Anyone check their Istock portfolios since they "translated" keywords for the foreign sites? Wow, talk about screwing everything up. Makes me wonder why they had to translate the keywords for all sites. Why couldn't they just leave the English site alone? I don't have that many images there but for people with 1000+ images it's going to take months to go through each one and fix what they've screwed up.
and also in the translating they seemed to have changed keywords of some or most images, like for example one person who had pictures of pumpkins, and appropriate keywords, now have pictures of pumpkins with the keywords "Large Group of People", "Atlantic Ocean", "Showing", "Remote", "Figurine", or "Traditional Culture".... seems like a bit of a mess
They've rewritten everyone's keywords to fit into their standardized vocabulary. Which, isn't really a bad thing per se but in doing so they've broken keyword phrases up into individual keywords which means that if somebody uses a phrase in the search box they won't see your image. They want everyone to go back and add the phrases they broke. They've assigned incorrect meanings and/or added incorrect meanings to a vast number of keywords which they want us to go back and fix. Many keywords were incorrectly translated into the foreign languages. Many keywords do not have an option for the correct definition.
For example, I have an image of a spider. One of the new keywords for it, "Human Leg". A photo of eggs with the keywords "Tofu", "Candid", "One Person". A photo of an apple with the keywords "Swarm of Insects", "Pets". Every image I've uploaded has multiple problems.
For example, I have an image of a spider. One of the new keywords for it, "Human Leg". A photo of eggs with the keywords "Tofu", "Candid", "One Person". A photo of an apple with the keywords "Swarm of Insects", "Pets". Every image I've uploaded has multiple problems.
It sounds like their website programmers are on LSD.
For example, I have an image of a spider. One of the new keywords for it, "Human Leg". A photo of eggs with the keywords "Tofu", "Candid", "One Person". A photo of an apple with the keywords "Swarm of Insects", "Pets". Every image I've uploaded has multiple problems.
It sounds like their website programmers are on LSD.
Oh man some of these keywords are hilarious! This image of mine now includes the keywords "wrinkled" and "potato chip".... huh?? What a screwed up mess!
They must have an archive or backup which could restore the original keywords. Then they can issue any instructions they want as far as their "standard vocabulary" goes ... no way I'm going back to change a bunch of keywords from garbage they put there unless they want to pay me.
The really horrible thing, in my opinion, is that you have to go into each and every image INDIVIDUALLY and correct the problems! What a waste of time! So that if I have 50 images with the same incorrect keyword now, (which I do) rather than fix it once for all 50, I have to do it 50 separate times! How could they not think of that???
Another thing that amazes me is the inconsistancy of what I thought would be an automated (i.e., repeatable) process... For instance, I have more than 50 images with the keyword "pool" in them. Their two optional definitions for pool are "swimming pool" and "snooker or pool table" (and no other options). Well, on some of my images my pool was translated to swimming pool, which it is in ALL of them. In some of the images it was translated to pool table. And in yet other of my images it was translated as BOTH. Why the inconsistancy? Weird...
What gets me is that they have created this keyword fiasco on the heels of their other program giving everyone grief about questionable keywording! I'm not at all inclined to expend any effort to clean up the mess they've made.
And it keeps getting worse: this morning I uploaded a photo with a dozen or so bland, everyday keywords, and was asked to verify the meanings of about half of them!
I've modified the cut-and-paste because of formatting, but this is the gist of their questions:
Language Terms
man U.S. English Did you mean...
Men(Males)
White U.S. English Did you mean...
Caucasian(Ethnicity)
middle-aged U.S. English Did you mean...
Mature Adult(Adult)
I tried to upload a couple of images yesterday and it (uploading) was "temporarily unavailable". Now I know why! Yikes! Their backlog was around 15,000 images waiting approval. Getting too big for their britches? ;^)
My sales are down the past couple of days. Could that be related to this fiasco? Hmmmmm....
Wouldn't be surprised if it were. I haven't noticed a real decrease at Istock but I believe I'm seeing an increase in Fotolia and Dreamstime sales. It could be related.
Yeah.... what are they thinking... just a little whining because they have rejected 6 out of 6 photos of mine so far... makes me wonder if I want to even try 3 more..... /whining
It is only getting worse. They have deactivated the forums today. Probably because so many people are pissed off. Your account balance no longer shows up at the top. They changed the search engine to only look for phrases if you put more than one word in the box.
My sales in October SUCK. I'm making more on Dreamstime now, and it used to be a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio in favor of istock.
Diversify. The same could happen to Shutterstock or Dreamstime. All such companies sooner or later get sold on upgrading their databases and front end s/w. The IS situation is just another such situation.
