StockPhotoTalk | Special Interest Blog

Fotolia raises between $50 million and $100 million Venture Capital from TA Associates

Some competitors of Fotolia have taken pride in the past months to spread the rumor that Fotolia was already or was about to be sold at that time.

TechCrunch/Erick Schonfeld, in another new article on Fotolia - and no further comment from me - emphasizes that "Fotolia Takes A Massive $50 Million To $100 Million Round" from TA Assiociates, but mentions also "there are some rumors going around in venture circles that Fotolia got sold outright for $150 million. Our source, however, emphasizes that the company was not sold. Instead, after competitive bidding from more traditional venture firms, TA Associates came in with a massive injection of capital."

Now you take your calculator and assess:

1. The underlying company evaluation, and
2. The underlying estimation of the microstock image market size.

 

iStockphoto Partner Program

Kelly Thompson has a longer update on the iStock/JIU/Photos.com issue (compiled):

• That's what we're calling it: the Partner Program. This is the program through which we give you, the iStock contributor, opportunities to make your content available through other sites in the larger Getty Images family. The first two such sites are going to be Photos.com and Jupiter Images Unlimited. Will there be others in the future? For sure. [...]
• 3. Photos.com and JIU will pay a flat royalty per download: 25¢ for non-exclusives, and 30¢ – 38¢ for exclusives, according to canister level.
• 4. Photos.com – Powered by iStockphoto. We will become the driving force behind Photos.com, improving the quality of the collection with the strength of the iStock brand. [...]

PhotoXpress by Fotolia offers 350,000 free images

Lor’s ambitions are to have close to a million photos available free of charge and PhotoXpress will remain independent from sister site Fotolia, however the two are intricately connected. PhotoXpress members will be able to license up to 10 images daily, free of cost.

Professional ad agencies and firms who might need more than 10 images a day will be sent to Fotolia. In this sense, PhotoXpress is a lead generator for Fotolia. But more than that, it is a way for professional photographers to expose some of their work for free to a larger Web audience, while inculcating a respect for copyrights among Web consumers. It is an attempt to bridge the two worlds, and Fotolia wanted to do this before its competitors did.

Lor says the biggest challenge is convincing the photography world to give away stock photography for free. PhotoXpress is still working out if the site will make any revenue - the obvious revenue stream is third-party advertising on the site, but Lor couldn't confirm or deny that there will be ads on the site. PhotoXpress's main competitor is Hungarian site Stock.xchange.

Sources: TechCrunch/Leena Rao (above/compiled) and Fotolia.

A sudden surprise before our CEPIC session on free images. -Check the license agreement (e.g. "limited to a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels in website uses") and check with your wife before using some partly strange stuff over there (1; 2; 3 and 4; initial keyword: beach).

Related:

• Patrick Lor, Co-founder of iStockphoto, joins Fotolia (May 06, 2009)

 

Alamy's financial statement for Q1 2009

Quarterly Alamy sales figures for Q2/2008 until Q1/2009 below. All details over there. Alamy notes that "the decline in average price has been exaggerated in this report by the weakening of the UK pound (GBP) against the US dollar between Q2 2008 and Q1 2009".

Deutsche Telekom to launch Microstock Community with Stock Agency Zoonar

Hamburg-based mid-/microstock agency Zoonar has sent out emails to photographers stating that Zoonar is supporting the Deutsche Telekom/German Telecom regarding the launch of a new image portal run by Deutsche Telekom, including a microstock agency, a photo community and an online magazine for photography ("Augenblicke").

The new image portal will apparently launch by the end of May and pay photographers a 35% commission.

Related:

• Deutsche Telekom To Launch New Microstock Community (Apr. 19, 2009)

QuickLinks For 2009-05-10

• Freelens Petition:
  Many Magnum photographers have signed the petition against the Jahreszeiten publishing house and its contract conditions, meanwhile overall more than 2,800 photographers, photojournalists and other professionals.
  Check it out here.

QuickLinks For 2009-05-08

• Pump [Audio] Artists Getting Pumped:
  Pump doesn't have a forum so this seems to be the only venue for discussion.
  I received a letter today notifying me that Getty would now be taking 65% of the licensing rights for Pump Artists. I realize that Getty does do a lot of work, but the actual independent creator of the stuff they sell getting only 35% is f#!king ridiculous.
  If they were paying for my studio time or equipment that would be different. It seem they are again taking advantage of the quantity of artists that are desperate to make a buck.
  Thread in the iStockaudio forum.
  In and since 2007 the split was 50/50. - Jo Ann has more details over there.

QuickLinks For 2009-05-07

• iStockphoto Subscription Update by Kelly Thompson:
  We hear you and understand you aren't happy with the royalty percentage. We'll see what we can do, but don't expect miracles. [...]
  Subscription on iStock is not good enough. Photos.com is our best opportunity at creating a competitive subscription site, and you should want to be involved. [...]
  All that being said, it's probably going to be next week before we get back to you. Given the reception, the most likely outcome will be for us to look for alternative sources of images for Photos.com/JIU.
  Over 400 replies currently on over 20 pages.
  A comment* by RapidEye:

Patrick Lor, Co-founder of iStockphoto, joins Fotolia

Patrick Lor, co-founder of iStockphoto, a Getty owned-online marketplace for microstock photography and video, has joined rival Fotolia as the President of Fotolia North America.
According to Lor, his non-compete contract expired with Getty recently, which left him available to get back into the stock photography business.
iStockphoto was initially launched to democratize photography and let all people use images, Lor says. He was disappointed to hear of iStockphoto’s aggressive price increases following the Getty acquisition and maintains that Fotolia’s prices are much more fair for consumers.
Lor hopes to launch some new services in the future but won’t reveal what those are just yet.

Sources: Leena Rao/TechCrunch (compiled/accentuation in bold above by me) and Fotolia.

Regardless of the small mistake in the TC post - iStock (since 2000) is way longer in business than Fotolia (since 2005) - it´s a strange time for iStockphoto:

QuickLinks For 2009-05-06

• Results of the Subscription Shuffle Survey:
  If you´re less interested in the emotional aspect (see this pix & the picture below)
  
  Byline: "Do you feel lucky, punk?" [The image was removed lately]
  
  ... of the discussions (1; 2) over at the iStock forum mentioned here earlier (1; 2), check the preliminary results of the unofficial Subscription Shuffle Survey.
  
  To be fair, please note that in threads like the two mentioned above the negative comments of some members might prevail which might not reflect the opinion of the majority of contributors.
  Also, and again to be fair, the results of the quoted and ongoing survey above might not be representative for the majority of contributors.
  Again, you need to read both threads mentioned above yourself for a complete and balanced overview.
  
  Either way, Shutterstock reacted quickly with a New Marketing Program to the news that "iStock contributors will have the opportunity to sell their images through Photos.com and Jupiter Unlimited subscriptions".

QuickLinks For 2009-05-05

• New Subscriptions Q & A on the iStockphoto forum:
  Quite a journey. The initial thread Subscription Shuffle (see last posting) regarding the integration into Photos.com and Jupiter Unlimited was closed after 1315 answers.
  Now this new thread New Subscriptions Q & A ("We want to see iStock and Getty Images take a bigger chunk of the Subscription market") was started by rogermexico and has already gathered over 400 replies.
  To the question "Won't that weaken our sales here at iStock?" he responds: "No. All of our research shows that the audience for these sites is different enough from our existing customer base that there won't be any kind of cannibalization. We are breaking into a new market, not re-selling to the same one."
  And later: "We've still got a lot to discuss internally about all of this. Obviously a reaction this strong from the community must be taken into account".
  Again, you need to read all the replies yourself for a complete & balanced overview.
  
  [Update May 6th: the above mentioned thread was closed after over 1,100 replies]

Stock Photos and Vectors from iStockphoto soon available on Photos.com and JupiterUnlimited

Following the announcement from iStockphoto´s Kelly Thompson (Subscription Shuffle) this Friday at 2:07 PM MST that "iStock contributors will have the opportunity to sell their images through Photos.com and Jupiter Unlimited subscriptions", and his calculation:

The royalty paid will be 20% or 22.5% of the value of each download, which in turn is calculated by dividing the monthly value of the subscription by the number of downloads in that subscription that month (much like is currently done on iStock subscriptions, but monthly instead of daily). We’re projecting the average royalty payout to be 30¢ – 55¢—a significant upside to similar competitive subscriptions. At the high end, you could see earnings as high as $17.99 per image.

... a pretty vibrant discussion with pros (e.g. "exclusives now have a much bigger market to sell in") and - very unusual for the iStock forum - some cons (e.g. 1, 2 and 3) with currently over 600 responses on over 30+ pages appeared, also driven by questions of iStockphoto´s exclusive photographers about the remaining exclusivity of their iStock content*.

Pino Granata: The Misery of Contemporary Photography

Nowadays, most discussions on photography focus on the birth of some new microstock agency where pictures will be sold for a few cents or the closing of one of the new initiatives started to make money easily.

There are a few exceptions, but certainly there is no interest in promoting photography. Analysts have overlooked though that all those agencies that had gone public, they have now either gone bankrupt or have chosen to become private again. This is the case of A21, Getty Images and Jupiterimages.

What does all this mean? Probably, it just means that this option isn't viable and that no other agency will choose to go public. I have no idea how many investors have lost money, but I do believe there are quite a few such people.

Photography doesn't allow much return over investment.

QuickLinks For 2009-05-02

• Veer Marketplace Opens to Contributors on June 8th (SnapVillage Blog):
  After that date, you’ll be able to begin submitting your new work. While these images won’t be available for sale until we launch the complete site in mid-summer, you will able to get a head start to upload any new work using the new FTP capable Veer Marketplace upload platform.

• Taking (Photo) Stock: BrightQube Seeking Venture Funding (xconomy):
  BrightQube has been generating strong sales, and Corkran said the business is now close to generating positive cash flow. He notes that “the nice thing about a Web-based business is that they're highly cash efficient.”

• Ellen Boughn and the Future of Stock Photography (Niche Reports):
  Now the toothpaste is out of the tube and there is no going back.