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SPEEDPIX SWITCHES TO FREE PORTAL
July 19, 2001
Speedpix has announced that, "We have now run out of money and the time has come to end the dream
that was Speedpix." Speedpix.com ltd will cease to deal directly with clients as of the end of
July 2001 and there will be no sales staff in office. They ensure photographers that all
outstanding invoices will be settled.
Once launched they had hoped to raise venture capital to move ahead with a major marketing
campaign, but as interest in the UK in dot.com's dried up they were unable to find interested
investors.
Their major marketing efforts have been in UK. While they produced results, sales were well below
their worst case projections. The results were never sufficient to cover the cost of the
marketing itself, let alone the overhead of operating the company.
In retrospect they came to the conclusion that, despite the high quality of the work available,
the size of their collection is too small. Buyers were turned off when they hit the holes in the
collection and couldn't find certain types of images.
Speedpix has proposed to continue to run the site as a completely free image portal. Customers who
find an image would be directed to the individual photographer for negotiation and delivery of
the hi-res image to the client. The photographer would keep 100% of any income generated from
such sales. Speedpix would not receive a commission.
Photographers would be able to make further submissions to Speedpix and new submission guidelines
together with samples and templates will be made available on-line. Photographers will have to
create their own thumbnails and previews which will then be e-mailed to Speedpix and go on-line
almost immediately as there will be no editing or hi-res file checking (other than to ensure no
pornographic or otherwise objectionable material is up-loaded). Photographers will have to
provide their own captions and keyword files.
In this scenario all income earned from sales will go to the photographer with no cut for
Speedpix. Mike Morrison say, " We will simply keep the site running at our own expense in order
to keep the collection together and leave open potential opportunities for the future."
There will be no marketing of this free site by Speedpix for the foreseeable future. The initial
aim is to allow the collection to stay together and hopefully grow, rather than destroy the work
already done. If the collection stays together, and grows there is always the possibility that
there will be an increase in traffic, or that the investment market will change and funding will
become available.
Photographers are not restricted in any way from marketing on other sites simultaneously. Most
have little to lose by leaving their images in place, and many photographers seem to be inclined
to do just that.