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Messages - michaeldb
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126
« on: August 09, 2014, 20:23 »
We may have to upload even more images than we thought to break even:
"Thilo Semmelbauer
Thanks, Jon. In Q2, we continue to focus aggressively on both sides of our marketplace, customers and contributors which reinforce and drive each other fueling our growth. Our contributor base is more active and more loyal than ever before. We added 3.4 million images to our collection in Q2, 60% more than we added in Q2 last year. Our collection is growing more quickly than ever and we ended the quarter with 38.8 million images, the largest and freshest library of its kind.
We also added more new contributors in Q2 than in any prior quarter, with over 64,000 "improved" and active contributors from around the world and a 24x7 processing operation to vet every image. "
http://seekingalpha.com/article/2399635-shutterstocks-sstk-ceo-jonathan-oringer-on-q2-2014-results-earnings-call-transcript?dr=1
I wonder how many of those "fresh" images are 10 year-old pictures from ex-IS exclusives.
Exactly
No wonder they killed the top 100. I wonder how loyal the new group will be once the new contributor bump wears off and they are courting new contributors as replacements via skillfeed.
I know a large number of long time contributors, who are not at all happy with the way things have transpired at shutterstock.
Just keep up the slams on the contributors who helped Jon get there Theo. More and more of us are getting your messages loud and clear and our pocket books are telling the full story.
I saw Jon Oringer interviewed on CNBC Mad Money a couple days ago and he talked a lot about selling music and all the new businesses SS is starting. I wonder if SS is losing focus on their core business and the people who made all those pictures which made SS all that money. Half the time when I get on the customer SS landing page there is a very prominent link to OFFSET. So SS is using their main page to transfer customers to a site where my competitors sell images and where I am not allowed to submit. SS increases revenue 41% and, as Lauren pointed out, increases our commission percentage by zero. I thank SS for the Christmas cards they have sent me, I am saving them. When Jon Oringer is richer than Bill Gates I will sell his signatures on ebay. That is probably the only way I will ever see an increase in my income from SS.
127
« on: August 08, 2014, 20:00 »
Hi Lee,
Apologies if this has already been explained, or if I was supposed to figure it out for myself but didn't:
-If I want to submit vectors, do I FTP just the eps files? If so, how do I get you the metadata? Do you accept only eps8, or can I submit eps10 or .ai files with effects such as drop shadows? Any restrictions on things like open paths and unfilled paths?
-On my 3D rendered images, it's easy for me to turn off shadows and render a perfectly isolated PNG of an object. Is that what you are looking for? Can you read metadata from the PNG file? Do you have a file size limitation on raster images? What is the preferred resolution, e.g. is 6000x6000 too big for your designs?
I really like Canva. I had some serious fun composing Kindle book covers. They turned out pretty good really. And while more people are learning Photoshop and Illustrator and may not need Canva, it seems like mobile users alone will be a huge market for you. Canva seems like a natural for tablet and phablet users.
128
« on: July 25, 2014, 19:21 »
Just a few months ago they were acquired by Autodesk. Here is the article: http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/19/autodesk-buys-creative-market-jumping-into-maker-marketplace/
If true (and Techcrunch is pretty reliable) then this is interesting news indeed. Something akin maybe to news that Adobe bought Dreamstime. "Part of the interest in Autodesk came from the fact that the bigger company was looking to develop more consumer-focused offerings for the maker movement."By 'maker' I take it that they mean something like 'indie creatives' i.e. us. A lot of people here may not know much about Autodesk if they don't use Maya or 3DS Max, but Autodesk is a big power in graphics: AutoCAD is like the serious big-brother of Adobe Illustrator, and for people who (as I do) use Max, Autodesk is seen as a more serious player in graphics than Adobe in some ways. Autodesk software is used in lots of feature films, and it is more serious and less buggy than what Adobe puts out. If Autodesk owns Creative Market that puts a whole different slant on submitting there and raises a lot of questions: Will CM one day start selling 3D models, or maybe HDR and EXR photos, or other file formats which no microstockers sell now? This could turn out to mean new markets for us.
129
« on: July 19, 2014, 21:36 »
Care to name names?
Creative Market. They're new to photos, no idea how that part of the business is going for them and for contributors. But vector stuff seems to do well there. Any vector folks looking to give it a try, however, I'd just suggest you go into it not exactly thinking of it like other microstock places. The stuff that does well is bundled products, sets of stuff, etc. It's different. And you have to approach it differently.
Thanks. I've actually bought some things there, fonts and PS actions. I wasn't aware that they offered such good terms to sellers. I doubt if I could re-package the kinds of things I do for microstock to sell at Creative Market. Still it's something to keep in mind, as the microstock market dwindles.
130
« on: July 19, 2014, 19:47 »
...Im getting good results from a similar marketplace where I set my own price and get 70% of each sale without having to be exclusive there...
Care to name names?
131
« on: July 18, 2014, 14:29 »
My guess is he stopped posting here because of these kinds of comments. If there is ever a more professional atmosphere around here I wouldn't be surprised to see him back again.
Since you didn't know who it was you are assuming a lot. There's a reason nobody liked this guy.
I think it's a pretty safe assumption.
Well, I missed you. I like a variety of opinions even if I don't always agree with them.
I too agree, I like a variety of opinions and it is good that we are all free to express ours here. And if we get tired of someone repeating things which we know to be wrong and arguing against things we know to be true, we are free to click 'Ignore'.
132
« on: July 18, 2014, 13:22 »
For me it is just a drop in volume - looking back at 2013 I had 9:31 versus 8:32 credit:subs sales, looking at a random 40 sales around the same date. My feeling is that DT had a bit of a niche, with bloggers, and the whole Getty thing sucked the market dry. Way to go Getty! Take a group of buyers and suck them out of the pool, since they weren't buying from Getty anyways...
Very good point. When I try to think of reasons for the current across-the-board decline in sales which I am experiencing, I sometimes forget about the Getty giveaway. I know for a fact that over the years a lot of my sales were to bloggers. No doubt that Getty has cut deeply that source of revenue. It is just one more reason for me to wonder why so many stockers are still doing business with iStock/Getty. I stopped submitting to them long ago and removed almost all of my portfolio when it became clear that they were not acting in good faith. If we had all done that, how much better off we would be now 
133
« on: July 17, 2014, 16:57 »
Does anyone with any history thinks IS is so much better than FT?
Where is Tickstock when you need him? 
134
« on: July 15, 2014, 15:58 »
My year-over-year sales were slipping at SS, CanStockPhoto, and DT for the last few months but FT and 123 were up. This month they are all in free fall (even though I have been submitting new images). It's not just the summer slump. It's worse than that. 
135
« on: July 01, 2014, 15:31 »
Yes, it's nice to get paid fast, even better to get paid more. Unfortunately, I too experienced a slump in my DT sales in June. I noted it happened to a lot of the people posting the June sales thread. Hope it isn't a trend.
136
« on: July 01, 2014, 15:17 »
...
The growth rate described there is 34% in one year. Let's assume that rate is the same today (I bet it's higher). That means if you have a port of 5000 images, you would need to have 6700 a year from now just to maintain your share of visibility in the overall SS collection. That's 1700 a year, or about 5 new uploads a day (assuming they ALL get accepted).
The following year you'd have to add 2238 to remain at that 34% growth rate, or about 6 new uploads accepted everyday. Working even harder, not to grow but to just hold on to what you're making.
I wish I did the math on this when I jumped into ms. Probably would have talked myself out of it....
Very interesting thoughts. I had not heard of the concept that shrinking "share of visibility" is what accounts for "hitting the wall" i.e. declining revenue in spite of steadily submitting. It makes sense to me though. One bright spot though is that the 34% increase in SS images is exponential growth, and so it cannot be maintained indefinitely: Soon SS will reach 100 million images and so need 34 million per year to maintain 34% growth. Then SS will soon reach 1 billion images and need 340 million per year to maintain 34% growth. And so on. Eventually SS would need trillions of new images per year to maintain growth. Unlikely, even if reviewers start accepting all LCV iPhone images with trademarks and logos in them.  So the rate of growth will have to begin to diminish someday, but when?
137
« on: June 29, 2014, 21:41 »
Some subjects never get old, I guess. I am down at DT 40% from May 2014 and 33% from June 2013
138
« on: June 28, 2014, 16:37 »
I have been averaging between $300 and $400 per month sales at CanStockPhoto in the last 6 months or so. This June is very slow, about half of the sales of June 2013. Don't know the cause of this decline, but sales at CanStockPhoto have suffered serious dips in the past, such as when Google changed their search, and Duncan has found ways to get things back on track. I have always liked CanStockPhoto and found it well worth submitting there.
139
« on: June 26, 2014, 18:44 »
The stock market has been hitting record highs for a long time. There is no real economic basis for this kind of optimism - it's just that the Fed has kept interest rates so ridiculously low that you can't make any interest so people have to buy stocks to have a hope of beating inflation. Anyone buying stocks at these highs will probably have to wait years to make a profit.
In the current situation, I can see why someone would sell. It may have more to do with the overall market than the company.
140
« on: June 25, 2014, 19:19 »
In the case of iStock, I think the deer/albatross shot itself. 
141
« on: June 13, 2014, 22:49 »
Here's an image on Stocksy that really blows my mind.
http://www.stocksy.com/224056
I think that sentence is two words too long.
142
« on: June 12, 2014, 22:00 »
A lot of graphics designers seem to be making good money selling designs, fonts, Photoshop stuff and other things to other graphics designers on creativemarket.com
143
« on: June 11, 2014, 21:22 »
In three years, I will be turning 70 and will have Alzheimers. In fact, I already forgot what I was going to say.
Oh yeah, I remember. I saw three or four posts predict the death of small sites like Cutcaster. I doubt it. Put yourself in John's place. The bulk of your cost was building the site, probably. Even if it starts to make less and less revenue, why close it? Just stop investing in promotion and cut back on reviewing new images (as Kelly at GL did for a while as I recall). Even if you are only bringing in say $1000 per day from your current inventory, why shut down if that pays your expenses and leaves you some profit? Even a bit of StockXpert is still running. So I wouldn't be surprised if the little guys are with us 3 yrs from now.
144
« on: June 05, 2014, 22:43 »
Uh, isn't the internet worldwide? If China wanted iStock content they can already get it.
Of course this probably halves any royalties.
Chinese government controls the internet and restricts content it's people can see. I only know this as I used to handle the website of my previous employer. Their Chinese office had to have a local hosted site separate from corporate as anything outside of China is heavily censored and what does get through is painfully slow. They used to use the analogy of a blocked pipe.
There goes my plan to sell images about the Tiananmen Square protest on IS. Communist China and the IS Forum, and Getty/IS in general, strike me as a good fit.
145
« on: June 03, 2014, 22:33 »
Thanks for posting this, it was news to me. I have no experience submitting any editorial images to SS, but this new rule could mean that some images I have been thinking about, such as 3D renders of recognizable car models, could now be 'legal'.
Would those of you who been selling editorial images on SS like to share your experiences? Is submitting these kinds of images worthwhile?
146
« on: May 28, 2014, 22:49 »
In 2005, Dreamstime was the first site where I made enough for a payout. I remember wondering if this microstock thing was for real and if I could trust them and whether they would really send me real money. They did, and they have never given me personally any reason to distrust them in the nine years I have done business with them.
Some of the posts here seem a little over the top. Do people here really believe Serban is a "crook"? I have always admired his success and the way he runs his business. I hope this beta test works and I make some money from the ensuing deal. In the meantime, I don't mind if 154 of my images (out of 2229) are used in a limited trial and I don't get paid if the deal fails to materialize. My images aren't gold or diamonds or the cure for cancer. They are just clipart. If you hate DT, leave. If you don't want to participate in the beta test, then don't. It was just an invitation. Not the end of the world.
147
« on: May 09, 2014, 23:52 »
This is an important subject, my personal thanks to the posters above for bringing it to our attention and speaking out. The original depredation by Getty via Google (an enemy of copyright itself) has led to this misuse by Adobe. It's an outrage.
I just commented on cnet. We need to make ourselves heard on this IMO.
148
« on: May 09, 2014, 19:20 »
- Quarterly paid downloads increased 33% to a record 29.7 million
- Collection grew 41%; exceeds 35 million images and 1.7 million video clips
Doesnt that mean the pie is getting smaller for us?
Yes, but not much smaller. Many people posting about this on MSG have fretted over a huge flood of new contributors and submissions. An increase in supply that is several or even many times larger than the growth in demand. Apparently that is not what is happening at SS. I guess we will have to think up new excuses if our revenues drastically decline?
149
« on: April 28, 2014, 21:56 »
"Give me some reasons to continue to upload to them"
I don't see any reasons not to.
150
« on: April 23, 2014, 19:36 »
Considering you don't have the right on the 3d models you risk someone will ask to block your account.
Interesting point. When you buy a 3D model, you get a license to use the model to create renders and to own the copyright of those renders. So, theoretically, you could buy a model at, say Turbosquid, and trace or sketch an image of it, without really rendering it with a 3D rendering engine. I don't see why this would be illegal, but you might have to read the user's license to see if such a practice would be prohibited, I guess.
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