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Messages - Artemis
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126
« on: August 05, 2011, 05:43 »
Oh, you beat me by six minutes!
For us, however, the interesting,exciting/or scary bit is probably the as-ever ambiguous:
"Jonathan Klein wisely told us some time ago that as we hit the 5 million images mark, there would be many great images that simply would not be seen--and it's especially true as we near 10 million. We're looking at ways to resurface those images to get them selling again--even if it means moving them between sites. I'll be looking for your support as we roll out these exciting new options."
If it means that our things get moved to other sites involuntarily he will absolutely NOT have my support nor will he have the support of many other contributors I know.
If you're producing stuff they want, you probably have nothing to worry about. If you have stuff they don't feel is a fit they may move it and not care about your support.
I think that's true for exclusives... there's no way i see them going through the non-exclusive collection to manually sort out files for this or that site. It just screams mass migration to TS for us.... imho this 'moving content over to other sites' will probably take the nepotism thats already going on to a new level; i think i know which contributors will be taken very good care of. It'll be a dark september 
127
« on: August 03, 2011, 19:02 »
latest 20 sales, 7 subs... not here 
128
« on: July 28, 2011, 09:54 »
Apart from the fact i'd never send a buyer to a place that treats me and the customer like sh*t...they want to us to jump through their hoops (the UBB format that used to work doesnt anymore and nobody is 100% sure how the new one is supposed to look like, cant get referrals through MOO cards etc), if you managed to get that right the customer has to jump through another set of hoops (must buy 26 credits at once within 30 days, so if they buy 20, and then another 20 you get nothing). What an exciting offer, cant wait to refer... 
129
« on: July 20, 2011, 06:44 »
I'm inclined to believe it was an honest mistake and appreciate they are trying to correct it by giving us back what they owe us. Isnt it exactely that what istock is doing since the famous site revamp? "Accidentally pushed code early" so that EL bonusses got lost, glitches in the software causing contributors to get 0 royalties for months, etc etc. They dont apologise about it but want us to thank them for the retro payments too. I really hope that is what happened, and pixmac got pretty unlucky it was DT, an agency valued pretty high by many of us (or at least before the similars policy  ) that outed the mistake. If this is what happened they already payed a very high price for it, a tainted name is something that will haunt them for a good while. At least they show good will and decent communications about it... i have yet to see that from the other ones i trust far less because of their superior and arrogant attitudes (FT and iS primarily). If after this i find out you Pixmaccers are frauds im coming over to set your HQ on fire
130
« on: July 01, 2011, 08:47 »
Bloody, bloody awful and to wheep for at istock; downloads are down to 1/4th of what they were last year:  Very solid month though on DT and especially SS.
131
« on: June 30, 2011, 12:12 »
While we're here talking about shutterstock ... anyone else wondered what happened with their plans to start a big free section? Seems awfully quiet about that one....
(sorry for the OT)
132
« on: June 08, 2011, 14:56 »
Is there any word on how these files will be priced yet...? Very curious about that one...
I asked earlier in the thread, but as with other questions, so far no admin responses.
A premium editorial collection was on the cards from day one - I'm pretty sure it was acknowledged as such by IS but put on hold to await some volume in the collection first. My guess is that this move will hasten the introduction of a premium editorial collection.
Good thinking... i'd have guessed the 'istock-plebs' editorial thats there now is the regular editorial and the announced influx the premium editorial collection, but your scenario probably is more likely.
133
« on: June 08, 2011, 10:50 »
Is there any word on how these files will be priced yet...? Very curious about that one...
134
« on: June 06, 2011, 14:34 »
*snip*
My main point though, was that their relevance of being a top agency seems to be slipping which makes it easier to pull your portfolio and rely on other agencies. It's just a theory based on the last 6 months downward trend. I'm just one contributor, but it looks like others are reporting the same trends of sales being half or a third of what they were.
Absolutely agree. (only one year ago iS represented 60% of my overall stock income, it slipped away to barely 25% now) When the day comes its participating in TS or nothing i wont doubt for a second, its not ideal, but i can now 'sustain' myself without istock i was just pointing out i dont think iStock as company is a sinking ship in terms of profit it generates, even with buyers leaving.
135
« on: June 06, 2011, 11:36 »
Right. I think the evidence points to buyers leaving. Sales are dropping, views on images are down. Several brave (or maybe lost) buyers even posting their goodbye notes on the forum.
I agree. There are definitely falling sales which seems to insinuate buyers have left. IS was only about 16% of my earnings last month. It has steadily fallen from a high of 30-40%. Before it was too hard to leave because of the money, but if it continues to fall what will be the reason to stay? With the possibility of a severe summer slump, I could see their house of cards collapsing in the next few months.
I agree buyers are leaving, but im not so sure istock is getting less profit and that their card house is dwindling down... They probably have foreseen buyers on a somewhat tight budget would leave, but i can imagine the succes of Agency (DEFINITELY the wholly owned collections which are pure profit if i'm not mistaken) and Vetta on which they take a larger cut, make more than up for the smaller buyers leaving. For each A/V buyer they probably can afford to lose many smaller buyers and still make more in the end. It's us that are fighting unfair competition with outside photographers/collections without upload margins, lower to no inspection standards etc., having to fight over a smaller part of the pie while istock profits keep growing with different very high priced collections on which they even pay less (to none?) royalties. I'm not sure the future looks bleak for istock... for us on the other hand 
136
« on: June 04, 2011, 17:57 »
I'm almost too embarrased to admit this  , but I have no idea how to thumbs up/down threads there.
Dont be embarrased, its useless knowledge anyways On the right hand side of each post next to 'permalink' there's a thumbs up and down symbol you can click.
137
« on: June 04, 2011, 17:14 »
Is it just me, or has the thumbs down been removed from the Istock 2012 rc targets thread? I know I saw it earlier today.
Why have the thumbs up/down functionality if you are not going to allow people to use it to express their dissatisfaction?
It's probably because some peeps have given it thumbs up; ive noticed before it sort of balances it out, thumbs down can be neutralized by enough thumbs up, and gets top thumbs up by even more thumb's up; if that makes sense  ... if we kept clicking thumbs down on posts the thread most likely would show a thumbs down again; IF it isnt rigged.
138
« on: June 03, 2011, 16:46 »
I say they are staying the same
+1. This is the most face-saving compromise.
I agree, but i really dread and think they'll be going up at least for us 'couldn't-care-less-about' independents, definitely with the adding of P+...(and maybe stay the same for exclusives or come up with some other incentive for them).. I also think they'll shamelessly wont publish them today...(maybe monday so its not within 3 weeks but aaaaalmost )
139
« on: June 02, 2011, 07:51 »
Can't blame you either sharpshot; i also was still not uploading and my commissions have dropped to a fraction of what they were there (-80%), so 2 weeks ago i bended and started uploading again... the vast majority of my uploads came back rejected for keywords only (miss or mister reviewer decided they didnt like 3 keywords and without any other reasons or flaws hit the reject button, while the rejected keywords show on Shutterstock as the top selling keywords for those files..).
I'm really not going to jump through their endless hoops for their miserable commissions, instead i'll just keep doing my best to spread the word about how they run their business and move customers to better places.
140
« on: May 28, 2011, 10:49 »
This is exactly why we need to know who our agencies partner with. There are plenty who have this confidentiality thing and won't report who they partner with. Ridiculous. We are the ones that have to keep track and make sure that our images are correctly monitored and we don't get screwed. Another award winning example right here.
Yeah, are we sure this is a Veer partner? My images arent there (good, keep it that way!) which makes me think its not Veer (strange though Ryan seems to think it is, but didnt they say they would announce any new partners?); my guess is yet another FT partner.
141
« on: May 24, 2011, 06:14 »
My May earnings so far with still a week to go are 40% of my april ones, and my april '11 royalties were barely 50% of what they were in april '10... *weeping song*
I didnt add my full quota to P+ yet, the ones i added sell just as bad as the rest of my portfolio.
142
« on: May 10, 2011, 06:20 »
For a brief while my DL's shifted to European business hours, and now they're just horrendous no matter what time of day it is.
Very idem ditto, the P+ thread makes me pretty worried... everyone reporting good P+ sales while for me in May istock has simply died, i only get an occasional download now and sales are down with about 80%. Plain horrible.
143
« on: May 07, 2011, 00:27 »
I think this sounds like higher RC targets in the make ("all is going so well and we keep growing, whooyay, therefore we must..yadayada").
Opted a couple in nevertheless; like many here i dont have to lose much anymore either since sales dried up mostly anyways.
If this turns out to be a nasty PP - TS trick my portfolio will be gone lightning fast.
144
« on: May 04, 2011, 17:02 »
My low was 10 freaking dollars for a 125 credit EL, and 18 freaking dollars for another 125 credit EL a couple of days later... my blood still boils thinking about it 
145
« on: May 01, 2011, 08:10 »
Istock despite 4 ELs way down, to me they're just thievery disguised in a pathetic disgrace of a site.
Shutterstock and DT both decent BME despite barely uploading, i dont believe this is a coincidence either with iStock performing so bad.
I dont submit to FT; BigStock and Veer are only good for a couple of percents in my total; especially Veer has slowed down for me.
146
« on: April 18, 2011, 10:53 »
From Achilles in the DT forum:
Starting today we will begin to select portfolios that are dramatically affected by this issue and clean them of blatant similars, identicals, flipped images and small angle variations that have 0 downloads. We will try to be gentle but some users will see a significant amount of content being removed. Once they are reviewed they will be removed without refusals being counted in the approval ratio.
Strange indeed they call them 'accidentally approved' while its obviously only about the new similars policy...
147
« on: April 14, 2011, 15:55 »
I think a pretty important point is often forgotten: the vast majority of buyers does NOT read the forums or newsletters.
Awhile ago i bumped into someone who works on the design department of a rather big company here that spends over $2500/month on stock. He said they recently moved over from istock to shutterstock because istock suddenly tenfolded their prices and became very, very expensive. Don't overestimate buyers, plenty of them are clueless about the different collections and will just turn elsewhere if the expensive ones dominate the search results.
148
« on: April 11, 2011, 00:07 »
No explanations, no emails, nothing on teir forum, just a tiny thing on the news page.... Irritating.
This sort of thing is why I dropped Fotolia. People were asking questions - about their weird commission structure, their shadowy 'partner' network, about what exactly a 'credit' was worth - and just not getting any sensible answers. I decided they were a shady operation.
Exactely the same here; they are sneaky, shady and arrogant and in many ways worse than iStock.
149
« on: April 09, 2011, 11:59 »
Oh wait, let me wait next time until the all mighty sjlocke asks for my opinion before I give it....lol
Try addressing things in the context they were said instead of bolding a bit and trying to be funny.
Your post made no sense, where did the OP tell the people he called how to run their business? Talk about taking things out of context..LOL
Trying to justify your pettiness name calling doesn't seem to be working, everyone's fed up with that here.
I think many are fed up with the bickering, period. No matter from which side its coming. (not only in this thread) This clash of interests is just going round and round in circles, why not just hit ignore instead of getting worked up over eachother...?
150
« on: April 09, 2011, 08:17 »
Heh, well thanks for the vote of confidence, but I am only one person. Like you said, just imagine what could happen if 10 or even 100 of us started doing this...
Actually, you aren't, but some folks just aren't voicing their gameplans here. I feel confident that others are right along side of you.
Getty themselves in the first place; i remember them cold calling istock customers suggesting them to move over to Thinkstock .
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