StockPhotoTalk | Special Interest Blog

Blue-shirts-kakhi-pants Mob forces Richter Scales to take down Award-winning Web 2.0 Bubble Video

 

Wired, Valleywag, even PDN ... they all got it wrong.

The Mob just finished their LE WEB 3 meeting in Paris.

The video is at the time of writing still live on Valleywag. SAA should clearly investigate.

(Screenshot: Mob members at 0:01:41 in the video)

QuickLinks For 2007-12-02

• Is Russia really a democracy? A Photographer´s Journal, Putin´s Russia:
  James Hill looks at Russia on the eve of an election.
  NYT/James Hill, photos and narration.

• Why I am Optimistic About the Music Industry. Any parallels? :
  So what will the ultimate solution look like?
  Undoubtedly, some form of advertising supported model where the music itself ceases to be the expensive jewel.
  The re-invention of the music industry is a bit like the middle-east peace process: everyone knows pretty much what the ultimate solution will look like, but no one has the courage to get there.
  Tom Glocer, Reuters´ CEO (compiled).

Ceterum Censeo: Pino Granata´s THE PHOTO MARKET IS SICK

 

Andy gives us only bad news lately. We come to know that Shutterstock offers a subscription which lets them sell pictures for 25 cents each.

I don´t know if this is a record for the lowest price ever. If not, it must be very close. In these days Stockphototalk with no mercy, I´m starting to think that Andy is a bad guy, informs us that Getty Images, Corbis, Masterfile and other agencies are reducing the prices for their best pictures.

Also, after firing around 100 employees in August, Getty is changing management.

We don´t know very much from Corbis but I don´t see Bill with the V sign hand gesture.

The truth seems that everybody is struggling to stay alive. 

 

Sad time for the Web, Good time for endless ephemeral dot-com parties again

Beyond the day and long overdue (compiled from Steve Rubel):

 

"This is a sad time for the web. It´s as almost somber as the time just before the last bubble burst in 2000. I was working in PR with dot-com startups at the time and the way I feel now is how I did back then. I wish I didn´t, but I do. Something needs to be said. Even if no one listens or cares what I think. [...]

The bubble really began in earnest on October 9, 2006 when Google bought YouTube. That´s when every person with an entrepreneurial itch woke up and smelled the hype and money. Prior to then, startups were more focused on the entrance, not the exit. But the Google YouTube deal and many others that followed really opened up the floodgates to money and it changed the attitude of the web. [...]

The endless dot-com parties are back. So are the countless trade shows/conferences that regurgitate the same "new paradigms" the last 10 events did - with no end in sight. [...] I don´t speak at or attend very many Web 2.0 conferences anymore. I don´t have the heart for it. I would be stirring the big pot of Kool-Aid.

Let´s face it, we´re skunk drunk and it´s because of money. It´s almost like we all need to enter Betty Ford Clinic 2.0 together. This time, it´s not stock market money but private equity, M&A, VCs and to some degree the reckless abandonment of logic by some advertisers who are perpetuating what is sure to end badly when the economy turns. Hubris is back. [...]

I miss the days of 2004 when the class that includes Flickr, del.icio.us and others started. They really were about changing the web, not making a quick buck. [...]

Most of the rest of today´s net startups are only after the almighty dollar and while that´s capitalism, it saddens me because it has done little but breed hubris."

 

Ceterum Censeo: Pino Granata´s NOTHING TO CELEBRATE

 

I feel sad when I read about Corbis´ party in London to celebrate the preservation of the Sygma archive.

It is my opinion that there is nothing to be celebrated.

Until a few years ago it was very difficult to see a magazine without the credit Sygma while today very few people remember this prestigious brand.

It´s the best way to undertake all efforts to preserve a file, but it means very little in these days when the word Copyright means nothing.

Everybody steals pictures from books, magazines, websites and there´s very little we can do because it is almost impossible to pursue the thieves.

 

Stock Artists Alliance statement on Getty´s "Three month!" explanation

"The reduction to a 3 month term for the $49 license is of course an encouraging development, but it doesn´t address our stated concerns or answer our call to remove the product for RM imagery.

We will be conferring with our fellow associations and be following up with Getty Images next week".

Betsy Reid
Stock Artists Alliance Executive Director

(asked for her opinion on "Getty Images' Revolutionary Online Product")

Hey, I found a great pic for only $49! Do we have the budget for that? Totally! Go buy it!

Getty Images is out with a message which can be regarded as a part of the official response to "An open letter to Getty Images", sent out by AOP, APA, ASMP, CAPIC, EP and SAA to Jonathan Klein on Monday this week.

 

Getty Images met with the Stock Artists Alliance this morning to discuss this communications which addresses several of their concerns, Getty Images said.

Getting Whiny About Getty´s $49 Giveaways

Why are these trade associations getting all whiny about the $49 Getty giveaways?

At least the ones that have embraced RF pricing approaches?

Like microstock and subscription stock, the $49 one-price-fits-all is simply another kind of RF. If you have already sold your soul, you do not get to tell the devil what to do with it at some later date.

The $49 web-resolution product Whoopee, Part II: Klein needs more time today for checking his email

"If you are a Getty contributor or prospective contributor, you may wish to raise the issue with Getty Images executives".

(quoted from an ASMP message cited on LightStalkers, posted by photojournalist Kim Yunghi who is calling up for an "email campaign to stop Getty´s new $49 pricing"; screenshot above from the ASMP website)

The $49 web-resolution product Whoopee

• "Erosion of prices across the board":
  
  "The devaluation of web usage prices will lead to devaluing print and outdoor usage that will pave the way to further steep price cuts across all types of licenses. Once customers can obtain a major use license of an RM image at this cost, they will likely question the validity of being charged significantly higher rates for other uses."
  Ask JDK: joint letter of the Stock Artists Alliance (SAA), the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP), Advertising Photographers of America (APA), Editorial Photographers (EP), the Canadian Association of Photographers (CAPIC) and the U.K. Association of Photographers (AOP) sent to Getty CEO Jonathan D. Klein.