Quote from: Pixart on April 05, 2011, 14:19

Quote from: SNP on April 05, 2011, 13:44

you know, I have to say that I think it's a really dangerous game referring customers away from sites you dislike TO sites you happen to like at any given time. a) I think it's unprofessional and looks petty, b) I think it's as slimy as the business practices many of you are criticizing. it's a move that can only bite you in the a55 eventually. but whatever, that's not how I do business.

I also can't imagine dragging my clients into my relationship with my agencies. who does that? seems quite ridiculous to me. no matter how I feel about my agency (ies).

Yeah, I agree with you totally.  Next time 3 bitter angry people ask me for alternatives to Istock I will tell them to man up and stop complaining.  If they complain about prices, customer service, site usability they shouldn't be allowed to purchase photographs anyway. 

I think it's obvious that's not what I'm saying. I'm talking about contributors bragging about actively campaigning to buyers to get them away from iStock (and FWIW, I would say the same if it was being done to any other agency). it's a silly game to play IMO.

Bragging?  I was not bragging. I brought it up to point out how buyers are reacting to istock's latest push on  high priced imagery.  You really should be directing your anger at istock for driving away customers and causing them to seek out other companies in the first place.

If anyone asks me where to buy photos (and my clients do!) iStock is NEVER in the list that I give them. Why would I point them to an agency that pays such low commission when there are others where they can get images for less and the contributor makes more? Call it silly if you like, but neither my bottom line nor my conscience will let me recommend iStock.

If anyone asks me where to buy photos (and my clients do!) iStock is NEVER in the list that I give them. Why would I point them to an agency that pays such low commission when there are others where they can get images for less and the contributor makes more? Call it silly if you like, but neither my bottom line nor my conscience will let me recommend iStock.

and yet your conscience submits images to iStock, your latest uploads are as recent as February 2011.

in any case, I don't care who likes or doesn't like iStock. the point is that campaigning against any one agency because you're mad at them will surely backfire at some point. and involving buyers not already involved in disagreements with agencies is ridiculous.

Wow, this is so suprising, exclusive contributors speaking out against trying to convert IStock customers. I wonder if they have some ulterior motive for disagreeing with this tactic.

I'm shocked, I fully expected exclusives to support this endeavor. 

Cant answer for Stacey!  but me, well I dont believe in shotgun tactics, you know an eye for an eye and all that jazz. Now IS have wronged us all but it isnt really IS its Getty ofcourse. Now if you go out of your way and purposlely tell buyers not to use IS, well I would crap on my own doorstep, wouldnt I, chances are they were after one of my pics?
I do not believe that one should act maliciously and make a campign out of gossip or in this case throw potential IS buyers off the track. I really see no purpose in it.

In our case it can backfire since we are both pretty big members of IS,  independants ofcourse but still.

best.

Quote from: lagereek on April 05, 2011, 16:23

Cant answer for Stacey!  but me, well I dont believe in shotgun tactics, you know an eye for an eye and all that jazz. Now IS have wronged us all but it isnt really IS its Getty ofcourse. Now if you go out of your way and purposlely tell buyers not to use IS, well I would crap on my own doorstep, wouldnt I, chances are they were after one of my pics?
I do not believe that one should act maliciously and make a campign out of gossip or in this case throw potential IS buyers off the track. I really see no purpose in it.

In our case it can backfire since we are both pretty big members of IS,  independants ofcourse but still.

best.

Thanks for answering my question, Christian.  I guess I just see this from a different perspective.  I haven't read the facebook or twitter posts, so maybe I am missing something. 

To me, offering angry, disaffected customers other options is not about being malicious, or gossipy.  It is simply good business.  Direct buyers to sites where they will find what they want easily, and affordably.  I don't see how making disgruntled customers happy could possibly backfire. 

Youre right! nothing wrong with that at all. Only some people here go a lot further ( if you care to believe them) theyre prepared to start some kind of worldwide hate and smear campaign and when you look at their ports or whatever, it clearly shows they have never really been too involved, nor do they stand much to lose. its just a jump on the bandwagon, thats all.

best.

I honestly dont think its a jump on the bandwagon, its just the most sensible thing to do as non-exclusive.
iStock has lied, deceived, suspectively cheated, shown incredible greed and arrogance while cutting my already miserable commissions there etc; the only thing i can do about that is try to convert customers to sites that are better value for them, pay me A LOT more commission and treat me with respect. Again, its the most sensible thing to do and has nothing to do with hate campaigns.

Come on mate, switch off will you, how many times here havent we read the same old garbage, theyre going to do this and that, blue murders, revenge, blimey the list is endless. All mouth, screaming and halloring, then when you look at their investment in IS, its mostly a couple of hundred files and some of them with 3-4 years as members.

Im not defending anything here but lets put it this way, Ive been with the original main-core of the Getty-RM, since 1992, Ive got used to it, nothing of this Getty/IS business comes as a surprise to me, in fact, I expected it, just surprised it didnt start earlier.

I don't see how the number of files someone has relates to their right to express opinion.

Aren't they within their rights (just like you) to act in whatever manner they deem appropriate for their individual situation as long as it's legal?

Full time microstockers seem to think that just because this isn't someone else's only income that the money generated from microstock isn't important to them. Sorry to correct you, but I use every penny that I earn.

Well said.

Could a greasemonkey script be used to enable buyers to exclude v/agency ?

Unfortunately with the new JavaScript/Ajax stuff, I don't see anyway to do a filter.  I could hide them, but then you'd just get empty pages of nothing.

Directing buyers away from any one agency has many negative effects in my opinion. most of which I'd think would be obvious and common sense.

1)  it's effect on you: it potentially burns your bridge to the 'bad' agency and it makes you incredibly vulnerable to the 'good' agency you're sending buyers to
2) you're directly attempting to hurt fellow contributors who are exclusives at the agency you are working to pull business away from. and your seeming disregard for this is compounded by the fact that you're still collecting income from iStock despite actively pushing buyers away from iStock

3) your 'position' or 'stance' or whatever you want to call it purports that there are JUST two camps, villains and saints. you've clearly vilified iStock/Getty, ergo the other agencies are saints. this does seem childish. in my opinion, the truth is somewhere in the middle and the vilification is more appropriately focused on decisions rather than on entire agencies. the sooner EVERY agency realizes that its health is directly related to the long-term health of its suppliers the better.

let's say you get all your clients to quit buying at iStock/Getty. you push them all over to Shutterstock or Fotolia, or Dreamstime....then what? what stops them from lowering commissions too (as Fotolia has actually just done). I think it's a short-sighted and vengeful approach to running your business. I'm not questioning your feelings, I sympathize and have been vocal about how unfairly I feel independents are being treated at iStock. don't underestimate how unsure and worried many of us are as exclusives right now too. but I strongly disagree with dragging clients into it and purposefully smearing agencies.

Thanks a lot for explaining.  While I respect your right to your own opinion, you won't be surprised to learn that I disagree with your conclusions.  

I can certainly see how you would interpret many of my recent posts to be "vilifying" Istock, but from my perspective they have cast themselves in the role of "villain" without any help from me.  

As for thinking that I am portraying other agencies as "saints" or "angels" - you seem to have missed many, many critical posts about other sites, that I have made over the years.  I don't blame you if you have skipped over threads that don't relate to Istock, but I would appreciate your not mischaracterizing my opinions about other agencies since your clearly have not read many of them.  

To be honest, I am first and foremost, directing buyers who are interested in my work to MY OWN website.  Which would seem to be a sound business decision, no?  If they want a larger collection of work, then I would direct them to the other major micros, and yes, even Istock if what they were looking for is something I know a particular exclusive has the best of what's available.   But now, Istock would not be my first choice anymore, and I have removed their address from my business cards.  

And your charge that I, and others, are "directly attempting to hurt fellow contributors who are exclusives", completely contradicts your statement that "I don't want to make any emotional arguments".  Surprisingly, when I make decisions about my business, it is my own interests I put first, rather than that of the general population of Istock exclusives.  

I'll grant you that "disregard" for exclusives is prevalent, but you should take it up with your exclusive agent, Istock.  No other contributor, exclusive or independent, owes you anything, including regard.  It is your agent who owes you, and it is they who are torpedoing your potential future livelihood.  

Time to stop blaming the messengers.  

Quote from: alias on April 05, 2011, 14:04

Could a greasemonkey script be used to enable buyers to exclude v/agency ?

Unfortunately with the new JavaScript/Ajax stuff, I don't see anyway to do a filter.  I could hide them, but then you'd just get empty pages of nothing.

---------------------------------------
If the search ever gets back to something close to rational, I bet there would be a lot of interest from buyers in being able to hide Vetta and Agency, even if it just leaves an empty space.  I imagine it would save buyers some time and dashed hopes when looking for the perfect image only to find it out of their price range cause they did not check out the camera first. 

However my guess is Istock would not be too happy if you created something like that.   

I don't disagree with how you feel, but yes, I guess we agree to disagree on your approach. as you say, we're all protecting our own interests, but I think we'd agree that our interests overlap in many areas in terms of protecting contributors in the industry as a whole...to each his own in terms of how you choose to manage the situation.

What you are also over-looking is that by being exclusive to one particular agency, most especially the market leader (as was possibly), you are gifting it far too much power over the market and contributors. To me your choice to be exclusive is damaging to all other agencies, thereby distorting the market and so potentially damaging my business at all other agencies.

If you are choosing to distort the market in your favour (by opting for exclusivity) then you can't blame independent contributors for trying to shift the market back to their interests.