Since the weekend its all gone down again, im having an awful week so far.

I just wish they would stop f'in around with the best match, just leave it alone for * sake.

Im going to begin uploading. Is codec PhotoJpeg with 95% compression ok?

Im getting ready to report yet another piss poor month at istock.

Looks like we're going to be getting another update today and hopefully some answers to some burning questions.

Well done James and well said.

Quote from: gostwyck on January 19, 2012, 15:08

No, sorry, but this really is the beginning of the end of Istock as a major player n microstock.

I'm pointing out that there are thousands of people around the world right now making purchases on the site and oblivious to what's happening behind the scenes.   And it's even possible that iStock could introduce some changes that make these buyers want to stick around for the foreseeable future.

Just because buyers are buying doesnt mean that their current situation is 'sustainable' ie. profitable. Buyers have been buying all the time in 2011 but that didnt stop 2011 from being a lot of contributors worst year ever which was a strong signal for the arrival of the events which we are currently witnessing.

You also mentioned that you yourself are seeing an increase in sales, i was too until the begining of the week when it all completely went dead. That's best match working its magic once again.

One thing i'd like to know is exactly why Kelly and JJRD left, was it money orientated or were they pushed out because they were the last major obstacles to remove so that Getty could steer istock directly into an iceberg, of course just before they raped it for all that it was worth.


istock have been riding the wave of being No.1 for too long now

wow, can't remember if i posted this a while back here on msg when i had a whine about my 2011 sales, but i was definetely thinking that eventually there would be layoff's at istock - its inevitable. What i didnt know was how quickly that would happen and this news has taken me by shock.

What im trying to work out is was this action a pre-emptive move before even rockier times at istock in an attempt to streamline their business? or are things really that bad that they had to make layoff's in desperation?

Just a theory but could this be good news for non-exclusives? istock may prioritise them higher in the search to gain better commissions. Exclusives may argue about their unique content blah blah blah, better for istock blah blah, however putting non-exclusives right up there at the front will almost defientely be quick way to make those margins larger. Just a thought.

One more thing, not to worry - if istock does go tits up, buyers will just disperse themselves into the other sites so im sure you can recoup the money.

In the monthly stats thread over there it looks like another month of mainly poor results from contributors, just like November. I feel like we really do deserve an explanation because its not monopoly money we're talking about, a lot of contributors play by the rules and chase the dangling carrot and still come out bad and cant pay their bills.

But i know that's wishful thinking and the management would never admit to such a poor state of affairs. I think the sad matter of the fact is that they have dug themselves far too big of a hole now to come out and admit it, or at the very least show some kind of communication. Despite the lack of dialog we can at least deduce that by the amount of reports of poor sales and reduced targets for 2012 that it is pretty obvious that things are bad over there and they dont need to say anything.

btw. is SS officially No.1 now?

Agreed, if i were you i would implement that from the word go. I am a non-exclusive contributor to all of the main agencies and i can tell you with all honesty that select thumbnail at a specific timepoint is crucial for us. P5, Revo, iS, Clipdealer all offer it because it is important. Some other agencies dont and the question gets asked time and time again and it usually falls on deaf ears due to i suspect cost/architecture requirements on their backend. For example, a video of the big bang. Frame starts as black then cresends to a glorious explosion, which frame would you prefer potentials buyers to glaze over?

I registered as a contributor just to see what the deal was and to be honest it doesnt look like they are ready. They accept WMV? MP4? the industry standard is MOV encoded with photojpeg plus there are no details about pricing, plus looks like a lot of people are complaing about their ftp. I shall most definetely hold off until they appear to be ready, but nice to see another middle tier player entering the video market.

If istock are indeed going through a heavy slump in sales do you think they will take an appropriate course of action?

A company such as istock which has been in this business from the begining and has seen exponential growth followed by a slump which we can clearly see ourselves. I mean, we all have our graphs so we can see whats going on. Do you think there is someone looking at the whole picture and saying - well, we were once like this and we had this much sales, now we are like this and now we have this much sales. For many contributors it's quite easy to see what's going wrong but do you think they really know the answer?

I'd like to point out that it is still feasible that they may not actually be getting hit hard financially because best match matches may simply be shifting searches through to other contributors that may not be active on any internet forums hence we really are left in the dark as to how good or bad their sales really are - i find this frustrating.

However by looking at the drastic slump in sales I myself have been experiencing this year, plus looking at the comments on istock forum and the comments here, as well as trafic stats (which as pointed out are not 100% accurate but give a good indication) leads me to believe that things really are going bad at istock.

If this is indeed true a huge loss of sales is a huge loss in sales no matter how you cut it and a company can only sustain it for so long before the staff at istock are forced to take a long hard look at their business model, and if need be make cut backs but not necessarily make changes for the better.

All of this is really frustrating for myself and i suspect that full-timers are really having to push the boat out to get any decent return in investment.

Good luck to all of you.

It's just dawned on me how badly istock is perfoming now and made me worry about their future and of course my subsequent income.

My story is since january 2011 my sales have been dropping month after month, i usually put these variations down to ebb and flow but my sales results are just speaking for themselves. That together with observing the opinions from other contributors both on the istock forums and here as well as site traffic info leads me to an educated guess that they really are losing ground rather rapidly and are displeasing buyers and which in turn is displeasing contributors.

Many have their theories and i think common sense will tell you what is going wrong over there like many have already stated. As to why istock staff cant see this is completely beyond me, but there you go.

I personally think the following are major contributing factors:

Site revamp. It's horrible and i dont like it, the search feels slow and clunky and competitors sites are very quick in comparison.

Vetta to the front of the search. I think this is putting off buyers, they probably dont even look to the left TBH at sliders etc. The average buyer does a search, glazes over the lovely colourful images that are presented on the first couple of pages then runs away after looking at the price while having lodged in their brain that istock is now expensive and they can no longer trust them. I believe that the bods at istock know this as well but do not want to admit it as they have probably spent too much time and money on the system to roll it back now.

Global downturn. Higher priced images are a 'nice to have' if the economy was in good shape however its not and buyers are quite happy to shop around if it meant saving $50 for a cheaper alternative which may also be better suited towards them. Also my sales on competitors sites have not gone down at all this year. Also when you look back at when the global recession first took its toll istock was still doing well and were letting everyone know this fact but its only since these big changes have taken place with the site-revamp and Vetta order within the search that i have witnessed a huge loss.

In short, buyers (designers and corporates) are being put off by this, buyers want simplicity and a slick, quick site that pulls up the images that they want at a good price from an already established brand that they trust - what more could you ask for? Think Google. And if their trusted bank of images changes the game, what are you going to do? Go elsewhere.

To me, this is a huge shame and i cant see the situation getting better, only worse. 2012 may indeed be a horrible year for istock.

Anyway, i needed to get that off my chest and i wish everyone the best.

Slightly off-topic but I recently had about 15 files (videos) deducted from my balance because of a declined credit card. A bit like the fiasco at istock - maybe the pirates are trying other sites now. Did this happen to anyone else? You may not have even noticed because fotolia doesnt send out refund email by the looks of things. Worth a check anyway.