The Acquisiton Game Continues: ShutterStock Buys PhotoSights

Another year, another acquisition, and this time it´s not JupiterImages buying the next company. Instead the micropayment sites are entering the acquisition game. Or, as Thibaud Elziere of Fotolia has put it so eloquently here ("Interview With Fotolia´s CEO Thibaud Elziere: "Microstock Sites Can Capture Up To 30% Of The Existing Market") a few weeks ago: "Only one or two big micro stock sites will survive, I hope we will be one of them."

So ShutterStock, offering the meanwhile well-known "highly successful subscription model" with its 508,633 royalty-free stock photos and 19,637 photographers (and 7,650 new stock photos added this week) has acquired PhotoSights.

And while I´m lazy these days and tired of rewriting press releases, read more details, as always, here at the Stock Photo Industry Press Release Cemetery: "The deal is particularly newsworthy given how unusual it is for a company of ShutterStock's size to acquire the assets of a competitor."

The website of PhotoSights has been updated accordingly, and there are new rules for previous contributors to PhotoSights: "Photosight.com's photographers are encouraged to resubmit their photos to ShutterStock immediately to expedite the approval process and begin earning money from ShutterStock customer downloads. Photographers who had 2,500 images or more on the now defunct site are eligible for a "fast track" acclimation to facilitate their transition to ShutterStock."

Related:

• The Future Of Stock Photography And Imagery Trends For The Future
• "Free High Quality Stock Photography"
• ""Free" Stock Photography and Royalty "Free" Stock Photography Sites without Breaking the Bank"
• "istockphoto.com: "Bringing the price down to a level where everybody can afford to buy a stock photo""
• Stockxpert: Run, Forrest, run!
• What A Dollar Can Buy In Stock Photography; PDN

Technorati Tags: Shutterstock; PhotoSights; micropayment stock photography

Comments

[Paul Sutcliff]

Actually I heard on the grapevine that TotallyPhotos was putting out feelers for possible mergers / takeovers. Being a fan of diversity I really don't think this is a good thing.
Perhaps it's all cyclical - first there were all the pro agencies who were then gobbled up by the Corbis / Gettys of the world. Then the microstock agencies popped up - and now they are being taken over too.

Please save our diversity!

[lpkb (shutterstock user)]

I'm not sure what to think of all the mergers...diversity is good, but I only have so much time and can't submit my pics to so many sites.