Agencies/Distributors
iStockphoto has launched a simple and intuitive
plugin for several programs in the new Adobe® Creative Suite® 6 (CS6). The FREE plugin enables designers to search and directly download images within the programs without interrupting their workflow. A one-click comp replace feature automatically exchanges comp images with purchased images, perfectly resized and positioned within the working page layout or design.
Alamy has announced the expansion of its
100% Royalties project, designed to give young photographers experience of a professional stock photography agency. Launched in a number of universities in the UK and USA in 2011 the project has proved a real success. In fact, it has been such a success that it is being extended into a second year.
Four non-disclosed sources have told Reuters that
Shutterstock is looking for underwriters for an initial public offering (IPO). A Shutterstock spokesperson refused to comment on the report or to supply financial details about the company.
Bigstock has announced a partnership with the Freelancers Union, a non-profit membership organization for independent workers. The partnership will provide the union's nearly 200,000 members with creative assets and inspiration.
Getty Images will become the sole global distributor for Lonely Planet’s 420,000+ travel images as of July of this year. The collection from approximately 370 photographers has been built up over the last 14 years.
The Associated Press and Fotolia have announced a collaboration giving customers access to millions of royalty-free images. AP Images customers will be able to buy editorial, rights-managed and royalty-free images, including millions from Fotolia, on
APImages.com.
Non-exclusive microstock photographers whose images sell frequently on the current microstock sites may want to take a hard look at
PicturEngine’s new portal and marketing strategy.
Photographers set the price for the use of their images and receive 100% of the fee customers pay.
Previously we wrote about the new search engine
PicturEngine. The key question is not how well the search works, the number of images they offer or the chance for photographers to ask for higher prices for their work. The key question is how will they make customers aware that their site exists? The question is marketing.
Alamy reported this week that it is moving into stock video with an initial offering of over 100,000 video clips from some of the most respected stock video agencies and videographers around the world including: Corbis, Blend, Image Source, Rubberball, Specialist Stock, DV Archive, Spotmatik, Wave Break Media and Aqua Geo Graphic.
A new search engine called
PicturEngine is getting a lot of attention in the blogosphere. It has recently been released in Beta after four years in development. The founder, Justin Brinson, also owns two agencies: Corner House Stock Photos and Picturesque.
The
CEPIC Congress, the premier international event for those who license rights to stock photography is only a little more than a month away.
Back in 2008, in an effort to try to compete with microstock, Alamy introduced its
Novel Use licensing model. This strategy allowed the company to license RM and traditional RF images for very limited small uses without risking loss of revenue when these same customers wanted to make larger uses of the images.
ShutterstockImages LLC has announced the addition of four new members to its board
of directors. Steven Berns, Executive Vice President and Chief
Financial Officer of Revlon, Jeff Epstein, former Executive Vice
President and Chief Financial Officer of Oracle, Thomas Evans, President
and Chief Executive Officer of Bankrate, and Jonathan Miller, Chairman
and Chief Executive Officer of News Corp.'s Digital Media Group,
bringing the total number of board members to six. The new appointees
bring diverse experience to Shutterstock's board, managing complex,
multi-market businesses across internet, media and technology sectors.
Footage.net has added over 30,000 preview clips from the archives of NBC News to its search platform of over 1.8 million stock footage clips. Through this developing alliance, Footage.net users will be able to screen preview clips from NBCUniversalArchives.com stock footage collection, and NBC News will reach a new and growing user base worldwide for its stock footage licensing business.
Alamy has moved effortlessly past the 30 million image milestone and is currently adding 1 million new images every month to its pool of editorial and creative stock imagery. Included in the new offering is a much stronger position in the celebrity image space.
IIn August of 2011
Arius3D Corp made an
offer to purchase Masterfile for $21.4 million in a bid to expand into the 2D market. Since then Arius3D has been trying to raise the financing necessary to close the deal. Several tentative closing dates have passed, the last being March 31, 2012, and it has now been announced that the deal “will not close,” and the offer to purchase is not being extended.
Since the beginning of 2012 there has been an explosion of interest by
Venture Capitalists in investing in microstock companies. This article examines the implications.
Universal Images Group Limited has built a database of more than 2.5 million education images for use by Encyclopaedia Britannica, in its
Image Quest online subscription service for schools, colleges and universities.
Alamy and
epa european press agency have signed a strategic commercial agreement which allows Alamy to sell epa's award winning news, sport and entertainment images including the epa archive. The images are available through Alamy’s website to key market sectors in the UK, North America and the Middle East.
If your goal is to earn a full-time living from photography -- and
particularly stock photography -- you need to read this series of 14
articles. They were originally written in the summer of 2010. Since then
the general state of the photographic industry has continued to go
downhill. These articles discuss key aspects of the business and issues
that those who want to earn their living taking pictures must consider.
Online stock photography agency
Fotolia has acquired
Wilogo.com, a thriving community for design crowdsourcing. The community, founded in 2006, has been connecting companies in need of design work with a community of people willing to take on the job. Wilogo positions itself as a full service crowdsourced design community able to accommodate most marketing and branding requirements of client companies. Designers who participate have expertise in both print and web design.
Dreamstime has launched
Stockfreeimages.com a database of almost 400,000 royalty free image that they have culled from their primary collection. They are giving these images away for free. One of the interesting things about the image selection for this Free service is that Dreamstime has chosen to include some of its best selling images from its primary collection.
I received a marketing email from Pixmac today encouraging people to look at their
Easter Egg pictures in preparation for Easter. They have 29,723 images to choose from.
Pond5, the pioneering online marketplace for stock media and creative
components, announced today that the one-millionth clip had been added
to its stock video collection, making Pond5 by far the largest and
fastest-growing collection of royalty-free video on the Web. The site
also offers millions of stock images, audio files, and other creative
components for use as raw material in media productions of all types.
iStockphoto has announced a partnership with iGoogle to provide users a new selection of beautiful and immersive full-page themes. Initially, there are more than 30 themes in the
iGoogle Themes library.