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RANDOM THOUGHTS 135
May 3, 2007
Getty Removes Images
As Getty Images nears the launch of its new site that will combine creative and editorial content the company has told its photographers that it will temporarily remove images uploaded in 2004 or before if they have "never" sold. Images from Photographer's Choice and Riser (which photographers paid to have uploaded) will not be removed. The removal was started on April 27th. It is expected that all removed images will be re-instated on the new site on or before July 1 2007.
The company says, "We want to do this because the new site has improved functionality that allows customers to better filter their searches, relying more on keywording and less on recency, so these images may get an additional chance to sell." It is unclear how this may affect the position of the images in the search return order once they have been re-instated.
Web Video Summit
A web video summit will be held in San Jose, California June 27th and 28th with the theme "Re-Think, Re-Invent and Reach The World". This conference will feature insights and real-world success stories from 15 award-winning video creators. They won't be just talking about what you need to do they will be showing you with constant video examples.
Among the themes are that videographers need to re-think the way they approach web video and adjust strategies. It will emphasize that the skills that have served photographers in the past don't always translate into the most effective web video, and techniques will need to be modified.
For more information go to www.webvideosummit.com.
LIFE Archives
Recently LIFE Magazine folded again to very little fanfare. However, when the editor signed off he said that "soon (readers) will be able to explore the entire LIFE photo archive - that's 10 million images going back 70 years at www.LIFE.com."
Already you can go there and search all the covers since issue No 1. I typed in Jackie and got 19 hits, including Kennedy, Robinson and Gleason. There were 44 hits for Vietnam starting with the October 17, 1961 issue. Framed prints of some of the images are available for purchase.
Getty Completes Acquisition Of WireImage
Getty Images has successfully completed the acquisition of WireImage. The deal, announced on February 22, 2007, also includes MediaVast, Inc. the owner of WireImage, and sub-brands FilmMagic and Contour Photos.
"Celebrity, entertainment and sports photography is a fast-growing and vital part of the imagery industry, and this acquisition positions us to meet and exceed the demand for nearly instantaneous content," said Jonathan Klein, co-founder and CEO of Getty Images. "Growing our entertainment imagery business has been a key strategic focus, resulting in revenue growth of approximately 60 percent in each of the last three quarters of 2006. We see further growth opportunity as a result of this acquisition. The real winners will be our customers who can now expect to see exciting new developments with products and services including podcasts, editorial video, multimedia, mobile and exclusive imagery."
While Getty intends to maintain MediaVast's three brands and its market Web sites, the two companies offer overlapping services in several areas. The day before the completed acquisition was announced Getty started asking a number of the 230 Media Vast employees to leave due to job duplications.
In response to questions from PDN Getty provided the following statement, "Yesterday, as part of the collaborative integration process, Getty Images and MediaVast began speaking with employees regarding their future role with the company once the transaction closes. Getty Images will be working with the notified employees to find other opportunities within the company or at other companies. Getty Images is dedicated to helping these employees find gainful employment."
Shutterstock
Shutterstock has announced that image suppliers who have received $500 in total sales they begin paying $0.30 per download on May 1, 2007 up from $0.25 perviously.
Shutterstock currently has 25 full-time employees, 1,788,414 RF images in its collection and is adding 27,430 new photos each week. There are 58,237 photographers who have contributed images to Shutterstock.
Online Newspaper Readership On The Rise
Last quarter, more than 59 million U.S. Web users visited newspaper Web sites. This was up 5.3% from the first three months of 2006, according to Nielsen//NetRatings data cited by the Newspaper Association of America. These visitors were also looking at more pages once they arrived at a site.
But revenue isn't growing as fast as it did last year and newspapers are having trouble figuring out how to monetize their web content. Paid subscriptions don't seem to be the answer because there is so much free information on the web. That leaves paid advertising, but as yet advertisers are not willing to spend anywhere near enough to underwrite the real cost of content production.
LuckyOliver Introduces New Pricing Model
LuckyOliver has announced a new pricing model called "midstock" that is designed to give photographers a chance to set the price on their images in a range between microstock and traditional stock.
The base price for many photos is $1, but they have introduced a feature called LuckyOliver Sideshow where the most prolific and popular photographers can feature their photos and set the price. When search results are returned the $1 photos appear on the left hand side of the screen, and the LuckyOliver Slideshow photos with larger thumbnails appear on the right hand side of the screen.
Any photographer who has had at least 100 downloads qualifies to receive Slideshow placement for up to 25% of his portfolio. When the photographer reaches 500 downloads he qualifies for placement of 50% of his entire portfolio in Slideshow.
The company still has lots of images that start at only $1 (for the smallest file size). In all cases, either with the $1 photos or the Slideshow ones, the price goes up depending on the size of the file needed.
"LuckyOliver's Sideshow will give photographers the chance to license their images for prices that reflect vision, market need, and production investment," said Ron Chapple, a 25-year veteran stock shooter who sells images through LuckyOliver. "Enabling this function lets the photographer find the prices that are right for their work. Some shoots require more investment -- for example a group shot versus a single portrait. Now, pricing can be adjusted to reflect the extra costs to produce that specific image."
For more information check out: www.luckyoliver.com/info/slideshow.