Bahar Gidwani, CEO of Index Stock Imagery, Starts Personal Business Blog "DIMdump"

Breaking news at least for the relatively small Stock Photo Industry. Bahar Gidwani, CEO of Index Stock Imagery, has started what we would call a "personal business blog": DIMdump, about

Digital Image Management, Digital Image Marketing, or just a lack of light and knowledge! Bahar Gidwani, CEO of Index Stock Imagery, thinks there is a lot to think about, talk about, and learn in the emerging world of digital imaging.

Finally there might be some progress in this world.

Remember: five or four years ago Jim Pickerell wrote that North Americans are spending more money for toilet paper than stock imagery (*see footnote). Today, one might add that in Central Europe a mid-sized cheese producing Creamery Company has just the same annual revenues as Getty Images.

However, the difference is: it may not be very fashionable to work for a company selling cheese. But there is a certain transparency in this business: cheese market size, who buys which kind of cheese where, competitor analysis, there is no hidden or secret information, thus enabling countability and predictability, even for small and/or starting companies.

In contrast the Stock Photo Industry: there were only a few sources of information, and not a single really independent information source not related to a company with specific interests. The two big companies are keeping their secrets. Regarding journalism in this area, what we had was a monopoly of information, and sometimes, sad to say, even shady and slightly suspect**; what we see now to begin is a diversity of information hopefully enabling more transparency. All this with blogging software. Some won´t like that.

Bahar will earn a lot of sympathies for his efforts. And if the CEO of Index Stock Imagery starts his own blog: we won´t have to wait long until the next CEO of another company will start his/her blog***. We bet some others won´t start a personal blog; simply because they have nothing of value to communicate, something that would not look like the 15th edition of the company´s PR Blabla.

There are some others blogs who have recently started, all dealing with the Stock Photo Industry, mainly with the focus to report some kind of "business news". So far, none of them has a sustainable business model other than republishing press releases, mixed with some "Ahs" and "Uhms". This might change if Jason Calacanis finally decides to open the big PHOTO BLOG which would be a perfect place to mix bits of information for consumers, professionals and the industry. But this a question of how to architecture the business modell for something like this -- accurate to a millimetre.

But for us the big question in the background still is: after all the companies (actually four) who came and went trying to give photographers more than a 50/50 cut (and including big marketing guns and a huge sales force) -- will it work in the future? This question is still unanswered. That some companies failed doesn´t mean it won´t work finally. So again (and again, we are not related to them or know them personally), big sympathy and thumbs up for this startup called TheImageFile.

*Quoted from memory. Do not complain about the comparison (one model is B2C, the other B2B), the overall market size counts in this example.

**We even saw an Editor copying external printed information sources and publishing this information paragraph by paragraph under his own name and the name of a pal (actually a widely known person), leaving the poor author of the information without a possibility to intervene -- what should he have done? Write a letter to the Editor?

***The Google referrers say people are looking for a "PictureArts Blog" or "Masterfile blog" =:-)

Comments

[Bahar Gidwani]

Thanks for mentioning http://www.dimdump.com. I enjoy reading your blog, and hope my readers will link through to you, too.

My company made a decision ten years ago that our primary concern and "customer" was the people who created our images, not those who license them. The decision to put our artists first, forced us to make other strategic choices (e.g., we don't own images, we don't pay for shoots or do work for hire). Some of these choices have helped and some have hurt. But, it has made it easy for us to share our views frankly with our artists and to remain close to them through some difficult times.

I feel our sites share similar goals and readership. That makes it easy for us to share views and exchange information. Please let me know if you or your readers have any questions I could answer or issues they would like my comments on. I would be happy to contribute to their understanding of our industry, in any way I can.

BTW, I notice that you are written anonymously. I am curious, why? Maybe I should loan you an appropriate photo for your site? See:
http://www.indexstock.com/store/Chubby.asp?ImageNumber=484234

Bahar