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Messages - Difydave
Pages: 1 ... 19 20 21 22 23 [24]
576
« on: April 06, 2011, 11:16 »
All in all it still looks an awful mess to me. Got to agree with jsnover above. Why did they make these huge changes? Seems like madness to me.
Out of desperation? Either istocks growth might have stopped or they are starting to see declining revenue. Lots of diamonds both exclusive and non saying downloads dropping like mad recently. Lots of indies saying bme on shutterstock seems to indicate buyer migration. They are tinkering with the best match to try to maximize whatever profit imo.
Making changes is fine, it's making these huge changes that make a mess of the results that I don't get. Seems to me that every time they do something like this they alienate a few more contribs, and much more importantly lose buyers. The idea that fewer, larger sales make more profit is OK up to a point, but somewhere along the way a balance point has to be reached. We might already be there. One thing is sure, offering buyers what looks like a smaller cross section of less relevant material, just because it's more profitable to the company seems like a recipe for a disaster long term. I really, really hope I'm wrong.
577
« on: April 06, 2011, 10:18 »
Strange thing is that sales are looking fairly "normal" for me. Not a good week by any standards, but not really bad as you might expect with the changes.
It looks to me as if apart from the temporary comeback of the slider, the sort is actually slightly less V&A centric today. Not by much though, and there are still far too many files from individual contribs clumped together. Get to about page three (200 a page) and it looks more or less like a list sorted by age, again with big clumps of individuals work (although that might be expected with an age sort)
All in all it still looks an awful mess to me. Got to agree with jsnover above. Why did they make these huge changes? Seems like madness to me.
The fact that it's extremely slow being put right leads me to believe that it might be having the desired effect for them though.
578
« on: April 05, 2011, 09:47 »
My downloads have dropped right off today. Coincidence, happenstance or "Enemy action" I wonder.
Yesterday was a good day. So it might be that buyers had learnt where the slider was.
Whatever the case, do iStock really think that this is properly representational of the collection.
What about giving some other contributors a chance, apart from a handful of those with Vetta and Agency?
This one really needs sorting!
579
« on: April 05, 2011, 08:22 »
The slider's disappeared for me now, look's like the results are now as it was set in the middle.
If these are the new "best match" results with no option to modify them then it looks to me as if most of us are in for a tough time.
580
« on: April 04, 2011, 14:55 »
No conspiracy IMO. At least not against individuals. Groups of people may get hurt in the fallout from changes, but there's no malice in that, it's just "business" trying to get the biggest profit. I still think these big changes are counter productive myself? If they push buyers far enough with this business of putting more and more expensive content from a limited contributor set in front of them, then they will either leave, or learn new behaviour where they ignore the best match and use the other sort orders to get what they want. The only reason best match is so powerful is that it offers the line of least resistance to buyers. Put in a search term and there's what the buyers want. Relevant results with a choice of styles and prices. They don't necessarily want to see what brings in the biggest profit for the seller. Microstock is after all's said and done the supermarket of the stock business. Supermarkets try to make sure that of you're going to buy then the choice and the price you want is there on the shelf in front of you. Carefully arranged yes, but still there to see.
'Nuff said.
Hiya Chris. Glad to hear you're still smoke free. All we both need to do now is pack in the beer and we can be really healthy (and miserable!) :-)
All the best
Dave
581
« on: April 04, 2011, 08:39 »
At the moment it looks as if they're messing about with the results without fully understanding what the changes are doing to the results. Something along the line of "Well we did this before and it worked out well. If we do it twice as much - Ah s**t it broke!"
Seems to me that they need to get the thing back to returning some sort of reasonable results.
And then I have a totally radical suggestion:
LEAVE THE BLASTED THING ALONE FOR A WHILE.
582
« on: March 18, 2011, 14:56 »
Week started off well. Yesterday was slow. Today is like a Sunday. Whenever they mess with the best match I seem to take a few days to get back up to speed. Hope it's the same this time!
583
« on: February 12, 2011, 08:14 »
I think helix7 has it exactly. They don't really care whether "we" (with certain exceptions) stay or go. Plenty more where we came from. Plenty more who are pleased to get anything for a download, and don't argue the toss at every mistake and change. Really saying they care is like saying a whale cares about the plankton it feeds on.
The reality is that it's either "Stay and accept our terms" or "If you don't like it go away"
584
« on: December 25, 2010, 08:53 »
merry christmas to you all! My christmas will be on 28th December only : my sister is on duty in the old people's home where she works, so we decided to "move christmas" 3 days later.
My friends family has done exactly the same for exactly the same reason. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone!
585
« on: December 10, 2010, 08:40 »
My dad had one of these in the early 70s. The camera comes in a (very by modern standards) large case with places for the cut film magazine backs. If I remember right there were several of these with the camera he had, and you would obviously need more than one for a shoot as you can't really fit cut film in the field as far as i know. He was looking for a roll film back for his, and that would seem to be a sensible move.
He did take some shots with it, and I remember the quality was excellent.
Dad and camera are unfortunately long gone. I've been toying with the idea of getting a medium format film camera myself for some time.
586
« on: November 29, 2010, 15:43 »
More easily than many people, designers can surely work from home?
You'd think so, and it would make sense if they did, but there seems to be a sort of madness grips us here though whenever we get snow. I think a lot of people take an unofficial holiday and take the kids to play in the snow! Whatever the case, I've noticed a dip in sales in the past when there's been snow here. Could be anything really of course, but it's a thought.
587
« on: November 29, 2010, 15:28 »
Hi Chris. Fine thanks. You?
We've has a fair chunk of snow in the UK. Some places looked like they'd had the same as you about 50 cm.
(Back on topic) The reason i mentioned it is unlike Sweden we're not set up for it. Lots of news pictures of cars getting stuck etc. People don't get to work, and they don't buy images. The UK alone buys about as many images as one of the better buying US states (according to a list I saw ages ago on the IS forums) so it's not insignificant. If the rest of Europe is affected then it's bound to have some effect.
Lets hope we're not in for another 62-63 winter!
588
« on: November 29, 2010, 05:48 »
Bad weather in a lot of places in the UK. Snow and freezing conditions. An inch of snow here and normal life grinds to a halt. Could be something to do with it.
589
« on: November 20, 2010, 06:07 »
It's actually 70 years in Europe:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Duration_Directive
Whatever the case they must have thought there was a risk.
Can you clone the item out?
70 years after the death of the artist.
But iStock always errs on the side of caution.
Once when I Scouted an image which had been rejected as copyright though well out of the 70 years pma, the image was accepted but with the cryptic note from Scout that the 70 years rule wasn't the only one they considered, but with no further information.
I wish they'd give a bit more info on these sort of things, but the usual answer is that they deal with them as individual cases. I suppose that's fair enough really. The OP has the right idea by my thinking. If a particular subject is known to be problematic, it's better to move on.
591
« on: November 13, 2010, 13:22 »
Another point is that none of the agencies are obliged to sell content for anyone. My guess is that although the separate agencies are in competition, if you made yourself enough of a pain you'd find none would deal with you.
The whole business of unions and unionisation is (in the UK at least) a whole lot more complicated than just all getting together to make the bosses see sense.
592
« on: November 13, 2010, 04:20 »
Having some sort of advocate a nice idea, but it wouldn't work for a multitude of reasons. Apart from those given already, who is to say that iStock would even talk to such an advocate? At best you would probably end up paying to receive the same information that you get now.
"Unions" ( to use the term loosely) only really work when the vast majority of people are involved. Otherwise you end up with no negotiating power.
Strange that post was deleted though. Was some nerve struck there , or was it just because it was running a bit OT.
593
« on: November 10, 2010, 08:44 »
So, now that it's all up and running, sort-of, what were the improvements we got?
Virtually instant uploads from anywhere in the world. Automatic level correction and removal of logos etc. Automatic title, description, keywording and categories generation. Instant acceptance, and a guaranteed place at the top of the best match. Do you mean to say you haven't noticed? They probably haven't got it working properly yet then. :-)
594
« on: October 26, 2010, 04:39 »
Sounds like overheating to me as well. If it's an oldish machine get the case, fans, heatsinks and PS carefully blown out with clean dry compressed air ( not tyre inflation air at the local garage) at the lowest pressure possible or failing that careful brushing and vacuum will do. Re-seat the heat sink on the processor using a tiny smear of thermal compound.
One thing that can give all sorts of weird faults is the memory. On some boards the memory modules seem to "creep" out over a period of time. Make sure they're pushed hard in. You need to put the machine on it's side if it's a tower case. Power off (obviously) and give the memory quite a hard push straight down into it's slot to make sure it's seated. Make sure the video card is seated properly too. If you suspect the processor is running too hot than you can download something like Motherboard monitor, or Speedfan (Google them) to give the board temperatures. One other thing it could be is a cracked motherboard which has a track that opens up when the board gets above a certain temperature. Pretty rare though as I understand it. Sometimes repairable if you have a friendly electronics guy handy, but probably better to swap the board.
Oh and Hi everyone. I don't think I've posted here before although I've looked for ages.
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