security !
The only real turn-key solution i see around is Photoshelter, full support for many payment gateways, managed hosting, no security issues, and the platform is running fine since many years and used by 1000s of photographers.
This plugin being new must have plenty of bugs, and Wordpress itself constantly needs to be babysitted, upgrades, bugfixed.
As for SEO you should get up to date about it, as after the recent Panda and Penguin google updates the game is completely different from before, what all these sites and platform do is just the "basic SEO" and nothing more, the rest is all up to you and at the moment it seems the only way to rank high is to be reviewed and linked by high-PR reputable web sites, so in our cases your site should be advertised or reviewed by PDN, DPreview, photo magazines, photo forums, photo blogs, etc. .. it's not gonna happen unless you've a lot of money and time to spend or a very very good product.
9
« on: December 08, 2012, 08:05 »
Just as I feel she shouldn't be making a big deal out of her gender, I feel that assertions by contributors and buyers shouldn't be made on the basis of gender either.
It's not about gender, it's about the ability to do the job, regardless of that. Assess each person on their merits, nothing else.
It can only work in some fields where you can be measured by data-driven results, for instance in sales and marketing. But, if we talk about management, that's a whole different story. It's the shareholders having the last word, if the management is doing good and there are a few bad apples they can pretty much be happy with it and forget it, in other case they can fire the whole board with a phone call, just as they fired Carol Bartz (Yahoo) and just as they fired Carly Fiorina and her cronies after a quick meeting. So, there's no clear rule about it, some companies run massive re-orgs every 2 years (microsoft ?), others keep the same faces around for decades no matter the ups and downs in Wall Street or Nasdaq. All this focus on meritocracy is pure BS apart rare cases, it's usually the best in power-politics who rise to the top, never the ones who deserve it. Women are very good in politics, they're great liars by nature, they smile, they know how to please men, they know how to set people at ease, they've all the skills you need to succeed in such a toxic environment but where dealing with people and opposing views is the biggest and most important factor. So why are they failing in such disastrous ways in IT/ICT ? because you see, before or later, the sh-it always hits the fan, their castles of cards fall down along their whole careers based on lies and deceptions. Money talks, BS walks.
10
« on: December 08, 2012, 07:53 »
Anyone remember a female leader called Margaret Thatcher? She had more balls than any of the males in her party. She stuck to her principles and never seemed emotional about tough decisions. So I have to completely disagree with MetaStocker's male chauvinist views about women leaders. I'm not saying Margaret Thatcher was a great leader, people's opinions on that are biased by their political beliefs.
Anyone want to start a list of all the incompetent male business leaders
Thatcher had no balls, but she had full support and financial backup by people with big balls and big pockets. She's the one who started the destruction of UK, and i'm sure they chosen a woman as their puppet as nobody had the guts to put their (male) face on the mess they created. Suffice to say she's now the heroine of the mainstream media, movies, documentaries, books ... in the meantime the UK is unrecognizeable and millions of brits had to migrate overseas in disdain replaced by unskilled and underpaid foreigners, Thank you Thatcher ! I repeat, all these power politics game are always a mirror covering the real culprits. A woman at the helm of iStock could have been put there for similar reasons, who knows what kind of snakes run Getty after all, we photographers are the very last of their problems.
11
« on: December 08, 2012, 07:45 »
And that's why execs should be Male, as females can be certainly better in marketing and in dealing with buyers and dealing with people and teams in general but when it's time to make hard strategical decisions they're too emotional and only man have the balls to look at the situation in a cold and rational way.
So KKT was a great leader, then, being apparently male.
It's down to individuals.
As a man who worked long time in corporates i've just no respect for execs in general, no matter if men or women but women really have this tendency to go over the top, to be too emotional, to talk and talk about being female leaders, there are hundreds of hideous articles on female leaders in female magazines and gossip newspapers, all focusing on pure BS factors as if having a * could be of any help when a company is losing billions and the best manager left already for greener pastures and the whole workforce is alienated and sending CVs to job seekers. KKT : no idea, we should ask his former colleagues about it, but until proven otherwise with KKT at the helm iStock was still nr.1 in the micro market, what about this Rockfeller lady instead ? She's been there 2 yrs as a female leader and now suddenly she discover (shock ! horror !) that the site is slow and buggy and that the fees are too low for us and that both buyers and contributors are moving to other agencies, and all she can say is accusing us of misunderstanding her messages and the other execs of miscommunication ? if this is the ring leader, imagine the rest of her team... Notice also she wrote nothing proactive, no empty promises about fixing the buggy site, zero, as she knows she's not risking her job as getty has been sold for a hefty profit and the new owner trust her and the whole getty management so if sh-it happens it will take a couple years to notice it and she's got all the time to move as a CEO in another company. Thanks god there are forums like this without the whole censorship attached or many of us would be as much clueless as Rockfeller about what's really going on in the micro market. Sooner or later all the forum in agencies will be closed down and it will be back to business, no more community BS, maybe they will leave just a section for tech support, exactly as they do in any other IT/ICT company. Let's face it, it's already a good thing they tolerate independent forums as they could pretty much sue MSG and any other photo forum or blog for whatever silly reason.
12
« on: December 08, 2012, 06:58 »
I wonder that she didn't get the obvious answers: "A bloke wouldn't ask a stupid question like that" or "you've got ***s, luv".
But, I suppose those aren't career enhancing responses.
In my experience this sort of tricky questions are the norm in corporates. They're dangerous, they're a trap, and a way to humiliate their subordinates. What you as a male execs would ever answer to your female boss ? that you think female execs like her should be fired ? and any other small criticism will be carefully recorded for the future anyway. A serious leader would never ever ask such silly idiotic questions. If she's doing it, and if she's even proud about it and getting it also on newspapers then she's not fit for the job in my opinion. Attention who-res and snakes like her can make good managers and good low level execs, but never a good CEO or a good leader.
13
« on: December 08, 2012, 06:53 »
LOL
Speaking as a woman... I think she should just pay more attention to listening to people with no facial expressions (i.e. in the forum), do the job and be guided by results.
Being concerned about what makes females and males different in the role is a complete waste of time. Just do the job and do it well. The time for reflection on such things is after the event.
To be fair, what destroyed IS and what alienated its contributors and buyers was done by the previous male CEO. However, as she's now in charge since almost two years she had all the time to focus on the endless burning issues that as a whole contributed to the fall down of IS, and she did absolutely nothing as far as we're concerned, and this only shows that she was convinced we were all happy and smiling and she was living in a bubble until someone from the trenches had the guts to show her a few angry buyers' emails or whatever. You think this is an isolated case, no, it's the same everywhere, in every product i've worked, same story, same sh-it, same mismanagement, i remember a case where i escalated a hot issue to the ivory tower as the managers above me censored any criticism, i got menaced but the execs finally fired my manager, and yet this only earned me disrespect in my inner circle, some started seeing me as a spy or a snitch, and i've never got any promotion or benefit from all this, the execs send me a thank you email and a couple phone calls and that's it .. afterwards they moved to other companies and i moved out too just to end up in another company with the same toxic environment and power/politics wars. I mean, you may think these are small issues but in the long run that's precisely why big corporations fail and why good products fail, no matter how good they are. When the CEO of a tech company is no more an engineer you can bet the company will go down the drain in a few years. And same when the CEO of a photo stock company is a former lawyer or a marketer, just give it some time, but it's unavoidable unless they own a complete monopoly of the market like Getty does but the slow erosion of their market share will still go on, if SS plays its cards right they can pretty much become the Getty of the future, no matter if it's gonna take 20 yrs.
14
« on: December 08, 2012, 06:38 »
I feel Rebecca is just the messenger. She is testing the water for her bosses. I wonder what is cooking for the new year.
To me it looks like a sign of desperation. If they've something really important to say they should use a Company Blog, not the forum. The point is, and i've seen it by myself many times when working for other companies, execs never deal directly with the workforce or even with small and medium buyers, they only focus on big deals and internal politics, sort of living in a bubble, if they ever get fresh uncensored feedback they're usually taken aback and shocked as the picture painted by their subordinates is always rosy glassed and it can't be otherwise or they would be fired. Maybe, just maybe, some of the complaints written by angry buyers reached the top of the pyramid and now they're realizing how bad is the situation ? But you see, there's no solution for this, execs ARE the problem ! in a perfect world they should start from the lowest junior position, say QC temp-hire employee, and then eventually rank to the top based on meritocracy. In the real world you can forget it, all the execs are there because of political wars and alliances, and if female there's always the option of being the lover of a top execs or a shareholder, "shagging her way to the top" as they say. These execs have usually no experience with photography, couldn't even snap a photo with an iPhone, before they were in finance or marketing or law firms, all they know is they take orders from the CEO and they're paid to manage the drones below them. SO, a top exec of IS being so shocked that contributors and buyers are rabid about iStock only shows how clueless these execs are of the very company they claim to run successfully. I can't see anything positive coming out of all this, and even if we agree on her female skills i could say that all my former female managers often panicked when the crap hit the fan and ended up taking very emotional decisions doing more harm and making further chaos while blaming others for their failures. Guess this Rockfeller lady is now also taking the forum rant and raves as a personal insult on herself .. And that's why execs should be Male, as females can be certainly better in marketing and in dealing with buyers and dealing with people and teams in general but when it's time to make hard strategical decisions they're too emotional and only man have the balls to look at the situation in a cold and rational way.
15
« on: December 08, 2012, 06:14 »
"I was asking some colleagues to help me crystallize what makes me different as a female leader versus some of the male leaders in our organization"
And, sure enough, "a male colleague called out is that I am able to gain the trust of others by just being very visibly confident in my own skills without boasting"
I'm getting so sick of these female execs in IT/ICT companies. They wouldn't last long in harder and more competitive countries like europe or china. All they can talk is how much female execs are empathic and have a female sixth sense, and while they are at it they hire an army of other female execs with the excuse of equal opportunities. Is it me or all the female execs in big IT companies have been a disaster ? just to make a few names, Carly Fiorina, Meg Whitman, Carol Bartz, Rebecca Meyer, Sheryl Sandberg ...
16
« on: December 08, 2012, 06:00 »
Getty is just unable to run a forum, they should close it down and forget about the whole idea of community, it's just wasted energy for both parties.
These guys are the typical execs who can't accept any criticism, and since in their day job none of their subordinates dare to complain they end up thinking they're doing a great job, only to discover with horror that contributors are all pissed off and moving to other agencies in droves.
I mean look at this exec Rockfeller, she doesn't even admit IS is in dire straights, instead in classic corporate style she now acknowledges that there's just a miscommunication issue.
But, miscommunication means that WE failed to get the message right, not that Getty is wrong.
Execs are .. NEVER wrong !
I've seen the same sh-it in so many other companies, nothing ever changes, and by the way the same is going on at Alamy forum now, threads get locked up, people get banned, and only a bunch of maybe 15 resident posters is still active in the alamy forum.
17
« on: December 06, 2012, 16:19 »
You already have 'VAT' in the US. It's just that you call it 'sales tax' and it's controlled by individual states rather than Federally (and is a lot less than in most European countries). In the US property taxes are vastly higher than in Europe. Swings and roundabouts.
The only time I have heard VAT tax discussed in the US it they were referring to a national tax, and it was going to be IN ADDITION to the state sales and property taxes.
It is regressive because, although the wealthy can't avoid paying it, the middle class and poor end up spending far greater proportions of their income than the wealthy do. Which, of course, explains why billionaires would be in favor of it.
Wasn't Warren Buffett complaining he was paying as much taxes as his secretary ? And about tax recycling and money laundering, is it me or all the mega-rich guys run their own charity including Bill Gates, Soros, and claim to be "philantropists" ?
18
« on: December 06, 2012, 16:15 »
I don't know anyone in the US who wants a VAT tax. It's very regressive and punishes spending, which is not what we need to get the economy going.
You already have 'VAT' in the US. It's just that you call it 'sales tax' and it's controlled by individual states rather than Federally (and is a lot less than in most European countries). In the US property taxes are vastly higher than in Europe. Swings and roundabouts.
One of the good things about VAT is that it is difficult for the wealthy to avoid. They might be able to hire accountants for creative tax-avoidance schemes for their income but at least they get taxed when they spend it.
Jim Rogers, the US billionaire investor, has always advocated taxing on spending rather than investing. Maybe if that had been the case before the recession it might not have happened. The recession was largely caused by people spending money that they didn't have and over-heating the economy.
What surprises me is how much americas are surprised in the whole rest of the world taxes are so high. It's usual for us in europe saying that some thing could only work or succeed in America as in europe you couldn't fly due to taxation and red tape. So, really you guys complain having it tough but you're still the most business-friendly place on heart apart the many "financial paradises" like HongKong or Singapore. Unfortunately the US is so hostile to foreigners nowadays including europeans, much better and easier to move in Canada from any point of view, but even there .. you see .. these guys think they're giving you a favour ... imagine that ! a european downgrading to canada or US or Australia.
19
« on: December 06, 2012, 16:04 »
OTOH, Europeans have a social safety net. If you are unemployed or sick you are far less likely to end up homeless.
It depends on MANY factors and also by country, by region, and even by city.
Yes, if you're sick you can get a bed in a hospital, but otherwise you can pretty much end up under a bridge or begging for food in a church or other religious NGOs feeding the beggars, we've millions of homeless people, no matter if people outside europe think we've a happy welfare, it's BS, and it's BS even in scandinavia where taxation is up to 50%, see by yourself how many homeless you see in Stockholm alone.
You are 100% correct. I am born in Stockholm, live there and in London. Nowdays I have a farm in the country, Smaland. Its total BS, sweden is one of the most heavily taxed countries in the world. Yes the standard is high, etc. Nowdays there are countless homeless people and especially young people, sleeping under bridges, this and that.
Ofcourse, its not like NY or London but then again Stockholm has a populatiuon of only 1-5, million, so there is no excuse at all.
Yes, especially YOUNG people, that's the problem, and all they can do is switching to crime.
20
« on: December 06, 2012, 16:03 »
I don't know anyone in the US who wants a VAT tax. It's very regressive and punishes spending, which is not what we need to get the economy going.
And that's nothing. Do you know that in europe if you dare to buy a house you will have to pay a monthly or recurring property tax ? In France they even had a tax if you had a balcony. What if you own a car, same, you're taxed, and you must have insurance etc, no matter if you leave your car in the garage. Do you want to walk in a bar and have a beer ? 20% is in VAT, and same in supermarkets and pretty much anything else, whatever you buy 1/5th goes to the government and if we talk about cigarettes or gas it can be as much as 80%.
21
« on: December 06, 2012, 15:40 »
Yes, and the VAT tax in particular makes selling new technology products more difficult. Hope the pro-high-tax people in the US never succeed in getting a VAT tax installed here. It's a real high tech innovation killer.
Most of nowadays american technology has been stolen from Germany after 1945. As for VAT, just look at HongKong or Singapore where the VAT is 5% or less or even ZERO. In europe is 20%, it's just crazy but people dont realize it, they take it for granted. There can be no innovation in europe in fact, unless you're a mega-multi-corporation paying taxes in Luxembourg or Cayman Islands.
22
« on: December 06, 2012, 15:34 »
OTOH, Europeans have a social safety net. If you are unemployed or sick you are far less likely to end up homeless.
It depends on MANY factors and also by country, by region, and even by city. Yes, if you're sick you can get a bed in a hospital, but otherwise you can pretty much end up under a bridge or begging for food in a church or other religious NGOs feeding the beggars, we've millions of homeless people, no matter if people outside europe think we've a happy welfare, it's BS, and it's BS even in scandinavia where taxation is up to 50%, see by yourself how many homeless you see in Stockholm alone.
23
« on: December 06, 2012, 11:30 »
As for retro, it's pure BS and a fad, a sign of desperation if they have to go back to the '60s look
It's general cultural fashion at the moment. Most young women round about here (of those who care) are going around in black eyeliner and false lashes. Looks h*llish on anyone with fair skin and blonde to mid-brown or red hair, but do they care?
No they never cared, ever. Historically women followed fashion trends imposed from the above and if you dare to ask them they will tell you that "i just follow trends, i don't make them", yeah sort of saying i'm a follower and happy about being one, a sheep paying exorbitant prices for clothes that were fashionable when their grandmas were young ! BUT ... let's look a bit deeper on this ... girls don't give a sh-it about all this, all they care is the final result, looking GOOD, no matter what, or if their clothes are modern clones of rags sold used by hippies in the '60s. Where's the different with the editorial market after all ? magazine want to look good and grab your attention especially on their covers, who cares if it looks retro or whatever ? And what's "modern" anyway ? If now we all look at Retro in both photography and music and fashion is because there's simply NOTHING new around, anything has been done to death already, over and over, and new cameras are only bringing us more MegaPixels and faster shutter speeds but nothing revolutionary compared to the past. And here's the point, it's very very hard to make something new using something OLD, we simply reached the point where "new" means a little improving on the latest technology, digital imaging just reached its apex and i can't see anything making a breakthru soon, maybe in pocket cameras but never ever in DSLR. And yet, imagine having your 100 megapixel pocket camera with F1.4 micro lens .. please tell me where will be the amazing difference with a DSLR with similar specs ? May we like it or not, anyone can "be" a photographer nowadays, don't you see all these exibitions of people shotting polaroid or iPhone or even webcams ? Sooner or later it will be just a matter of having big budgets for expensive shoots or being able to reach places nobody else can reach, that's exactly why Paparazzi will never feel the heat from amateurs' competition.
24
« on: December 06, 2012, 11:12 »
The point is, should we follow actual trends (ie : Retro-look) or wait for the next trend in the hope we like it ?
I mean, it's an important thing considering the next trend we like could never ever materialize before 2050.
25
« on: December 06, 2012, 10:08 »
actually i'm wondering if i could make more money writing photography apps or PS plugins rather than selling photos
If you want to make money doing photo apps then you need to do it in conjunction with someone who has created a name for themselves in the world of blogging and social media in general. Look for someone with lots of Twitter followers whose Instagrams get 1000s of likes. These are the people who have significantly promoted or have their names most of the successful apps and plugins currently. There are also masses of people selling collections of Lightroom presets on Etsy etc. Obviously it's all about retro and cute currently because we live in such reactionary times.
Fully agree on the reactionary times, but i fellow the mantra that the customer is always right, they want retro, i'll give em retro. As for retro, it's pure BS and a fad, a sign of desperation if they have to go back to the '60s look but i could say the same about a few B/W Film zealots i've met who are shooting on a Leica in 2012 thinking they're elitist or original or hip or whatever other new BS buzzword, for fu-cks sake these cameras were used 50 yrs ago if they can't get good results with digital B/W than maybe they better learn how to use PS or LR properly ! Same sh-it going on in music software by the way, a constant back and forth with retro/modern sounds, just to discover that ANY possible sound has been already used and abused in a zillion songs. Tools like Instamatic are simply a disgrace.
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