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Messages - pro@stockphotos

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101
Don't know if this private equity firm is any better.  They all have to squeeze money out of the company that  they just paid to much money for.  The other scary thing is they are trying to buy focus media- the chinese getty if you will.  That might not be good for istock members.  Seeing that the amount is less than they hoped for must mean sales are tanking.   Hence all that promoting of non exclusives for the last few years that screams buy at cheaper sites.  It was all to improve the bottom line.  Keeping a higher % of the sale.  Not to build into the future.  Its all clear now.  Pump and Dump.  Not exactly aimed at growth. 

102
I have kept a very close eye on this for the past 5 months, plus some friends have also done the same. RM, RF, Micro. Our three main outlets. RM and RF, are without doubt catching up and fast, the actual quantity of sales is increasing a lot. Somebody I know had a staggering 72, smaller RM sales in the last month and a half, for being RM, thats a staggering quantity. My own observation is exactly the same.

Micro, OTOH and as we all know is decreasing and thats right across the board, little doubt about that.

Could it be? for all non serious buyers there are ofcourse millions of what we call pro buyers, regular buyers and they have the budgets, weather its 20 bucks, 100 or more. well, to save themselves from todays obvious hassle with the micro industry, are they reverting back to more traditional searching and buying? where customer relations are friendlier and more professional, etc.
The only RM/RF, agency where I have not seen increase is Alamy, all the others show a huge rise in smaller quantity sales. For the first time Im seeing small, RM/RF, sales of around 50-70 dollars and frankly thats not much more then an xxl sale at IS or a single sale at SS.

anybody else here with the same views or thoughts?

It seems that IS was on its way to domination until the sale.  Then the hammer was dropped and the goal at IS was to squeeze out short term gains to beef up the next sale.  It may have backfired.  The biggest problem is the artist that should be featured are crowed out by too much inferior work.  It should have been managed like RM as far as who could get in and stay in.  No sales and a lot of files gets you kicked off.  Like they do at a record label.  Also they allow too much "non stock photos" as far as quality.   Why is Istock so particular in the vetting process to join and then the inspectors allow garbage to fill up the servers.  Also for a couple of years Yuri and monkey were dominating the best match as a non-exclusive.  Might as well advertised under these photos "cheaper at SS".  IS was using these people to mark up their profits for the next sale.  But it took a lot out of the momentum.  Istock was a freight train and it takes a lot of time to stop one of these when they at peak speed.  Maybe people are tired of wading through the mountains of garbage to find a cheap deal. 

103

I remember years ago when I first started reading this forum and Sean's posts.
I immediately fell into the same trap many other people did and still do.
I could not think of another, more caustic, despicable person walking the surface of the Earth than Sean Locke.
I was wrong. Very wrong, and it took me years to finally be able to crack his carefully built appearance.

LOL!  I thought it was just me.  I had the same impression early on about Sean.  But you are absolutely right, he has been probably the most activist of the big sellers in trying to boost this industry and fight the negative changes we are seeing, even when he's not personally affected.  And yes, I remember the charity initiative too.  Probably still happening, but under the radar.
 

 Sean pays Federal, State, and local taxes.  The U.S. government is the largest charity ever to exist.  So anyone who pays taxes in the U.S. has no reason to "give back".  If you want to compare Sean vs Yuri then as exclusive or independent Sean is by far better helping both groups.  Yuri has propped up and then complained about all the low paying sites.  Without his help they would have had a harder time sticking around.  The is an assumption that if istock was dominant they would screw us.  But, it appears the competition competing only price has left a declining market and a lot of worry.
 

104
You're kidding, right?  

Even with sales down on all sites, Istock leads the pack.  Sales have crashed there.  Can't imagine limiting myself to fighting for the ever dwindling pool of remaining sales there.  

I would doubt that  Lagereek would loose out if he takes advantage of agency or vetta or E+ as exclusive.  It seems he would not need a lot of these sales to surpass the puny subscription SS sales and the lot.  The hedge of independence has not panned out in enough sales when compared to the large revenue avenues of the higher end sales at IS. 

It would be fascinating to compare an indie vs exclusive from the start both with 250000 downloads to see who was the smarter person.  One has made the wrong financial decision.  The data is out there!

105
iStockPhoto.com / Re: IS, exclusives! hows it going, really?
« on: August 06, 2012, 13:43 »
Thanks all :) .  It certainly is worrisome.

 We all know IS would be better with sean running it.  Bruce should have stepped back not sold and installed sean as ceo.  It would have been ballgame. 

   However some of the decline is due to digitial vs print.  I go to  web site with an istockphoto on the front page that hasn't changed for 4 years.  If this was a magazine they would never keep the same image for this many cycles.  I see this all over the place.  Poor decision not include a rebuy requirement after a period of time.  The photo becomes almost a logo. 

  Also yuri described a decline in sales for the first time ever recently.  Selling fewer images at higher prices would have delayed this "decline"  possibly for a long time.  How many agency and vetta would he had sold?  I guess saturation has been achieved.    Hence the lower sales and indies are not insulated from weak sales. 
   

  The question becomes is istock going to maintain enough sales to keep the "big rats" like sean ( not  a putdown!) from jumping ship.  If that happened then a mad scrabble would be next. 
 

106
iStockPhoto.com / Re: IS, exclusives! hows it going, really?
« on: August 05, 2012, 19:49 »

Not all the istock exclusives have reported drops in $$$$.  Sean is about the same as last year.  If someone in Istock's top five is as good as ever then people on here can't say the sky is falling for everyone. 
He's not sounding happy with how things are going.
I'm sure he'll chip in personally, but on the iStock thread, he said:
"Worst month of the year for both dollars and dls. My dls chart looks like a playground slide. This month, about 40% less dls then Feb of the year (2012 high point), which means my dls are likely at 2006-7 levels. Hugely disappointing, since I am very happy with the look, quality and variety of my recent uploads."

I guess I did not understand the following  quote from sean in the is forums correctly.

" especially when it is obvious that you hadn't even read my post where I specifically said that my July DL's were down significantly, but that my July sales - income was up comparred to the previous two Julys and average for this year."

107
iStockPhoto.com / Re: IS, exclusives! hows it going, really?
« on: August 05, 2012, 14:30 »
You might sell to less people but at least you don't sell for 35 cents. I am tormented by all the rumors of changes with Getty and everything though, but that is all. Here is a sample of what you get from a Exclusive + file. (old E+)



Not all the istock exclusives have reported drops in $$$$.  Sean is about the same as last year.  If someone in Istock's top five is as good as ever then people on here can't say the sky is falling for everyone.  There is just a spreading of the wealth.  If you have dropped a lot of income then you have not uploaded quality images or your talent is not keeping you up with the competition.  Simple as that.  If someone is still doing great then you could too.  The easy money is gone.

I can't image the income Yuri would had have with agency and vetta considering the possibility of e+.  A lot of money was left on the table messing around with subscription sites.

108
Questioning business decisions is not always born of envy as a motive.  If istock had yuri as an exclusive it would have been better for istock, yuri and  exclusives.  The other sites may not have made it.  It would solitified istocks positioning.  Yuri agency and vetta sales would have been amazing.  He could had mad on average 10 times what he makes now per sale.  Believe that!!  Look at the top selling vetta photo and do the math.  Yuri would have sold 100's of those amounts.  He also could have slowed down on the need to upload and streched it out over years lowering his overhead to sean's 5% model.  It was a short term plan by the owners of istock to maximize the company bottom lines to get the most money in a sale.  It has muddied the microstock waters even for istock.

It is curious that not liking or rooting for getty or h&f is not envious even though they both have  a guy like yuri at the helm making decisions like yuri is making which is the best for yuri and not you.  Yuri taking money from you good, Getty taking money from you bad!  When does yuri become an evil getty.  When you decide he is too big and successful!  Steve Jobs cut his college roommate out of stock options.  A guy who helped him from the begging.  Is he good or bad.  Odd on this forum who is applauded and disliked. 

 

109
iStockPhoto.com / Re: iStock IPO (or actually Getty)
« on: May 23, 2012, 09:58 »


As I mentioned neither profit or revenue is disclosed as they are not a public company

And the SS figure I quote is revenue of 120 m / images of 17.4 million which is about 6.90 (these values are from their prospectus)

I took $6 to be conservative about the revenue Corbis might potentially generate.

SS had revenue of $30 million in 2007, if Corbis increased at the same rate from the figures you quote it would have revenue of a $1 billion now.


What makes no sense to me is the evaluations of these image peddlers.  In 2006 Bruce looks at revenue rising like a rocket and then settles on a $50 million sells price.  Revenue in 2006 is $23 million, 2007 is  $73 million, 2008 is $150 million.   Who uses a 2 times multiple for a company valuation when growth is off the charts.  I wish I could have handled the negotiations for him.  I would have told Getty I would sell for 1 billion.  I would have done it for a 10% commission.  If they had said no in two years at $200 million revenues that would have been easy to get. 

Now at cnbc.com, hf is saying they expect to sell for $4 billion.  That is rich considering they paid $2.4 billion back in 2008 during the peak right before the financial crisis.  So, with SS taking a lot of market share in micro and getty using istock to sell macro, which hurts its macro sales, everything is rosy.  I guess the entertainment, sports, and editorial business is so profitable that you can loose market share in micro/macro and with 4 years double your value in the worst economy since the jimmy carter era.  Sweet!!!!!  Hey wait  4 more  years and sell for $8 bil.    It's easy to double your money around here. 

110
iStockPhoto.com / Re: iStock IPO (or actually Getty)
« on: May 22, 2012, 19:01 »
Aahhh the old "pump and dump".  The problem is getty ripped of Bruce with a low ball price which was off by a billion or  so and then turned around and ripped off H&F with an over pricing of getty.  Now istock has pumped up its profits but sales are slumping.  Only an idiot would not see the trend.  And this trend is not your friend. If they do an ipo they have to reveal all the financial dirty laundry which would be interesting.

111
Oh I see what you are saying, I can't tell how old they are because most of them are from outside collections not iStock contributors so the dates are all wrong.  They could be only a few days old.


Boy, look at all that crap from "PlushStudios".  That's PP level, not Agency.


well said....and look this http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-14624082-large-crowd-smiling.php?st=dd2f202 all the people have close eyes


Look at a lot of the comments under these agency shots.  They are not kind and they say a lot about what customers think of these old  (most of these shots were taken 5 + years ago), bad quality and extremely expensive.  I do believe getty is driving customers away with this business model.  I don't think they care because they dominate news, sports, macro and entertainment.  They after all say they don't want "too stocky" shots.  Do they also say not too sportsy, too newsy, or too entertainy?   With all the "old macro" dump buyers are stupid if they buy this crap.  There are better regular files all over istock.

112
Shutterstock.com / Re: SS IPO - It's Done
« on: May 15, 2012, 08:47 »


I'm nervous but hopeful. At the very least, I figure we've got at least a year before investors will try to put any pressure on the company to show a return on their investment. Meaning there's still plenty of time before we would even begin to see any possible negative effect of this.

So in the meantime, it's just business as usual for me, with fingers crossed that SS never has to take anything away from us to make investors happy.
[/quote]

[/quote]

That is it exactly, SS was successful because it maintained low prices and overhead. In the last year we have seen a change in that overhead policy and the type of people SS is bringing into the company. Check out the stock options the new CFO was pulling in before SS brought him on board. And then there is the timing of the new search engine changes.



A best case scenario would be that SS is looking to further the growth of the company and they are using the IPO as a way to generate the cheaper capital needed to expand. The upside is that IPO's can also generate publicity by making the company known to new groups of potential customers.

I guess we could take a look at the track records of the board members and key new employees for a clues into where SS may be headed.
[/quote]





This is funny.  SS only product is  "low prices" the only reason SS has not raised prices is they can't.  When you have no exclusive products and only compete on price you can't raise your price without exposing your flank. 

The definition of a public companies "mission statement" is to maximize shareholders profit.  Once they go public it is the only mission.  There will no giveaways here.  Only cutthroat capitalism on display.  That unfriendly Getty feeling will be at SS very soon without the high commission payouts.

113
All the evil claims of getty/istock are about to be injected in to the low paying SS.  Wow, wait until the low paying SS has to maximize its shareholders profits.  So much for all the love given to this low paying agency of the last 3 years.  Capitalism is about to slap you back to reality. 

114

  
 About Monkey Business Images - I am a part of that, and the reason they closed their site is because they recruited other photographers to sell with them. See, if you just selling your images from your own site, it's fine, agencies don't consider you as competition. If you involve other photographers, you become an agency = competition.

It seems  "team" yuri is the very definition of actively recruiting other photographers to sell with them.    If what you say is true.  I wonder why she just didn't kick of everyone else and keep selling her own work on her own site.  

As for competition being friendly ,@ BaldricksTrousers, and his success not hurting those only with the agencies, you do not understand how market places work. The pie cannot be cut without affecting you adversely. If money is being taken from you then why care if the entity responsible is charismatic.  

If Yuri is  Istock then at least people have a chance to look for other photos
If Yuri is on all the agencies then at least people have a choice to be on the same agencies.
If Yuri has his own site then you are squeezed out and if you root for him you do not understand math or markets or business and while it my seem nice it might also be insane.

115
'Only customers who want his exclusive images have to sign up with his site. '

Bingo,  you've nailed the USP. 

However, as someone who shoots people ( and Lisa, you're included ), this is an attempt to draw buyers and build loyalty at a site you can't sell at.  I'm not sure why I should think that's awesome.

Correct, the bias against  istock/getty on here is very strong.  It is so strong that people are cheering a "team" that is setting up a site if successful is going to take sales and money from the pockets of all the well wishers.   And the "team" doing this is confused as to why some people have "negative" opinions of their effort. Hello, Mcfly if you do not  like Getty because they take more of you money then you should not like this "team" effort that takes all of your money.  The market place is limited and if successful this site will vacuum up your dollars.  It makes no sense unless you work for or are related to this Team.

Umm, seriously? This can't be real. A LOT of serious photographers sale their images from their own sites. Like, majority of us. How is Yuri doing the same thing will put us out of business? Then there is another, painfully obvious fact - we all have our portfolios together with Yuri's on all major and not-so-major agencies, side by side. If Yuri's images could put anyone out of business, that would have happened long time ago. And yet many of us are able to carve out pretty decent living, even with all-people portfolios.
Yeah, this probably won't affect agencies policies in any significant way, but why not cheer for the guy? He works hard and deserves his success.
 
   My point which has not been addressed is a logically question.  If Getty is evil because they take more of your money and do not treat you "fair".  And their downfall is actively cheered, then conversely someone who taking market share (your money) you do not know, should not be cheered using the same measurement.   Second, if Yuri really wants to take on the agencies then he should pull his work of their low paying sites.  If there are 40000 $2 dollar photos on SS covering all the things he shoots, then I would skip the new work at $550 and buy 250 photos that are good enough and what bargain on the price.  Would you say monkeybussinessimgaes is almost a good as Yuri.  I would ask why she closed her site.    Her prices were comparable to IS at a flat rate.  She even recruited other non-exclusives to sell.  She did not have a confusing tiered pricing system.   Or an exclusive model that has a ton of previous work out there that is a near copy.  It's fine to say my arguments are invalid.  I would like to be proved wrong.   I just don't get the well wishing for A and the contempt for B when A it lowering your income and B is taking it all.

116
'Only customers who want his exclusive images have to sign up with his site. '

Bingo,  you've nailed the USP. 

However, as someone who shoots people ( and Lisa, you're included ), this is an attempt to draw buyers and build loyalty at a site you can't sell at.  I'm not sure why I should think that's awesome.

Correct, the bias against  istock/getty on here is very strong.  It is so strong that people are cheering a "team" that is setting up a site if successful is going to take sales and money from the pockets of all the well wishers.   And the "team" doing this is confused as to why some people have "negative" opinions of their effort. Hello, Mcfly if you do not  like Getty because they take more of you money then you should not like this "team" effort that takes all of your money.  The market place is limited and if successful this site will vacuum up your dollars.  It makes no sense unless you work for or are related to this Team.

118
First of .... Congratulations to Yuri. The site looks and works amazingly well. Like the usual stuff he does.

Do you guys honestly think he is going to pull his port on other sites??? honestly????? why would he do something as dumb as that, not a chance. No the agencies will not through him out, no he won't pull his port, no this will not turn the industry upside down. It's just an amazing own portal to sell HIS OWN images (and images from other photographers that work for him), full stop.

This is simply an extra outlet for him, and he will try and grab as many customers direct as he can. Maybe if in a few years he is really outselling some agencies and after a lot of negotiation to bump his commissions up with lack of success, then he has an ace under his sleeve and won't care to leave the agency if they don't. That would be my strategy although I doubt it he can compete with millions of different looking images already at the agencies.

In fact my own website is also on the works, although I will have a slightly different approach to it. I won't invest 700k USD on it of course but enough to make it look good, professional with all the toys that are necessary to have a positive impact on buyers.


Investing 600K usd is not simple.  How does monkeybusinessimages sales compare to Yuri.  Pretty close.  They pulled down their "direct compete site" and promoted the four majors after they stopped selling their stuff and other non-exclusives on a their own site.  Unless you pull your images off cheaper alternatives with better infrastructure/legal/branding/etc.  It will be hard if not impossible to get traction.  I also don't think a big two year announcement would be simple direct sales in addition to you wares on every cheap site around. 

119
Is Yuri going exclusive with his own site.   Is he pulling all his work from all the undervaluing agencies.  This will tell if he believes in this move or not. 

120
I remember when Monkey Business Images was running her own site.  She even picked off some non-exclusives and created her own agency.  She now directs people to the four majors when you go to her website.  Wonder why??
Wasn't Yuri pushing "Crestock" for a while.  It didn't seem to help. 

121
Hello Microstock Forum!

My name is Simon I am an old istock-contributor that took the decision to go independent in December last year. I dont know if I mad the right call, but i guess i will find out in the nearest couple of months.

                Images-Days online-Downloads-Royalty $
Istock non-E     241   33   18   33,2
Istock partners  231   31   29   11,0
Shutterstock     112   61   147   76,5
123RF                132   73   23   16,8
Fotolia                 69   77   20   7,4
Bigstockphoto    132   77     8    8,9
Photodune          78    71   6     7,7
Dreamstime       118   77   16   6,29
DepositPhotos    181   78   14   5,9
Veer                    116   52   4   3,9
Canstockphoto   172   78   5   4,3
               
Total                               274   175,4


/Simon

WOW!!  It's right there in the numbers reported on what is a small portfolio that tells you everything you need to know about what is happening in the microstock.  I would have never guessed the marketplace would promote the cheapest site out there if the suppliers failed to protect their pricing structure.  Look at the sales at the cheap-a$$ SS.  A whopping $.52 per download.   Why aren't indies worried about this trend if they were smart enough not to be exclusive with istock.  As SS becomes more dominant say good bye to your other baskets and any decent $$$$ for your files.  And there is no way SS can raise their pricing with IS blocking them with TS.

122
Photo Critique / Re: Does my stock portfolio stand a chance?
« on: February 03, 2012, 09:42 »
A lot of people do landscapes.  A lot.  Only the really good ones will get the sales.

The biggest problem with IS is the "noise" on the site.  Way too many low sellers are allowed to throw images against the wall and see if they stick.  This buries the best producers images and gives the customers headaches in finding quality images. Not promoting Sean more than a person with 9000 images and 5000 sales happens because of the mass uploading by average producers are not penalized outside of low sales.  The sales per image ratio should be a factor in how many one can upload.  Low selling artist should be dropped just like any other creative business.  New talent should be promoted based on sales.   

One of the weirdest getty/istock merger events was getty scouring flicker for new artist which I saw on the national news to put on getty.  So they spent 50 mil on istock and weren't looking for artist that were not getting good exposure on istock.   

123
General Stock Discussion / Re: January 2012 earnings
« on: February 02, 2012, 09:56 »
iStock exclusive.

Compared to January 2011:

DL -42.2%
$ -19.8%

Compared to January 2010:

DL -57.8%
$ -11.7%

I don't track how many images I create each year, but I guess it's about 1500 to 2000. Current portfolio size 8000.

^^^ I'm staggered how many contributors with mature portfolios, both exclusive and independent, are reporting a decline in sales of 40-50% over the year. That's huge and it's difficult to believe that the slack is all being taken up by newbies with growing portfolios. If that pattern continues for much longer ... it really will be unsustainable.

Have you made a decision at what point you will pull the plug on exclusivity?

Its also funny how only Sean reminded people of the huge fraud that jacked up stats for jan 2011.  The bigger the contributor the bigger the fraud.   So, you can knock of a good % reported as decline as what it really was "inflated numbers". 

I am staggered that some indies never went exclusive when IS held 70% market share and paid out double to exclusives. 

124
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Layoffs at istock
« on: January 23, 2012, 16:40 »
It's cheaper to fire employees and hire new people in another location than it is to relocate existing employees.

It also may be that the current employees were considered and not chosen as the best people for what needed to be done.

It seems to me there were too many istock chefs in the getty/h&f kitchen.   

125
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Layoffs at istock
« on: January 21, 2012, 09:59 »
I'm perfectly sure that all contributors have been looking for the Truth since the day Getty bought the place. Based on past performance, I think you have heard all the Truth you are going to hear from Lobo's post. And who knows if that is even the Truth? The Truth to you means something entirely different than the Truth to Getty.
I guess that's the New Kind of Truth, like the new kind of trust JJ was never able to explain or bring about, unless 'new kind of trust' means 'don't trust anything'.

Right, this is the weird effect that istock had on people.  It was an online community when people traded files but changed when $.10 commissions were introduced.  Then, it became a business with a left over "fake" community feel.  Because "on-line" anything is not real to the extent of being tangible personal relationships.  Then, getty bought and the community thing was flung further away for the thing istock became after money was introduced.   A cutthroat, competitive business that was whitewashed by being online in stead of in person.  The last email from istock I received was titled " blah blah community blah blah ....."  I deleted it without reading and tried to not throw-up.  The left over community BS always was used to soften the blows of decisions like when the best match was massaged to get Lise back to #1 in daily sales when she had dropped to 5th by a truer organic best match back in august 2008.  Many of these types of manipulations were evident with even the original owners at the helm.  They were just more acceptable because of that fake "community" feel.

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