Quote from: gostwyck on November 09, 2011, 09:04

Quote from: Difydave on November 09, 2011, 08:46

This really is getting to the point where to mix metaphors, the grass is looking greener not having all my eggs in one basket.

Hmm __ look at the bird in the hand before you leap too.

Sort of look before you weep?

Hi Dave!  no good is it?  take the leap, drop this crown, this monkey on your back. This is just about as good as its gonna get and its bad, I mean really bad. Already at, SS, Dt and FT, I have had just about 30 times more dls, the on IS. That says something doesnt it?

Yesterday (wednesday) I was back up to 20dls, which is more or less normal these days. So I suppose that whatever happened to me earlier in the week is over for now.

Same here, Tuesday and Wednesday but im afraid its just a flash in the pan. You cant trust this anymore.

Exclusive here. There is something going on at IS. It's either best match shift or local adaptation of the search, or sth else. But the my DLs have disappeared. And the ones happening are mostly from 2010 files, while I had uploaded a lot in 2011.

Quote from: Zerkalo on November 08, 2011, 09:20

... It's like there are no sales happening from Europe and Australia.

When I check in the morning Pacific Time, there's usually a decent chunk of sales from Europe and Australia and Asia. This morning on iStock there was nothing - zero. I now have a grand total of 2 sales, I assume from the US East Coast. If it were a holiday, I think I'd see SS down, but I don't, so I guess it's just IS losing ground in certain markets

And again this morning when I checked - 0 on IS, 18 on SS and 5 on DT. I'm sure that there will be some sales on IS later, but this really does look some sort of change for sales outside the US at iStock.

Downloads have fallen off a cliff for me this week.  Very dismal.

So iStock ends the day (I know it's not midnight Calgary time yet, but this is always quiet time) with a grand total of two downloads - what I saw today at BigStock, not known for its high traffic! That would be a slow weekend day...

Utterly pathetic.

Good grief!  for you, that is pathetic. Look at the October thread at the IS forum. Every single Diamond exclusive, is way down, complaining bitterly. Low canisters and noobs are quite satisfied.
Apart from agency-files and Vettas, the search is favour of the lower end of suppliers. They are trying to look after the people of tomorrow, which is nothing wrong but at the expens of their bread and butter contributors.

yesterday was really bad, huge drop like a cliff! boooo! 

Quote from: lagereek on November 11, 2011, 03:08

There is a crazy belief, that picture buyers will sit for hours on end looking/searching suitable pictures,  nothing could be more untrue and especially among professional buyers where time is the essence. I have seen it,  many times, as soon as they get into the messy interface of IS,  they click out and move elsewhere,  dont even bother to fill in a search words. Too many collections, prices, etc,  just too messy.
They might spend some time when buying RM, where prices are a lot higher but they certainly are not doing it, buying micro. Quicker and cheaper to just move on.

The buyers I speak to never mention the different price points or collections and when asked they don't really care, all they want is to find the image they want, price isn't the major factor. However I'm in total agreement about the search engine and it's the one thing I hear over and over, iStock's CV is a disaster and that's what's driving buyers away, that and iStocks constant fixation to f*@k around with the search results.

As a designer I love the search facilities on iStock. My clients never mention any problems either. Cost is normally not an issue. Anyways, so isn't it just a case of iStock becoming less Microstock and more Midstock. And why so many contributors, who have those typical, you know, old school type portfolio's, are doing really bad there?

For myself, Sept and first half of Oct were 50% average and quite depressing but since then sales have been good - only a small portfolio at IS (100+) but averaging $20 a day right now.

When there are reports of two sales on a weekday for a contributor with a proven PF containing thousands of images, then whether that contributor is exclusive or independent there is something seriously wrong. It may not be wrong from iStock's perspective, but it's very wrong from any other view. My own sales were bad that day, and I know there are others in the same position.

Really it can't go on like this. "They" can do what they like of course to maximise their profits, but in the end it's not use to me and a lot of others like me seeing no real possibility of growth, and the nasty suspicion that if we see any growth it will somehow be taken away. I'm sure they have no real concerns any longer for whether individual contributors are exclusive or independent.
 
There are lots of us uploading, and seeing at best no growth.  This has been going on slowly for years, but this sudden drop we have seen since the end of Summer is something new, and seems to have come at the same time as the huge influx of "Edstock" and other images from outside iStock itself. It doesn't bode well for the future.

 

Hey,  reality check time. Looking at some of your portfolio's on IS, sorted by downloads or age, there's not much there that my 9 year old daughter couldn't shoot. Soon you won't be selling on SS or DT either because these type of shots have been done to death. Its uniqueness, originality and quality now, IMHO of course

You are certainly entitled to your opinion. My guess is that you are an exclusive on istock. Of course you are completely anonymous and that gives you the right to criticize everyone else without fear of any retribution or invite any kind of criticism about your own work. But even if you do have a spectacular portfolio on istock, unless you are one of the "club", you should really watch what you say because it just might come back and bite you in the a$$. Even contributors at the top are having their go at being in the dumps and one day your turn will come. Please do come back and tell us when that happens so we all can laugh and point and criticize you about your crappy portfolio.   

Quote from: RT on November 11, 2011, 04:44

Quote from: lagereek on November 11, 2011, 03:08

There is a crazy belief, that picture buyers will sit for hours on end looking/searching suitable pictures,  nothing could be more untrue and especially among professional buyers where time is the essence. I have seen it,  many times, as soon as they get into the messy interface of IS,  they click out and move elsewhere,  dont even bother to fill in a search words. Too many collections, prices, etc,  just too messy.
They might spend some time when buying RM, where prices are a lot higher but they certainly are not doing it, buying micro. Quicker and cheaper to just move on.

The buyers I speak to never mention the different price points or collections and when asked they don't really care, all they want is to find the image they want, price isn't the major factor. However I'm in total agreement about the search engine and it's the one thing I hear over and over, iStock's CV is a disaster and that's what's driving buyers away, that and iStocks constant fixation to f*@k around with the search results.

As a designer I love the search facilities on iStock. My clients never mention any problems either. Cost is normally not an issue. Anyways, so isn't it just a case of iStock becoming less Microstock and more Midstock. And why so many contributors, who have those typical, you know, old school type portfolio's, are doing really bad there?

For myself, Sept and first half of Oct were 50% average and quite depressing but since then sales have been good - only a small portfolio at IS (100+) but averaging $20 a day right now.

Well if costs are no problem! and as a Designer, why do you lower yourself to the standards of Micro or Midstock?  why not go the whole hogg and go for RM ? is that a problem? I know your not an AD and with an AD-agency but, hey!  we are used to little wanna-bees here,  especially little micro designers and especially from IS.

I don't think it invalidates the point, but I did check today and yesterday's sales total was actually 3, courtesy of one more sale at 11:27pm!!

Quote from: Noodles on November 11, 2011, 07:40

Hey,  reality check time. Looking at some of your portfolio's on IS, sorted by downloads or age, there's not much there that my 9 year old daughter couldn't shoot. Soon you won't be selling on SS or DT either because these type of shots have been done to death. Its uniqueness, originality and quality now, IMHO of course

You are certainly entitled to your opinion. My guess is that you are an exclusive on istock. Of course you are completely anonymous and that gives you the right to criticize everyone else without fear of any retribution or invite any kind of criticism about your own work. But even if you do have a spectacular portfolio on istock, unless you are one of the "club", you should really watch what you say because it just might come back and bite you in the a$$. Even contributors at the top are having their go at being in the dumps and one day your turn will come. Please do come back and tell us when that happens so we all can laugh and point and criticize you about your crappy portfolio.   

I'm only trying to focus on why some people are reporting such few sales on iStock from their huge portfolios. My sales are quite good right now. Not to say it isn't a complete rollercoaster on IS these days but I still average more than a few sales a day even when I'm at the low dip.  My daughter is pretty good but she wants to be an actress when older so you can all relax now