Archive for the ‘Concept’ Category
The transition of microstock
I spend time looking at forum posts, reading blogs, and talking to other digital artists, I am trying to analyse the current market and look at possible scenario’s for the future direction of the microstock industry, and I can see some patterns emerging that will influence how microstock develops, the comments below are just my thoughts.
Microstock is young in the business world, at about ten years old it is just like a child that has had a growth spurt and now it is time to mature, the body of the microstock child has been bombarded during this growth with all sorts of rubbish and other changes, the parents of this child can see it has reached a point now where it is obese and it needs to detoxify, lose the fat and work harder to become much leaner.
PAWS for thought new model ideas
I have been looking at different ideas for a new digital asset delivery system, a model where the artist has more control and a bigger share of the revenue, and the assets are delivered direct to the customers browser, these are just my ideas and I would not be in a position to launch such a service so this is just a discussion point.
The key to any new model is putting the infrastructure in place, and that place for many of the recent businesses is in cloud technology and this is firmly the domain of Amazon Web Services, the biggest showstopper at the moment being Amazons FPS Flexible Payments System, this service will only work with a US bank account, until they change this it complicates the payment process, I have been in contact and they say they are looking at expanding this service to other countries.
If I had to start up a new microstock website
This was the title of a topic here on the MicroStockGroup, and there are many good points raised from the Photographers, but the general consensus is along the lines of a microstock boutique agency, with exclusive content both RF and RM, much along the lines of the Istock Vetta collection, invited contributors and selected content.
This is an option that many other microstock site might already be looking to follow, I thought hard about what would be my target market ,and I still really think that the largest most under serviced asset users, are still bloggers and content providers, and the small sizes are still the future of this industry, the niche collections are the cream and do have a place but are an already limited revenue stream.
How is this asset delivery model different?
Is this asset delivery model not already out there?
There are already products and services out there for asset delivery so how is this one different you might ask, lets look at one product and one service that are in use already, these are both good to use and can save lots of time.
Digital Artists new Logistics Model
Digital Artists
Digital artists upload their assets to many sites, spending lots of hours preparing and uploading, often different sites requiring different formats, attributes and keyword data, then digital artists receive different amounts of revenue per download per agency, artist with sales are paying for all the free space given away by agents to other digital artists, I think it is time for a new logistics model, one where the artist keeps controls their assets, the goal is to look at a better model for artists.
