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Messages - Monkeyman
101
« on: October 09, 2013, 17:08 »
At least it's nice to see them do something... but at the same time it's hard not to see it as an act of desperation. Like they're completely lost and don't know how to fix the site so they're trying a little bit of everything. The Fresh Match was pretty much the same... it's like they've given up the idea of ever being able to fix the the broken Best Match, so they launch this compromise instead.
I'm getting more and more desperate since I'm exclusive...
102
« on: October 08, 2013, 07:33 »
Replying to the topic.. Istock has jumped way back up into the the 200's in alexa traffic rank. But I don't see anything on here talking about that stat.
Interesting. More customers thanks to to 50% price cut on photos? Personally I'm not seeing any increase in sales but I'm only selling vectors (which are way to expensive by the way). Edit: Just looked at Shutterstock, Fotolia and Dreamstime and their diagrams look the same.
103
« on: October 06, 2013, 09:08 »
You know, I've being doing these guys an injustice calling them stupid because I haven't been looking at the big picture. People who reach the top of the corporate ladder often have fairly flexible morals / ethics but are rarely stupid. Revenues at IS. have to be down after some of the crazy "initiatives" over the last year but I wonder how much IS contributes to the corporation compared to TS and Getty and what the knock on effects have been there. It's beginning to look like like IS is just there to triage images for other parts of the organisation. In terms of telling them everything that's wrong, they are either doing it deliberately or don't care but, in any case, they KNOW ALREADY.
You're probably right... it's not likely they've missed that sales are down with 30% (or whatever it may be) in one year. Or that tens of thousands of buyers have left. But that only makes it weirder... why aren't they doing more? It makes you wonder what their plan really is. It's like they want to die. The 50% price cut is the only thing they've done that actually means something (not saying it's great but at least it's a change). All other changes are so petty and tiny. New logo, adding "by Getty Images" under the logo, removing a few icons here and there, starting Feast and Fuel... is that really important when the search doesn't work, prices are too high, the loupe images takes 4 seconds to load and the site is running on slow outdated software? Makes you bitter...
104
« on: October 05, 2013, 14:43 »
I've just been sitting around quietly the past two years or so, being annoyed with all the things that doesn't work properly at iStock, so I thought it's time to actually do something. Share my thoughts on how to improve the site with the people in charge. But how the heck do you get in contact with Ellen Desmarais? I'm not a paying member at LinkedIn so that doesn't work. Does anyone know her e-mail?
105
« on: October 03, 2013, 17:42 »
They always get answered as far as I know, but it can take several weeks to get an answer. Maybe even months.
106
« on: September 18, 2013, 03:55 »
Every single day I'm annoyed over how bad Illustrator is. It's packed with bugs and flaws that hasn't been fixed in years, and they never improve any of the basic tools. The pen tool has been the same since the first Illustrator version from 1987. To get all the functions that you (and everbody else) want you have to buy all the Astute Graphics plugins and maybe download a few scripts and other plugins.
So up yours, Adobe! I'm happy to see you struggle.
107
« on: September 17, 2013, 15:54 »
My sales have been going down the whole year... and September could be the worst month of the year, unless sales take off the rest of the month. I'm thinking about leaving exclusivity but after snooping around the microstock forums I'm getting the feeling that sales are poor on most sites... so it's a tough decision. Guess it's time to get a real job... this business is dying. 
108
« on: September 16, 2013, 16:11 »
I guess the OP should change the title of this thread once again.  "I was hoping for a better site and all I got was this lousy logo." or something like that.
109
« on: September 16, 2013, 15:49 »
Haha... I was hoping for a brand new, fast site. All I got was a new logo.
110
« on: September 16, 2013, 14:50 »
Oops! The forum thread went poof! No ruining surprises there, lol.
Maybe they noticed that the new site is slow and buggy, and they've decided to cancel the whole thing. That's usually what happens over there. Seriously though... since I'm still exclusive (very close to leaving it) I'm really hoping for some good news.
111
« on: September 16, 2013, 14:17 »
I'm probably hoping for ***WAY*** to much now... but what if the new site doesn't just have a new look, but also a brand new and modern back-end instead of that ten year old mess of spaghetti code the site is built on at the moment. Imagine a new iStock where it doesn't take three minutes to reach the upload page or five seconds for the loupe images to load. If that's the case I may cry of happiness the whole day tomorrow... maybe even buy myself a little treat and celebrate.
112
« on: September 16, 2013, 06:02 »
I really hope that the EP filter will be hard to find, so that almost nobody will use it.
113
« on: September 16, 2013, 05:26 »
I just found a vector contributor with 99 files and 4300 downloads in eight years. Almost every file in his portfolio is an Editors' Pick file. So 99 files uploaded during eight years and an average of 1,4 downloads a day is to "consistently provide us with some of our best material", like Lobo described it in the iStock forum. 
114
« on: September 13, 2013, 06:17 »
I'm thinking about leaving exclusivity but I realize that it would take hours every week just to upload to all sites. Is Picworkflow the only site available for uploading to multiple sites? Is it any good or packed with bugs and issues? And does it work well with vectors?
115
« on: September 13, 2013, 03:17 »
I'm not convinced that iStock's strategy to promote certain files of their own choice (Vetta, Agency and now Editors' Pick...) is a very good idea. Shouldn't the number of downloads be all that matters? So that the images that customers are actually buying are at the top of each search?
I just noticed that one vector top seller (>200000 downloads) has one Editors' Pick image in his entire portfolio. And that's a one year old file with five downloads... !?
If somebody understand what their long term goal is with all these changes, please enlighten me. I don't get it.
116
« on: September 10, 2013, 14:09 »
If that theory is correct why not just sell on the one site that gives you the best returns? I think it's clear that buyers switching isn't going to make up the difference in lost sales. Look at how nearly 100% of this forum said nothing would happen when Yuri left all those agencies, no buyers would follow.
That's what we all SHOULD do... only sell at the agency with the highest royalty. Then the agencies would have to compete by raising the roaylty and give us other benefits to get any contributors to join them. It would be our market. But of course, that's just a dream... it'll never happen.
117
« on: September 06, 2013, 16:04 »
The whole summer has been really slow... and September hasn't started very well either. If my sales reflect the average contributor and the downward trend continues iStock will be out of business completely in a year or two.
118
« on: August 22, 2013, 10:08 »
My guess is that those figures are fetched from a database and just shows up in the wrong place because of a layout change. Which would mean that the programmers have to change a little code somewhere. But it's still a tiny problem, though... probably just a few minutes work.
Just like you I'm also surprised by how slow many of the issues are fixed at iStock. They must be very understaffed or have a very messy and inefficient organisation at the moment.
I still haven't quit exlusivity though... I have a tiny little bit of hope left...
119
« on: July 19, 2013, 17:07 »
...
Who is going to invest their time and effort in something which is obviously headed in only one direction?
That's what I'm wondering too. And what will happen with the agencies when nobody is uploading new material any longer?
120
« on: July 08, 2013, 10:56 »
Similar sales, but it's way too early to make a call on this.
My idea is that if enough people take the trouble to vote, the overall result will compensate for the limited number of days. I've also allowed for votes to be changed if people want to come back when they have more data. I was very surprised to see that my own sales were so much up despite the summer.
How do you change your vote? Just realised I voted as non-exclusive, but I'm exclusive.
121
« on: July 08, 2013, 08:46 »
June was my worst month ever as exclusive and July seems to be even worse. This is the first time since I became exclusive that I'm seriously worried about sales.
122
« on: July 01, 2013, 09:39 »
Yeah, you're right. It's the same for everyone. Whatever happens it's hard to see any bright future in this business...  There are just to many people creating the same types of photos/illustrations.
123
« on: July 01, 2013, 07:14 »
I wonder how much longer this business is going to stay the same... it has to come to a point when vector artists give up and stop uploading because the return per image is just too low (I'm getting closer and closer to that point every day... ). What will happen to the microstock sites then? In the long run they're doomed without new images. Will they raise prices? Start deleting hundreds of thousands of the ugliest low sellers and get rid of all the amateur contributors? Or will we all be ousted by talented illustrators in developing countries who are willing to work 15 hours a day for a few dollars? As contributors we could of course "protest" by stop selling at the cheapest sites (like Yuri did a while ago), but there will always be too many masochistic contributors who like to give away their work for nothing at sites like Shutterstock and Vectorstock.
124
« on: July 01, 2013, 07:01 »
I'm also iStock exclusive and my sales have been going down every month this year. June was my worst month ever as exclusive.
125
« on: June 27, 2013, 04:41 »
Illustrator royalties have changed too.
I'm bitter and hateful so I'll just assume that this is not a mistake. It's quite clear to me that iStock has been dying for a couple of years, and all they do to "save" the company is to raise prices and give less to contributors to keep the profit on the same level in the short run.
What are they gonna do when there are twenty buyers left? Charge a million for one credit?
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