I come from an IT background, where we used to perform various layers of software testing (functional, regression, load test ...) before signing off new code for release to the operational environment.  It was sometimes tedious to do, but it did minimize the numbers of errors that found their way into the live system.

iStock seem to have adopted a new approach to the problem, which became evident lately with the apparently random phased introduction of the new Asset Detail Page, whereby a percentage of users might see/not see the changes dependent on some variable criteria (whether logged on, what cookies were active and possibly more).

I am just completely gob-smacked that a Senior Exec/Director of the company can be comfortable peddling such dirty linen in public - perhaps he/they do not see any issues with this way of running a software-based company. 

On the other hand, I do have issues with such disrespect for the user/customer base. It just looks like they have settled for damage-limitation as a way of introducing new features.  Of course, I have no grasp what impact/damage might be done by this piecewise suck-it-and-see methodology.

I can only hope that my analysis is overly gloomy and that the 'improvements' will be just that - improvements - which are worth any collateral damage, in which case, I will happily add my Woo-Yays to the chorus.

I have noticed this approach on other sites as well. It seems to be the pathetic new norm.

If iStock's exclusive content were really better than what's out there at other agencies, having exclusive content might matter. Unfortunately for them, they backed up the Getty dump truck and loaded the site with masses of bog standard images priced as if they were gems. Some of the Getty rubbish might sell OK if it were priced lower, but it completely undermined the appeal of exclusive content, IMO

Once upon a time things were different, and there are some talented iStock exclusives - real exclusives not the Getty factories - who got undermined by the private equity owners who I'm guessing directed this strategy of unloading anything and everything on iStock.

I know we've harped on the lemon and lime slices that are underexposed with a black border, but when you shove that high priced dreck in front of buyers as the reason they should shop with you versus the competition, you won't be taken seriously.

I completely agree, it was the beginning of the end. And when they screwed their contributors who were also buyers and in addition attempted to offload the afore mentioned crap. It made it easy for buyers to jump to lower priced competitor sites.

Why would SS support back that up? Why would they support reviewers to generate extra unnecessary  work and drive up cost?

If shutterstock did not support multiple reviews for the same image they would take solid measures to prevent the practice on both sides of the fence. 

I would say that roughly 90% of contributors resubmit images which have been rejected.  How many contributors do you know who have had warnings for this practice?

We would not be having this discussion if shutterstock were actually monitoring reviewers who reject images that eventually get through in future reviews.

Quote

IF they don't want the work for LCV they should say so and save everyone a lot of work in guessing how to fix a faux problem and resubmitting

Also they could save some serious money by not paying the reviewers multiple times for looking at the same image.

I sometimes wonder if rejection rates jump, when the review queues drop to low levels of images waiting to be reviewed.

Re IS - On many levels I agree with you, however I also firmly believe Shutterstock's business strategy has taken its toll overall.

Surely Shutterstock could have competed using many other methods in lieu of downward pricing to capture market share. As you mentioned Stocksy was able to do this and they had a substantially later start than Shutterstock.

Defend cheap, easily implemented and predatory business strategies all you want; in the end they are detrimental to all of our bottom lines. By defending pathetic business tactics we are slitting our own throats.

Quote - Time was when we were all in love with iStock - but that didn't last more than a few years.

There was also a time not so long ago on these boards when IS exclusives were not accused of being macro contributors.

It is baffling to me that so many here miss the fact that shutterstocks downward pressure has affected the entire market in a huge way. If you don't raise prices for 9 years to gain market share it takes it's toll on your competitors.  In the end IS was forced to drop prices and adopt subs.

Or maybe the lack of SOD sales is due to a successful Premier Select Trial and many of the SODs are going to the selected high lifetime earners?

That was my thought, they have directed sales to select contributors.

I finally got my first bunch of crazy:
Focus--Subject is blurry, too soft, or out of focus when viewed at full resolution.
Noise--Image contains excessive noise, grain, artifacts and/or is poorly rasterized.

Here's a 100% crop of one of the centers where the center of focus is/should be:
http://www.seanlockephotography.com/images/examples/sampleFromBG.jpg

The wash of white paint scatters the light and fills in the scratches/grain of the woods surface.

My guess would be the reviewer did not look past that area and assumed the image was soft.

"I never imagined that Shutterstock would provide people in emerging economies with the opportunity to earn a decent living."

Jon conveniently fails to mention that his business was built using assets that were funded and produced by contributor stakeholders living in developed countries. And he does not mention that the success of his company depends on the labor & financial investments which contributors made to assure their own long term financial success.

Jon also fails to mention that he made conscious business decisions to reward the thousands of contributor stakeholders who's investments made it possible for him to create his own wealth and success; with destructive industry moves that continue to devalue the very assets shutterstock relies on to fund and build it's continued success.

By deliberately choosing to lead the race to the bottom with the objective of gaining market share; Jon consciously made industry moves that have made microstock an unsustainable source of income for the very stakeholders who made his financial success, the success of shutterstock and finally a SSTK IPO possible.

Jon escalated the race to the bottom by choosing to sell contributor assets on the open market via an IPO. This business decision made Jon and his new found Wallstreet friends Billionaires and Millionaires, however it is leaving the microstock business and the value of contributor assets in shambles.

Congratulations Shutterstock, onward to make your business model unsustainable for contributors in successive emerging economies.

Quote from: Shelma1 on April 05, 2015, 17:50

Quote from: robhainer on April 05, 2015, 16:23

Quote from: gbalex on April 05, 2015, 14:03

Quote from: Hobostocker on April 05, 2015, 08:47

Quote from: sgoodwin4813 on April 05, 2015, 08:03

At the bottom end employers will pay as little as possible.  If left to market forces we will have what we have had in the past, which was basically slavery and/or people working under horrible conditions.

exactly, or even not paid at all with the excuse of unpaid stages and internships, i can attest this sh-it is going on even in top-tier multinationals like IBM or Oracle, go figure...

the market forces don't care about the social consequences of all this, and the governments have abdicated from their natural role ... the entire West is de facto at the mercy of the greediest and most corrupt multinationals and speculators in housing, education, food, energy and pretty much any primary item humans need, sooner or later they will privatize even water with the excuse of global warming.

Long article but worth the read, not completely accurate but close enough, they sucked the middle class dry on a large scale and left many without retirement or jobs. 

The Subprime Mortgage Crisis Timeline
http://tinyurl.com/37q963

Worked out good for me. I was able to buy a foreclosure for $75,000 in 2011, remodel it for about $15,000 and now I'm selling it for $150,000 after 2.5 years. All tax free because I used it as my primary residence and reinvesting it in a new, better house.

Your attitude simply amazes me. The only reason the mortgage crisis worked for you was luck. If you'd bought that house 5 years earlier, it would now be worth less than what you paid for it. But heck, it worked for you, so eff the suckers who could afford a house before you could.

It's horrible and unfortunate when someone loses their house. It's your home. It's your life. Here in the US a major reason for the housing crisis was people buying homes they couldn't afford in the first place.

Where I live a large percentage of foreclosures were "McMansion" $300,000US+ luxury homes. Before I went to buy a house I ran the numbers for my expenses, income, savings, etc, and figured out what I could afford. When I went to the bank the loan officer told me "you qualify for $XXX,XXX.". It was twice as much as the number I came up with. I told him "yeah, I qualify for that, but there's no way I could afford it." I'd be in foreclosure within months. But plenty of people bought houses based on what they qualified for which wasn't what they could afford. Why? Maybe some greed of wanting a nice house. Maybe ignorance not knowing what they could afford. Maybe poor planing and not having enough savings in the event one member of the household lost their job. Maybe just horrendously bad fortune.

I'm sure few people will agree with what I'm about to say because this is probably considered "old school" mentality. In my opinion we are increasingly moving toward a society where there's little self-accountability. When someone does something wrong or makes a bad decision it's someone elses fault. Commit an armed robbery and get shot by the convenience store owner? It's the store owners fault. Can't get a job? It's because somebody else isn't providing the jobs. Don't make enough money to live in an ultra expensive city? It's the business's fault and the government needs to force them to give higher pay.

I believe your fortune should only equal what you're capable of achieving. But we're increasingly headed toward a society of penalizing the hard workers and rewarding people who make bad decisions, perform poorly, or expect hand outs. The news is constantly reporting about the move toward only rich and poor. Should we be surprised that the middle class is disappearing?

So who's fault is it when someone buys a house they can't afford? Banks fault? Seller's fault? Foreclosure buyer's fault? Nobody is responsible for their decisions anymore.

Sure there are people who fit your description who lost their homes because of greed and poor judgement.

However there are many more who lost their hard won homes, business's, jobs, retirement moneys etc. through no fault of their own. If you were unfortunate enough to live in the states that lost huge numbers of jobs/business's and or had high home values that dropped like a rock it was not as simple as you portray.

It is easy to judge people when you don't know their circumstances and easy to pat yourself on the back while thinking that you work harder and make better choices, when that might not be the case.

It is more difficult to walk in another persons shoes or to have empathy for their plight.

What happen all over the world is a tragedy, the sub prime crisis was not just an American story it spread to many countries. If you look at American numbers alone, more than 7 million Americans lost their homes and roughly 30 percent of the money for all home purchases went to investors and Wall Street.

Housing prices were driven to all time highs thanks to new financial products spun on Wall Street. Those new products ended up being spread far and wide and were included in pension funds, hedge funds and international governments. Most of those products ended up being worth absolutely nothing and many people lost their pensions through no fault of their own.

When building ground to a halt so did the high paying jobs in the home building, lending, escrow, furniture and appliance markets. For every job lost in the building industry 7 others lose their jobs so the problem spread far an wide especially in the growth states and there were record numbers of small business bit the dust, many of whom had been successful for 20 or more years.

More than 2,000,000 of those foreclosed homes are now in the hands of some sort of investors (i.e., big money, foreign money, etc).  There have been permanent structural changes as a result of a stunning 7 million foreclosures.

Those who should have been held accountable have not been. Whats more they are doing it again.

Quote from: robhainer on April 05, 2015, 16:23

Quote from: gbalex on April 05, 2015, 14:03

Quote from: Hobostocker on April 05, 2015, 08:47

Quote from: sgoodwin4813 on April 05, 2015, 08:03

At the bottom end employers will pay as little as possible.  If left to market forces we will have what we have had in the past, which was basically slavery and/or people working under horrible conditions.

exactly, or even not paid at all with the excuse of unpaid stages and internships, i can attest this sh-it is going on even in top-tier multinationals like IBM or Oracle, go figure...

the market forces don't care about the social consequences of all this, and the governments have abdicated from their natural role ... the entire West is de facto at the mercy of the greediest and most corrupt multinationals and speculators in housing, education, food, energy and pretty much any primary item humans need, sooner or later they will privatize even water with the excuse of global warming.

Long article but worth the read, not completely accurate but close enough, they sucked the middle class dry on a large scale and left many without retirement or jobs. 

The Subprime Mortgage Crisis Timeline
http://tinyurl.com/37q963

Worked out good for me. I was able to buy a foreclosure for $75,000 in 2011, remodel it for about $15,000 and now I'm selling it for $150,000 after 2.5 years. All tax free because I used it as my primary residence and reinvesting it in a new, better house.

Your attitude simply amazes me. The only reason the mortgage crisis worked for you was luck. If you'd bought that house 5 years earlier, it would now be worth less than what you paid for it. But heck, it worked for you, so eff the suckers who could afford a house before you could.

+1 Proves over and over what a selfish .

In Utopia, $8/hour jobs are held by high school kids who are on their way to college and making a better living.

In America, the oligarchs buy government representation and lobby to pass laws that benefits themselves and their business interests, which has led to increasing disparity between rich and poor. The U.S. now has the largest gap between rich and poor of any industrialized nation. They also cut spending on education, making it more difficult for people to get ahead. This leads to adult heads of households struggling to feed their families on minimum wage salaries. It's more difficult to be upwardly mobile in the U.S. than in many other comparable economies.

Yes, business owners take risks�but one of the challenges of starting a business is being able to make that business profitable while paying a living wage to your employees. Insurance, equipment and other associated costs have not been kept artificially low while inflation marches on. The minimum wage has remained stagnant for decades while businesses are making record profits. Paying your employees is a business expense, and it should be an expense that keeps up with the cost of living. If you can't operate a successful business paying what you need for the assets required to run that business, employees included, you deserve to have to declare bankruptcy.

Could not agree more!

This also apply's to microstock.  Shutterstock has not made a price of living adjustments for it's contributors since 2008. And they are taking their profit out of our hides by devaluing the assets they depend on to make a living.

I am certain that if they paid for the equipment, materials, talent and labor to produce said assets themselves, they would not be leading a race to devalue the product they require to maintain company revenue.

Shutterstock now has a significant portion of the market and their actions affect the entire market negatively when they continue using the downward trend to gain market share.

Quote from: Uncle Pete on April 01, 2015, 14:17

When you look at this page, http://www.shutterstock.com/index-in.mhtml  what do you see on the upper left? Just have to ask, because I still see this.

I don't see that, I'm not sure why you see that it looks like a very old version to me.  SS image 177752849 from last year is the same page I see with a different background photo. Improving earnings isn't always the goal sometimes keeping market share is.

Shutterstock has stated many times that they do not roll our changes in all of their markets. If the test market changes are beneficial to them they roll them out everywhere.