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Messages - ShadySue
14526
« on: December 15, 2010, 19:33 »
Oh, if it was lost on you, Sue, I'm guessing that we had a lot more stupid and unfunny racist jokes South of the border in the 70's than you did up in Scotland.
Oh we still have them, but with a very different target. 
14527
« on: December 15, 2010, 19:15 »
I thought for a minute there this was anti-semitic, until I remembered that North Americans pronounce 'Dewey' as 'Do we'. 
And, how else could you even pronounce Dewey, especially in a way that is anti-semetic?
Signed by : clueless in North America.
We'd say Dew-ee, (rhymes with Hughie), never 'do we'. But I've said before that once in Atlanta Ga, my sister and I were in the Hard Rock Cafe and as part of their Caledonian Week celebations (note: we're Scottish), the 'greeter' informed us that they were having a (pronounced as) De Warre's promotion. We laughed loudly when we looked at the card and saw it was Dewar's (pronounced Dew-arr's) whisky! The anti-semitic reference has lost me.
14528
« on: December 15, 2010, 16:45 »
...
Sorry, at this point, it's your fault for not getting them up in time. I stopped uploading holiday stuff a couple weeks ago.
The actual issue however is whether IS has what you would consider adequately fast computers and software to complete the keyword indexing and lightbox links for images after they have been approved and are otherwise retrievable.
Note RM's explanation copied above.
14529
« on: December 15, 2010, 15:47 »
Sorry, at this point, it's your fault for not getting them up in time. I stopped uploading holiday stuff a couple weeks ago.
That's all very well and good, and I know that with lead times, seasonal photos sell best about 6-10 weeks beforehand, but for some of mine I had to wait for snow. And now one's gone to executive. Ah well, next year, maybe, depending on the best match.
14530
« on: December 15, 2010, 15:30 »
Another fiasco of which I am reminded as I race to upload some holiday pix and get them in front of customers' eyes in time for Christmas ... it takes several days for them to show up in searches, or even to show up in the private lightboxes to which they were added. I know they've got millions of files and thousands of keywords to index, but what did they implement their DB with, freaking BASIC on Commodore 64's?
If Google was to buy IS that's a bug that would be fixed, pronto. The proof: I just searched at google for [site:istockphoto.com <my keywords>] and they already found - as the 4th item in the text results - an image that I uploaded a few days ago and which is still not indexed at IS.
I wish they would fix this, but I'm not sure that they even recognize it as a bug which is hampering their sales and profits. If seasonal images are not promptly indexed and made available for sales in time, then they are stuck storing them on their servers for almost a whole year before they will generate any revenue.
Notice from RogerMexico: "They have been holding back doing the search update over the last few days to make sure that all the pushes and changes to the search didn't cause things to be missed when they did. They are now satisfied that it will update correctly and have turned it all back on. Images since Saturday will be available in searches soon."
14531
« on: December 15, 2010, 14:17 »
If they could put some of the energy into working on fixes (i.e. not just going home at 5pm and leaving the buggy search and no admins to respond) that they do into insulting buyers, we'd all be better off.
Ay, there's the rub.
14532
« on: December 15, 2010, 11:55 »
I guess I should have [Anita Vettesse] in square brackets in the Essential Keywords field, but would other people put her name in brackets in the caption too?
I also wonder if I should put an alternative spelling of her surname (one 't') as I see about the same number of Google hits for her on the wrong spelling. Actually, I've stopped wondering and will do it now.
14533
« on: December 15, 2010, 07:45 »
That whole fiasco could have been avoided if only her first question had been properly answered, rather than locked and referred to a totally irrelevant thread on another forum. We all make mistakes, but it could have been sorted if the admin who locked it had, when I SMd him on the loupe issue, had opened the thread again and cleared up that point. Now lizzielou and malamus are so angry they're digging themselves in really deep.
When I taught, we were always told to try to diffuse situations, to try to avoid a situation from escalating.
Looks like some admins deliberately fanned the fire from the very beginning on this one.
(Get down, conspiracy theorist - I was even beginning to wonder if there was a 'back story.)
14534
« on: December 15, 2010, 07:31 »
Well, it seems that search not only searches all words, but gives hits for images where the word doesn't feature. Yesterday I had a search result for Anita & me film, just like that. One of my pics showed up, and when I checked, this is what I've got:  NB, this isn't about me or my image. It's about getting the right results before buyers. The buyer clearly didn't want any photos just keyworded Anita. (I have had one-word searches on a common first or last name.Maybe someone was writing a book/article on 'Margarets' or whatever.)My pseudo is my name, no 'film' and the unsearchable description says, "Cargo is a play by Scotland's Iron Oxide Theatre Company produced by Chloe Dear."
14535
« on: December 15, 2010, 07:15 »
so ? they must be joking if they are offering 17% commissions while stuffs at alamy is 50%. no way i'm putting editorial to istock
Alamy commission is 60% for most people
60%/40% for most people. ('agency' sales being 40%). Your actual average will depend on which markets buy your work.
14536
« on: December 15, 2010, 06:44 »
so ? they must be joking if they are offering 17% commissions while stuffs at alamy is 50%. no way i'm putting editorial to istock
Alamy commission is 60% for most people and 89% of their profits go to a medical research programmme. http://www.alamy.com/medical-research.asp
I'm not doing this for charity but it highlights the difference between the two businesses and makes istock's justification for cutting commissions look pathetic.
Heaven forfend that I should be seen as an apologist for iStock, but that Alexa chart  ... suggests that they're spending more on marketing. (yeah, yeah, then getting the punters in, they p*ss them off by a site that seldom works properly, bugs that take years to fix and slag them off on the forums)But yes, I'd rather support Alamy's range of charities than JK's Manhattan flat. But I WISH Alamy would set a simple 'Editorial only' button. Added: thanks for your reminder about Alamy's charities. At the time I had a photo uploading to iStock and a horizontal 'similar' I was working on to remove 'possible' IP problems, i.e. iStock would always reject to 'be on the safe side'. I cancelled the upload, went back to the original RAWs and will upload to Alamy. Funny how you get into habits ... or 'muscle memory'. In fact, I think it's probably more of an Alamy/editorial image anyway, but I still find it hard to call beween them.
14537
« on: December 14, 2010, 21:09 »
Do a search.
Now look in the left-hand column, under the five check boxes list.
Click on Photo and illustration filters.
You can then click on Vetta and Agency filters, effectively filtering out 'normal' Exclusive and Exc+ files as well as non-exclusive files.
Even if only one or two buyers use this, a promise is a promise.
Unless it's a piecrust.
They must've "pushed through" another "fix". It seems that, clicking on "Collections", you're able to opt out of any exclusive or non-exclusive normal image, and select Vetta, Agency or Pump Audio collection files only.
Yes, sorry - totally my mistake. It's 'Collections' you need to click on, not 'Photo and illustration filters'. BTW, shouldn't they just have separated these. It's just confusing to have them lumped together. BTW[2] I see someone quoted KKT as saying, "I do want to point out some important omissions. Due to some technical issues behind the scenes, we wont be including searches based on Color, Copyspace or Collections until shortly into the new year. So this means you will not be able to search on color, copyspace or filter only the standard collections. Again, this is temporary." If that's a true quote, how come is that the search on the Vetta and/or Agency collection has been included. And I know you can search DB only, though I can't see how to find that. And although last night I found DB images at the end of a search of only 13 results, I haven't been able to replicate that today. Probably one of the least important bugs to fix.
14538
« on: December 14, 2010, 20:37 »
Ummm....wasn't the issue with the fact that they couldn't filter out the Vetta/Agency collection so they wouldn't have to dig to find the cheeper images??
The way it is they can filter out the cheeper images but not the Vetta/Agency. So basically what they did was not address the problem of filtering out the Vetta/Agency
Well, yes, but that's a different issue.
14539
« on: December 14, 2010, 20:08 »
^ that's not what's happening. buyers can filter to view only the MOST expensive collections (Vetta & Agency), but not the reverse. I don't see the broken promise, nor an issue with that functionality. using this example as ammo in the 'iStock are liars arsenal' is silly.
The promise was that exclusive files would never be filterable out. That's a broken promise. Not quite the same as lying. Just making a promise that they couldn't keep.
14540
« on: December 14, 2010, 19:06 »
Are you an iStock employee, Sean? I thought it was just an agency representing you.
Lobo's response was unforgivably rude. Instead of addressing the issue he just chose to insult the customer on what appears to be a false premise. Even if he was right about the dual account, that is not relevant to the complaint.
I'm not commenting on the response. I just saying I understand the rationale behind being concerned about that.
I don't. So can you please explain? Added: sorry, I saw you did. I'll respectfully agree to differ with your take on this.
14541
« on: December 14, 2010, 19:06 »
Ummm ....
How exactly can exclusive images be filtered out?
I tried, and the only option I found was to exclude non-exclusive images (i.e., show "Exclusive Only").
I don't have a problem with that, but I'm not sure there are many buyers who would find that useful.
Do a search. Now look in the left-hand column, under the five check boxes list. Click on Photo and illustration filters. You can then click on Vetta and Agency filters, effectively filtering out 'normal' Exclusive and Exc+ files as well as non-exclusive files. Even if only one or two buyers use this, a promise is a promise. Unless it's a piecrust.
14542
« on: December 14, 2010, 19:00 »
I just got back to my desk and saw that the thread had been locked. I was thinking "thank goodness Lobo stepped in and stopped the verbal abuse" but no, he just added to it by pulling the old buyer/contributor/worthlessness card out of his sleeve and locked the thread in his usual cowardly way.
Just freakin incredible. I wonder how many times I have said that in the last few weeks about IS.
I am totally incandescent about this. Totally. I will refrain from saying more here. I have SMd Lobo directly.
How can you be blocked from posting and still have access to sitemail? I thought the two were intertwined.
I've only been banned from the forums.
14543
« on: December 14, 2010, 18:59 »
Posted By cnicbc:
Awesome! I think I remember something similar being introduced a while ago, but it was limited to "elite" photographers
That's probably a reference to that ill-fated Istanbul editorial lypse, after which submitters didn't have a portal for their images. I guess they'll now be able to send them editorial to the new iStock collection. Hope they didn't delete them in frustration!
14544
« on: December 14, 2010, 18:49 »
I just got back to my desk and saw that the thread had been locked. I was thinking "thank goodness Lobo stepped in and stopped the verbal abuse" but no, he just added to it by pulling the old buyer/contributor/worthlessness card out of his sleeve and locked the thread in his usual cowardly way.
Just freakin incredible. I wonder how many times I have said that in the last few weeks about IS.
I am totally incandescent about this. Totally. I will refrain from saying more here. I have SMd Lobo directly.
14545
« on: December 14, 2010, 11:57 »
I am prepared to accept that it's not iStock's fault, it's the puppeteers pulling the strings.
How do you draw such a distinction? Istock is company that acts in accordance with the directives of its owners. Or is there some Platonic Ideal iStock existing in an ethereal sphere which behaves quite differently from the flawed Earthly istock?
I'm trying to 'make allowances'. Wouldn't want to be toooooooo negative!
14546
« on: December 14, 2010, 11:53 »
I am wondering if, just as they are trying to get rid of non-exclusive and/or exclusive "slackers" (in Getty's eyes, not mine), perhaps they don't care that they are losing the small buyers? (I am of course making an assumption that the buyers that are leaving do not work for big agencies with deep pockets). Maybe we are all correct, Getty does NOT care about their buyers. The ones they DO care about are sewn up deeply in their pockets and that's all that matters. Just an observation on my part.
What's considered a small buyer? The poster from Jamie's quote and some of the other peeved buyers said they had several hundred credits. That may not be a premium buyer, but seems like someone that buys fairly frequently. Definitely, a customer I'd like to have.
I am embarrassed about the slagging that OP has got from some contributers. Where's Lobo to delete the abusive posts? Some contributers are lucky to have fast internet connections and don't know that you can't change sort order until a whole search page has loaded (15 seconds for 200 images here). If you try while the page is downloading, you've blown it. This is also the case if you try to add an image to a lightbox while the image page is still downloading (i.e. no 'done' in the bottom left) - you just get taken to iStock's home page. Wonder who thought up that annoyance. These have been on the site for years. Although I apparently must have a slow connection, in that others don't seem to know about this strange behaviour, I don't know of a single site, small or large, commercial or personal, which won't let you use page functions before the whole page loaded. "What would Amazon do?" needs to become the iStock mantra.
14547
« on: December 14, 2010, 10:40 »
Hasn't the feedback from Micros been that it isn't worth sending editorial images RF/micro? Even though iStock still seems to have a higher reach, that's hardly going to make a difference.
Maybe Getty has some 'wholly owned editorial content' from somewhere?
14548
« on: December 14, 2010, 10:31 »
But we've wandered off the OP and the broken promise from JJRD that it would never be possible to turn off exclusive files. Never means 'never', it doesn't mean 'sometimes'.
The minute Getty bought istock, the whole notion of "never" went right out the window. When you've got a company like Getty calling the shots, promises made when istock was still istock are no longer promises that anyone could realistically expect them to keep.
iStock was already owned by Getty when I joined and when that promise was made. But as you say, no promise made by iStock is believable for more than the next few days or weeks. I am prepared to accept that it's not iStock's fault, it's the puppeteers pulling the strings.
14549
« on: December 14, 2010, 10:29 »
Dang, this had me excited for a second...pretty weak they won't be accepting celebrities or sports considering it is next to impossible to get in with Getty at this point.
Mat
They're not going to let micro compete with the mother ship, when celeb/sport is probably what's still making Getty the most money at Macro prices.
14550
« on: December 14, 2010, 09:00 »
That's what I'd think if I were a buyer, but apparently lots of buyers buy what's popular because they think it must be good. I've read posts from buyers more or less saying that.
So why do you think contributors don't want it showing? What's the harm?
It's been posted on the iStock forums often. It's thought to lead to copying, and I'm sure to some extent, it does. I don't necessarily mean direct copying, but copying an idea. Better for the buyers (more choice) not so good for the contributers, sharing sales.
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