MicrostockGroup

Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

Topics - Gizeh

Pages: [1]

StockXpert.com / 9 months since Getty bought StockXpert...

« on: August 21, 2009, 09:21 »

... and still the future seems to be quite nebulous. What are your guesses for the future?

Will StockXpert be closed after the JIU/Photos.com deal moves to iStock in 1-2 months?

Or is there a chance of Getty reactivating StockXpert after finding out that iStock cannot deliver enough volume to JIU/Photos.com because more contributors than expected have opted out of the el cheapo distribution scheme?

General - Stock Video / Revostock prices - your opinions please

« on: June 05, 2009, 05:37 »

Just checked out Revostock. They seem to have a well made website, the commissions look quite fair and also sales seem to be there albeit not on a level with the major players.

However I have a serious problem with their pricing. 35$/credits per HD1080 download is an incredible low price. IS gets undercut by 2/3 and even cheapo prices from SS gets undercut by 30 percent.

It would be interesting to hear how you think about this dilemma.

Is Revostock cannibalizing other sites?

Or is the overall market that large and intransparent that nobody cares when the same clip could be bought for 35$/50$ and 90$?

BTW for myself I have decided not to work with Revostock until they have at least raised their prices to the level of SS.

General Stock Discussion / Using a NAS for FTP uploads?

« on: March 20, 2009, 08:01 »

Hi there,

the upload speed of my DSL connection is quite slow and I look for a smart solution for automated FTP uploads over night.

Is anyone using a NAS (Network area storage) as a FTP client for uploading pics or videos? I heard that this is possible but it is not easy for a beginner to configure a NAS accordingly.

Isn't it a cool idea to turn off the computer over night while the NAS is independently doing the job of uploading?. The NAS uses about 20W while a computer would have a power consumtion of 150W or more.

If you are not familiar with NAS technology have a look at an often recommend device here http://synology.com/enu/products/DS107+/index.php

General - Stock Video / Footage pricing

« on: August 25, 2008, 05:53 »

What are your opinions about the pricing trends for footage? As of today IS is charging 75$ for a HD clip and SS and StockXpert charge only 50$. Getty prices start at around 300$.

Are the 50$ prices just the beginning of a price war? Or will SS and StockXpert raises prices when they have gained traction?

Last not least: What is the contributors role in this game? Aren't we the driving force promoting a price war? By giving the same clips to IS,SS and StockXpert we actively support the 50$ price and might even be responsible for IS lowering its prices.

Wouldn't it be smarter to temporarily give our first-rate clips only to IS and let the others have only second-rate clips until they raise their prices to the IS level?

iStockPhoto.com / Keyword related rejections

« on: July 15, 2008, 06:29 »

What is your experience with IS rejections related to 'wrong' keywording?

I had several weird rejections in the last weeks. Example: Submitted a studio shot of a textbook. It got rejected because it had 'education', 'school' and 'indoors' in the keywords. Come on...

Is this a new approach for penalizing non exclusives?

General - Top Sites / A review of Image reviews

« on: March 14, 2008, 04:50 »

Hi there,

after a longer break I just submitted a larger batch of images to the usual suspects (IS,StockXpert,SS). Please find my impressions below. It would be interesting to hear your comments.

IS
The reviewers at IS seem to be the best trained. Often comments are valid and helpful. However there seems to be a pattern to also reject some of my very best images. Could it be that some reviewers have a hidden agenda and reject excellent images for protecting their own portfolios? Acceptance rate: 74 %

StockXpert
Comments very short but usually comprehensible. Good acceptance rate 80%.

SS
Comments mostly completely off and a catastrophic acceptance rate of 23 %. Will have to rethink if this is worth the effort, especially since I don't like their subscription-only business model.

Cheers
Gizeh

General Stock Discussion / The secret of successful shooters finally revealed

« on: November 24, 2007, 04:17 »

Some basic wisdom from Harlan Ellison. I love this guy.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj5IV23g-fE" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj5IV23g-fE</a>

General Stock Discussion / Interesting reading on lords and serfs in microstock

« on: July 24, 2007, 09:28 »

look here:

http://blog.melchersystem.com/2007/07/24/the-beautiful-kingdom-of-photography/

iStockPhoto.com / Search ranks

« on: February 15, 2007, 03:38 »

I just realized that some of my poorer images get excellent downloads because they show up on page 1 while some of my best work hardly gets seen because it has a quite bad search rank.

Does anyone know how the search ranking works at iStock when the default ('best match') sort order gets used? It looks like it is neither driven by no. of downloads, no. of reviews, age nor by exclusivity.

Is there a secret algorithm at work or do inspectors provide a personal rank for every image?

Regards
Gizeh

Pages: [1]