stock it up people

January 28, 2008 by pmelcher.

Last week, super giant discounter and famed losing money photo library Corbis announced with no small effort that it was going “global”.

From Cnet.com :

“SnapVillage, a microstock site founded in June by stock-art sales company Corbis to compete with rivals such as Fotolia and Getty Images’ iStockphoto, has expanded to include international sales.

Although the site now works beyond the United States, the Web site is English-only for now. ”

Does that mean that prior to this press release, Snapvillage would refuse any sales coming from outside the United States ? To me, going international is to have your site in local language. Or open offices in countries other than your point of origin. So what did Snapvillage exactly do to go from local to international? The site works beyond the United States now, we are being told. Does this mean that the Corbis programmers have finally discovered that foreign browsers can read HTML too ?

The most interesting part is that a few days earlier, German RF company PantherMedia also announced it was going international by partially translating their site in English. So, what does “going international” really means people ?

According to my extensive research, it is :

1) Having a site in English

2) Having a site that works beyond your borders

3) Having your site in English

During one of my many tenures, and of on the subject of globalisation, I had to listen to a VP based on the west coast of the United States whose furthest travel had been to the East Coast of the same country tell me that ” The United States is the Business nation of the world thus what we do here will apply everywhere in the world” or something like that. No, his name is not George Bush and yes, he was serious.

I guess Corbis subscribes to that model. Corbis also sees Snapvillage as a “image warehouse” according to its own definition :

Which allows its contributors to proudly say to their friends and family that they are “stack” photographers working for an image depot. How proud they must be. Stock it up, people. Faster !!

Finally, on while we are on the subject of the second agency in the world (who decided that ? under what criteria ? Is it that Jim Pickerell again ? certainly not in profit), here is a post that you cannot miss :

Overheard at Corbis this week.

Posted in Midstock, license, technology, No sense, keyword, Royalty free, corbis, prosumer, Microstock | Print | 2 Comments »