StockPhotoTalk | Special Interest Blog

BrightQube offline, Pixsy without API

• "Brigh[t]Qube is currently off-line":
  At least since mid-October BrightQube is now offline. Emails to people @brightqube.com don´t get through and no one answers during business hours to calls from within the US.
  BrightQube introduced the Dynamic Mosaic search two years ago, received about $850k in funding and was the first photo portal to combine microstock and high end RF content. Last year Lee Corkran, with his impressive career both as a photojournalist and a manager, sat on my Work-in-progress panel about "New Trends in Microstock, New Technologies for Consumers and New Photo Portals", together with Eyal Gura, Oleg Tscheltzoff and Bruce Livingstone.
  Lee Corkran was looking for another round of financing; in spring he said "BrightQube has been generating strong sales, and the business is now close to generating positive cash flow".
  Apparently that´s not enough today. It´s a shame.
  Related:
  • "So tell me about BrightQube ..." (Nov. 23, 2007)
  • BrightQube Demo Tour (June 02, 2009)

• Anyone Know Where Pixsy Has Gone (and Chase Norlin)?:
  "An e-mail has been sent to partners indicating that the “Pixsy API is down indefinitely”.
  Related:
  • Pixsy: "Next Generation Photo Search Engine" (July 30, 2005)

Alamy Quarterly Statement Q3 2009

"Q3 2009 results will reflect what we hope is the bottom of the downturn. It's too early to predict what Q4 will look like, but I can say that September and October numbers have been very reassuring.

Until we have more data, however, we're sticking with our earlier forecast of a 15%-20% decrease on 2008."

James West here, detailed numbers here.

"Honey, I´m back"

Years later the idea of a microstock photo portal is back ...  these days, you add of course celebrity stuff ... today PixMac announced that - after Fotolia - images from Dreamstime are now available on their site, together with the new Infinite Luxury Collection with around 100,000 images from Image Source.

More details, also here.

QuickLinks For 2009-10-23

• New "Dynamic Search" from Dreamstime:
  Check the new "Dynamic Search" [example] link on our search results page. The feature is just released from beta. The page loads the next set of images automatically as you scroll. We hope this will make content research process much smoother. I believe that each extra click that is saved is a huge leap forward.

• New marketing gig from Fotolia: Operation Level Ground. Related details.

"Yesterday iStockphoto did $850,000 in one day"

• Getty founder knows how to develop ideas:
  “In December 2005, before Getty Images bought the company behind it, iStockphoto did $600,000 of business. Yesterday it did $850,000 in one day.” [which, for the year and minus some variables, will be higher than said here].
  "We are photographer friends, but not photographer cuddly,” says Mr Klein, referring to the fact that profit margins sit at 35 per cent.
  Getty is involved in a joint venture with Time Warner, reviving its defunct pictoral Life magazine as Life.com and sharing advertising revenues. It is the sort of diversification, Mr Klein admits, that public company shareholders would not tolerate.
  Klein says that Getty considered buying Warner/Chappell, the music publishing arm of Warner Music, before Edgar Bronfman bought it.
  When the company was last public - the figures are for 2007 - turnover was $857 million and net profits were $125 million. This year, he says, sales will certainly be down as demand for images from advertising agencies has slumped, although cost-cutting means that “profits will be in line with last year”. However, with $1 billion of debt taken on since the acquisition - only three times” underlying earnings, Klein says - net profits will be down.
  Times Online (compiled/abbreviated).

SS acquires BSP: How to get into single image sales through the backdoor

Acquire another credit-based micro agency which additionally doesn´t offer a subscription plan: more details.

Read Jon´s announcement here on the SS forum: "Though we studied the possibility of building a credit site from scratch, in the end we decided that acquiring and building upon the momentum of a solid brand like BigStockPhoto.

What we did with subscriptions - we plan to do with credits".

Logos appearing on iStockphoto for sale

"Best thing since sliced bread or the death knell to the entire graphic design industry" (TC)?

Here´s the deal:

Pricing - Because each logo will only be sold once, they have a higher price-point, ranging from 100 - 750 credits. When designers upload a file, they will set a recommended price and our inspectors will then make the final pricing decision based on that recommendation.

Royalties - iStock will pay a base royalty rate of 50% per logo design for the first 6 months. We’ll give advanced notice for the rate going forward after that.

Decide yourself:

• Logos come to iStock (iStock forum)
• New Logo Forum (on iStock)
• iStockphoto Will Soon Start Selling Stock Logos, Too (TC)

Shutterstock: Adam Riggs moves to Frankfurt

Here and here (german only). English release may follow later here.

Related:

• A Short Midsummer Conversation With Shutterstock´s Jon Oringer on Microstock Footage
  (Aug. 05, 2008)
• A Short Conversation With Shutterstock´s Jon Oringer
  (Dec. 30, 2007)

QuickLinks For 2009-09-17

• On that cheery note, how is Getty doing?
  Getty’s business is 50 percent “creative stills,” the pictures in Getty’s library that it licenses. That business is shrinking, Klein said. Another 25 percent is sports and entertainment photography as well as footage. That business is up, down or flat, depending on which part you’re dealing with. Finally, Microstock is the company’s fastest-growing business.
  Reuters in Getty Images invests in Daylife, takes snapshot of business.
  Related:
  • Getty Images Announces Partnership with Daylife

QuickLinks For 2009-09-13

• Honey I´m back, with Shutterstock Gets Social - Digital PR Case Study:
  The action they wanted me to take wasn’t compelling for this blog (an interview with the company CEO).  I countered with the suggestion that instead of an interview, they should provide me an account to test-drive Shutterstock.  I told them I’ll browse the images and if I find any I like, I’ll use them in my posts/provide attribution.
  Adam Singer/TheFutureBuzz in a somehow longer blog post on Shutterstock’s blog partner program with David Scott/Web Ink Now, Jason Falls/Social Media Explorer, Dave Fleet/Feeding The Social Media Beast, Brian Solis/PR 2.0 and Eric Friedman/Marketing.fm.

QuickLinks For 2009-08-25

• Stock Firms Profit From Cost Efficiencies:
  In an economic climate of wilting ad revenues and viewer fragmentation, the bill for an original shoot is simply tougher than ever to justify when a cheaper version already exists, according to Mona Kanin, regional director of the NY office for Framepool.
  Not all microstock companies compile lists of broadcasters who use their service, but anecdotal evidence is telling. iStockphoto's footage has appeared on Nightline, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and in ads for the John McCain campaign as well as in music videos and promos.
  Shutterstock's content has been used by A&E, CBS News Marketing, and VH1's Save the Music campaign, among others. As Oringer says: “They've found it to be an affordable library for them, and they've been able to find what they've needed at prices they've never seen before.”
  Broadcasting & Cable.

Dreamstime adjusts Royalties and Pricing

"Similar on getting married, trust someone after the long run not on your first date" (on page five here). In a move long expected and with respect to the highly competitive market long, long overdue, Dreamstime has revamped its royalty and pricing structure with some interesting details.

While some contribitors usually have ambivalent feelings anywhere about these changes ("credit royalties will decrease"), the "repositioning" enables DT "to attract more buyers with the extra budget": "for 5 years we've kept a royalty of 50% for all non exclusives against 20% which was the minimum of the industry. The agency awarding you 20% had bigger prices than us and lower commissions. Which means better budgets to drive traffic."

 

 

Somehow it didn´t work out with Betta than Vetta

More on the “Betta than Vetta cease and desist Letta” from John. -Related details here.

Serban Enache on Dreamstime and Facebook

Following the news about the cooperation between Dreamstime and MySpace from last autumn, the next new cooperation with Facebook was early discussed.

So I asked Serban down-to-earth about the benefits:

"We have always been loyal to the community element that promoted Dreamstime as a leader in stock photography. Ignoring the potential of social networking would be unwise, especially considering our history.

Recent stats conducted by Nielsen show that over 2/3 of the Internet population is using social networking nowadays and that the means of communication have switched here against email. Compete has ranked Facebook as the most popular social network followed by MySpace. The two websites advertise together over half of billion registered users."

Alamy's financial statement for Q2/2009

Full overview here.

 

 

New Web and Mobile images from Getty Images

Full overview here.

Andy Saunders, VP Creative@Getty Images: “Image buyers developing web and mobile content often need hundreds of images at smaller file sizes. With our new Web & Mobile products, we’re able to provide these customers with access to our vast collection of RF and premium RM imagery at the right size and price.” (DA UK)

BJP: All of Getty’s creative imagery house collections and archives will be available in the new sizes. However, it will not be the case with some of Getty’s partners' collections.

The 170 and 280-pixel files will only be available for online usage, says Saunders in a bid to reassure photographers that the lower prices won’t affect traditional sales. ‘It’s a change of approach, but we can’t let the value part of the market be taken on only by microstock companies.’

Saunders adds that the new pricing structure should not affect iStockphoto. ‘This area of the market is large. Customers will now be able to use Getty’s content at a better price. Our range of imagery is different from what iStockphoto offers. People will be able to buy from both sites.’

QuickLinks For 2009-08-04

• Late summer Free Images Madness:

  1. Stock.xchng:
  Breaking News - 400,000 images!
  (July 20, 2009. Related News)

  2. PhotoXpress:
  Offering over 400,000 free professional high-resolution images and illustrations, PhotoXpress.com has officially become the largest online supplier of free stock imagery.
  (August 04, 2009. The website says "443,951 photos")

  3. Free Stock Images:
  Google Trends shows people searching for stock images is declining year on year.
  (Source)

• Late summer Gossip Madness:
  Bruce Livingstone, who founded online stock-photography provider iStockphoto, paid $2.5 million for a landmark midcentury Los Angeles home that was on the market very briefly. The 1966 home, on a slope in the Los Feliz community, has been given landmark status by Los Angeles.
  Mr. Livingstone, 38, bought the house including much of the artwork and furnishings, by designers including Isamu Noguchi, Herman Miller and Arne Jacobsen. “It’s a bit of a time capsule,” said Mr. Livingstone who is relocating with his family from Seattle to Los Angeles for a digital media venture.

QuickLinks For 2009-07-09

• GumGum Confirms Investment Round on Socaltech.com:
  Santa Monica-based GumGum, the online startup headed by Ophir Tanz which licenses photos on a CPM basis to online publishers, confirmed it had raised $2.6M in a venture round Wednesday. Tanz said that the firm is now reaching over 50 million unique visitors a month.
  Related:
  GumGum has been seeing fast growth since its launch last year. Measured as an advertising network (but for images), GumGum became a Quantcast Top 100 site, reaching 13.7 million people in the U.S. and 23.5 million worldwide in February. Currently, GumGum reaches 29.8 million people in the U.S. and 50 million people worldwide, according to Quantcast’s lastest stats. More than 2,000 Web publishers license images through GumGum, which allows them to pay based on how many people see the image or use them for free with embedded advertising.
  Syber News, Image Licensing Network GumGum Grabs $2.6 Million.
  Congrats, Ophir!

• Sell photos, buy photos, a pretty long story on ClusterShot by Ken Ilio/Examiner:
  I’m always left wishing for a site out there where I can upload pictures without the difficult vetting process of stock agencies and where people can have a look and buy my pictures to their satisfaction.
  Guess what? Wishes do come true.
  IPTC keywording is supported. Uploading single photos seem to be the best way to post to the site although uploading a several photos in a zip file is also supported. If your photos are already online, you can upload these photos to ClusterShot easily through RSS/Atom Feeds or if your photos are on Flickr, you can link your Flickr account and choose the photos or sets you want to sell in ClusterShot. I managed to display several of my photos on Flickr on ClusterShot without any hitch.

Fotoglif launches, short interview with Mike Betts

Before Mike Betts and his team launched Fotoglif today, I asked him: can you explain the main differences to PicApp and GumGum, and the possible personal and commercial use of Fotoglif?

Mike responded:

We are all targeting a similar market issue, but with different approaches from both a technical and revenue generation perspective. With Fotoglif we have decided that creating a fully functional advertising network around the content available on Fotoglif, is the best win/win approach. To that end, both the publisher and the photographer get a share of the revenue when using Fotoglif, something quite different than what is offered by either of our competitors.

We maintain a different portfolio of content. While both of our competitors have focused on heavily celebrity based collections we have made every effort to try and maintain a very diversified collection of partners covering all major news and editorial topics. Including partners like Thomson Reuters and The European Press Photo Association has helped to give the collection that added depth.

Fotolia launches Premium Subscription

Just in, and apparently aimed at Shutterstock, Fotolia launched today the full resolution Premium Subscription with some similiarites to the previous Corporate Account.

Prices start higher at Fotolia with €249/month for 25 images/day (Shutterstock: €199), but align with a 12-months subscription (FT with €2.061 vs. SS with €2049). This comparison is not valid for the US where SS starts at $249/month, like Fotolia, and 12-months subscription are $2.061 (FT) vs. $2.559 (SS). Dreamstime in comparison: $239 and $2.399.

Fotolia vector and video files now count as 3 respectively 10 downloads. -More here.

QuickLinks For 2009-07-03

• "Investment Opportunity for Stock Photographer Entrepreneur" (PDF-Download), Jack Hollingsworth to sell his stake in Blend Images:
  Here’s a fantastic opportunity to become one of the 23 owners in BlendImages.com - one of the fastest growing, niche, pro-photographer, multi-cultural, stock agencies in the business today. Founded in 2004 by owner/photographers with revenues of 6.5 million in 2008. A 9-person staff, working out of Seattle, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and San Diego. Over 75,000 tightly edited, ethnically diverse images. Managed by industry veterans. Represented by all major agencies. Plus a powerful distribution platform of it’s own.
  The complete PDF-File can be downloaded here where you´ll find the reason for selling his stake. Though Jack disclosed the price, you better ask him yourself in case you are interested.

• Stock Rank again, and Serban explains:
  So far it [the success] was much better than expected with thousands of users (contributors and buyers) playing from day one (the hardware even had a hiccup due to its popularity), after 72 hours since launch.
  As for contributors, not even the announcement of raising prices brought so much interest.

Dreamstime Stock Rank: did you try it?

Super cool and educating: Stock Rank.

OK, you´re probably all better than me, but overall not too bad for the first play. Now, it can only become worse... .

Rest of the story here.

 

 

Flickr Clouds from Getty Images

News from The Flickr Collection:

Getty Images added a Flickr photo clouds feature, which lets users visually group images that catch their eye.

These new image clouds are fully searchable in three different ways: via a particular username, keyword or cloud topic.

For example, a user looking for inspiration around “winter” can either review all image clouds that contain an image with the keyword “winter,” or simply review image clouds with “winter” in the cloud title, regardless of the image keywords.

Users can also share their clouds with the community, download a desktop widget and screensaver, export their clouds to Facebook, view other users’ clouds, mark favorites and follow fellow users.

QuickLinks For 2009-06-27

Yin and Yang:

• New microstock agency Pixamba by David Mail, the creator of ProStockMaster:
  Nowadays, we are starting the public Beta, adding more functionality and more new services as we go. I believe that Pixamba, which utilizes latest web technologies and the cloud computing infrastructure is one of the fastest stock agencies in the world today, probably the fastest one.
  Designed from the ground up with the experience and understanding of the leading micro- and midstocks, Pixamba aims to be the next generation wave of stock photography and media services. We plan to utilize our technology advantage adding unique services in the next few month.

• The Chicago IL based entertainment stock photo archive Pix International ("PixIntl") is currently being offered for sale. Started by photographer Linda Matlow in 1979, the archive consists of more than 82,000  inventoried images of entertainment images solely photographed and owned by Linda Matlow. Subjects include celebrity, bands, politicans, events, VIPs over the past 30 years. Thru the years, her work has been published thousands of times around the world.
  Approximately 36,500+ plus high res images are on their site hosted thru Photoshelter with an additional 45,500 slides and negatives neatly labeled and organized.
  Linda can be contacted by email: lmatlow (at) yahoo.com.

iStockphoto: COO Kelly Thompson Projects $200 million in Revenues, Microstock Agency launches Vetta Collection

Kelly Thompson became COO of iStockphoto in September 2008, a few months before Founder & CEO Bruce Livingstone left the company.

In his new position Kelly is responsible for the future of the world´s - in absolute numbers - economically most successful microstock agency, which employs a staff of 115 in Calgary (including contractors and the Berlin office) and additionally 110 image inspectors around the globe, in total about 225 people.

Recently I spoke to Kelly and asked him: what is the future focus of iStockphoto under the COO Kelly Thompson?

"I´m a pretty technical guy: I have a computer science degree with a specialty in UI design and worked at a major enterprise search company for a long time, so you´ll see a focus on that for me.

Bruce left the company in brilliant shape with the content we have: I might be biased, but I think we have some of the best content on the planet, micro or not - as Vetta attests to.

QuickLinks For 2009-06-18

• Big man is back in business (well, not really):
  Madrona Venture Group is leading a $4.4 million venture round in Animoto, the fast-growing New York startup that has developed an easy way for people to create interactive slide shows from personal photos. Amazon.com, iStockphoto founder Bruce Livingstone and angel investor Jeff Clavier also participated in the deal, which brings total funding to about $5 million.
  Pudget Sound Business Journal.
  The rest of the story on John Cook's Venture Blog: The company also is pushing deeper into commercial offerings. It already has a service for professional photographers, which allows them to create personalized slideshows of weddings, senior portraits or other special moments.
  The company will use the $4.4 million to add new features, including the incorporation of video and new ways to match images with music.

A Short Conversation with Christina Vaughan, the New CEPIC President

Christina Vaughan, Founder and CEO of Image Source, was so kind to respond to some questions during the CEPIC congress.

Andy:

Under your guidance as the new CEPIC president, what will change and how fast? What are the next real steps in daily life to make CEPIC as a association and as a congress event a better experience?

Christina:

In Dresden, the National Associations gave a unanimous vote for the position of new President, and an almost entirely new Committee was voted in. Afterwards it is safe to say that the Members and Stakeholders of CEPIC are looking for change. There is a huge appetite for Positive Enhancing Change, to see that CEPIC is not only relevant to their business, but it is critical to help shape the business culture of the image industry.

The three new Officers, Klaus Plaumann, Dominique DeLouis and I were elected on a Manifesto of Transparency, Membership Enlargement and Inclusion, Lobbying and Networking. We believe that Europe requires a powerful voice, a voice that will harness all creators, suppliers and distributors of visual communication media. That voice needs to be forward thinking, inclusive, confident and bold.

QuickLinks For 2009-06-14

• Corbis unit cashes in on dead-celebrity images:
  It’s part of a strategy to grow Corbis’ rights representation business, which already is a lucrative one. It was a year ago that Corbis rebranded its rights services division GreenLight. Today, GreenLight does about $50 million in business.
  Puget Sound Business Journal.

• Monetizing Digital Content - Innovative Ideas as Media, Entertainment and Technology Transform the Economy:
  “Google is the culprit, they’re not interested in engagement,” said Jonathan Klein, CEO of Getty Images. “You come in, and then go out.”
  Corante/Rebuilding Media on Digital Hollywood’s Advertising 2.0 conference.
  I´ve asked Getty if they could make the presentation of JK publicly available.
  [Update June 17th: I learned that JK was "a participant on a panel discussion. He did not give any presentations. The sessions at Ad 2.0 were not tapped, sadly".]

• Weird story: "'British pensioners' on BNP election leaflet are actually Italian models"
  Pamphlets being distributed by the far right party to 29 million homes ahead of next month's European and council polls feature testimonies from five "typical Britons", giving their reasons for voting BNP. But far from depicting proud BNP supporters, the images are actually stock photos from online picture libraries that have been used by dozens of websites to promote everything from painkillers to caravans.
  Suspecting that the images on a BNP leaflet he scanned into the site were dubious, a blogger ran them through a "reverse image search engine" called TinEye, which traces previous appearances of pictures anywhere on the web.
  At least three were for sale for a small fee on the iStockphoto website. The Canadian-based firm did not respond to enquiries about whether its customers were allowed to use images for political purposes.
  Telegraph UK (compiled)/Thx, MS.

QuickLinks For 2009-06-11

• Exclusive interview with Gary Shenk:
  Shenk doesn't believe microstock is the answer, and has instead been focusing on corporate customers. Shenk believes RM imagery holds the best value. "We're seeing a commoditisation of the market. We're not interested in that development. We're putting more focus on great and unique products. We're focusing on really great photography, we believe that editorial and rights-managed photography has the most value. In the creative segment so much can be recreated by amateur photographers. The key is to focus on stuff that cannot be replicated. The value grows over time."
  Today microstock represents a small part of Corbis' revenues - less than 1%. "We give customers a choice, but the vast majority of our revenues come from great photography and rights-clearance," he says. In fact, over the past three months, Corbis has started to see an overall decline in the growth rate of microstock photography across the market.
  BJP, Old gold (compiled).
  
  Which is not the full truth. A decelerated increase in growth - depending on the microstock company - from 40% - 70% (in one case more) in former years to "only" 20% - 35% are still very healthy growth rates which hardly, if ever, can be observed in traditional stock.
  Corbis once said in October 2008 that in 2012 microstock would be a market of around $500 million - $550 million. Convervative calculations - mainly based on the revenues of the Big Eight - put this market at around $320 million at least currently, and there are signs that this is not only conservative, but way too conservative, meaning finally that the $500 million barrier will reached earlier than 2012.
  So if Shenk does believe that microstock is not the answer, the reason is also that it will take a long time for Veer Marketplace to become an important player in microstock and in this number game.

CEPIC 2009: Free Images and Free Flying Crown Caps

So while Obama Barack stayed in Dresden during the CEPIC congress for nearly a day when we were out in the evening for drinking a beer and wanted to return to the hotel while all roads were blocked, the fun continued with our session on Saturday morning, moderated by John Balean from Topfoto, on Free Images: Friends or Foes, with Patrick Lor of Fotolia, Kelly Thompson from iStockphoto, Charlotte Lippmann of UK-based Picture Research Association and me.

Up to now you never ever had a tiny chance in your lifetime to sit on a panel with two iStockers, one former one and one present one, and the session partly mirrored this dramaturgy of its very own kind with crown caps flying from the right side all over the panel desk to the left side.

Thanks also to Jon from Shutterstock, Serban from Dreamstime and Alex from 123RF for contributing their opinion on the matter. And a special Thank you! to Barack who responded to the question if a professional picture researcher should use more free images with a clear voice by kindly saying: Yes, we can´t. But I don´t go into the details here.

Polylooks: Deutsche Telekom launches its new Microstock Community

Just a quick note from Day One of the CEPIC congress.

The Deutsche Telekom/German Telecom has launched its new microstock portal Polylooks - with the microstock Mediastore, a Community (beta) and the magazine Augenblicke.

Polylooks operates with credits. Photographers receive 50% commission for exclusive and 35% for non-exclusive content. The pricelist for photobuyers gives an overview about the price tags for single images and subscription images. The website is currently only available in German.

Partner of the new microstock community is Hamburg-based mid-/microstock agency Zoonar which contributes around 150,000 images to the new portal.

Related:

• Deutsche Telekom To Launch New Microstock Community
  (April 19, 2009)
• Deutsche Telekom to launch Microstock Community with Stock Agency Zoonar
  (May 13, 2009)

Fotolia raises between $50 million and $100 million Venture Capital from TA Associates

Some competitors of Fotolia have taken pride in the past months to spread the rumor that Fotolia was already or was about to be sold at that time.

TechCrunch/Erick Schonfeld, in another new article on Fotolia - and no further comment from me - emphasizes that "Fotolia Takes A Massive $50 Million To $100 Million Round" from TA Assiociates, but mentions also "there are some rumors going around in venture circles that Fotolia got sold outright for $150 million. Our source, however, emphasizes that the company was not sold. Instead, after competitive bidding from more traditional venture firms, TA Associates came in with a massive injection of capital."

Now you take your calculator and assess:

1. The underlying company evaluation, and
2. The underlying estimation of the microstock image market size.

 

iStockphoto Partner Program

Kelly Thompson has a longer update on the iStock/JIU/Photos.com issue (compiled):

• That's what we're calling it: the Partner Program. This is the program through which we give you, the iStock contributor, opportunities to make your content available through other sites in the larger Getty Images family. The first two such sites are going to be Photos.com and Jupiter Images Unlimited. Will there be others in the future? For sure. [...]
• 3. Photos.com and JIU will pay a flat royalty per download: 25¢ for non-exclusives, and 30¢ – 38¢ for exclusives, according to canister level.
• 4. Photos.com – Powered by iStockphoto. We will become the driving force behind Photos.com, improving the quality of the collection with the strength of the iStock brand. [...]

PhotoXpress by Fotolia offers 350,000 free images

Lor’s ambitions are to have close to a million photos available free of charge and PhotoXpress will remain independent from sister site Fotolia, however the two are intricately connected. PhotoXpress members will be able to license up to 10 images daily, free of cost.

Professional ad agencies and firms who might need more than 10 images a day will be sent to Fotolia. In this sense, PhotoXpress is a lead generator for Fotolia. But more than that, it is a way for professional photographers to expose some of their work for free to a larger Web audience, while inculcating a respect for copyrights among Web consumers. It is an attempt to bridge the two worlds, and Fotolia wanted to do this before its competitors did.

Lor says the biggest challenge is convincing the photography world to give away stock photography for free. PhotoXpress is still working out if the site will make any revenue - the obvious revenue stream is third-party advertising on the site, but Lor couldn't confirm or deny that there will be ads on the site. PhotoXpress's main competitor is Hungarian site Stock.xchange.

Sources: TechCrunch/Leena Rao (above/compiled) and Fotolia.

A sudden surprise before our CEPIC session on free images. -Check the license agreement (e.g. "limited to a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels in website uses") and check with your wife before using some partly strange stuff over there (1; 2; 3 and 4; initial keyword: beach).

Related:

• Patrick Lor, Co-founder of iStockphoto, joins Fotolia (May 06, 2009)

 

Alamy's financial statement for Q1 2009

Quarterly Alamy sales figures for Q2/2008 until Q1/2009 below. All details over there. Alamy notes that "the decline in average price has been exaggerated in this report by the weakening of the UK pound (GBP) against the US dollar between Q2 2008 and Q1 2009".

Deutsche Telekom to launch Microstock Community with Stock Agency Zoonar

Hamburg-based mid-/microstock agency Zoonar has sent out emails to photographers stating that Zoonar is supporting the Deutsche Telekom/German Telecom regarding the launch of a new image portal run by Deutsche Telekom, including a microstock agency, a photo community and an online magazine for photography ("Augenblicke").

The new image portal will apparently launch by the end of May and pay photographers a 35% commission.

Related:

• Deutsche Telekom To Launch New Microstock Community (Apr. 19, 2009)

QuickLinks For 2009-05-10

• Freelens Petition:
  Many Magnum photographers have signed the petition against the Jahreszeiten publishing house and its contract conditions, meanwhile overall more than 2,800 photographers, photojournalists and other professionals.
  Check it out here.

QuickLinks For 2009-05-08

• Pump [Audio] Artists Getting Pumped:
  Pump doesn't have a forum so this seems to be the only venue for discussion.
  I received a letter today notifying me that Getty would now be taking 65% of the licensing rights for Pump Artists. I realize that Getty does do a lot of work, but the actual independent creator of the stuff they sell getting only 35% is f#!king ridiculous.
  If they were paying for my studio time or equipment that would be different. It seem they are again taking advantage of the quantity of artists that are desperate to make a buck.
  Thread in the iStockaudio forum.
  In and since 2007 the split was 50/50. - Jo Ann has more details over there.

QuickLinks For 2009-05-07

• iStockphoto Subscription Update by Kelly Thompson:
  We hear you and understand you aren't happy with the royalty percentage. We'll see what we can do, but don't expect miracles. [...]
  Subscription on iStock is not good enough. Photos.com is our best opportunity at creating a competitive subscription site, and you should want to be involved. [...]
  All that being said, it's probably going to be next week before we get back to you. Given the reception, the most likely outcome will be for us to look for alternative sources of images for Photos.com/JIU.
  Over 400 replies currently on over 20 pages.
  A comment* by RapidEye:

Patrick Lor, Co-founder of iStockphoto, joins Fotolia

Patrick Lor, co-founder of iStockphoto, a Getty owned-online marketplace for microstock photography and video, has joined rival Fotolia as the President of Fotolia North America.
According to Lor, his non-compete contract expired with Getty recently, which left him available to get back into the stock photography business.
iStockphoto was initially launched to democratize photography and let all people use images, Lor says. He was disappointed to hear of iStockphoto’s aggressive price increases following the Getty acquisition and maintains that Fotolia’s prices are much more fair for consumers.
Lor hopes to launch some new services in the future but won’t reveal what those are just yet.

Sources: Leena Rao/TechCrunch (compiled/accentuation in bold above by me) and Fotolia.

Regardless of the small mistake in the TC post - iStock (since 2000) is way longer in business than Fotolia (since 2005) - it´s a strange time for iStockphoto:

QuickLinks For 2009-05-06

• Results of the Subscription Shuffle Survey:
  If you´re less interested in the emotional aspect (see this pix & the picture below)
  
  Byline: "Do you feel lucky, punk?" [The image was removed lately]
  
  ... of the discussions (1; 2) over at the iStock forum mentioned here earlier (1; 2), check the preliminary results of the unofficial Subscription Shuffle Survey.
  
  To be fair, please note that in threads like the two mentioned above the negative comments of some members might prevail which might not reflect the opinion of the majority of contributors.
  Also, and again to be fair, the results of the quoted and ongoing survey above might not be representative for the majority of contributors.
  Again, you need to read both threads mentioned above yourself for a complete and balanced overview.
  
  Either way, Shutterstock reacted quickly with a New Marketing Program to the news that "iStock contributors will have the opportunity to sell their images through Photos.com and Jupiter Unlimited subscriptions".

QuickLinks For 2009-05-05

• New Subscriptions Q & A on the iStockphoto forum:
  Quite a journey. The initial thread Subscription Shuffle (see last posting) regarding the integration into Photos.com and Jupiter Unlimited was closed after 1315 answers.
  Now this new thread New Subscriptions Q & A ("We want to see iStock and Getty Images take a bigger chunk of the Subscription market") was started by rogermexico and has already gathered over 400 replies.
  To the question "Won't that weaken our sales here at iStock?" he responds: "No. All of our research shows that the audience for these sites is different enough from our existing customer base that there won't be any kind of cannibalization. We are breaking into a new market, not re-selling to the same one."
  And later: "We've still got a lot to discuss internally about all of this. Obviously a reaction this strong from the community must be taken into account".
  Again, you need to read all the replies yourself for a complete & balanced overview.
  
  [Update May 6th: the above mentioned thread was closed after over 1,100 replies]

Stock Photos and Vectors from iStockphoto soon available on Photos.com and JupiterUnlimited

Following the announcement from iStockphoto´s Kelly Thompson (Subscription Shuffle) this Friday at 2:07 PM MST that "iStock contributors will have the opportunity to sell their images through Photos.com and Jupiter Unlimited subscriptions", and his calculation:

The royalty paid will be 20% or 22.5% of the value of each download, which in turn is calculated by dividing the monthly value of the subscription by the number of downloads in that subscription that month (much like is currently done on iStock subscriptions, but monthly instead of daily). We’re projecting the average royalty payout to be 30¢ – 55¢—a significant upside to similar competitive subscriptions. At the high end, you could see earnings as high as $17.99 per image.

... a pretty vibrant discussion with pros (e.g. "exclusives now have a much bigger market to sell in") and - very unusual for the iStock forum - some cons (e.g. 1, 2 and 3) with currently over 600 responses on over 30+ pages appeared, also driven by questions of iStockphoto´s exclusive photographers about the remaining exclusivity of their iStock content*.

Pino Granata: The Misery of Contemporary Photography

Nowadays, most discussions on photography focus on the birth of some new microstock agency where pictures will be sold for a few cents or the closing of one of the new initiatives started to make money easily.

There are a few exceptions, but certainly there is no interest in promoting photography. Analysts have overlooked though that all those agencies that had gone public, they have now either gone bankrupt or have chosen to become private again. This is the case of A21, Getty Images and Jupiterimages.

What does all this mean? Probably, it just means that this option isn't viable and that no other agency will choose to go public. I have no idea how many investors have lost money, but I do believe there are quite a few such people.

Photography doesn't allow much return over investment.

QuickLinks For 2009-05-02

• Veer Marketplace Opens to Contributors on June 8th (SnapVillage Blog):
  After that date, you’ll be able to begin submitting your new work. While these images won’t be available for sale until we launch the complete site in mid-summer, you will able to get a head start to upload any new work using the new FTP capable Veer Marketplace upload platform.

• Taking (Photo) Stock: BrightQube Seeking Venture Funding (xconomy):
  BrightQube has been generating strong sales, and Corkran said the business is now close to generating positive cash flow. He notes that “the nice thing about a Web-based business is that they're highly cash efficient.”

• Ellen Boughn and the Future of Stock Photography (Niche Reports):
  Now the toothpaste is out of the tube and there is no going back.