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QuickLinks For 2010-09-28

• Google Instant Makes SEO Irrelevant:
  Google today launched an ambitious effort to speed up searching. But what they really did is kill SEO. [...]
  Here's what this means: no two people will see the same web. Once a single search would do the trick - and everyone saw the same results. That's what made search engine optimization work. [...]
  Google Instant means no one will see the same web anymore, making optimizing it virtually impossible. Real-time feedback will change and personalize people's search behaviors.
  Google is saying expect traffic fluctuations around organic keywords.
  Steve Rubel.
  I missed it earlier, and it´s not comparable to the big news appearing tomorrow. -Interesting discussion over there, also here the follow-up and here, and also Steve´s last comment on this topic in his initial posting. Time will tell.

QuickLinks For 2010-09-27

• "We got german engineering in the house":
  Bad idea. Digital media distribution platform iSyndica is closing. With 2011 being close, getting "one million customers at ten dollars per month by 2011" (or whatever the business goals were later) did apparently not work.
  Parts of the corporate story here, here, here and there.
  The worst part: iSyndica was a good idea (but too expensive for many).

Vetta Collection/Agency Collection

Below is a quick overview on the new prices (in credits) for iStockphoto´s Vetta Collection (without illustrations) announced yesterday, the differences to the current Vetta pricing scheme and to the new Agency Collection.

Explained later as a "technical glitch" ("both accepted and rejected files" were appearing), images from the Agency Collection showed up on the website with the latest uploads, causing a lot of discussion about the quality&prices of the images in the Agency Collection.

Especially the meanwhile famous "vacant-sign-on-toilet-door" image - it´s no longer live on iStock, but in the Agency Collection on Getty here and on fStop. Compare the different prices on all three sites. It is currently not possible in iStock´s Advanced Search to search the Vetta and the Agency Collection separately.

[Update: Agency Collection XXXLarge is 250, and the difference 67%]

[Update] QuickLinks For 2010-09-15

• "Offering ALL our customers ALL our products in ALL countries remains critical" (JDK):
  "In 2009 alone Getty has sold 22 million images and currently uploads fresh images on its site at the rate of 4,000 a day" with "rising demand from ad agencies, companies and media, which still comprise the bulk of Getty Images’ 11 million B2B customers worldwide". "Sales growth here in the Southeast Asian market could outpace that of China and India where the firm is more established. Getty claims to have 60% of the global market for stock media."
  (Abbreviated/compiled from mb.com.ph/Business Insight Malaya/Business World).
  
  [Update Sept. 16]: I asked Getty for clarification on the image numbers quoted above because with respect to iS "the rate of 4,000" images "a day" makes no sense. Here´s the clarification:
  
  "To be clear on what is included with each number, here are the details:
  ~ The 22 million licensed in 2009 only includes Getty Images and iStockphoto creative/stock imagery. It excludes news, sport, entertainment and archival, as well as footage content.
  ~ The 4,000 image uploads daily is only for gettyimages.com, across creative and editorial imagery (not footage). This number does not include iStockphoto."
  
  The well-known number of "22 million" licensed images quoted by Techdirt in March 2010 belongs to a presentation of JDK at the MIDEM event in January 2010 (1; 2) where he originally shared the number for the first time publicly, and said that "On iStockPhoto ... we upload about 40,000 images a week".

• The German Association of Press Pictures Agencies/Picture Archives (BVPA) created a stunning new english version of its website, reflecting the changes in the industry.

• Different opinions on Facebook about, well, you know, from ... well, you know:
  
  
  

Emphas.is - will it work?

• Emphas.is wants to leverage the crowd:
  Times have been tough for photojournalists. A new startup launching this winter hopes it has come up with a way to solve some of the field’s financial problems, while giving world-class photojournalists a new level of freedom in telling stories.
  Emphas.is, will be a platform that looks to the crowd to fund photographers’ work in dangerous places around the world. Similar to other crowdfunding sites, photojournalists will post trip pitches with a fundraising goal. Photographers will be free to distribute photographs and videos as they please - Emphas.is will not own the photographs.
  
  Founder Khelifa is rounding up endorsements from top photo editors and directors at outlets like Time and agencies like the VII and Magnum. For now, Khelifa has raised his own startup funding from a number angel investors. He hopes to see the site go live in January 2011.
  The Nieman Journalism Lab (abbreviated).
  Related:
  •Can Emphas.is bring crowd funding to photojournalism? (Editors Weblog)

Kelly Thompson of iStockphoto: "Where we go from here"

• "What we had no idea at the time was how much and how quickly the site would grow."
• "This is the system we need to go forward with, and there isn't any flexibility for now."
• "As I've said, we will re-examine targets once the year-end numbers are in."
• "Like this past year, we’re pushing for significant growth next year."
• "But money isn’t going to be what makes you all happy" - For the annuals of PR.
• "I want you to know that I would tender my resignation at iStock before I had to do something I couldn't stand behind. The same can be said about all Executives here at iStock."
• Just 2 hours old and already 21 pages of responses: full discussion. Go read them to get the bigger picture.

The Butterfly Effect in Microstock

• Here.

• Here.

• Here and here. (From Betta than Vetta)
  

• Apparently not here & not there.

          (More about the Butterfly Effect & Attractors; illustration)
 

QuickLinks For 2010-09-09

• iStock growing pains show crowdsourcing challenge:
  iStock management ... predicts that licensing will continue to grow overall ... the current seniority-focused system fundamentally corrodes iStock's long-term business health, said Kelly Thompson. [...]
  "Eventually everyone drifts up to higher canister levels, which isn't sustainable in the long run. The more successful iStock is, the less profitable it becomes." [...]
  Cultivating or exploiting the community? Thompson bristles when questioned whether iStock's size and market power might mean it's turning from cultivating its community of contributors to strip-mining it.
  "There's no way we could do that," he said. "We have no motivation to watch our contributors go elsewhere. Unless we provide a fair royalty, that will happen." [...]
  "We tried really hard to reward people who have been active and produce great work." Measuring that by credits rather than downloads "was asked for and asked for and asked for" by community members. "We gave exactly them what they asked for there."
  The sedulous Stephen Shankland asking Kelly Thompson, and Sean Locke: "Now we are in a system where ... it looks like it will require a concentration on constant creation and updating."

[Update] Why ...

(Announced from iStock in "Important!: Royalty Changes and iStock Collections")