Methodology:
I took the same dataset I used for last week’s post on Rank vs. Tenure, I plotted the following:
- Contributor Rank vs. Portfolio Size
- Average Portfolio Size by Contributor Rank
My goal here was to study the relationship of portfolio size & performance.
Chart 1: Top 2000 Contributors: Rank vs. Portfolio Size
- The average for the entire set was 1,580 files, and the median was 1,067. The spread between these two numbers means that most people have less the mean, but those with very large portfolios are dragging up the average.
- The smallest portfolio in the Top 100 contained 233 images.
- The largest portfolio in the Bottom 100 contained 4,350 images.
Chart 2: Top 500 Contributors – Average Portfolio Size by Rank
- There is a clear break between the top 100 contributors average portfolio sizes and the rest.
- The middle of the range (101-400) are relatively uniform.
Conclusions:
- More images online is correlated with higher rank, but it’s a weaker relationship than I expected — quality plays a major role too.
- Productivity counts — The Top 100 Contributors add 724 files per year, over double that of contributors ranked 400-500, who add 333 files per year.
NB: We can only talk about correlation. You can’t say that if you add 700+ images per year, you’ll be in the Top 100.
Methodology:
I got public data from iStockcharts for the Top 2000 contributors, ranked by Total Downloads. I then plotted the following:
- Rank vs. Years contributing of the Top 2000
- Average & Min Years contributing for the Top 1000
- Histogram of Years Contributing for the Top 200
My goal was to examine tenure vs. performance to see if the number of years you had been at iStock made a difference.
Chart 1: Top 2000 Contributors: Rank vs. Years Contributing
- The average for the entire set was 5.4 years.
- The newest member of the Top 200 had been contributing for less than 3 years.
- The entire set was in the range of 1.5 – 9.0 years.
Chart 2: Top 1000 Contributors — Average & Min Years Contributing
- The most notable thing here is how little variation there is — for the most part, there is no difference in experience between those ranked 1-200 and those ranked 800-1000. I think this is amazing.
Chart 3: Top 200 Contributors by Years Contributing
- 48.5% (97/200) contributors had between 4-6 years of experience.
Conclusions
- I didn’t expect to find this, but there is very little correlation between your iStock performance and your years of experience at iStock.
- The R-squared coefficient is 0.03. It’s range is between 0 (no correlation) and 1 (perfectly correlated).
- Chart 1′s distribution is very uniform for each ranking band.
- No difference in avg & min years contributing for the Top 1000.
- It takes about 2 years to build up a portfolio large enough to break into the Top 2000 at iStock.
- After that, quality and consistency in uploading is what counts.
This Monday, Shutterstock took steps to block all 3rd party applications from accessing their site and we have deactivated support for Shutterstock on LookStat. They will be accepting proposals from applications that are interested in obtaining access and we will be following up and keeping you informed of our progress. We’re sorry for the disruption to our ability to analyze your stats for you but we will work hard to try to resolve the situation.
Shutterstock’s reasons for blocking access center around account security and the fact that 3rd party applications can create a negative performance impact on their site. (You can read more at their forum) These are reasonable and valid concerns and we have worked hard to address them in a responsible manner.
We take security very seriously at LookStat and appreciate the trust you put in us when you allow us to access your stats on your behalf. We are committed to maintaining your account security and go to great lengths to protect this information. We encrypt all private data as well as every single page on our site and we test the site daily for vulnerabilities using a 3rd party vendor. We would much rather not have to ask you for this information but until more APIs appear we have no other alternative. Your data is secure at LookStat and will remain that way. Our success hinges on our ability to maintain your trust.
In terms of performance impact, we take great care with our systems to ensure that we are not causing undue load and we are very open to feedback and guidance in terms of managing our impact on the sites we support. Our goal is to help our users track and analyze their stats without creating a negative impact in any way. We want to help you sell more microstock and to support the growth of the sites at which you list your portfolios. Our view is that if we can help you sell more images and spend less time on repetitive work, everyone will benefit.
If APIs or other feeds existed which allowed us to access your stats on your behalf without requiring us to know your credentials, we would jump at the chance to use them. Our hope is that in time, APIs of this sort will become available. We’re committed to investing in contributors and will be working with Shutterstock and other agencies to see if we can help move things in this direction. As the industry grows, and third party systems develop, everyone stands to benefit; including the sites themselves.
We remain committed to microstock and our vision of providing tools and systems for contributors and will be working on submitting an application to SS and on continuing to expand the sites that we cover. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me directly. We appreciate your patience and support. Thank you for using LookStat.