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Messages - zorki
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 [7] 8 9
151
« on: November 28, 2007, 09:16 »
Things were chugging along fine until last week, but it was probably a combination of Thanksgiving in the USA and the best match changes. SS and DT have done much better in the past 10 days...
152
« on: November 27, 2007, 17:41 »
I think we'll see a shake out in a couple of years. Mergers, acquisitions, culling of the herd. I think professional photographers will finally "get it" and move to the Microstock model en-masse. Newly minted professional photographers will never know the old stock model and will automatically start off at the Microstock level slowly but surely killing off the old stock photography model. You may see an increase in prices, but not for a while. Microstock companies will give more incentive to get and keep "exclusive" photographers. The major players will get even more picky about what passes through the inspectors. I think you'll also see the majors start to cull older files with zero or little downloads. IS did this a couple of years ago. I think buyers will flock to the site with the best search engine. IS is clearly falling down on this right now. This is an opportunity for the others to spring ahead.
I also think it's a bit of a pyramid scheme at this point. If you got in early, built a big high quality portfolio you hit the jackpot. It will be more of an uphill battle for new, high quality photographers...
153
« on: November 25, 2007, 11:28 »
Don't listen to Sean, he's blowing smoke... those illustrations are great. Like someone else said, just resubmit in a few weeks when nobody is watching and they'll probably be accepted. Some inspector was having a bad day an probably liked your work too much and thought it was competition for his own work...
154
« on: November 23, 2007, 19:44 »
Yes... it's a good reason to stay diversified amongst many different agencies.
155
« on: November 23, 2007, 15:34 »
Argh!  Ignore me... I had multiple browers open at once and somehow this one got set to "Downloads" This brings up something else... Did you see Abzee's comment about inserting "artichoke" into the keywords of one of his world map files. If you search on "artichoke" it is the fourth in best match search. I'm not sure what that tells me, but there is something about his status at IS that ranks this file high in best match.
156
« on: November 23, 2007, 15:27 »
Hmmm... I see that thread, but if it's supposed to be in effect it's not working yet...
157
« on: November 23, 2007, 15:16 »
I just tried it an that's not what's happening. I searched on "picnic table" and Tacojim has three in the first twenty. Is this something they want to implement in the future? Plus what happens if you have less than 100 in a search and it's dominated by a couple of contributors...
158
« on: November 20, 2007, 11:46 »
I can only imagine this if for people like Lise Gagne who are too busy to pull out their money on a daily basis...
159
« on: November 19, 2007, 09:57 »
I don't do fractals, but I do dabble with another program called Agony. I can tell you that these computer generated art programs can be quite complicated to learn and get interesting results from. I find it much easier to do stock photography than generate these images. I think most people use them as backgrounds or design elements. I do agree that they seem to be overwhelming the Micros right now and only the highest quality ones are getting through these days.
160
« on: November 15, 2007, 21:11 »
It happens all over the place... I had 33 photos accepted to IS and then SS reject 25 of them... go figure!
161
« on: November 15, 2007, 12:28 »
That's funny... I've had a couple of really nice days after a few weeks of crap... sometimes I feel like the Wizard of OZ is behind the curtain pulling random strings trying to get things right, but never quite gets it right...
162
« on: November 14, 2007, 15:24 »
I'm sure IS has their hands full with this problem. They will be trying to undo all the people trying to take advantage of the situation until they figure out what they are going to do with best match. The only two big stock houses that I hear people consistently complain about search and that is IS and Alamy...
163
« on: November 14, 2007, 09:27 »
Acceptance rate has already been confirmed by Achilles as being part of the search preferences.
DL/image has not been confirmed, but it would be logical to include it because it hints at quality/popularity.
If that's the case, I sure wish I could start over again! My early rejections are dragging down my percentage!
164
« on: November 13, 2007, 16:55 »
IMHO, Best match searches should be based on keywords, otherwise make it completely random. They should offer a true Best Match, Random, Newest, Download for the search engine. Far too many people use Best Match to make their decisions on what to use and to include criteria like age of the file, upload acceptance ratio, how quick someone downloads, Exclusivity, etc, etc into the best match search is just going to cause too many problems and open it up to manipulation.
165
« on: November 13, 2007, 12:57 »
There was a guy that participated on the forums quite a bit a couple of years ago. His name is TacoJim at IS. He was adamant about being on as many different sites as possible and then when he reached the diamond level he changed his tune and went exclusive. Said that after a month or two, the extra money for being exclusive more than made up for the difference. It's funny how when people get successful enough, they always pick IS to go exclusive with...
166
« on: November 12, 2007, 16:51 »
After reading through this whole thread at the IS forum it appears that the problem is someone (or two) with two different account uploading images and as soon as they get approved, someone downloads a copy which makes it rise to the top of best match searches. There also seems to be some type of correlation between the size of the image (XXL) and how it ranks in best match searches. They are also rating the images as soon as they get approved. All of this adds up to unfair rankings in best match.
167
« on: November 12, 2007, 12:45 »
I don't know this time, some of the biggest uploaders to IS are pissed. Just interesting to see where it goes... I'm trying to read the whole thread and it looks like a couple of guys sharing equipment are uploading together and then to game the system, they are downloading each other's images as soon as they get uploaded. That seems to trick the best match search and put them on top...
168
« on: November 12, 2007, 11:59 »
Even worse, do a search on "blueprints" and tell me the search engine hasn't been hijacked... I wish I knew how he did it! 
169
« on: November 12, 2007, 11:41 »
Anyone else following the discussion over at IS about the Best Match search engine. http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=60039&page=1Try typing in "christmas tree" into the search and use Best Match. Looks like a couple of uploaders hit the jackpot! Also, Sean Locke mentions the "ratings gangs" that you all dismissed as not having an effect on the best match searches.
170
« on: November 12, 2007, 10:33 »
I thought IS was on a push to make people put less keywords. I had someone come through a few of my images and get rid of a bunch of keywords because they were "irrelevant"! The keywords were more about emotions than the actual things in the image, but the keyword police deemed them unnecessary.
171
« on: November 11, 2007, 17:28 »
You are saying that the order of the keywords makes a difference in the search engine? Hmmm....
172
« on: November 11, 2007, 11:59 »
I agree with Vonkara. I have tried to boost some of my images by constantly manipulating the keywords and it has little effect on the search engines in the various stock sites. OTOH, bad keywords can sink an image.
One reason I ask these questions is that I'm not very active at the forums on the various sites and I do notice that most of the most successful have large networks of people and I'm wondering if designers hang out very much on forums...
173
« on: November 10, 2007, 17:47 »
I'm just curious what the rest of you think the most important things you can do for your portfolio to get downloads, besides quality and volume. Does participation in the forums help? public Lightboxes? rating other peoples images? Inquiring minds would like to know...
174
« on: November 10, 2007, 16:57 »
I beg to differ. I had a picture that came up when you did a search on the word "vineyard" on the first row or two. Sold hundreds of copies that image until they changed the search engine about a year ago. Since that, I've probably had 5 downloads in a year, so position on best match searches is very important.
BTW, none of you can tell with absolute certainty that ratings have no effect on best match searches...
175
« on: November 10, 2007, 10:11 »
sez who? I'm pretty sure they still have an influence on best match searches
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