I wouldn't debate SS experience with you. you're one of the voices in here that is always calm and professional. no doubt you are right. the point of my post is that there seems to be some hypocrisy from other posters going on. Getty is no more a bad guy than any of the other agencies. They will all protect their bottom lines. Fotolia is growing, at the expense of its contributor commissions. Only difference is that they state it right out. instead of doing it back door.

Quote from: michealo on June 19, 2009, 06:20

b) If the market is to be devalued then if its not JIU/PC then it will be someone else, Flickr or Wikimedia Mayflower or another site
c) I will wait and see, here on MSG you will find different opinions on all the sites some IS is 10th place for some first

And alot of the arguments you make were probably leveled by macro photographers at microstock in the past ....

The bad thing is that it was still possible to create stock imagery with micro prices. Macro was too expensive for many young business and also under evaluated the availability of commercial quality images toward the last years when microstock started.

Now it's not possible at all to continu creating new images at 5 cents per images. IMO

but 35 cents is ?  you must be kidding!

Quote from: hawk_eye on June 19, 2009, 15:23

SS also requires constant uploading.

Another ridiculous myth being perpetuated once again. You only need 'constant uploading' if few of your images ever become regular-sellers and don't appear within the first 100 or so of a search. I do a lot of travelling and it makes relatively little difference to my income if I take a couple of months off or upload 100 in a month.

photos.com won't require constant uploading as far as we know.

As we already know sales are so poor there that unless you are uploading at the rate of 1000 images a month (for about an extra $20) you wouldn't notice any difference anyway.

... you're right though, I haven't worked with SS.

That's pretty obvious from what you write.

Another myth __ SS didn't actually 'invent' the subscription model either. There were several agencies, including SS themselves, that had been offering subscriptions for years but always with wholly-owned content. Jon's genius was to open the doors of a subscription agency to outside contributors for the first time. At the time he had 15K of his own images and had been trying to compete against other agencies with 200K images. The rest is history ...

gostwyck, you may say all this is a myth, but the motto "feed the beast" did not just pop out of thin air here at this forum.
You also don't have to be with SS to know what you're saying. Many SS contributors voice their displeasure here, so hawk_eye not having worked with SS does not make it "obvious" that he does not know what he is saying, just like the perception that only you know what you're saying.

Quote from: lisafx on June 19, 2009, 15:10

.38/sale for subs vs. .25 being offered by Getty.

0.38 - 30% for the US IRS = 0.266

So not much in it for me as I am not able to claim back or offset 30% US withholding taxes.

This doesn't apply to me.  I am in the US. 

But yeah, I can definitely see how that would weigh in the decisions of contributors from other countries.

Quote from: Vonkara on June 19, 2009, 15:39

Quote from: michealo on June 19, 2009, 06:20

b) If the market is to be devalued then if its not JIU/PC then it will be someone else, Flickr or Wikimedia Mayflower or another site
c) I will wait and see, here on MSG you will find different opinions on all the sites some IS is 10th place for some first

And alot of the arguments you make were probably leveled by macro photographers at microstock in the past ....

The bad thing is that it was still possible to create stock imagery with micro prices. Macro was too expensive for many young business and also under evaluated the availability of commercial quality images toward the last years when microstock started.

Now it's not possible at all to continu creating new images at 5 cents per images. IMO

but 35 cents is ?  you must be kidding!

Where . please I said something about subscriptions ?? Microstock prices are 5% to 10% of what macro was so around 10$ to 20$ each full size images...

Quote from: hawk_eye on June 19, 2009, 16:43

Lisafx - if the income per sale offered was higher, would you opt in? is the business model the problem or the royalty percentage out of curiousity.

If I was getting the same .30 through istock that I am/was getting through StockXpert I would be opting in to the istock deal as it currently stands.   

What about if they make the site very successful? Will you not feel as if you are missing out?

Personally I think Photos.com is currently totally over rated. Unless Getty can change the situation drastically, Photos.com is currently nothing more than another small subscription site. Based on my earning from my approximately 1300 images on Photo.com (via StockXpert) and the same images on SS I have earned there less than 2% of my earnings from SS. If they were an independent site to which I had to submit directly I would probably have stopped uploading there a long time ago. 

I don't understand why first Jupiter Images and now Getty are going bananas over Photos.com. First JI risked damage to StockXpert by forcing Photos.com down their throat and now Getty is doing the same to IS.  If Photos.com was one of the big 5 sites I can understand it, but they are not. Compare the Alexa traffic of Photos.com with that of SS and you will see they are not comparable.

I have opted out of the IS deal. To me this whole issue is more one of principle with Getty trying to lower our earnings. The loss of revenue is really of no significance to me. To all the IS exclusives that are opting in. Don't keep you hopes too high for a huge additional income. It is not going to happen anytime soon.

Quote from: Eco on June 20, 2009, 01:13

Personally I think Photos.com is currently totally over rated. Unless Getty can change the situation drastically, Photos.com is currently nothing more than another small subscription site. Based on my earning from my approximately 1300 images on Photo.com (via StockXpert) and the same images on SS I have earned there less than 2% of my earnings from SS. If they were an independent site to which I had to submit directly I would probably have stopped uploading there a long time ago. 

I don't understand why first Jupiter Images and now Getty are going bananas over Photos.com. First JI risked damage to StockXpert by forcing Photos.com down their throat and now Getty is doing the same to IS.  If Photos.com was one of the big 5 sites I can understand it, but they are not. Compare the Alexa traffic of Photos.com with that of SS and you will see they are not comparable.

I have opted out of the IS deal. To me this whole issue is more one of principle with Getty trying to lower our earnings. The loss of revenue is really of no significance to me. To all the IS exclusives that are opting in. Don't keep you hopes too high for a huge additional income. It is not going to happen anytime soon.

I agree at present income levels similar to crestock etc, I dont see that changing real soon.  I think the problem is it that they have a great domain name and want to maximise its value and do so quickly for instant gratification of stockholders etc. Unfortunately at this stage it seems cursed by one poor management decision after another by JI then Getty.  Personally it would have a great name to start a midstock collection of istock premium and cheaper getty, or just point it at istock or one of the getty brands.

 

Yes, as in the other stock market , ie. the REAL Stock Market, perception plays a lot in the success and failure of an organization. There is also other boardroom motivation to the buyers that may or may not benefit the contributors. Acquisitions of a company is not just for the sake of pleasing distributors , the bottom line is to make money in the shortest time, then sell it again before they lose market value.  Anyone who thinks these big players are interested in long term relationship is living in the past or still wet behind their ears .

Just got back from 2 weeks away to find this.  I wont opt in to istock for 25 cents and hope more buyers go to SS, where they will be able to find bigger portfolios from most of the non-exclusive contributors and we can get higher commissions.  I was starting to like istock again but this makes me wary of them again.

Check out the reactions to the Vetta roll-out from buyers (if you can unearth them in the 51 page thread).  They appear pretty wary too.

I dont understand the problem buyers saying they will leave etc.  about 50000 images of how many million are more expensive? noone is being forced to pay the extra, pick out a cheaper image if its a problem. 

Hi there - minimun payouts

IS - 100
DT- 100
FT- 50
StockXpert - 50
BIG - 30
123 - 50 (pays automatically month aferwards when accrued balance is over this amount)
SS - not sure off the top of my head, think it's 50
CAN - 50
CRE - 50

Rgds

Oldhand

how about this:
For non-exclusive photografer at IS better keep sell to Photos.com/JIU from StockXpert because many non-exclusive photographer have more photos online at stockxpert than IS.
Mine 3000's photos at StockXpert vs 300's at IS, the chance to sell photos is better at StockXpert than IS.

Can some one make polls for this? and send it to StockXpert management.

StockXpert had more images from most non-exclusives and we were able to sell new images, unless I have missed something, they have to be over 18 months old to be put on photos.com from IS.

I don't think a poll will change things, just let all the subs buyers know that they can get new images from shutterstock.