MicrostockGroup

Agency Based Discussion => Shutterstock.com => Topic started by: Tryingmybest on February 22, 2016, 14:11

Title: Upgrades to Shutterstock email notice
Post by: Tryingmybest on February 22, 2016, 14:11: I just received this email and immediately said to myself:

"Well that is nice, but I hope this doesn't mean contributors need to take a pay cut for it!"

Over the next six months, we are investing heavily in upgrading the technology that powers Shutterstock’s infrastructure, website, and mobile apps, to deliver improved functionality and a better overall user experience.

This work will soon become noticeable to you through small changes on our site and apps throughout 2016, and the schedule has been designed to minimise any possible disruptions, as we work to address some of the issues you have been seeing and update your user experience.

This is just the beginning of some exciting improvements being made and, as always, please email our support team with any questions and suggestions you have, or if you do seem to be having any issues. We are looking forward to offering you the best possible contributor experience.

We will be updating our forum on a regular basis throughout this period, so please do check there for the most recent updates. For any major upgrades we will be sending out email communications to everyone.

Thank you for being part of the community.

Sincerely,

Paul Brennan
VP, Content Operations
Title: Re: Upgrades to Shutterstock email notice
Post by: Dumc on February 22, 2016, 14:19: We already did take a pay cut for it. With EL's.
Title: Re: Upgrades to Shutterstock email notice
Post by: cathyslife on February 22, 2016, 14:23: "exciting improvements designed to make our life easier" always means we will pay for it. >:(
Title: Re: Upgrades to Shutterstock email notice
Post by: r2d2 on February 22, 2016, 14:32: Pay cut is comming....

Hey Paul, what do you thinking about a 50/50 split?
Title: Re: Upgrades to Shutterstock email notice
Post by: stockmn on February 22, 2016, 14:35: Maybe this is why the metadata for all my image uploads is screwed up today. The captions and categories for most images were replaced with the info from one of the images in my submission. Ugh! Glad I caught it but it took some time to fix.
Title: Re: Upgrades to Shutterstock email notice
Post by: Microstockphoto on February 22, 2016, 14:47: 'Thank you for being part of the community' - great, now pay up
Title: Re: Upgrades to Shutterstock email notice
Post by: Justanotherphotographer on February 22, 2016, 15:08: What a bunch of complainers you are. Didn't you read the bit about it being exciting? Be excited * it.
Title: Re: Upgrades to Shutterstock email notice
Post by: cathyslife on February 22, 2016, 15:24: Quote from: Justanotherphotographer on February 22, 2016, 15:08
What a bunch of complainers you are. Didn't you read the bit about it being exciting? Be excited * it.

I'd be excited if they announced that they were going to take some of that money that they are spending on new "toys" and instead gave us all a raise. Now THAT would be exciting!
Title: Re: Upgrades to Shutterstock email notice
Post by: Justanotherphotographer on February 22, 2016, 15:34: No. That would be "unsustainable". Exciting would be if they harvested our organs for the black market. I have an agency-speak dictionary you can borrow if you like.
Title: Re: Upgrades to Shutterstock email notice
Post by: Chichikov on February 22, 2016, 15:48: I can not wait to see it!!
Title: Re: Upgrades to Shutterstock email notice
Post by: Pauws99 on February 22, 2016, 15:55: Exciting and improvement are words I used to like before I got involved in Mstock.... now I fear them. Lets hope this works out.........
Title: Re: Upgrades to Shutterstock email notice
Post by: Jo Ann Snover on February 22, 2016, 16:01: That e-mail, coupled with the fact that they explain their Q4 2015 performance to investors on Wednesday (Feb 24th), immediately led me to assume there's some bad news for contributors about to be announced. I thought I was being cranky and cynical...

Then I come here and see that apparently similar thoughts occurred to a number of us :)
Title: Re: Upgrades to Shutterstock email notice
Post by: Dodie on February 22, 2016, 16:16: Quote
We will be updating our forum on a regular basis throughout this period, so please do check there for the most recent updates.
It would be nice to see the most recent updates, unfortunately SS forum is down for me (East Eu). This is the first "exciting" step, keep them in the dark.
Title: Re: Upgrades to Shutterstock email notice
Post by: MxR on February 22, 2016, 16:20: Exciting news in Istock-----Titanic desperate maneuver, Shutterstock Iceberg
Exciting news in Shutter-----Titanic desperate maneuver, Adobe Iceberg
Title: Re: Upgrades to Shutterstock email notice
Post by: Pauws99 on February 22, 2016, 16:20: Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on February 22, 2016, 16:01
That e-mail, coupled with the fact that they explain their Q4 2015 performance to investors on Wednesday (Feb 24th), immediately led me to assume there's some bad news for contributors about to be announced. I thought I was being cranky and cynical...

Then I come here and see that apparently similar thoughts occurred to a number of us :)
Unfortunately its a rational state of mind given the way "news" is spun by the various sites. Friday's results might prove interesting I think
Title: Re: Upgrades to Shutterstock email notice
Post by: Rinderart on February 22, 2016, 16:22: Finally. SS is notorious for being the bugiest of all sites since around 2008.A friend who does this stuff says SS is based on 15 yr old tech.

Just Now.

Service Unavailable

The service is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later. And the forums are a complete Joke. The people or person who said lets go with this Cannot be a forum Person. I go back to Camera chat rooms when It was Usenet. That was the wild west of flame wars.
Title: Re: Upgrades to Shutterstock email notice
Post by: Hannafate on February 22, 2016, 18:15: This should be interesting...
Title: Re: Upgrades to Shutterstock email notice
Post by: etudiante_rapide on February 22, 2016, 19:46: Quote from: Justanotherphotographer on February 22, 2016, 15:34
No. That would be "unsustainable". Exciting would be if they harvested our organs for the black market. I have an agency-speak dictionary you can borrow if you like.

LOL, i too have a copy of the agency-speak dictionary !!!
the decipher is " wait for the exciting news ppl!!!
we paid you peanuts, and treated you like excited monkeys.
you already see less money coming from less $28 to 102 single earnings disappear.

now we are planning to prioritize in respective order..
- shareholders
-- clients
--- employees

??? what??? no contributors???
oh ya, forgot to say it...
(um, read my lips as a whisper)... we will fry ~~your pea~~nuts !!!
Title: Re: Upgrades to Shutterstock email notice
Post by: Rose Tinted Glasses on February 22, 2016, 19:56: Quote from: etudiante_rapide on February 22, 2016, 19:46
Quote from: Justanotherphotographer on February 22, 2016, 15:34
No. That would be "unsustainable". Exciting would be if they harvested our organs for the black market. I have an agency-speak dictionary you can borrow if you like.

LOL, i too have a copy of the agency-speak dictionary !!!
the decipher is " wait for the exciting news ppl!!!
we paid you peanuts, and treated you like excited monkeys.
you already see less money coming from less $28 to 102 single earnings disappear.

now we are planning to prioritize in respective order..
- shareholders
-- clients
--- employees

??? what??? no contributors???
oh ya, forgot to say it...
(um, read my lips as a whisper)... we will fry ~~your pea~~nuts !!!

But many of you did agree to those crummy terms and defended these crummy terms on this forum ad nauseam and up till recently acted like excited monkeys and this is the fault of SS???? Nope.
Title: Re: Upgrades to Shutterstock email notice
Post by: Microstockphoto on February 23, 2016, 04:37: yep, we all signed up for it, with open eyes, but under different circumstances, ss was the only agency not cutting royalties, high volume of sales and adding new fair deals and adding big pay out sods, so there was a sense of whooyay, then they started rejecting images for no reason, renting big expensive office space, stopped communicating, adding a million images per week, sales dropped and cutting royalties, so now there is a sense of what the f...
Title: Re: Upgrades to Shutterstock email notice
Post by: sharpshot on February 23, 2016, 04:42: Alamy and Pond5 improving in the earnings poll is exciting for me. No point in having a better site if there is no long term prospects for increasing my earnings.
Title: Re: Upgrades to Shutterstock email notice
Post by: Red Dove on February 23, 2016, 05:02: Yeah well la-di-da - uploading is broken AGAIN at both SS and BS.

In the vanguard of the industry allegedly....but in the rearguard when it comes to service and reliability. Fuming.
Title: Re: Upgrades to Shutterstock email notice
Post by: baz777 on February 23, 2016, 08:29: I try NOT to get 'excited', always seems to cost me money!
Title: Re: Upgrades to Shutterstock email notice
Post by: Rinderart on February 23, 2016, 13:27: Quote from: Microstockphoto on February 23, 2016, 04:37
yep, we all signed up for it, with open eyes, but under different circumstances, ss was the only agency not cutting royalties, high volume of sales and adding new fair deals and adding big pay out sods, so there was a sense of whooyay, then they started rejecting images for no reason, renting big expensive office space, stopped communicating, adding a million images per week, sales dropped and cutting royalties, so now there is a sense of what the f...

AND, Lying about referral Income would be forever. I lost A LOT of Income from That also Mar 12th 2012 when they changed the search and all My Most Popular disappeared in a heartbeat. To never return.
Title: Re: Upgrades to Shutterstock email notice
Post by: Justanotherphotographer on February 23, 2016, 13:35: Anyone noticed BS staff seem to have disappeared? New prediction. BS comission structure imported to SS. BS closes.
Title: Re: Upgrades to Shutterstock email notice
Post by: Rinderart on February 23, 2016, 16:51: They should close. Shame what happened there.
Title: Re: Upgrades to Shutterstock email notice
Post by: Pauws99 on February 23, 2016, 17:11: It does seem odd to keep it there doesn't seem anything distinctive about it for buyers other than price perhaps. I suppose if it makes a profit then business strategists would say keep it but just don't spend any money on it which seems to be what they are doing.
Title: Re: Upgrades to Shutterstock email notice
Post by: gbalex on February 23, 2016, 17:51: What you could not put off upgrading your geriatric infrastructure another 8 years?

The bailing twine and duct tape must me giving way!
Title: Re: Upgrades to Shutterstock email notice
Post by: Rinderart on February 23, 2016, 23:55: Agree, some of you newbies have no clue or history...Bigstock was a thriving site , It really was and it was one of the first. Dawn and Tim the owners were great folks and had it all together before any of these wanna be sites. I worked for them for 3 + years. They paid better than anyone since. We had a caring educated Staff. filled with Photographers , Not kids Or pretend Reviewers. Tim double checked all Of us. They were the true Best of the Best. I'll always miss them And what the site has become.

basically....A joke. Shame not to many of you had the Privilege of knowing them and uploading there. SS paid good money. these guys started in there Bedroom with servers. Ya gotta love it. If they started a new site?....I would do everything I could to make it happen.They paid 50 Cents a DL in 2003. Unheard Of.
Title: Re: Upgrades to Shutterstock email notice
Post by: Microstockphoto on February 24, 2016, 02:06: bigstock was founded in 2004. and you call people newbies who are in the game just as long as you. you talk from your backside
Title: Re: Upgrades to Shutterstock email notice
Post by: authenticcreations on February 24, 2016, 10:31: Alamy poll results are very relative. The results are coming most from microstockers that submit same photos also there. The real Alamy earners that submit ussual RM not on micros earn more. If they would also vive their earning Alamy would be even higher on the poll.