Articles by Jim Pickerell

PACA 16th International Conference.

By Jim Pickerell | 349 Words | Posted 9/23/2011 | Comments
The 2011 PACA International Conference, the premier annual event in the U.S. for those interested in stock photography, will convene in a little less than a month at the New York Marriott East Side in midtown Manhattan. It runs from Friday, October 21st through Sunday October 23rd.

Stipple Marketplace: the Next Generation of Image Licensing

By Jim Pickerell | 982 Words | Posted 9/22/2011 | Comments
Stipple Marketplace, the San Francisco based company with the goal of turning editorial images into e-commerce storefronts for consumers, has developed a system that allows publishers to earn money from the images they publish, not just sell ads around those images.

Corbis Updates Search Engine

By Jim Pickerell | 2341 Words | Posted 9/21/2011 | Comments
If you haven’t visited the Corbis web site for a while it may be time to take another look. In 2010 Corbis decided that it was time to update the search technology they had been using since 1995. The project involved a series of architectural changes with two primary aims – improving performance (speed of delivery) and relevancy of the search results delivered. This story discusses some of the changes and modifications.

SpacesImages.com

By Jim Pickerell | 851 Words | Posted 9/15/2011 | Comments (1)
Spaces Images is a niche agency founded by people and lifestyle Jonathan Ross about a year ago. However, there are no people in the pictures this agency represents. In tracking 13 years of sales he and his wife and business partner Amy noticed that many of their best selling images did not include people. They then set out to build SpacesImages.com a collection that contains property released images of locations where man lives, works and plays, but without any people in the images. Most of the have strong graphic and design elements.

Iberfoto Now Distributed by The Image Works

By Jim Pickerell | 208 Words | Posted 9/15/2011 | Comments
The Image Works (theimageworks.com) editorial stock photography agency has announced the addition to its archive of imagery from the Spanish based Iberfoto picture library. The library consists of over 1.2 million photographs, artistic works and prints, focusing on Hispanic Culture from Spain and Latin America.

A Cut of a Cut of a Cut…..

By Jim Pickerell | 1605 Words | Posted 9/9/2011 | Comments (1)
While fees charged customers for stock photo use have been steadily declining, there is another issue that should be of equal concern to image creators. That is the percentage they receive of the gross fee the end user pays. This can be complicated and not the number many photographers think it is.

Reaching The Next Generation

By Jim Pickerell | 477 Words | Posted 9/8/2011 | Comments (2)
In an effort to engage with the next generation of picture professionals, Alamy and Dreamstime have launched separate initiatives to benefit students.

Numbers To Think About

By Jim Pickerell | 986 Words | Posted 9/6/2011 | Comments
In a little over a year the number of images represented by the top four microstock sites has increased by 41%. Fotolia has had a 59% increase. The number of people contributing images to Shutterstock has grown by 37% and now totals 313,393. This wouldn't be bad if demand were growing at the same rate, but it's not. Demand seems to be relatively flat and at iStockphoto seems to be declining. How will these numbers affect everyone who produces stock images? Read more.

Worldwide Advertising Spend Trends

By Jim Pickerell | 365 Words | Posted 9/1/2011 | Comments
According to eMarketer world advertising spend is expected to be about $500 billion this year. The online portion of this spend will make up about $80.2 billion, or 16.1% of the total. By 2015 online advertising spend is expected to reach $132.1 billion and be 22% of total advertising spend.

Alamy Opens West Coast Data Center

By Jim Pickerell | 194 Words | Posted 8/31/2011 | Comments (2)
Alamy has extended its server infrastructure to NYI’s data center in Los Angeles, to serve the company's growing West Coast customer base. Searching for images on the West Coast will now be as fast as on the East Coast.  NYI successfully oversaw Alamy’s upgrade for North America, and now the company will manage the West Coast activity.