So here is a great idea a friend om mine had.

This guy's idea was born mainly out of frustration for the vetta videos high prices, the drop in sales, and the fact that istockphoto hold the highest prices in the microstock market.


His idea is preatty simple, and in a way its an Anti-Vetta method.


Maybe Istock can create a large collection of all our old and unsaled videos, of all the videos that got lost in the back pages void. They can name this collection (just like Vetta) and give this collection some really appealing price - a price that will give a good fight to all the other agencies out there.


This way Istock would attract more clients that will come here first to look for the video they need, and from here it will be Istock job to present them with some more "premium" videos for their serch words.


We might as well have the abillity to nominate our own videos to this inexpensive collection, and it could bring some balance to the distortion of people selling the same video here for 100$ and in that other agency (5) for 20$ and in that way give a knock-out for themselves.


What do you think?


 

in the light of soon coming mass exodus i tink that collection wont help.

I agree there could be more of a range of prices for video on iStock. I would not increase prices at the upper end but I would introduce a lower priced collection for all the videos that took minimal effort to produce and are not particularly unique. (Ducks on a pond etc.)

I think the low cost collection can sell here, of course. If I (not National Geographic) am searching for (let's say) a generic Paris video, I think I can easily find an unsold and fantastic one if the search engine let me order them by cheapest price. All the multi-Agency videomakers know that sometimes an usold istock video can sell well in other websites, because it's all about the search engine.


The problem we may wonder about is: was the buyer of a low cost footage sold by istock going to buy a normal price video here?


If it so, I'm not sure it's good for us to change the price policy.

There are agencies that sell videos for less than 40$... nice ones... even less. Full hd. 


Good idea but to late and they wont listen anyway so... bummer

I've mentioned something similar before, my view, if it's not generating revenue by being buried then at least discount the price either by nomination from the curator or by us contributors. Like Exclusive+ plus but something called Video Value. And we should get a similar set of slots. We know our content and can police it faster.


Prices are way too high, we all know it and I bet iStock knows it. But maybe its all part of the plan of not catering to micro-stock. My guess is iStock will only be mid-stock and hi end from now on. Everything points to that.


There is a huge gap below to fill with content that could be priced for HD at $50.  Be it less produced or plentiful.   Stuff will move , sell and generate growth and revenue if you let it.

Mark my words they will add a video value collection but the real question is it to late? Sales are down other places as well but when you are exclusive you feel it a LOT more. There is nothing I would prefer more then then to stay exclusive here, the next few weeks will be critical to my decesion. Other places are now catching up with quality and size of collection and a lower price point. My decesions are purely based on a logical business decesion

Not to mention ipad compatibility, most of the other sites offer videos through ipad web browsers. 


But I am not sure about other tablets because apple issue with flash

If we can nominate our files for a value collection, I'd like that. Sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised when an older file gets a sale and I wouldn't want to discount those. However, there are many things I've filmed when prices were much lower here and I can't imagine they'd get sales at today's prices. Squirrels spring immediately to mind...


I would love to see iStock move away from Flash as the only way to display our moving images. CNet reported last June that iOS (Apple's mobile operating system) accounts for 65% of mobile web traffic. That's two thirds of mobile users can't see our videos.

Getting away from Flash would also allow iStock's web design team to use our work in more interesting ways using HTML5. If you have a bit of time, take a look at these sites to get a flavour of what's possible:
http://studio.html5rocks.com/
http://www.creativebloq.com/web-design-tips/examples-of-html5-1233547

(Edited on 2013-01-20 07:28:54 by vesperstock)

is someone listening??


 


I just noticed, in "My Uploads" page, in the collection drop down menu... a "Value" collection.I'm not sure I saw it there before,


and you still can't use it as a search feature ..





anyone here noticed it? knows what it means?


 


 

(Edited on 2013-01-28 22:56:55 by BlackBodyRadiation)

The "Value Collection" is just for photos and illustrations. It's the renamed Dollar Bin collection but with more files than before.
http://www.istockphoto.com/search/value#9a298da

(Edited on 2013-01-29 06:08:52 by ScottNodine)