StockPhotoTalk | Special Interest Blog

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.