iStockphotozation And Flickrzation: User Generated Content In Terms Of Image Numbers And Image Quality

The last official number I received from Flickr said back in July this year that Flickr showcases "just under 200m photos from over 4m registered members".

Thomas Hawk recently "met Julie Blaustein and Kurt Collins from Photobucket ... and they told me ... that Photobucket had over 2.5 billion (with a "B") images online back then. I'm sure that they have a lot more now. Compare and contrast that with less than 500 million [actually it´s 397 million] for Webshots and less than 300 million for Flickr and the number is that much more impressive".

In a related matter, a reader noted maliciously in July regarding Flickr that "I think the problem with iStockphoto will be ultimately maintaining a high enough caliber of image for a certain segment of the market. Do a search for "moon" on Getty, Flickr (sorted by interestingness) and iStockphoto. The top images on Flickr are better than those on iStockphoto".

For the keyword "moon", Flickr returns 237,409 hits, Getty Images 3,997 (Creative) and 420 (Editorial, refined search) images, iStockphoto "only" 3602 hits, Photobucket 2125 pages with 20 images on each page (170,000 images), and Webshots 290,213 hits.

Look at the best "moon" images found on Webshots, Photobucket, Flickr, but also on iStockphoto, carefully and ask yourself why you should pay $$$ or $$$$ for "moon" images from Getty Images´ Creative section any longer.

A smart executive in the micropayment stock photo business explained yesterday that Getty is undergoing an "iStockphotozation" (not only because of the recently announced new creative workflow model "Open"), one may add that probably later the "Flickrzation" concept follows.

Related:

• Jonathan Klein: "We´re Interested In The User Generated Photography From A Consumer Perspective" (Oct. 26, 2006)
• Snippets From Getty`s Conference Call: More On The New Creative Workflow Model Called "Open", Photographers Contracted To Individual Brands, and Wholly-Owned Imagery (Oct. 25, 2006)
• Making Money For The Flickr Flock?: "Flickr photos would find a different niche on the marketplace, but still a viable one, Stewart Butterfield added. And then it begins to make sense" (Internetnews.com, Aug. 09, 2009)
• "We believe micropayment sales could potentially cannibalize Getty's royalty-free sales," PiperJaffray´s analyst Aaron Kessler wrote (July 06, 2006)
• “If someone’s going to cannibalize your business, better it be one of your other businesses,” says Getty CEO Jonathan Klein (May 25, 2006)

Comments

[Marek]

Just made the recommended comparison of moon pictures.

To be honest I would try everything to get the budget for a good old right managed picture from Getty before choosing one of the other sources. All of them seem to have very few gems but a horrible amount of noise. Most of the material is quite cheesy and derivative. Reminds me of a regional photo contest for amateurs but nothing I would choose for promoting my company or my products.

Just hope that stuff like that will not define the future of our visual culture.