pancakes

MicrostockGroup Sponsors


Author Topic: Photos.com and JIUUnlimited to be handled by IS  (Read 54384 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

« Reply #50 on: June 15, 2009, 18:42 »
0
Nobody creates stock site for contributors. Even they say so, it's just marketing. All they want are sales. If they could sell randomly generated computer images contributors would be gone is 5 seconds :-)


hqimages

  • www.draiochtwebdesign.com
« Reply #51 on: June 15, 2009, 18:47 »
0
I really felt the guy that started it (I don't want to mention names but you know..) was sincere in the 50% to contributors, if I remember correctly there was a big speech about how we put in just as much work as the agent does, so 50/50 was only fair.. well now he only has 10% of StockXpert, so presumably Getty can change that % commission to whatever they want to, or just buy his 10% and close down the site.. perhaps they can close the site without his 10%, I don't really know how that works.. but I think at this point no-body is working behind the scenes to get us a good deal, and I felt that was the case before.. now I picture those same people I thought were on our side traveling the world, drinking pina colada's, sleeping on a mattress of money and having a grand old time ;)
« Last Edit: June 15, 2009, 18:49 by hqimages »

puravida

  • diablo como vd
« Reply #52 on: June 15, 2009, 18:54 »
0
I really felt the guy that started it (I don't want to mention names but you know..) was sincere in the 50% to contributors, if I remember correctly there was a big speech about how we put in just as much work as the agent does, so 50/50 was only fair.. well now he only has 10% of StockXpert, so presumably Getty can change that % commission to whatever they want to, or just buy his 10% and close down the site.. perhaps they can close the site without his 10%, I don't really know how that works.. but I think at this point no-body is working behind the scenes to get us a good deal, and I felt that was the case before.. now I picture those same people I thought were on our side traveling the world, drinking pina colada's, sleeping on a mattress of money and having a grand old time ;)

I am not sure if the guy who started it is not just so unhappy. He got $$$$ from Getty didn't he?
Secondly, your closing point about "those same people I thought were on our side traveling the world, drinking pina colada's, sleeping on a mattress of money and having a grand old time", is truly scary
and sickening. It is true. They are not going to be paying those who did not reach payout, so they are going to kill Stockxpert and take the money and run.
There should really be a law against that. This really is giving microstock sites a bad name, and now I am wondering who else will be the next site to screw us.

hqimages

  • www.draiochtwebdesign.com
« Reply #53 on: June 15, 2009, 18:55 »
0
1. I was naive
2. I was duped
3. Mike Slonecker was right, possibly about everything (oldies might understand that, but the StockXpert crew will for sure)

« Reply #54 on: June 15, 2009, 18:59 »
0
I really felt the guy that started it (I don't want to mention names but you know..) was sincere in the 50% to contributors, if I remember correctly there was a big speech about how we put in just as much work as the agent does, so 50/50 was only fair.. well now he only has 10% of StockXpert, so presumably Getty can change that % commission to whatever they want to, or just buy his 10% and close down the site.. perhaps they can close the site without his 10%, I don't really know how that works.. but I think at this point no-body is working behind the scenes to get us a good deal, and I felt that was the case before.. now I picture those same people I thought were on our side traveling the world, drinking pina colada's, sleeping on a mattress of money and having a grand old time ;)

I am not sure if the guy who started it is not just so unhappy. He got $$$$ from Getty didn't he?
Secondly, your closing point about "those same people I thought were on our side traveling the world, drinking pina colada's, sleeping on a mattress of money and having a grand old time", is truly scary
and sickening. It is true. They are not going to be paying those who did not reach payout, so they are going to kill Stockxpert and take the money and run.
There should really be a law against that. This really is giving microstock sites a bad name, and now I am wondering who else will be the next site to screw us.


« Reply #55 on: June 15, 2009, 19:01 »
0
How do you know they won't pay? I rhink they will pay all what is due, including quantites that didn't reach the payout point.

hqimages

  • www.draiochtwebdesign.com
« Reply #56 on: June 15, 2009, 19:02 »
0
I really felt the guy that started it (I don't want to mention names but you know..) was sincere in the 50% to contributors, if I remember correctly there was a big speech about how we put in just as much work as the agent does, so 50/50 was only fair.. well now he only has 10% of StockXpert, so presumably Getty can change that % commission to whatever they want to, or just buy his 10% and close down the site.. perhaps they can close the site without his 10%, I don't really know how that works.. but I think at this point no-body is working behind the scenes to get us a good deal, and I felt that was the case before.. now I picture those same people I thought were on our side traveling the world, drinking pina colada's, sleeping on a mattress of money and having a grand old time ;)

I am not sure if the guy who started it is not just so unhappy. He got $$$$ from Getty didn't he?
Secondly, your closing point about "those same people I thought were on our side traveling the world, drinking pina colada's, sleeping on a mattress of money and having a grand old time", is truly scary
and sickening. It is true. They are not going to be paying those who did not reach payout, so they are going to kill Stockxpert and take the money and run.
There should really be a law against that. This really is giving microstock sites a bad name, and now I am wondering who else will be the next site to screw us.


Oh the guy with the pina colada is the same guy that took $$$ off JUI and stopped representing us.. he used to be on our side, or else I fell for the line, the cold hard truth is that I fell for the line!!!

« Reply #57 on: June 15, 2009, 19:13 »
0
are there any buyers here on this forum?


aeason i ask is that all this volatility and constant shifting of ideas must seem like a lot of instability. in business, that is something any client would hate. i would love to hear from some of the reps from the top buyers of IStock, StockXpert, Photos.com and JIU how they are taking all this.


or do they even care?

« Reply #58 on: June 15, 2009, 19:15 »
0
I don't know who is more pathetic here....We, or Getty? We are pathetic because they are playing with us like we are toys, and they are pathetic because they are so "poor" they want even those 5 cents...

puravida

  • diablo como vd
« Reply #59 on: June 15, 2009, 19:23 »
0
I don't know who is more pathetic here....We, or Getty? We are pathetic because they are playing with us like we are toys, and they are pathetic because they are so "poor" they want even those 5 cents...

Only there is a big diff here Whitechild. The 5cts you earn need 100 to make 5bucks. Nothing to shout about. On the other hand, for  Getty, 5cts x (number of images  sold) can pile up into one big piggy bank.

Squat

  • If you think you know, you know squat
« Reply #60 on: June 15, 2009, 20:04 »
0
I am ambivalent re this move as I 've been opting in , then out, then in. So really, it doesn't make a difference.  But I sure hope some kind of stability and confirmation to the future of StockXpert would be given to us contributors of StockXpert.
For those who followed my topic on StockXpert, you will know that things were that hot with my port over there. I WAS very open about how I felt about Stockxpert since I joined them a little of one year ago. The reviewers were great and the sales were regular even for my tiny portfolio. But these past months have been horror.

I emailed support to voice this a moment ago, and I even told them I wish Stockxpert would finally find some stability. I am not sure if this would help at all, but we can sure make a wish for a GREAT MIRACLE ;)

« Reply #61 on: June 15, 2009, 20:29 »
0
Unfortunately, our views and opinions as contributors have very little power or influence, regardless how much we voice them. I am a buyer as well as a contributor, and from my experience the buyers don't really care or even know about any of this. They need images, they buy them. It doesn't matter what site they buy from because they all have more or less what they are looking for. And the buyers will pay the lowest price, because they can. If prices go up, buyers will pay more. Simple as that. It was not many years ago I was paying hundreds for stock images. I remember telling clients that stock prices have gone down lately, and we can buy an RF image from Corbis for a few hundred dollars instead of thousands for RM, and we were thrilled. Consumer demand is not what has driven prices down, it is competition that has pushed prices down to mere pennies. As much as it sucks to see SX go down (for those who have built up big portfolios there) - maybe it is good to have some competition removed from the industry. With less competition fighting for the lowest price, it might be easier for the bigger players to push prices back up. Maybe (said with hesitation...) this is a step toward positive change. maybe it has to get worse before it gets better. As dismal as things are, I can't help but be optimistic that things in general will improve for the microstock industry. Because the demand for images will continue, and the industry will have to evolve into something that works... eventually. But it's easy for me to say this because my SX port is small and my sales never developed there. So I personally won't miss them.

Squat

  • If you think you know, you know squat
« Reply #62 on: June 15, 2009, 20:43 »
0
Well, the good, and quite ironic , news is I resumed my uploading to Stockxpert this morning, and my images were approved earlier this evening.
It doesn't sound like the action of a site that is going to be closed down soon .
So here's knocking on wood and fingers crossed for Stockxpert to rise to the challenge for all of us.
I wish them well wholeheartedly.
« Last Edit: June 15, 2009, 20:45 by tan510jomast »

« Reply #63 on: June 15, 2009, 22:29 »
0
Why is everyone so surprised by this announcement?
It was very clear this was going to be happening - all you had to do was read jjthompson's May 21 front page posting at iStock, where he wrote "... 4. Photos.com Powered by iStockphoto. We will become the driving force behind Photos.com, improving the quality of the collection with the strength of the iStock brand." What about that is unclear?

« Reply #64 on: June 16, 2009, 01:30 »
0
I wonder if the next announcement will say StockXpert will be shut down?  I will be greatly disappointed.   ???

PS: I'm opted out. so this news per se doesn't affect me.

Looking at it as a non contributor to either website, and without the doom and gloom, there are a few ways to grow a company, one of these is growth by acquisition, Getty seems to use this method.

After acquisition you look at the poor performing area's, where you can add value and where you can cut costs, Photos.com and JIUUnlimited are likely the poor performing area's so cut them, add value by growing the library quickly by the IS content which has already been approved so they cut costs with not needing inspection, share servers, marketing, development, R&D, premises etc: by merging some of Getty, IS and StockXpert existing staff and properties and infrastructure streamline the business.

StockXpert as a known brand and will share some Customers with IS and also have their own, Getty did not rebrand IS and are not likely to rebrand or close StockXpert why should they, if the wanted to kill competition they could do it with pricing rather than acquisition, as StockXpert was another vertical business they were a good target for a takeover, Getty would not merge the contributors accounts across agencies as cynically a very big part of the revenue stream comes from the 75% of artists that will never make a payout, the payout limits are nothing to do with the cost of managing these accounts, so merging accounts would be a bad move and mean an actual drop in revenue with more contributors making the payout level.

The main aim would be to keep both profitable by sharing resources across different websites, different sites and price points will mean more customers, with the profit coming back to that shareholder or partners, so I think you will just see the two businesses as separate entities under a common umbrella.

David   ;D

« Reply #65 on: June 16, 2009, 02:34 »
0
I wonder if the next announcement will say StockXpert will be shut down?  I will be greatly disappointed.   ???

PS: I'm opted out. so this news per se doesn't affect me.

Looking at it as a non contributor to either website, and without the doom and gloom, there are a few ways to grow a company, one of these is growth by acquisition, Getty seems to use this method.

After acquisition you look at the poor performing area's, where you can add value and where you can cut costs, Photos.com and JIUUnlimited are likely the poor performing area's so cut them, add value by growing the library quickly by the IS content which has already been approved so they cut costs with not needing inspection, share servers, marketing, development, R&D, premises etc: by merging some of Getty, IS and StockXpert existing staff and properties and infrastructure streamline the business.

StockXpert as a known brand and will share some Customers with IS and also have their own, Getty did not rebrand IS and are not likely to rebrand or close StockXpert why should they, if the wanted to kill competition they could do it with pricing rather than acquisition, as StockXpert was another vertical business they were a good target for a takeover, Getty would not merge the contributors accounts across agencies as cynically a very big part of the revenue stream comes from the 75% of artists that will never make a payout, the payout limits are nothing to do with the cost of managing these accounts, so merging accounts would be a bad move and mean an actual drop in revenue with more contributors making the payout level.

The main aim would be to keep both profitable by sharing resources across different websites, different sites and price points will mean more customers, with the profit coming back to that shareholder or partners, so I think you will just see the two businesses as separate entities under a common umbrella.

David   ;D

I thought this too, but they culling some of the best selling micro portfolios out of photos.com and replacing with the images that haven't sold on istock.  I assumed they would keep both going (and maybe they will) under the precept that it is better that you also own the competition, but the last paragraph says to me, start moving your images because we are going to shut it down.  Hopefully I'm wrong :)

« Reply #66 on: June 16, 2009, 02:56 »
0
I suspect that there may be an assumption within the Getty world that contributors who had opted-in to JIU/PC via StockXpert will simply continue to do so via IS. I don't think that it is actually going to work out that way.

I suspect that there may be a lot of unhappy JIU/PC subscribers in the near future who suddenly find themselves with a lot fewer quality images to choose from, what is there will be harder to find because of the IS CV and many light-boxed images will have disappeared too. Any 'boost' to JIU/PC may prove to be a short-lived phenomena.

alias

« Reply #67 on: June 16, 2009, 04:08 »
0
... what is there will be harder to find because of the IS CV ...

The CV provides structure. Sure it needs to be constantly developed and evolved but is a positive step. How else to account for multiple synonyms , languages, regional variations ?  Some of the other sites maybe missed their chance to build in something similar or to otherwise provide some sort of structure. Getty did not suddenly come to the CV. The idea of CVs, the thinking behind them had been developed over years. You probably find that your own keyword database structure begins to look like a sub-set (or in some instances a super-set) of roughly the same sort of structures ? In whatever software you use to manage your keywording. Ours certainly do.

« Reply #68 on: June 16, 2009, 05:05 »
0
The CV provides structure. Sure it needs to be constantly developed and evolved but is a positive step. How else to account for multiple synonyms , languages, regional variations ?  Some of the other sites maybe missed their chance to build in something similar or to otherwise provide some sort of structure. Getty did not suddenly come to the CV. The idea of CVs, the thinking behind them had been developed over years. You probably find that your own keyword database structure begins to look like a sub-set (or in some instances a super-set) of roughly the same sort of structures ? In whatever software you use to manage your keywording. Ours certainly do.

I'd agree __ but the structure and control needs to be on both the keywords and the search terms (as happens at IS).

At JIU/PC neither the keywords or the search terms are controlled so IS images will presumably be significantly disadvantaged by effectively having many fewer effective keywords. For example plural search words will bring up different results at JUI/PC to the singular term __ but plurals have generally been stripped out of IS files by the CV. Same with different regional spellings, etc.

alias

« Reply #69 on: June 16, 2009, 05:19 »
0
They said that they are going to build photos.com on the Getty CV.

« Reply #70 on: June 16, 2009, 05:33 »
0
They said that they are going to build photos.com on the Getty CV.

They said that we would be credited on our images too. Of course it never actually happened (did anyone really believe them?).

I'd assume to introduce the CV would require the existing wholly-owned content to be manually disambiguated. That's not going to happen either.

« Reply #71 on: June 16, 2009, 07:54 »
0
5 cents is 5 cents -- but what really irks me is that they didn't tell us this up front.  There were even multiple questions about this on StockXpert's forum. 

Now, if I want to opt-in at istock, it's too late to click just one button -- I have to go to each image and click them separately!

And without the jupiter/photo.com sales, I'll NEVER reach payout level at StockXpert.  I've exactly one sale there in the past 3 months -- granted it was a $1.50 non-subscription sale, but that still only 50 cents a month!  At that rate, I'm only 9 years away from payout!  (assuming $100 payout limit.  Is that right?)

« Reply #72 on: June 16, 2009, 08:11 »
0
1. I was naive
2. I was duped
3. Mike Slonecker was right, possibly about everything (oldies might understand that, but the StockXpert crew will for sure)


Wow... I remember Mike Slonecker!!  HA.

« Reply #73 on: June 16, 2009, 08:41 »
0
5 cents is 5 cents -- but what really irks me is that they didn't tell us this up front.  There were even multiple questions about this on StockXpert's forum. 

Now, if I want to opt-in at istock, it's too late to click just one button -- I have to go to each image and click them separately!

And without the jupiter/photo.com sales, I'll NEVER reach payout level at StockXpert.  I've exactly one sale there in the past 3 months -- granted it was a $1.50 non-subscription sale, but that still only 50 cents a month!  At that rate, I'm only 9 years away from payout!  (assuming $100 payout limit.  Is that right?)

astrocady, that's a really good question - Payout.
OT perharps... btw, which of the Big 6 has the lowest payout? This could be an incentive to join them.
Can anyone who belongs to all 6 tell us?

Having a site with a low payout means happier contributors. I like to find out.

Microbius

« Reply #74 on: June 16, 2009, 08:43 »
0
not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but I get a pain now whenever I sit down.


 

Related Topics

  Subject / Started by Replies Last post
photos.com

Started by dbvirago New Sites - General

6 Replies
8162 Views
Last post October 02, 2006, 05:02
by pelmof
2 Replies
3413 Views
Last post March 31, 2007, 23:32
by a.k.a.-tom
1 Replies
3643 Views
Last post July 05, 2007, 20:00
by steve-oh
23 Replies
11276 Views
Last post February 17, 2011, 11:32
by TheSmilingAssassin
3 Replies
2711 Views
Last post March 24, 2016, 10:30
by PeterChigmaroff

Sponsors

Mega Bundle of 5,900+ Professional Lightroom Presets

Microstock Poll Results

Sponsors