Quote from: gostwyck on March 30, 2013, 14:46

I can understand IS exclusives (and recently ex-exclusives) thinking that the world is ending...

You have to give people more credit than your narrow view of exclusives or ex-exclusives. My world wasn't ending, it was pretty obvious to me the buyers were leaving istock as well as other non istock content flooding the site that decreased my downloads. The good times are over and they were good while they lasted because i took full advantage of that situation when it was available to me.

It just sounds like you think we are all poor naive tools with that type of statement. You might have your own reasons for staying independent, but please don't lump me and others in that one dimensional category you see the exclusives in.

Good post, you have expressed my feelings exactly.

Thanks for all these informations about Offset, I'm really happy to see coming a new quality photo site, more open than the Stocksy sect.

Forgive me if this will sound a bit negative. I do appreciate Scott posting info and clarifications here, however, the description of "Offset" images implicitly suggests that images I submit to Shutterstock are of "lower quality", "don't tell a story", not "authentic" enough and so on. I shoot with Nikon D3X and painstakingly process all my images to the highest quality standards. I work from raw and produce 70 MB tiffs. And, while I do have some isolated objects and other simple images in my portfolio, many of my images do tell a story and look natural and authentic. I am sure many other professional photographers who submit their best work to Shutterstock must feel the same way.
Scott, you implicitly suggest that "RM" work and "assignment" work is for some reason superior to what is selling currently on micro agencies.  It was true 5-7 years ago; but now your content is completely different. You are already selling former RM and assignment work and equivalents of. I am puzzled why you would consider creating this collection now - why take a step backwards?? I really don't understand your statements about "higher quality"  - but I do agree with your implications that people don't quite understand what this collection is about - I don't. Why some photographers are "more equal than others"? National Geographic content is superb, but so is content from some of your better contributors. Shutterstock should know better than anyone that it was new technology that brought images prices down, not "inferiority" of the micro content. Taking a bunch of images that haven't been sold on micros before and calling them "superior" will not fool anyone, including your buyers, but it is creating negative feelings among your contributors.

+1

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/04/09/finding-extraordinary-shutterstock-ceo-jon-oringer-talks-offset/

'TNW: You�ve partnered with some high-profile photographers to make the collection rather unique. How long has Offset been in development for?

We�ve been thinking about this for nine years, but it took about a year of work before it was ready to show the world. That was because we didn�t want to use the images that are in Shutterstock. We wanted to go out and find new collections.

We approached people with collections that have never been sold as stock before, for instance. We wanted to do something new and different. We didn�t want to have just another collection that cost a little bit more; that�s what you would expect from a stock photo agency. We wanted to go beyond that.

By approaching National Geographic and some special photographers that have never sold stock-images before � that was how we were able to create the Offset collection.'

Forgive me if this will sound a bit negative. I do appreciate Scott posting info and clarifications here, however, the description of "Offset" images implicitly suggests that images I submit to Shutterstock are of "lower quality", "don't tell a story", not "authentic" enough and so on. I shoot with Nikon D3X and painstakingly process all my images to the highest quality standards. I work from raw and produce 70 MB tiffs. And, while I do have some isolated objects and other simple images in my portfolio, many of my images do tell a story and look natural and authentic. I am sure many other professional photographers who submit their best work to Shutterstock must feel the same way.
Scott, you implicitly suggest that "RM" work and "assignment" work is for some reason superior to what is selling currently on micro agencies.  It was true 5-7 years ago; but now your content is completely different. You are already selling former RM and assignment work and equivalents of. I am puzzled why you would consider creating this collection now - why take a step backwards?? I really don't understand your statements about "higher quality"  - but I do agree with your implications that people don't quite understand what this collection is about - I don't. Why some photographers are "more equal than others"? National Geographic content is superb, but so is content from some of your better contributors. Shutterstock should know better than anyone that it was new technology that brought images prices down, not "inferiority" of the micro content. Taking a bunch of images that haven't been sold on micros before and calling them "superior" will not fool anyone, including your buyers, but it is creating negative feelings among your contributors.

To be honest Elena, I think you're slightly missing the point of 'Offset'.

We're talking art Darling and who can possibly put a price on true and unique art?

With offset SS are just trying to get themselves a share of the lucrative 'art' market. That's why they have to use the latest poncy words like 'curated' to describe their suddenly valuable new 'collection'. It might be meaningless nonsense to you and me and to most others __ but there is a market for it and high profits to be made.

... Why some photographers are "more equal than others"? National Geographic content is superb, but so is content from some of your better contributors. ...

Elena with all due respect and with no intentions to step on your toes but I think you need to grow a thicker skin.

It's "just" Scott saying something about some agency and you appear to be quite offended by it.

You know that your content is good because you have quite some experience under your belt now and your income speaks for yourself!

At the start, I was all over the idea of "Offset" but the more we get to know about it, I can see that Offset is not going to be a good match for me. As it has been pointed out and something which is very obvious is that Offset will target a different audience.

This does not necessarily mean that the content will be generally of superior quality it's a matter of how the potential customers are confronted with "different" content.

If Shutterstock let all contributors into Offset - well then it won't be any different than SS in the first place and there wouldn't be a need for Offset.

I don't have a problem that "better" or "superior" content will be available at Offset (beauty still lies in the eye of the beholder...!) although I believe that I create the best and most beautiful pictures ever made. There will always be people who beg to differ and some of those people have the means to pop out an agency and have the "freedom" to pick whatever content they see fit.

I mean where is the limit? If I'm supposed to be allowed to submit to Offset, then what? Then I'm entitled to submitting to Getty directly or Corbis? All these agencies have their vision and strategy to achieve their specific goal. That has usually never anything to do with our content.

One word: politics.

I hope I didn't end up on your sh!t list because of what I wrote but I think we're all a bit strung out in the microstock business (especially the ones making a living from it). But it is what it is. All we can do is submit to agencies that actually want and sell our stuff. That's good enough for me.

Well, I may not be producing "art",  but I do think there has to be something in between 38 cents and $500.

What a ridiculous statement. You are comparing the royalty paid on a minimum of a one-month subscription on SS with the potential total selling price of an image to the customer on Offset (if, of course, it ever sells) and also not taking into account the volume of each. They are not the same thing, not even close, and it is absurd to pretend that they are.

You can say what you like about Alamy, etc and the supposed 'benefits' of higher prices but the truth is that Alamy generates considerably less than one-tenth the revenue-per-image than SS does.

Click_Click - Actually, I am not offended at all, and trust me my skin is thicker that rhino's after all this years submitting content and dealing with too many agencies:) What makes me sad though is when things don't make plain common sense. I understand the marketing campaign here, but in essence it is kinda... umm... lying:) I am a firm believer that nothing good comes out of lying in the end. Saying that the content is "extra special" when similar content can be found at much lower price point... well I guess it may work on some people, but that also makes me sad  -  people should be able to make judgments for themselves without other people telling them what's good and what's not. (Yes I know most people don't:))

I understand exactly where you are coming from. In 2003 when I started this microstock "thing" I was looking at images from Getty and thought: "Why do I sell my stuff at 25 cents a pop when even lousier content is sold for thousands at Getty?"

That's why I said that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. While I thought that some Getty content is flat out cr@p, it didn't stop them licensing this cr@p for thousands of $$$. So what do I do about it?

I had no reputation, no experience and a point and shoot camera to start off with. Slowly but steady I managed to get into "better" agencies over time and I do get a better return.

And talking about lying... Look at what iStock did over years and years. They lied and lied and deceived and back-stabbed anything and anyone that wasn't circulating on the upper management level. Yet, they are a multi-million dollar operation. Who cares if they lie? Sure in the long run it may very well be a stupid business practice but to be honest, I think I haven't met one honest salesperson in my life.

Try to buy a car - they lie.

Try to by a flat screen TV - the sales people tell you stories about what this thing can do and they don't even have a clue themselves what they are talking about.

I'm not implying that Scott is lying!

I think that words can always be misunderstood or misinterpreted although no harm was intended.

SS decided to show their faces on this forum and I take this as privilege for us contributors.

SS is a big company and this practice is not too common.

I think when the time is right you might very well get an invitation from them. So time will tell how this all pans out.
As long as Jon has the "pants" on, I'm fairly confident that we (SS contributors) won't get screwed.

Without SS I wouldn't be where I am today, for me, it counts for something.

Quote from: click_click on April 09, 2013, 19:22

SS decided to show their faces on this forum and I take this as privilege for us contributors.

SS is a big company and this practice is not too common.

I think when the time is right you might very well get an invitation from them. So time will tell how this all pans out.
As long as Jon has the "pants" on, I'm fairly confident that we (SS contributors) won't get screwed.

Without SS I wouldn't be where I am today, for me, it counts for something.

I truly appreciate all of the above as well - Shutterstock has been and is a great agency for me, and I admired (and still do) their openness and inclusiveness. That's why this "closed" and "by invitation only" Offset deal sounds alarming to me - it's like SS has people now with traditional stock industry experience who still don't understand how come micro can sell for so low - "these images must be crap, so we need to introduce something better with better quality and "regular" pricing".

"Closed"  and "invitation" isnt microstock. offset isnt microstock. Why cant a successful microstock company create another option for some contributors to get higher returns for their content? I believe they fully understand why micro can sell for so low because their cheaper pricing brought all the buyers to their site.

I like to believe that by starting offset, its SS way of admitting its guilt for playing a major role (imo) in the current cheap prices for great content. It was bound to happen anyway if SS didn't do it. There is a flaw to this crowd sourced model which itself is another topic all together but sorry to digress. Contributors with decent portfolios must have gotten a lot of downloads early on amongst a sea full of mediocre images. As word spreads out that you get decent returns on images, more and more contributors joins which just increases the overall quality of SS portfolio. Better quality brings more buyers which leads to more downloads. Of course Getty helped SS to where it is today just by seeing where the breaking point of their greed was.

Even tho it is by invitation and closed now, i believe they will let a lot of contributors in due time. They owe at least that much to the contributors. Offset is their "vetta" because they know the content that they have been getting is of superior quality and worth more than subscription prices.

I would like to think that the buyer that pays $50 for my image appreciates it more than the 75 others that can buy it for a lot less. I feel that value gets lost in these subscription mentality of the buyers.

Yes it's all about branding.  Every marketing guru wants to create a hierarchy of products at different price points.  If you have a new company with a good product, and you add a marketing guy, he'll tell you how you need to have "good", "better" and "best" versions.   If the product doesn't naturally mesh with that concept, he'll create those levels artificially; that's why we have "Windows Home Premium".

While Offset may still be pie in the sky, BigStock is depressingly real.  Among contributors, there have to be winners and losers.  Many of us will not see the Promised Land but will instead be used to fill the shelves at the BigStock Outlet Mall. 

Quote from: Elenathewise on April 09, 2013, 19:07

Click_Click - Actually, I am not offended at all, and trust me my skin is thicker that rhino's after all this years submitting content and dealing with too many agencies:) What makes me sad though is when things don't make plain common sense. I understand the marketing campaign here, but in essence it is kinda... umm... lying:) I am a firm believer that nothing good comes out of lying in the end. Saying that the content is "extra special" when similar content can be found at much lower price point... well I guess it may work on some people, but that also makes me sad  -  people should be able to make judgments for themselves without other people telling them what's good and what's not. (Yes I know most people don't:))

I understand exactly where you are coming from. In 2003 when I started this microstock "thing" I was looking at images from Getty and thought: "Why do I sell my stuff at 25 cents a pop when even lousier content is sold for thousands at Getty?"

That's why I said that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. While I thought that some Getty content is flat out cr@p, it didn't stop them licensing this cr@p for thousands of $$$. So what do I do about it?

I had no reputation, no experience and a point and shoot camera to start off with. Slowly but steady I managed to get into "better" agencies over time and I do get a better return.

And talking about lying... Look at what iStock did over years and years. They lied and lied and deceived and back-stabbed anything and anyone that wasn't circulating on the upper management level. Yet, they are a multi-million dollar operation. Who cares if they lie? Sure in the long run it may very well be a stupid business practice but to be honest, I think I haven't met one honest salesperson in my life.

Try to buy a car - they lie.

Try to by a flat screen TV - the sales people tell you stories about what this thing can do and they don't even have a clue themselves what they are talking about.

I'm not implying that Scott is lying!

I think that words can always be misunderstood or misinterpreted although no harm was intended.

SS decided to show their faces on this forum and I take this as privilege for us contributors.

SS is a big company and this practice is not too common.

I think when the time is right you might very well get an invitation from them. So time will tell how this all pans out.
As long as Jon has the "pants" on, I'm fairly confident that we (SS contributors) won't get screwed.

Without SS I wouldn't be where I am today, for me, it counts for something.

What a great and honest post click_click....worth more than my little "heart".
Elena: don`t be discouraged. Offset opens a path to give more value to your work, no matter if you are invited in this very moment. I do not think you should feel downgraded as of by now. Everybody knows you are at the high end level and I am sure it will be valued soon...

at least we can be more confident that shutterstock will not be taken over by Getty now.