Quote from: ShadySue on August 30, 2013, 10:37

"Tell us News, not history". I.e. tell us what's about to happen and why. Don't suddenly spring half-functioning features on the website without telling us first. More, timelier newsletters would be more welcome - people can opt out if they wish.
Don't always be caught up in amelioration.
In other words, be proactive, not reactive. Tell us the benefits of the changes, and make sure before you launch them that there will actually be benefits. I and many others (not everyone) have seen nothing but falling dls and $$s for many months now. If they are only targetting a certain kind of customer, tell us - so that those of us with different subjects in our portfolio know that iS is not the place to put these, even if it used to be.
Let us know they know what they're doing and that they have a solid plan and strategy (I have seen no evidence of either for several years).
Don't keep trying to tell us there's 'something great just round the corner'. There hasn't been much of that for several years either.

You seem to have a very negative outlook. And yet many exclusives have been reporting another strong month of Getty sales - whilst many on the non excluive subscription side have been reporting strong Thinkstock sales and income. It certainly is not all bad.

And from my point of view the site and search changes at iStock seem sensible. I think they are improving the site. I don't expect to be told everything in advance. It's not my site. Shutterstock, Alamy and GI don't tell everyone everything in advance. Why should iStock ? Things seem to be going in the right direction.

Given all the often infectious negativity about iStock I was surprised when I looked at the numbers to find that my income from iStock-Getty combined has been remarkable steady for the past 3 years despite the dreadful world economy; despite massively increased competition relative to the size of my own portfolio; despite microstock per se likely being in decline etc. Moving some of the income to Getty has definitely worked for me and I think for many others too. Moving stuff to different price points represents something like a diversification.

Meanwhile: Shutterstockers continue to be enthusiastic about Shutterstock; Stocksy has an awesome body of work and seems to have made a very impressive launch; Alamy is still a great outlet for the sort of RM editorial content which sells well at Alamy. There is a good range of options and things seem surprisingly ok really.

Even with increased GI sales month after month, my total income is still declining comparing to what I had in IS alone last year.

However, I agree with you, the recent changes seem to be in the right direction, or I hope so. It will tell when the peak season comes in September.

Alamy now sells at least 5 times more of my RM images as it used to, but the income is just 1/5 or less than what I used to earn.  Nowadays they often license unique images for both prints and e-books for 10 years period for less than $100. Due to the uniqueness of these images, they cannot sell in volumn. At much reduced prices, it definitely is not a wise idea.

Those lightbox links often look shonky -

My lightboxes might look 'shonky' to you, but I can 100% guarantee if I've got things in a 'similars' lightbox, they are in fact similars as described in the title, not any random picture that someone has lied /spammed about or misidentified.

Quote from: bhr on August 30, 2013, 04:35

Those lightbox links often look shonky -

My lightboxes might look 'shonky' to you, but I can 100% guarantee if I've got things in a 'similars' lightbox, they are in fact similars as described in the title, not any random picture that someone has lied /spammed about or misidentified.

I do not know anything about your individual lightbox links or your portfolio in general. The points I made were general ones. The way you have written that, I am not sure but I have the impression that it reads as if it were a response to some personal criticism.

Quote from: ShadySue on August 30, 2013, 07:50

Quote from: Shelma1 on August 30, 2013, 06:56

In addition to hiring new IT staff, they clearly need to hire a professional to write their newsletters (but maybe this one is so bad because they're losing money and had to fire the person who used to write them?).

RogerMexico (Andrew) who used to write the newsletters has left, and I believe Lobo writes them now, as he is the Contributor Communications Manager sic.

That would explain it. They've piled additional responsibilities on Lobo, so he just cuts and pastes his responses from the forums. Because he doesn't know how to write a newsletter (clearly).

In that case they should send a newsletter saying there will be no more newsletters and directing people to the forums. Because that newsletter just screamed of unprofessionalism.

They need to sack Lobo, much better option, and get some competent people in.

Not sure why, but this forum reminds me so much of a typical weekend armchair sports fan that is physically out of shape always screaming what the quarterback should do or should have done while he sits back in his lazyboy recliner and snacks away on beer and nacho chips.

Sounds like somebody doesn´t understand how forums and community driven sites work in the first place...

Welcome to the year 2013!

Sounds like somebody doesn´t understand how forums and community driven sites work in the first place...

Welcome to the year 2013!

by continually complaining? and speculating? welcome to the year of go get another beer and tell them how to do it coach.

Quote from: shudderstok on August 31, 2013, 08:01

Quote from: Ron on August 31, 2013, 07:45

Quote from: shudderstok on August 31, 2013, 07:43

Not sure why, but this forum reminds me so much of a typical weekend armchair sports fan that is physically out of shape always screaming what the quarterback should do or should have done while he sits back in his lazyboy recliner and snacks away on beer and nacho chips.

What else do you expect people to do? Walk into IS HQ with guns and take over the company? Silly comment, its forum, and people do exactly what a forum is supposed to be used for.

sorry, i had no idea a forum was was to be used as a platform for continual complaining and speculation.

complaining is much easier than working hard or coming up with constructive ideas I guess.

What on earth are you talking about? This forum is FULL of constructive ideas for IS. In fact it seems you are the one disagreeing with everything that is suggested.

I only get the newsletter from SS but its not in the slightest the same as the drivel from IS.

I only get the newsletter from SS but its not in the slightest the same as the drivel from IS.

drivel is drivel.   

In general, the constant whining about iStock on this forum often destroys any possibility of a genuinely constructive or helpfully useful conversation. It creates an atmosphere in which any sensible conversation about iStock is almost immediately undermined by miserable negativity. It also makes it difficult to distinguish any legitimate concerns from the background noise.

If a few people constantly moan about everything and anything (often seemingly linked to real or imagined slights or rejections - or because they were banned from the forum for trolling) it discourages others from joining in or expressing any sort of contrary positive opinion. What you end up with is a forum which will only be populated by people who all reinforce and congratulate each others' often malformed and unrepresentative opinions. And stamp down on any attempt to express a positive perspective.

People often say that iStock was better at some point in the past. The truth and reality is that iStock was often broken and there was constant jealously about the best match which was a forbidden subject until recently. The site has been the subject of almost constant moaning here and at the old Yahoo group since forever. Certainly back to the days when the forum was much less politely moderated. Remember that ? On the old iStock forum I think it was Bitter himself who described the Yahoo group as "the old ladies sewing circle".

And it isn't just iStock. The launch of Stocksy was initially greeted with enthusiasm. That quickly turned much less positive when people found that it was going to be carefully curated. What that seems to demonstrate to me is that much of the moaning expressed here may likely be connected sometimes to a feeling of jealousy or exclusion.

Quote from: ShadySue on August 31, 2013, 02:41

Quote from: bhr on August 30, 2013, 04:35

Those lightbox links often look shonky -

My lightboxes might look 'shonky' to you, but I can 100% guarantee if I've got things in a 'similars' lightbox, they are in fact similars as described in the title, not any random picture that someone has lied /spammed about or misidentified.

I do not know anything about your individual lightbox links or your portfolio in general. The points I made were general ones. The way you have written that, I am not sure but I have the impression that it reads as if it were a response to some personal criticism.

Not at all.
I meant exactly what I said. My lightboxes may look shonky, but at least my similars are actually similar, unlike some of those imposed by the auto system.

From a buyer's pov, if there was a straight choice between identical rows of often dissimilar 'similars' and 'individualised' properly-tagged files, most would choose the latter.
There is no reason why they couldn't have both. iS could simply have set a template for people to use as a similars banner if they felt uniformity was more important than a little bit of personality.
But granted, the spammers are always with us. 

Complainers change their complaints, but they never reduce the amount of time spent in complaining.

"complaining is much easier than working hard or coming up with constructive ideas I guess." - i think they just wake up in the morning and need to complain about something. everything is the fault of IS or GI.