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Articles from February 2010
Microstock keywording, retouching, uploading and analytics platform LookStat has released a free guide to microstock, designed specifically for rights-managed and royalty-free stock photographers. The guide contains details on how to establish accounts, submission requirements and profiles of the top microstock agencies.
On Thursday, the Picture Archive Council of America launched a proprietary tool to provide the industry with a free stock-image meta-search engine: pacaSearch.
In response to "Stock Photo Lottery," Bill Bachmann said: "I don't know where you get the idea that 1% of images are sold are RM. I think you are pulling that figure out of a hat."
Alamy sales for 2009 were $22,864,000, down 27% from 2008. Fourth-quarter sales were down less than 2% compared to the previous quarter but 14% compared to the fourth quarter of 2008. British Pound and Euro sales were up slightly compared to the third quarter of 2009, but U.S. dollar sales were down 12% compared to Q3 2009 and 22% compared to Q4 2008.
Mass.-based motion content seller is first to announce full XML integration with Google.
If you're a photographer shooting fashion, products or doing other commercial work for brochures or print ads you will often need access to good locations. Getting "access" to good locations generally requires considerable effort and often fee payments. This story provides some hints on how to solve the access problem.
The Seattle stock leader continues to develop products and services to address online publisher needs in ways that far exceed still-image licensing.
Fotolia founder and chief executive officer Oleg Tscheltzoff is also the CEO of Flixtime, a new free Web site that allows users to create their own custom production-quality videos. In addition to providing tools to turn users' own images, clips and text into 60-second videos, Flixtime is also a licensing outlet for royalty-free images from Fotolia and AudioMicro's audio.
Katy von Brandenfels, of BigCheesePhoto won €100 our May/June
PhotoLicensingOptions’ contest designed to encourage those interested in
the business of producing and licensing rights to images to sign up for
this FREE weekly email every Saturday.
Corbis now represents archival material from the
National Geographic--a collection that dates back to 1900. The company has announced a new partnership with the National Geographic Society.
Usage-based pricing is not going away; there will always be some demand for exclusive uses, for which customers will be willing to pay significant amounts of money. The question is how much and whether or not it is wise for most photographers to chase these customers.
Founder of ImagesBazaar.com Sandeep Maheshwari has won the 2010 Star Youth Achiever Award from the Global Youth Marketing Forum, which honors achievements in youth-centric marketing, advertising and branding.
Getty Images now distributes high-definition footage by GreenScreen Animals. The Los Angeles-based company produces motion stock of trained animals shot against a green screen.
PicScout and PhotoShelter have announced an agreement under which the work of PhotoShelter photographers will be included in PicScout's Image Index, Registry and Connection platform. This offers some 50,000 individual PhotoShelter users access to the same PicScout technology used by major agencies to track uses of their images.
A huge percentage of all professional imagery licensed is used in one way or another to promote a product or service. But advertisers have recognized that the old ways of promoting are no longer working. They are aggressively searching for new and better ways to reach consumers. Advertisers' decisions dramatically impact future demand for photography, as well as where and how it will be used.
The photo discussed in this article is an almost perfect stock photo. It's not cutting edge; it's not trendy. It's not hip or cool. wshat it is is a photo that will license again and aagain for years....extending its revenue stream long after its production costs have been recouped. This is a photo with a very long tail.
Stock industry mainstay Ellen Boughn has penned a book that offers a perspective into microstock that is informed by 30 years of traditional experience. Though
Microstock Money Shots targets primarily the photo enthusiast, it may help traditional photographers evaluate the creative differences between micro and macro.
Corbis has revised how its Web site handles image pricing by introducing a new rights-managed calculator. The new calculator presents image pricing on one grid, where usage details such as image size and placement are easily adjustable.
LTU Technologies has announced upgrades to its LTU engine/ON demand platform, which enables image matching and similarity search. The company also expanded its developer program to provide open access to its application programming interface.
The British Association of Picture Libraries and Agencies has announced that it plans to include extra stands to accommodate unexpected demand. "Picture Buyers' Fair 2010 is defying the impact of the recession and is selling out," said BAPLA in a statement.
In "Handshakes, Challenges and Success as a Stock Photographer," John Lund argues that photographers should shoot the old tried-and-true concepts but in a new and different way. As photographers strive to create unique images, it might be instructive to take one concept--handshakes, to follow Lund's example--and understand what the competition is like in the market today.
In a seemingly neverending legal tennis match, the U.S. Department of Justice made formal objections to the latest version of the Google Settlement on Feb. 4. The search giant filed its response with the courts on Feb 11.
Alamy has announced that it paid out over GBP8 million (approximately $12.5 million) to its contributors in 2009. The company has not reported gross revenue for the 4th quarter.
Idee has added a user interface to the TinEye commercial API Web site, enabling high-volume users to surpass the daily restriction of the free image-to-image search engine.
New Web directory StockPhotographySites.info offers access to more than 600 stock photography sites. The directory, organized in 25 categories, was developed by Technology Relations Ltd. The same company also runs PhotoSoftwareNews.com, a directory of commercial photography software.
American Association of Advertising Agencies' senior vice president and Ad-ID managing director Harold S. Geller has accepted a seat on the board of directors of the Picture Licensing Universal System Coalition.
In order to find a proxy for which seasonal holidays were important from a stock photography perspective, I decided to look at how many greeting cards were sent. Christmas & Valentine's Day were 1st and 2nd but I was surprised to find Mother's Day in 3rd place. This article goes into more detail about Mother's Day and also surveys stock photography search results associated with the term.
Los Angeles production company Neat Production will host "Headshots for Haiti" on Monday, Feb. 15. The one-day charity event will benefit Partners in Health by offering headshots in exchange for $50 donations, which will fund healthcare services for those affected by the tragedy.
I was recently asked: "If you were shooting stock (hey, maybe you are...), would you be shooting for rights-managed, royalty-free, microstock or some combination?"
A San Francisco-based photographer recently asked: "There is a lot of speculation about tablets like the Kindle and the iPad possibly leading the way for more image use and therefore a possible boon to stock-photo licensing. Do you have any thoughts on that?"
Alan Meckler may be done with microstock photography but not with crowdsourcing: Last week, WebMediaBrands launched StockLogos.com.
There is a lot of concern among iStockphoto contributors as to whether Getty Images' new Thinkstock venture will benefit them or result in reduced revenue overall as sales on the main iStockphoto site decline. This particularly worries exclusive photographers. Calculating the potential loss is very complex, but photographers must hope that none of iStock's volume customers turn to Thinkstock and that a large percentage of Shutterstock customers will start rushing to Thinkstock. To be successful, Getty must capture more revenue from Shutterstock customers than they lose as a result of customers leaving iStockphoto and Getty Images to buy subscriptions.
The speculation as to the future of Hungary-born microstock StockXpert is over: it will cease to operate as of next Thursday.
Photolibrary announced the acquisition of New York-based editorial image library Peter Arnold Inc. Photolibrary Group chief executive officer Glenn Parker said the addition of the Peter Arnold Collection will enhance the company's science, medical and natural history offering.
The next international congress of the European umbrella body CEPIC will take place in Dublin and is now open for registration.
As struggling newspapers look for new sources of revenue, most are attempting to monetize their daily news content online. The Chicago Tribune is expanding on the same idea: the paper is digitizing its image archive and making it work-including as a stock-image asset.
Getty Images has launched Thinkstock as a royalty-free subscription product that represents content from the Getty, iStockphoto and Jupiterimages brands. In addition to monthly and annual subscriptions, the site will offer image packs based on total downloads.