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Adobe Stock / Re: Newbie here and have rank question
« on: November 25, 2015, 17:52 »
Has that changed? I thought Emerald used to be 50,000.
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Adobe Stock / Re: Newbie here and have rank question« on: November 25, 2015, 17:52 »
Has that changed? I thought Emerald used to be 50,000.
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iStockPhoto.com / Re: Istock - carousel similars removed from search results?« on: November 24, 2015, 20:13 »
Since the implementation of this 'stacked similars' policy back in July my sales at iStock have been gradually falling month after month. I imagine as they gradually remove more and more similars, overall sales will just get worse and worse. I have a sizeable number of Christmas seasonal images that in the past have produced good performance around this time of year, but none of that usual burst of activity is happening. It seems that whatever new things they try to do just results in fewer sales.
Looking back to those big sudden changes in Sept 2012, it seems that every move since then has been a disaster for suppliers, and a disaster for iStock too, given its falling financial results. But still new changes are implemented, and still the sales fall... 153
iStockPhoto.com / Re: just started with istock« on: November 23, 2015, 18:43 »
A rising tide floats all boats. A waning tide sinks all boats. iStock appears to be a sinking business. Look for agencies where the tide is rising. Put all your effort into those agencies, and don't bother with those where the boats are sinking.
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CanStockPhoto.com / Canstockphoto - is it worth it?« on: November 21, 2015, 20:36 »
I see from the Poll on the right that CanStock is showing results similar to BigStock. Does this reflect reality for most people? Is CanStock worth uploading to, or are the numbers misleading like Deposit? Has there been any improvement and/or progress at CanStock since they were integrated into Fotosearch?
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iStockPhoto.com / Re: Do you believe that Thinkstock is dying?« on: November 20, 2015, 19:48 »
My Thinkstock sales have fallen dramatically over the past couple of years. A few days ago I looked at the website and did a few searches. I couldn't see much difference between 'best match' and 'newest', and frankly the 'best match' results looked like nonsense anyway. No surprise that sales are falling.
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iStockPhoto.com / Re: Getty's new $100m debt« on: November 10, 2015, 21:49 »
I searched for all the details on this deal and in doing so came across a Moodys credit report that had a headline in September that Getty had warned of continuing deterioration in its mid-stock business. Unfortunately I couldn't access the full report, but the headline suggests a further warning of reduced or stagnant revenues.
It seems to me that Carlyle has abandoned Getty as a viable investment. They have billions under their control, and usually if a business has a temporary hiccup and needs extra cash, the major shareholder will contribute further equity. Indeed, this was the recommendation of Moodys, but it's clear that Carlyle didn't want to, so it forced Getty to raise cash in the junk bond market. The fact that Carlyle didn't come to the rescue speaks volumes. They've passed the buck onto investors who are prepared to consider higher risk investments. And the higher risk is compensated somewhat by the high 10% coupon. And what junk this is: it seems they had to come to an arrangement with existing bondholders to repay those bonds at only 65% of face value, hence the 'partial default' flagged by Moodys. Those Bonds were actually trading at only 30c, so it's an improvement on market price, but still represents a loss of 35% on par. They replaced those Bonds with a new issue, paying 10% interest and issued them at 95% of par. Most extraordinary was the huge fee of 2.5% they had to pay the middleman to place those Bonds. Make no mistake - this is a junk Bond issue. If they have to go to such extraordinary lengths just to refinance a relatively small Bond, imagine what will happen when the $1.9 billion Bond expires in a few years. That Bond is currently trading at only 60c on the Dollar, suggesting that the Bond market doubts that the Bond will ever be repaid at par. Of course these fun and games can carry on for years and years. Eventually it will come to a head, particularly if Getty/iStocks's gross revenue continues to deteriorate, but the climax is likely to be years away. 158
iStockPhoto.com / Istock - carousel similars removed from search results?« on: November 03, 2015, 19:59 »
Has iStock implemented a 'stacked images' policy similar to the one used by Getty, where only one image from a series is actually shown in search results? Has there been any announcement about this?
Today I looked at my portfolio sorted by 'newest' and was rather surprised to find that more than half of files uploaded in recent months are not visible. More specifically all the similars are missing. If I'd uploaded a small series of four or five, only one of those is actually shown in my portfolio. When I click on that image I can see all the others in that series shown in the similars carousel. But they don't appear in my portfolio and I cannot find them if I search. This appears to be similar to Getty's 'stacked images' system where only one image from a series is shown in the search results, and the others are only visible as similars. Has anyone else noticed this? If implemented across the board, this could eliminate millions of images from the search results and have significant implications for sales. 159
New Sites - General / Re: EyeEm Market is working, first images showing at Getty now« on: October 13, 2015, 13:48 »
I went to the Getty web site and, using the RF Collection filter, I was able to select the Eyeem and Eyeem Premium collections. Total of 734,771 files are shown.
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DepositPhotos / Re: Depositphotos Keyword prioritize order« on: October 11, 2015, 15:29 »
123RF has a keyword priority system?
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Adobe Stock / Adobe new extended licences $79« on: October 10, 2015, 22:18 »
According to this article by Lee, Adobe is launching extended licences priced at $79.99. The terms will be the same as for Fotolia extended licences:
http://www.microstockdiaries.com/adobe-stock-adds-deeper-integration-video-and-extended-licenses.html There was recently some discussion about the 'correct' price for extended licences at Fotolia, with many people arguing for $100 and Mat suggesting $60 based on his long term experience there. Clearly Adobe's research suggests $79.99 to be the optimum price. I imagine that in due course there will be pricing changes at Fotolia, perhaps introducing the EL at a standard price, but for the time being I'm going to price all my files at the same $79.99 for ELs. 162
General - Stock Video / Re: How's the sales in October on VideoBlocks? It slowed down a bit for me.« on: October 10, 2015, 06:54 »I don't know what happened. Over the last few months you've started six or seven threads all singing the praises of VideoBlocks, all saying how good your sales are and how much money you are making. You basically advertised your success and opened the doors for every man and his dog to bombard Videoblocks with submissions, all wanting a piece of the pie. If your sales are down, it's because sales have been diluted by the wave of new submissions, and for this you have only one person to blame - yourself. Next time when you discover something good in life, follow a basic simple rule - KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT. 163
Dreamstime.com / Re: Dreamstime dropped to Middle tier??« on: October 06, 2015, 22:10 »
On the other hand they also seem to accept quite a lot of poor quality stuff. Looking through the latest uploads I see lots of pictures that are dull, poor lighting, poor composition, LCV. Even looking at some searches by 'relevance' shows work of questionable quality.
I like Dreamstime because they are honest and trustworthy. However, the management haven't got the entrepreneur spirit that Istock, Shutterstock and Fotolia had, and Dreamstime simply failed to make the same growth as the others during those years when the market was hot. Now they appear to be copying the others by going for massive portfolio growth. But without customer growth all that will happen is massive dilution of every portfolio and incomes will decline for everyone. 164
iStockPhoto.com / Re: New One month subscription plan« on: October 06, 2015, 16:53 »
This looks like a very simple business plan - "let's screw our suppliers and take all the money for ourselves".
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iStockPhoto.com / Re: New One month subscription plan« on: October 05, 2015, 20:48 »
Those advertised amounts are in Pounds Sterling. The non-exclusive plan works out at about $40, from which they will pay non-exclusives ten subs of 28c each, or $2.80.
That works out at a commission rate of 7%. Or, to describe it differently, they get to keep 93% and pay their suppliers 7%. The Exclusive numbers are a little better. However the actual cash differences comparing credit sales and subs sales are substantial. At the moment I believe Exclusives get between $8 and $14 for a sale. If these subs replace credit sales (which appears to be the intention), then the maximum payment will be $2.50 per sale, and more like $1.25 on average. So, ten sales that currently make $80 to $140 will reduce to somewhere in the range $12.50 to $25.00. 166
Shutterstock.com / Re: Cap on daily earnings?« on: September 26, 2015, 17:38 »It is funny how people love conspiracies these days. Yes, I've noticed exactly the same thing. However I don't think this is something devious and nasty going on - I suspect that SS is simply trying to be fair to as many suppliers as possible, and give as many people as possible a good slice of the pie. 167
Stocksy / Re: Stocksy images for sale at CreativeMarket - Royalties?« on: September 25, 2015, 03:29 »
That's a very nice collection from eyeem. I can see why Getty has pushed that collection to the front of the search results. 168
DepositPhotos / Re: DP does not switch off api and partner program« on: September 24, 2015, 22:44 »
I can see some of my stuff on iBudget and Glow Images. My sales at DP are poor and I'm concerned to see my work being bandied about all these partners with little or no income to show for it. I know some people get good results from DP, and others see few sales. I'm in the few sales camp. These partner program revelations make me feel uncomfortable and I suspect I'll be removing DP from my upload list.
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Adobe Stock / Re: Sales nearly stopped at Fotolia« on: September 24, 2015, 20:51 »
Yes, something happened a week or ten days ago. My sales dropped by about 30% overnight and have stayed at the lower level ever since. Most likely a search change, but of course it might be a seasonal thing. I suspect a search change. I don't mind search changes because generally they are swings and roundabouts and usually the situation recovers. However, this time I've noticed that since the change new uploads don't seem to be getting the sales like before.
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General - Stock Video / Equipment for 4K« on: September 19, 2015, 15:43 »
I plan to start to make stock videos from the beginning of next year, and feel that I should go straight to 4K.
My 5Dii only does HD I believe, so for 4K I'll have to invest in new equipment. What equipment do people here use to produce high quality 4K? What's the best to buy in terms of the best balance of budget and results? 172
Shutterstock.com / Re: Cap on daily earnings?« on: September 18, 2015, 21:25 »
Yes, I've noticed the same thing. One or two ELs or decent SODs then suddenly everything else dries up for a day or two. Then, things get back to normal. The drop after the additional income from ELs etc is noticeable.
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General Stock Discussion / Re: Adobe Stock Launches Subscription Sharing for Creative Cloud for Teams« on: September 15, 2015, 23:25 »My RM licenses via my own site and via Alamy and some small boutique sites are on an upswing lately as are RF images from those same sites that are not available via the micros. I don't think they are dead and in fact they are probably going to grow in importance for those businesses, publications and websites that need more unique content. I think the stock world will continue to have room for both kinds of images. This sounds pretty well accurate to me. And in addition to the RM agencies seeing a little more demand, specialist areas like Stocksy are flourishing. In the recent interview with Lee Torrens, Stocksy's CEO said that their top photographers are making more than $100,000 a year. Sounds like that's where all the Vetta customers went. 174
Shutterstock.com / Shutterstock - new uploads not selling« on: September 14, 2015, 16:55 »
I've noticed that over the past month or two my new uploads to Shutterstock aren't selling particularly well. The sales action seems to be in older files at the moment. Has there been a search shift towards older files? Is this something that happens from time to time?
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Bigstock.com / Re: Uploaded images never showed up in Bigstock portfolio« on: September 08, 2015, 18:19 »
I have the same problem. Four or five batches uploaded three to four weeks ago were approved but the files never showed up in my portfolio. I've waited to see if this was just an unusual delay in the indexing run, but still none of those uploads are showing. I'll be writing to them today to draw this problem to their attention.
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