Advanced SearchPosted Mon Mar 2, 2009 4:29PM
Hovered over your keyboard, mashing f5
Waiting, restless for change, "why isn't it live!"
We're here today with a progress report
To share all the buzz on the search results sort
We're moving ahead with it all, so hold steady
Your newest BM will be loved once it's ready
Since 2004, iStock developers have made over 22,000 changes to iStockphoto.com. Assuming we released regular weekly updates (and by and large we do), that is an average of 105 changes a week. Some releases have fewer updates, and some more. We pushed a release last Thursday that contained 10 small changes and bug fixes. Several weeks ago we released our CSS upgrade that had changes to over 1,450 files. Two weeks after that we began selling audio, which was a release of similar size.
I'm sharing this with you because I'm a stats junky, and because I think it will help you appreciate the massive scope of what we do with the iStockphoto.com application on a daily basis.
Not every project goes as planned. In the fall of 2007 we started a little project code-named "audio" (not a very good code-name, I'll grant you). By June of 2008 ‘thepugnatious’ and ‘bonesmear’ were accepting uploads and we planned on selling audio by the fall (h*ck, we took video from concept to sales in less than 5 months). However, in August, we realized that stabilizing the site and re-writing our search engine were more pressing issues, and so audio was put on hold. In the end, the delay gave us a chance to make the final audio release even better.
So, with that context established, let's get to what's on all of your minds. In December we announced that we are in the process of overhauling Best Match. We told you we'd be doing internal testing in mid-February and we'd have something to show you shortly thereafter. Since then, the forums have been abuzz with speculation.
Well, h*ck happens, and our Best Match developers got hijacked to make sure the audio release went as smooth as possible. We also had to go back to the drawing board on a few things – mostly to make the new Best Match tamper-proof (our security guys see if they can break stuff, and they managed to). We don't want to release something that a few bad apples can take advantage of and ruin for the rest of us. Development is proceeding, but I am sorry to say we haven't started the internal beta and obviously the public release is delayed as a result.
We're not going to give you a new timeline for the release of the Best Match until we can commit to a hard date. We're working as fast as we can and as soon as we sort out the final issues we'll post an update.
In the meantime, please bear in mind the Best Match sort is only one aspect of our overall mission to improve our customers' ability to quickly find and view relevant images. That's our main focus: relevancy and a good cross section of new and old images. Below are a few tidbits to keep you from obsessing too much about one particular sorting feature (which just isn't healthy).
We are always working on more ways to help people view images faster.
– The default results page now offers a minimum of 30 results.
– We now offer the option of displaying up to 200 image results per page.
– We are integrating Cooliris support (yes, it's been done for a while, but we can't push due to some other issues). I'm only telling you this if you promise not to ask when exactly it's launching. Just say'n.
– Our new desktop app - Dexter - is progressing nicely, and it allows customers to see and download more files quicker than ever before.
We are also working on educating our users on the other sort features - after all, Best Match isn't the only way to see results.
Speaking of results - you, the contributor, can help with our overall site traffic and how well your images appear in external searches.
Most of our natural traffic comes from Google. This is good news because there are things you can do to affect the Google-friendliness of your images.
– Make your titles relevant
– Make your image descriptions relevant
– Link to your portfolio page from your personal website with good, relevant keywords.
– Did I mention you should make your titles & descriptions relevant?
We'll be releasing an article in the next few weeks with more on best practices for titles & descriptions, what we're doing to optimize the site, and how you can help.
Finally, we've heard a few outlandish rumors floating around out there and want to deep six them. We are absolutely not going to charge money for positioning. We are not being pushed by our higher-ups to deliver less exclusive results. When we adjust the algorithm, we aren't doing it to target specific files (although I totally should hit bitter's files. All of that is crazy talk, so if you've heard anything along those lines, don't lose sleep over it.
I guess this post is a (very) long way of saying we are still working on Best Match. Worrying about it won't make it come any faster. In the meantime, remember it is only one aspect of the larger picture, and we're working hard on improving all the different ways our customers find images.
Waiting, restless for change, "why isn't it live!"
We're here today with a progress report
To share all the buzz on the search results sort
We're moving ahead with it all, so hold steady
Your newest BM will be loved once it's ready
Since 2004, iStock developers have made over 22,000 changes to iStockphoto.com. Assuming we released regular weekly updates (and by and large we do), that is an average of 105 changes a week. Some releases have fewer updates, and some more. We pushed a release last Thursday that contained 10 small changes and bug fixes. Several weeks ago we released our CSS upgrade that had changes to over 1,450 files. Two weeks after that we began selling audio, which was a release of similar size.
I'm sharing this with you because I'm a stats junky, and because I think it will help you appreciate the massive scope of what we do with the iStockphoto.com application on a daily basis.
Not every project goes as planned. In the fall of 2007 we started a little project code-named "audio" (not a very good code-name, I'll grant you). By June of 2008 ‘thepugnatious’ and ‘bonesmear’ were accepting uploads and we planned on selling audio by the fall (h*ck, we took video from concept to sales in less than 5 months). However, in August, we realized that stabilizing the site and re-writing our search engine were more pressing issues, and so audio was put on hold. In the end, the delay gave us a chance to make the final audio release even better.
So, with that context established, let's get to what's on all of your minds. In December we announced that we are in the process of overhauling Best Match. We told you we'd be doing internal testing in mid-February and we'd have something to show you shortly thereafter. Since then, the forums have been abuzz with speculation.
Well, h*ck happens, and our Best Match developers got hijacked to make sure the audio release went as smooth as possible. We also had to go back to the drawing board on a few things – mostly to make the new Best Match tamper-proof (our security guys see if they can break stuff, and they managed to). We don't want to release something that a few bad apples can take advantage of and ruin for the rest of us. Development is proceeding, but I am sorry to say we haven't started the internal beta and obviously the public release is delayed as a result.
We're not going to give you a new timeline for the release of the Best Match until we can commit to a hard date. We're working as fast as we can and as soon as we sort out the final issues we'll post an update.
In the meantime, please bear in mind the Best Match sort is only one aspect of our overall mission to improve our customers' ability to quickly find and view relevant images. That's our main focus: relevancy and a good cross section of new and old images. Below are a few tidbits to keep you from obsessing too much about one particular sorting feature (which just isn't healthy).
We are always working on more ways to help people view images faster.
– The default results page now offers a minimum of 30 results.
– We now offer the option of displaying up to 200 image results per page.
– We are integrating Cooliris support (yes, it's been done for a while, but we can't push due to some other issues). I'm only telling you this if you promise not to ask when exactly it's launching. Just say'n.
– Our new desktop app - Dexter - is progressing nicely, and it allows customers to see and download more files quicker than ever before.
We are also working on educating our users on the other sort features - after all, Best Match isn't the only way to see results.
Speaking of results - you, the contributor, can help with our overall site traffic and how well your images appear in external searches.
Most of our natural traffic comes from Google. This is good news because there are things you can do to affect the Google-friendliness of your images.
– Make your titles relevant
– Make your image descriptions relevant
– Link to your portfolio page from your personal website with good, relevant keywords.
– Did I mention you should make your titles & descriptions relevant?
We'll be releasing an article in the next few weeks with more on best practices for titles & descriptions, what we're doing to optimize the site, and how you can help.
Finally, we've heard a few outlandish rumors floating around out there and want to deep six them. We are absolutely not going to charge money for positioning. We are not being pushed by our higher-ups to deliver less exclusive results. When we adjust the algorithm, we aren't doing it to target specific files (although I totally should hit bitter's files. All of that is crazy talk, so if you've heard anything along those lines, don't lose sleep over it.
I guess this post is a (very) long way of saying we are still working on Best Match. Worrying about it won't make it come any faster. In the meantime, remember it is only one aspect of the larger picture, and we're working hard on improving all the different ways our customers find images.
