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Messages - ShadySue
14276
« on: January 21, 2011, 11:07 »
I think it's preferrable to set "worldwide" use, because books can actually be sold anywhere, so if someone asks me I will try to negotiate that way. But in Alamy I see sales for a specific country.
Educational books in particular might have a specific geographic sales market, because of different curricula in different countries. The publishers will know where they can sell these books.
14277
« on: January 21, 2011, 11:01 »
I already made my point of view in the IS thread, and was greeted with snarky replies from Mr. Ban Hammer. His playground his rules, but I think they want to cut the negative chatter.
The point they're missing is that they do that by (a) getting the site functional and (b) treating contributors fairly and reasonable. With respect would be nice too. In the absence of those, they can get silence with a few woo yays sprinkled in.
JoAnn, no one was asked to be only positive. and your comments directed at Lobo are still in the thread. the only thing asked was that contributors refrain from using +1. I'm fairly certain you're still free to be as negative as you would like.
Stupid ban. +1 is like a vote. Maybe it's pointless quoting a long post and adding +1, but a snip and agreement is totally in order.
14278
« on: January 21, 2011, 11:00 »
I think we're supposed to sit down quietly, shut up or perhaps just say "Thank you sir. Please may I have another?"
Heavy hand to "solve" a non problem.
I do miss Rob. Even when an unpopular message had to be communicated, he did it with respect and grace. Gold standard of forum moderation in my book.
Certain people have let their role as "traffic cop" go to their head and should really consider a career change.
Yes, Lobo is becoming increasingly annoyed with having to deal with forum posters. He needs a sabatical from the forums so that he can regroup and shed his attitude. Its' clear that he's pretty much fed up with the whole thing, so why do they keep him in that position? seriously banning posts with just a "+1" in them? hasn't he got better things to do?
You see, if people can't agree with a post, JJRD won't even need to turn a blind eye before saying things like 'the silent majority still believe in iStockphoto". If that's true, it's because they don't know what's going on. I don't get the emails with updates, and I know others in my CN don't either. Support said there were 'repeated problems' with both the email addys I gave them: one is my personal domain addy, the other is Live fka hotmail. I get emails in day and daily on the first, and occasional ones on the second, including payment emails from iStock. Lobo never had any bother finding them. 
14279
« on: January 21, 2011, 08:21 »
Probably some mistake!
Surely! Hopefully! Please post back when they get back to you.
14280
« on: January 21, 2011, 05:53 »
I think we're supposed to sit down quietly, shut up or perhaps just say "Thank you sir. Please may I have another?"
Heavy hand to "solve" a non problem.
I do miss Rob. Even when an unpopular message had to be communicated, he did it with respect and grace. Gold standard of forum moderation in my book.
Jo-Ann, although not a Vector artist, I'd like to applaud you for the persistent but polite manner in which you pursued that independent vector issue and forced them to come up with a joined-up policy. Why it took them so long, I can't imagine. Well done!
14281
« on: January 21, 2011, 05:49 »
I'm giving some serious consideration to uploading new material only to Alamy. I've only recently been accepted there and have yet to realize any sales, but I like their model more than any other. I've uploaded some of my material to the lower-paying sites just to see if they're "hot," but they're not. Time is such a big factor, as we all know. If I have to spend 90% of my time uploading, keywording, categorizing, etc., and only 10% shooting, that's not gonna work. In my experience, IS and Pixmac are the two most laborious sites for contributors. I'm thinking that if I can upload to Alamy and be done with it (regardless of whether or not they have an exclusive benefit), I can spend my time more productively. At first, I thought of the old adage, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket," but now I'm rethinking my approach. Spreading those eggs around to various sites is proving to be counterproductive. It would take more time to delete my current portfolio from various sites, so I'd probably just leave it, and upload new material only to Alamy. Any other thoughts? 
(I've posted most of the following in earlier posts. New readers start here)Everyone's experience will be different. Here's my experience. (I've been uploading at iStock since Dec 06, and apart from a hundred or so RM pics with fotolibra, have no recent experience of other agencies)I started at Alamy in April 09 and have uploaded 1473 pics there (all RM, mostly secondary editorial; some 'general' shots which would have been accepted on iStock). Because I was working full time until the end of October, and putting my energy into Alamy, I only uploaded 464 images to iStock during that time. I have to tell you that these 464 have earned considerably more on iStock, though I'm very disappointed to have to say that. That said, eight of the pics I sold at Alamy wouldn't have been accepted on iStock for PR. Of the ones which didn't need releases, I'd say on the specific images, I'd have earned less on iStock for these images. The winning formula would be if you could somehow divine which pics would sell best where. And with iStock coming up with editorial somewhere in the future, that decision will become more difficult if your editorial pics would be of a hotspot in great demand (Las Vegas, Times Square) - you'd already be up against a backstock of hundreds of images on Alamy. I note you thing that uploading to iS is 'laborious'. Interesting: I think it's a gazillion times easier than keywording, etc. images for Alamy. I had a batch of 27 images accepted earlier in the week and it took me most of a day to get them properly captionned, keyworded and described. To be fair, I was having to research most images individually (could have done that while they were in the queue, but it would have taken the same amount of time) and getting bored, so hopping on and off here. You have to be careful with keywords, and be aware that, as I have posted here often, if your name (pseudonym) is Jack Smith and you have a photo of a house, your image will turn up in searches for 'Jack House', pissing off buyers and hitting your Alamy Rank. I've also posted about how my photo of the main office of a political party turned up in a search for 'office party'. Conversely, info from the date field doesn't come up in the search, so if you want your photo to show up in a search for 'April in Paris', you'd better make sure April is in the caption and/or keywords. In case you missed my other post, here (for what it's worth) is an Alexa graph for Alamy (the almost invisible blue wiggly line right at the bottom) with iStock, DT, FT and SS. http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/alamy.com#Where do Alamy advertise? Finally be aware that you need $250 to cash out from Alamy, and that many buyers don't pay Alamy for months, impacting also on your cashflow. I've got an image I screenshotted from 12th October which hasn't come through yet - "three calendar months" takes it to the end of Jan. All that said, with the Triumph of Hope over Experience, I've added 55 pics to my Alamy port in Jan, and 2 to iStock (Plus I've put c10 in a folder marked 'iStock editorial' which could go to Alamy if the editorial programme at iStock doesn't get rolled out quickly.) AND I've signed up for a college photojournalism course which starts in April, hoping that the enforced discipline will sort some weaknesses I can see in my work, but don't seem to be able to 'cure' on my own! You have to work out, or guess, what might be best for you. I wish I could say it was easier.  Clearly, someone with a different set of pics on Alamy and iStock might have totally different results. Everyone's experience will be different.
14282
« on: January 20, 2011, 20:07 »
Remember that Alamy give you 60% on images sold directly by them, but 40% on images sold via distributors.
14283
« on: January 20, 2011, 16:42 »
Given that they have mulltiple openings for App developers, it just seems like they have some incompetent IT staff. I would expect IT to be top priority for any company that deals in financial transactions online after maybe marketing. What else do they really need to do besides those two.
Maybe the top IT people from istock are still the same people who started with the company in its infancy and isnt qualified to oversee an operation the size of istock.
Posted sometime in nov. so im def not defending them but i dont think comparing what goes on at istock is the same as what happens on different sites like amazon or facebook. facebook employs (steals from google) the best geeks in the world.
I've often said that iStock should headhunt techies from Amazon.
14284
« on: January 20, 2011, 14:02 »
. Constantly adding new equations into the mix that the original code wasnt meant for is bound to have adverse effects.
Amazon seems able to do it.
14285
« on: January 20, 2011, 12:51 »
I tried to sign up as a contributor at IS yesterday but i got a message saying something about new contributors are disable at the present time.
is this a momentary glitch or are they not accepting new aps?
The site has been up and down like a yoyo over the past few days. You know, like Douglas Adams wrote: "I feel like a military academy. Pieces of me keep passing out."
14286
« on: January 20, 2011, 12:41 »
I had to look a bit, but at last I found the thread Source: http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=270252&page=13The thread was "Contributers underpaid twice" Posted By sjlocke:I just don't understand why nothing seems to be happening anywhere, software-wise. No stuck agency fix, no EL listing, no payment/fix of bonus, no E+ tools, no Advanced Search fix, etc. Nothing, nada, zero. Why was Bruce able to push out semi-daily fixes for V8 back when, but with a bigger team (assuming) now, movement is at a snail's pace? Posted by abzee:Maybe a pioneering team with by a charismatic leader was different from the current culture, though lets not forget the snafus that did occur!
Posted by Roger Mexico:Mike, you've made the key point there. Yes, we were faster several years ago, but that came at a cost: the fixes that we did never addressed core issues in the code, and most of the time we were bouncing from one near crisis to the next. Over the last few years we've really restructured our technology team in order to base its priorities more around long term plans rather than the more reactive approach we used to take. The trade off is that while things take us longer to do, the site is more stable and performs better than it ever has. Yes there are still usability bugs and yes some of them are a pain. Yes we are still far from perfect. But on the whole the site works better. And this will continue to happen - gradual improvement. Sean, we are working on all the things that you have listed in your quote there. I know that for some of those issues, we've been working on them for a long time. We're actually getting close with everything there - no I'm not giving a timeline. We want everything fixed too. We know that things like the Exclusive Plus sortability have been outstanding for way too long. We know that the My Uploads page needs a redesign. Most importantly to the topic at hand here, we know this issue of outstanding money being owed to contributors needs fixing and we're working on fixing it.
Posted By risamay:I wonder if these are new job openings, or roles they need to fill per people quitting.
Posted by rogermexico:This is just silly. They are new openings because we continue to grow and need more people. People don't really quit iStock and our turnover is exceptionally low. [snip] Once people are hired people stay. We like working here.
Posted by JJRD:Yeppers Posted by dcdp:"Unless otherwise specified, i Stockphoto does not normally sponsor candidates for work-authorized visa classifications" {Aside from me: maybe it's high time they did}
Posted by retroimages:I take it you are not getting a pay cut next year then? {No answer, was the loud reply}
Posted By dcdp:Anybody who comes on board now is going to a take a month or more to be effective in any case. It takes at least that long to learn how the whole sha-bang holds together (or doesn't).
Posted by rogermexico:It's true - particularly with the development team we take a really gradual integration approach. People spend their first while partnered with more senior developers learning the system, how it works, why it works that way, the various processes, etc. For that reason we do staggered, constant hiring on the development team. We will hire a handful of people every few months in order to always have new hands to learn and graduate [them] up to bigger and bigger projects.
14287
« on: January 20, 2011, 12:15 »
I agree.
If I was one of the big bosses at getty/H&F I would have fired a very high percentage of the emplyees there long ago (and a much higher percentage then the royalties they pay the contributors!).
I think the whole issue is they have difficulty finding good IT people that are willing to work in Calgary. If they were located in Silicone Valley, or New York like many of the other Microstock sites, then they would probably no problem finding a team of competent IT site admins and programmers. They could of course import some if they can't find them within the local work force, but my guess is that the pay at iStock is so poor they have trouble getting good people at all.
I've often wondered about that exact issue (in fact both issues, the pay and the location). I've never been to Calgary so don't know what it's like. Interestingly, many Scots, myself and my husband included, have 'distant relatives' in Calgary. Maybe they should recruit in Scotland!
14288
« on: January 20, 2011, 11:24 »
I'm also glad that I could help to ease our customers' pain by giving them 15% off for credit purchases (>50 credits) http://twitter.com/iStock - even when it was my agent's f*ckup and not my own...
*Caution: some sarcasm may apply*
So it's lose-lose for the drones. Again. Lose while the site is down, probably lose the few hours before when it was crawling and there were many faults (e.g. I got logged out) and we lose again with the vouchers - and that didn't even show when the site was down, so why now? Do the people who muck it up ever lose a penny?
14289
« on: January 20, 2011, 10:34 »
Someone who knows more than me. Dose this happen because of carelessness or dose it just happen at times. I have never seen this
many problems on other sites so what makes iStock different?
Multiple choice: a. They don't care b. They haven't a clue how to make it better c. They're testing our patience. Actually, it's probably d. All of the above. I'm beginning to think that iStock, since September is just a giant experiment to see how much cr*p contributors and buyers will take before leaving. Nothing else. Just like the mice and the earth in H2G2.
14291
« on: January 20, 2011, 09:54 »
Good job I'm banned, or I'd be immediately banned again for 'immoderate language'.
14292
« on: January 20, 2011, 09:17 »
One full hour since the site was down, redirecting visitors to Twitter, yet there's nothing on twitter about today's problem?
14293
« on: January 20, 2011, 08:45 »
And still, after half an hour, nothing relevant on Twitter.
What's the point?
14294
« on: January 20, 2011, 08:24 »
Oh God, I hope it's not another 'improvement'.
Hopefully, they're fixing the last 'improvement'. Oh, it seems like solving last night's 503 errors brought on the massive slowdown. Or maybe the two are entirely unconnected SNAFUs. As the last twitter update was ten hours ago, it makes no sense for the 'technical difficulties' screen to direct us there.
14295
« on: January 20, 2011, 07:59 »
I made a cup of tea in the time it took me to get into a file to wiki it. How mamy buyers would stay that long?
I made a cup of tea in the time between hitting F5 and seeing my balance refresh... 
(Mannn I'm drinking a lot of tea lately...)
Waiting for increases on my balance is like Waiting for Godot, these days. 
14296
« on: January 20, 2011, 07:43 »
SEAN - are you up yet???
Are your sales significantly down this morning? Just wondering how willing buyers are willing to put up with this cr*p.
14298
« on: January 20, 2011, 07:27 »
double post
14299
« on: January 20, 2011, 07:12 »
And my payoneer payment still stucked... 
Patience, pumpkin; it's not 9a.m. in iStockland for hours yet.
14300
« on: January 20, 2011, 07:11 »
"The team is looking into the current performance issues of the site."
(Maybe they could hard wire to suck some of the energy from EvilClown's avatar? or maybe I should do that!)
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; but I doubt if anything will be resolved before office time in Calgary. But maybe it's in the Payoneer system already.
