Stock it up, people !!!

Last week, super giant discounter and famed losing money photo library Corbis announced with no small effort that it was going “global”.

From Cnet.com :

“SnapVillage, a microstock site founded in June by stock-art sales company Corbis to compete with rivals such as Fotolia and Getty Images’ iStockphoto, has expanded to include international sales.

Although the site now works beyond the United States, the Web site is English-only for now. ”

Does that mean that prior to this press release, Snapvillage would refuse any sales coming from outside the United States ? To me, going international is to have your site in local language. Or open offices in countries other than your point of origin. So what did Snapvillage exactly do to go from local to international? The site works beyond the United States now, we are being told. Does this mean that the Corbis programmers have finally discovered that foreign browsers can read HTML too ?

The most interesting part is that a few days earlier, German RF company PantherMedia also announced it was going international by partially translating their site in English. So, what does “going international” really means people ?

According to my extensive research, it is :

1) Having a site in English

2) Having a site that works beyond your borders

3) Having your site in English

During one of my many tenures, and of on the subject of globalisation, I had to listen to a VP based on the west coast of the United States whose furthest travel had been to the East Coast of the same country tell me that ” The United States is the Business nation of the world thus what we do here will apply everywhere in the world” or something like that. No, his name is not George Bush and yes, he was serious.

I guess Corbis subscribes to that model. Corbis also sees Snapvillage as a “image warehouse” according to its own definition :

Which allows its contributors to proudly say to their friends and family that they are “stack” photographers working for an image depot. How proud they must be. Stock it up, people. Faster !!

Finally, on while we are on the subject of the second agency in the world (who decided that ? under what criteria ? Is it that Jim Pickerell again ? certainly not in profit), here is a post that you cannot miss :

Overheard at Corbis this week.

Catching the rays of the blue sunshine

We are all getting fat. let’s face it, we are gaining weight and it doesn’t seem like it is going to change. When we were dealing with slides and prints, we needed to physically move. We needed to get up and get the images in drawers, got to a lightboxe, compare the images, put the slide in sleeves, and get them ready for a messenger to pick up. Depending on the size of the photo agency, the traffic department was either close by or a few flights of stairs away. Even photo editors had to be “on the move” as editing required a combination of many physical steps.

Today, from the moment we sit down in front of our computer screens with a coffee and a bagel (or anything that will serve as a breakfast), turn on our screens, we hardly move. With a combination of tools, from phone to browsers, we hardly have to move. Thus we are getting fat. I am sure if you look down at your midsection right now, you will see a sign that you are gaining some unneeded volume. We barely move to get to a conference room where we cautioulsy sit down again to listen or talk with our peers who are also gaining weight.

Starring at the glare of our screens for more than eight hours a day, switching from e mails to photographs, news websites to blogs, our eyes are also becoming weaker. Hard to find someone working in this business who doesn’t wear glasses. Although our eyes are our weapon of mass destruction, they are slowly declining on us , as we abuse them hours on.

And of course our skins are not looking better either. We barely see daylight anymore as we hardly have any reasons to be outside. Only photographers escape this doom fate, as they still need to move to create their art. They are, however, still constrain to the mischievous chair and screen combination while they caption, photoshop, upload their images for hours on.

And the future doesn’t look much better. As we get more and more wirelessly freed from our offices and work more from home, we might decide not to wash so frequently, let alone take care of our forever growing hair. We might decide that eating three times a day is not enough, thus enjoying a permanent flux of food. We might not have any need to get out of bed that often as all our necessary tools of the trade may be at arms reach.

Paca, Cepic, Asmp, APA, SAA, PLus, ASPP and all other organizations should vote for a mandatory gym membership for all employees of our industry. We should lobby our respective governments to put in place salvation laws that would require a minimum of one hour of forced exercise to all those wishing to work in the photo industry . Finally, we should put in place motivational points of interest in our offices in order to force more activities than just going to the bathroom.

Otherwise, my dear friends, we might become instinct before we get to see the full effect of Global Warming.

A path to higher wisdom

According to the New York Times, Getty Images is putting itself for sale. Contrary to the nay sayers of this industry, it is no sign of a failure, but rather a clear indication that the owners have decided to cash in and leave. It seems that Mark Getty, and the board, have decided that even by replacing Johnathan Klein as CEO, they would not succeed in achieving more aggressive growth. As written here a while back, they have hit a ceiling and know it.

It would have cost them too much money and effort to go after the mid size and niche agencies that are left in the market. With a company so huge and drowned in perpetual audits, due to its public nature, it is extremely challenging to compete with small, lean, agile companies.

But, it is not because a company is for sale that one, it will find buyers, two, it will disappear. This is not the end of Getty images, so those that rejoice, or those that predict the apocalypse of this industry should tone down and listen. At $850 million a year, Getty Image has proven that this industry has a huge potential. And for a company that started with $30 million, $1,5 Billion is not that bad. In other words, I fail to see where is the failure.

Where does that leave us for the future? not very far. It is even quite possible that the new owners, if ever found, keep the same core management team in place. Istockphoto will NOT raise it prices to $300 an image and the web $49 pricing will remain until everyone is forced to follow and comply. In other words, it is not an industry changing event. Not yet. It’s just a prophecy being executed.

MORE IMPORTANT : my good friend and talented photographer Olivier Douliery has won many awards already has won for best Political Portfolio at this year White House News Press Photographer Association, among other. See full results here.

Photo : Olivier Douliery/Abaca Press. Used with permission.

The hidden laws of probable outcome

Is Wpn recent announcement to get rid of an undisclosed amount of people, more than half the staff, along with Drr similar decision to refocus on its marketplace somewhat related ? Is Getty images poor performance in the Wall Street stock market any indication of its lackluster performance in the image stock market ? What about Alamy seemingly unstoppable growth despite contributors discontent ? And microstock shooter deciding to drop their involvement in the subscription model because of poor revenues? What about Photoshelter lunching their 1 million dollar marketing campaign by offering a 20 % rebate ?

What is going on ?, would say an observer of this industry. Things have never been so much in turmoil in the photo agency world and it looks like it is going to rip apart. Press releases are being issued at machine gun speed with each supplier announcing a bigger searchable archive like kids in a schoolyard comparing the length of their private parts.

10 million here, 8 over there, almost 2 million in here. The funny part is most of these represent the same content. So it is not as if you would find millions of different images from one provider to the other. Alamy, for example represent some of the same people as Getty does, or Corbis. Maxx.com just announced a new royalty free portal, as well as Blend.com, while Excavator continues to do whatever they do. ImageSource, in the mean time, sells the same images at different prices depending on where you go.

Wpn is actually dropping the “number of images” race, and concentrating its efforts on assignments, a market neither Drr, Photoshelter nor Alamy can currently touch. They are also leaving the “wire service” model which is already over populated with giants like AP, Reuters, Getty, AFP and EPA. However, assignments is also where a lot of news photographers have retreated after being blocked access to the stock/spec image market by the agencies. And a few notable agencies like Black Star, Contact, VII and others are already very well established in that space. It is going to be a tricky wiggle to get in that space.

But it is indeed a move at the opposite side of Drr’s move. One concentrates its effort on single image volume stock/spec sales while the other pushes toward multi image assignment services. However, both are going towards in already crowded markets. Drr has now to convince buyers and users that it is better, or at least more relevant than Alamy, at a moment where Photoshelter is doing a similar push while slashing prices. Is this battle for market share be a downward spiraling pricing war pushing more photographers out of the industry ?

While this battle of the small medium size is raging, things do not look so bright at the top. Wall Street has lost faith in the stock photo industry, as the stock prices from Getty and JupiterImages have shown us. And even as both Getty and Jupiter own two of the top microstock distributor, Istockphoto and Stckxchng. Meaning that financial analysts do not even see microstock as a savior of traditional stock. Will this force both out of this industry to concentrate on higher growth industries.Both Jupiter and Getty are certainly moving in that direction.

Microstocker are moving too. According to forums, they are organizing a boycott of the subscription model because it is not financially gratifying enough. First in the line of fire is obviously ShutterStock who only offers this model and might suffer the most from this move. But at least, amateurs and pro agree on one thing : they are not making enough money.

And then there is the pure absurd. Magnum makes a deal with OnRequest. I fell off my chair. The guys who invented assignments on spec are partners with the paid assignment kings? The company that has raises millions in funding while changing its business model every three weeks is shaking hands with the old lady of photography. I will only refer Magnum to the definitive article written about OnRequest : Read John Harrington ‘s entry.

The photo industry is looking for itself and now that rules and rulers do not apply anymore, everyone seems to grab anything they can for survival. Like caught in a flood. This is no longer a revolution but a defenestration. The suits have no Excels to rely on while visionaries have their eyesights blurred. A while back, I had written about the Big Depression of 2007, mainly due to a pricing downfall. I also had written that this industry is still in its infancy. I did not expect to see such a turmoil of unexpected events at such speed. 2008 is going to be fun…hold on.

Sharing sales data

A funny thing happened recently. One of the top microstock agency, Dreamstime, has decided to lift part of the veil on sales data. As an additional tool given to their contributor, they are now showing what keyword generated a download, thus a sale, of their image.

It is a great tool for contributors, albeit a double edge one. One could be tempted to use it for “keyword spamming”, the art of putting the wrong keyword to an image, in the hopes it will be seen, and eventually bought. A plague for microstock platforms. But what is new and challenging is Dreamstime decision to share part of its sales data.

The history of photo agencies and most recently sales platform has always been the opposite. In order to keep contributors with them, no one shared valuable sales data. It was, and is, proprietary information. A bit like enslaving someone by depriving him of knowledge. Getty, Corbis or JupiterImages, along many, many others would never dare make such a move for fear that their contributors would use that information to feed someone else, such as the competitions’ image database. And that will happen to Dreamstime, since exclusive contributors are maybe around 10% of their pool.

In a slide and phone world, that would have been quasi impossible . Requests for images did not come in the form of one or a sequence of one words. Thus photo agencies would have had a very hard time sharing that information. With websites, all this is different, obviously. But it still remains a very well guarded secret.

The real question is how is this useful ? Well, for one, it will bring a succesful microshooter valuable data on what types of keywords are entered for search. And which ones are the most entered and referred to their images. It will not, however, give a full picture. And that can be highly deceiving. It is not because I sold 100 images thanks to the keyword “butterfly” that this keyword is the most used in searches. It just probably means that I have the most relevant images of butterflies. Since it will not give all keywords, it will not help putting keywords you forgot to put in. For example, if my specialty is photographing fruits and I systematically forgot to put the keyword “fresh”, it will not show me how many sales I missed, if any.

Contributors reaction to this tool has been overwhelming positive and I command Dreamstime for making this available. It is a gutsy move to give photographers access to their sales data. It might, or will, force other microstock companies to do the same. Eventually, it might even force traditional agencies to follow and share more of their information. Their is a value for photographers to be less blind to the markets demand, while there is danger in using past sales to predict or influence future sales. It is not because a keyword has done well in the past that it will do well in the future and the risk is having more of the same image ad nausea. But this is more in a trend that is seeing more power given to photographers. And that is a good thing.

ON a completely unrelated note : Digg.com labs has released a image visual tool which allows to see, real time, what images are being voted. It has no practical usage that I can see but yet is very interesting.

Creative Common VS. Common Courtesy

This video has surfaced on some blogs recently. Besides the fact that it is a brilliant presentation done by a man who certainly has incredible talent at public speaking, one should be aware that Larry lessing is not only chairs Creative Commons but is also founder of the Center For Internet and Society. ( A strong advocate for extended Fair use laws)

Look at this 20 minutes video and continue reading below:

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/187

Impressive, isn’t ? Makes you almost want to give away all your images in order to help your kids not become criminals. Like every well founded argumentation, it mixes emotions and feelings with what seems to be high level intellectual thoughts to make a point. Very sophistic. That point being that some content should be free to use for creative remixing.

Let’s analyze a bit. Lessing uses three very well done ( and funny, because that certainly helps put your guards down) video to demonstrate his point. If you have ever spend a little time on YouTube or other equivalent site, you would immediately know these are rare exceptions and not the rule. Furthermore, while very entertaining, no one really knows the purpose of these videos. Is this art ? are they fundamental to the existence of our society ? If they had never been made, would we miss them ? Lessing makes it sound like they are and should be.
His point is that copyright owners should be more open to sharing ( that means free), in order to let our kids create whole new content, “learn to sing again”, has he puts it.
Create yes, remix, yes, share their with friends, why not ? But make it public to the world ? mmm, why ? What is the benefit for the photographer when not even a credit is mentioned?
What is the reason behind this video ? Well, simple. For more people to use Creative Commons scheme. Why ?
For one, to break and dissolve the communications between users and creator. There is absolutely no reason why someone who would like to use an image for free in a remix should not contact the owner of the image to ask for permission. It is called Common Courtesy. Creative Commons wants to replace that dialogs with their proprietary licensing model.
Why ? simple. They want to become the gateway for all licenses on the internet, including the paying ones. It is something I mentioned in a previous post. It is all about control.
Don’t take this wrong. I am all for sharing and helping creativity. I do not particularity like to give images for free but have done so and will continue as long as their is a compelling reason.
What I am against is the very wealthy and combative Creative Common and Electronic Frontier Foundation that are trying to take control of the raising mass of UGC by guiding them towards the belief that sharing is better than licensing.
With enough support from the masses, and with the help of the RIAA, they will be able to change the copyright laws with no input from professionals. It is not Getty, Corbis nor the microstock who are threatening your business these days, it these San Fransisco rich kids who are. They will be the ones who will force photographers and agencies to open up their archives for free internet sharing.I say, let’s re-introduce Common Courtesy in usage and have anyone who wish to use an image, even for free, simply ask for permission.

Under cover of the Holidays

by Paul Melcher 

ImageSource, the number 1 independent royalty free company who bravely resisted the Getty web ready price cut to $49 is going midstock with Fotolia. A few days ago, French microstock company Fotolia announce the creation of a premium value collection called “Infinite” that would be priced around $20. The announcement came, surprisingly, a few days before the industry, buyers as well as sellers, go into the holidays slump. Inside the announcement, there was a mysterious allegation that the new collection was populated with images from pro photo agencies. However, no names were given.

I had to find out. It wasn’t too hard. This is the original, priced at $119 for the smallest size:

This is the Fotolia version, priced at 16.60 Euro :

And finally, there is the Getty version, who, as you might remember, was not allowed to price it at $49.00 :

As you can see, same image, different prices. So, depending on where you shop, you can get a nice rebate. I am sure that ImageSource will have a lot of explaining to do when they come back from their vacation. This surprising move seem to indicate that even they are under the pricing pressure of m icrostock but are ashame or afraid to admit it. It also shows that the Midstock model that companies like Zymmetrical.com have followed since its inception is becoming more the norm. Getty, Corbis, and now ImageSource and Fotolia are following the trend of pricing images at budget value rather than dirt cheap. Istockphoto is also slowly raising its price and entering the dance.

I am sure that we will see more traditional royalty free entering the midstock dance, probably at first with retired image and later withe new production. Pro photographers already do, so why not the agencies? The merging of micro and traditional is not far away anymore and 2008 should see the final steps, this time in the open.

It’s rising

Micro giant Istockphoto is pulling its prices up, starting January 7th. According to the new rates, already published on the community driven website, all sizes are going up one dollar, except for the X small, which remains at the legendary $1. Microshooters are in a frenzy at the prospect of an additional .20 cents per image sold and are already making plans to increase their holiday shopping budget. Competing sites, like Dreamstime and Fotolia, cannot wait to receive the bountiful mass of angry clients that will trickle down to them as they huff and puff at the incredible cost of imagery these days.

Industry news sites and other part time bloggers/economist/experts have all pulled out their slide rulers to calculate the impact of this decision on the photo industry and the world economy. Others will just sit back in their lounge chair and while puffing on an imaginary pipe ( for health reason), say “I told you so”, while crossing their long legs. Some will scout Youtube in the desperate hope that they can hotlink to a video of a singing Bruce Livingstone in pajamas, while industry veterans will write long, painful letters about the good old days of when microstock was really cheap and affordable.

Corbis will pay thousands of specialized analysts to study Istockphoto’s move and millions of work hours will be spend in crowded meeting room figuring out what should be their next move. Some say they plan to move the whole company into a virtual photo agency and move all operations into Second Life, “a first in the industry”, said Gary Shenk’s avatar, adding, “pricing will soon be a thing of the past” before transforming himself into a butterfly.

Alan Meckler, Jupiter’s CEO, will first argue that it was his idea and that Getty stole his idea. He will then purchase another website which has nothing to do with photography and finish his day buying some of his own stock, grumbling that if no one wants them, he will purchase them all.

A21 ( no longer a group for lack of members) will post yet another loss of a few hundred million of dollars and someone we never heard of will say something that will be ignored by everyone. A month later, a press release will be issued explaining that this person has resigned and the stock will drop another 150% to $0.000000002. Again, no one will pay much attention.

The tech/software/portal companies will plan a special celebration in honor of their members and throw yet another expensive party where everyone will be drunk and celebrate the fact that they have nothing much to celebrate. But at least they have each other. and a free T-shirt. If they are lucky.

Photo organizations that speak on behalf of their members will issue a triumphant press release saying that thanks to their increased effort, Getty was forced to raise the price of their microstock offering and that the battle continues. As usual, everyone will smile politely, not sure what that “battle” might be.

Finally, I will check out the weather forecast for today, read the news and enjoy a relaxing week end.

Companies to watch in 2008

Photo Agencies (distributors) :

Getty Images: The already succesful company is under the gun to prove to investors it can continue to deliver on its historical growth. With not much left to acquire that would trigger a 30 % growth, it is left to its own demise to add fuel to its engine. Already on the path to explore other revenue stream, like music and video, it is about to launch itself into the B2C eldorado and try to reap benefits from ever promised land. All eyes are watching the giant at its second attempt to cash in on unknown territories. Also on the near horizon, an accelerated effort to be as strong on international market than it is in the USA. The last quarterly report showed that Getty doesn’t not even make 5% of its revenue in Germany which is, after all, one of the biggest market in photography. Does Getty have the right people in place to make this happen ?

Corbis: The overweight rich kid of the industry is trying to shed some fat. With one of the best content in world, will it be capable of showing, finally, a profit? Will it stop playing games with papa Gates money and enter adulthood? We heard the promises, now let see it happen.

stockthatdoesntsuck: Will high end stock photography survive? Their content is amazing, their intention pure. Will the market support them? 2008 will certainly let us know.

SplashNews: With one of the smartest management in this industry who has the keen ability to ignore risks, Splashnews goes for the jugular. They just concentrate their fire to those images that sell very well, and that is it. Combine with a true understanding of how to leverage technology, it is one of the most succesful photo agencies around. Let’s not be surprised if Getty or Corbis are knocking at their door.

Zymmetrical: launched in 2006, this mid stock has everything to please creative professionals. With not only photography, but also fonts, video and graphic, it is the one sop shop for budget conscious creative professional. It also allows pros to compete with amateur on the same platform without giving up on pricing. At the end, only the best image wins.

Tech Companies:

Idee Inc : Still the one to watch on the image tracking field and more. Extremely succesful and innovative , it is the kind of company that will keep on surprising the industry over and over. The Toronto base company has its ears to the ground and its eyes fixed on the horizon. We should see and hear a lot from them in 2008, or even sooner.

Mochilla, Britepic, Picsout and others: This will be the year of the user generated revenue. Following in the footsteps of Corbis and soon Getty, other photo agencies will offer free ad supported images to 60 million bloggers worldwide. A few unknowns remain: What will be the photographers cut ?, will people click on the ads ?, will it be a revenue generator or gobbler ? Will it prevent agencies to continue doing adequate business with professional website ? Finally, will it continue to devaluate the value of images overall ? Hang on to your seats, photography is going for a wild spin.

Brightqube: Came out of the gate with a huge, and well deserved WOW effect. But, once passed the cool interface, it is just another royalty free platform. What’s next ? Knowing the team behind it, be ready to be wowed some more.

Picturemaxx and others: Portals where everyone dump their images into one central server is so 1990’s. The next generation of agency will be using virtual portals. Image database networked to each other will deliver the ultimate user experience to image buyers. One location to search any or all photo agencies worldwide is the ultimate image buying tool. For agencies, especially the small and medium, being part of a global offering makes more sense. Ultimately, it will change the way this industry works over the web. Sub agents and distributors, beware.

The Outsiders : Like istockphoto, Idee, Mochilla, the photo industry is being re invented by people outside of this industry. A lot of companies are currently in alpha mode and ready to revolutionized the way we do business. The success of Flickr has brought a lot of attention to our industry and brilliant minds are looking to cash in. New ways to license, to search, to retrieve. there is a lot of very interesting project in the works. Some will stick, some will not. a few areas of development are:

– Image licensing : pay per view

– Search : Semantic search ( French company new phoenix are already years ahead)

– Auto keywording : image recognition applied to tagging

– Auto editing : Data mining applied to cognitive results.

– Automated translation: Become local without any additional work. Years of development about to break open.

– Intelligent images : images will tell you where they have been, who has seen them, for how long.

and much,much more..

Media companies:

MediaStorm: The ones to follow. Set extremely high standards to how our images will be seen by our children. Offers a 3d emotional quality to still photography. Brilliantly succeeds in adding video, sound, text and stills into intensely rewarding experiences. Question is, will Mediastorm become a media company by itself or just license its content ?

Msnbc.Com : At the forefront of what can be done with still photography and the web, Msnbc.com keeps on re inventing itself, making it one of the most desirable destination for web surfers. They have never stood still, never took their success for granted. Furthermore, they pay a decent price for photography. We like that.

The New York Times : As respectful to photography on its web pages as they are on the print edition. The quality and placement of photography keeps on rising as they have realized how important it is. With newspaper like this, photojournalism will never die.

Yahoo/Flickr/Google: Will they or will they not? The whole industry is buzzing with the prospect of these mega players entering the photo licensing business and squashing everyone in their path. Flickr had announce earlier this year that 2007 will be the “licensing” year. It did not materialized. Will 2008 be the year where the flood gates open ?

( Partial) Conclusion: by no means exhaustive, this list is a good indication of the companies that will start or continue to amaze us in 2008 . Feel free to add. I know I will…

Deconstructing Gary

Like most of you, I assume, I watch the video of Gary Shenk , CEO of Corbis, at the Reuters Media Conference. Like most of you , I read comments about it almost everywhere, as it is one of the rare exquisite time when the privately-own company makes public comment on itself.

Here is what I heard and understood. Please correct me if I am wrong.

– Corbis launches free photo to use by bloggers. Using the Piccap application, still in private Beta and being tested with Getty Images as we saw on this blog earlier, I am surprise at the announcement. When you launch a product, usually, it is ready. Or available. This one is for exclusive members only. Furthermore, if you are an industry watcher, you would have already probably noticed that this is nothing new: Mochila has been providing this service for a while now, with images from Getty, AP, Zuma among many photo agencies. The difference here is that Corbis is on its own independent route. Very well.

But with revenues from advertising fees being split three way, what will the photographer see ? 30% of $0.01? Ouch ! Where are those SAA storm troopers when you need them ? Really, the only images Corbis could put up is some RF, including Snapvillage. How so very exciting for bloggers looking for the latest Paris Hilton? Red Carpet photographers beware !! After In Touch, here comes Corbis. Its the low pricing x huge volume theory again: The agency wins, not the photographer.

– Avatars of the world, Beware: Yes, Gary Shenk is very proud of his little gallery on Second Life.”the first in the industry” he says with a smile of a proud parent. We are all thrilled !!! What can I say more on that subject?

– The verge of profitability: Ya, ya, we know. We are still waiting. But here is the real killer part : “Shenk said the company was already profitable before accounting for nonrecurring costs, including some severance expenses and investments in its technology infrastructure. ” So, if you take out the cost of acquiring Veer, the cost of creating Snapvillage, the cost of the 300 people they had to fire ( imagine, not only they were useless when they worked there, but they even bring the company down when they are leaving. How unprofessional of them), and other “nonrecurring cost”, Corbis is making money. Hey, if I take off my nonrecurring costs, like buying my house, or paying for college inscription, or buying a car and more, I am a freakin’ billionaire !!! Nonrecurring costs are an integral part of doing business, not an option.

-” we are number one in editorial” : Where ? On what planet? I look at magazines here and international. I hardly see the Corbis credit. I would love to see the hard numbers to justify such a statement.

I think we would love to see some more down to heart reporting one of these days. If Corbis wasn’t own by Bill Gates, no own would ever accept such fantasy updates from any company. There is such an acceptance, in this industry, of Corbis spin message that no one, but me it seems, reacts. And what is this with Corbis being number 2 agency in the world ? Corbis is not profitable. That puts them in the bottom 10. Any agency can be number one if profit is not an issue.

JupiterImages is number two, and by far. It turns in a healthy profit.