BM Investigation

^^ Totally agree with you guys, I wrote my post based on the "facts" that were presented here. Istock representative (Lobo) said several times here that BM wouldn't be good for everyone and acted like nothing was wrong! Even though that was conflicting with what Oldladybird said, but that made this mess just worse.


So WE assume that BM is broken, not Istock - maybe BM is functioning satisfactory to their own standards. Just don't expect any of them to come out and say that something is very bad. They have been arrogant and incapable of making quick fixes way too long.

IF BM is indeed broken, their work towards fixing it is a joke. If they couldn't fix zoom & views for 3 months imagine the time they would need for BM. Few years maybe? Dhhh...

I agree, as it is it makes no sense, and I can't see it being intentional either. If it really is as they want it then I wonder what the future is here for a lot of us as exclusives. Personally at the moment I'm not seeing anything like the downloads I need to make this viable for me long term.

Sarcasm.

Not sure about how they want the best match to shake up but I do see that sometimes when you search, BM shows you File Age instead of BM.  I must select Downloads and then go back to BM to actually get the present BM.  Even that does not work all the time.

Just looking at my own port in BM, it is obvious that there is a deliberate bias against # of downloads.  I have two or so pages of just new files, which show some weighting for recent downloads, followed by a bunch of files from the last few months with pretty much no downloads.  After that there is a bunch of my older flames files, some of which have been downloaded recently.  So that shows that the recent downloads weighting is offset by some sort of # of downloads punishment in the BM.  I have found that my # of sales has been very adversely affected by this sort of configuration in the past.  Very strange looking BM.

Question is if iStock is even considering to bring back Zoom feature. Getty has no Zoom function ...

It's been stated several times that zoom is being worked on and is on its way back.

Getty also allows you to download unwatermarked large comps, when signed in, as a benefit of the higher price point there, if I'm not mistaken.

It is obvious that for any reason they want to keep the bm the way it is. Lobo said the truth as I anticipated.
Therefore there are very few options, one option is to upload like a crazy robot since only new files show up when two or more keywords are selected in the search. We can also pray, use talisman, talk to a psyquic (take it seriously, a psyquic told me in august that in september an event was going to affect my income seriously, I laughed big time, but now Im crying). We can also insist in the forums until they see the light and act according logic and common sense. Briving the person in charge is out of question since we dont even know who she/he is. Unfortunatelly we are powerless in this situation. The positive thing here is that now I know who I am dealing with and I will act in the future accordinly, I will not put all my eggs just in stock photography but in other areas of the business.

Hey Everyone, please know that we are still looking at this. And quite seriously.


I know it's frustrating and we certainly appreciate that.


As soon as we have something to share publicly, we will. 

sorry..... but frustrating is not the right word for this!

Thank you! Thank you! Please make this a priority, the search results are so awful, and it has been going on way too long!


(I just did a video-only search for Growth + Nature and only 4 of the first 200 files had had any DL's, and only 6 of them were older than file number 2059xxxx. Many were not very relevant to the keywords (eg. a spaceship). Got the same results when loged in and logged out.)

the right word is "we are desperate". Its good to know they are working on it. A light at the end of the tunnel.

We heard that "we are still looking at this" really to many times in last few years

Let's hope it is not truck in the wrong lane.

Please, please fix this. Files with good potential, with a chance to take off, are dying.

I've open a new thread for us all to discuss BM. I've been provided some feedback from the Search Team for everyone to peruse in the initial post. Thank you for your comments:

BM Discussion: Dec 5, 2012