StockPhotoTalk | Special Interest Blog

Pino Granata: Let´s try to do the right things

 

The stock photography at all is doing very badly.

Still we have to analyze what will be the impact on the industry of the sale of Getty Images to Hellman & Friedman which is the most important event in years. This is a fact that can´t be denied.

Every day there are some more bad news. Now we get to know that Masterfile will fire some employees and other agencies will lower some prices.

But these things now happen almost every day. To lay off employees and to lower prices will not solve the problem of this industry and it will make things even more worse and this is another fact.

20 years ago I was dealing with Tony Stone to represent his agency in Italy.

Getty Images For Sale - Update

Bridget Russel, Director, Corporate Communications, Getty Images (Seattle), today:

"Regarding the New York Times article, as a publicly traded company, we cannot comment on rumor and speculation".

Similar Getty Images´ Alison Crombie (London) over at Photo Archive News:

"We cannot comment on rumour or speculation".

Getty Images For Sale - Have A Nice Monday

 

An old rumor finally becomes reality: only ten days before the next conference call on January 31st, the New York Times reports today "Getty Images Up for Sale, Could Fetch $1.5 Billion": "Final bids are due by the end of the month".

There will be a lot of noise later about the company´s evaluation, given that "for the full year 2007, Getty Images expects revenue of approximately $850 million, this implies revenue of approximately $210 million for the fourth quarter of 2007", and a gloomy future for this industry in general.

Ceterum Censeo: Pino Granata´s We are not butchers

On his blog Paul Melcher says that the photo industry never has been so healthy.

In the past we never have had stock photo agencies with a turnover of $800 million a year.

In these days photo agencies are sold and bought for $200 million or more. There is a lot of money in the photo industry and that is true.

Letters from Italy with Pino Granata´s Ceterum censeo: The Stars Look Down

 

What is happening right now in our editorial and stock photo industry is unbelievable.

Getty Images is buying everything and now anybody can observe that we are under a monopoly regime.

What we do in these days is gossip. We talk of Getty Images, Corbis, acquisitions, stock market trends, but we dont talk about photographers and photography anymore.

 

New Stock Photo News Search Engine Online

Paul Melcher is introducing his new Stock Photo News Search Engine (Beta) which allows the search over qualified and at first sight hand-selected sources reporting about the small stock photo industry, similar to the concept of the Yahoo Directory.

Stock Photo Industry Survey Of The Deutsche Bank And PACA: Pricing Stability in 2006, But Issues Likely In RF Imagery

Finally the Deutsche Bank and PACA are out with the most recent Stock Photo Industry Survey.

You can download the much anticipated survey directly from PACA (9 pages), if you are a PACA member. In case you like to have access to the full survey (16 pages), you need to contact the Deutsche Bank Securities in San Francisco.

Citigroup Investment Research´s VP Matthew Troy Crowdsources Stock Photo Industry Analysis: What A Great Idea

Matthew Troy (not to be confused with Troy Mastin of William Blair & Co.), VP Citigroup Investment Research - Imaging (Citigroup Overview), has sent out unsolicited emails entitled "Citigroup Research Inquiry" to photographers and apparently to other recipients asking to contribute for free to the research study "Trends in Stock Photography 2007" for "generating earnings estimates and Buy/Sell/Hold recommendations for investors".

Corbis´ New President Gary Shenk Being Groomed For Future CEO Position, Says "No One Really Knows How Big The Marketplace Is"

The last eight years have seen incredible efforts of research analysts, investment bankers and the so-called industry experts to determine "how big is the stock photo market, how much money can we make in which segment, where should we invest our money?". In the last two years, new questions have emerged about "How big is the micro stock market really? Royalty-free flash music loops, how much money is in that?"

Pfizer´s Viagra Website And MetLife´s Ad "A Moment Of Silence" Share The Same Image: The Wall Street Journal On Stock Photo Recycling

The Wall Street Journal today runs a long story on "When Marketers See Double; As Digital Libraries Spread The Use of Stock Photography, Some Ad Images Are Recycled", quoting stock photo buying companies why or why not they intentionally decided to use images which other competitors in the same industry are using, as well as citing execs from Onrequest Images, Corbis and Getty Images.

The article points to three image examples (however, all three were provided by Onrequest Images) and additionally to a photo sharing table with "examples of companies that used the same stock photo in marketing materials". The best example quoted so far is clearly the demonstration of using the same image in MetLife´s "Why MetLife" advertising campaign ("A moment of silence") and on Pfizer´s website that "provides answers to frequently asked questions about its erectile dysfunction drug Viagra":

"Google Can Make The 20th Century Stock Portals Like Getty And Corbis Irrelevant"

This year at the CEPIC congress some got the impression that the event had been partly a meeting of dinosaurs discussing the same old topics they are discussing since years, with the same results, but nothing changes.

At the recently held PACA conference someone said during the first day that most of the exhibiting photo agencies will not survive the next ten years. On day three of the meeting, another person emended the number of years down to five.

A New Photographic Renaissance, by Pino Granata

Pino Granata recently sparked off a global discussion in the small stock photo community when he sent his declaration or manifesto "Is there any future for photographers and agents?" to the PACA.

Two weeks later Pino published here "The Bill Gates Mystery: An Open Letter From Pino Granata To The Founder Of Corbis".

Both posts were followed by a very vivid discussion, either online here and here as well as separated in a frequent email exchange of various members of the stock photo community.

Pino has written an update on his thoughts, entitled A New Photographic Renaissance:

"Just fly in a different direction"

What a great comment. Michele Vitucci/Bilderlounge on

"The Bill Gates Mystery: An Open Letter From Pino Granata To The Founder Of Corbis".

The Bill Gates Mystery: An Open Letter From Pino Granata To The Founder Of Corbis

The following is an open letter from Pino Granata (Flickr portrait) and from my point of view an addition to Pino Granata: "Is there any future for photographers and agents?" (Sept. 16, 2006), the letter Pino wrote recently to the The Picture Archive Council of America (PACA), discussed here. Pino is working in this industry since 42 years.

The Bill Gates Mystery

The photo business is a very tough business and when you realize that one of the major players in this field is his majesty Bill Gates, the richest man in the world, you start shaking.

Pino Granata: "Is there any future for photographers and agents?"

Pino Granata (Flickr portrait), founder and president of Milan-based Granata Press/Granata Images founded in 1985, recently wrote a letter to the The Picture Archive Council of America (PACA) to express his concerns on what is happening in the stock photo industry currently and the content is for sure of interest to a broader audience:
 

Letter from Pino Granata/Granata Press

Is there any future for photographers and agents?

I guess there are a lot of people that are crossing their fingers while reading these words, but I do think it’s a proper question to ask. Getty, Corbis, Jupiter and some other agency are fighting to control the market and in this war there are a lot of casualties. Now I think with the subscription we have reached a point of no return.

Google Trends And The Stock Photo Industry: A First Quick Look

Google introduced yesterday Google Trends, another Google Labs product in an early stage of development. With Google trends, you can see the search volume of a given keyword over time. The tool "analyzes a portion of Google web searches to compute how many searches have been done for the terms you enter relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time" (About Google Trends) and displays the result in the search-volume graph.

Listen! Black Star Starts Weekly Podcasts

Except for the webcasts of Getty Images, podcasts still haven´t entered the stock photo industry.

Legendary NYC-based photo/publishing agency Black Star was founded in 1935 by the germans Kurt Safranski, Kurt Kornfeld and Ernest Mayer. Today the company operates divisions like Assignment Photo (also here), Stock Photo (also here) and the Editorial PhotoJournalism service.

According to John P. Chapnick, Black Star is soon starting a weekly podcast. The podcast series will "cover trends in the photographic industry, for photographers, agencies, and clients" and is going start in late March 2006. Generally, estimates are that podcasting is a 1,2 - 2,3 billion dollar industry currently.

Tags: Black Star; Podcasts in the Stock Photography Industry

The 23 Best, But Still Unwritten Stock Photo Industry Headlines For 2006

• After The Biarritz Gala Party With The Mayor Of A Vicinal City, The CEPIC Decides To Organize The Next 2007 Congress In Ulan Bator, Outer Mongolia; Delegates Completely Overwhelmed: "Best Flight Connections Ever!"

• Photographers Choice: Getty Images Acquires Shutterstock And Fotolia

• Morgan Stanley Acquires MadPixBiz: "Damned! All Of Your Predictions Were True!"

• Corbis Hires PR Genius Steve Rubel, Announces Immediately The Date For Going Public

• Corbis Hires PR Genius Steve Rubel, Skips Immediately Going Public

OnRequest Images Releases Corporate Brand Imagery Survey

This is the rare case of a useful press release (or, as Steve Rubel puts it so eloquently here in a late description of the Press Release Cemetery, "wouldn't it be great if press releases had comments, trackbacks and a Technorati in-bound linkmeter actually attached to them?").

[Update] "By Far The Best Year In Our History": Getty Images Announces Quarter IV 2005 and Year 2005 Results

Getty Images (Quote, Profile, Research, Upgrades/Downgrades History) has announced today the results for the Q IV/2005 and the full year 2005.

When Getty Images announced the Q III/2005 Results (October 20, 2005), the company predicted that "for 2005, we expect to report revenue in the range of $735 million to $739 million."

When Getty Images announced the financial guidance for 2006 as part of its 2005 Analyst Day (December 08, 2005), the company cautioned that its fiscal 2005 results would probably fall at the low end "of both the revenue guidance of $735 million to $739 million." (Getty Images: Probably Lower 2005 Results)

New York Times Starting To Explore The Stock Photo Industry, Looking For Volunteers To Contribute

Recently I received a message from the office of a famous person and I was immediately moved to tears. This person is the co-founder of an even more famous company. The message stated that this person is writing on a story for the New York Times and needed badly details and statistics of the stock photo industry and especially detailed figures and numbers of the micropayment sites I had been writing about a lot in the past:

I'm interested in what you term micropayment stock photo sites and the number of images they have amassed as well as stats for the stock photography industry... Ultimately, we'd like to determine how many stock photos are commercially available and what percentage of these are online.

At first sight, it looked like pure fun to contribute. However, for delivering answers with this special required kind of a 101% accuracy of estimate, even for a Jim Pickerell or a Brent Phelps it would have taken some time of investigation to figure out the hidden details and numbers. And, for delivering informations with the latest up-to-date news that otherwise might go overlooked, you need to pepper insiders and specialists with questions and calls. Except for Jonathan Klein and some other execs, nobody has all this information always en detail and always up-to-date in his drawer, ready to be pulled out immediately. - Shortly, you have to invest a lot of time and money.

As an appetizer, the message stated that my small blog had been “super helpful” to explore "the image portion of the story I am researching."

Getty Images Starts Blogging

This is Web 3.0 and Blogging 3.5 all in one place.

Deb Trevino and Jonathan Klein of Getty Images are entering the blogosphere with a very sophisticated blog and I´m proud to be a contributor:

Interview With Fotolia´s CEO Thibaud Elziere: "Microstock Sites Can Capture Up To 30% Of The Existing Market"

I discovered the new start-up Fotolia via a TrackBack of their blog back in April 2005 and, after their six month beta period, was impressed by their concept and thus the difference to other micropayment sites. It´s about time that new and young people are entering the stock photo industry game of "I´ll buy you before you acquire my competitor", together with new ideas and fresh blood.

A game, that is still dominated by 40+ years old grandpas with starting gray hairs. Some of these grandpas were about 26 years old when they started their own businesses. Regarding the traditional media, also still ruled by 40+ years old grandpas, it´s sometimes difficult for these young companies to find the attention they deserve. So I peppered Thibaud with some questions and here are his reponses.

Andy: Thibaud, could you describe your professional background and your experience in the stock photo industry, as well as the experience of your two co-founders, Oleg Tscheltzoff and Patrick Chassany?

Thibaud: I am still young, 26 years and I did an engineering school in France and a management school in Germany. My experience in the stock image industry is more as a buyer than as a photographer. I was in charge of marketing/communication in some start-up web agencies and had to deal with images quite a lot. Oleg is an very advanced amateur photographer, who shots with a Canon Mark II. Moreover our team is composed of two professional photographers (Chad and David) and one famous model (Aiste). Last but not least, we have Patrick who is an online service specialist with demonstrable successes of creating and selling web services.

Spam Blogs In The Small Stock Photo Industry: A Weird Phenomenon

Although we probably all feel that we´re all pretty much important individuals, this is not reflected by the overall size of the stock photo industry, which is in terms of money -- admit it -- very small, if compared to other industries.

One might add that in Central Europe a mid-sized cheese producing creamery company generates just the same annual revenues as industry leader Getty Images.

Remember that years ago Jim Pickerell of Pickphoto wrote that North Americans are spending eight until ten times more money for toilet paper than for stock imagery (quoted from memory).

Finally, a lot of investors would still be satisfied and happy people today if they had sunk their money not into some special stock imagery companies in the past 15 years, but instead in the toilet paper industry -- ok, that´s another story.

With this in mind, I´m astonished to notice that more and more spam blogs stealing content from other stock photo industry related websites are appearing. Apparently, there must be lots of money in "stock photo industry spam blogging".

[© Cartoon JD Frazer]

International Stock Imagery Association: Continues To Grow, Selected Interim Board Of Directors

A while ago in October, I wrote about "StockImagery: A New Yahoo Group For Professional Stock Photographers", founded by Clarence W. Walker. At that time, Clarence intended to found the International Stock Imagery Association.

As you probably know, there had been a long back and forth regarding this new association at the Stock Photo group. Some people were clapping, while others seemed to be -- how to say -- outrageously disappointed.

Stock Photo Market Size 2005: New TWGA Report For The Stock Photography Industry

TrendWatch Graphic Arts has released the study Stock Market 2005: Market Sizing. The company states that this is "the first comprehensive market sizing report for the stock image industry".

From start-up to mature company: as everyone knows who has ever done some research on the size of the stock photo industry, this can be a real and long pain-i-t-a (pardon my language, but it´s true!). Doing so in the nineties, was a real nightmare. The conditions have changed only a little in this millenium. That´s why TWGA writes, "the stock image market is one of the most difficult to size."

Mission Impossible Accomplished: PLUS Coalition Unveils Universal Picture Licensing Glossary

I had been writing earlier in May 2004 about the Picture Licensing Universal System (PLUS) Coalition and their aims: "An inter-organizational, worldwide group working cooperatively to create and disseminate a universal picture licensing language for the benefit of picture licensors and users alike."

Thanks to a hint of Jeff Sedlik, President & CEO of the PLUS Coalition, the association has now published the Universal Picture Licensing Glossary version 1.0, recently announced at the 2005 Picture Archive Council of America (PACA) International Conference in Redondo Beach.

JupiterMedia Reports Q III/2005 Results; Rough Comparison To Annual Numbers Of Getty Images And Corbis

JupiterMedia (Nasdaq: JUPM), the parent company of JupiterImages, has published the results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2005 (Link 1 and Link 2 to the Q II/2005 Results of JupiterMedia).

In the past, JupiterImages had acquired seven major image agencies since June 2003: ArtToday, Comstock, Thinkstock/Thinkstock Footage, Hemera, Dynamic Graphics (Creatas, PictureQuest, Liquid Library), Goodshoot (acquired in May 2005 for approximately U.S. $9.8 million in cash) and PictureArts (Brand X Pictures, FoodPix, Botanica and Nonstock; purchase price $63.2 million in cash). Other brands at JupiterImages are Photos.com, Ablestock, PhotoObjects, Clipart and Animations.

The History Of A Study, Strictly For Internal Use

Joseph Pobereskin, founder and past (2000 - 2002) International Board of Directors member of the Stock Artists Alliance, yesterday in a very interesting message (requires registration; topic: "Join SAA with RF images") in the StockPhoto.net group:

Three years (or so) ago, Getty Images, the worlds largest purveyor of Royalty Free imagery, commissioned a study of the stock photo industry by an independent consultancy (the results to be used internally). Among the many findings were these: 

a) the stock photography industry is $2 Billion/annual globally (all companies, all forms);

b) if not for the existence of Royalty Free it would be a $6 Billion/annual globally.

In other words, because as an industry we/they/you sell RF so cheaply, you've let $4 Billion slip right through your fingers. That's the proof.

Hello Corbis: That´s it!?

I might be wrong on this (and who is a sage in these times!), but if Alan Meckler/ JupiterMedia continues to be as aggressive and innovative like he and his company have been acting in the last 18 months, then within the next 12 - 15 months (if not earlier) JupiterImages might say to Corbis: "Hello, Number Three ("Reorganizations have become almost commonplace at the company, which has announced a restructuring in each of the last five years").

Come on, we all know the numbers in the background.

[Update Oct. 15: there are "new" rumours from Redondo Beach/PACA-- in fact these rumours go back to the CEPIC -- that another player from the worldwide TOP 20 list is going to be sold. Someone said: "As we see things now, one of the main advantages of possibly selling the business to Jupiter is certainly that the infrastructure of our company will stay in good order and shape. As we assume now, no one will be fired. There´s no groundbreaking reconstruction of our company to fit into the needs of the acquiring company. This would have been definitively the case if we would have intended to sell our company to Getty or Corbis. Everyone remembers what happened after Zefa was sold to Corbis. But we do care about our employees."]

JupiterMedia Acquires BananaStock For $19M, Adobe Stock Photo Adds Four New Collections And Partners With IPN Relay

On the run, so some short quick news for the people visiting Redondo Beach:

• This blog predicted accurately in the past the selling of Thinkstock and Retrofile earlier (1; 2) than it was officially announced, now it´s Brent´s time: JupiterMedia acquires BananaStock for $19M. Details here.

• Adobe Stock Photos adds four new collections: Image Source, Brand X Pictures by Jupiterimages, Masterfile and IPN Relay (see below). Accessible are now via Adobe Bridge 13 collections with over 450,000 images. Adobe points out that "professional photographers and small stock houses" submitting their images to Adobe Stock Photos via certain image partners are now provided with "another option for distributing and licensing their images". Details here.

• IPN Relay, a "suite of technology solutions" serving as a conduit, announces a new alliance with Adobe Stock Photos, enabling photographers and small agencies to sell their images in Adobe Stock Photos. IPNStock states that "IPN Relay will be able to take any royalty free collection that qualifies and add them to Adobe Stock Photos" and that "IPN Relay enables the delivery of photography, illustrations, audio or video to multiple sales and distribution outlets, foreign distributors, news feeds and international portals [among these the Fotofinder]." Details here.

Getty Images, Flickr And The Reinvention Of Outdoor Advertising

Yesterday Getty Images received the "2005 Business Excellence Award for Innovation". Jonathan Klein, the co-founder and CEO of Getty Images said, "Throughout history, imagery has proven to be an astounding force for change".

Last year on December 08, 2004, Getty Images announced the "Five Top Imagery Trends For 2005" (More in "The Future Of Stock Photography And Imagery Trends For The Future") and stated:

We will also see a virtual re-invention of outdoor advertising, as companies push to leverage plasma and LCD screen technology. These screens will be enabled to receive rich visuals through digital signals, creating "mini Times Square-like" displays on bus shelters, in office and hotel lobbies, elevators, sports arenas, and on billboards and other traditional out-of-home venues.

Now, with its astounding force for change, Flickr is responding and apparently some might not have fully understand the consequences of what is happening.

Mediamatic, an Amsterdam based company, created Playing Flickr v2.0 ("Imaginative Keyword Conversations in Public Space"), a public space installation in the bar/restaurant/club 11 that "allows its visitors [via SMS] to select tags or keywords which will project associated Flickr images onto the club’s panoramic wall screens" (holly marie).

Note that the images showed during the installation are not necessarily the best images available at Flickr and in fact they are not. Flickr should set up a professional image management department and hire some picture editors, pick up the best images for possible selling and marketing through distribution channels, improve the keywording/tag system, solve the legal issues with licensing, rights clearance, model releases etc. with a workaround and figure out a way to pay the photographers. Flickr has perhaps a stronger daily input of noteworthy stock photos than the micropayment sites. Flickr has some jewels in its hands, and the only problem remaining is if and how are they able to select and market these jewels. All it needs is a "can-do" attitude.

I don´t know the details of the deal between Mediamatic and the owner of the club 11. But for shure he has been able to generate some bucks more than without the installation. If he can hire Mediamatic (this includes the Flickr users as the producers) and if Flickr is able to solve some remaining problems, then any businessman, company or ad agency can showcase noteworthy stock photos in "bus shelters, in office and hotel lobbies, elevators, sports arenas, and on billboards and other traditional out-of-home venues" and elsewhere.

The quality will certainly not/never have the peak quality of some of the Getty imagery and a difference will remain for ever. But this difference is getting smaller in the low-end part and I´m sure there is a bigger market for Mediamatic/Flickr. What has happened in Amsterdam sounds pretty much like: "Getty, we don´t need you. You have great artists for sure. You have great images for sure. No doubt and no disrespect. But for the moment WE TAKE OVER. We did the virtual re-invention of outdoor advertising as you were sleeping. These are our images and our lifes and some of our images are pretty great. This is what we want to see in our sports arenas and our offices."

Imagine the power of a temporary joint venture of Mediamatic/Flickr, some micropayment sites and some of the best photoblogs (photoblogs.org currently lists 11,851 photoblogs in 93 countries and 42 languages).

As a play of thoughts: it would take a new independent distribution company to negotiate with Flickr, micropayment sites and some photoblogs to become the “outlet factory” for the best images of these sources and to streamline the offerings. The problem for the moment is the keen competition beetwen the micropayment sites, but, if their best imagery would be united as one force (like a normal classical photo portal), they will gain more visibility as if they were acting alone. This new company would represent in a nutshell the best imagery from these three sources and market them as a single pool, unifying their imagery as one force (and still the micropayment site can pursue their own business, for them it´s just another way to generate revenues). As a search engine (not as a independent distribution company), Yotophoto -- like Pixsy -- is a early and first step in this direction (see "Interview With Mark Thomson/Yotophoto"). - It´s juicy to notice how VCs with experience in the picture business are interested in these ideas, starting to fund both sides of the table. So, towards the notorious objection raisers at the PDN online forums ("What is flickr"), this is not satire.

Imagine this pool (neither Flickr, a micropayment site nor an aggregation of photoblogs can do this alone) would have access to Adobe Bridge. Imagine a pool image subscription model (no one would care anymore about low-end subscription services from other companies because of the jewels of Flickr, micropayment sites and photoblogs). Imagine some kind of a unified PLUS licensing system for those pool images (the problem for the moment are the specific conditions at each micropayment site). Imagine these source would have access to the GalleryPlayer. Imagine if these pool images would be searchable via Visual Search, then the task of keywording (Flickr´s problem for the moment) would be less important. Besides this, imagine if Flickr would create an own micropayment site with constant influx of imagery. A reader wrote, "just think if they create a contest for specific subjects in the low-end part, then you´ll have a correspondent OnRequest Images business model" (ok, this latter is now really weird!).

Finally Flickr should hire Thomas Hawk (1; 2; 3) for business development. He was right: instead of Yahoo, Getty or Corbis or another player should have bought Flickr.

Related:

• An Interview with Flickr's Eric Costello: "We’re working on new features to increase the relevancy of tag search results. It’s quite exciting because there are a lot of fantastic photos on Flickr that people don’t always find. I think it’s going to change the nature of Flickr a little bit. It’s pretty cool."
• Flickr: How To Displace Getty Images and Corbis

[Links to larger image sizes here and here]

 

OnRequest Images Raises $8 Million In Second Round: Starbucks Enters The Stock Photo Industry

New bicycles and iPods for all employees. The big money is coming back to young companies, even if some (ASMP) think different ("OnRequest Images - A Threat To The Stock Photo Industry?").

OnRequest Images had been very active in the last weeks ("OnRequest Images Expands Offerings with Launch of Custom Assignment Photography Services") and offers now three products: Custom Assignment Services, Custom Stock Images, and Custom Stock Libraries (one flat fee covering two years of unlimited use). Next, they launched the "Next Generation Network For Photo Models" on August 10, 2005. Now they received their Second Round:

"Today, Norris' OnRequest Images is announcing that it has raised $8 million in venture capital to boost its sales and marketing. The 45-employee company has raised $12 million to date. [results in $4 million for the First Round]

The investors include Seattle-based Frazier Technology Ventures and Maveron, also based in Seattle and founded by Starbucks' Howard Schultz. What Norris also found were investors with expertise in his line of work. [Hint: this last sentence appeared earlier in the original story of the Seattle Times; Maveron has also invested in Potbelly Sandwich Works]

OnRequest uses the Internet to help match photographers with companies looking for specialized photographs. The difference between OnRequest and Getty or Corbis is that its network of photographers tailors a shoot to a particular company versus having a company sift through a library of images to use."

More here at the Seattle Times technology reporter: "$8 million is raised for images startup" and "Venture Capital: Frazier Technology 'on the move' in Seattle":

"Corbis spokesman Dov Schiff said the company's assignment business, which includes well-known photographers such as Ed Kashi, Peter Turnley and Dimitri Daniloff, is growing fast but still represents a small percentage of overall revenue. For large advertising campaigns such as Absolut Vodka or Sony PlayStation, Schiff said companies want to hand-select the photographers and images they use.

"The big advertising agencies don't want four or five people shooting on spec, they want a specific photographer and they want to custom design the shoot," he said. "It is kind of like college ball versus pro ball."

Still, Frazier Technology's Jordan said OnRequest is a "great Web play" because it efficiently matches the needs of advertisers with photographers. In that regard, he said it is similar to eBay.

OnRequest Images CEO David Norris, who co-founded the company in 2002 and chose Seattle for the headquarters because of the presence of Corbis and Getty, said they can offer corporations custom imagery at stock photography prices.

"People can get exactly what they want, quickly and efficiently and at a price they can live with," said Norris, adding that the images can be produced in less than 72 hours and at a cost that shaves millions of dollars off a traditional photo shoot.

As a result of the investment, Frazier Technology Ventures general partner Gary Gigot will join the company's board. OnRequest employs 45 people, with plans to double in the next 12 months. It has more than 300 customers, including Procter & Gamble, Charles Schwab and The Discovery Channel."

OnRequest Images will change the industry like Royalty Free did years ago. The lamentation and whining of some will continue with the same output peak as it happened years ago regarding Royalty Free. For those OnRequest Images will remain an ugly toad, for others (the global network of 1,600 photographers) it is or will become a big nice toad with lots of money in it.

[Image: Incredible OnRequest Huge Animals]

Partners of OnRequest Images include Alamy and Index Stock Imagery. More here at The Press Release Cemetery.

Index Stock Imagery Responding To The Recent Changes In The Stock Photo Subscription Market

One of the major disadvantages of blog content management systems is certainly that you have to go back to a special entry to see if someone has responded. The following is a comment that doesn´t deserve to vanish in the comment area.

Bahar Gidwani of Index Stock Imagery today responds to the recent entry "The War Continues: Jupitermedia Launches JupiterImages Unlimited Subscription Service". He writes:

Thanks for asking how we will respond to the recent changes in the subscription market. As you know, I responded immediately to Getty's move with a comparison on my blog between their sub and ours. (http://www.dimdump.com/dimdump/2005/08/industry_commen.html)

The comparison was unflattering, to the Getty product. After I did it, I learned that Getty's sub has yet another hole in it. I'm told that the right to use images from the sub ends, if the subscription ends! That means that tons of Getty sub users could be hammered for infringement, if they keep using a subscription image they thought was royalty-free, after the end of their sub!

[Click continue]

FeedBlitz For The People At intranet.gettyimages.com, intranet.corbis.com, And Elsewhere

Tired of hanging all day in front of the screen, juggling with Bloglines, newsreaders, Kinja, Osama´s recent Podcast-RSS and his new Atom-feeds, switching from Alan to MadPixBiz and to Gay and Lesbian Stock Photography, from Bahar and Will to the Stock Photo Press Release Cemetery? Tired that your sys admin and your boss do know what you are reading during working hours?

FeedBlitz is a very young service that lets you receive entries of special selected blogs via email. Your email is always on, your browser or newsreader may be not. You can even read them on your cell phone or PDA.

Doesn´t sound too revolutionary? FeedBlitz already is today what the old service of Bloglet never became: reliable. You can even setup anonymous accounts (check "Private" in your profile), so the owner of the blog doesn´t know who subscribed to the blog.

Next, as a blog writer, you don´t have to hand over your own blog´s password -- as you were required using Bloglet -- because FeedBlitz is working with simple XML-feeds. I´m surprised that Steve Rubel is still using Bloglet.

The best for your boss (or his boss) however might be that your company doesn´t leave these little nasty referrers anymore at the blog you (or your boss, or your PR company) are just reading, like:

• intranet.seattle.gettyimages.com/OnePlaceHome.asp
• host80.uk.corbis.com
  (that guy had been workig on a saturday -- not to bad for an employee --  reading this old message on Photographer Patrick Riviere)
  
• outbound-nyc.gettyimages.com
• intranet.corbis.com/About_Corbis/Snapshot/details_0805.asp
  (the headline at the top is too short to display the full URL)
• outbound-emea.gettyimages.com
• host9.nyc.edelman.com
  (a NYC-based PR company working for Getty Images)
• etcetcetc.

It´s also not too bright if those dump blog writers observe that -- just at 09.00 AM local time in Seattle, London and New York -- these referrers are coming in.

This might sound to your boss like: he/she went to work, turned the computer on with a cup of coffee in the hand, started reading blogs, ended up snorting with laughter and went home to file a resume and CV to another company.

This might sound to the PR company of your company: heck, we have a problem. Not with the employees and not with the performance of all the bosses, but with this company at all.

Next, it´s not too bright to google for "Corbis IPO" or similar incredulous things, or even "xyzcompany lawsuit" or "mycompany sold to yourcompany", directly from your desk, if you are working in a big or mid-sized photo agency or PR company. Referrers are kind of omnipresent.

Furthermore, it´s not too smart to download blog content directly to your computer and save it to your local hard disk in a directory called "file///E:/MyCompany/Projects/Competitor/Kill..." as a document for the presentation next morning.

Long story short, sign up for FeedBlitz using the button to the right "Subscribe StockPhotoTalk!", create a Google account, set the preferences there to HTML-mail, let FeedBlitz mail you all the stories from this site to your Google account, then you can copy, change, extract, google and even delete the stuff just as you like it.

And, best of all: if you sign up for the Press Release Cemetery (there is a special button for that particular feed on that site: "Subscribe the Cemetery!"), then you´ll receive all the press releases for free (Link 1; Link 2) in your email!

And, if you are a weird person, you can even sign up for MadPixBiz (again, there is a special button for that particular feed on that site: "Subscribe MadPixBiz!"). The frequency of posts over there is very low (who in the world has consistently the time to write such bizarre stuff?). But the quality... .

However, with an email subscription you won´t be able to read the comments here or see the track backs.

Finally, if you don´t empty your browser´s cache, then the monkey at the top won´t shake his head.

The War Continues: Jupitermedia Launches JupiterImages Unlimited Subscription Service

Jupitermedia has just launched the JupiterImages Unlimited Subscription Service with "unlimited access, at multiple resolutions, to over 330,000 images (Brand X, Comstock Images, Creatas Images, Goodshoot, IT Stock Free, Thinkstock Images, Photos.com, AbleStock.com and PhotoObjects.net).

Each photo is available in multiple resolutions, ranging from 1MB up to 75MB. Two subscription options are available, full access for all file sizes, and low resolution access for Web/multimedia resolution images. Each option includes access to the entire collection of images.

Will Jonathan Klein of Getty Images still call this "crap" ? Getty offers about 50,000 images in its subscription service Creative Express with plans to expand the offer to 80,000 images by the end of the year.

How will Bahar Gidwani/Index Stock Imagery respond to it ? Can he respond to it at all? Index Stock is offering about 75,000 images in its subscription service.

And by the way, where is Corbis? As PDN writes today in "Corbis Restructures Again", Corbis has just fired Jennifer Hurshell (Senior V. P. Commercial Image Licensing of Corbis) and Joe Barrett (SVP, Marketing).

Is this new or extended offering of Jupiter only a too fast and blindfold reaction to the new subscription service of Getty Images, Creative Express? Note, if you just only react, then you are not moving independently.

Some days ago on July 14, 2005, Meckler wrote that he thinks Getty Images is in a panic.

What is happening right now just seems to demonstrate that Meckler is in a panic, just some 10 days after Getty Images has introduced Creative Express. Would Meckler have done this step if Getty had not introduced Creative Express?

Read also: "JupiterImages' New Subscription Service ..." (Stock Asylum):

"Likewise, Jeffrey Burke, JupiterImages senior vice president of product strategy and former owner of the PictureArts stock photography agency, was similarly unconcerned about the new competition.
"Their (Getty's) subscription service has a lot of similars and old materials. My creative team reviewed it the day it was launched and they were not impressed," Burke commented.

Read also: "JupiterImages Announces Expanded Subscription Service" (PDN):

Meckler says the new service is not a reaction to Getty Image's new Creative Express subscription service, which launched last week with 50,000 images at a cost of $1,599 or $1,999 a year.

"We've been working on this for four months," Meckler adds.

Next there is "News from JupiterImages" (Publish):

An executive at the Darien, Conn.-based company said JupiterImages will be adding anywhere between 500 and 1,000 new images each month.

This for the moment, more here at the Stock Photo Press Release Cemetery.

Jonathan Klein Mumbels "Crap", Bahar Gidwani Responds "Gorilla, Listen Carefully"

It is one of the major disadvantages of being on vacation that your perception sometimes gets blurry with all these parties and hanging around, schmoozing, meeting and greeting.

Some days ago I was reporting the launch of the new subscription service Creative Express of Getty Images.

In the run-up to the launch, Jonathan Klein " said a Getty subscription service would not be like some others that provide what he called "crap." He said some services offer large numbers of images but reach those numbers by supplying a lot of similar images from the same shoots." (Stock Asylum)

As I noticed from a track back and forgot to mention, Bahar Gidwani of Index Stock Imagery has officially responded on August 16: "Industry Comment #17--Getty finally launches its subscription":

The 800 pound gorilla finally decided to put on clothes, and join the party! [...] The launch is a strange one [...] We were pleased to see that the new Getty subscription product is weak [...] Our terms and conditions are more customer-friendly (like us!)  [...] I am sure their customers will tell Getty that their subscription product is not what their customers had hoped for.  I expect Getty to listen carefully to this feedback, and respond to it.  For the moment, the big monkey has his pants on backwards.

Up to now, there is no response from Getty Images, neither from Jonathan Klein nor Deb Trevino.

Flickr: How To Displace Getty Images and Corbis

Thomas Hawk in "The Next Step For Flickr, Stock Photography":

"Recently I sold .. a photo of the Grand Lake movie theater in Oakland. I sold a one year license of the photograph to Choice Hotels. They used it in a national television commercial for this television commercial that they are running now to Johnny Cash's "I've Been Everywhere." Since I don't watch commercials (PVR and all) I've still yet to see it but the fact that they found my photograph through a Google image search rather than a stock photography house has recently made me wonder.

Why couldn't Flickr displace the world's largest photo licensing company Get