StockPhotoTalk | Special Interest Blog

QuickLinks For 2006-03-31

• Cox Newspapers Says No to AP Video:
  Since launching MediaShift in January, the one post I’ve written that has received the most vehement response so far was about the Associated Press’ new online video service requiring Internet Explorer and Windows. [..]
  Now comes word that it’s not just the MediaShift community of readers that is upset with the AP video network’s requirements. Will Sullivan, interactive projects editor at the Palm Beach Post’s website , writes in his Journerdism blog that his employer, Cox Newspapers, decided to remove the AP video player from all its newspaper sites.
  Mediashift.
  Tags: Associated Press Video Cox Newspapers

QuickLinks For 2006-03-30

• VNU Finance Chief Defends Takeover Bid:
  VNU's finance chief defended management's decision to recommend a $9 billion bid from a group of private-equity funds.
  WSJ.
  Tag: VNU

More Cash For New Acquisitions: JupiterMedia Sells JupiterResearch

Alan Meckler noted earlier in an interview with "Australia's i-Technology News and Information Source" SYS-CON in mid-January 2006 that back in October 2003 he "could not believe the profit margins [in the stock photo industry] - I was hooked and saw several openings that Getty and Corbis had missed. We are now executing on those openings."

QuickLinks For 2006-03-29

• Cheap beer and the Blueeyes Magazine´s relaunch party at Redux Pictures:
  Blueeyes Magazine is finally back! -- and is publishing its first new issue of the year (Issue 11) in 2 short weeks. To celebrate, we are throwing a party at Redux Pictures for all of our friends and fans on April 5 from 6:30-9 p.m. Good photography, good people, good cheap bear -- would love to see you all there.
  Lightstalkers.
  Tags: Blueeyes Magazine; Redux Pictures

American PHOTO Introduces New Website Shortly, Enters Podcasting

Advertising customers, where are you?

It´s no secret that traditional media companies and magazines like American PHOTO, PDN and VISUELL have to rethink again and need to reevaluate their websites, given the fact that some blogs and some new websites listed here do obviously attract more readers and generate more traffic than the websites of the old giants and dwarfs, consequently have higher Alexa rankings and thus are likely to attract more online advertising customers in their later lives.

But while the real money still comes in with sold ads for the printed issues of American PHOTO, PDN and VISUELL, there is a new dilemma. If the print runs are declining and if some customers might want not to take out an ad any longer in these printed issues, the additional dilemma is simply how to balance the content published in one of these three magazines and the content published on the websites of American PHOTO, PDN, VISUELL or similar magazines.

QuickLinks For 2006-03-28

• Mind and Mood Set Us Apart:
  Leslie Hughes, long time top executive in the Stock Photography industry, describes how photo production needs to incorporate mindset, mood and emotionalism in today’s market. It’s all about the message.
  Index Stock company blog.
  Tags: stock photography industry

QuickLinks For 2006-03-26

• The rumour mill doesn´t sleep on weekends.
  Update on the "Getty Images Acquires Stockbyte" rumours reported here earlier in the QuickLinks sections, after Jim Pickerell had been the first one to mention (requires registration) these (unsolicited?) rumours:
  Rumours have it that both companies have already reached a final agreement on the terms of the deal and that the acquisition price is at least m$168. Sources indicate also that the deal will be announced until April 7th.

QuickLinks For 2006-03-24

• David Guttenfelder, Josh Metzler, Named Best Of 2006 Photojournalism Photojournalists Of The Year.
  NPPA.
  Tags: NPPA; Best Of Photojournalism; BOP

• NPPA: BOP 2006, Photoblog Award Winners: The winners of the first ever Amateur Photoblogs Awards Category have been posted at the National Press Photographers Association's Best of Photojournalism 2006 Awards in the Web Site division.
  blog.photoblogs.org.
  Tag: Amateur Photoblogs Awards; NPPA

Interview With Digital Railroad´s CEO Evan Nisselson

I discovered Digital Railroad back in early summer 2004 und was impressed by the concept and the philosophy behind the company, the product and the services offered, as described here from my point of view in my blog post of August 2004.

Now it´s 2006 and definitely time for an update.

(Photos: Ron Haviv/VII Photo; click on photos to enlarge)

Andy: Evan, shortly before we met last time, I wrote about the snowball effect of the Digital Railroad philosophy. At that time, Digital Railroad showcased about 160 photographers and 8 photo agencies in the archive directory. Currently, Digital Railroad has about 300 photographers and 16 photo agencies.
Did the snowball effect really take off? How many photographers and photo agencies are signing up for your services at an average per month? How many photographers and photo agencies do you expect to have by the end of 2006?

Evan: The snowball effect that you so accurately wrote about is definitely progressing in terms of our number of subscribers; however, another key metric that is actually more important, in my mind, is our number of High-Quality photographers and agencies.

QuickLinks For 2006-03-22

• "Essentially, we're predicting tomorrow's visual aesthetic," says CEO Jonathan Klein. [...]
  Recently, Getty and Klein have moved aggressively into breaking-news photography, teaming up with Agence France-Presse and a growing roster of staff photographers. That helped them win a 2005 nod from American PHOTO magazine as the number-one "Most Important People in Photography" (edging out even Annie Leibovitz). [...]

Middleware Technologies: Corbis´ Imagery Now Available Through Picturemaxx´s APIS Network

Local news, global news. Munich-based software and photo portal providing company Picturemaxx, indirectly also a subsidiary of the mighty German Press Agency, disclosed today that a big part of the imagery of Corbis is now availabe through Picturemaxx´s APIS network, including images of ZEFA.

The APIS network is Germany´s biggest specialized B2B network for selling and buying images. Picturemaxx also runs a web-based photo portal, Picturemaxx.net.

Technically, Picturemaxx´s middleware technology product opengate is responsible for the connection to Corbis.

Alexa Rankings, Part III: StockPhotographer.info Outstrips PDN Online, About The Image Outflanks The Stock Asylum

After

• "Alexa Traffic Rankings In The Stock Photo Industry: The Fun Continues" (Feb. 06, 2006)
• "Google PageRank and Alexa Traffic Rank: Numbers And Figures" (Dec. 20, 2005)

this is Part III of looking closer at Alexa. Hints:

• Take into account Alexa`s "Important Disclaimers", especially the section about foreign domain names (co.uk, co.jp, de., etc.) and the measurement procedures at all.
• "Alexa results are based on a small statistical sample. They are very good for sites under 10,000, and still pretty good for sites under 100,000. Above that, they aren't that significant." (QT Luong here).

QuickLinks For 2006-03-20

• Last year, shortly before the CEPIC 2005 I guess, Jerry Kennelly of Stockbyte conducted an interview with Jonathan Klein of Getty Images (Interview here as pdf-file).
  Now we know possibly why.

QuickLinks For 2006-03-17

• Corbis, and the same Gates-owned company under a couple of previous names, has not managed to make it to profitability in over a decade. The company has been a revolving door for personnel and approaches to doing business. On the executive level, there has been one shakeup and revolution after another. The guy has a pile of money, which is good because no other investors would have hung with the company for so long.
  Carl May here (Stockphoto.net email discussion group. Topic: "Bill Gates Pictures Corbis' Future").
  Tags: Corbis; Bill Gates; What happens to the spirit of a company if the founder is not present in his company during normal business hours

JupiterImages Snaps Up RF Music Provider Crank City Music

It´s again about the concept of wholly-owned content and royalty-free. This time not images, but the kind of music that is called buyout-music*.

During the last JupiterMedia Conference Call on March 10, 2006, Alan Meckler mentioned shortly the possibility of new movements into the field of royalty free music.

Today, six days later, Jupiter announces that it has acquired Ohio-based Crank City Music. The company offers RF music CD´s and RF MP3 downloads (together a wholly-owned music library of about 1,300 royalty-free music tracks, produced by professional studio musicians) and positions itself as the "alternative to traditional production music."

QuickLinks For 2006-03-16

• MediaStorm, founded by Brian Storm (Ex-VP of News, Multimedia & Assignment Services for Corbis), Robert Browman (Ex-Senior Editor for News, News Assignment Representative and Multimedia Producer for Corbis) and Joe Santa (Ex-Multimedia Design Director for Corbis), continues to feature projects by renowned journalists, filmmakers and artists.
  New stories are: It Ain't Television... It's Brian Surgery (Ray Farkas) and Chernobyl Legacy (Magnum´s Paul Fusco).
  Related: MediaStorm Launches Special Online Publication (Nov. 17, 2005)
  Tag: MediaStorm

• My old pal Sven Kroencke joins Veer as new Senior International Channel Manager. Congrats!
  Details here.
  Tag: Veer

Podcast Of Bill Gates´ Introduction Speech During The 2006 Corbis Annual Meeting

After all the quotations of the different news sources here earlier:

• BusinessWeek: Interview With Bill Gates And Steve Davis Of Corbis; Analyst Expects $2 Billion Market To Grow In The Mid-Teens Percent In 2006
• Just One Question, Corbis
• News From The 2006 Corbis Annual Meeting: Corbis Acquires Beateworks, 100% Growth In Mobile Image Sales, No IPO Game In The Next Two Or Three Years

... here´s a podcast of the speech of the founder of Corbis, Bill Gates, given at the earlier mentioned 2006 Corbis Annual Meeting.

PDN stated that it´s a six-minute speech. But see for yourself. [Update: Daryl Lang/PDN writes now in a recent comment that is has been a 11-minute talk. No big thing.]

Click here to listen to the podcast (MP3 file, about 10.7 MB).

Tags: Bill Gates and Corbis podcasting in the Stock Photography Industry.

© Photo: Bill Gates, Microsoft chairman and CEO, listens during the Corbis annual meeting in New York, Tuesday March 14, 2006. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews).
Podcast courtesy of the Stock Asylum.

BusinessWeek: Interview With Bill Gates And Steve Davis Of Corbis; Analyst Expects $2 Billion Market To Grow In The Mid-Teens Percent In 2006

The BusinessWeek runs a long article today about Corbis (Content is King at Corbis) and an interview with Bill Gates and Steve Davis in this matter (Bill Gates Pictures Corbis' Future):

Gates noted in the interview:

Question: The explosion of digital photography, combined with the Internet, makes it possible for millions of people to share photos and videos via Web sites like Flickr and BitTorrent. Is there a role for Corbis in this citizen-creator phenomenon?

Gates: Most of what we get is done by professional photographers. We do have partners who are in the spot-news business, who create the stuff people need right away. We're good at archiving and organizing it, so we take that material and make it available. You could have some amateur work come in through the spot-news channel. It will be like it is with e-zines and bloggers. In photography, you'll have the whole array of stuff that's just up there free, and then increasing levels of quality. The whole spectrum is being figured out.

QuickLinks For 2006-03-15

• New Lightroom podcasts now available: Adobe photography evangelist George Jardine has posted a pair of new podcasts covering Adobe Lightroom.
  John Nack/Adobe.
  Tags: Adobe; Lightroom

• Nanotv which offers video news bulletins by mobile phone twice a day over Swisscom's network, is requesting citizen video submissions, shot with digital cameras or cameraphones.
  Picturephoning here.
  Tag: nanotv

Just One Question, Corbis

I didn´t make it to the 2006 Annual Meeting of Corbis today in New York.
If I would have, among others, my main question would have been:

Like it or not, the big micropayment sites are running pretty well and they are earning money, generating revenues.

Any given company has mainly three possible ways to react to new ideas:

• deny them

• complain about them

• stay ahead of the development

News From The 2006 Corbis Annual Meeting: Corbis Acquires Beateworks, 100% Growth In Mobile Image Sales, No IPO Game In The Next "Two Or Three Years"

• Corbis snaps up interior image and home collection Beateworks, including InsideOutPix and Beateworks@Home. Financial details of the deal between the two companies were not released.

  The company also said it plans to boost its b-to-b marketing efforts this year. Gates, who spoke at the meeting, traced Corbis’ history back to its beginnings in 1989, when he envisioned people using licensed images in their homes. “The original thinking was people at home with a gallery of images,” he said.

  He said that vision was not realized at the time, as the company grew more and more into a b-to-b marketer of images to advertisers and publishers, but that things have come full circle because of the mobile marketplace.

QuickLinks For 2006-03-14

• Size does matter: the Fotolia Standard Royalty Free License will receive a major overhaul. The file size will dictate the price of the image license. This new system will not change or affect the extended royalty free license or exclusive buyout license.
  The Fotolia Blog.
  Related:
  
  • Recent Changes At Micropayment Sites In A Nutshell (Jan. 10, 2006)
  • Interview With Fotolia´s CEO Thibaud Elziere: "Microstock Sites Can Capture Up To 30% Of The Existing Market" (Nov. 28, 2005)
  Tag: Fotolia

• One of the sources of natural history imagery to both editorial and creative markets, wildlife library NHPA, was acquired by Photoshot.
  StockIndexOnline here.
  Tags: NHPA; Photoshot

QuickLinks For 2006-03-13

• OnRequest Images introduces the web-based service OnRequest Image Manager, an image asset management solution that enables corporations "to build and manage custom photography libraries to enhance their brand equity, centralize the management of visual assets, and mitigate the risk of license infringement."
  OnRequest´s Image Manager -- the company states that it´s patent-pending -- is available as part of an integrated OnRequest Images Custom Library solution. Features of the Image Manager:
  -Consistent brand application
  -Automatic license tracking
  -Intuitive, visual navigation interface
  -Robust keyword and metadata capabilities
  More details here.
  Tags: OnRequest Images; Image Manager

• The BBC Motion Gallery introduces Infax, a text-based search site: for the first time customers can now research the entire BBC archive at the time and place of their choosing. Details here.
  Tags: BBC; BBC Motion Gallery

QuickLinks For 2006-03-11

• Bahar Gidwani of Index Stock in a recent interview:
  Of the 1,000,000 images in our library, only 10 per cent have ever been used, commercially. Even after 15 years of study, I cannot predict whether or not a particular new image will or will not be licensed. Our customers sometimes use things I think are banal and boring. At other times, they pick images that are way past the edge. Which will happen is not random, but the pattern is so subtle I could probably study it another 15 years, and still not decode it. [...]
  We actually feel our artists are more important to our long-term success than our customers.
  Note the different numbers of images (Editor Lindsay Pereira mentions in the introduction "more than 800,000 images online" vs. the above "1,000,000 images")
  'The outsource sector will continue to flourish'/Rediff.com.
  Tags: Index Stock; Bahar Gidwani

• Corbis was overwhelmed with emotion yesterday learning through the "leading magazine for the picture business", VISUELL (the online version), that its 2004 revenues were m$ 140: "revenues went through the roof, climbing from m$140 in 2004 to m$ 228" (translated from Kraut).
  In fact, those are the revenues for 2003, the 2004 revenues were around m$ 170.
  Related: VISUELL Releases New Media Data
  Tags: Corbis; VISUELL

News From The JupiterMedia Conference Call

JupiterMedia, the parent company of JupiterImages, released yesterday the results for the Q4/2005 and the full year 2005 (more in: "JupiterMedia: 2005 Revenues Grew 101% To M$124.6").

Here are some additional highlights from JupiterMedia´s conference call today, when Meckler responded to questions of analysts together with COO Christopher Cardell and CFO Christopher Baudouin.