How much longer will we need photos for commercial projects?
U.K. national tourist board VisitBritain has announced the launch of the new Britain on View, a Web site developed and operated by the Photolibrary Group.
Getty Images has quietly relaunched newly acquired Jupiterimages.com. The company announced this on its blog, along with a 33% off promotion that lasts through the end of September.
The National Press Photographers Association has received $184,000 in foreign royalties managed by the Authors Coalition of America. The funds are earmarked for services and programs to benefit still photographers.
Stock images, creative stills in particular, have a steadily declining value in the eyes of the buyers. If stock is all an individual has to sell, it is beginning to look like that individual should expect to see steadily declining revenue going forward.
The Picture Archive Council of America will premiere its in-development search engine during its upcoming Miami annual gathering.
Founded by Mike Watson of Digital Vision fame, moodboard says it welcomes the surge in applications to contribute to its microstock collection. The London-based company offers an interesting example of an agency whose traditional roots and products have not adversely affected its relationship with a large pool of micro newcomers.
Jim Pickerell's piece on growth in demand focuses on why the current paradigm does not work for solo photographers but misses the fact that growing image uses also offer opportunities. For the stock photo industry, the issue is not lack of demand but rather the lack of Google, Gillette and Apple-like innovation when it comes to developing a business model that takes advantage of the rise in image uses.
A previous article in this "Business Planning for the Future" series noted that future growth in demand for images is a widely debated subject among stock industry professionals. In my view, traditional customers do not seem to have any growth potential, and there are also indications that growth in demand for low-priced imagery might have reached its natural level. Industry veteran Leslie Hughes has offered an alternate point of view.
Dirck Halstead's perceptive two-part analysis of the photojournalism business is a must-read for photojournalists or anyone considering this career. It should also be a wake up call for stock and advertising photographers hoping to sell their images for use in print publications.
U.K. travel library Robert Harding World Imagery says its recent Web site upgrade has led to a client-uptake increase of more than 70%. The upgrade included offering registered and preapproved buyers to download high-resolution files in two steps.
Graphic Design USA has previewed the results of its 23rd Annual Stock Visual Survey. The full report, which will be published in the September edition of the magazine, shows prevalence of royalty-free and microstock imagery among professional designers, but the magazine does not think this means rights-managed licensing is on its way out.
For the third consecutive year, iStockphoto has let exclusive contributors keep 100% of the revenue generated by their images on August 7, for a total of more than $225,000. The company is also continuing its Punctum Day tradition, celebrating this year with $45,000 in contributor prizes.
Alamy plans to follow Getty Images' lead in offering affordable prices for Web and mobile products. The U.K. company will be creating new small file sizes and lower prices that are basically identical to those introduced by Getty last week.
In his blog
Thoughts of a Bohemian, Paul Melcher argues that "the future of photography is exclusive content," particularly for pros who used to specialize in shooting stock.
German entrepreneur Amos Struck has developed a WordPress plugin that allows users of the popular blogging platform to seamlessly search, purchase and insert microstock images into posts without leaving the WordPress interface. The Microstock WordPress Plugin currently works with Fotolia, but Struck told
Selling Stock that he is working on deals with other microstock providers.
The
Selling Stock subscriber email system was down Tuesday through Thursday this week. The Friday, August 21 email newsletter summarizes our coverage for the last four days.
Earlier this year PhotoEdit, Inc. surveyed Southern California high-school students to learn their views on the images in their textbooks. Based on the survey results, the company has created a new collection: Images That Teach.
While there has been plenty of buzz about the size of the blogger market and its purchasing power, most stock-image sellers have thus far concentrated on the product end of the business: offering the right image sizes at the right price. Naturally, microstock sellers have been winning the war for market share in this particular space, because they were the first to discover this market by offering low-priced imagery. Traditional agencies are just now starting to compete at the product level, but microstocks and other newcomers are still outpacing the core of the image industry in the most important area: delivery.
In addition to the broader economic and legal climate, factors such as decreasing photographer royalty percentages, competition from foreign workers and increasing preference toward video content can have substantial effects on a stock-production business.
In addition to the major industry trends, regular examination of smaller-scope developments related to common business issues---such as demand for images, cost of production, legal changes and technological advancements---is helpful in determining if and when to adjust stock production strategy in order to keep it profitable. But beware. As you track these developments, it is entirely possible you may decide to place less emphasis on stock production and more on something else.
Denver-based Thought Equity Motion has announced the promotions of Jackie Mountain and David Smith to vice presidents of sales for Western and Eastern regions of North America, respectively.