Hmm just thinking. IS is already second tier for most indies. Take out exclusives and PP and it is a very poor picture for the agency and perhaps worse for contributors sliding to 15% commission rate. I will not take pics down yet but it is not worth the trouble of uploading new images for very little commission if they even could be found. New images from from indies equals best match search death.

Yeah, pretty much everything they SHOULD do they can't/won't do.  They've boxed themselves in to the current program and the short-term change would be too painful with no guarantee of success.  Ouch.

Yep. Nothing of any significance is going to happen because of RR's thread. If I were a betting man, which I am come to think of it, then I'd just expect IS to continue to slowly decline as time goes on.

It's strange how there's a sort of paralysis against taking meaningful action, within an overly-large organisation, despite how obvious and necessary it might seem to casual observers.

The reality is....why did she make that post?

1. Are they seeing a defect rate that is killing sales?
2. Is she trying to appease contributors for a "bit" longer to string us along long enough to pay off those venture capitalists?
3. Is she trying to deflect "communication" from "commission"?
4. ADD YOUR OWN SPECULATION HERE.......

Why? My speculation is she got the instruction from Carlyle and Klein to test the water. It could be someone who got the attention of the power that be. She said herself that her role is limited, many things on contributors wishlist are beyond her power. Now she has got the Pandora's box open, it is interesting to see the next. To be fair to her, she was not the one who started the RC and decline.

naiveness among contributor community is at laughable levels 

they have no intention to do anything you wish them to do and that woman tells it very clearly in her posts..

I have no respect for her and/or any other people running that company who are making a fool of us.. and most of the contributors fell into the trap by believing they have good intentions now 

Quote from: Microstock Posts on December 08, 2012, 20:03

Quote from: gbalex on December 08, 2012, 19:11

It is clear that when they screwed us, they screwed themselves more.

IS screwing its contributors does seem to have had negative effects for them. But IS are by no means screwed yet.

Quote from: gbalex on December 08, 2012, 19:11

 And it is bizarre that most do not see that we are truly in the driver seat.  What most of these sites have failed to realize is that a significant portion of their buyers are also independent contributors.

I say let them burn in hell, they deserve what is coming to them!

Most aren't though. It's a very small percentage of contributors who provide most of the content. It's in their hands, but these few have never utilised the power that they have. Arcurs made a stand by creating his own site, but it's not much of a stand really. If those few top dogs had got together and coordinated something, which wouldn't be difficult really, companies like IS could have been long gone and other agencies wouldn't dare to pull the antics that IS did.

Absoloutely!  had the top guys got together and showed some guts the situation would have been totally differant and other agencies would have got a serious lesson. Thats what happend within the Image-Bank, in 92.

Well the way things have turned out I am sure some of them wished they had done something. The future isnt looking all that bright, is it.

IS failed to consider is the backlash from image buyers who are also part time non exclusive and low volume exclusive submitters. Take a good look at Alexa traffic numbers. They droped steadily after they made the RC announcement and in turn SS's numbers rose steadily. IS failed to take into account how many of us actually work in industries that buy images in volume.

I know that I have steered a good deal of business to other sites and my friends and business associates have as well.

Volume submitters like Yuri do not generally buy images in volume, they are too busy producing images!

In any case. Consider this!  does Getty really need IS nowdays?  with billions of mirrored images into TS, with E+ and Vettas incorporated in the Getty search mechanism? and thats just the beginning.
So why should they need IS? I cant find one single legit reason why they should need a brand name called IS?

If IS should fail, it will cast a long black shadow over this entire industry and IMO, there are agencies which are much worse.
IS, is still a good source of income.

Quote from: cidepix on December 09, 2012, 19:49

most of the contributors fell into the trap by believing they have good intentions now 

I don't see any sign of that. Almost all the posts in that thread seem to be heavily laced with scepticism. Giving a civil response to a question isn't the same as believing in good intentions.

As for why she posted, I'd run with the idea that the Carlyle group, having discovered what they have bought, want to try to undo some of the damage to the brand that H&F and Getty inflicted on it. It's significant that Rebecca admitted that "some" contributors think istock is incompetent, uncaring and greedy. I can almost hear the Chairman telling her "we've got to change that perception, Rebecca, it's bad for business. Win back their confidence and it will help stop the hemorrhaging on the bottom line".

So the whole thing is probably just a PR exercise. My guess is that the response has been exactly as expected. If there are any surprises in it, it will probably only be that so many diamonds and even black diamonds are openly talking about quitting exclusivity. That one may have caught them off balance, I doubt if anything else has.

ClaridgeJ - one reason they might want it is that it is still a cash cow.

Yes its a cash cow! as I said, still a good source of income. Dont know about you Paul but Im having a great month right now.
best.

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on December 10, 2012, 01:46

Quote from: cidepix on December 09, 2012, 19:49

most of the contributors fell into the trap by believing they have good intentions now 

I don't see any sign of that. Almost all the posts in that thread seem to be heavily laced with scepticism. Giving a civil response to a question isn't the same as believing in good intentions.

As for why she posted, I'd run with the idea that the Carlyle group, having discovered what they have bought, want to try to undo some of the damage to the brand that H&F and Getty inflicted on it. It's significant that Rebecca admitted that "some" contributors think istock is incompetent, uncaring and greedy. I can almost hear the Chairman telling her "we've got to change that perception, Rebecca, it's bad for business. Win back their confidence and it will help stop the hemorrhaging on the bottom line".

So the whole thing is probably just a PR exercise. My guess is that the response has been exactly as expected. If there are any surprises in it, it will probably only be that so many diamonds and even black diamonds are openly talking about quitting exclusivity. That one may have caught them off balance, I doubt if anything else has.

ClaridgeJ - one reason they might want it is that it is still a cash cow.

Yes its a cash cow! as I said, still a good source of income. Dont know about you Paul but Im having a great month right now.
best.

Yes SS is still delivering and DT is constanly on the rise, level with IS actually. In my books FT is the dissapointing one. Ever since their change some 6 months back its downhill.

Quote from: Freedom on December 09, 2012, 19:22

....To be fair to her, she was not the one who started the RC and decline.

But she has been the boss for over a year, wouldn't anyone capable of making positive changes start doing something much sooner than this?  Do you think istock is better now than a year ago?  And from her comments in the forum, she has very little understanding of the problems most of us see with the site.  She has already told us she can't do much about the big things that have ruined istock for many of us, like the commission cuts below 20% and the RC levels, that obviously should of been lowered a lot when many of their buyers were sent to Thinkstock.

I am not defending her, but as many have pointed out, when Getty was going through the due diligence of an acquisition, as well as a possible IPO if I remember correctly, the board may not be able to provide a clear direction to her. Clearly she did not come to the forum to open her heart because her conscience suddenly awoke. It is most likely a boss wanted her to do this for some reason. Why? Your guess is as good as mine.

They haven't shuffled in my direction, anyway, and I'm sub-20%

It's significant that Rebecca admitted that "some" contributors think istock is incompetent, uncaring and greedy. I can almost hear the Chairman telling her "we've got to change that perception, Rebecca, it's bad for business. Win back their confidence and it will help stop the hemorrhaging on the bottom line".

The problem is there is nothing they can do to change that perception.. They will remain incompetent, uncaring and greedy for as long as the contributor royalties stay at current levels..

Already paying the worst commissions "by far" before the changes, they made it even worse than the worst..

How can a company reverse that kind of screw up?

The problem is there is nothing they can do to change that perception.. They will remain incompetent, uncaring and greedy for as long as the contributor royalties stay at current levels..

Already paying to worst commissions "by far" before the changes, they made it even worse than the worst..

How can a company reverse that kind of screw up?

This is spot on. There's a whole industry that likes to pretend communication is the key to building the kind of loyalty IStock used to have, and Rebecca is part of that side of things.

I don't care how you tell me you are taking an 80%+ cut, I am still going to hate you for it. In fact I would probably respect you more for not patronizing me by polishing that particular turd.

There's no way she will be able to accept that communication isn't the problem here. Her chosen field is based on the idea that you can solve these problems by marketing the message differently. And it is in her interest to sell that idea up the chain. That is the only thing she can do anything about. To admit otherwise would make her role redundant.

Yes, excellent observations Cobalt.

Someone recently posted on the difference in management style from people who have worked their way up through the ranks and have understood the issues and difficulties at every level of an organisation.  Their breadth of understanding and empathy makes them far better managers than those 'new brooms that sweep clean' who enter a company at a senior level with no understanding of the way things connect before they start pulling apart the critical 'glue' that holds things together and makes them work.

One of those historical errors that just keeps repeating itself over and over, and seemingly everywhere.  I doubt it will ever change, sadly.  'Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it' and all that...

I remember learning at university that the number one most common problem in all hierarchical organisations is the inability of those at the top to actually listen to the people at lower levels.  Communication flows downwards very easily, but all the routes upwards are blocked.  As soon as I heard that, I realised that indeed that HAD been the major problem in a lot of companies I'd worked for.  Such a shame that this still continues... it's all just wasted opportunity.