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Messages - weymouth
51
« on: October 01, 2015, 07:56 »
I got some friends on the books at Stocksy and Offset, been there since the very start and with large portfolios. They always seem to complain about a complete lack of sales?
Personally I don't know? haven't really looked at these agencies or their content.
anybody here that have sales with them?
52
« on: October 01, 2015, 03:51 »
it doesn't really work like that in the photo-agency business. SS, whats their company assets?.... picture of course. They are in the business of selling pictures, the more the better. By keeping the majority of contributors "happy" they will forever upload more and more and soon some 60 million assets will turn into 70 million assets. The share-holders are extremely impressed with this.
Of course what they don't think about is that all these assets belong to the photographers but we have allowed SS to market and sell them on our behalf since they can do that a heck of a lot better then we can.
Its business all the way. 
Shutterstock is in the business of selling Subscriptions and other plans - not selling pictures. There is no real incentive to have more images downloaded unless they can get more buyers to purchase more Subscription Plans.
Of course its subscriptions packages, the ultimate killer of this industry, we all know that. I was calling it pictures since their product is pictures and not cars. Thats all. However if you have lets say plenty of EL's, Single-sales and On-demand sales. That is sales of single images. Not subscriptions.
53
« on: September 30, 2015, 11:39 »
Very, very good but as said, a bit repetative. I wouldn't say its the best in the world but it certainly is a great port.
54
« on: September 30, 2015, 11:35 »
After reading more and more of this conspiracy theories I have to state my opinion:
I have worked in Law Enforcement for several years. One thing you learn with experience is when something "smells suspicious" and when it doesn't'. A good rule of thumb is to think like the person who you suspect. Think what would his motivation be of doing this "crime" and is there any motivation at all. In this case the suspect is Shutterstock. Does Shutterstock have anything to win on putting a daily cap on peoples earnings? If they had would the win be worth the time of making an advanced algorithm to put a daily cap on peoples earnings? In my opinion. No. No. And no!
The aim of Shutterstock to make as much profit of their portfolio of images as possible. I believe the approach of Shutterstock is to let the search algorithm do the work based on customer behavior whereas Stocksy for example has a more curated approach. I'm pretty sure the Shutterstock search algorithm is prioritizing images based on popularity of images and that the search is differentiated based on location.
And let's say that evil Shutterstock did but a cap on your earnings - there would be nothing you could do about it.
My point is: Stop worrying about conspiracies. Shoot more pictures. 
it doesn't really work like that in the photo-agency business. SS, whats their company assets?.... picture of course. They are in the business of selling pictures, the more the better. By keeping the majority of contributors "happy" they will forever upload more and more and soon some 60 million assets will turn into 70 million assets. The share-holders are extremely impressed with this. Of course what they don't think about is that all these assets belong to the photographers but we have allowed SS to market and sell them on our behalf since they can do that a heck of a lot better then we can. Its business all the way.
55
« on: September 30, 2015, 03:26 »
Why working out methods and why bother at all? if there is such a thing as a cap or whatever it is. It's perfectly legit and above board anyway.
56
« on: September 30, 2015, 03:21 »
That forum is dead and so is the GI forum. Any All news, all mails almost everything from Getty out to the world carries a confidential-stamp! so why would they really want a forum with free and open discussions?
they don't.
57
« on: September 29, 2015, 12:27 »
Having a great day myself there with some $. 93 and thats without any EL.
58
« on: September 29, 2015, 10:06 »
I get no charge at all from Paypal.
59
« on: September 29, 2015, 06:53 »
Which prompts me to try re-submitted the images few more times and see if another reviewer gets it accepted.
I don't understand why you should try few more time to submit an image on a subject which is sufficiently covered on SS. Actually, it seems like you have copied the concept from already existing photos on SS.
Actually, it's not original to SS. That concept has been around long before SS. It could even be considered 'classic'.
Yes this concept was beaten to death by N.Y photographers like Mitchell-Funk, Burt-Glinn and many more. That was back in 1985
60
« on: September 29, 2015, 05:55 »
Which prompts me to try re-submitted the images few more times and see if another reviewer gets it accepted.
I don't understand why you should try few more time to submit an image on a subject which is sufficiently covered on SS. Actually, it seems like you have copied the concept from already existing photos on SS.
Bingo!!
61
« on: September 29, 2015, 05:16 »
No thats not editoria at all! looks like an AD for a cab company or similar.
62
« on: September 29, 2015, 03:53 »
I don't think its the cab in itself, SS tend to reject anything to do with transport, cars, trucks, aircrafts and so on. Problems with logos and trademarks. Even if you remove the logo from a BMW, the car is still recognizable isn't it.
Besides, monochrome don't sell too well.
63
« on: September 28, 2015, 16:49 »
I'm going to tell you what happened. Go to search and type in "food". Now check the number of results.
The fact its a popular category got nothing to do with the search algorithm, concerns the placement of the pictures not the amount.
Perhaps you could be a little less enigmatic? Your post says check the number of of results not about placement?
Thanks! changed my post. I was in a hurry and got it wrong.
64
« on: September 28, 2015, 15:32 »
I'm going to tell you what happened. Go to search and type in "food". Now check the number of results.
The fact its a popular category got nothing to do with the search algorithm. The search concerns the placements not the category-
65
« on: September 28, 2015, 08:08 »
I am afraid it looks as if they have changed the search/algorithm. Well so far so good and I hope the change isn't too damaging.
It seems completely and utterly stupid to change a search now. It was a winning formula and many, many people were happy the way it was going.
66
« on: September 28, 2015, 03:10 »
Excellent post HalfFull - I think this is exactly what's happening. "...there is a a cut off that slows sales down once a threshold is met" - that's what I see. Which brings me back to my original question - does SS decide how much to pay each of us and we're just getting a salary? It sure feels like that to me. What's the point of improving then and growing your portfolio? Motivation - down the toilet...
Time to move out of this business.
For the last seven months I have been within. 5% give or take of my monthly threshold. Amazing! having siad this I really don't mind being on a monthly salary as long as its a good salary. LOL. so I can't complain.
As far as improving, growing your port, uploading? well thats gone down the drain long time ago. What we are seeing now is exactly a carbo-copy of what happened with the traditional photo-agencies back in the mid 90s followed by a few years and then it all collapses.
I don't think we are seeing the collapse of the business just a business finding the limitations of it's current ranking system. This system works great when the business is growing fast and the increase split over all it's contributors is increasing each month. Now, with the volume of contributors and the slowing growth (in terms of revenue coming in) and the still massive increase in terms of contributors / images they are having to cut the amount of earnings to some.
They are still working on the principle of trying to please everyone but not really pleasing anyone. The bigger earners will feel they are being held back, lower earners will be happy to begin with until throttling comes in. Lower earners who supply a lot will wonder why their earnings don't increase in line with the growth of their port etc etc.
The system they employ means people earn well from the beginning (sales come in quickly) rather than seeing very little for months until image and contributor ranking builds up based on sales (without promotion). This more traditional approach of rewarding increased rank based on image popularity only means there will be fewer individual contributors at the top, not as varied selection of images (but still plenty, 1000's contributors still) but the ones that don't cut it will fall quickly and ultimately stop supplying, while the successful ones will continue to supply, possibly in greater numbers. This of course speeds up the demise of the less successful contributors as images are pushed further down.
The type of growth curve from this type of ranking is a very shallow to begin with but will steepen quickly once images move up the ranking system faster. Like a rolling snowball it can gather pace quickly. There are a few agencies out there that work with this more traditional approach.
SS will have to decide if it wants to continue to please everyone (and fail) or reward those whose images climb up the ranking system without assistance (and reduce the variety of contributors). Continuing the way they are going now will ultimately result in them losing more contributors from the middle to top as they will be full time and looking for increased earnings from their increased portfolios.
I believe SS are at a crossroads and they'll have to revisit how they rank contributors as FT starts eating into their client base more and more, which will in turn will mean contributors at SS will notice this capping more and more.
Very good post! well written! yes held-back is the right expression. I have experienced and on a number of occasions the potential earnings capacity from SS and its quite daunting. There have been many $.500/ days there. The potential is enormous. Pleasing everybody is an impossibillity. I believe there are some 50K contributors to SS. Joke! and as you say Adobe/FT is without doubt closing in fast. Interesting to see how they will respond or maybe just playing it safe.
67
« on: September 28, 2015, 02:05 »
As an ex-analyst (13 years as a Credit Scoring Analyst), I would say there is an element of control over the amount a contributor can earn in any one 7 day period. I believe this is part of their ranking system. Sad as it may be I still enjoy building SAS programmes that import and integrate data to find patterns and there is plenty of evidence to be found. It does't mean they are being underhand, i't just THEIR way of ranking contributors. Whether it's the right way is open to individual opinion.
Why do it? Keeping as many contributors happy as possible (earning money) means more varied work to present to clients. If the same people stayed at the top all the time while the rest sank below they would stop submitting and variety in images would decline. They have already stated they want to keep changing images for clients. Shifting images up and down the search means clients see a greater variety of images. However, it can also P1ss some off.... it's a balancing act. Time will tell if SS have got the balance right
One of the more interesting stats to watch is the 7 day rolling average. For me, I often see medium - large variation in daily sales. This is not unusual on it's own but when I see the 7 day average stay within a couple of $'s from the previous day after such a large variation in actual daily income, then it's either a massive coincidence or, there is a a cut off that slows sales down once a threshold is met. It would be very easy to manage / operate (anyone who's been involved in building scorecards would know). I'd imaging each contributor will have a score (rank) for each client type (subs, ODDs,SODs etc etc) and depending on who searches and for what, will alter what lands at the top of their search. From time to time they will alter the way the algorithm makes use of the contributor scores etc to see if the mix of images results in greater or reduced sales compared to what it was (champion / challenger analysis).
Here's an example of what I mean in terms of daily inc and the average over the previous 7 days.
Daily Inc 7day avg
$75.89 $ 177.34
$14.4 $ 179.34
$38.26 $ 177.05
$13.1 $ 176.29
$11.72 $ 176.61
$2.88 $ 175.08
$20.94 $ 177.19
This is just a 7 day average but there are ways to monitor similar patterns over 30days, 3 & 6 months etc. Very revealing.
Excellent post HalfFull - I think this is exactly what's happening. "...there is a a cut off that slows sales down once a threshold is met" - that's what I see. Which brings me back to my original question - does SS decide how much to pay each of us and we're just getting a salary? It sure feels like that to me. What's the point of improving then and growing your portfolio? Motivation - down the toilet...
Time to move out of this business.
For the last seven months I have been within. 5% give or take of my monthly threshold. Amazing! having siad this I really don't mind being on a monthly salary as long as its a good salary. LOL. so I can't complain. As far as improving, growing your port, uploading? well thats gone down the drain long time ago. What we are seeing now is exactly a carbo-copy of what happened with the traditional photo-agencies back in the mid 90s followed by a few years and then it all collapses.
68
« on: September 27, 2015, 08:19 »
It is funny how people love conspiracies these days.
And sad at the same time.
If you believe what you write, why do you not prove it?
It is so easy. Use a IP anonymizer and look where some of your images are in the results. After big sales, look if the positions are changed.
So many report so many conspiracies, but no one ever proved anything.
All nonsense.
Actually had you been a bit longer in this game and with a lets say a five times bigger portfolio. Believe me you would notice the differences.
There is no need to prove anything, it speaks for itself, unless of course you assume this business is the one and only business that is honest to the point of stupidity.
Lets face it, if a business, any business whatever model can improve their revenue they would be complete fools not to.
There is no need to prove anything?
It is funny how people believing in various conspiracies always say that.
So how do you explain the plain fact that many people with large portfolio do not agree with your "proven" theory?
And how do you explain the reports of others, that after good days their images are on the same place in search?
So how is the "cap" achieved if your images are still on the same spots for buyers to purchase? I am a guy of facts. Give me facts and I will believe you.
So you say youre a man of facts. Good! for you to understand facts you have to have a portfolio of thousands of files or else you will not see/experience what many of us here are experiencing. I mean with a smaller port you probably have a BME every single month, the amount from previous month isn't hard to beat. Further more why use the word conspiracy? its no conspiracy. As I said lots earlier, this has been going on for years and years. Even many of the traditional agencies back in the film-days were doing this. Its nothing wrong, nothing illegal or shadey. Its a perfectly legit business action. When people say "skimming off the top" now that is a conspiracy theory which I completely disagree with since there is no need for SS to do so. In any case don't worry about it since it wont happen to you and when in fact most people don't notice or even think about it.
69
« on: September 26, 2015, 13:15 »
The truth of the matter is, one day you can find your image on lets say page four, the next day on page seven or one regardless of a sale or not.
There is no logic in the sort whatsoever.
Hmmm wasn't the argument that there was some logic, namely that when you get a big sale or lots of sales you get pushed down in the search? If there is no logic to it then there is no conspiracy to cap your earnings.
Well you know. Logic, like too many Pints, loses its beneficial effect when taken in too large quantities.
70
« on: September 26, 2015, 12:43 »
Shutterstock is forever changing the search, all the time. Both Anthony and Scott admitted that openly. Called it a forever ongoing " experiment " to find the perfect search " which obviously takes them years/forever to find?
The truth of the matter is, one day you can find your image on lets say page four, the next day on page seven or one regardless of a sale or not.
There is no logic in the sort whatsoever.
71
« on: September 26, 2015, 10:48 »
Same here actually. Two EL's among others. Not bad for a Friday.
72
« on: September 26, 2015, 09:17 »
It is funny how people love conspiracies these days.
And sad at the same time.
If you believe what you write, why do you not prove it?
It is so easy. Use a IP anonymizer and look where some of your images are in the results. After big sales, look if the positions are changed.
So many report so many conspiracies, but no one ever proved anything.
All nonsense.
Actually had you been a bit longer in this game and with a lets say a five times bigger portfolio. Believe me you would notice the differences.
There is no need to prove anything, it speaks for itself, unless of course you assume this business is the one and only business that is honest to the point of stupidity.
Lets face it, if a business, any business whatever model can improve their revenue they would be complete fools not to.
The repeatability for those with larger ports (I have almost 4,000 assets on SS) who have a monster day/week and then repeatedly see the next week or two fall the face of the planet happens all the time. Not one time. If I have no stellar days/weeks, my income is fairly level loaded day over day. The behavior is then reproduced the next time I have a big day/week. I have enough evidence in my own experience over years to know this IS GOING TO HAPPEN. Last week I had two good days ($150 or so per day). The entire last week has been at $13, $16, $10 per day, WAY BELOW MY DAILY AVERAGE.
Very frustrating but very factual.
I know! and agree with you. Same thing is happening here and to everyone I know. I have a massive port, still happening though.
Just that some people have a hard time digesting this and prefer a make believe world nice and cosy.
Right. I wasn't disagreeing with you at all. I meant to say a monster week the week before last, then last week was among the worst I have had when my port was only 500 images.
Well maybe I worded it wrong but I am 100% agreeing with you on this cap business. Its a reallity for sure.
73
« on: September 26, 2015, 08:31 »
It is funny how people love conspiracies these days.
And sad at the same time.
If you believe what you write, why do you not prove it?
It is so easy. Use a IP anonymizer and look where some of your images are in the results. After big sales, look if the positions are changed.
So many report so many conspiracies, but no one ever proved anything.
All nonsense.
Actually had you been a bit longer in this game and with a lets say a five times bigger portfolio. Believe me you would notice the differences.
There is no need to prove anything, it speaks for itself, unless of course you assume this business is the one and only business that is honest to the point of stupidity.
Lets face it, if a business, any business whatever model can improve their revenue they would be complete fools not to.
The repeatability for those with larger ports (I have almost 4,000 assets on SS) who have a monster day/week and then repeatedly see the next week or two fall the face of the planet happens all the time. Not one time. If I have no stellar days/weeks, my income is fairly level loaded day over day. The behavior is then reproduced the next time I have a big day/week. I have enough evidence in my own experience over years to know this IS GOING TO HAPPEN. Last week I had two good days ($150 or so per day). The entire last week has been at $13, $16, $10 per day, WAY BELOW MY DAILY AVERAGE.
Very frustrating but very factual.
I know! and agree with you. Same thing is happening here and to everyone I know. I have a massive port, still happening though. Just that some people have a hard time digesting this and prefer a make believe world nice and cosy.
74
« on: September 26, 2015, 08:07 »
It is funny how people love conspiracies these days.
And sad at the same time.
If you believe what you write, why do you not prove it?
It is so easy. Use a IP anonymizer and look where some of your images are in the results. After big sales, look if the positions are changed.
So many report so many conspiracies, but no one ever proved anything.
All nonsense.
Actually had you been a bit longer in this game and with a lets say a five times bigger portfolio. Believe me you would notice the differences. There is no need to prove anything, it speaks for itself, unless of course you assume this business is the one and only business that is honest to the point of stupidity. Lets face it, if a business, any business whatever model can improve their revenue they would be complete fools not to.
75
« on: September 26, 2015, 01:47 »
Although some of these " conspiacies " are just reallity and common sense from any agency.
Its quite obvious that no photo-agency, large, small, traditional or micro, can survive on apples, oranges, babies, landscapes and so on.
Contributors, photographers that can deliver speciallity, high value commercial images and plenty of it ARE looked after and quite rightly so. Even Getty makes no secret of this, a well known fact for years, long before micro-stock surfaced.
If I owned an agency I would make damned sure that the members whos pictures generated interest and sales were highly looked after and if this falls under the heading conspiracy, well so be it. I call it common sense for agency survival.
There are also non public forums for full-time creatives, photographers involved in stock where these conspiracy theories have been debated for years and accepted as part of the business.
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