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Messages - Jo Ann Snover
5851
« on: November 30, 2011, 12:49 »
I'd be a bit worried about it taking so many attempts to get accepted at SS and would definitely postpone dumping exclusivity until you've been accepted at SS (I agree with the previous posters that it will be a critical part of your independent earnings)
5852
« on: November 30, 2011, 12:19 »
It was looking iffy, but I finally reached my RC goal within the past week, so I will stay where I am.
The bad news for me is that unless they lower the targets, I won't keep my 18% for 2012. The good news is that a 1% royalty rate drop for a site whose declining sales look to be increasingly irrelevant to my monthly totals isn't so drastic an event. And who knows, perhaps the PP will be a barn buster and I'll make it up there 
5853
« on: November 30, 2011, 10:55 »
Some of us had no choice, really and I was one of them. I thought November was the date for the move into TS, but so far I cant see any of my shots over there. Maybe they forgot? one can always prey.
they seem to be slowly getting moved over. I had 3 there yesterday morning, 4 by the afternoon, and this morning I just checked and now I have 5 on there. No particular order of the, either, it seems.
That's what I see - no images before, but this morning I have 8 images there. No apparent order for choice of which ones are there (no correlation by date, title, sales total, anything)
5854
« on: November 30, 2011, 10:51 »
...one can always prey.
Getty's strategy in a nutshell - lovely typo! (I think you meant pray )
5855
« on: November 30, 2011, 10:46 »
You are just appointed CEO of iStock, outline your first 3 actions ...
1) Try and negotiate an independent status for iStock, sort of like Native American treaties for nation status within the US (although we all know how well that worked out for the Native Americans even when they got it in writing). 2) When those negotiations fail, resign. With Getty's history of bare knuckle treatment of photographers, illustrators, musicians (Pump Audio), etc. and H&F's need for cash driving everything, I can't see any upside for anyone with a conscience. 3) There is no step 3 - who wants to be in charge of iStock vectors moving to clipart.com or other soul-crushing attempts to squeeze a bit of cash out of what's left of a good name?
5856
« on: November 30, 2011, 10:33 »
How could SS offer exclusive content without charging customers more? It's not transparent, but from the way they raised royalties in the past, they always put prices up first, waited a month or so to see how things shook out, and then raised our royalty. They needed to see how download patterns were in practice given the new prices - I assume the worry is that if you put up prices then buyers will be more likely to download their full allowance which would leave you broke.
In the current market, I think SS has been the refuge for buyers who've had it with rising prices elsewhere - they offer stability in the form of a known monthly spend on images. Unless all the other agencies go on a round of price hikes, I can't see how SS could raise prices. And as for some images costing more than one download, DT's already hinted they may modify that as they've had negative buyer feedback.
I don't think there's exclusivity, even for images, in SS's future
5857
« on: November 29, 2011, 17:59 »
Using Sean's great GreaseMonkey scripts I can turn views off, so I couldn't tell you anything about mine. I do recall a bug some months (a year or so??) back where images got bazillions of views for a short time. There was some contributor concern about whether that'd hurt files in the best match results (too many views no sales) but nothing was ever done AFAIK when the bug fix was made. Given they're pushing "fixes" at the moment, I'm sure they're pushing a bug or two along with...
5858
« on: November 29, 2011, 17:30 »
When I saw the title of this thread I wondered if my calendar was wrong and it's actually April Fool's Day.
That's when the site will be fixed and running smoothly
5859
« on: November 29, 2011, 17:12 »
Many searches are sprinkled with totally unrelated items.
I'm still wondering if that's a 'feature' rather than a fault.
Years ago a long ex-contributor emailled me to suggest I should do that in my lightboxes, apparently to show buyers I do different sorts of stuff. It's an established marketing ploy with a name, (I Googled it at the time, but of course, I can't remember it now.)
If iStock thinks that they can get people who search for tropical beach to buy a picture of an isolated dog, empty car trunk or a home thermostat, they're even more delusional than I give them credit for
5860
« on: November 29, 2011, 15:45 »
I do remember live stats and now it feels a bit like looking at those old airplanes where they had tables and chairs set out for the passengers as if on a country house patio. However, I'd settle for rock solid data with complete reporting of all the sales details, even if it was once a week, over continued live reporting with insufficient information to have a clue whether anything is correct. Contributors need detailed accounts, and much as I'd love things to be complete and timely (my bank can manage it, even if they are scum of the earth, so I'm not sure what's stopping iStock/Getty/H&F), I'd pick complete over timely if forced. At least that way we'd have a prayer of keeping track of what's going on.
5861
« on: November 29, 2011, 14:53 »
The site is quite buggy, but I'm not sure it affects searches. The searches I've tried worked. ...
All the search bugs reported in the last few pages here still remain. Many searches are sprinkled with totally unrelated items.
5862
« on: November 29, 2011, 14:48 »
I think the amount of time between the site problems that at a minimum paid us at the wrong royalty rate for a few days and "...the end of next week" is outrageous. And that's just their goal, not date certain.
I suspect that iStock is tight lipped about what has to be done to pay us because their internal systems are primitive and teetering on the edge of being functional. There's no point in railing at them as I don't think they're lying about the shambles the system is in, but if I got notes from my bank about running a script and it taking several weeks to straighten out an error in my account I'd be in touch with the regulatory authorities to report them. It's an utter disgrace for the custodian of our funds to be (a) this inept and (b) this lackadaisical about a prompt fix.
My mood is not improved by seeing my balance go up and down this morning. And Lobo's rude "sorry" didn't help either. OTOH I doubt customers seeing random objects in their search results are any happier.
Last year they effed up the site during the busy season. How could the dumb clucks have done it all over again - anyone see the old move "Same Time Next Year"?
5863
« on: November 29, 2011, 14:04 »
I wouldn't want to encourage him to come back here and proselytize, but the Shankster is always saying he has good PP results...so that's at least two.
I do think that for some IS exclusives who've never really seen the subscription model in full flower (as it were) the download numbers are seductive. As is the thought that they could have SS plus IS exclusivity at the same time (where the hope would be that the PP takes SS's place over time, which I don't expect would happen for reasons I've already elaborated elsewhere)
5864
« on: November 29, 2011, 12:50 »
It's not clear how one should calculate that number - what about deactivated files that go on sale but didn't sell? If people regularly cleaned up their port and removed things that didn't sell they could make the number look good. I don't clean house and my number's about 81% (I removed my vectors earlier in the year, all of which had sold, but the numbers were relatively small)
There might have been one or two first-time sales since November 1st, but not enough to skew the results
5865
« on: November 29, 2011, 12:37 »
... Unfortunately I think one would have to clear it with iStock because, as I think Baldrick posted in another thread, they don't need a reason to terminate their contract with you any more than you need a reason to dump them. And in this climate, do you think they'd agree?
I think several things: (1) lots of people have turned to contributor relations for guidance and received utter rubbish for answers. The most recent was an exclusive who ended up turning in his crown when he asked about including his own images in an app he was submitting to the Apple app store; they told him to buy an exclusive license to his own images.(2) Getty's current goal is to cut costs and is thus trying to get all royalties to a maximum of 20% for RF sales. If they thought they had a choice, they'd rather not pay you the higher royalty you're currently receiving. (3) if they started dumping respected contributors for no reason at all - where the contributor had not legally violated their agreement with iStock - I think they'd be on seriously shaky ground with other exclusives. It'd be a very risky thing for them to do with relatively little upside. (4) They didn't apparently have a problem with Daniel Laflor being exclusive and Yuri non even though Daniel apparently shared models, space, etc. I think there may be other examples of similar setups. (5) It's always easier to ask forgiveness than ask permission, especially if the organization you'd be asking is in a state of disarray with its hair on fire I wouldn't advocate doing anything underhanded or without legal advice, but I'm not sure I think it's necessary to ask iStock if it's OK with them if you do something advantageous to you.
5866
« on: November 29, 2011, 11:09 »
...
My real fear lies in the initial earnings crash that must follow dumping the bling. I have to support aged parents, young children, ex-wives, you name it. I have employees to pay. I lack the cash reserves to tide me over for more than a couple of months. What is someone in my position to do?
I think I'd be looking for a lawyer to help set up a company (possibly two) where you can start one company out on all the other sites - with new content for the moment. Leave your IS portfolio earning for a while so you can build up your earning power elsewhere (SS pays you more the more you earn them as I'm sure you know). When your IS income starts to fall, then you can switch to independence and do what you need to with copyright transfers and move your IS portfolio to all the other sites along with your new content. Obviously it needs to be legally solid to avoid jeopardizing your IS status, but I think it could be done.
5867
« on: November 29, 2011, 10:43 »
I boycotted it until I didn't have a choice anymore.
There's always a choice.
I have viewed the Partner Program as a very, very bad idea for contributors from day 1 (I was exclusive then). I didn't think it improved much with the small increases in royalty payments made on KKT's watch when they tried to increase the content available. As far as having a choice, if iStock continues its earnings free-fall, it'll be possible to leave the site completely, but as it stands it was too big a chunk to just delete my portfolio on September 28th. Our "choice" was the same as Getty contributors' "choice" with their new contract in the Spring - only a choice in the narrowest possible meaning of that word. What I did do was withhold new content from iStock for 6 months minimum so it gets a chance to sell everywhere else before Thinkstock/photos.com get it. As none of the forced-participation independent content from iStock has made it to the PP yet, I wish they'd just get on with it or call the deal off. But I'm assuming it's yet another thing in the long list of broken features at iStock. I don't think the partner program is inevitably a bad thing. If iStock and Getty had been less transparently greedy I think they might have structured something that worked well for both contributors and them. However, they've let their own dollar bin and subscription programs languish while TS/photos.com strumble along in SS's dust. Truly the worst of all worlds at the moment.
5868
« on: November 29, 2011, 01:31 »
I asked exactly that question and was told it would be OK to have images in the batch that didn't use all of the model/property releases attached.
I haven't tested that out - my first big batch with a release was for a single property release. If that encounters no problems (i.e. images are approved) I'm going to test out a batch with four people and one property release where not all the people are in all the shots and see if all those pass inspection.
5869
« on: November 29, 2011, 01:27 »
... BTW, I got called out on my "a couple images get sales, and wallah - they show up" spelling - not to worry. That's how we spell it on another board to make fun of people who can't spell it and continuously spell it wrong, and I forget the world isn't in on that joke. So, voila!
I'm so glad you explained. I hadn't pegged you as someone who said "prolly" "wallah" and "nuculer". My world is back in an orderly orbit again
5870
« on: November 28, 2011, 11:52 »
You may post any non-exclusive images to multiple micro sites. DT has assignment photos that are exclusive to DT and other sites (eg FT) offer you the option of images being exclusive. These images must stay at the site to which they're exclusive. Otherwise you may post your images to any site you choose.
5871
« on: November 27, 2011, 17:30 »
...
Thanks for that excellent summary. I was trying to explain what's been going on at IS to my husband, who wondered what all my groaning was about, and your post came in very handy in summing it up
iStock has j umped the shark from my husband's point of view. Short of them staging an alien invasion, massive explosion or revealing they're all really zombies, he really doesn't want to listen any more, even to a well crafted summary
5872
« on: November 26, 2011, 15:43 »
I can't say I'm surprised, but I think it is a disgrace that a whole week has gone by with no e-mail follow up on the missing royalties from the time when all sales (we hope!) were being recorded with the minimums. I would have liked the money and the accounting by now, but at the very least a mass e-mailing to contributors apologizing for the delay and giving a deadline by which the payments will be made.
I suspect that their internal systems are so inept that it isn't trivial to do the mass e-mail and they don't know when they'll make the payment because their tangle of script-running catchup procedures is a mess too. So they tweet things and ignore the forums and hope. Not good.
5873
« on: November 26, 2011, 13:42 »
...This is a strong reason why many powerful very creative exclusives will stay in Istock. The 30c subscription option will never work for them.....
This spring, Getty forced participation in subscription programs (Thinkstock and photos.com) on its contract holders. For the moment, iStock exclusives have the ability to opt out, but I can't imagine that's going to stay that way - it wasn't as if the Getty contributors liked the moved or asked for it. Not only are subscriptions likely to be in all exclusives' future (not just those who chose the PP voluntarily), but you get no RC for any sales at any other site, so to the extent sales migrate from iStock to Getty (upstream) or TS/photos.com (downstream), your ability to keep your higher royalty percentage at iStock is weakened. The pre-September 2010 iStock was an alternative; since then, I don't think so.
5874
« on: November 25, 2011, 19:39 »
I don't have a crystal ball either, but I would say that the folks at PhotoDune have been unfailingly polite and helpful. Growing pains is about right for the state of software on the site (for uploads, dealing with model/property releases, finding a list of what's pending, what's rejected, etc.).
And this morning I checked and a good portion of what I uploaded as a test batch was approved (was very surprised at the high rejection rate, but as I can't see any rejection reasons for the "hard" rejections I have no idea what they didn't like), plus I had my first sale.
I've opted out of ELs; once I can figure out how to keep them happy regarding content, I think they'll be a good middle tier site for the time being. Things are not spectacular with the established sites so I'm not about to turn my nose up at a solid middle tier site to add to my roster.
5875
« on: November 25, 2011, 14:54 »
I had given up trying in Firefox (Mac) to get any sales after November 1st, but did manage to see them in Chrome after a refresh or two (which used to work for Firefox, but no longer seems to).
I hope developers will be working on Sunday so they can fix any remaining bugs and have the site ready to go on Monday. This is the second year in a row things have been broken during the busy season (although it's not as much breakage this year as last). This isn't the time of year to be leaving the site in a flaky state (random objects in searches; delays in posting credits for PayPal purchases - it's not just contributors who are inconvenienced by their bugs)
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