March 31, 2008 by pmelcher.

While photographers trade organization are wasting their time fighting issues like the Oprhan Work bill in order the save whatever they have left, and while photo agencies association seem violently silent, the world of editorial continue its downfall.

According to Radaronline, Newsweek magazine got rid of 111 staffers last week ( didn’t even know they had that many)  and the newspapers of America had the worst ad revenue in its 50 years history, according to E&P.Worst than the 2001 slump. While analysts seem to confuse Getty going private with Getty shutting down, it is quite obvious that the tide is retreating before the big hit.

As previously written here, the editorial world will loose its dailies and weeklies in favor of the internet. It is not a question of if, but when. Monthlies will continue to thrive as long as they keep away from time sensitive news. The old ways will not continue.

While this continues, photographers and agencies will continue to bear the heaviest load as they will be asked to support the biggest part of theit cost saving initiative. A lot of companies will sink with the ships they will be trying to save. Those who will survive are those who are, today, turning to the new market. Companies, like Getty, that have understood that the future is on the Internet and create for themselves opportunities to be competitive.

Istockphoto, and other micro/midstock agencies are a good example of internet savvy photo agencies. Lean, mean, fast, cost effective companies that have learned to both cut their costs and leverage technology to its fullest. They can reach wide and far accross the world and up and down the client ladder. Others have jumped into new licensing models like Gumgum which  allows them to operate like a microstock on but a RM model.

The issue will be the relenvency of content. Currently, the internet is replicating the print editorial world. Some are adding video or multimedia, but it is still very linear. But that will change too as “born in the internet” art directors will re -invent  the web page and how we consume our news. Photographers will and agencies will have to reinvent their offering to match it.

Getty, by going private, will certainly take advantage of this new situation. They have already by acuiring Istockphoto. The celebrity photo agencies have also initiated the switch by producing videos and embrassing new licensing models. Others will probablly decide that book publishing, exhibits, grants are a better way to go and try to carve a controlled market. But, with schools already using Wikipedia and other National Geographic sites as references, how long will this market survive?

More technology based solutions are peeking out of the horizon that can help this industry  make a succesful transition. It is, a little, heartbreaking to see how slowly they are being ignored by the guardians of the old temple who beleive that saving what they have is better than growing in new markets.

Posted in copyright, license, Midstock, celebrity, magazine, Newsweek, gumgum, Zymmetrical, multimedia, TIME, editorial, news, getty, transaction, CEPIC, photojournalism, msnbc.com, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

March 26, 2008 by pmelcher.

One reason Getty claimed revenues were not so strong was because according to them, a lot of the advertising dollars are going to purchase adwords at Google. Some companies pay upwards to $100,000 a month, if not more, to purchase the best location, based on your search terms.( I shouldn’t have to explain this).

Well, the future, at least for the photo stills department, is not looking brighter. For Getty or others. Google is already secretly beta testing Video-text ads. It will look like this:

Unobtrusive,  you will actually need to click to make the ad viewable. You can actually see a live demonstration if you do a search for “laptop” in google.com and look at the Intel entry on the right.( it doesn’t always appear. You might to do it a few times)

What does this mean for the photo industry ? Well for starters, commercial stock photographers not doing RF should really rethink their future, as well as RM only photo agencies, because between Video and RF, there will not be a lot of dollars left.

Commercial stock Photo agencies not doing video should also rethink their future.

Stock, in general, will begin to become obsolete in general, as the cost of producing a 30 second mini video will allow more and more companies to have customized work done in house .

Editorial photographers  should sit back and enjoy, because it will not affect them at all. Same for their photo agencies, if they are also only in their editorial field. However, they might want to look where the newspaper/magazine market is going if they want to survive. Hint: you need a computer to see it.

Finally, we will see ( although many exist already), a flurry of small video producing companies grow like mushrooms all over the world to respond to this new market. Some owned and operated by smart, flexible ex photographers, others by new players.

And then someday, someone will have the idea to consolidate them into one big company.

Posted in license, focus, technology, lens, multimedia, Search, web 2.0, google, newspaper, Royalty free | Print | 2 Comments »

March 26, 2008 by pmelcher.

• Another great story out of France today:

As you might remember, French president Nicolas Sarkozy used to be married to a very free thinking woman called Cecilia. While still a minister, but already the “chosen one” to succeed the heart attack stricken Jacques Chirac, Mr Sarkozy got a big surprise one morning when he saw pictures of his wife kissing some guy in the streets of New York city plastered on the cover of the biggest news magazine of France : Paris Match.

Paris Match is owned by Hachette Filipacchi, itself owned by the Groupe Laguardere. And heading this magnificent group that also counts in its portfolio banks, insurance companies, arm manufacturing, parts of Airbus and much more, is Arnaud Laguardere. Arnaud is not only a college buddy of Nicolas, he is also a key figure of French foreign policy, weapons being the number one export of France.

One call and the publisher of Paris Match was fired . So much for the freedom of the press. Nicolas Sarkozy has nothing against the press as long as it is respectful to him.

Fast forward. He gets elected, throws a few parties, they wait a little and finally Cecilia files for a divorce and leaves for New York. French President remarries with ex model singer songwriter Carla Bruni who apparently loved to pose naked, according to PDN.

Cecilia reconnects with Richard Attias, the man she was kissing on the cover and they also decide to get married. Being publicity whores themselves, they go shopping to sell their wedding. Their first stop ? Paris Match. Quite obviously, the new editorial team decides to turn them down. For some reason, they end up with Getty Images. Probably because they heard that Getty was affiliated with AFP in France ( partly owned by the French Government) thus making a proxy deal.

Getty Images says yes to the exclusive rights. As customary in this world, they turn around and sell it to French Gala for  60,000 euros ( about $95,000). Not much compared to the  baby pictures of Jlo, Jolie or C. Aguilar, but still a hefty sum. All proceeds, as per agreement, go to charity.

Richard Attias, Ceo of Publicis Events World and Cecilia ex Sarkozy get really, really upset. They didn’t want the money, which they will not see anyway, but the exposure. They made the deal so that they could, especially her, get back to Nicolas and show their happiness all over the french media. But when they wake up this past Monday morning, nothing.

Calls to Getty quickly got them the answer they did not want to hear. Thus they forced Getty to release 3 or 4 images so that non bidders could publish images too. Le Parisien, a populus french daily  for people who love to bet on horses ( which is 96 % of the french population), finally publishes 2 images in its Tuesday edition ( yesterday) for a mere 1,500 Euro (about $2,400) and right under a huge, unrelated headline that reads ” Beware of rotten meat !!”.

A few thoughts come to mind:

-Getty should avoid mingling in French sex affairs. It is a lot of pain and no income (remember, all proceeds went to charity)

- What happened to AFP, the supposed exclusive agent of Getty in France?  Partly owned by the French government, did they suddenly retract themselves because it was too hot ?

- Cecilia is no Nicolas. He gets married, its a big deal. She does what she wants, no one really cares. He is the President, after all.

- Exclusives are made to make money, not to get extended coverage. Freebies can help getting you published everywhere. Unless if you are the first born of Angelina Jolie and Bradd Pitt, an exclusive is not the way to go if all you want to do is piss off your ex husband.

- Freedom of the press, in France, is a point of view . Depending on where you are, its definition changes.

Posted in newspaper, license, celebrity, magazine, finance, transaction, news, france, editorial, getty | Print | No Comments »

March 25, 2008 by pmelcher.

Posted in Search, technology, No sense, web 2.0, slideshow, photojournalism, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

March 24, 2008 by pmelcher.

Apparently Picapp is having some hiccups. As per many posts in their forum, Picapp has been supplying non authorized images to bloggers worldwide for free.

Apparently Getty  was supposed to only put their wholly owned images via the Picapp service. That is images either produced by staff photographers or bought outright. But by some API fluck ( that is the official version, at least) images from commissioned photographers also appeared.

Apparently, the issue is currently being solved but if I were a Getty contributor, I would check if my images are made available. There filtering system does not seem to be very efficient. The most amusing part of all this?  Picapp is run by Picscout, an anti copyright infringement service. I guess you can’t trust anyone these day…

Posted in copyright, technology, license, filter, wire service, getty | Print | 1 Comment »

March 24, 2008 by pmelcher.

As the beast stumbles, the race continues. Mighty Associated Press has decided to increase its celebrity coverage by an additional 21 staffers spread out between the East Coast and West Coast. And not just photographers, but also writers, videographers. Furthermore, AP will not just limit themselves to red carpet, but might join the ranks of the street paparazzi if the story demands it.

“AP is uniquely positioned to become the definitive provider of entertainment news for all media formats largely because of our reputation for accurate, unbiased coverage.” said newly appointed Director of Entertainment Content Daniel Becker in an internal memo. And this might just be true.

Getty and Wireimage are exponentially covering events as the publicist-hired company. Thus forcing themselves to commit an act of auto censorship and most times publicist censorship. Getty cannot guarantee any editorial freedom and independence when they cover these celebrity events on behalf of those who produced them. It is quite the opposite. Most will be edited and watered down before being send for mass consumption in magazines all over the world.

AP doesn’t take these types of assignments. Which is good news for the business side of Getty but certainly not for content directors. It will be very interesting to see how this battle plays out. Those who might suffer, however, are the numerous small agencies that survive on the crumbs left behind by the soon to be private Seattle giant.

More competition on celebrity events is certainly not good news for the Startraks, Starmax, Beimages, Celebrity photo and others who have managed to do well, for some, thanks partially to Getty’s and Wireimage’s inability to offer a full, truthful coverage.

The question now, is not if, but when will Reuters and EPA follow ?

Posted in license, celebrity, magazine, technology, newspaper, keyword, news, editorial, transaction, wire service, getty | Print | 1 Comment »

March 23, 2008 by pmelcher.

Here are a few of the most recent press release spins that I appreciated the most:

Picapp: Seems every time Picapp sends a press release, everyone picks it up. Hard to avoid anything photo and non photo related without a mention of Picapp this week. The news ? not much, if only to mention that news images have been added. Not sure if it is really news. The web 2.0 community seems lukewarm about this ad supported service while the photo community has no opinion, most still trying to figure out the difference between a Jpg and Tiff.

Seems to be a few issues: Why put in just pro content like Getty ? At a time when even Getty suffers from crowdsourcing, does it make any sense ? Why can’t I put up my images and make money on it on my blog or any other blog ? Do I really need to go through an agency and give up 60% of my earnings ? And why keep on claiming to have Corbis content when the only pictures from Corbis are a few old images of Bill Gates or one of Gary Shenk at a Hollywood podium ? And finally, why no mention of Jupiterimages, Imagesource, Thinkstock and all the others that apparently Getty has dragged into this experiment?

And what’s with the funny, cutesy cartoonish interface ? Sure, one can use a recent image of the Iraqi war, along with a insightful commentary, only to have some little guy’s face playing hide and seek with the image. I do not think serious blogs will appreciate that.

Finally, still wondering why a company that has been in the image tracking and infringement business for many years has now turned around into a licensing platform ? Is this the long arm of their Picscout business ? Look, we caught you in a copyright infringement. Next time use Picapp !! A bit as if a cop would stop you for speeding and try to sell you a speed radar detector.

Photoshelter : A bit less effective with their press releases than Picapp but still able to travel way beyond the photosphere. Changed their interface. Made it all green, not sure why. No pricing for blog usage but the closest I got “web. newspaper” told me $135. But what is with this 1/4 screen, 1/2 screen , full screen question when trying to figure out the pricing for a blog or any web usage . And this 1 week, 2 weeks , 1 month ? One would have thought that for such an internet savvy company, they would not have applied print usage standard for the web. This is not 1994 anymore…

Anyway, under cover of a redesign, another blog launch ( they have 2 now) and added features to the Personnal Archive, Photoshelter changed they contributors agreement to give themselves the right to grant discounts to image buyers . Recently launched, the Photoshelter Collection is already offering discounted prices…It is going to be hard to keep high rates. Using Fotoquote as a billing tool might not have been the best choice. They now have to face the reality of the market and the wake up call is harsh.

Remenber, Getty and others, sell images for web usage for either $49 or free ( if you use Picapp). At $135 a pop, they are not really competing hard. So let the discounting start !!!!

Jupiterimage: Great spin !! “a transition year” says their press release. You have to love that !!. Isn’t a growing company always in a “transition year”, every year? Transition from what to what exactly ? and that “write-down of goodwill and intangible assets” of $82 million. Much much better then the Corbis legendary ” If you do not include our one time expenses, we are profitable”.

and what happened to the celebrity offering promised in September 2007 ?

Posted in No sense, Search, license, technology, web 2.0, finance, getty, corbis, transaction, Royalty free | Print | No Comments »

March 19, 2008 by pmelcher.

There are times when the world of photography just stops. To a standstill. Today is such a time. Legendary man and photographer Philip Jones Griffiths , passed away after 72 years of an amazing life.

There are no words that could truthfully pay enough tribute to such a photography giant . There are, thankfully, a lot of his images.

As Henri Cartier-Bresson to write of Philip: “not since Goya has anyone portrayed war like Philip Jones Griffiths.”

In memory, now and forever, please visit, see, understand, appreciate his images :   Portfolio

and read more about Griffith in the wonderful Magnum tribute by Stuart Franklin

Posted in copyright, Magnum, newspaper, photojournalism, editorial, news | Print | No Comments »

March 19, 2008 by pmelcher.

They should have picked a closer planet. Something like MarsMedia or even MoonMedia. It would have been easier to reach. Seems like Jupiter just doesn’t cut it. Number 3 ( or two) of the big three US corporation to hold an interest in the photo world just posted their final numbers for 2007 and…surprise.. its a loss: $77.3 million, according to their press release.

Ouch!!. If we look at the numbers more closely, it hurts even more ( and its not even my money). A pathetic $2,5 Million increase in revenue from last year. And you should see how much it cost them to increase their revenue . They had to spend close to $1.50 for every dollar they made. wow !!

It is just not going well, is it. Not for the photo industry which has always been a hard place to swim in, but for the corporate 3. Getty Images had to sign off and find strategic partners before being thrown out of Nasdaq, Corbis has to shut down offices across the world and retreat in Virtual Reality and now, Mr Internet.com himself feels the pain of non-profit.

One of the interesting part is that both Getty and Jupiter own two of the top microstock properties in cyberspace, but that still does not seem to help . Take a (strong) hint Corbis !!!. Sure the market in commercial stock photography is changing, shifting but even holding one of the cannibalistic tribe doesn’t balance that shift. Lots of little images for little money doesn’t equal a few images for a lot of money.

But even so, one wonders is these microstock operations are even profitable at all. Istockphoto allegedly has 70 staffers plus 90 freelance photo editor. At an average of 80 cent per image sold, it takes a huge amount of image sold to make a profit.

So there not much hope there. Unless if they all raise the prices of microstock, which they will have to do.

According to ATI website, Alan Meckler “even went so far as to say that the high-end RF single image and CD-ROM business won’t even be around in ten years. ” Question is: Jupiter shows no sign of transforming its operation to get ready for this change. If anything, by purchasing a microstok music store, Meckler shows more signs of moving away from its photo division.

Regardless, it seems that is due time for the corporate world to leave an industry where only one has barely succeeded at huge cost ( Getty Images) and the two others seem incapable of posting a profit. And last I checked, that is the main, and the sole purpouse of a corporation.

The rest of us, well we all really really enjoy working with great photography, even if some months we have a hard time paying the bills.

For those who like to crunch : jupiter financials

Posted in prosumer, license, Jupiter, technology, finance, transaction, Royalty free, getty, corbis, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

March 17, 2008 by pmelcher.

It has been a while since I have wanted to write about a great plug in for Firefox hardly known in the photo industry. It has a lot of advantages and no defaults. For one, it is free, two, it can be installed on any image library, three, it is incredibly helpful. One can quickly and nicely browse through a lot of image, increase the interesting ones and download the best.

Zymmetrical.com is the first and only agency to currently test it live on its site and starting to get user feedback. You can see a screen shot here:

They have also added a link on their website where one can test it.

This a great example of a company leveraging technology for what it can bring to the user experience.

The Piclens plug in has been around for quite a while and works with Google Images, for example. It has gotten great reviews by everyone that has approached it. It is cross platform, easy and simple to install and to use. It is an incredibly useful tool for the image industry .

Posted in focus, technology, lens, Piclens, Zymmetrical, Midstock, web 2.0, Search, multimedia, slideshow | Print | No Comments »