Selling Stock recently analyzed some iStockcharts data in an effort to assess iStockphoto’s revenues during the first two months of 2009 and predict the possible effects of recession on microstock. Though the original analysis suggested a decline in iStock sales, new information about iStockcharts makes this a questionable conclusion.
Kelly Thompson, chief operating officer of iStock, says iStockcharts’ figures “are not right.” He explains: “iStockcharts is scraping our site for data… Sometimes [iStockcharts figures are] not even close. We have a very long tail that it does not pick up on at all.”
On the subject of revenues, Thompson said: “It is looking like iStock will have double-digit growth in February over January and nice traffic growth as well.”
Checking the previously published figures revealed that iStockcharts’ numbers for each of the 24,477 contributors it tracks are exactly the same as those shown at each individual’s portfolio on the iStockphoto Web site. Since over 90% of all iStock images belong to these contributors, it seemed reasonable to assume that, while not representing all the downloads from the site, iStockcharts should be offer an accurate view of iStock trends.
However, in addition to Thompson’s comments, we discovered another factor we forgot to take into account. iStockcharts data that suggests a 10% decline in February over January revenues does not include six of the top 75 iStock contributors, such as Lise Gagne, an iStock employee and top earner. Gagne and others have evidently asked iStockcharts to no longer include their numbers on its report. She alone has had 818,255 downloads since she first started with iStock. Together, the six contributors omitted from iStockcharts have a combined total of approximately 1,631,000 downloads.
It is unclear when the numbers for these contributors were dropped from iStockcharts. While previous calculations suggested a revenue decline, if these contributors’ information was included in iStockcharts’ data in January and not in February, the numbers look very different, bringing total February downloads to 3,355,189, with a daily average of 119,828 downloads. Comparing this number with a 74,107 daily average in the last 20 days of January, we get a 62% increase—not a decline.
Thus, all we can really say about iStock February revenues is that they are somewhere between a slight decline and 62% growth. But since we now have a record of the top 150 contributors, we can determine if more decide before the end of March to have their numbers dropped and the approximate number of downloads that represents. At the end of March, we should be able to make a much more accurate determination of iStock trends.