zero talent, it has been proven over and over that the most sold photo is not the most popular photo ss is showing in the results. my most sold photos are not even near the position they should be at. but that was not the point, the point was, how do you know if you got the best image? answer, you dont, unless you wade through 38,000 photos.

shameless and utterly disgusting move from SS

we should all write a letter to Jon (filling that expensive office built with our creativity, time, investment and sweat) saying how this measure will only benefit SS and not the contributors like agencies love writing down on this type of announcement, we aren't stupid

now please go suck a lemon!

YES YES well said!


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Quote from: Zero Talent on January 27, 2016, 07:46

Nobody settles for good enough. Do you?

Depends on the budget. If I am looking for an image, and the client has x amount of dollars to spend on the job, I can't afford to wade through 20,000 images for hours and hours to be sure I got the best one. In that instance, yes, I settle for good enough. High budget clients who don't care what it costs and want the best, no, I don't settle for good enough.

You will settle for what is on the first pages of your relevant/popular/new tabs.

These photos are already filtered for you, out of that ocean of garbage.

You will not randomly go to the 213th page, close your eyes and pick a good enough photo. Short of time, you will still pick it out of what the crowd considers "the best" You will trust the "popular vote". The same goes for the majority of customers, because these customers are the ones deciding what's popular/relevant and what not.

Everyone's goal is to produce the quality able to push photos up on the first few pages of the popular/relevant hierarchies for specific keywords.


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Quote from: Zero Talent on January 27, 2016, 07:46

Nobody settles for good enough. Do you?

Depends on the budget. If I am looking for an image, and the client has x amount of dollars to spend on the job, I can't afford to wade through 20,000 images for hours and hours to be sure I got the best one. In that instance, yes, I settle for good enough. High budget clients who don't care what it costs and want the best, no, I don't settle for good enough.

The point is for high end clients Good Enough = the best you can reasonably find just like if you spend �����s on a top end camera you expect the best image quality. I would argue that for the majority of microstock we are talking about delivering value rather than top end quality.

Quote from: Pauws99 on January 27, 2016, 07:11

Quote from: Microstockphoto on January 27, 2016, 06:22

out of 70 million images they will never know if they got the best image or not. if they search and get 200 pages of images and they wont know if the first 10 pages are newbiew photos or not. they will pick the photo they like best on those 10 pages, i doubt they will look further than 2000 images.

Yes and how can a search engine define "best" anyway its subjective and in the eye of the buyer. Its not really about best its about "good enough for what I want" most stock is for images that will be glanced at for seconds not to be hung on the wall to be admired for years to come 

Nobody settles for good enough. Do you? When you have the choice to get a better camera for the same amount of money, you will go for it. You will not settle for an inferior product, even if it looks good enough.

When I search for keywords specific to my speciality, sometimes I find my photos on the 1st page (popularity or relevant), but most of the time, I find photos I would love to have on my port, because those photos are definitely better. And clearly much better than what can be found on, let's say, the 3rd page and beyond.
Customers don't behave differently.

FYI I'm not uploading tomatoes on white, handshakes or skies with fluffy clouds. That would be foolish, indeed.


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Denial is a luxury and can be costly, in fact it has gotten us where we are today!

Those who regularly produce advertising & promotional material have very little time to find images and deliver projects. They have bosses and clients breathing down their back asking them to deliver.

Good enough is the order of the day. They do not have time to wade through pages of images to find a perfect fit.

From my personal Alamy measures for a rolling month, I can see that buyers have searched for from one page (where that is the full amount of images for that particular search term) to, someone who looked through 26,100 (sic) images for 'park bench' and zoomed 32 of them.

There is no one way in which buyers search. Like the rest of us, they're all different. That's not to say that Best Match (or whatever the default is called) placement isn't very important. And obviously I offer no insight into SS buyers.

Quote from: gbalex on January 27, 2016, 12:07

Denial is a luxury and can be costly, in fact it has gotten us where we are today!

Those who regularly produce advertising & promotional material have very little time to find images and deliver projects. They have bosses and clients breathing down their back asking them to deliver.

Good enough is the order of the day. They do not have time to wade through pages of images to find a perfect fit.

You are free to produce "good enough" photos, if you believe it works for you. 

My goal is to produce the quality able to push my photos as high as possible on the top popular/relevant pages, because these are, strangely enough  , my best sellers.

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I produce the best I can in a reasonable time at low cost if I were to produce super high quality pics using international models and Hasselblad cameras I wouldnt be selling them on microstock

Those of us who have been around for a while talk to each other and know each others work well.

We know who meets the quality and content requirements needed to stay on the front pages of the search and we know each other well enough to know when each of us joined shutterstock. We also notice who is new to the game.

The oldest members saw the file demotions to the lower rungs first, while friends who joined later did not. A year or two later more of our friends also saw sharp drops.

As this was occurring I looked at front page results and found shutterstocks new IPO inspired search dynamically changing to serve content from contributors who joined within specific time periods. This changes dynamically weekly/daily with a larger % weight of new contributors showing up on the first pages. Not rocket science to see that this does increase profits.

In the mean time a large number of older contributors have noticed that our new files are buried in the search. Not motivating to produce new content for shutterstock, who in turn pays back those who helped them become successful by burying our content to increase their bottom line. 

Its called competition I'm afraid you might have to get used to it.....just like the old pros who used macrostock 

Exactly!


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Quote from: cathyslife on January 27, 2016, 09:51

Quote from: Zero Talent on January 27, 2016, 07:46

Nobody settles for good enough. Do you?

Depends on the budget. If I am looking for an image, and the client has x amount of dollars to spend on the job, I can't afford to wade through 20,000 images for hours and hours to be sure I got the best one. In that instance, yes, I settle for good enough. High budget clients who don't care what it costs and want the best, no, I don't settle for good enough.

EXACTLY!   Time = money, so the logical and economical thing for most buyers is to go with the first image that meets their needs and is adequate quality.  Nobody is going to search thru thousands more pictures after they find one that they are satisfied with, just to see if they can find one marginally better.  Its looking for a needle in a haystack.

Definitely! Exactly!

This is why most of the customers will only search for the first few pages of the popular/relevant/new, and sometimes the undiscovered hierarchies.

Maybe some customers like to play roulette and jump to page 213, but it must be only an insignificant minority.

Producing the same quality or better than seen on those top pages will definitely maximise your chances to break into those top pages and better sell your stuff. This is not rocket science, really!

I'm afraid that "good enough" photos will never make it to the top, where the "big bucks" (relatively speaking) are.

The top pages must be your goal. I know it is mine.

Maybe some customers like to play roulette and jump to page 213, but it must be only an insignificant minority.

That would be like the insignificant minority iStock always said didn't use this, that or the other feature whenever they disabled them, but who evidently added up to a significant number.
Still, SS seems hellbent on imitating iS a few years behind, so ...

Quote from: gbalex on January 27, 2016, 12:07

Denial is a luxury and can be costly, in fact it has gotten us where we are today!

Those who regularly produce advertising & promotional material have very little time to find images and deliver projects. They have bosses and clients breathing down their back asking them to deliver.

Good enough is the order of the day. They do not have time to wade through pages of images to find a perfect fit.

You are free to produce "good enough" photos, if you believe it works for you. 

My goal is to produce the quality able to push my photos as high as possible on the top popular/relevant pages, because these are, strangely enough  , my best sellers.

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both good points.
i think stock is like the other stock (inventory) you find at your supermarket or book store,etc..
the one that is right in line with the customers is usually the one that is picked up...
that is no secret why most of the junk funk and sweets etc are stacked where you file in to pay your grocery,etc...
one day, i watched the clients in front of me went back to the sweet shelf 5 times ...
while she waits to be her turn to pay.
stock photos are i am sure the same...
the client has no time to wade through to find that gem..
it's not his/her money , but the company who pays him/her to find that stock photo.
he /she is not going to sit there and look for that amazing photo on pg 233..

if they did, they would be sacked for wasting company's time.
so yes, being current is vital, as your new images are most likely to be there ones most busy clients will look first.