Posts Tagged ‘Asset Logistics’
Affordable Editorial Images for Blogging?
I welcomed the move by Getty Images who have launched a new service for Web & Mobile images Sized, Priced and ready for digital use.
I have been researching the lack of affordable web sized editorial images for blogging, and looking at many blogs I find that most could be enhanced by a stock image or two, but the key problems as I see them are the lack of affordable editorial images at microstock ‘pay-as-you-go’ prices, and an easy method of search and delivery, and I personally think that editorial web image use has been much overlooked, with the focus being to over saturate the market with trendy commercial images.
Now that the ‘new commercial markets’ have dried up and growth by acquisition is getting to be less of an option for the bigger websites, how to maintain any business growth, I think that the target will become the editorial side of the industry.
Historically the thinking about the editorial use of images is around magazines and newspapers, along came microstock which targeted the commercial side of the business advertising and advertorial, with Istock becoming know as the art directors and designers ‘dirty little secret’, with the low cost images and aggressive marketing this opened up many new markets, like the small business users, personal websites, students and consultants that needed an image for a presentation.
Image by: Flickr/ahxcjb
I Thought I would try 3DStudio for my stock Images
I don’t normally try out new image libraries as many are just a waste of time, they may have high hopes, nice easy uploading, great commission rates but they do not have an existing customer base, it is ok being Photographer friendly and ‘talking the talk’, but there needs to be either a unique selling point or the website needs to have an added value to ‘walk the walk’.
A new start-up announced their move into the stock images world in the Micro Stock Group forums, no new start-up gets an easy ride and they were looked at and many searching questions asked, the response was as usual initially quite defensive, but they turned things around, listened to the feedback contacted a few forum members privately to discuss some points of concern, and they made a few changes based on the feedback and left us with a feeling that they were willing to communicate both ways.
After a few days I had another look at them and decided to try them out, the driver for me was they already had customers for their other products, so I joined 3dStudio as a contributor and here is my Affiliate Link, I would not expect anyone to join on my say so, but here is a summary of my experience with them to help you make an informed decision.
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.
Fair Trade Chickens and Eggs
I used the word ‘Fair’ in a reply to a blog post on the Microstock Diaries Blog , I was commenting that Stock Sites could return a higher percentage if artists paid a penalty for rejected assets.
A reply to my comment had the following text, “Also, this is just my view, but I think you weaken your argument any time you use the word “fair”. It’s a capitalist market so the forces of supply and demand are what determine reward.”
