StockPhotoTalk | Special Interest Blog

Dreamstime: New Level, Features and Licenses

"Three new weekly subscriptions are added today for designers with short-term projects to complete. With the weekly option, subscribers are able to download up to 10, 25 or 50 images per day. While the product is almost identical to our current monthly subscription, the abbreviated subscription is available at a lower cost."

And while Serban excpects that "most files continue to sell at better pricing under the new level, while any additional downloads will bring better revenue to the contributors", Dreamstime decided "to offer all our imagery free of charge for" this "day", today: "Designers or simple members will be able to download any images for free ... This is available only for a 24 hour window on April 1st 2011 and should allow everyone to adjust to the new price structure."

- Remember, today is the day for the April Fool's joke. 

 

More details below (also on increasing subscription royalties - click on the image below to enlarge), the rest over there and on the Royalty Chart.

See also this thread here on the new Geotagging feature.

 

QuickLinks For 2011-03-01

• Put your image on the map:
  We released a new page that allows contributors to place their images (whenever relevant) on the world map. You can click the map, search for places of interest or simply paste GPS coordinates if you know them already. [...]
  
  
  
  The data will be used to generate various buyer-oriented features in the near future.
  Serban Enache of DT here.

• New Corbis & ZUMA Press partnership.

QuickLinks For 2010-10-01

• Amid(st) an industry of imitators:
  
  Serban Enache on Facebook on new hires ("Sales Executive, International Channel Partnerships") at Shutterstock.

• Fotolia´s new Provocateur "collection" ("Affordable avant-garde"):
  If there would be more from this type of imagery (not only 100+ images) at this price, with only a few having the potential, I´d be ready to forget about Vetta.

QuickLinks For 2010-04-01

• For Photographers, the Image of a Shrinking Path:
  In 2005, Getty Images licensed 1.4 million preshot commercial photos. Last year, it licensed 22 million — and “all of the growth was through our user-generated business,” Mr. Klein said.
  NYT and discussion over there.

• PhotoXpress: more about this over there.

• The top secrets about Dreamtime´s search engine here.

Running a microstock business from Romania can be a tough challenge

... like elsewhere in Europe where many things are not working in one of - if not the - toughest winters since decades.

QuickLinks For 2009-12-15

• New increased credit prices at Dreamstime. As much as most contributors are understandably delighted, some see things different:
  Any news about an increase in commissions is good news, however I also feel that Dreamstime should put some effort into their marketing of the site to try and get themselves up there along with iS, SS and FT. They need to be seen to be actively promoting the site in order to get the volume of sales to make it worth while staying. If Dreamstime don't market themselves properly a price rise is pointless. (abbreviated)
  Related:
  • Dreamstime adjusts Royalties and Pricing
    (Aug. 14, 2008)

QuickLinks For 2009-12-08

• New programs need to be disruptive in order to compete with core models:
  It's the first time we had to remove a product since our inception, 5 years ago.
  No matter how difficult is to withdraw features that required a lot of work, I consider such move wiser than supporting a program that proved neither able to compete with our core model nor able to help it grow.
  Dreamstime´s Serban Enache indirectly on the sometimes ambiguous difference between managers and leaders when admitting mistakes: one man, one word, that´s it. Worth reading.
  Background here and here.

"Honey, I´m back"

Years later the idea of a microstock photo portal is back ...  these days, you add of course celebrity stuff ... today PixMac announced that - after Fotolia - images from Dreamstime are now available on their site, together with the new Infinite Luxury Collection with around 100,000 images from Image Source.

More details, also here.

QuickLinks For 2009-10-23

• New "Dynamic Search" from Dreamstime:
  Check the new "Dynamic Search" [example] link on our search results page. The feature is just released from beta. The page loads the next set of images automatically as you scroll. We hope this will make content research process much smoother. I believe that each extra click that is saved is a huge leap forward.

• New marketing gig from Fotolia: Operation Level Ground. Related details.

Dreamstime adjusts Royalties and Pricing

"Similar on getting married, trust someone after the long run not on your first date" (on page five here). In a move long expected and with respect to the highly competitive market long, long overdue, Dreamstime has revamped its royalty and pricing structure with some interesting details.

While some contribitors usually have ambivalent feelings anywhere about these changes ("credit royalties will decrease"), the "repositioning" enables DT "to attract more buyers with the extra budget": "for 5 years we've kept a royalty of 50% for all non exclusives against 20% which was the minimum of the industry. The agency awarding you 20% had bigger prices than us and lower commissions. Which means better budgets to drive traffic."

 

 

Serban Enache on Dreamstime and Facebook

Following the news about the cooperation between Dreamstime and MySpace from last autumn, the next new cooperation with Facebook was early discussed.

So I asked Serban down-to-earth about the benefits:

"We have always been loyal to the community element that promoted Dreamstime as a leader in stock photography. Ignoring the potential of social networking would be unwise, especially considering our history.

Recent stats conducted by Nielsen show that over 2/3 of the Internet population is using social networking nowadays and that the means of communication have switched here against email. Compete has ranked Facebook as the most popular social network followed by MySpace. The two websites advertise together over half of billion registered users."

QuickLinks For 2009-07-03

• "Investment Opportunity for Stock Photographer Entrepreneur" (PDF-Download), Jack Hollingsworth to sell his stake in Blend Images:
  Here’s a fantastic opportunity to become one of the 23 owners in BlendImages.com - one of the fastest growing, niche, pro-photographer, multi-cultural, stock agencies in the business today. Founded in 2004 by owner/photographers with revenues of 6.5 million in 2008. A 9-person staff, working out of Seattle, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and San Diego. Over 75,000 tightly edited, ethnically diverse images. Managed by industry veterans. Represented by all major agencies. Plus a powerful distribution platform of it’s own.
  The complete PDF-File can be downloaded here where you´ll find the reason for selling his stake. Though Jack disclosed the price, you better ask him yourself in case you are interested.

• Stock Rank again, and Serban explains:
  So far it [the success] was much better than expected with thousands of users (contributors and buyers) playing from day one (the hardware even had a hiccup due to its popularity), after 72 hours since launch.
  As for contributors, not even the announcement of raising prices brought so much interest.

Dreamstime Stock Rank: did you try it?

Super cool and educating: Stock Rank.

OK, you´re probably all better than me, but overall not too bad for the first play. Now, it can only become worse... .

Rest of the story here.

 

 

CEPIC 2009: Free Images and Free Flying Crown Caps

So while Obama Barack stayed in Dresden during the CEPIC congress for nearly a day when we were out in the evening for drinking a beer and wanted to return to the hotel while all roads were blocked, the fun continued with our session on Saturday morning, moderated by John Balean from Topfoto, on Free Images: Friends or Foes, with Patrick Lor of Fotolia, Kelly Thompson from iStockphoto, Charlotte Lippmann of UK-based Picture Research Association and me.

Up to now you never ever had a tiny chance in your lifetime to sit on a panel with two iStockers, one former one and one present one, and the session partly mirrored this dramaturgy of its very own kind with crown caps flying from the right side all over the panel desk to the left side.

Thanks also to Jon from Shutterstock, Serban from Dreamstime and Alex from 123RF for contributing their opinion on the matter. And a special Thank you! to Barack who responded to the question if a professional picture researcher should use more free images with a clear voice by kindly saying: Yes, we can´t. But I don´t go into the details here.