MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => Shutterstock.com => Topic started by: Petr Toman on August 08, 2013, 02:30
-
http://investor.shutterstock.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=251362&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1845768&highlight= (http://investor.shutterstock.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=251362&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1845768&highlight=)
- Revenue for the second quarter was $56.8 million, a 40% increase from the second quarter of 2012.
- Net income for the second quarter of 2013 increased 13% to $6.9 million as compared to $6.1 million in the second quarter of 2012.
- Cash : The Company's cash balance was $112.8 million as of June 30, 2013 as compared to $102.1 million as of December 31, 2012.
Financial Outlook
The Company's current financial and operating expectations for the third quarter of 2013 and full year 2013 are as follows:
Third Quarter 2013
Revenue of $56 - $57 million
Adjusted EBITDA of $11.0 - $12.0 million
Non-cash equity-based compensation expense of approximately $2 million
An effective tax rate of approximately 40%
Full Year 2013
We are increasing our expectations for revenue to $227 - $229 million
We are increasing our expectations for adjusted EBITDA to $48 - $50 million
Non-cash equity-based compensation expense of approximately $8 million
An effective tax rate of approximately 40%
Capital expenditures related to network servers and technology of approximately $5 million
Capital expenditures for non-recurring leasehold improvements related to headquarters office relocation of approximately $10 million
-
Personal EBITDA $0.38 per download
Kinda puts it into perspective
-
Personal EBITDA $0.38 per download
Kinda puts it into perspective
It's more like $0.75 for me, but that doesn't change the perspective much ;D
-
SS, what else? :)
-
At first, congrats Shutterstock to the Profit raise of 13%.
Second, please consider to let your contributors participate in the success and raise the commissions. Not only you deserve it, it is our success too.
-
At first, congrats Shutterstock to the Profit raise of 13%.
Second, please consider to let your contributors participate in the success and raise the commissions. Not only you deserve it, it is our success too.
You will get butchered here for asking for a raise. They will call you a hater; 'If you want a raise, produce better images'. And, 'you got a raise already, the SODs are your raise'. The SS fan boys will whiplash you for even thinking about a raise. ;)
PS: I dont think you want them to raise the commissions ;)
Edit: Only two three votes down, I can guess who, but I thought there were a few more fan boys. :)
Edit2:Come on you can do better than that ! :)
-
So I guess they survived the loss of Yuri?
-
So I guess they survived the loss of Yuri?
LOL
Yuri must have an explanation, looking at the speed of removing his portfolio from agencies I would say that SS will suffer loses in 2023 ;D
p.s: minus up yours LOVE
-
Their profits surly didn't go up do my sales lol! :'(
-
\
-
Their profits surly didn't go up do my sales lol! :'(
Yuri downloads stopped on May 18th (80 days ago), that said SS downloads increased 1.9 M (comparing to the 1st quarter), its sitting now on 270k downloads per day, Yuri had 4k of those, how can that change anything?
-
You will get butchered here for asking for a raise. They will call you a hater; 'If you want a raise, produce better images'. And, 'you got a raise already, the SODs are your raise'. The SS fan boys will whiplash you for even thinking about a raise. ;)
In fact it's more likely to head the other direction - commission cuts. As a recent IPO, they need to move their stock price up to satisfy first-round investors wanting to cash out, and the quickest way to do that is commission cuts. And as their market share continues to increase, they know photographers are even less likely to remove their images in response to cuts, because other sites are declining.
-
Just to avoid confusion, we get paid royalties, the agency takes a commission. If the commissions are raised we get less money, if the commissions are cut, we get more money.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_%28remuneration%29 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_%28remuneration%29)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royalties (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royalties)
-
It would be nice, but we'll never get a raise. You don't see Walmart or any other company saying "Hey, we made a big profit let's pay our suppliers more money." I doubt many photographers offer to pay their models more because they sell more photos. And make no mistake we are just considered suppliers.
But, if they keep growing revenue 40% yoy, I doubt we'll see a cut either. If revenue growth slows, look out.
If you want to benefit from sstk success, buy the stock.
-
And it's all because of me. ;) ;D
-
It would be nice, but we'll never get a raise. You don't see Walmart or any other company saying "Hey, we made a big profit let's pay our suppliers more money." I doubt many photographers offer to pay their models more because they sell more photos. And make no mistake we are just considered suppliers.
But, if they keep growing revenue 40% yoy, I doubt we'll see a cut either. If revenue growth slows, look out.
If you want to benefit from sstk success, buy the stock.
Suppliers to wallmart dont work on royalty bases. Its a weird comparison.
-
\
-
Isnt that a fallacy, no one said I was wrong, so I must be right - Argument from ignorance?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance)
-
\
-
I dont know if you are missing something. Give people some time to respond. I know you love to bash SS, but its a bit early still.
-
\
-
I dont know if you are missing something. Give people some time to respond. I know you love to bash SS, but its a bit early still.
If you think dividing royalties paid by revenue and coming up with a number is bashing Shutterstock then you are a bit sensitive. It's just math.
Why do you even care? Are you planning to leave iS?
-
So I guess since no one corrected me earlier, Shutterstock is paying out an average of 14.2% in royalties. That sounds like the lowest around AFAIK and wasn't it just a couple months ago Jon Oringer was saying they payout 30%?
I think the $110 one is the payout not the $7 one. Both of them say they are in thousands not millions. That still seems a bit low (20%). I'm not sure though.
-
\
-
So I guess since no one corrected me earlier, Shutterstock is paying out an average of 14.2% in royalties. That sounds like the lowest around AFAIK and wasn't it just a couple months ago Jon Oringer was saying they payout 30%?
I think the $110 one is the payout not the $7 one. Both of them say they are in thousands not millions. That still seems a bit low (20%). I'm not sure though.
Hmm... this may not be right either. It looks like the cost of revenue at the bottom is more (21 million). I don't think all of that goes to contributors, but the majority of that does. These tea leaves are too hard to read.
-
\
-
Who says all revenue is from selling images on SS? Offset is in there as well, no? What about Skillfeed? What about other income streams from Affiliate programs, or whatever they do to make money?
-
Contributor royalties payable 8,142
I'm not sure what that means, but I don't think that is the right spot. Those total liabilities add up to more than the revenue.
-
\
-
\
-
I dont know if you are missing something. Give people some time to respond. I know you love to bash SS, but its a bit early still.
If you think dividing royalties paid by revenue and coming up with a number is bashing Shutterstock then you are a bit sensitive. It's just math.
Aren't you forgetting their costs? If my revenue was profit, I would be doing quite well but unfortunately profit is revenue minus costs. Running a site as big as SS and marketing it must cost quite a lot and I presume that makes your simple math completely wrong?
-
\
-
Historically, information gleaned from these reports has lead to rough estimates of high 20% to low 30% pay to contributors. I highly doubt that it has been cut in half in the last 3 months, so this 14% number floating around has to be wrong.
I'm not saying that I can offer a more accurate number, just that it seems impossible that 14% is right.
-
\
-
So am I reading this correctly, they had $56.8 million revenue and paid contributors $8.1 million?
http://seekingalpha.com/article/1616602-shutterstocks-ceo-discusses-q2-2013-results-earnings-call-transcript?page=3 (http://seekingalpha.com/article/1616602-shutterstocks-ceo-discusses-q2-2013-results-earnings-call-transcript?page=3)
Snip
Even though we’re receiving and reviewing more content than ever before, our service levels and time from image submission to approval improved significantly in Q2. We also paid out more to contributors than ever before, nearly $16 million in the quarter.
-
\
-
That's what I thought but it looks very clear that the number is correct, I would appreciate it if you could find where the error is though if there is one. I did expect this report to show a lower royalty rate because of Bigstock going to a subs model but I don't think that alone would explain the drop.
There was no drop. Even if those numbers were correct (clearly they aren't or they're not actual contributor earnings) from one quarter to the next they still went up by a million.
-
Historically, information gleaned from these reports has lead to rough estimates of high 20% to low 30% pay to contributors. I highly doubt that it has been cut in half in the last 3 months, so this 14% number floating around has to be wrong.
That's what I thought but it looks very clear that the number is correct, I would appreciate it if you could find where the error is though if there is one. I did expect this report to show a lower royalty rate because of Bigstock going to a subs model but I don't think that alone would explain the drop.
Like I said above, Cost of revenue ($21,768,000) seems the more likely candidate for what they payout, but that number may not all go to contributors. I assume affiliates and other things are in there too.
-
Well, I am reading that the average revenue per download is 2.33 Usd, obviously a mix of low subscription and higher single image downloads.
The average return people are reporting here is between 0,6 to just under a dollar, so the 30% sound plausible to me.
56 Million revenue a quarter, 21 million as cost of revenue. Somewhere in the cost of revenue for the quarter must be the royalties, because all the other expenses are listed individually (marketing, sales, It)
At least that is the way I would read this.
Would be nice if they published a weekly index on their front page: This week paid out to contributors 1.x Million Dollars etc...
From istock the last data we had was from Kelly Thompson in 2008. I wonder how much they pay out now.
-
I dont know if you are missing something. Give people some time to respond. I know you love to bash SS, but its a bit early still.
If you think dividing royalties paid by revenue and coming up with a number is bashing Shutterstock then you are a bit sensitive. It's just math.
Aren't you forgetting their costs? If my revenue was profit, I would be doing quite well but unfortunately profit is revenue minus costs. Running a site as big as SS and marketing it must cost quite a lot and I presume that makes your simple math completely wrong?
Good point.
-
\
-
I dont know if you are missing something. Give people some time to respond. I know you love to bash SS, but its a bit early still.
If you think dividing royalties paid by revenue and coming up with a number is bashing Shutterstock then you are a bit sensitive. It's just math.
Aren't you forgetting their costs? If my revenue was profit, I would be doing quite well but unfortunately profit is revenue minus costs. Running a site as big as SS and marketing it must cost quite a lot and I presume that makes your simple math completely wrong?
When you say you get 15% at Istock what are you referring to? It's 15% of the revenue, the actual amount a buyer paid not 15% after costs are factored in. I don't know if there are any sites that figure your royalty rate after costs.
Actually he is correct here. If you want to compare apples to apples, then you divide the commissions paid by the revenue, not the profit. That is if you want the commission rate at SS to be comparable to IS, DT, etc.
What seems to be at issue here is the amount of royalties paid, which doesn't appear to be cut-and-dry per the line item, breakout that tickstock quoted.
-
I guess it must be part of that number and the "Contributor royalties payable" is what? I guess they aren't lying on the earnings call so it must be $15.5-16 million in royalties paid or 27-28% overall.
Did you listen to the earnings call? I just wonder if they are mixing in YTD numbers in the call. I didn't listen to it, so I cannot comment. Otherwise I don't understand the big difference between the printed quarterly report and the conference call.
-
\
-
You will get butchered here for asking for a raise. They will call you a hater; 'If you want a raise, produce better images'. And, 'you got a raise already, the SODs are your raise'. The SS fan boys will whiplash you for even thinking about a raise. ;)
In fact it's more likely to head the other direction - commission cuts. As a recent IPO, they need to move their stock price up to satisfy first-round investors wanting to cash out, and the quickest way to do that is commission cuts. And as their market share continues to increase, they know photographers are even less likely to remove their images in response to cuts, because other sites are declining.
Maybe. I'm curious to see how much industry power they really will have several years down the road. There are plenty of very strong IS exclusives who left IS but refused to join SS, including one Mr. Locke. They are losing out on a lot of excellent content that will go elsewhere, and potentially build another agency into a powerhouse.
-
I guess it must be part of that number and the "Contributor royalties payable" is what? I guess they aren't lying on the earnings call so it must be $15.5-16 million in royalties paid or 27-28% overall.
Did you listen to the earnings call? I just wonder if they are mixing in YTD numbers in the call. I didn't listen to it, so I cannot comment. Otherwise I don't understand the big difference between the printed quarterly report and the conference call.
Thinking about it a little more, the "Contributor royalties payable" might be money that is left on contributors accounts but is below the payout level.
Are you looking on the balance sheet or the income sheet? If it is the balance sheet, then I believe the unpaid royalties would be as you stated, and treated as a liability (potential future expense if/when people make payout). If it is on the income sheet, then it should be a cut and dry, already paid royalty number. I used to know this stuff inside and out when I was investing, but as an options trader none of particularly matters. ;)
-
I don't understand the numbers, and don't need to. The basic equation is: increasing market domination, plus pressure to increase profits following an IPO, will mean reduced payments to suppliers. Those reductions may be disguised in various ways - i.e. "we're excited to announce BigStock blah blah blah" - but the logic, as I see it, is inescapable.
People who look forward to reading about Jon Orringer's' lifestyle in "Cigar Afficionado" magazine will be happy. People hoping to make microstock photography worthwhile - well, mixed feelings.
-
Thinking about it a little more, the "Contributor royalties payable" might be money that is left on contributors accounts but is below the payout level.
You beat me to it, that's exactly what I was just thinking. It has to be money that's unpaid but accrued in contributor accounts and payable in the future.
-
So I guess they survived the loss of Yuri?
I can now reveal the reason the stock dropped back then. I bought some at 57, meaning that days later, it was fated to go off a cliff.
-
No matter how you slice it, dice it and crunch numbers we're not getting the entire picture. Are those numbers pure profit or total revenue after the costs of running the company and payments (either made or still accruing) to contributors?
-
Thinking about it a little more, the "Contributor royalties payable" might be money that is left on contributors accounts but is below the payout level.
This is what it is. It is on the Balance Sheet under liabilities. It's money they owe to contributors but haven't paid out yet.
The contributor royalties paid out in Q2 are somewhere in the "cost of revenue" of $21,768 m. This number must also include other items like technology costs (as the other line items of operating expenses don't seem to contain those).
One has to consider that revenue in Q2 and royalties paid in Q2 (even if we knew the exact number within the 21 million) will still not give an exact royalty percentage, as the payments in Q2 relate to the amounts received by contributors in the months March to May, while the revenue contains the months April to June (as Shutterstock pays out in the middle of the month for the prior month). Also to consider: all sales of people that did not reach payout are not included as well (those are in the 8.1 million tickstock mentioned - but only part of it, because some of that amount will come from older downloads).
The best way to derive your own average royalty rate at Shutterstock is still to take your own received RPD for Q2 and divide it by the published number of revenue per download ($2,33 in Q2).
-
The best way to derive your own average royalty rate at Shutterstock is still to take your own received RPD for Q2 and divide it by the published number of revenue per download ($2,33 in Q2).
Makes sense. It's interesting that that numbers seems to have leveled off. I wonder if that is where it will stay?
-
Did you listen to the earnings call? I just wonder if they are mixing in YTD numbers in the call. I didn't listen to it, so I cannot comment. Otherwise I don't understand the big difference between the printed quarterly report and the conference call.
Posted this earlier in the thread there are detailed numbers from Thilo Semmelbauer for contributor royalties of nearly $16 million in the 2nd quarter.
Page 2 or 3 depending on how large your font is. http://seekingalpha.com/article/1616602-shutterstocks-ceo-discusses-q2-2013-results-earnings-call-transcript?page=2 (http://seekingalpha.com/article/1616602-shutterstocks-ceo-discusses-q2-2013-results-earnings-call-transcript?page=2)
Shutterstock's CEO Discusses Q2 2013 Results - Earnings Call Transcript
Snip
With that, I’ll turn the call over to Thilo Semmelbauer, Shutterstock’s president and COO, who will share some of the key operational highlights for the second quarter.
Thilo Semmelbauer
Thanks, Jon. We remained intensely focus on acquiring new customers and adding fresh content in the second quarter as we’ve discussed these two signs of our network, reinforce and drive each other, fueling our growth. Now, starting with the contributors’ side, as in prior quarters, we accepted many new contributors. We saw strong activities from existing contributors and a small number of contributors left us.
In total, we added 2.2 million images and 150,000 video clips in Q2 more than in any prior quarter. And the quality and diversity of our collection is now better than ever. As we’ve mentioned, we screen every image before it enters the collection and we reject between a third and a half of the images that are submitted in order to enforce a very high quality standard. We’re also focused on improving the diversity of our collection so we can meet more of our customers’ needs along the dimensions of subject matter, style, culture, geography. In total, our library contains more than 28 million images and more than a million video clips and continues to be one of the fastest growing and largest collections in our space.
In Q2, we continued to invest in growth on the contributors’ side making a number of improvements to our review operations and our systems to enable us to continue the scale. Even though we’re receiving and reviewing more content than ever before, our service levels and time from image submission to approval improved significantly in Q2. We also paid out more to contributors than ever before, nearly $16 million in the quarter.
-
Posted this earlier in the thread there are detailed numbers from Thilo Semmelbauer for contributor royalties of nearly $16 million in the 2nd quarter.
Page 2 or 3 depending on how large your font is. [url]http://seekingalpha.com/article/1616602-shutterstocks-ceo-discusses-q2-2013-results-earnings-call-transcript?page=2[/url] ([url]http://seekingalpha.com/article/1616602-shutterstocks-ceo-discusses-q2-2013-results-earnings-call-transcript?page=2[/url])
Shutterstock's CEO Discusses Q2 2013 Results - Earnings Call Transcript
In total, we added 2.2 million images and 150,000 video clips in Q2 more than in any prior quarter. And the quality and diversity of our collection is now better than ever. As we’ve mentioned, we screen every image before it enters the collection and we reject between a third and a half of the images that are submitted in order to enforce a very high quality standard. We’re also focused on improving the diversity of our collection so we can meet more of our customers’ needs along the dimensions of subject matter, style, culture, geography. In total, our library contains more than 28 million images and more than a million video clips and continues to be one of the fastest growing and largest collections in our space.
I found this part very interesting. Come on SS, you now have content that should be priced higher. Your library is full of luxury items instead of the all you can eat buffet menu.
This is the only reason i submit simple vector items that sell over and over again. I would like to invest some time creating higher quality vector art if the prices made sense to me.
-
If they paid out 16 million, that would be around 1.3 Million a week in that quarter. In 2008 Kelly said istock was paying out around 1.7 Million? And that they were hoping to pay out more the following year...but who knows if that ever happened.
I really would love to know how much it is now.
But for the individual contributor it is the personal rpd that is most important. Mine is horribly low for photos, but very good for videos. But I am still at the bottom of the food chain.
-
We're at least fifth in line for any remuneration - behind the shareholders, the board, the employees and the tea lady, so I wouldn't count on it.
-
Three Months Ended June 30,
.$ Paid to contributors $16,000,000
Divided by number of paid downloads 24,300,000 = .65 cents average paid out for each download (? "nearly" 16 million including Video, SOD, El, OD)
Number of downloads 24,300,000
Divided by number of images in collection 27,300,000 = .89 average download per image in collection during 3 month period
-
.65 is 27% of $2.33
-
.65 is 27% of $2.33
That's probably as close to the "truth" as it gets...
-
.65 is 27% of $2.33
That's probably as close to the "truth" as it gets...
Nearly ;)
-
.65 is 27% of $2.33
The following puts the monthly/daily numbers in perspective
$639,112.76 SS Q2 Revenue per Day vs $.0061 x Portfolio Number = Average Q2 Contributor Revenue per Download per Day
The average we earned per paid download for the three months in Q2 is $.65 or 27% of $2.33 SS's Revenue per download
$$$$$$$ SS Revenue per download
Number of paid downloads in three months = 24,300,000 x $2.33 or $56,619,000.00 SS Revenue per total downloads per Three Months in Q2
Number of paid downloads in one month = 8, 100,000 x $2.33 or $18,873,000.00 SS Revenue per Month in Q2
Number of paid downloads in one day = 274,291 x $2.33 or $639,112.76 SS Revenue per Day in Q2
On the Contributor side of the 27,300,000 files we have on SS each file on average received the following number of downloads.
.89 average download per file in collection in three months or .89 x $.65 = $.57 Contributor Revenue per download per Three Month Period in Q2
.29 average download per file in collection in one month or .29 x $.65 = $.18 Contributor Revenue per download per Month in Q2
.0095 average download per file in collection in one day or .0095 x $.65 = $.0061 Contributor Revenue per download per Day in Q2 (average duration in month = 29.530589 days)
$639,112.76 SS Revenue per Day vs $.0061 x port number = Average Contributor Revenue per Download per Day
-
These numbers are all well and good and indicate what SS is doing as a company. So long as they remain solvent and show no sign of going out of business what really matters to me is what is my financial position. How much money do I make and are my RPD numbers in line with the average or do I do worse (or better).
Q2 came in at $0.698, slightly better than average. However this was due to an exceptional month in May ($0.901). April and June were below average at $0.608 and $0.584 respectively. So far, July and August are looking better. July at $0.710. Really too soon to judge how August will turn out but I'm at $0.877 through today. August sales are starting out significantly better than July, but it really depends on the mix over the next three weeks.
-
.65 is 27% of $2.33
The following puts the monthly/daily numbers in perspective
$639,112.76 SS Q2 Revenue per Day vs $.0061 x Portfolio Number = Average Q2 Contributor Revenue per Download per Day
The average we earned per paid download for the three months in Q2 is $.65 or 27% of $2.33 SS's Revenue per download
$$$$$$$ SS Revenue per download
Number of paid downloads in three months = 24,300,000 x $2.33 or $56,619,000.00 SS Revenue per total downloads per Three Months in Q2
Number of paid downloads in one month = 8, 100,000 x $2.33 or $18,873,000.00 SS Revenue per Month in Q2
Number of paid downloads in one day = 274,291 x $2.33 or $639,112.76 SS Revenue per Day in Q2
On the Contributor side of the 27,300,000 files we have on SS each file on average received the following number of downloads.
.89 average download per file in collection in three months or .89 x $.65 = $.57 Contributor Revenue per download per Three Month Period in Q2
.29 average download per file in collection in one month or .29 x $.65 = $.18 Contributor Revenue per download per Month in Q2
.0095 average download per file in collection in one day or .0095 x $.65 = $.0061 Contributor Revenue per download per Day in Q2 (average duration in month = 29.530589 days)
$639,112.76 SS Revenue per Day vs $.0061 x port number = Average Contributor Revenue per Download per Day
^^^ That seems to me to be meaningless numbers being spouted without references. Where does "$.0061 x portfolio number" come from? Why have you got a 'vs' (i.e.versus?) in a supposed mathematical formula?
-
.65 is 27% of $2.33
The following puts the monthly/daily numbers in perspective
$639,112.76 SS Q2 Revenue per Day vs $.0061 x Portfolio Number = Average Q2 Contributor Revenue per Download per Day
The average we earned per paid download for the three months in Q2 is $.65 or 27% of $2.33 SS's Revenue per download
$$$$$$$ SS Revenue per download
Number of paid downloads in three months = 24,300,000 x $2.33 or $56,619,000.00 SS Revenue per total downloads per Three Months in Q2
Number of paid downloads in one month = 8, 100,000 x $2.33 or $18,873,000.00 SS Revenue per Month in Q2
Number of paid downloads in one day = 274,291 x $2.33 or $639,112.76 SS Revenue per Day in Q2
On the Contributor side of the 27,300,000 files we have on SS each file on average received the following number of downloads.
.89 average download per file in collection in three months or .89 x $.65 = $.57 Contributor Revenue per download per Three Month Period in Q2
.29 average download per file in collection in one month or .29 x $.65 = $.18 Contributor Revenue per download per Month in Q2
.0095 average download per file in collection in one day or .0095 x $.65 = $.0061 Contributor Revenue per download per Day in Q2 (average days in month = 29.530589 days)
$639,112.76 SS Revenue per Day vs $.0061 x port number = Average Contributor Revenue per Download per Day
^^^ That seems to me to be meaningless numbers being spouted without references.
The numbers come directly out of Second Quarter 2013 Financial Results, they are just broken down.
Start here and break it down from three months in the quarter to one month and they days (average duration in month = 29.530589 days)
Three Months Ended June 30,
.$ Paid to contributors $16,000,000
Divided by number of paid downloads 24,300,000 = .65 cents average paid out for each download (? "nearly" 16 million including Video, SOD, El, OD)
Number of downloads 24,300,000
Divided by number of images in collection 27,300,000 = .89 average download per image in collection during 3 month period
http://investor.shutterstock.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=251362&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1845768&highlight (http://investor.shutterstock.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=251362&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1845768&highlight)
Page 2 or 3 depending on how large your font is. http://seekingalpha.com/article/1616602-shutterstocks-ceo-discusses-q2-2013-results-earnings-call-transcript?page=2 (http://seekingalpha.com/article/1616602-shutterstocks-ceo-discusses-q2-2013-results-earnings-call-transcript?page=2)
Snip
We also paid out more to contributors than ever before, nearly $16 million in the quarter.
Where does "$.0061 x portfolio number" come from?
.0095 average download per file in SS collection in one day or .0095 x $.65 = $.0061 Contributor Revenue per download per Day in Q2 (average days in month = 29.530589 days)
Why have you got a 'vs' (i.e.versus?) in a supposed mathematical formula?
Shutterstock Revenue per Day vs Average Contributor Revenue per Day per Download x number of files in port
-
\
-
I think the $15.5-16million was paid out to contributors, which would include Bigstock, Skillfeed, maybe Offset (I'm not sure if anyone is paid there yet, I think they said it was Beta whatever that actually means), and any other things they have going on now. I wonder if the download numbers include those other sites or not?
http://seekingalpha.com/article/1616602-shutterstocks-ceo-discusses-q2-2013-results-earnings-call-transcript?page=2 (http://seekingalpha.com/article/1616602-shutterstocks-ceo-discusses-q2-2013-results-earnings-call-transcript?page=2)
Snip
With that, I’ll turn the call over to Thilo Semmelbauer, Shutterstock’s president and COO, who will share some of the key operational highlights for the second quarter.
Thilo Semmelbauer
Thanks, Jon. We remained intensely focus on acquiring new customers and adding fresh content in the second quarter as we’ve discussed these two signs of our network, reinforce and drive each other, fueling our growth. Now, starting with the contributors’ side, as in prior quarters, we accepted many new contributors. We saw strong activities from existing contributors and a small number of contributors left us.
In total, we added 2.2 million images and 150,000 video clips in Q2 more than in any prior quarter. And the quality and diversity of our collection is now better than ever. As we’ve mentioned, we screen every image before it enters the collection and we reject between a third and a half of the images that are submitted in order to enforce a very high quality standard. We’re also focused on improving the diversity of our collection so we can meet more of our customers’ needs along the dimensions of subject matter, style, culture, geography. In total, our library contains more than 28 million images and more than a million video clips and continues to be one of the fastest growing and largest collections in our space.
In Q2, we continued to invest in growth on the contributors’ side making a number of improvements to our review operations and our systems to enable us to continue the scale. Even though we’re receiving and reviewing more content than ever before, our service levels and time from image submission to approval improved significantly in Q2. We also paid out more to contributors than ever before, nearly $16 million in the quarter.
-
\
-
"adding fresh content"
Good lord, how much fresh content do you need?
-
First of all, nobody sold you guys a ticket. If you don't like the payout, pull your images off. Put all your images on symbiostock, and get all the money.
For me, I have tried selling direct. 15 years ago direct sales was a great business, but now everyone with a digital camera is a photographer, so this is what you get. The cost of one click on google is over 4 dollars the last time I looked. So, if SS wants to take the risk, that's fine with me. There's a difference between selling a product and producing a profit.
Every month my income goes up at SS. It pays my studio and my mortgage, so to me it's a great thing. I make my profit from assignment work, while the SS machine just keeps grinding away. It's a machine that just keeps spitting out money. I love it.
-
So you don't think Bigstock is included in that then or Offset, are they run by different people? I kind of thought Offset was run by the same Shutterstock guys.
Yes I do think BS is included as mentioned in the Q2 and other filings. Have you seen any information regarding numbers for Offset and Skillfeed in any of the SEC filings?
-
First of all, nobody sold you guys a ticket. If you don't like the payout, pull your images off. Put all your images on symbiostock, and get all the money.
For me, I have tried selling direct. 15 years ago direct sales was a great business, but now everyone with a digital camera is a photographer, so this is what you get. The cost of one click on google is over 4 dollars the last time I looked. So, if SS wants to take the risk, that's fine with me. There's a difference between selling a product and producing a profit.
Every month my income goes up at SS. It pays my studio and my mortgage, so to me it's a great thing. I make my profit from assignment work, while the SS machine just keeps grinding away. It's a machine that just keeps spitting out money. I love it.
Totally agree. Shutterstock pays out to me more than 10 times that of any other site. If I want a raise, I upload more and better images. You earn a raise through your work, not by what someone else gives you.
-
First of all, nobody sold you guys a ticket. If you don't like the payout, pull your images off. Put all your images on symbiostock, and get all the money.
For me, I have tried selling direct. 15 years ago direct sales was a great business, but now everyone with a digital camera is a photographer, so this is what you get. The cost of one click on google is over 4 dollars the last time I looked. So, if SS wants to take the risk, that's fine with me. There's a difference between selling a product and producing a profit.
Every month my income goes up at SS. It pays my studio and my mortgage, so to me it's a great thing. I make my profit from assignment work, while the SS machine just keeps grinding away. It's a machine that just keeps spitting out money. I love it.
Totally agree. Shutterstock pays out to me more than 10 times that of any other site. If I want a raise, I upload more and better images. You earn a raise through your work, not by what someone else gives you.
Your position makes no sense
How many years are you willing to work for the same royalty commission fully knowing that your hard work will be eroded by inflation. By taking your position you are dooming your self to work x% harder each and every day based on inflation alone?
Have your gas expenses gone up? If so it costs you more each year to produce content based on only one business expense. Unless of course you are unplugged, use solar, grow your own food and use horse and buggy for transportation.
http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ (http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/)
$.38 in 2008 has the same spending power as $0.41 does today, therefore your royalty rate suffered a cumulative rate of inflation @ 8.5% since you last received a royalty raise in 2008.
US Inflation Jumps in June 2013, Annual Inflation Rate Hits 1.8%
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23328472 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23328472)
UK inflation rate rises to 2.9% in June.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23324635 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23324635)
The rate of consumer price index (CPI) inflation increased to 2.9% in June, up from 2.7% in May, according to the Office for National Statistics
-
That's not the way this business works. You get paid the competitive rate based on what your work is worth to others. We're not employees or union workers to sit around and whine about cost of living. We're individual business people. If there were more demand for our work and if the ability to create that work was more rare, we'd get paid more. Your expenses have zero to do with it. Besides, that's why you deduct your expenses on your taxes. Let the government pay for it.
Sure, I'd love more money if someone is just going to give it to me. But I'm not going to criticize Shutterstock on that front when it's the only site paying me anything worth more than a second's notice.
Also, looking at the amount you make as 38 cents is a total fallacy. It's an untrue statement to say that's all you make per download. Shutterstock offers different licenses. I'd bet nobody actually makes as little as 38 cents a download, even people on the lowest tier.
Finally, I know for a fact that if I improve my images and upload more of them, I will get a raise because I will sell more. Now that's a raise that's totally within my own hands. I don't understand how that doesn't make sense. I don't look at the my earnings on a download by download basis. I look at my earnings on a month by month basis. If it goes up from one month to the next, that's a raise. Seems pretty clear to me.
-
Totally agree. Shutterstock pays out to me more than 10 times that of any other site. If I want a raise, I upload more and better images. You earn a raise through your work, not by what someone else gives you.
Agree completely.
Actually the key to my success on SS is video. I make 50% of my income from video now. Every time I bring up video i get lots of posts about how hard it is, but it's the future. I've always preferred to take one idea and work on it than just shoot every angle possible, so my workflow works well with video. Even on the train wreck known as Istock, a video has a much better chance of being seen and selling, simply because it's still early days for most concepts. Pond 5 also sells well, but SS is rocketing along. They've obviously made a huge effort to ramp up, with the amount of storage, and the much more tedious process of review.
-
That's not the way this business works. You get paid the competitive rate based on what your work is worth to others. We're not employees or union workers to sit around and whine about cost of living. We're individual business people. If there were more demand for our work and if the ability to create that work was more rare, we'd get paid more. Your expenses have zero to do with it. Besides, that's why you deduct your expenses on your taxes. Let the government pay for it.
Sure, I'd love more money if someone is just going to give it to me. But I'm not going to criticize Shutterstock on that front when it's the only site paying me anything worth more than a second's notice.
Also, looking at the amount you make as 38 cents is a total fallacy. It's an untrue statement to say that's all you make per download. Shutterstock offers different licenses. I'd bet nobody actually makes as little as 38 cents a download, even people on the lowest tier.
Finally, I know for a fact that if I improve my images and upload more of them, I will get a raise because I will sell more. Now that's a raise that's totally within my own hands. I don't understand how that doesn't make sense. I don't look at the my earnings on a download by download basis. I look at my earnings on a month by month basis. If it goes up from one month to the next, that's a raise. Seems pretty clear to me.
Re: Finally, I know for a fact that if I improve my images and upload more of them, I will get a raise because I will sell more. Now that's a raise that's totally within my own hands.
Now that is a fallacy, it is not in your own hands it is in the hands of the sites which images and or ports they choose to display on their front pages. This month they need little kiddos. That should not last long if you keep broadcasting how well they sell.
All commodity prices go up over time, even the ones with historic gluts on the market. At these slim micro margins it does not take long to hit parity between production expenses and income. So good luck with your mindset and enjoy working harder and harder to keep pace with past performance while all around you suppliers raise prices for the things you need to survive.
-
What suppliers? All I have is gear, which has been paid for by just stock earnings 10 times over, and all that I spent on it was deducted from my business taxes. I don't pay models, buy props or pay assistants. I've been using the same memory cards for two years. I don't travel to do stock shoots. My costs are negligible.
And my images don't get special treatment on Shutterstock. They're treated just like yours. I haven't been in a light box since they used to do a "New Artist" one.
On the other hand, I don't try to make microstock my main business. If that's what you mean, I can see your point. I don't think it's possible to rely solely on microstock income to support your family. In fact, I think the idea is a little absurd. I'm not sure how these factories do it. Microstock isn't designed to work that way. It's more for the millions of little people like me who have no costs, so that selling at subscription prices is little sacrifice.
-
All commodity prices go up over time, even the ones with historic gluts on the market.
That's not true at all __ if you take inflation into account. When Henry VIII was king of England, for example, a simple rice pudding was quite literally considered "food fit for a king". To make rice pudding you needed sugar from as far west as the known world and rice from as far east as the known world. Rice pudding was impossibly exotic and very expensive. Nowadays those same commodities are absurdly cheap in the developed world.
Commodity prices are defined by supply and demand. I'm not sure why you might think that there exists a dearth in the supply of images that might justify an increase in their prices?
SS have stated quite clearly that they are currently 'operating for growth' (as opposed to 'operating for profit'). That means that they're not going to raise prices (and therefore royalties) for the foreseeable future. If you want 'a raise' then you'll have to do the work yourself __ just like SS themselves. If they want a raise then they have to spend the money and take the risks in order to, hopefully, sell more of our images.
-
All commodity prices go up over time, even the ones with historic gluts on the market.
That's not true at all __ if you take inflation into account. When Henry VIII was king of England, for example, a simple rice pudding was quite literally considered "food fit for a king". To make rice pudding you needed sugar from as far west as the known world and rice from as far east as the known world. Rice pudding was impossibly exotic and very expensive. Nowadays those same commodities are absurdly cheap in the developed world.
Commodity prices are defined by supply and demand. I'm not sure why you might think that there exists a dearth in the supply of images that might justify an increase in their prices?
SS have stated quite clearly that they are currently 'operating for growth' (as opposed to 'operating for profit'). That means that they're not going to raise prices (and therefore royalties) for the foreseeable future. If you want 'a raise' then you'll have to do the work yourself __ just like SS themselves. If they want a raise then they have to spend the money and take the risks in order to, hopefully, sell more of our images.
How can you be in business and not take inflation into account? Every year our expenses go up and it costs more to produce images. Take your example of rice for instance, if I drive to the store to buy rice and then photograph it it will cost me more to purchase both rice and gas each year and the value of my royalty has gone down via inflation.
Re: Commodity prices are defined by supply and demand. I'm not sure why you might think that there exists a dearth in the supply of images that might justify an increase in their prices?
You mistake the sites willingness to drive the value of our content down to gain market share with their actual worth. If the sites actually had to pay to produce that content themselves rest assured they would take much better care to guard the value of those assets!
Each year their market share increases and they gain a larger RPD and they are doing it based on our investments. And yes even the price of rice goes up.
As far as supply outpacing demand that is a fallacy and is not happening, despite the huge flux received over the last few months from IS exclusives.
2013 Number of paid downloads 2013 46,700,000 / Images in collection (end of 6 month period) 2013 27,300,000 = 1.7 Paid Downloads Per Image in SS collection
2012 Number of paid downloads 2012 35,900,000 / Images in collection (end of 6 month period) 2012 20,200,000 = 1.7 Paid Downloads Per Image in SS collection
Revenue per download Three Months Ended June 2013 2.33 vs Revenue per download Three Months Ended June 2012 2.22
http://investor.shutterstock.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=251362&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1845768 (http://investor.shutterstock.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=251362&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1845768)
- Quarterly revenue increases 40% from prior year period to $56.8 million
- Adjusted EBITDA increases 61% to $13.4 million
- Quarterly image downloads increase 33% to 24.3 million
- Revenue per download increases 5% to $2.33
Number of paid downloads 2013 46,700,000
Number of paid downloads 2012 35,900,000
Revenue per download Three Months Ended June 2013 2.33
Revenue per download Three Months Ended June 2012 2.22
Images in collection (end of 6 month period) 2013 27,300,000
Images in collection (end of 6 month period) 2012 20,200,000
-
Expenses don't matter. Our images are worth what people are willing to pay for them. No more, no less. Shutterstock pays me more for my images -- at least 10 times more -- than any other site out there. If a site comes up that can pay me more, I'd be happy to consider them.
And I'm not in this boat alone. The little chart to the right pretty much says it all. (I don't buy the iStock exclusive results either.)
-
\
-
Isnt a raise a reward for doing good work, so you get paid more for doing the same work? How is adding more and better images a raise for me? If more and better and newer images dont sell its even a waste of time and money. I can only agree with Gbalex here.
-
This whole "if you want more money work harder" is pure nonsense. You could tell the same to the people working in indonesian sweat shops: hey guys, we pay just a fraction of our profit, but you ahve a opportunity! How cynic and brainwashed! And not only for the Contributor, for the Agencies too. We will simply see more of the same images in more quantity with stagnating quality and Contributors will leave the ship as soon as some alternative projects like symbiostock shows a decent monetary reward. No one likes to get ripped off. Under the current Model Databases just get bloated with similars, therefore some Clients already complain while looking for different shots like of "real people" for example.
-
Jon Oringer, 39, founded 10 companies before he hit on the idea for Shutterstock, the successful stock-photo website that has made him Silicon Alley's first billionaire.
"I'd failed a whole bunch of times before that and I was willing to fail again," says Mr Oringer of his decision to go into the photography business, something he knew nothing about.
Now, after a successful stock market debut in October 2012 and with more than 28 million photos, videos and illustrations in its vast database, shares in Mr Oringer's Shutterstock are soaring.
With an ownership stake estimated at more than 55% of the company, Mr Oringer has become the first billionaire to come out of Silicon Alley - New York's thriving tech sector - with an estimated net wealth of $1.05bn (£682m)."
I'm not entirely sure its really worth this much I notice hes retained control with 55% - good news
-
\
-
Expenses don't matter. Our images are worth what people are willing to pay for them. No more, no less. Shutterstock pays me more for my images -- at least 10 times more -- than any other site out there. If a site comes up that can pay me more, I'd be happy to consider them.
And I'm not in this boat alone. The little chart to the right pretty much says it all. (I don't buy the iStock exclusive results either.)
You do not know what people are willing to pay for images because you have a leading site keeping prices down so that they can gain market share!
-
Jon Oringer, 39, founded 10 companies before he hit on the idea for Shutterstock, the successful stock-photo website that has made him Silicon Alley's first billionaire.
"I'd failed a whole bunch of times before that and I was willing to fail again," says Mr Oringer of his decision to go into the photography business, something he knew nothing about.
Now, after a successful stock market debut in October 2012 and with more than 28 million photos, videos and illustrations in its vast database, shares in Mr Oringer's Shutterstock are soaring.
With an ownership stake estimated at more than 55% of the company, Mr Oringer has become the first billionaire to come out of Silicon Alley - New York's thriving tech sector - with an estimated net wealth of $1.05bn (£682m)."
I'm not entirely sure its really worth this much I notice hes retained control with 55% - good news
Are you quoting the BBC article? My favorite line in that piece is: "More than 40,000 artists submit images and videos to the Shutterstock marketplace, responding to real-time data that tells them what the site's members are looking for - a picture of a cat, for instance."
I know they have cutting edge technology over there but they've figured out after 10 years that buyers are looking for pictures of cats, I guess it really is over for the rest of the sites.
Here's the link to the article (puff piece) if you care to read it: [url]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23469410[/url] ([url]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23469410[/url])
You always use fallacies in your arguments, making them nonsense.
When its raining the sun doesnt shine. So when the sun doesnt shine, it must be raining. (I am sure someone will say the sun always shines somewhere, thats not the point)
-
Expenses don't matter. Our images are worth what people are willing to pay for them. No more, no less. Shutterstock pays me more for my images -- at least 10 times more -- than any other site out there. If a site comes up that can pay me more, I'd be happy to consider them.
SS is gaining market share over time, at the expense of smaller companies that would pay more to contributors. So yes, not surprising that most of your sales income is coming from SS. That isn't necessarily a good thing.
When a middleman like SS gains control of a market, payments to suppliers don't increase. Just the opposite.
-
\
-
I think SS is more about expanding the market than taking an already small market share from competitors
-
Isnt a raise a reward for doing good work, so you get paid more for doing the same work? How is adding more and better images a raise for me? If more and better and newer images dont sell its even a waste of time and money. I can only agree with Gbalex here.
We're not employees. That's the difference. When you are self-employed, the only way to make more money is to produce more and produce better quality. It is all on you. Asking Shutterstock for a raise "for doing good work" is like asking Shutterstock to give you paid holidays and health insurance. Might as well ask for those, too. You have about the same chance of getting them.
-
Isnt a raise a reward for doing good work, so you get paid more for doing the same work? How is adding more and better images a raise for me? If more and better and newer images dont sell its even a waste of time and money. I can only agree with Gbalex here.
We're not employees. That's the difference. When you are self-employed, the only way to make more money is to produce more and produce better quality. It is all on you. Asking Shutterstock for a raise "for doing good work" is like asking Shutterstock to give you paid holidays and health insurance. Might as well ask for those, too. You have about the same chance of getting them.
That is right we are suppliers and suppliers all over the world raise prices as their own expenses go up.
Just how many publicly traded companies do you think will be affected by rising supplier costs from Asia?
Asia Soaring Wages Mean Rising Prices Worldwide
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-02/asia-soaring-wages-stoke-inflation-as-factory-costs-rise.html (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-02/asia-soaring-wages-stoke-inflation-as-factory-costs-rise.html)
Snip
Executive Director Ernie Koh has a message for clients in 50 countries who complain about the Singapore-based furniture maker’s first price increase in two years: Take it or leave it.
Koda’s factories in China, Malaysia and Vietnam are battling rising costs as governments in Asia increase minimum wages to curb discontent over a widening wealth gap. While weak global growth and increased competition limited the ability of producers to raise prices during the past five years, Koh says they can’t go on absorbing the additional expenses.
-
OK. Go ahead. Raise your prices. I won't raise mine. I would even consider cutting mine if it resulted in more sales.
You're ignoring the other parts of the equation. Competition and what customers are willing to pay for your product.
-
OK. Go ahead. Raise your prices. I won't raise mine. I would even consider cutting mine if it resulted in more sales.
You're ignoring the other parts of the equation. Competition and what customers are willing to pay for your product.
I don't think anyone is suggesting a raise in prices. Any raise should come from the agencies, not the buyers end of things. Because we all know that there is still room there for contributors to get more. 20%, 30%, even 50% of each sale is low. I can't help mentioning the Apple App Store example again, where developers get 70% of each sale.
That said, I don't expect to ever see a raise in contributor royalties. I just don't think any of these companies care if it's impossible for any of us to have a long-term career in this business. I can't do this 10 years from now if I can't grow my income to keep up with increasing costs of living. But do any of these companies care about that? So I have to drop out of microstock in the next five to ten years. Big deal. Why should they care?
That's the real problem. Not whether or not anyone deserves a raise or whether these companies can afford it (they all can, it's a fact). The real problem is that these companies have zero incentive to helping us make this a sustainable (sorry to use that word) business for contributors.
A raise will never happen, that's just how it is. So we can either struggle to keep up by constantly cranking out more content faster, or expect to be doing something else to make a living in the next several years.
-
I don't think anyone is suggesting a raise in prices. Any raise should come from the agencies, not the buyers end of things. Because we all know that there is still room there for contributors to get more. 20%, 30%, even 50% of each sale is low. I can't help mentioning the Apple App Store example again, where developers get 70% of each sale.
That said, I don't expect to ever see a raise in contributor royalties. I just don't think any of these companies care if it's impossible for any of us to have a long-term career in this business. I can't do this 10 years from now if I can't grow my income to keep up with increasing costs of living. But do any of these companies care about that? So I have to drop out of microstock in the next five to ten years. Big deal. Why should they care?
That's the real problem. Not whether or not anyone deserves a raise or whether these companies can afford it (they all can, it's a fact). The real problem is that these companies have zero incentive to helping us make this a sustainable (sorry to use that word) business for contributors.
A raise will never happen, that's just how it is. So we can either struggle to keep up by constantly cranking out more content faster, or expect to be doing something else to make a living in the next several years.
+1 Dark side of microstock :(
-
Expenses don't matter. Our images are worth what people are willing to pay for them. No more, no less. Shutterstock pays me more for my images -- at least 10 times more -- than any other site out there. If a site comes up that can pay me more, I'd be happy to consider them.
And I'm not in this boat alone. The little chart to the right pretty much says it all. (I don't buy the iStock exclusive results either.)
You do not know what people are willing to pay for images because you have a leading site keeping prices down so that they can gain market share!
Oh, the humanity! I can't believe people would undercut prices and drive out living wages for so many people! It's just not fair...
Really, it makes me smile.People on a microstock site complaining about prices being too low. After so many years of sneering at "trad stock" photographers whining about microstock, you guys are whining about...microstock! Well, ha ha. You made this bed, so sleep in it. The bottom line is, you have no choice. You can complain about inflation, you can bring up all the stats you want, but you aren't going to compete with someone who essentially has no cost basis. You're not. So get over it. No raises are coming, even if you hold your breath until you turn blue.
I can tell you what people used to be willing to pay for images, before microstock, but you wouldn't believe me anyway. So why am I shooting microstock? Because I am in a business, and I go where the customers are. And I still make enough money to provide for my family. And i work just as hard as i ever did, because the key to being a "professional" ( remember that debate?) is to work as hard as it takes, not to just whine about how it should be.
-
Expenses don't matter. Our images are worth what people are willing to pay for them. No more, no less. Shutterstock pays me more for my images -- at least 10 times more -- than any other site out there. If a site comes up that can pay me more, I'd be happy to consider them.
And I'm not in this boat alone. The little chart to the right pretty much says it all. (I don't buy the iStock exclusive results either.)
You do not know what people are willing to pay for images because you have a leading site keeping prices down so that they can gain market share!
Oh, the humanity! I can't believe people would undercut prices and drive out living wages for so many people! It's just not fair...
Really, it makes me smile.People on a microstock site complaining about prices being too low. After so many years of sneering at "trad stock" photographers whining about microstock, you guys are whining about...microstock! Well, ha ha. You made this bed, so sleep in it. The bottom line is, you have no choice. You can complain about inflation, you can bring up all the stats you want, but you aren't going to compete with someone who essentially has no cost basis. You're not. So get over it. No raises are coming, even if you hold your breath until you turn blue.
I can tell you what people used to be willing to pay for images, before microstock, but you wouldn't believe me anyway. So why am I shooting microstock? Because I am in a business, and I go where the customers are. And I still make enough money to provide for my family. And i work just as hard as i ever did, because the key to being a "professional" ( remember that debate?) is to work as hard as it takes, not to just whine about how it should be.
I believe the royalties were about 70-80-90% when it started. No one asked for 15% royalties, or 25 cent.
-
Expenses don't matter. Our images are worth what people are willing to pay for them. No more, no less. Shutterstock pays me more for my images -- at least 10 times more -- than any other site out there. If a site comes up that can pay me more, I'd be happy to consider them.
And I'm not in this boat alone. The little chart to the right pretty much says it all. (I don't buy the iStock exclusive results either.)
You do not know what people are willing to pay for images because you have a leading site keeping prices down so that they can gain market share!
Oh, the humanity! I can't believe people would undercut prices and drive out living wages for so many people! It's just not fair...
Really, it makes me smile.People on a microstock site complaining about prices being too low. After so many years of sneering at "trad stock" photographers whining about microstock, you guys are whining about...microstock! Well, ha ha. You made this bed, so sleep in it. The bottom line is, you have no choice. You can complain about inflation, you can bring up all the stats you want, but you aren't going to compete with someone who essentially has no cost basis. You're not. So get over it. No raises are coming, even if you hold your breath until you turn blue.
I can tell you what people used to be willing to pay for images, before microstock, but you wouldn't believe me anyway. So why am I shooting microstock? Because I am in a business, and I go where the customers are. And I still make enough money to provide for my family. And i work just as hard as i ever did, because the key to being a "professional" ( remember that debate?) is to work as hard as it takes, not to just whine about how it should be.
I believe the royalties were about 70-80-90% when it started. No one asked for 15% royalties, or 25 cent.
70-80-90% of $1.00 still values the file for peanuts, at a time when even RF was selling for $25.00 a shot, and a rights managed shot routinely sold for $1500- $5000 depending on use. So you're drawing the line at 15% royalties and 25 cent? That's fine. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
-
I am not drawing a line anywhere, and your pricing of 5000 was artificially overpriced. There has been an excellent discussion about that between Baldrick and Shudderstock. I just made a point that it the royalties were higher once.
-
I am not drawing a line anywhere, and your pricing of 5000 was artificially overpriced. There has been an excellent discussion about that between Baldrick and Shudderstock. I just made a point that it the royalties were higher once.
No it isn't. I sold many licenses for those kind of numbers, but that was back when everything was film, and clients wanted unique images that a competitor couldn't use. The clients don't care anymore because there is no way to justify a high price for restricted use.
Right after 9/11, i sold an American flag image to a national publication to use in their masthead. They paid me $25,000. ( and they never even used it ). Prices were indeed higher once. But the genies' out of the bottle, and isn't going back in.
-
I've said this before the last time a raise came up - SS can keep the raise provided they continue to open up the BRIC countries and others - which is increasingly evident by the results on my download map and creating opportunities for me to earn larger royalties as with single/other downloads.
My only caveat would be that SS create a further earnings tier beyond $10,000
-
I've said this before the last time a raise came up - SS can keep the raise provided they continue to open up the BRIC countries and others - which is increasingly evident by the results on my download map and creating opportunities for me to earn larger royalties as with single/other downloads.
Shutterstocks _PROFIT_ was increasing. Profit is the money you keep in your hands and spend for your own joy AFTER the deduction of expenses. Which means: this money is not used for expanding any market, may it be BRIC or whatever nor does it help SS in any other way. It is just about shareholders satisfaction and their greed. Too, this shows that SS would not need to increase prices to give us a raise if they would be ok with a little less profit _increase_or the same Profit as the Q before.
-
Why is shareholders getting an income on investment dividend greed and photographers asking for a raise not? SS are doing a good job for shareholders and opening up markets. Do you think if they were losing money it would be a good thing?
-
I am not drawing a line anywhere, and your pricing of 5000 was artificially overpriced. There has been an excellent discussion about that between Baldrick and Shudderstock. I just made a point that it the royalties were higher once.
No it isn't. I sold many licenses for those kind of numbers, but that was back when everything was film, and clients wanted unique images that a competitor couldn't use. The clients don't care anymore because there is no way to justify a high price for restricted use.
Right after 9/11, i sold an American flag image to a national publication to use in their masthead. They paid me $25,000. ( and they never even used it ). Prices were indeed higher once. But the genies' out of the bottle, and isn't going back in.
Because you sold at those prices, doesnt meant that it wasnt artificially overpriced. Thats how a cartel works. CDs were kept at 40 guilders and later at 25 euro (50 guilders) when they should have cost 50% less. In fact the CDs only went up in price while everything else became cheaper. This is why people started downloading torrents. They were no longer accepting these artificially high prices. Until Steve Jobs jumped in and made a deal to offer music for 99cent per DL.
-
Why is shareholders getting an income on investment dividend greed and photographers asking for a raise not? SS are doing a good job for shareholders and opening up markets. Do you think if they were losing money it would be a good thing?
Its called greed because they are squeezing the contributors. The royalties were reduced by about 60% over the last 7 years whilst some people lined their pockets. Contributors are asking for a bit of that royalty back now it turns out that the company is making more and more profit. As Tror said, they are not losing money, they might get a little less profit.
-
I've said this before the last time a raise came up - SS can keep the raise provided they continue to open up the BRIC countries and others - which is increasingly evident by the results on my download map and creating opportunities for me to earn larger royalties as with single/other downloads.
Shutterstocks _PROFIT_ was increasing. Profit is the money you keep in your hands and spend for your own joy AFTER the deduction of expenses. Which means: this money is not used for expanding any market, may it be BRIC or whatever nor does it help SS in any other way. It is just about shareholders satisfaction and their greed. Too, this shows that SS would not need to increase prices to give us a raise if they would be ok with a little less profit _increase_or the same Profit as the Q before.
I see and understand your point but unfortunately businesses are not created for their employees/customers/suppliers/governments to make money. Nor are they interested in environmental impact/community support/values and ethics/equality and diversity or much else that is farted out by their PR/Marketing people. Their sole purpose is to increase the dividend paid out to their shareholders - everything else is at their discretion depending on individual country regulations which they will circumvent or trample over at every opportunity to increase/protect that profit/dividend.
-
Because you sold at those prices, doesnt meant that it wasnt artificially overpriced. Thats how a cartel works. CDs were kept at 40 guilders and later at 25 euro (50 guilders) when they should have cost 50% less. In fact the CDs only went up in price while everything else became cheaper. This is why people started downloading torrents. They were no longer accepting these artificially high prices. Until Steve Jobs jumped in and made a deal to offer music for 99cent per DL.
Well, I think Porsches are artificially priced high. I should go steal one.
-
Because you sold at those prices, doesnt meant that it wasnt artificially overpriced. Thats how a cartel works. CDs were kept at 40 guilders and later at 25 euro (50 guilders) when they should have cost 50% less. In fact the CDs only went up in price while everything else became cheaper. This is why people started downloading torrents. They were no longer accepting these artificially high prices. Until Steve Jobs jumped in and made a deal to offer music for 99cent per DL.
Well, I think Porsches are artificially priced high. I should go steal one.
Thats not the point I am making, I am just stating a fact.
-
I've said this before the last time a raise came up - SS can keep the raise provided they continue to open up the BRIC countries and others - which is increasingly evident by the results on my download map and creating opportunities for me to earn larger royalties as with single/other downloads.
Shutterstocks _PROFIT_ was increasing. Profit is the money you keep in your hands and spend for your own joy AFTER the deduction of expenses. Which means: this money is not used for expanding any market, may it be BRIC or whatever nor does it help SS in any other way. It is just about shareholders satisfaction and their greed. Too, this shows that SS would not need to increase prices to give us a raise if they would be ok with a little less profit _increase_or the same Profit as the Q before.
I see and understand your point but unfortunately businesses are not created for their employees/customers/suppliers/governments to make money. Nor are they interested in environmental impact/community support/values and ethics/equality and diversity or much else that is farted out by their PR/Marketing people. Their sole purpose is to increase the dividend paid out to their shareholders - everything else is at their discretion depending on individual country regulations which they will circumvent or trample over at every opportunity to increase/protect that profit/dividend.
I generally agree but wopuld want to limit the definition of businesses to "shareholder businesses". And exactly this is what I critizise. I think any wallstreet business has the potential to bleed out the roots of its own existence - may it be nature, environment, contributors, quality, healthiness of food etc. Familiy business are very often very friendly and humble. Look at FAA. Nice people. Zero problems.
-
"adding fresh content"
Good lord, how much fresh content do you need?
Enough to successfully implement fancy new search ranking algorithms. SS received a huge influx of new files from new contributors. Some of them former IS exclusives who will for a time receive lower royalty rates. Now who do you suppose receives a higher ranking in the new ranking algorithm? It also explains why the RPD is higher and why they are asking contributors to make video's that contain carrots to attract new low pay tier producers.
Revenue per download Three Months Ended June 2013 2.33 vs Revenue per download Three Months Ended June 2012 2.22
2013 Number of paid downloads 2013 46,700,000 / Images in collection (end of 6 month period) 2013 27,300,000 = 1.7 Paid Downloads Per Image in SS collection
2012 Number of paid downloads 2012 35,900,000 / Images in collection (end of 6 month period) 2012 20,200,000 = 1.7 Paid Downloads Per Image in SS collection
http://investor.shutterstock.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=251362&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1845768 (http://investor.shutterstock.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=251362&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1845768)
http://www.microstockgroup.com/shutterstock-com/entries-open-shutterstock-stories- (http://www.microstockgroup.com/shutterstock-com/entries-open-shutterstock-stories-)$75k-artistic-grant-program/msg337904
Snip
which "unique stories of how creating and licensing visual content has affected people's lives - ranging from building a new business, to traveling, to quitting an unfulfilling job to be a full-time "creative," to learning new artistic methods, to helping families, etc...
http://bits.shutterstock.com/ (http://bits.shutterstock.com/)
Snip from SS tech blog
Now suppose you are so diligent that you keep rolling out A/B tests, this time testing a fancy search ranking algorithm. Two weeks later you see that there is a $0.10 increase in dollar spent per visitor for the test variant compared to the control (i.e. existing search ranking algorithm) variant. If the increase is real, with 100K visitors each day, that’s $0.10 × 100,000 = $10,000 dollars extra revenue each day. Now, let’s add a twist: you need five extra servers to support that fancy algorithm in production, and the servers cost $10,000 each to buy, and another $10,000 to run per year. You want to make sure it’s worth the investment. Your stats tell you that you currently have a p-value of 0.3, which most people would interpret as a “nonsignificant” result. But a p-value of 0.3 means that with the new ranking algorithm the net gain in extra-money-making probability is 0.7 − 0.3 = 0.4. With the expected size of the gain being $0.10 per visitor, the expected extra revenue per year is $0.10 × 100,000 × 0.4 × 365 = $1.46M dollars. The rational thing to do is of course release it.
-
Enough to successfully implement fancy new search ranking algorithms. SS received a huge influx of new files from new contributors. Some of them former IS exclusives who will for a time receive lower royalty rates. Now who do you suppose receives a higher ranking in the new ranking algorithm? It also explains why the RPD is higher and why they are asking contributors to make video's that contain carrots to attract new low pay tier producers...
That's a very short-term gain, though, at least per new contributor. And especially if we're talking about migrating istock exclusives. Any new contributor with an existing portfolio of good images is going to quickly surpass the lower tiers. It only takes $3,000 in earnings to get to $0.36, just 2 cents shy of the maximum.
If the goal is to simply make the next few quarterly reports look a little nicer, then maybe this strategy works. But I don't think SS is in the business of looking to short-term strategies for small, temporary gains. Just my opinion, and it's certainly not impossible that this is in fact what they're trying to do. Just doesn't seem like the kind of play they'd make.
-
\
-
Enough to successfully implement fancy new search ranking algorithms. SS received a huge influx of new files from new contributors. Some of them former IS exclusives who will for a time receive lower royalty rates. Now who do you suppose receives a higher ranking in the new ranking algorithm? It also explains why the RPD is higher and why they are asking contributors to make video's that contain carrots to attract new low pay tier producers...
That's a very short-term gain, though, at least per new contributor. And especially if we're talking about migrating istock exclusives. Any new contributor with an existing portfolio of good images is going to quickly surpass the lower tiers. It only takes $3,000 in earnings to get to $0.36, just 2 cents shy of the maximum.
If the goal is to simply make the next few quarterly reports look a little nicer, then maybe this strategy works. But I don't think SS is in the business of looking to short-term strategies for small, temporary gains. Just my opinion, and it's certainly not impossible that this is in fact what they're trying to do. Just doesn't seem like the kind of play they'd make.
Talk to contributors who have seen huge drops in the last few months and ask their viewpoint. Ask them what happened to their files which were on fist page searches.
And yes it will be short term and that is why they are asking us to help produce videos that they can use as advertising collateral to attract new contributors. How much of the advertising budget listed in SEC filings do you suppose goes toward attracting new contributors?
-
SS received a huge influx of new files from new contributors. Some of them former IS exclusives who will for a time receive lower royalty rates. Now who do you suppose receives a higher ranking in the new ranking algorithm? It also explains why the RPD is higher and why they are asking contributors to make video's that contain carrots to attract new low pay tier producers.
They've been getting a huge influx of files for a long time now, the amount of exclusives moving to Shutterstock is probably a small portion of that. They have always had lower level contributors, from the very beginning, and it would have been more profitable for the last 10 years to promote them. Maybe that's happening now but you haven't given any proof. The other thing is that RPD (you use Revenue per download) doesn't go up if lower level contributors files are bought, profit goes up costs go down and revenue stays the same. The files cost the same for the buyer no matter what level they are.
Check the link I provided. SS uses Revenue Per Download in their SEC filings. They are describing an increase in revenue per file downloaded. And yes profits do go up if they sell lower tier royalty files.
We have never seen influxes of files as large as we did during the last quarter.
-
\
-
Why is shareholders getting an income on investment dividend greed and photographers asking for a raise not? SS are doing a good job for shareholders and opening up markets. Do you think if they were losing money it would be a good thing?
Its called greed because they are squeezing the contributors. The royalties were reduced by about 60% over the last 7 years whilst some people lined their pockets. Contributors are asking for a bit of that royalty back now it turns out that the company is making more and more profit. As Tror said, they are not losing money, they might get a little less profit.
When did SS reduce royalties 60%?
-
SS received a huge influx of new files from new contributors. Some of them former IS exclusives who will for a time receive lower royalty rates. Now who do you suppose receives a higher ranking in the new ranking algorithm? It also explains why the RPD is higher and why they are asking contributors to make video's that contain carrots to attract new low pay tier producers.
They've been getting a huge influx of files for a long time now, the amount of exclusives moving to Shutterstock is probably a small portion of that. They have always had lower level contributors, from the very beginning, and it would have been more profitable for the last 10 years to promote them. Maybe that's happening now but you haven't given any proof. The other thing is that RPD (you use Revenue per download) doesn't go up if lower level contributors files are bought, profit goes up costs go down and revenue stays the same. The files cost the same for the buyer no matter what level they are.
Check the link I provided. SS uses Revenue Per Download in their SEC filings. They are describing an increase in revenue per file downloaded. And yes profits do go up if they sell lower tier royalty files.
We have never seen influxes of files as large as we did during the last quarter.
Right but revenue doesn't change depending on which level the contributor whose files are bought is. Pushing different contributors files up or down the search shouldn't affect revenue in itself.
Profits or net income generally imply total revenue minus total expenses in a given period, Net income for the second quarter of 2013 increased 13% to $6.9 million as compared to $6.1 million in the second quarter of 2012.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/1616602-shutterstocks-ceo-discusses-q2-2013-results-earnings-call-transcript (http://seekingalpha.com/article/1616602-shutterstocks-ceo-discusses-q2-2013-results-earnings-call-transcript)
Snip
Expenses included Capital expenditures for non-recurring leasehold improvements related to headquarters office relocation of approximately $10 million.
Snip
Our cash balance strengthened in June 30 with $113 million. We generated $4 million of cash from operations in the quarter and capital expenditures was $1.9 million.
We continue to expect total capital expenditures for the full year with approximately $15 million, and this total CapEx is made up of two types, $5 million of which is related to ongoing computer server and network infrastructure cost to sort of run the business and expand the operations. And the remainder or about $10 million is related to a non-recurring combination of expenses related to leasehold improvements, furniture and related cost as we relocate and expand our primary headquarters office in New York City in the second half of the year.
Snip
Furthermore, we expect adjusted EBITDA to be between $11 million and $12 million in the third quarter. We are also increasing our revenue and adjusted EBITDA expectations for the full year of 2013. For the full year, we expect revenue to be between $227 million and $229 million, and we expect adjusted EBITDA between $48 million and $50 million.
-
\
-
I'm not arguing whether or not they profited. You said Shutterstock's higher revenue per download showed that they were messing with the search and putting lower level ex-exclusives first in the search, at least that seemed like the implication. I'm just saying revenue isn't changed depending which files are bought (low level vs. higher level), even Shutterstock said the higher RPD is from selling more single image sales.
Yes I should have used net income instead of RPD
I posted SS own blog regarding search changes and mentioned inquiring about anecdotal feedback from long term submitters regarding huge drops in sales. Those that I know who have taken huge hits had many images on first page searches and the more competitive those slots were the more their ports were impacted.
I will leave it to you to visit a relevant number of first page searches to determine the tier which is now occupying those hard earned spots. I do know what I found in the slots which replace my previous long term best selling images on fist page searches.
-
I'm not arguing whether or not they profited. You said Shutterstock's higher revenue per download showed that they were messing with the search and putting lower level ex-exclusives first in the search, at least that seemed like the implication. I'm just saying revenue isn't changed depending which files are bought (low level vs. higher level), even Shutterstock said the higher RPD is from selling more single image sales.
Yes I should have used net income instead of RPD
I posted SS own blog regarding search changes and mentioned inquiring about anecdotal feedback from long term submitters regarding huge drops in sales. Those that I know who have taken huge hits had many images on first page searches and the more competitive those slots were the more their ports were impacted.
I will leave it to you to visit a relevant number of first page searches to determine the tier which is now occupying those hard earned spots. I do know what I found in the slots which replace my previous long term best selling images on fist page searches.
I keep reading and wondering about all the threads on search algorithms and "first page" placement. They all say pretty much the same thing;
the search has changed and it is killing my sales.
I've yet to read anything on what to do about it. Is there some positive change that I can make to my workflow that will combat "poor placement" in searches?
-
\
-
Take pictures of things that don't have a lot of search results.
OKAY!!! Problem Solved. Now we can move on to something more important. ::)
-
\
-
Take pictures of things that don't have a lot of search results.
OKAY!!! Problem Solved. Now we can move on to something more important. ::)
What are you looking for? There is no secret way to get your images placed first in the search results.
are you sure?
-
Take pictures of things that don't have a lot of search results.
OKAY!!! Problem Solved. Now we can move on to something more important. ::)
What are you looking for? There is no secret way to get your images placed first in the search results.
I'm trying to agree with you. Placement is something over which we have no control.
The constant rants are pointless.
-
Take pictures of things that don't have a lot of search results.
OKAY!!! Problem Solved. Now we can move on to something more important. ::)
What are you looking for? There is no secret way to get your images placed first in the search results.
I'm trying to agree with you. Placement is something over which we have no control.
The constant rants are pointless.
I don't know about you but I like to know where I stand when making business choices. That is why I take an interest in SS SEC filings.
While you are right we have limited control over search placement. We do have control over where we park our images.
It is no wonder Symbiostock is taking up more and more of the conversation on this board.
-
I'm not arguing whether or not they profited. You said Shutterstock's higher revenue per download showed that they were messing with the search and putting lower level ex-exclusives first in the search, at least that seemed like the implication (edit: looking back it was clearly stated as such not implied). I'm just saying revenue isn't changed depending which files are bought (low level vs. higher level), even Shutterstock said the higher RPD is from selling more single image sales.
Agree with that, revenue doesnt change, only profit, when paying out 25 or 28 cent
-
Why is shareholders getting an income on investment dividend greed and photographers asking for a raise not? SS are doing a good job for shareholders and opening up markets. Do you think if they were losing money it would be a good thing?
Its called greed because they are squeezing the contributors. The royalties were reduced by about 60% over the last 7 years whilst some people lined their pockets. Contributors are asking for a bit of that royalty back now it turns out that the company is making more and more profit. As Tror said, they are not losing money, they might get a little less profit.
When did SS reduce royalties 60%?
Never, Ron just makes up this to get attention and won't answer you to back up his lies. He has not a camera, doesn't upload to microstock, comes here to troll. SS never reduced royalties 60%.
-
Ron is an active stock contributor.
On the other hand, the theory that Shutterstock adjusted the search to benefit lower level contributors is just not true. I had a photo jump to No. 4 in popularity under "pets" (4 out of 427,724). It was submitted in mid May after the search change. I'm on the 38 cent tier. It would not have jumped that fast that far before the search change. The change helped new images, not new contributors.
That's as it should be. Old images should be less "popular." It's better for buyers, and it's better for contributors, unless you don't bother doing new work.
-
Why is shareholders getting an income on investment dividend greed and photographers asking for a raise not? SS are doing a good job for shareholders and opening up markets. Do you think if they were losing money it would be a good thing?
Its called greed because they are squeezing the contributors. The royalties were reduced by about 60% over the last 7 years whilst some people lined their pockets. Contributors are asking for a bit of that royalty back now it turns out that the company is making more and more profit. As Tror said, they are not losing money, they might get a little less profit.
When did SS reduce royalties 60%?
Never, Ron just makes up this to get attention and won't answer you to back up his lies. He has not a camera, doesn't upload to microstock, comes here to troll. SS never reduced royalties 60%.
Feels good being a big man behind your keyboard no? Let me know when you are in Dublin. We'll have a pint. Care to prove your accusations? I dont lie, never have. Why would I? I am not anonymous, you can verify everything I claim.
You are correct, Shutterstock didnt lower their royalites from 90% to 30%, that was more a general statement about the greed in stock agencies over the last 7 years, however, posted in a Shutterstock thread, I agree its wrong and not true to Shutterstock. Its not a lie, its an oversight.
Have a nice day, you are now a person I dont want to turn my back to. I might end up with a knife in it.
-
Ron is an active stock contributor.
On the other hand, the theory that Shutterstock adjusted the search to benefit lower level contributors is just not true. I had a photo jump to No. 4 in popularity under "pets" (4 out of 427,724). It was submitted in mid May after the search change. I'm on the 38 cent tier. It would not have jumped that fast that far before the search change. The change helped new images, not new contributors.
That's as it should be. Old images should be less "popular." It's better for buyers, and it's better for contributors, unless you don't bother doing new work.
You can not use EITHER ~ OR thinking when talking about search "ranking" algorithms. Are they steering all sales to new submitters? I would say no. Are they steering more sales to new submitters? Based on the collective feedback I have been getting from many long term submitters, I would say it is very likely.
You can also not judge what is happening with the search by example of what is happening with your own port and with one type of file. Especially when your port consists of images that most contributors are hesitant to submit. Children images sell well on SS because many submitters do not want to expose their children to miss use issues. Therefore what you are experiencing in regard to sales is not the general experience of most submitters. In your case the pet image that went to a first page search most likely also included a child which also helped give it a boost.
You have to look at the global picture and talk to a large number of older contributors to see what they are experiencing. I can tell you that in general new files are not selling, our older files sell well but they have killed off our best selling images. Does that mean that I never have images that hit first page searches? No I do, but in general that is happening less and less often since the search change and I am getting the same feed back from friends with large quality ports.
It is naive to think that now that SS has put ranking capabilities in place that they are not steering a percentage of sales to lower tier contributors when it makes sense for the long term and benefits the sites bottom line. Especially since a large portion of IS submitters who jumped ship have high quality files.
-
It is naive to think that they are not steering a percentage of sales to lower tier contributors when it makes sense for the long term and benefits the sites bottom line.
I think it is 'naive' to explain one's own lack of sales with a variety of complex conspiracy theories with no evidence to support them.
SS's success, relative to their competitors, is precisely because they don't configure the search algorithm to promote/demote individual contributors or 'more profitable' images. If SS really wanted to pay out less than 38c, or whatever ... they why wouldn't they just amend the royalties accordingly? Much simpler than messing about with the search algorithm. When they wanted to amend the referral programme they just went ahead and did it without any notice, negotiation or discussion.
SS have always had to walk the tightrope between rewarding their contributors enough to incentivise them (and to dissuade them from going exclusive at IS) whilst spending enough on marketing/R&D and also remaining profitable.
-
It is naive to think that they are not steering a percentage of sales to lower tier contributors when it makes sense for the long term and benefits the sites bottom line.
I think it is 'naive' to explain one's own lack of sales with a variety of complex conspiracy theories with no evidence to support them.
SS's success, relative to their competitors, is precisely because they don't configure the search algorithm to promote/demote individual contributors or 'more profitable' images. If SS really wanted to pay out less than 38c, or whatever ... they why wouldn't they just amend the royalties accordingly? Much simpler than messing about with the search algorithm. When they wanted to amend the referral programme they just went ahead and did it without any notice, negotiation or discussion.
SS have always had to walk the tightrope between rewarding their contributors enough to incentivise them (and to dissuade them from going exclusive at IS) whilst spending enough on marketing/R&D and also remaining profitable.
Right my success and the success of many more was never in question until SS put search ranking algorithms in place. And suddenly it is a game changer. You guys are ignoring what is happening to long term submitters around you. How can our files be popular and selling well one day and the very next day disappear off the map? Some long term submitters I have talked to with large ports of HCV images have seen 70% drops in income and their new images which used to sell well are not selling. How do you explain that? Can it all be attributed to site bugs?
Based on your comments I take it you have never developed search ranking algorithms to serve content. We are talking about pulling info out of one or two database fields.
-
...
You can not use EITHER ~ OR thinking when talking about search "ranking" algorithms. Are they steering all sales to new submitters? I would say no. Are they steering more sales to new submitters? Based on the collective feedback I have been getting from many long term submitters, I would say it is very likely.
Do you think its a possibility that these newer contributors have better/commercial images than the library that they are replacing?
As a former istock exclusive, I have a pretty good idea about image quality on both sites. I can safely say that a lot more of my images are appearing on the first pages of search on shutterstock than it did on istock because the quality of the library on most instances is still better on istock IMO.
I think its just increased competition.
-
.
-
...
You can not use EITHER ~ OR thinking when talking about search "ranking" algorithms. Are they steering all sales to new submitters? I would say no. Are they steering more sales to new submitters? Based on the collective feedback I have been getting from many long term submitters, I would say it is very likely.
Do you think its a possibility that these newer contributors have better/commercial images than the library that they are replacing?
As a former istock exclusive, I have a pretty good idea about image quality on both sites. I can safely say that a lot more of my images are appearing on the first pages of search on shutterstock than it did on istock because the quality of the library on most instances is still better on istock IMO.
I think its just increased competition.
In some cases yes I do and you make a good point. In other cases I would say they are picking the newer submitters over ports that have equal or better images. I could point to a few ports I know who have had large drops but that would not be fair they should have the option to show or not show those results themselves.
-
It is naive to think that they are not steering a percentage of sales to lower tier contributors when it makes sense for the long term and benefits the sites bottom line.
I think it is 'naive' to explain one's own lack of sales with a variety of complex conspiracy theories with no evidence to support them.
SS's success, relative to their competitors, is precisely because they don't configure the search algorithm to promote/demote individual contributors or 'more profitable' images. If SS really wanted to pay out less than 38c, or whatever ... they why wouldn't they just amend the royalties accordingly? Much simpler than messing about with the search algorithm. When they wanted to amend the referral programme they just went ahead and did it without any notice, negotiation or discussion.
SS have always had to walk the tightrope between rewarding their contributors enough to incentivise them (and to dissuade them from going exclusive at IS) whilst spending enough on marketing/R&D and also remaining profitable.
Right my success and the success of many more was never in question until SS put search ranking algorithms in place. And suddenly it is a game changer. You guys are ignoring what is happening to long term submitters around you. How can our files be popular and selling well one day and the very next day disappear off the map? Some long term submitters I have talked to with large ports of HCV images have seen 70% drops in income and their new images which used to sell well are not selling. How do you explain that? Can it all be attributed to site bugs?
Based on your comments I take it you have never developed search ranking algorithms to serve content. We are talking about pulling info out of one or two database fields.
Anthony has already said they are constantly tweaking the search and the article on the SS blog about AB testing confirmed it as well. I dont know why people constantly ignore those facts.
-
It is naive to think that they are not steering a percentage of sales to lower tier contributors when it makes sense for the long term and benefits the sites bottom line.
I think it is 'naive' to explain one's own lack of sales with a variety of complex conspiracy theories with no evidence to support them.
SS's success, relative to their competitors, is precisely because they don't configure the search algorithm to promote/demote individual contributors or 'more profitable' images. If SS really wanted to pay out less than 38c, or whatever ... they why wouldn't they just amend the royalties accordingly? Much simpler than messing about with the search algorithm. When they wanted to amend the referral programme they just went ahead and did it without any notice, negotiation or discussion.
SS have always had to walk the tightrope between rewarding their contributors enough to incentivise them (and to dissuade them from going exclusive at IS) whilst spending enough on marketing/R&D and also remaining profitable.
Right my success and the success of many more was never in question until SS put search ranking algorithms in place. And suddenly it is a game changer. You guys are ignoring what is happening to long term submitters around you. How can our files be popular and selling well one day and the very next day disappear off the map? Some long term submitters I have talked to with large ports of HCV images have seen 70% drops in income and their new images which used to sell well are not selling. How do you explain that? Can it all be attributed to site bugs?
Based on your comments I take it you have never developed search ranking algorithms to serve content. We are talking about pulling info out of one or two database fields.
Anthony has already said they are constantly tweaking the search and the article on the SS blog about AB testing confirmed it as well. I dont know why people constantly ignore those facts.
They don't want to see the facts and it is easier to overlook them if you have a nitch that is not impacted as heavily via the new AB ranking results.
I do not think it could be any clearer than the example in the blog "How we use A/B test results to make business decisions" but that went right over most peoples heads because it is out of their scope of experience and is not great news.
Snip
How we use A/B test results to make business decisions. Instead of statistical significance, let’s make decisions based on expected value, i.e. $benefit × probability − $cost.
Snip
Now suppose you are so diligent that you keep rolling out A/B tests, this time testing a fancy search ranking algorithm. Two weeks later you see that there is a $0.10 increase in dollar spent per visitor for the test variant compared to the control (i.e. existing search ranking algorithm) variant. If the increase is real, with 100K visitors each day, that’s $0.10 × 100,000 = $10,000 dollars extra revenue each day. Now, let’s add a twist: you need five extra servers to support that fancy algorithm in production, and the servers cost $10,000 each to buy, and another $10,000 to run per year. You want to make sure it’s worth the investment. Your stats tell you that you currently have a p-value of 0.3, which most people would interpret as a “nonsignificant” result. But a p-value of 0.3 means that with the new ranking algorithm the net gain in extra-money-making probability is 0.7 − 0.3 = 0.4. With the expected size of the gain being $0.10 per visitor, the expected extra revenue per year is $0.10 × 100,000 × 0.4 × 365 = $1.46M dollars. The rational thing to do is of course release it.
http://bits.shutterstock.com/ (http://bits.shutterstock.com/)
-
"I think it is 'naive' to explain one's own lack of sales with a variety of complex conspiracy theories with no evidence to support them."
But that won't stop them from posting these theories over and over. LOL
-
Why is shareholders getting an income on investment dividend greed and photographers asking for a raise not? SS are doing a good job for shareholders and opening up markets. Do you think if they were losing money it would be a good thing?
Its called greed because they are squeezing the contributors. The royalties were reduced by about 60% over the last 7 years whilst some people lined their pockets. Contributors are asking for a bit of that royalty back now it turns out that the company is making more and more profit. As Tror said, they are not losing money, they might get a little less profit.
When did SS reduce royalties 60%?
Never, Ron just makes up this to get attention and won't answer you to back up his lies. He has not a camera, doesn't upload to microstock, comes here to troll. SS never reduced royalties 60%.
Feels good being a big man behind your keyboard no? Let me know when you are in Dublin. We'll have a pint. Care to prove your accusations? I dont lie, never have. Why would I? I am not anonymous, you can verify everything I claim.
You are correct, Shutterstock didnt lower their royalites from 90% to 30%, that was more a general statement about the greed in stock agencies over the last 7 years, however, posted in a Shutterstock thread, I agree its wrong and not true to Shutterstock. Its not a lie, its an oversight.
Have a nice day, you are now a person I dont want to turn my back to. I might end up with a knife in it.
Posted Shutterstock.com forum subjkect Shutterstock Q2 Profit and you call me out. You write these messages all the time here and on SS forum but don't stand back up for what oversight.
Absolutely, but why doesnt the Lobo give me that answer instead of being a dickhole?
You must want to be like Lobo. Don't answer questions just write a mean reply.
-
/
-
Why? It's like arguing who has clearer pee in a pissing contest. LOL
^Fix the quotes.
-
Why is shareholders getting an income on investment dividend greed and photographers asking for a raise not? SS are doing a good job for shareholders and opening up markets. Do you think if they were losing money it would be a good thing?
Its called greed because they are squeezing the contributors. The royalties were reduced by about 60% over the last 7 years whilst some people lined their pockets. Contributors are asking for a bit of that royalty back now it turns out that the company is making more and more profit. As Tror said, they are not losing money, they might get a little less profit.
When did SS reduce royalties 60%?
Never, Ron just makes up this to get attention and won't answer you to back up his lies. He has not a camera, doesn't upload to microstock, comes here to troll. SS never reduced royalties 60%.
Feels good being a big man behind your keyboard no? Let me know when you are in Dublin. We'll have a pint. Care to prove your accusations? I dont lie, never have. Why would I? I am not anonymous, you can verify everything I claim.
You are correct, Shutterstock didnt lower their royalites from 90% to 30%, that was more a general statement about the greed in stock agencies over the last 7 years, however, posted in a Shutterstock thread, I agree its wrong and not true to Shutterstock. Its not a lie, its an oversight.
Have a nice day, you are now a person I dont want to turn my back to. I might end up with a knife in it.
Posted Shutterstock.com forum subjkect Shutterstock Q2 Profit and you call me out. You write these messages all the time here and on SS forum but don't stand back up for what oversight.
Absolutely, but why doesnt the Lobo give me that answer instead of being a dickhole?
You must want to be like Lobo. Don't answer questions just write a mean reply.
But I am not anonymous, like you. And him
-
"I think it is 'naive' to explain one's own lack of sales with a variety of complex conspiracy theories with no evidence to support them."
But that won't stop them from posting these theories over and over. LOL
I have submitter to SS since 2004, my sales have been steady and consistent every month up until the time SS implemented the new search algorithm. After its implementation my sales dropped over 50% in one day and have never recovered.
My new files which sold just fine for 9 years and often ended up on first page searches are no longer selling.
It does not take rocket science to determine those sales have been pushed somewhere else and you only have to read what new submitters are conveying in regard to increased sales to determine where those sales have been pushed after the new search was implemented.
You would have to be in utter denial not to understand what has occurred, unfortunately I am not alone.
http://www.microstockgroup.com/shutterstock-com/shutterstock-down-again- (http://www.microstockgroup.com/shutterstock-com/shutterstock-down-again-)!/msg322717/#msg322717
Here is a quote on their testing on live portfolios
[url]http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=130239&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=anthony&start=135[/url] ([url]http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=130239&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=anthony&start=135[/url])
Posted: Sun May 12, 2013 2:33 pm
Hello all,
At Shutterstock, we perform regular tests of small modifications to search. Those tests are typically released to limited segments of the overall customer population. If a test wins over time – which typically means that the changes have demonstrably increased the total number of customer downloads – then the resulting improvements are accepted and deployed.
Search testing and analysis is a continuous process of small improvements that generally won’t result in dramatic swings in search. Changes are carefully tested and evaluated to make sure that the overall effect on customer downloads and/or purchases is a positive one.
Customer demand, content differentiation, keyword quantity and quality, global holidays, seasonality and other factors can affect an individual contributor's day-to-day earnings. We recommend allowing a little time before evaluating the effect on your personal portfolio.
Sincerely,
Anthony Correia
Director, Contributor Success
Shutterstock|Bigstock
I have noticed a significant boost in the amount of downloads i have been getting since starting last week. I would say anywhere from 10-25%. So this explains why as they have tweaked the search for newer files to have a slightly better exposure. Since im fairly new on SS, all my files are new I guess. Im sorry for the older portfolios that is taking a hit from this but this is probably going to be an on going thing where they will be tweaking the search constantly.
...You can not use EITHER ~ OR thinking when talking about search "ranking" algorithms. Are they steering all sales to new submitters? I would say no. Are they steering more sales to new submitters? Based on the collective feedback I have been getting from many long term submitters, I would say it is very likely.
Do you think its a possibility that these newer contributors have better/commercial images than the library that they are replacing?
As a former istock exclusive, I have a pretty good idea about image quality on both sites. I can safely say that a lot more of my images are appearing on the first pages of search on shutterstock than it did on istock because the quality of the library on most instances is still better on istock IMO.
I think its just increased competition.
-
...
I guess i need to respond since your quoting my earlier statements. Its in my opinion that historically, the talent on istock is superior to that of Shutterstock until fairly recently. I have been studying the quality of the images (mainly vectors) on both sites since 2007 or so when i started paying more attention to it. From around 2-3 years ago, i really started noticing the quality drastically improve on shutterstock.
If your job is to get the best image for your clients/buyers as quick as possible with no bias to a files past performance, wouldnt you showcase these images where the clients can see them? Lets say you get an massive influx of new quality proven images (ex istock exclusive images whose files have been proven sellers among a tougher competition) It would make sense to tweak your search to favor these new files so they have a chance to be seen and bought instead of getting buried. The search would seem to favor newer files, but i believe it affects all newer files and not certain contributors.
I have some files that have sold well on istock that havent even been bought on SS so i think it is a fairly non biased search on SS. I am pretty objective in comparing my competition to my own works and can clearly see that the competition made much better files than mine which prevents me from making more of those same type of files.
If there is a tweaking where the newer files get a boost, and these newer files aren't as good as whats available in the library, i believe they will sink further back in searches eventually.
I believe it only takes 25-50 established portfolios to take a significant amount of real estate space in the first couple of page search results. These 25 portfolios probably replaces over 100 older established contributor base because in my opinion is that their skill sets (producing sellable content) might be slightly higher. It also makes sense to think that the higher skilled portfolios most likely has more images that are in the first couple of pages than the average contributor.
If your experiencing severe drops in your downloads and your newer files aren't selling, the most plausible explaining that comes to me is that the quality of the current library is superior what you have experienced in the past. You and others probably enjoyed the weighting of the search algorithm to favor the amount of past downloads as this current search doesn't rely heavily take that into account anymore. That's what i think is happening but who knows?
-
@ VB Inc,
There are people with extremely good portfolios, staggering images, high quality vectors, that report a massive drop of 50% from one day to the next and never recovered.
There is a portfolio of 5000 photos, amazing imagery, beautiful commercial images, who has less sales then my 900 crapstock.
-
...
If your job is to get the best image for your clients/buyers as quick as possible with no bias to a files past performance, wouldnt you showcase these images where the clients can see them? Lets say you get an massive influx of new quality proven images (ex istock exclusive images whose files have been proven sellers among a tougher competition) It would make sense to tweak your search to favor these new files so they have a chance to be seen and bought instead of getting buried. The search would seem to favor newer files, but i believe it affects all newer files and not certain contributors.
I have some files that have sold well on istock that havent even been bought on SS so i think it is a fairly non biased search on SS. I am pretty objective in comparing my competition to my own works and can clearly see that the competition made much better files than mine which prevents me from making more of those same type of files.
If there is a tweaking where the newer files get a boost, and these newer files aren't as good as whats available in the library, i believe they will sink further back in searches eventually.
If your experiencing severe drops in your downloads and your newer files aren't selling, the most plausible explaining that comes to me is that the quality of the current library is superior what you have experienced in the past. You and others probably enjoyed the weighting of the search algorithm to favor the amount of past downloads as this current search doesn't rely heavily take that into account anymore. That's what i think is happening but who knows?
I am a buyer and submitter and would be fine with the scenario you detailed. Competition is fine by me and that in my opinion is what made SS a cut above for buyers until the new ranking algorithm was implemented.
Now I will ask you a question, if my files do not even show up in searches after I have searched thru 50 pages to find them. How can I ever expect buyers to be able to make the choice between my image and your files? I can not compete if buyers never see my files.
New submitters have always had a boost for a small time period on SS and I think that is fair. The migration from IS has been a win win for SS. They get good files on first page searches and they pay less. The fact that my files are buried so that no buyer will ever see them in search results is not fair.
Lets talk after you hit the .38 tier.
-
Wow I didn't know it was that bad for you. Sorry to hear about that. Is any of your newer files selling or do you think it has something to do with u being at the .38 level?
Since starting to contribute in January, I'm at the .33 level and will most likely be at the next level in a month w 200 vector files in my SS portfolio.
-
After a slow June & July with returns that I now see are average according to the dls/day/per file etc, SS has come roaring back for me to earn returns of $1.10 per download - not going to make me rich but at least things seem to be back to normal.
Uploaded some creative mixed media stuff lately including stuff I've taken on my iPhone and reworked in PS and it was all accepted. Will be interesting to see if it sells. My port is far from traditional microstock so it was good to see that it compares favorably in terms of returns per file and also is more than twice the RPI than the SS average - I guess most of us are earning well above the average return since there are still plenty of photos on there that don't sell at all, but I was worried when after having a fair number of images on page 1 for one-word fairly common search terms, a lot of my work had dropped back by several pages. Close to a BME and there's still a week to go.
And my SS stock is earning for me too. Gotta have all the bases covered, greedy stockholder that I am 8)
-
Ron is an active stock contributor.
On the other hand, the theory that Shutterstock adjusted the search to benefit lower level contributors is just not true. I had a photo jump to No. 4 in popularity under "pets" (4 out of 427,724). It was submitted in mid May after the search change. I'm on the 38 cent tier. It would not have jumped that fast that far before the search change. The change helped new images, not new contributors.
That's as it should be. Old images should be less "popular." It's better for buyers, and it's better for contributors, unless you don't bother doing new work.
You can not use EITHER ~ OR thinking when talking about search "ranking" algorithms. Are they steering all sales to new submitters? I would say no. Are they steering more sales to new submitters? Based on the collective feedback I have been getting from many long term submitters, I would say it is very likely.
You can also not judge what is happening with the search by example of what is happening with your own port and with one type of file. Especially when your port consists of images that most contributors are hesitant to submit. Children images sell well on SS because many submitters do not want to expose their children to miss use issues. Therefore what you are experiencing in regard to sales is not the general experience of most submitters. In your case the pet image that went to a first page search most likely also included a child which also helped give it a boost.
You have to look at the global picture and talk to a large number of older contributors to see what they are experiencing. I can tell you that in general new files are not selling, our older files sell well but they have killed off our best selling images. Does that mean that I never have images that hit first page searches? No I do, but in general that is happening less and less often since the search change and I am getting the same feed back from friends with large quality ports.
It is naive to think that now that SS has put ranking capabilities in place that they are not steering a percentage of sales to lower tier contributors when it makes sense for the long term and benefits the sites bottom line. Especially since a large portion of IS submitters who jumped ship have high quality files.
I don't think they are steering sales toward new contributors as much as they are steering sales toward new images. It just so happens that new contributors with large portfolios have all new images, so the end result is the same. That doesn't mean Shutterstock is trying to cut down earnings of people on the 38 cent tier. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to break in with some of my new photos like I have. Besides, those new contributors with large portfolios will probably be on the top tier in a matter of months if not weeks.
-
Ron is an active stock contributor.
On the other hand, the theory that Shutterstock adjusted the search to benefit lower level contributors is just not true. I had a photo jump to No. 4 in popularity under "pets" (4 out of 427,724). It was submitted in mid May after the search change. I'm on the 38 cent tier. It would not have jumped that fast that far before the search change. The change helped new images, not new contributors.
That's as it should be. Old images should be less "popular." It's better for buyers, and it's better for contributors, unless you don't bother doing new work.
You can not use EITHER ~ OR thinking when talking about search "ranking" algorithms. Are they steering all sales to new submitters? I would say no. Are they steering more sales to new submitters? Based on the collective feedback I have been getting from many long term submitters, I would say it is very likely.
You can also not judge what is happening with the search by example of what is happening with your own port and with one type of file. Especially when your port consists of images that most contributors are hesitant to submit. Children images sell well on SS because many submitters do not want to expose their children to miss use issues. Therefore what you are experiencing in regard to sales is not the general experience of most submitters. In your case the pet image that went to a first page search most likely also included a child which also helped give it a boost.
You have to look at the global picture and talk to a large number of older contributors to see what they are experiencing. I can tell you that in general new files are not selling, our older files sell well but they have killed off our best selling images. Does that mean that I never have images that hit first page searches? No I do, but in general that is happening less and less often since the search change and I am getting the same feed back from friends with large quality ports.
It is naive to think that now that SS has put ranking capabilities in place that they are not steering a percentage of sales to lower tier contributors when it makes sense for the long term and benefits the sites bottom line. Especially since a large portion of IS submitters who jumped ship have high quality files.
I don't think they are steering sales toward new contributors as much as they are steering sales toward new images. It just so happens that new contributors with large portfolios have all new images, so the end result is the same. That doesn't mean Shutterstock is trying to cut down earnings of people on the 38 cent tier. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to break in with some of my new photos like I have. Besides, those new contributors with large portfolios will probably be on the top tier in a matter of months if not weeks.
You are discounting skillfeed and the new video advertisements they are asking us to provide to lure and train new contributors.
Again, you can not compare the contents of your port to the average contributors port. Many contributors do not even shoot people and if they do their ports have far more adults. You shoot a large number of children and that gives your images a boost in the searches because SS has fewer images of children to serve buyers. You are well aware of this yet you continue to compare apples to oranges.
boy 767,610 results
kid 837,552 results
child 1,236,279
woman 4,488,134 results
adult 2,834,611 results
man 2,421,178 results
-
What difference does that make? I sell more than one kind of image. You act like that's where I get all of my downloads. It's not. A search for "town" returns 428,933 images. One of my recent photos is No. 16 most popular and rising. No. 16 out of more than 400,000 isn't too bad for an image that's barely a month old, and not a person in it.
Your premise is that people on the top tier automatically got their images demoted. There's two examples where I showed you that isn't the case. It's older images that lost out in the search change, not older contributors.
-
What difference does that make? I sell more than one kind of image. You act like that's where I get all of my downloads. It's not. A search for "town" returns 428,933 images. One of my recent photos is No. 16 most popular and rising. No. 16 out of more than 400,000 isn't too bad for an image that's barely a month old, and not a person in it.
Your premise is that people on the top tier automatically got their images demoted. There's two examples where I showed you that isn't the case. It's older images that lost out in the search change, not older contributors.
That is only your opinion and not my experience or the experience of many long term submitters I have talked to personally. Our new files are not selling and that was not the case just a few short months ago!
-
What difference does that make? I sell more than one kind of image. You act like that's where I get all of my downloads. It's not. A search for "town" returns 428,933 images. One of my recent photos is No. 16 most popular and rising. No. 16 out of more than 400,000 isn't too bad for an image that's barely a month old, and not a person in it.
Your premise is that people on the top tier automatically got their images demoted. There's two examples where I showed you that isn't the case. It's older images that lost out in the search change, not older contributors.
That is only your opinion and not my experience or the experience of many long term submitters I have talked to personally. Our new files are not selling and that was not the case just a few short months ago!
So you've submitted several hundred new files since March and not a single one has sold even one time?
-
What difference does that make? I sell more than one kind of image. You act like that's where I get all of my downloads. It's not. A search for "town" returns 428,933 images. One of my recent photos is No. 16 most popular and rising. No. 16 out of more than 400,000 isn't too bad for an image that's barely a month old, and not a person in it.
Your premise is that people on the top tier automatically got their images demoted. There's two examples where I showed you that isn't the case. It's older images that lost out in the search change, not older contributors.
That is only your opinion and not my experience or the experience of many long term submitters I have talked to personally. Our new files are not selling and that was not the case just a few short months ago!
So you've submitted several hundred new files since March and not a single one has sold even one time?
No they quit selling well in February. I used to regularly have images which hit the Top 50 weekly.
Funny how the Weekly Top 50 suddenly quit updating after 9 years of working perfectly. Almost makes you think they do not want us to see who has those top positions now.
http://submit.shutterstock.com/top50.mhtml?span=week&filter=all (http://submit.shutterstock.com/top50.mhtml?span=week&filter=all)
-
Funny how the Weekly Top 50 suddenly quit updating after 9 years of working perfectly. Almost makes you think they do not want us to see who has those top positions now.
It looks like it stopped working around february as one of the images i see is valentines. I have been looking at that from time to time to see if they updated but nope...
-
Funny how the Weekly Top 50 suddenly quit updating after 9 years of working perfectly. Almost makes you think they do not want us to see who has those top positions now.
It looks like it stopped working around february as one of the images i see is valentines. I have been looking at that from time to time to see if they updated but nope...
Exactly and sales dropped of the cliff in March.
-
Funny how the Weekly Top 50 suddenly quit updating after 9 years of working perfectly. Almost makes you think they do not want us to see who has those top positions now.
It looks like it stopped working around february as one of the images i see is valentines. I have been looking at that from time to time to see if they updated but nope...
Exactly and sales dropped of the cliff in March.
It's just weird how the jolly old share price keeps rising despite your protestations of how sales keep falling ... and most others are reporting the opposite. I reckon that's worthy of an editorial in 'Amazing Phenomena' magazine.
-
Funny how the Weekly Top 50 suddenly quit updating after 9 years of working perfectly. Almost makes you think they do not want us to see who has those top positions now.
It looks like it stopped working around february as one of the images i see is valentines. I have been looking at that from time to time to see if they updated but nope...
Exactly and sales dropped of the cliff in March.
It's just weird how the jolly old share price keeps rising despite your protestations of how sales keep falling ... and most others are reporting the opposite. I reckon that's worthy of an editorial in 'Amazing Phenomena' magazine.
You don't pay attention well do you? Sales are not falling "for SS" and it is not at all surprising that the share prices have gone up! Mean while I just saw one of the classic old timers with more HCV images in her port than any of us will ever shoot complaining about sales dropping off a cliff. Bet most people do not even know who she is and she is smart to stay under the radar.
-
Funny how the Weekly Top 50 suddenly quit updating after 9 years of working perfectly. Almost makes you think they do not want us to see who has those top positions now...
I hope it was deliberate that the Top 50 stopped working, and I hope they don't ever "fix" it. Those lists were nothing more than copycat fodder.
-
Funny how the Weekly Top 50 suddenly quit updating after 9 years of working perfectly. Almost makes you think they do not want us to see who has those top positions now...
I hope it was deliberate that the Top 50 stopped working, and I hope they don't ever "fix" it. Those lists were nothing more than copycat fodder.
That was my first response also, but after talking to a few of my friends who also used to make it into that list on a regular basis we have started to wonder about the timing of our drops and its demise. I think many of us were not fans.