Former Getty Images CFO Lawrence Gould wants to appeal to the Google generation of creatives with his new royalty-free stock library ImagePick. Co-founded by Gould and former Getty director of e-commerce Tom Donnelly, ImagePick promises search simplicity and image quality.
Supported by sales offices in Chicago and London, ImagePick's online home is very Web 2.0. According to Gould, the company's CEO, today's creatives expect a simple interface and high-result relevance, the goal of his new library. "So many sites require you to tweak too many dials before you get meaningful results. ImagePick works right out of the box," he explains.
Despite a number of agencies folding and others reporting declining revenues, Gould feels these are exciting, albeit transitional, times. He points out that "it has taken the industry some time to realize the needs of the Web market. To some extent, microstock has taken that territory." ImagePick may appear traditional, but it intends to compete for this business.
Gould says that the library is one of the first aggregators to offer Web-resolution pricing at prices starting at $40. This makes quality imagery available at prices that make economic sense for online publishers, while not undermining the opportunity in the print market. On this end, ImagePick’s price points are well within the premium range, exceeding $400 for largest-size print files.
ImagePick also intends to raise the image-quality bar by utilizing what it calls the finest available collections from Corbis, Jupiterimages, Blend and Westend61. According to Gould, it is the in-house keywording and editing that will make the real difference.
Though ImagePick was ready to launch four months ago, its team spent the additional time isolating the most relevant keywords for images supplied with as many as 400, in no order of relevance. The result is a library that has a three-tier keyword relevance structure that ensures meaningful search results. There is also a date index that delivers the latest imagery first.
In addition, there is no substitute for human editing. Gould says that he and his team repeatedly review images for creativity and expression. Those deemed exemplary get an automatic "lift" in search results. "It's all about quality, not quantity," Gould concludes. "There's a supplier out there claiming to have 10 million images. We think that's a problem, not a creative solution."