Quote from: dnavarrojr on January 27, 2010, 08:15

I think we're gonna see a new marketing strategy from them touting the "freshness" of their images and video given the huge delay in review times at iStock, particularly for non-exclusives.
"If you want fresh images today, you're only going to get them here" kind of deal...  I've talked to some marketing people at a couple of footage agencies that are planning to attack iStock with the same type of strategy.

Yeah, because 2 days for exclusives, 3-5 for independents really makes images less "fresh" at iStock.

Sorry to be disagreeable but mine run seven days like clockwork on IS. About the time something gets reviewed, I can upload something new and wait a week. I don't mind, but it's positively not 2-3 days. Could be my acceptance ratio or something, I don't know. It's been that way since Nov.

StockXpert has wild variations from overnight to some right now waiting since Jan. 18th. BigStock about 5 days. SS lately has been running 2-3 days.

I don't know about the freshness theory, all the sites have review time variations.

My prediction last month (see above) Was Valentine's day.

Count Down: (or up?) to 10 Million

Thursday PM
9,974,012 royalty-free stock photos

Friday PM
9,984,939 royalty-free stock photos

Saturday?

I'd hate to be a buyer, SS just accepted an image of mine with keyword "brainstorm" - so I searched newest first and page after page is filled with models gathered around laptops or standing in random groups doing nothing but flashing too white teeth - also loads drawing meaningless flow charts on transparency boards.

Having worked in the corporate arena for 20+ years I know we don't work in offices cleaner and brighter than operating theatres and everyone walks around with faces like smacked arses (apart from Friday afternoons).

I keep hearing that buyers want realistic images of serious people doing serious work in non-studio locations, but don't see much of that being uploaded.....is this a gap to be exploited or not?

I keep hearing that buyers want realistic images of serious people doing serious work in non-studio locations, but don't see much of that being uploaded.....is this a gap to be exploited or not?

I think they're lying. I don't do people shots, so I don't know what would actually be approved. But I never see stock images in use, anywhere, that don't contain model-ish looking people with perfect hair and teeth and radiant smiles. 

All flashy smiling, very unnatural looking, plastic people. If designers really want those, why not using 3d-renders in the first place?

To be honest, I'd never do stock 'people' shots because... they gag me.  Especially business shots, and happy seniors wearing bike helmets. No offense to you people who do these things so skillfully and so profitably. 

Some photographers stopped shooting everything they see. Others adding thousand and more images a year found out quality and low production cost were more sustainable. Everything is perfect in my opinion

My vote would go to the increase in standards too.  They seem to go through phases of ratcheting the standards up, and those who aren't committed simply won't take up the challenge of meeting those new standards.

Possibly trying to cope with a flood of images from ex-exclusives at iStock?

They already have more images then buyers need, they need to do something. As for increasing quality in favor of sales that's nonsense. Microstock has bad taste written all over it, at least half of the bestsellers (if not most) are the most distastefull rubbish you would ever see.

Not sure if you're referring to me here, but just in case... I was actually referring to technical standards, not aesthetic ones.

Quote from: molka on January 09, 2011, 06:28

They already have more images then buyers need, they need to do something. As for increasing quality in favor of sales that's nonsense. Microstock has bad taste written all over it, at least half of the bestsellers (if not most) are the most distastefull rubbish you would ever see.

Not sure if you're referring to me here, but just in case... I was actually referring to technical standards, not aesthetic ones.

Technical standrads are already unreasonably high, pushing them is useless.

The reason is that SS buyers are hoarders and the company knows it. They think the only way to keep people paying subscriptions is to fling as much new content at the site as they can. Otherwise people would only stay for a few months and hoard enough to last them the year.
It's not like SS is going to follow up and slap their wrists if they are using stuff 6 months after their sub expires.

The reason is that SS buyers are hoarders and the company knows it. They think the only way to keep people paying subscriptions is to fling as much new content at the site as they can. Otherwise people would only stay for a few months and hoard enough to last them the year.
It's not like SS is going to follow up and slap their wrists if they are using stuff 6 months after their sub expires.

I doubt that this is true or the business model simply wouldn't work. Someone intent on 'hoarding' would join for the minimum time and then download the maximum of their allowance. SS would lose money on every sub sold in that situation.

For a business that uses a large amount of images (and wants fresh stuff too) an annual sub is a minor cost and fantastic value for the facility. Cuppacoffee gave a great explanation of the business in which she works where they basically use SS "as an external server". When they have a project they just search for images for it and will often download an image that they have downloaded before (and still have) because it's just much quicker to do so. It would be time consuming to hoard and then try & re-find a suitable image without the ability to search via keywords which you wouldn't have on an HD.