StockPhotoTalk | Special Interest Blog

Alamy releases quarterly statement for Q4/2007

Just published and accessible here.

Sales increased from $24.2 million in 2006 to $29,2 million in 2007 (the original projection in 0ct. 2007 was "to exceed $28 million in 2007").

Quarterly revenues grew Y-o-Y from $6,3 million in Q4/2006 to $7,7 million in Q4/2007, up $244,000 from $7,5 million in Q3/2007.

During Q4/2007 photographers submitted significantly less new RF images (56,846 images; down 48.5% from 110,362 images in the previous quarter) and new RM images (299,114 images; down nearly 32.5% from 443,288 images in the previous quarter) than in Q3/2007, reflecting the lowest new RF and new RM images submission numbers for the last eight quarters.

Danita Delimont Stock Photography, LuckyOliver, 123RF and Fotolia join CogniSign´s Xcavator Photo Portal

Next week Danita Delimont Stock Photography, LuckyOliver, 123RF and Fotolia will officially join the image platform of San Francisco - based Xcavator, powered by CogniSign and it´s technology.

The Xcavator.net portal was launched in Beta eight months ago in May 2007.

Together with the already accessible images from iStockphoto (image provider since July 2007) and PhotoVault, Xcavator showcases now 5,3 million microstock images from four microstock agencies and nearly 500,000 RM images from two RM agencies.

The images from the four new partners are already online on Xcavator.

Remarks on SPFFY beta

• Though the video section of SPFFY offers access to YouTube, AOL Video, LiveVideo and StockMotionFinder, it will be hard to compete with the new but already established video search stars Truveo (acquired by AOL in early 2006) - which quickly seems to become the standard for video searching - and Blinkx.
• Portals for micropayment stock photos only, like ImageTrail, will be in the future only a more or less small part of any all-visual-content-portal.
• In contrast to PictureSandbox (earlier known as FlickrCash) and 123RFlickr, their different approach and complicated history with Flickr, SPFFY offers a more reliable partnership with Flickr, because it does not intend to make money with external content, charging the single image contributor.
• All portals currently miss to introduce new user interfaces. Since years it´s still the same old procedure. That´s why the approach of BrightQube is so interesting.

New visual content portal SPFFY.com

 

 

Today is PictureHouse day here in New York, a good opportunity for a first quick look at StockPhotoFinder´s new separate SPFYY stock photo search engine/portal, officially launching around noon EST today.

The future of photo portals is not any longer to showcase only stock and/or editorial content, but to become real visual-content-portals with all kinds of visual content:

Alamy releases quarterly statement for Q3/2007

Unlike in previous quarters when it was released as a PDF file, Alamy´s quarterly statement for Q3/2007 is now fully available online.

Last quarter, "the number of new RM images submitted from agencies as well as from photographers dropped significantly, and photographers submitted also fewer new RF images".

This quarter, the trend that agencies submitted fewer new RM images continued. Photographers instead submitted way more new RM images (443,288), nearly as many as in Q1/2006 (450,653).

Photographers submitted also nearly as many RF images as they did in Q1/2007.

The first screenshot below shows the quarterly revenues ($) since Q3/2006 until Q3/2007.

 

 

 

 

 

(The first data point on the Y axis of the graph should be $5M rather than $50M, Alamy corrected that later)

 

PictureSandbox improvements

 

PictureSandbox works now with a new tabbed interface for multi collection searching (screenshot above) and a "More" button allowing to go infinitely deep on any search.

Below a screenshot of BrightQube´s early Beta.

Aside from the slightly different concept, it´s all about more pix on your screen.

 

 

Alamy: Novel Use - Further clarification

Alan Capel of Alamy today in "Novel Use - Further clarification" (abbreviated), the third major announcement within seven days:

We have been reading the feedback on both this blog and on the Alamy Forum and felt it may be helpful to reiterate some of the key points regarding novel use. It is an optional scheme, we´ve changed the contract because it´s an addition to our current model but if you chose to opt out then its business as usual.

Novel use is not about discounting, it has been implemented to enable us to sell images for usages that fall outside of our standard price calculator. Novel use is also not the same as Microstock, both RF and RM images can be included and whereas with Microstock you are committing to only work with that business model.

Alamy: Novel Use Scheme, not to be confused with micropayment

James West of Alamy today in "Novel Use Scheme - money from unusual places" (abbreviated), the second announcement within two days:

Alamy is often approached by organisations requesting licences that fall outside of our standard price model. Sometimes these may be deals involving a high volume of sales at a low price, other times we have ideas for selling images in new and unusual ways that we don’t feel we can pursue without your consent.

Previously Alamy has turned these deals down and filed these ideas away.

Alamy: Aha ... "a number of new products to broaden our customer base"

James West, CEO of Alamy, today in "Pricing - the Alamy way", worth to be quoted at full length:

As a general trend, prices across our industry are falling and appear set to continue to do so. This downward pressure ranges from mild to extreme and results from one or more of the following:

• An abundance of images on the market
• Customer consolidation (mergers and takeovers in the publishing world)
• Aggressive pricing strategies in some stock agencies
• Micropayment sites
• Erosion of traditional print media by the web
• Migration of advertising spending to the web
• Uncertain outlook in the global economy

This prediction will quickly become reality

Details.

ImageTrail.net: The first microstock only photo portal, Q&A with Founder & CEO Peter Galbraith

Towards the end of the microstock session during the CEPIC conference in Florence I wanted also to present and to discuss with the panelists the specific impact of a dedicated micropayment stock photo portal, showing microstock photography only, but after 2 1/2 hours we finally ran out of time.

Some readers know that I had been working on a micropayment stock photo portal myself, but could not procede with full power due to other events.

Peter Galbraith, 27 years young, Founder & President of ImageTrail.net and based in Corrales, New Mexico, started instead about one month earlier in summer 2006 to work on his vision of a microstock only photo portal, and recently I threw some questions at him.

Alamy releases financial statement for Q2/2007

897,277 images were submitted in the last quarter, down 23,675 images from 920,952 images in Q1/2007.

544,586 RM images (down 108,379 images from 652,965 in Q1/2007) were submitted, and 352,691 RF images (up 84,704 images from 267,987 images in Q1/2007).

Microstock photos on Alamy: The High Priests from the Middle Ages and the Inquisition are back in town

... whining, moaning and lamenting all their way:

"Going through searches I see many microstock photos at Alamy. Some photographers even have their entire micro collection here.

I think this can damage Alamy´s reputation and all the great photographers who submit their work here.

Especially now when there is a competition growing between micro and traditional stock agencies.

Taking into consideration that the number of microstock photographers is growing much faster than traditional ones, then in a couple of years there can be more than a half photos from microstocks.

Maybe there should be an anonymous opportunity to report a photo if you supply it with a link on a photo in micros?"

Crossing the Chasm with Members of the Press

Members of the Press (M.O.P) are

• visionaries,
• early adopters,
• 5 years ahead of their time,
• visit each weekend those quirky Web 10.0 TechCrunch sessions

The last 8 days have seen the sudden rise of what M.O.P called with an unified voice "content aggregators".

Surprisingly:

Alamy Releases Q1/2007 Numbers

More RM images submitted in the past quarter, but less RF images, and compared to Q4/2006 a slightly lower number of images overall were submitted in Q1/2007. Sums up to 8.32 million images totally.

Download the full PDF-file here.

Finally Digital Railroad´s Marketplace Arrives With Express Licensing

Roughly 2 1/2 years after I first reported in August 2004 about a small NYC-based startp-up called Digital Railroad and some 18 months after the company itself announced plans for the new Marketplace on October 18, 2005, the long awaited Marketplace is officially online since this morning, but still only in a beta version. Digital Railroad members now have the option to sell images via the Marketplace while simultaneously selling images directly via their own branded individual online archives.

While I personally lack the time to test every single new feature one by one (most are described in the appropriate press release), the more interesting attributes of the new Marketplace are especially the so-called Express Licensing, powered by the "PLUS Pack" licensing standards recently released by the PLUS Coalition, and Territory Publishing.

PicFindr: Not Alpha, not Beta, just not done yet

Similar to Everystockphoto and Yotophoto, PicFindr is another new example of those free-to-use photo "portals" searching for completely free stock photography, "a rich internet application (RIA) that allows you to search several stock image and photo community sites simultaneously, based on your intended use".

And beyond this with the inherent potential to develop over time into a serious threat for "classical" photo portals, provided that some adjustments and refinements do occur. I´m pretty confident we see some new concepts turned into reality soon.

News From The European Battlegrounds: Picturemaxx Announces Cooperation with Fotofinder

Munich-based ASP provider Picturemaxx, predominantly owned by the mecom subsidiary of the German Press Agency (DPA) and the company behind the image marketing platform APIS network and the photo portal Picturemaxx.net, announces an extensive cooperation with Berlin-based photo portal Fotofinder in the fields of technique and marketing. Picturemaxx said in a short english statement that "the target of this cooperation is for both enterprises to supply even more attractive offers to the own clients and to accomplish the costumer´s needs in a most comfortable way".

Using Picturemaxx´s image distribution technology opengate, the image content of both portals will (original german text says "can") be availabe on both portals. More details in the more elaborated original german press release.

Alamy´s AlamyRank Under Harsh Attack From Contributors, James West Answers Back

Editorial Photographers UK and Ireland (EPUK) runs a website exclusive ("Alamy CEO: AlamyRank "not disadvantaging specialist contributors"") and a blog post ("It’s Rank! Alamy's Punters Get Their Algorithms In A Twist") on the recent reaction of photographers to the newly introduced tool AlamyRank that will move images from the best collections to the top of search results.

When Alamy introduced AlamyRank and Diversity Algorithm in July this year, the company also said "it has applied for patents for these two key technologies that make the new search approach unique in the stock photography industry".

Alamy Adds RF Collections Stockbyte, Medio Images, Image100, Imageshop, InsideOutPix, Bananastock, Brand X Pictures, And Image Source

UK-based photo portal Alamy has sent out emails to photo buyers with the message that Alamy "is pleased to announce that the following premium Royalty-Free collections are available through Alamy:

• Image Source
• From Getty Images, Stockbyte and Medio Images;
• From Corbis, Image100, Imageshop and InsideOutPix;
• And from Jupiter Images, Bananastock and Brand X Pictures.

Alamy currently has RF images from over 350 stock agencies, ensuring you can access the leading supplier's collections from a single resource."

Alamy´s New Upload Tool Previewed By EPUK, Editorial Photograpers UK And Ireland

Dr. P. Kumar, one of Alamy´s contributors, noted recently (Stockphoto.net) in May that "submission to Alamy was yet considered painfully slow and sluggish with several complaints of contributors being let down by alleged 'bad media' detection by personnel running Alamy's QCs. Online submission is definitely going to ease and simplify contributions ... and realizing Alamy's amazing contributor-base (individuals + agencies) ... the 'numbers' may simply get madenning."

More On NewsCom/StockPhotoFinder From Randy Taylor, And The New SPFF Search Process

Some more information about the NewsCom/StockPhotoFinder (SPF) partnership directly from SPF´s president Randy Taylor. I asked him if all of the 15 million photos, graphics and illustrations of NewsCom will be availabe through the SPF, or only a part of this huge imagery. Here´s his response:

• It's not yet clear exactly what portion of the total will be included because each image provider is being asked to confirm that they want this marketing, which is free to them as part of their relationship with Newscom.
• Based on current acceptance, it will be at least 5 million images, which we are now actively adding.
• We expect to have roughly 12 million of the 15 million images at the peak of integration.
• On an ongoing basis, we are also receiving between 4,000 and 12,000 new images daily from Newscom in addition to legacy files.
• All Newscom images will be available for search in our free public site at StockPhotoFinder.com and also available for the customized corporate versions that we supply to publishers and advertising agencies.

NewsCom Becomes Single Largest Content Provider For The StockPhotoFinder

Both the StockPhotoFinder and NewsCom had been very active companies in the last twelve months (detailed summary below) and had been eagerly in developing new partnerships. After launching the StockMotionFinder last year in November, Randy Taylor´s StockPhotoFinder recently expanded its business activities to the United Kingdom (StockPhotoFinder.co.uk).

NewsCom, the Washington-based joint venture of Tribune Media Services and Knight Ridder, grants currently access to more than 15 million photos, graphics and illustrations from more than 100 publishers and content creators to over 2,200 publishers around the world.

Alamy Releases Quarterly Statement 2004/2006

UK based photo portal Alamy with currently 4.9 million stock photos from 356 stock agencies and 6400 photographers has released the Quarterly Statement 2004/2006 with new numbers for Q1/2006.

825,052 images were submitted from 2,870 photographers and 178 photo agencies during Q1/2006. The number of images submitted will probably grow faster because Alamy will accept in the future the online submission of images. All details including percentage revenue and average pricing information in a PDF sheet here (download).

Tag: Alamy

Related:

• A paradigm shift : Alamy prepares for online submission (May 24, 2006; Topic 4)
• Alamy has released the Quarterly Statement 2004/2005 (Apr. 11, 2006; Topic 2)
• Alamy: More than a Million of Pix and Worldwide Expansion (Apr. 27, 2004)

Photoportal Of The German Association Of Journalists Open For Business

In early May the photoportal of the German Association of Journalists (DJV) went online. It´s open only for those photojournalists which are members of the DJV. According to the CEO of the technical partner of the DJV, confessMEDIA´s Konrad Dienst, the portal showcases currently 110,809 images from 43 photographers, mostly news and features. About 3 - 4 new photo stories are uploaded daily, and 230 photobuyers registered before May 1st.