Veer Marketplace, the Corbis-owned microstock brand that replaces SnapVillage, is now accepting submissions from photographers and illustrators. Unlike its ill-fated predecessor, the Marketplace offers contributors all of the features that have become standard for microstock Web sites, including FTP capabilities and bulk-upload tools.
Veer's new contributor workspace also offers batch image processing, enabling metadata, model and property-release application to multiple images at once. Contributor-submitted keywords are enhanced with the a controlled vocabulary and auto-mapping system that addresses spelling variants and synonyms, as well as includes broader search terms.
New contributors are asked to submit 10 images for review. Once approved, contributors will be invited via email to complete their registrations and upload portfolios. Marketplace will pay royalties ranging from $0.35 to $7.00 for single-image downloads and from $0.20 to $4.00 for images offered under subscription.
Veer Marketplace aims to provide the type of an community that has been most popular among microstock participants. Contributors are invited to create their own member pages and galleries, exchange messages and participate in forum discussions and the community blog.
The Marketplace’s functionality was developed by the same in-house team that built veer.com. The company said it welcomes contributor feedback on additional features.
With the launch of the Marketplace, Veer has become the first industry mainstay to offer traditional and microstock products via the same Web site—and the industry awaits to see the outcome of this business strategy. Many on the traditional side of the business theorize that the combination offers an easy opportunity for the microstock offering to cannibalize Veer’s traditional business.