It was just a question of time. We have repeatedly wrote here about how the current photo licensing model is broken and obsolete . We also explained at full length how image data collection and third-party revenue are the new gold mine. Getty apparently heard and is now applying. (If … Read More →
If you have been reading this blog, you already know that we strongly believe that next big disruption to the pro licensing scene is already in your hands. Not so much because everyone has a camera and can potentially shoot ( nothing new here) but rather for its ability to put image buyers and sellers … Read More →
Today, or yesterday, Google made a little change to its image search engine that could have great consequences. Apparently responding to a blog post by Lessing – the leading advocate for a copyright free world- who was complaining that Bing Images search offered better functionality, Google decided to move the license search filter to the … Read More →
Instagram knows more about photography than Getty Images does. Or Corbis. Or Associated press. Or even Shutterstock. In 3 years years, it has aggregated more information about which photograph works better than the combinations of the best photo editors at any photo agency. It is not just Instagram. Flickr does too, although they might not … Read More →
Let’s talk about photography for a while. Not about how to take pictures or how to sell them, but just about photography. There has been a lot said, and written, about it in the last hundred years, and every attempt to define it in simple terms has failed. Why ? Mostly because it has so … Read More →
I organized a panel at the recent PACA ( the Digital Media Licensing Association) conference around mobile photography and image licensing. I invited 4 companies representative of what is going on in this space, in an effort to show and explain that the next major disruption in the professional image licensing world will come from your mobile … Read More →
Publications are no longer the place where photography is consumed, social media is. The so called professional market has become an infinitesimal portion of the marketplace. The big Internet companies have understood it and are waging a take no prisoners battle to control it. They want it all. They want to be the place where photographs … Read More →
The misconception of the pro photography world is that, without their content, publications, blogs, and other companies cannot be successful. They believe that they are in a position of power in an economy that is rapidly doing without them. True, a decade or plus ago, it was very hard, if not impossible, for a print … Read More →
Organizing the flow of images and extracting value. Finding, in the millions of images being shared daily, those that have a potential to be sold. How do we figure out this riddle ? In a time where everyone is talking about big data and how to make sense and profit from huge amounts of information, … Read More →
There is a popular saying that says there is no such thing as a free lunch. Likewise, there is no such thing as a free photograph. Here is why. Photography could be divided into two actions, taking and sharing. The first act of taking a picture is an act of voluntary selection, one by which … Read More →