The Long Tail describes a new way of looking at, and approaching, markets in the Web 2.0 environment. The term was first coined by Chris Anderson in a Wired magazine article in October 2004. It is illustrative of the business strategy of Internet companies like Amazon.com and Netflix which sell a large number of unique items, each in relatively small quantities, to a very large base of customers. This buying pattern creates what is called a "power law distribution curve" or long tail.
In addition to credits-based pricing, traditional sellers need to consider several technological adaptations. These include letting customers organize search results, helping photographers with research, providing a more varied offering and speeding up royalty payments.
Jerry Tavin of IC Worldwide and Deborah Free of Picturehouse Marketing have launched an international non-profit educational foundation. The Young Photographers Alliance will focus on bringing disadvantaged students opportunities for advancement in photography.
The third International Photo Metadata Conference will take place on June 4, during the annual gathering of Coordination of European Picture Agencies Press Stock Heritage in Dresden. This year, the scope of discussion extends to multimedia, particularly video metadata.
The second insight came as I was reading the business section of the
Washington Post and noticed that a photo used as part of the lead
illustration was credited to iStockphoto. This got me thinking. In the
past I’ve seen a lot of photos in the Post credited to Photodisc. Now
we may be seeing the beginning of a move from the more pricey Photodisc
images to those of iStockphoto.
The Stock Artists Alliance has unveiled PhotoMetadata.org, the Web site of the SAA Metadata Project financed by a grant from the U.S. Library of Congress. The Web site is supported by the getMETAsmart tour of events, which kick off this week in Dallas and will travel through the country.
Microstock sellers have introduced a number of strategies that traditional agencies and distributors should be considering, if not rushing to adopt. One of these is pricing based on credits, which transfers money to the seller before product delivery, makes it simpler to conduct small transactions, appears simple to the buyer and gives the seller more flexibility in adjusting prices.
Recently I was trying to explain the stock photo business to an investment
analyst and making the point that there comes a time when a
photographer can no longer afford to produce stock images because his
costs are greater than his income. The analyst was under the impression that a “stock
photo” was one that had been produced, and paid for, while the
photographer was on assignment for someone else. Thus the image was
“expense free” to the creator. And, in theory, the only “additional
costs” the photographer might have to make the image available for
secondary licensing would be the cost of packing it up for shipping it
to his stock agency.