I didn't bother fighting Thinkstock.  I already had a few thousand images in there from StockXpert, which bring in a munificent $6-8 every month, plus a handful of slow and non-sellers from iStock that I opted in.  I'm continuing to delete images from both iStock and StockXpert a few a day.  I'm down to 1300 images on iStock from a high of 3000.  I figure I may as well take whatever pennies I can get on my way out the door.

Yes/ind. As long as TS was optional, I just enjoyed the 50$ or so monthly from IS being opted out of all PP. I stopped uploading for over a year ago (primarily because of the excess paperwork of a release for every shoot). The moment IS forced my content into their garbage bin, I had to do what a nun has to do: deactivate my entire IS port, just as I had to do with Stockexpert. Purely business and I have all possible sympathy for folks with 3-500$+ that have to stay.

perhaps the IS sales are mostly migrating to TS - keeping it in the Getty family so to speak. If they really do port all the independent content there but not most of the exclusive that means high $ IS exclusive sales are being turned into low $ indy PP sales. YAY.

Quote from: jsnover on November 29, 2011, 14:04

I wouldn't want to encourage him to come back here and proselytize, but the Shankster is always saying he has good PP results...

Yes I know __ but you don't actually believe the figures he spouts do you? One moment he's made enough for fish and chips for his dinner, the next he's flicking through a Ferrari brochure. Shanks doesn't do 'serious' or 'facts'. I thought that was understood.

Ferrari brouchure?  Im sitting here in my 2009 Range-Rover and I expected IS, to pay for the fuel or at least the freaking oil but no sir, no a pot to piss in. Its all piss poor performance.
Maybe we should join up with TS ?  heard they pay for travels, etc.

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on November 29, 2011, 14:24

However, you should know me well enough to know that I'm telling it the way it is as far as I am concerned.

Oh yes, I don't doubt what you're saying, but if your numbers were 'normal' then the PP would be an astonishing success. When I visit the PP sites I can find almost no reason why anybody would buy there in preference to any of the 'Big 4'.

So now, after 28 indie "No" votes, we have Lisa, Luis and Alex with similar results to mine (though mine still seem a bit ahead of the others. Disorderly is the only indie saying the opposite but he deliberately only put a little cr*p there from iStock and his StockXpert files are old and may not be iStock quality.

It's obvious that my results are, at the very least, representative of a significant minority (one in seven) and could even be not very far from the norm.

I remember several people saying they would only put non-selling rubbish into PP, it's possible that some of those reporting cr*p sales had already biased the outcome. It also rather seems that nobody wanted to admit to doing well until someone else's head was above that particular parapet.

Rapideye's result is especially interesting, since if anyone can sell it should be him. Even there, sales of 1 on pp to 4 on iS are still significant, though clearly not impressive. It would be interesting to hear from other exlusives (and indies) to see if this is a divide consistently favouring independents.

Even with Rapideye's dl ratio, let alone with the other four, that website traffic figure seems to make no sense at all. Maybe we should all be less impressed with traffic statistics.

As for your comment about there being no reason for buyers to go there instead of to the other big sites, it's probably worth turning the question upside down: Once Getty gets them onto that site, by direct recruiting or diverting buyers from iS, is there any reason for them to leave and go elsewhere, or will they feel that good enough will do and stick with what they know? There's a tremendous amount of inertia in business.

Some of us had no choice, really and I was one of them. I thought November was the date for the move into TS, but so far I cant see any of my shots over there. Maybe they forgot? one can always prey.

Yes, but the survey is about when you did have a choice. So you should be down as "Yes" to the boycott.

As for the move, I'll give you two possible explanations, you can tell me which is most likely:

1) They simply forgot that they want to force you to do their will or decided not to be dictaorial towards you
2) Their computer systems are totally screwed and out of control so they are a bit stuck at the moment.

FWIW - I went back and checked last month's numbers - I sold 3 times as many files on the PP as I did on IS, but IS still made nearly 5 times the revenue that PP did.  (caveat - bronze, low volumes)

Are you exclusive or independent? And do you have video income included in iStock? As an independent, you would have to be averaging $4.50 to get five times the income from one third the sales and it's hard to see how anyone would do that just off still images (unless you got an EL, of course).

Got it, thanks. Your ratio PP:iS sales is still up there with the others even if the earnings are liable to swing a lot.

Some of us had no choice, really and I was one of them. I thought November was the date for the move into TS, but so far I cant see any of my shots over there. Maybe they forgot? one can always prey.

they seem to be slowly getting moved over.  I had 3 there yesterday morning, 4 by the afternoon, and this morning I just checked and now I have 5 on there.  No particular order of the, either, it seems. 

Amazing!  as far as I can see, these boozos at TS, they dont even give you a credit-line, just says Istockphoto under the picture.

Why? do they keep investing so much time, effort and money on advertising this TS?  hell, nobody is making anything over there, I havent heard of anybody happy with their earnings. Is it meant to be some Messiah micro site, which will open everybodys eyes, to see the light perhaps? beats me completely.

It`s because they are trying to compete with Shutterstock. By opting in all independents, they automatically have the same content on Thinkstock as Shutterstock with the flick of a switch. Step 2 is to make this content cheaper than SS thereby capturing a large market share. This is the plan as best I can tell. Unfortunately its like medication, they all have side-effects. The unintended consequence of all this is that they are sacrificing a profitable revenue stream by migrating their customer base over to Thinkstock. The other problem with this is that SS is smart and they wont just stand idly by while this school yard bully swings his stick around. They have already announced single image pilot project and it wouldn`t surprise me a bit if they offered exclusivity at some point. Then you would see a massive shift to Shutterstock with iStock and Thinkstock sinking for good. This is how I see it.
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Jeez!  they wont even come close to SS, not in a million years, not in sales, not in how to run the outfit, not in moral aspects, not in know-how, not in how to treat staff or contributors. Pugh! Im running out of reasons.

Some of us had no choice, really and I was one of them. I thought November was the date for the move into TS, but so far I cant see any of my shots over there. Maybe they forgot? one can always prey.

I only have 9 files over there,and had the same amount a couple of weeks ago. Maybe they forgot me.

I can only hope...