The point I was trying to make with my calculations above is that Latex doesn't appear to have gained a lot of sales from becoming exclusive.  The chart looks impressive, but as he/she was Gold anyway, going exclsuive would have automatically given a large % jump in income.

Instead of seeing the royalties chart it would be great to see the downloads chart because that would show the direct impact on image sales.

Quote from: hatman12 on June 17, 2008, 15:16

Instead of seeing the royalties chart it would be great to see the downloads chart because that would show the direct impact on image sales.

Yes, exactly.  We all know your istock royalties will take a significant jump by going exclusive. 

The big question is whether or not your DL's take a big jump.  That's the graph I would like to see too....

Ooooh Lisa, are you considering it?

It would be a straightforward calculation to work out your sales in Jan/Feb excluding the two popular ones and then compare with April/May also exclusing those images.  But on the other hand it is probably best that you keep this sort of info to yourself.  It would be so tempting to many photographers to see a post from someone who says"wow, I went exclusive and my sales doubled..." and no doubt that would cause a huge rush of exclusive applications.  But I suspect that certain portfolios derive good benefits from the exclsuive deal, and others see no benefit at all; it probably all depends on the content and appeal of each individual portfolio.

Several of the black diamonds get a dl/image ratio of 2.8 every month (2800 sales for every 1000 images) but there are also many diamonds who get much lower returns (one I follow gets only 0.57 (570 sales for each 1000 images).  So the range is huge and as with most things in life the benefit or otherwise is very much down to the individual (or in this case the portfolio).

Good luck with your exclusivity Latex.  I hope it works out well for you.

Wow. Seriously underwhelmed by the "best" announcement. It benefits those exclusives who are keyword spammers or careless keyworders by editing their files for them instead of rejecting their files on the grounds of crap keywording.

The promises of more aggressive rejection policies for keyword abuse is a benefit to everyone.

Again, two of the three "prestigious" announcements contain no love for current exclusives. 

Well...just received the third installment myself too!
I doubt very much that this will tempt anyone on the fence to go exclusive. Me included

Are there anymore to come or is that it? If so I'll get back to uploading at DT.

I can't imagine ANYone being swayed by this announcement. It goes into the "who cares" column for me.

It's exciting news for whom? The person who plans to upload files with crap keywording? Surely to them,  if they are intentionally uploading crap keywords, the thought of their spamming being reversed at point of entry isn't something positive?

I don't get it.  

So Let me see if I understand this right. Exclusives can fill in all the crap they can get up to, and we just supply 4 or 5 keywords and finish the rest later if the files are accepted? 

That's a dumb move if you ask me. That's a lott of extra manpower for all the lazy exclusives. And the non-exclusives who will have to be extra carefull, supply less keywords--- files will be less accessible for customers--- bad business for Istock as well!

well, english is not my native language, but I got a rejection for the keyword "tall" of a "tall office building" 

This has to go down with the forometer as one of IS's really dumb ideas. I can't imagine what they were thinking. As someone seriously considering exclusivity for the first time it's actually had the reverse effect - making me want to slow down a bit.

Maybe there were Friday afternoon beer bashes at which these ideas were hashed out?!

i agree, and not only that, but it is creating as divisive an environment in the community as I have seen in quite some time. The "us vs. them" mentality is already out of hand. I for one do not appreciate the generalizations being made which imply that all exclusives are lazy conniving keyword spammers who plan to purposely monopolize the inspectors' time. It's ludicrous.

I agree.  But as you say, it is iStock which is creating this divisive environment.  They have made some real head scratcher decisions in the last year.  And I think they need independents a lot more than they apparently think they do.

Quote from: bittersweet on June 19, 2008, 21:41

Quote from: stock_fan on June 19, 2008, 21:14

well, english is not my native language, but I got a rejection for the keyword "tall" of a "tall office building" 

Which box did you check when you disambiguated your keywords: Tall (physical description) or Tall (human height)? You did disambiguate your keywords, I assume?

yes I disambiguate all my keywords since the system was implemented. Also disambiguated all images with 1 or more sales from before the time of implementation.

I selected Tall (physical description) . i don't care too much about the rejection. It's just funny that I got the rejection and the IS exclusive keywork statement mail pretty much at the same time ...

Well if that was the only reason listed for your rejection, it was clearly a mistake (as was the example posted by Lisa on the istock forums) and you should submit it for appeal.

I for one do not appreciate the generalizations being made which imply that all exclusives are lazy conniving keyword spammers who plan to purposely monopolize the inspectors' time. It's ludicrous.

Said who?