StockPhotoTalk | Special Interest Blog

Throwable Panoramic Ball Camera

These Germans from Berlin ... .

Some time later we will be doing this with real RED devices:

 

 

 

A Short Midsummer Conversation With Shutterstock´s Jon Oringer on Microstock Footage

Andy:

Jon, compared to the microstock photography market size, how big do you estimate is the microstock footage market size in general?

Jon:

Comparatively speaking, the microstock footage market is much smaller.  However, like the microstock image market in its early days (just a few years ago), it is quickly growing and has great potential.

Andy:

Compared to the traditional footage market size, is microstock footage opening a new market that didn´t formerly exist (like microstock photography)?

9/11 six years later

 

 

Corbis, Corbis Motion, Getty Images Footage: Non User-Generated Content remixed on YouTube to become (somehow) User-Generated Content (again)

Corbis is out with the news that Corbis Motion helps "Find Fame for Broadcast Advertisers" and I was looking on YouTube for "Corbis" and "Corbis Motion" to experience what I could find there to illustrate the subject, since a lot of companies upload promotional videos nowadays to YouTube.

But more in general, what is happening on YouTube? I was surprised to note the implicitness (one can of course use another word for this) how many people download and remix images as well footage from the Big Two -- there are only two search results for "Jupiterimages", "Creatas" and not a single one for "Thinkstock" on YouTube -- for illustrating their personal lifes and feelings, without any further concerns.

Changing the landscape: PictureSandbox for Flickr and YouTube

Without further ado and exclusively reported here, PictureSandbox is now online since a few moments: the relaunch of FlickrCash as PictureSandbox, which now incorporates YouTube search.

 

See for yourself. It rocks. Pure Flickr feeling for the photo enthusiasts.

 

QuickLinks For 2007-04-25

• Autonomy Exercises Option To Buy Blinkx, Will IPO it in London:
  Rafat Ali is just out with "this is among the first such IPOs in the still-nascent online video search space, and almost solves the mystery of the weirdly secretive relationship between the data/information search company Autonomy and video search consumer site Blinkx. Also, keep in mind that Blinkx was on the block for a while two years ago, but a deal never materialized.
  Anyway, the announcement on this from Autonomy is very dense, so I’ll try explaining here".
  paidContent.
  Just yesterday
  
  • the goldfingers from Draper Fisher Jurvetson funded video search technology company CastTV, with Marc Andreessen on the Board of Directors.
  • Jupitermedia announced the Conference Program for the WebVideo Summit 2007
  Related: The Coming Earthquake in Photography (April 13, 2007)
  Tags: Autonomy Blinkx

Getty Images Joins YouTube

The new YouTube user Getty Images Film is out with a video on YouTube entitled:

A better way to pitch - surfer girls

Getty Images said in a short note today that the video is the first in a series of four videos Getty customers will be receiving over the next few months under the slogan "A Better Way to Pitch".

More details on free hi-res and non-watermarked preview files from Getty here (UK) or here (US).

The Real Heroes In 2006: Flickr, Getty Images´ Lifesize, Lightstalkers And YouTube

Both Time Magazine and American Photo have published in the last days news listing companies and people they think are Persons Of The Year and Innovators.

For a moment, let us put the visual world, captured through photography and footage, all into one box, and take into account the perspective of User-Generated Content, Social Networking or Social Media, Community and Crowdsourcing. Phrases which partly have become synonyms and unfortunately buzzwords. Here is my personal list -- micropayment stock photo companies are intentionally not included -- with the real heroes in the visual world of the year 2006 and the upcoming year 2007, alphabetically:

After The Google/YouTube Deal: Will TV Networks Acquire Metacafe To Push Legally Licensed TV Content?

For the owners and shareholders, selling companies with user-generated or community-driven image or video content has been financially very succesful in the past 20 months: Yahoo/Flickr ($17-35 million), Getty/iStockphoto ($50 million), Google/YouTube ($1.65 billion)... .

Michael Arrington over at Techcrunch today reports about the latest rumors on video sharing site Metacafe. The surprise however is not which company might be the purchaser (just yesterday he reported it may be Yahoo, but obviously this rumor is 24 hours later already colder than my coffee) or how high the acquisition price (as usually, no limits whatsover) would be.

Nine Eleven Synopsis

• "Eight Magnum Photographers were there at what later became known as Ground Zero. In this story they give their eyewitness accounts of the attack and their perspectives on the consequences, five years later." (APhotoADay)
• "While perusing the archives of world-reknown photographer, Eddie Adams, I came across some photos I hadn't seen of the construction of the buildings .. As the government, land developers and families struggle to rebuild Ground Zero, here is a poignant reminder of how it started." (Allen Murabayashi)
• "Last year, photographer Martin Fuchs put together a multimedia gallery 'Four Years Later'. It was his first attempt to create a multimedia gallery, and he has recently re-edited it." (Peter Marshall)

Fill Us Up: Getty Images´ iStockphoto Introduces iStockvideo

iStockphoto´s competitor ShutterStock announced in February 2006 the introduction of Shutterstock Footage and noted then that "Shutterstock is the first among their competitors to branch from still photography into video".

After accepting video submissions for two months, Shutterstock Footage went fully online in April 2006 and showcases currently 2,953 royalty-free footage clips. The site is still in beta modus.

iStockphoto today announced it is now accepting user-generated video for the new service iStockvideo, to be launched later this year on September 5th. iStockvideo will offer royalty-free stock video/footage and film in broadcast-quality, as well as animation clips for as little as $5 for thirty-second clips.

News From The StockMotionFinder

John Flewin of Footage.info (difficult to link to him because he runs two websites with the same content, it´s a tough time for consultants) reports some interesting news:

James Jordan, former CEO of Footage.net, has a sales and marketing consulting agreement to manage the launch of new industry search portal StockMotionFinder.com. Jordan also plans to assume an equity stake in that business. StockMotionFinder is a new effort from parent company StockPhotoFinder to provide a one-stop search site for the buyers of footage ... Previously, StockPhotoFinder and Jordan had been in discussions to acquire the assets of Footage.net but talks have since ceased.

Related:

• The Step From Stock Photography to Stock Footage: Randy Taylor Launches StockMotionFinder (November 15, 2005)
• Industry Veteran John Flewin Of Footage.info Enters The Promising Press Release Business (August 10, 2005)

Tags: StockMotionFinder; StockPhotoFinder

Google Video Offering Footage From Getty Images

Google recently announced on January 6th during the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) the planned opening of the Google Video Store, an open video marketplace enabling consumers "to buy and rent a wide range of video content from a major television network, a professional sports league, cable programmers, independent producers and film makers" (Link). Video producers can upload content and distribute it for free or at a fixed price and owners also have the choice to offer their content with or without copy protection.

MediaStorm Launches Special Online Publication

Short note for the people who are tired of the acquisition game "I´ll buy your competitor before you´ll grab this company". Back to the roots:

MediaStorm´s Brian Storm (Ex-VP of News, Multimedia & Assignment Services for Corbis), Robert Browman (Ex-Senior Editor for News, News Assignment Representative and Multimedia Producer for Corbis) and Joe Santa (Ex-Multimedia Design Director for Corbis) have launched a new online publication with projects by renowned journalists, filmmakers and artists. Details (this press release doesn´t show the images of the original, so point your browser to MediaStorm).

Among others, also involved are Elodie Mailliet (CD for Corbis Outline) and Eliane Laffont (Editorial Director for Hachette Filipacchi Media).

The Step From Stock Photography to Stock Footage: Randy Taylor Launches StockMotionFinder

One could assume: NO BIG THING. For some people footage portals, as the necessary addition to stock photo portals, do not exist any longer only as a play of thoughts in the distant future, but are a present reality, together with the convergence of stock photos, footage, TV clips, mobile image and video content all in one place.

But, while others lame ducks are still sleeping and obviously intend to continue THE BIG SLEEP a bit longer, Randy Taylor of StockPhotoFinder and of StockPipeline instead already noted earlier:

The Flickrs Of Video: Who Will Be Doing The Footage Retrieval?

I wrote in the past about "Getty Images, Flickr And The Reinvention Of Outdoor Advertising"/"Flickr: How To Displace Getty Images and Corbis" and had been astonished to experience how many ad agencies had been reading this article.

With the rise of more and more footage web sites -- both pro and amateur -- TechCrunch compares the "Flickrs of Video" in a comparison chart. The article so far got 60 comments.

But in the end, just as in the case of the real Flickr,  it´s all about searching.

Industry Veteran John Flewin Of Footage.info Enters The Promising Press Release Business

After the Superior Genius Jim Pickerell, with a very valuable attempt to expand his business activities and to achieve a higher Google ranking, famous industry veteran John Flewin of Footage.info has decided to create a Footage Press Release Cemetery.

The tiny tot is called Footageinfo.blogspot.com and was born on July 4, 2005.

As I wrote earlier, some people are arguing that there must be some money in this Press Release Business of the Stock Photo Industry. This new business model is called TMFRPR: Take-Money-For-Reading-Press-Releases. I also wrote that the competition in the Press Release Business is getting harder and sometimes ruinous. These efforts of John, using a professional and very complex Blogspot/Blogger account, are of course one of the most stunning approaches ever, moving me and his customers to tears.

John is working as a "consultant in the commercial footage industry. Services include industry business advice, appraisals, project management, strategic planning and associated revenue-driving activities." John again has demonstrated his ability to serve the needs of his customers as a big innovator, mastermind and prophet in his industry, extending the "associated revenue-driving activities" of his business.

To no surprise, the press releases published at Footageinfo.blogspot.com are the same ones as at Footage.info. To no surprise, the links of the tiny tot refer to other sites of John:

• FOOTAGE.info
• FOOTAGE.net
• STOCKFOOTAGEONLINE.com

However, I officially declare that The Stock Photo | Press Release Cemetery has no interest in or connection to the tiny tot.

[Illustration: Robert Crump, Piggyback Trucking]

BBC Motion Gallery 2004/2005 Revenues

The BBC Motion Gallery, the clip sales division of BBC worldwide encompassing 500 million feet of film and 400,000 hours of video and over 8 million subject categories,

brought in revenues of £9.8m (approx $17.02) in 12 months ending March 31st. The report explains that Motion Gallery is migrating its business model from offline clip sales to digital sales and delivery of audio-visual images, making more than 17,000 moving images archive available online programme extracts and news clips from the BBC and CBS News Archives. The division's profits were reported at £1.1m ($1.95m). [Link and full report]

Getty Images had revenues in 2004 of $ 34.2m from footage sales (5.5% of the total revenues of $ 622.4m), the average license fee for a clip of stock footage was $ 629 with a final 2004 quarter rise of 25.5% compared with the last quarter of 2003.

Corbis instead is unable to give figures breaking down revenues between footage and photos. Similiar "The BBC does not have shareholders and does not aim to make a profit" (p. 97 of the full report).

Video Blogging, Vapnik´s Support Vector Machines, Video-On-Demand and Bayesian Networks

In the last days C|Net has published a bunch of articles on Videoblogging and Video-On-Demand:

• "Netscape co-founder eyes video blogs" about the new startup of Mark Andreessen (24 H Laundry): "A blogging and social networking site for consumers that will include video [...], 24HL, as in "airing your laundry," is largely funded by its founders, according to one Silicon Valley venture capitalist. [...] Since retiring from Netscape, Andreessen has lived the life of a gentleman entrepreneur. [...] More recently, he, along with Netscape alum Mike Homer, launched the Open Media Network, which caters to broadcasters, independent filmmakers and average people who want to distribute their films on the Internet for free."
• On the edge, the former articles also mentions the "TiVo with search"-tools of Gotuit Media. More about this in "Dawn of a new ad age" at the bottom. Similar an article ("IBM's 'Marvel' to scour Net for video, audio") on Marvel, IBM´s new internet search technology for footage, which is based on MPEG-7: "The 'How Much Information?' survey conducted by the University of California at Berkeley determined that television stations worldwide produced about 123 million hours of total programming in 2002. Of the total, 31 million hours represented original programming, which translates to 70,000 terabytes of data.[...]
  The prototype system can scan through a database of more than 200 hours of broadcast news video and use 100 different descriptive terms to classify and identify scenes. IBM hopes to come up with a list of 1,000 descriptive labels by April.
  A query takes about two to three seconds. Marvel is based on the MPEG-7 data format, but it can search on any standard video format."
• "Video content set free on Web" about the new startup of J.D. Lascia, Ourmedia ("the grassroots media revolution"), which hosts video for free: ""We're still at an early stage of the multimedia-rich Web. The Web is not going to be Web logs and text; it's going to be people posting video and podcasting and taking part in the citizens' media that's just starting to explode." Ourmedia's ultimate goal is not to amass a huge collection of video, but to establish open standards that will make vast multimedia libraries and archives across the Internet accessible through any number of social networks, blog tools, portals and media-sharing sites. [..] "One of our goals is to create an open format for video so that there are no more format wars," Lasica said. "It's crazy right now. It's confusing to people when they can't play video, and it's very frustrating.""
• "Google readying Web-only video search", only a week old, but already widely quoted, about the old and new plans of Google-Video: "Longer term, Google is preparing a payment system for a premium video service that would let people pay to watch full video clips. Google is talking to several top-tier content providers, including Hollywood movie studios, to gain agreements for aggregating their video and selling premium or pay-per-view access. "The ultimate endgame is streaming video, otherwise Google can't get video advertising dollars," said one source. "They have to figure a way to get video into their world to capture those dollars."" Similar "Yahoo, Google turn up volume on video search battle".

Corbis Signs Deal With Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Similar to the deal Getty Images has closed with Universal Studios, Corbis has signed a contract with the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios to sell their photographs and film footage:

Seattle-based Corbis will offer advertisers and editorial clients around the world the licensed use of MGM's library. [...]
Los Angeles-based MGM holds rights to more than 4,200 titles in all. [...]
Corbis recently launched its rights representation business with partnerships with the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and Marvel Enterprises Inc., along with acquisition of the Roger Richman Agency, which represents more than 50 of the world's most recognized personalities.

More here ("Corbis gets licensing deal for MGM library").

Footage, The Next Hype And A Big Idea

Some weeks off the blog and a lot of stuff to work out:

• Index Stock modifies its Image Search System (Link)
• Getty Images selling the footage of Universal Studios (Link): "Universal Studios, part of NBC Universal, is the first major motion picture studio to have its footage searchable via its own "portal" on a leading imagery site. At the Getty website, Universal is now offered as a search category alongside Archive Films and Image Bank. Getty says the new alliance represents "a significant step forward in the strategic development of Getty Images film, which has grown over twenty percent for the past three consecutive quarters" (John Flewin/Footage.info, no direct link available; John Flewin is to the footage industry what Jim Pickerell is to the stock photo industry, and far apart from that - how to say - questionable  E-Data-thing last year at the CEPIC).
  This corresponds to rumours that some traditional photo portals are starting to add footage sections to their websites. I wrote about that earlier: after Visual Search and Middleware Technology (Communication Server/OpenGate) the next big step will be the convergence of stock photos, footage, TV clips and mobile image and video content in one place. Some people were requesting the link to a formerly mentioned article, here we go:  "Stock footage: Look no further than the newly organized, digitized and revitalized stock footage industry".
  

  

• Getty plans ot acquire Photonica/Iconica for $51M (Link); read the brilliant PDN-review here: "Getty's Acquisition Of Photonica Gets Mixed Reviews" (JDFoore) and "Getty acquisitions position it on fast-growth track" (Business Journal)
  
• a21group reports QI 2005 financial results (Link)
• Jupitermedia buys GoodShoot (Link)
• "Analysis #15--Six Trends That Will Change the Industry" (Bahar Gidwani)
• Randy Taylor explains the success story of StockPhotoFinder.com (Link)
• Bruce Livingstone, CEO/istockphoto.com, interviewed by Sam Decker
• Imagestate has signed a distribution deal with Hachette Filipacchi Photos
• "Industry Analysis: Are Digital Cameras Impacting the Stock Image Market?" (CP/Heidi Tolliver-Nigro)

And now some other weeks off the blog. Here´s something to entertain you: Getty Images has set up a nice page about the footage project "The Big Idea". Watch this clip (Quicktime).

Posted by Andy

New Companies from Central Europe

Depressed by the economical downturn? Look at some new companies:

After the entry "istockphoto.com: "Bringing the price down to a level where everybody can afford to buy a stock photo" and a recent comment by Bahar Gidwani of Index Stock Imagery ("istockphoto.com: You do the math") regarding Dreamstime and FreeStock here´s another new RF agency: Bildunion. They are offering images for 9.99 Euro (10.69 Euro including Tax) with no limitation regarding time, media and place of use or image size. Mostly material for illustrations, but also some real nice images (sorry, can´t link to them) that could be considered to be close to serious photography.

Two other new companies: Konrad Dienst and Artur Krüger over at confessMEDiA finally have launched their first and new website (sorry, no english version so far) some days ago. Their main product, the Communication Server, creates virtual photo portals for photo buyers and - together with their partner agencies - for photo agencies. But as always: the clients in Europe and US are top of the line but the dumb traditional media in our industry won´t listen. Not even one single word. Why? Is it just because the mighty German Press Agency (Deutsche Presse Agentur) bought APIS Picturemaxx through one of their subsidiaries three months ago? There are rumours regarding pan-european anti-trust laws and how they might apply to reality.

Another new company is Kappa Motion Media. Founded by the former co-founder of Digital Collections, Dennis Zierahn, Kappa is heavily focussing on software for broadcasting and stock footage companies: indexing, archiving, storing/media management, retrieval and scene detection of digitized film, video, motion and footage for rights management and new distribution channels like video-to-handy (handy = mobile phone; related: "Stock Footage: Need a Disaster? An Assasination?"). Stock footage might be the next hype ("Stock footage: Look no further than the newly organized, digitized and revitalized stock footage industry"; "The footage industry is set to grow dramatically" and "will increase and over time may approach that for still imagery", so Jonathan Klein of Getty Images on Dec 9th, 2004).
After looking at what Kappa´s doing practically, footage retrieval over the web is only a small piece of what can be done... . Watch out.

BTW: Getty had revenues in 2004 of $ 34.2m from footage sales (5.5% of the total revenues of $ 622.4m), the average license fee for a clip of stock footage was $ 629 with a final 2004 quarter rise of 25.5% compared with the last quarter of 2003. Corbis instead is unable to give figures breaking down revenues between footage and photos (Link).

[Links to Footage agencies and the new business field of mobile phones: "Traditional Stock Photo Industry Player Delivering Content On Mobile Phone"; "Corbis delivers content on mobile phones"; "After Corbis and Superstock, Getty Images Supplies Content To The Mobile World"]

Posted by Andy

Stock Footage: Need a Disaster? An Assasination?

"...in the 2003 film "Matrix Reloaded", a wall of monitors displays several horrific historical footage, from the WTC towers burning, to dead bodies at Auschwitz, to Ku Klux Klan members marching. All that footage, all 59 clips according to the report, were licensed by Gates' Corbis Motion."

"If you thought that Bill Gates' Corbis and Mark Getty's Getty Images were peacefully co-existing, think again."

Two real naughty articles: "Laughing Kids from Hell called Getty and Corbis?" (The Inquirer) and "Stock footage: Look no further than the newly organized, digitized and revitalized stock footage industry" (Hollywood Reporter).

Posted by Andy

Right Forecast: Thinkstock And Thinkstock Footage Sold

As predicted earlier (May 19: "Rumors, Rumors, Rumors"; first with real names, then in a figure of speech), Thinkstock and Thinkstock Footage have been sold to Jupiter Media (1; 2) "for $4.0 million in cash, the assumption of certain limited liabilities and 50,000 restricted shares of Jupitermedia common stock. Thinkstock has been in the stock imagery and stock footage business since 1999 and is based in Charlotte, NC" (Link). As written earlier: "a sweet nice agency located in - no, not in SC." (Link)

Related: "Comstock Images Acquired by Jupitermedia"
Related (in general, with big question marks): "The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition"

[© Ranchooasis]

Questo blog è chiuso per ferie, fino all' 8 Agosto 2004

[© Grace and Katie]

Chiudo, per un circa settimana, questo weblog. Infatti, a mio modesto parere, per scrivere bisogna prima pensare e, i blogs spesso ti tolgono lo spazio per pensare.


(Hint for the person/CEO/BizDeveloper etc. who is constantly looking for "DigitalVision 2003 revenues", ""Image source" 2003 revenues" or "Index stock imagery 2003 revenues" and other good stuff-- Google hits are a tricky thing, especially with your really nice -- and static -- IP! So, no one has to work for Pixlogic, the company ("Visual Search") with Venture Capital from the CIA, just to know who you are...).
=:-)