Author Topic: strange observation regarding DLs! (Read 8082 times)

lagereek · « **on:** March 30, 2011, 14:40 »

Now for the third day in a row I have had a steady flow of Dls during Europen daytime but as soon as the American market start to surface it slows down to almost nothing for about 3 to 4 hours.
It used to be the exact opposite since the US market is by far the biggest one for all of us, I used to get around 70% of my daily quota in the evenings, etc.

Anybody else living in Europe with same experience?

aeonf · « **Reply #1 on:** March 30, 2011, 15:03 »

I indeed seem to have a similar but not identical pattern.
I see a massive rise in european buys, and a small drop in american purchases.
I hope this is permenant.
IS new location based best match at work proly.

But since my numbers aren't big enough, only 13 sales on an average working day, I am not sure of the validity of my data.

lagereek · « **Reply #2 on:** March 30, 2011, 15:09 »

Yeah, only the US market is far bigger. I rather have that then the Europen to be honest.

XPTO · « **Reply #3 on:** March 30, 2011, 15:22 »

Quote from: lagereek on March 30, 2011, 15:09

Yeah, only the US market is far bigger. I rather have that then the Europen to be honest.

From my experience over the tax retention, I must say that the American market is not big at all compared to Europe. I was very surprised to find that only 20% of my sales come from US! And this is confirmed by several American agencies that retain taxes.

Edit: just adding that I live from stock, so I sell moderately well, and I don't base my numbers on little downloads.

FreeTransform · « **Reply #4 on:** March 30, 2011, 15:34 »

I heard from a Mexican iStocker friend that the best match takes into consideration the searcher's location. He showed a screen shot of his portfolio on a his computer in Mexico, and a lot of his Mexican folklore imagery was near the top. On a screen in the US, it was not.

Could this be?

aeonf · « **Reply #5 on:** March 30, 2011, 17:14 »

Quote from: FreeTransform on March 30, 2011, 15:34

I heard from a Mexican iStocker friend that the best match takes into consideration the searcher's location. He showed a screen shot of his portfolio on a his computer in Mexico, and a lot of his Mexican folklore imagery was near the top. On a screen in the US, it was not.

Could this be?

Yes it can, this is one of the best match upgrades IS made last week.

pancaketom · « **Reply #6 on:** March 30, 2011, 18:18 »

I wonder how they decide where the photos are from that they choose to show - is it the photographer's address? Something in the keywords? As far as I know IS doesn't use geolocation data. Would my pics from a trip somewhere sell better if I uploaded them from the trip location? or from the location with the greatest number of buyers? I suppose it could decrease some non-desirable results, but could also skew the results in weird ways.

If the former, please change my address to Madison Avenue, NY.

ShadySue · « **Reply #7 on:** March 30, 2011, 18:47 »

Allegedly, it's based on what buyers from that area have preferred in the past.
So, in a search for 'coloured shapes', maybe more Americans preferred your green triangles in the past, but more Europeans preferred my red circles. So they go with that for future searchers.
I guess it makes more sense especially for people pics, as the preferred style is often so different.

jsmithzz · « **Reply #8 on:** March 30, 2011, 18:52 »

I also wondered how location was determined and also noticed that my DL's seem to go up during European "prime time" and fall off when Americans are at work. I'm based out of the U.S. so am scratching my head as to why my images are selling to European buyers when they seem to have sold so well during American work hours in the past.

ProArtwork · « **Reply #9 on:** March 30, 2011, 18:53 »

Quote from: pancaketom on March 30, 2011, 18:18

If the former, please change my address to Madison Avenue, NY.

Sorry, I own that address!

RacePhoto · « **Reply #10 on:** March 31, 2011, 01:48 »

Quote from: ShadySue on March 30, 2011, 18:47

Allegedly, it's based on what buyers from that area have preferred in the past.
So, in a search for 'coloured shapes', maybe more Americans preferred your green triangles in the past, but more Europeans preferred my red circles. So they go with that for future searchers.
I guess it makes more sense especially for people pics, as the preferred style is often so different.

Something like this, public data from your browser and where you are linked:

Your IP, ISP, OS and Browser.

You will see yourself, and I only see myself and no one else see's the same as what we see. The ads on Yahoo and Google and many other places work the same way. The world lookup for IP address provides the location.

lagereek · « **Reply #11 on:** March 31, 2011, 02:07 »

Yeah, or it could just mean, plain and simple that contributors are at a certain time accidently cut-off from a certain part of the world for a certain purpose. I cant figure it out yet but there could be a bug or glitch here, something nobody is aware of yet.

I stumbled over this by accident, a buyer in the US, wanted a high-res shot instead of the low-res in my portfolio and contacted me on my private mail, late Tuesday night. He didnt find the low-res but even worse, he couldnt even find me! or my Port.

Its pretty alarming though because it would explain the total lack of DLs during Europen nigh-time by US customers, prior I used to get about 50% of my DLs during these late hours.
Oh well, might be a ghost in the house?

ShadySue · « **Reply #12 on:** March 31, 2011, 04:44 »

Quote from: lagereek on March 31, 2011, 02:07

Yeah, or it could just mean, plain and simple that contributors are at a certain time accidently cut-off from a certain part of the world for a certain purpose. I cant figure it out yet but there could be a bug or glitch here, something nobody is aware of yet.

I stumbled over this by accident, a buyer in the US, wanted a high-res shot instead of the low-res in my portfolio and contacted me on my private mail, late Tuesday night. He didnt find the low-res but even worse, he couldnt even find me! or my Port.

Its pretty alarming though because it would explain the total lack of DLs during Europen nigh-time by US customers, prior I used to get about 50% of my DLs during these late hours.
Oh well, might be a ghost in the house?

Certainly my out of European hours sales are virtually non-existent these days. I guess you'd have to find e.g. an American resident, German Australian and Thai to see if they are even getting the same numbers of hits on a search. A recent anecdotal happening suggested they might not be, but I didn't follow it up.
That sounds very worrying that they couldn't find you or your port. If they (or someone else) can repeat that, I'd get onto Support right away.

lagereek · « **Reply #13 on:** March 31, 2011, 07:56 »

Quote from: ShadySue on March 31, 2011, 04:44

Quote from: lagereek on March 31, 2011, 02:07
Yeah, or it could just mean, plain and simple that contributors are at a certain time accidently cut-off from a certain part of the world for a certain purpose. I cant figure it out yet but there could be a bug or glitch here, something nobody is aware of yet.

I stumbled over this by accident, a buyer in the US, wanted a high-res shot instead of the low-res in my portfolio and contacted me on my private mail, late Tuesday night. He didnt find the low-res but even worse, he couldnt even find me! or my Port.

Its pretty alarming though because it would explain the total lack of DLs during Europen nigh-time by US customers, prior I used to get about 50% of my DLs during these late hours.
Oh well, might be a ghost in the house?
Certainly my out of European hours sales are virtually non-existent these days. I guess you'd have to find e.g. an American resident, German Australian and Thai to see if they are even getting the same numbers of hits on a search. A recent anecdotal happening suggested they might not be, but I didn't follow it up.
That sounds very worrying that they couldn't find you or your port. If they (or someone else) can repeat that, I'd get onto Support right away.

Yes, I dont know though if it was a one off happening, could be I suppose but its worrying alright. This morning I saw a few good sales that had taken place over night, so it could have been a temporary thing?
getting on to support is pointless, they are not going to listen with all other complaints coming in.

VB inc · « **Reply #14 on:** March 31, 2011, 09:38 »

maybe that is part of the best match equation with its ebb and flow. Your ebbing... and then you disappear from search for a bit and you flow right back to the front of the searches. I sometimes feel like my portfolio gets turned off for periods of times.
However, this morning, i wake up to substantial dls from the european buyers and havent seen much action in the US market.

Sadstock · « **Reply #15 on:** March 31, 2011, 12:57 »

I'm really hoping this is a bug. If istock is gaming the search this way, it would be another new low as there is litterally nothing contributors could do within their portfolios to get their images to show up during off hours.

If this is the case, I wonder if they only turn on/off independents and leave exclusives on all the time?

lisafx · « **Reply #16 on:** March 31, 2011, 13:10 »

This may be what I'm experiencing too. My sales the last two days have fallen off a cliff at IS. Unless there is some holiday that I don't know of somewhere in the world, this represents an unprecedented drop for me.

Over at SS, where it is easy to see where your sales are coming from, I my sales are about 40% from the US and 60% from elsewhere (mainly Europe) even though I am US based. I will be really upset if my port is being turned off in Europe just because I don't live there.

jamirae · « **Reply #17 on:** March 31, 2011, 13:34 »

Actually today is Cesar Chavez Day in the U.S. In california I believe it is a holiday and here in Arizona the City of Phoenix is closed today in observance of this day as well. Although the State of Arizona government is still open for business.

some references:

http://www.sdcoe.net/chavez/
http://phoenix.gov/news/032511holiday.html
http://www.cesarechavezfoundation.org/

Sheridan · « **Reply #18 on:** March 31, 2011, 13:58 »

This weekend sees the end of the financial year in the UK. People/businesses using up 2010-11 budgets could be one reason for the increased European time sales.

adamkaz · « **Reply #19 on:** March 31, 2011, 14:58 »

Quote from: jamirae on March 31, 2011, 13:34

Actually today is Cesar Chavez Day in the U.S. In california I believe it is a holiday and here in Arizona the City of Phoenix is closed today in observance of this day as well. Although the State of Arizona government is still open for business.

In California this was observed last Friday.

Sales seem fine for me. Slightly lower than my daily goals for this time in the day, but nothing of serious concern, it could easily catch up and be an above average day.

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #20 on:** March 31, 2011, 16:23 »

It'll be a real bummer if they use your IP address to decide who to show your work to. I and my fellow iStock photographers on Easter Island are going to find it hard to make a living just selling to local designers.

jen · « **Reply #21 on:** March 31, 2011, 16:58 »

I highly doubt they're actually going to block anyone's content from being viewed. Why would they do that? It wouldn't benefit anyone.

Sadstock · « **Reply #22 on:** March 31, 2011, 17:10 »

Quote from: jen on March 31, 2011, 16:58

I highly doubt they're actually going to block anyone's content from being viewed. Why would they do that? It wouldn't benefit anyone.

-------------------
Though I suggested it, I totally agree that its unlikely. Should be easy to test with a few contributors around the globe.

RT · « **Reply #23 on:** March 31, 2011, 17:12 »

Quote from: jen on March 31, 2011, 16:58

I highly doubt they're actually going to block anyone's content from being viewed. Why would they do that? It wouldn't benefit anyone.

I doubt they'd deliberately do it also, however you're assuming that they know what's happening with their website which based on recent events is not something I'm very confident about.

Atwim · « **Reply #24 on:** March 31, 2011, 17:15 »

Somedays, not only this week, I seem to get DLs concentrated on very short periods of time, especially during US working hours. I can have two or three hours of nothing and suddenly a bunch of DLs during one hour. But I can´t really see a pattern as it doesn´t happen every day and there are also days where I get a steady flow of DLs during the whole day. It might seem though that certain days something goes off somewhere and then the DLs collected during that off period are cleared all together.

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Author Topic: strange observation regarding DLs! (Read 8082 times)

lagereek

aeonf

lagereek

XPTO

FreeTransform

aeonf

pancaketom

ShadySue

jsmithzz

ProArtwork

RacePhoto

lagereek

ShadySue

lagereek

VB inc

Sadstock

lisafx

jamirae

Sheridan

adamkaz

BaldricksTrousers

jen

Sadstock

RT

Atwim

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