January 9, 2007 by pmelcher.

A favorite topic of mine this one is and a major aspect of what we do here at Melchersytem. Born from a multi national background and having traveled a lot through my (short) life, I am extremely sensitive to local cultures. What I see in the photo industry is quite disturbing. I am assuming it is because photography continues to drag this legend that it is an universal language coupled with the No Boundary internet perception.
It all started with Corbis and its first website, Corbisview. All was English ( American, that is), with American design, touch and feel and search logic. Simple enough, it was American, made by Americans and had all the money in the world therefore the whole world would use it as is. To add insult to injury, photo editors would go through the Bettmann Archive and decide which topic and image would be granted the right to be scanned and added to the Mighty collection. Quite obviously, not only the content was heavily American centric ( baseball legends for example), it would also eliminate world events that was not taught in US schools for lack of “sellability”. If I do not know what or who it is, it doesn’t exist.

Soon after, GuettyOne was launched. Because of its more commercial stock oriented content, it had some content that was interesting for non Americans, but it was more an accident than an effort. Needless to say, the design, up to the keywords, where in English.
After that, a torrent of other agencies followed suite with pale copies of their own, thinking like a New Yorker, if i can make it here (the United States), I can make it anywhere . Furthermore, the English and the Australian speak English so there you go, I am already international. This still continues to this day. American arrogance.

People do no read photography the same way all over the world. Photography is only universal when it reaches genius level. most art buyers are not looking for an Henri Cartier Bresson image. American should get over themselves. especially in the editorial field. Images are being sold for 6 figures every day in different countries in the world and they are not of Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie. With the rise of reality tv shows, while the concepts are being exported, the celebrities they create cannot cross the border. But they are super mega stars in there country. I use to license a lot of images of American soap opera in Europe, Japan, South America many, many years ago, in the “slide age”, because most TV stations would translate them. Today, not only these country produce their own soaps, they export them to each other and none of the stars are American. Russia is the biggest importer of Brazilian soap operas. The same goes for politics and international news. Just ask Time, Newsweek, Business Week why they have foreign editions.
Same with websites navigation, text, keywords, appearance. While some US agencies understand that a big us corporation might have different ads concepts for the same product in different part of the country to reach local sensibilities, they do not understand that France and Germany are not the same country. or don’t want to. Green is a very popular color in Germany right now, but who in the USA would design their website in green? It’s not just about the content, the packaging matters. A lot.

And I would much prefer using a product that functions the way I think and work than me having to learn another language. Including search logic.
Yes, localization is expensive. But there is no escaping it. It will not disappear. It’s actually getting worse. The more the world is becoming a global market, the more people and sensibilities are local. Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and just recently Myspace.com who just launched a French version, have understood that. But not the photo community. Because I can be seen from anyone outside my country with my website, I am international says the photo community.

There is an effort to be made. I always use the Olympics for example. The organizers have to deal with thousands of different cultures and languages ( they are more than 7,000 languages in the world) . How do they do it ? They use Pictograms, most of them that they invent themselves. The photo industry could do the same. Imagine if from website to website, it would always be the same pictogram to download an image. And just think of conceptual searches and how they differ from one culture to another. What makes an American happy is not the same as what makes a Japanese happy, or an Australian.
On the content side, instead of a filter that would block content not available for an image buyer because of contractual restriction, it should be a filter that would actually show an image Buyer images more relevant to his/her country and culture : a local tv star, a local politician or a local concept.
Yes, technology has made it easier to license an image across the world, now it is up to sensibilities to make that image sellable across the world. Using Pictogram verbs and client sensitive imagery would finally make local all photographers or agencies that would want to become global.

Posted in google, yahoo, pictogram, photojournalism, editorial, corbis, france, getty | Print | 1 Comment »

January 5, 2007 by pmelcher.

Let’s say your a commercial stock photographer or agency and you are ready to embark on a new photo shoot. You probably have a direction, an objective in what and how you want to shoot. At least let’s hope you do.

Therefore you should have already a set of keywords, if not written down, somewhere in your mind. Well, give them a test. See how many times the keyword (s) have been entered in the Yahoo Search engine…and what else is there. Obviously, the more the search term has been entered, the more interest there is for it.

And you know advertisers are looking at the same tool. And are or will be looking for images to illustrate their campaign. No need to explain more. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in yahoo, web 2.0 | Print | No Comments »

January 5, 2007 by pmelcher.

A good friend of mine, quoting someone famous in the industry, said to me recently ” This industry (the photo industry) draws  the best and the worse people’. Nothing can be so true. On one side you have some of the most amazing brains, whose talents mix ingeniousness with off-the-chart brightness, paired with an acute sensibility. These rare and few could not have worked anywhere else. They use they inherent curiosity, humanisms, historical knowledge, street smart logic, hunger for information, people skills, and immense charm to dominate this market by constantly innovating while avoiding small time thinking. They cannot work in a corporate environment because it is too restrictive for them, and they cannot deal with middle of the road mediocrity. Deciding by consensus is impossible for them, because obviously, the more an idea is original and groundbreaking, the less it has any chance to survive one of those endless corporate meetings. Meetings, whose only purpose is to give a voice to those who know nothing about the business a right to voice their opinions and something to do.

These few people I am mentioning are not young anymore, at least physically. Most are at their retirement age although retirement is not an option for them; they never worked a day in their lives, they just played. And won. And I do not see much replacement. Certainly not those “worst” people whose only claim to success has been to navigate the corporate world without ever being caught of saying anything of value. They have been in this business ever since the Corbis and Getty’s have entered it not so long ago, and have thrived because they can speak for hours without saying anything intelligent or steel someones else idea and make it sound like theirs, and are incredibly agile in office politics. Their knowledge of photography is about the same as an any amateur on Flickr. They usually entered this industry because they have failed somewhere else. Unlike the geniuses who select their friends with care, they know A LOT of people, because they are who they know.

Without the geniuses, this industry will be soon turned into a desert. No landscapes, no emotions, no truth. Probably fine for the corporations but certainly not good for photography itself. Or maybe some new one will rise. I see some real promises on the horizon.

On another note, I fell on an article the other day. Another one talking, raving about the new rise of citizen journalism. It was citing the video of Saddam Hussein’ hanging as the latest example. What bothered me is that this is on a site of a respected photo magazine. If this young journalist (?) who apparently knows nothing about the history of photojournalism had spend more time doing research and less time reading entries on Myspace.com, he would have known that some of the greatest moments in modern history where taken by amateur photographers. It is called being at the right place at the right time. And point and shoots have existed for a very long time now, just ask Kodak. There is nothing new here.

What is new here, is the economics of such images. Before, photo agencies would scout for these images, secure the rights and license them for thousands and more, making the citizen journalist a compensated person. The images taken by the tourists during and after the Tsunami are a very good recent example of that. What is different with the London bombing or the Saddam Video is that every news media got them for free, because those so called citizen journalists posted them on free sharing sites. And I really do not see what is so exciting about that, especially for a magazine that writes for professional photographers.

Furthermore, photo agencies, ran by professionals, were the guardians of journalistic integrity. They could guarantee the veracity of the images or videos taken. Now, it’s a free for all and open door to mass propaganda or altered images.

So, once again, video phones or point and shoot camera, what is it we are getting so excited about ?

Posted in photojournalism, flickr, editorial, news, corbis, getty | Print | No Comments »

January 2, 2007 by pmelcher.

Thought provoking idea are rare and few these days. I have been reading a lot about web 2.0 these past days while savoring family life. The big buzz is all about prosuming (consumer consuming what they produce) and big corporation re-inventing slavery, without the physical abuse. Consumers are now happy to give away for free their hard work and talents, just to be able to have their 15 minutes of Internet fame or a few pennies, that, hopefully, if multiplied by gazillions, will make them millionaires (we have yet to see that happen). It is a bit of the Pyramid scheme all over again : I start a website, which if you add something of yours and pass it on to 10 other people, might bring you a fortune too. In reality, only the ones who started the Pyramid, oops, sorry the Website 2.0 cash in. And unlike Web 1.0, acquisitions seem to be the new IPO 2.0 for those new website owners.

How does that relate to the photo industry? well, let’s see. Flickr’s owners made millions by selling their photo sharing site to Yahoo while the “content providers” (corporate lingo for photographers), got nothing. Worse, their images are being stolen on a regular basis by everyone.

The microstock have capitalized on that idea selling their companies for millions too (istockphoto), while the same content providers are still waiting for their millions. And while they tell tales of some of their contributers making six figures a year, everyone knows that they actually make money on the volume of individual images sold produces by different individual. Funny thing is that the first time I heard about microstock a while back, I thought they were made to help third world, developing countries and where part of the micro credit initiative.

The big revolution of the web 2.0, it is thought, is buzz marketing. Google, by growing so fast with absolutely no marketing money spent, created this idea of a virally infected marketplace. It is not a new concept, however. If you have a great product people will use it and recommend it to others, whether it is really a great tool or just a fad. But the new entrepreneurs think that is all you need to create is a buzz and that revenues will just flow in after that. They do not seem to take great interest in building a good product.

Seems we are falling back into the web 1.0. Build a company, create a huge buzz ( it has to be a crowd generate buzz, this time) and sell it (IPO’s are not that sexy anymore). We are starting to see the resurgence of totally free website offering any type of services, just to be able to say that they have so many million visitors and figuring out a business plan down the line ( DivShare is one example amongst many).

There is something about the Internet that attracts entrepreneurs that have no business plans beside becoming rich very fast. and while there is nothing wrong with that, I am always surprised at how we are so easily fascinated by companies that really do not offer anything tangible.

I might be wrong, but how long are people going to continue posting their images to Flickr, or post their bio’s to Myspace for example. Youtube is cute, for now, but what will it be in 10 years ? Generation grow older, their interest shift, as well as the time that they devote to them.

What does that all mean for the photo industry ? Well lets see. If Flickr wants to survive, it will have to change its model and allow their users to license their images, while taking a fee. That will be a new and powerful player in the photo industry field. A mega microstock.

We might see the appearance of more free photo sites that will capitalize on advertising rather than licensing images. After all, I see stock companies selling images for 20 cents (http://www.featurepics.com/), so why not free ?

Finally, with all these new photo agencies being created worldwide on a monthly bases, Portals are going to become the industry standard as image buyers will be looking for a fast and easy way to find images. Some search engines already offer such a service for free, but for how long.

At the end, after all the hype and lucky millionaires cash in, only the ones will a great product will thrive. Which one are you ?

Posted in google, web 2.0, prosumer, flickr, Microstock | Print | No Comments »