Traditional picture sellers are missing a tremendous opportunity to assist customers in their search for images. Instead of limiting the search return order to one standard system chosen by the agency, agencies should offer customers a variety of options.
Corbis has been publicizing the fact that it is underwriting a new New York-based Museum of Art for the Arts for some time. Today's official announcement from the company reveals that there is no such thing.
The traveling World Press Photo Exhibit will be on view from June 27 to July 17 at United Nations headquarters in New York. Sponsored by the World Press Photo Foundation, Getty Images, the Permanent Mission of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to the United Nations, Canon, TNT and the UN Department of Public Information, the exhibit will feature 185 winning images from the 2007 World Press Photo competition.
It has been suggested that traditional agencies can learn from their younger microstock rivals. A lot these discussions center on technology, from the ability to sort search results by downloads to the features and widgets available at micro-payment Web sites. The most important lesson may be of a less tangible variety.
Despite the overwhelming amount of imagery available for licensing, traditional buyers are far from satisfied. So says PhotoShelter, which surveyed over 700 of its customers to reveal that nearly three-quarters of respondents have a difficult time finding the types of images they seek.
When I argued at the recent CEPIC conference in Malta that stock photo prices should be based on end use, one RF distributor asked, "Why is use pricing fair? When you buy a pencil, the price is the same regardless of how it will be used. Shouldn't photos be priced in the same way?" The answer is no.
Research conducted by iStockphoto in the U.K. supports the notion that there exists a much larger market than already tapped by microstock. Though the iStock market sample was somewhat small, the survey illuminates several definitive image-use trends among small and medium-sized businesses.