Companies to watch in 2008

December 3, 2007 by pmelcher.

Photo agencies ( distributors) :
Getty Images: The already succesful company is under the gun to prove to investors it can continue to deliver on its historical growth. With not much left to acquire that would trigger a 30 % growth, it is left to its own demise to add fuel to its own engine. Already on the path to explore other revenue streams, like music (micromusic anyone ?) and video, it is about to launch itself into the B2C Eldorado and try to reap benefits from this ever promised land. All eyes are watching the giant at its second attempt ( remember the Art.com fiasco?) to cash in on this unknown territory. Also on the near horizon, hopefully, an accelerated effort to be as strong on international market than it is in the USA. The last quarterly report showed that Getty does  not even make 5% of its revenue in Germany which is, after all, one of the biggest market in photography. Does Getty have the right people in place to make this happen ?

Corbis: The overweight rich kid of the industry is trying to shed some fat. With one of the best content in world, will it be capable of showing, finally, a profit? Will it stop playing games with papa Gates’ money and enter adulthood? We heard the promises, now let see it happen.

stockthatdoesntsuck: Will high end stock photography survive? Their content is amazing, their intention pure. Will the market support them? 2008 will certainly let us know.

SplashNews: With one of the smartest management in this industry who has the keen ability to ignore risks, Splashnews goes for the jugular. They just concentrate their fire to those images that sell very well, and that is it. Combine with a true understanding of how to leverage technology, it is one of the most succesful photo agencies around. Let’s not be surprised if Getty or Corbis are knocking at their door.

Zymmetrical: Launched in 2006, this mid stock has everything to please creative professionals. With not only photography, but also fonts, video and graphic, it is the one sop shop for budget conscious creative professional. It also allows pros to compete with amateurs on the same platform without giving up on pricing. At the end, only the best image wins.

Tech Companies:

Idee Inc : Still the one to watch on the image tracking field and beyond. Extremely succesful and innovative, it is the kind of company that will keep on surprising the industry over and over. The Toronto base company has its ears to the ground and its eyes fixed on the horizon. We should see and hear a lot from them in 2008, and even sooner.

Mochilla, Britepic, Picsout and others: This will be the year of the user-generated revenue. Following in the footsteps of Corbis and soon Getty, other photo agencies will offer free ad supported images to 60 million bloggers worldwide. A few unknown remain: What will be the photographers cut ? Will people click on the ads ? Will it be a revenue generator or gobbler ? Will it prevent agencies to continue doing adequate business with professional website ? Finally, will it devaluate images overall by making them so easily available ? Hang on to your seats, photography is going for a wild spin.

Brightqube: Came out of the gate with a huge, and well deserved WOW effect. But, once passed the cool interface, it is just another royalty free platform. What’s next ? Knowing the team behind it, be ready to be wowed some more.

Picturemaxx and others: Portals where everyone dump their images into one central server is so 1990’s. The next generation of agency will be using virtual portals. Image database networked to each other will deliver the ultimate user experience to image buyers. One location to search any or all photo agencies worldwide is the ultimate image buying tool. For agencies, especially the small and medium, being part of a global offering makes more sense. Ultimately, it will change the way this industry works over the web. Sub agents and distributors, beware.

The Outsiders : Like istockphoto, Idee, Mochilla, the photo industry is being re invented by people outside of this industry. A lot of companies are currently in alpha mode and ready to revolutionized the way we do business. The success of Flickr has brought a lot of attention to our industry and brilliant minds are looking to cash in. New ways to license, to search, to retrieve. There is a lot of very interesting projects in the works. Some will stick, some will not. a few areas of development are:

- Image licensing : pay per view

- Search : Semantic search ( French company new phenix are already years ahead)

- Auto keywording : image recognition applied to tagging

- Auto editing : Data mining applied to cognitive results.

- Automated translation: Become local without any additional work. Years of development about to break open.

- Intelligent images : images will tell you where they have been, who has seen them, for how long.

and much,much more..

Media companies:

MediaStorm: The ones to follow. Set extremely high standards to how our images will be seen by our children. Offers a 3D emotional quality to still photography. Brilliantly succeeds in adding video, sound, text and stills into intensely rewarding experiences. Question is, will Mediastorm become a media company by itself or just license its content ?

Msnbc.Com : At the forefront of what can be done with still photography and the web, Msnbc.com keeps on re inventing itself, making it one of the most desirable destination for web surfers. They have never stood still, never took their success for granted. Furthermore, they pay a decent price for photography. We like that.

The New York Times : As respectful to photography on its web pages as they are on the print edition. The quality and placement of photography keeps on rising as they have realized how important it is. With newspaper like this, photojournalism will never die.

Yahoo/Flickr/Google: Will they or will they not? The whole industry is buzzing with the prospect of these mega players entering the photo licensing business and squashing everyone in their path. Flickr had announce earlier this year that 2007 will be the “licensing” year. It did not materialized. Will 2008 be the year where the flood gates open ?

( Partial) Conclusion: by no means exhaustive, this list is a good indication of the companies that will start or continue to amaze us in 2008 . Feel free to add. I know I will…

Posted in Search, google, web 2.0, multimedia, mediastorm, celebrity, Midstock, prosumer, flickr, getty, Royalty free, corbis, france, msnbc.com, editorial, Microstock | Print | No Comments »