August 19, 2008 by pmelcher.

  According to Sellingstock.com, the CFO of A21 just quit. Left his company. Just like that. Not surprising really when you look at A21 recent  numbers. Rising cost of operations, lowering sales, the company is heading straight for a wall, head first. Amusing part is that the only two other public or ex public companies in this business have also posted negative results for the second quarter of 2008.( Jupiter and Getty). None of them have signaled community portals( Alamy or Photoshelter) as the cause of their financial suffering . Some have accused the rising price of oil ( ya, right) and, others more bluntly, the ever shifting move from traditional commercial stock to Microstock.

Even if Getty and Jupiterimages saw Microstock coming, they both underestimated its impact tremendously. It is no longer in the original 8% of existing Getty customers that istock is eating in, but rather 25% and growing. Jupiterimages is struggling to integrate their own microstock offering into photos.com hoping to elevate the price per image. Who will be the first to shut down some of its more traditional divisions in order to save the leaking ship ?

No one knows how Corbis is doing in these hard times. Surely, their Snapvillage is not a player in the microstock field, and if the public  companies revenue are any indication, they must be hurting too. In a Bill Gates kind of way. More layoff before years end ? definitely. But not just at Corbis. expect Jupiter, A21, Getty and others to lay off some weight.

There are no clear solutions for these companies. They were build with very expensive infrastructures that do not work well with lower pricing. Although Getty’s project used to be an Internet company only, they have lost their objective and have fallen  heavy into the overhead trap. When they purchased PhotoDisc, they were going to go all speed ahead in high technology/low headcount. Apparently they got sidetracked, allowing Istock, Dreamstime, Shutterstock to continue and achieve what they only dreamed of achieving. Buying Wireimage was cute but will certainly slow down their growth considerably. They have inherited a mastodon of inefficiency, who was busier to reach high market shares rather than being profitable. Results: lots of personnel, huge operation cost, a big mess and waay too many photographers. Jonathan Klein even said himself at the last Getty shareholders meeting : Mediavast was never profitable.

Everyone knows that Getty purchased Wireimage to get rid of it, not to make it grow.

The next 3 years will see the industry giants engage in any and all enterprise that will help them cut their cost to a minimum while not engaging in significant investments. Not an easy task if they want to also grow at the same time. Certainly less of an easy task when lesser size companies are starting to move on the next step. Mostly European, these companies have grown organically using the more slower pace path of reinvesting their profit. Much more careful on their investments than the big loud 3’s, they have now reach a level of financial strength that they can now start to retaliate.

Some are acquiring, others are merging. While the corporate mend their wounds, alliance are forming  in the back alleys of the industry. Interestingly enough, most have hired ex Getty, Corbis or Jupiter staffers who have learned, from within the beast, what not to do. These agencies are extremely ambitious and battle savvy. They have all they need to succeed : knowledge, relations, expertise, endurance and cash. Most will never publicize their acquisition or mergers because they couldn’t care less about what the rest of industry knows. They have drawn a very precise path and their definition of success is  far from Wall Street . Very far.

The race is far from over : Neither Getty nor Corbis have succeeded  cornering the market. In fact, both have abandon the idea as they realized it is almost impossible. While Corbis is still figuring out how to turn a profit, Getty has spend the last 10 years acquiring companies they felt they could not compete with or create internally. Like pasting dollars bills on their obvious shortcoming.

JupiterImage is surviving only thanks to its internet properties while A21 keeps on borrowing money. Neither have a bright future, not, at least , in the photo licensing world.

A reasonable expectation is that our universe is about to see its giant stars implode. They are about to break apart because, similar to  the laws of the universe, they cannot survive under their own weight. Too much manpower, bureaucracy, equipment, replacement, fiscal obligation are making them crumble.

They ate too much.

Posted in Jupiter, technology, commercial stock, finance, corbis, Royalty free, getty, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

August 12, 2008 by pmelcher.

- Misconception No1: Photojournalism is not being killed by celebrity photographers. In fact, photographers that cover the celebrity scene, weather red carpet or street photographer have the same ratio of good to bad photographers than in news. It takes some of the same skills to cover news and celebrity. Regardless. Time or Newsweek have not increased their celebrity photography coverage. They just have just lessened their news coverage.

- Misconception No2 : Editorial photography is dying. What is dying are the daily and weekly print publications. Newspapers, magazines, and old brands. They cannot compete with the speed of  news anymore. What is dying is the image that is formatted for a print support with a rectangular format. What is dying is the photography taught in school and colleges today. There is a new medium for editorial photography that has never existed before, that knows no boundaries will it be in size, amount, artifact and pricing ( the Internet). What really is dying here is an old mentality.

- Misconception No3:  Video will replace stills. Take a look at the amount of video images coming out of the Olympics. Hours and hours of footage. Now, tell me who will sit down and edit film pumped out at 25 frames per seconds to find the right image ?While you think, look at this great gallery done by Stern magazine and see what can photographers can do.

- Misconception No4: Anybody can shoot great images these days. Why would anyone say that when pro photographers have always used the same equipment as amateurs. This is not like dentistry or chemistry where the tools are hard to find, let alone the knowledge. Photography has always been easy to learn and the equipment always available to anyone. The only part that has changed is how easier it is these days to share. But really good images created by amateurs have always been around. Not as accessible, that is all. Its not the equipment that matters in great photography, it is the person holding it

- Misconception No5 : If you produce a lot of images, you can make a living with your photography. A rule of thumb more in the stock photography world than in the editorial one. It was true for a while when it was expensive to distribute images to clients. Today, it is a dangerous thought. Quantity will slowly be replaced by quality as the market will no longer be able to support myriads of photographers hoping to make a living. Image buyers will no longer be capable of keeping up with offer and start closing doors.

- Misconception No6: A photo editor knows a lot about photography. A photo editor only knows a lot about the photography used in their publication. He or she works, breath and sleeps in a very confined universe. Their ability to make one publication look great almost never  translate in making any and all publications look great.  That is why very successful photo editors never leave the publication they work for. They grow into them.

- Misconception No7 : Blogs about photography are useful. Besides posting press release they never read or repeating something they read elsewhere, they actually do not help much. Only a very few escape the ego narcissistic trip of the popularity contest and give out extremely valuable insight. They are extremely rare. The rest are operated by hit counters.

- Misconception No8: Every Magnum / VII photographer is a great photo editor. Why do thousand of photographers flock to have their portfolio edited by another photographer? It would vaguely make sense if one would want to be that photographer or replace him/her. And even so, photographers are the worst editors of their own work. But what makes a successful photographer a better editor than a non photographer ? If anything, if they see a great portfolio, wouldn’t they  try to dissuade that person from stealing their job?

- Misconception No9 : There is still room for a news agency. With AP, AFP, Reuters, Getty, EPA, DPA and other wire services employing some of the best photographers in the world while controlling most of the sales channel, it does seem obvious. There is no more oxygen. The best one can hope to do is represent a small pool of extremely talented photographers and help them get assignments, but even that is not a given. If they are extremely talented, they really do need much help. So what makes all these agencies try to cover events like the Olympics with 1/10 of the resources the others have with medium to mediocre photographers( crumb photographers)? Hope ?

- Misconception No10: Free photography will save the world. or a new pricing.or a association of good willing people. There is only one thing that will save photography, if it actually needs saving. It’s photography. great photography

Posted in magazine, celebrity, Magnum, Newsweek, commercial stock, newspaper, TIME, news, editorial, wire service, photojournalism, getty | Print | 4 Comments »

August 6, 2008 by pmelcher.

The photo agency industry continues to complain and whine about its condition, endlessly consummated by demons it has created.

For one, it has created this endless pool of incredibly mediocre photographer that has for far too long managed to make a living taking pictures. Its not amateur photography that is getting better, it is just pro photographer that are getting worse and lazier. The over reliance on a defunct principle that they were the only one to own the channels of photography sales made photo agencies indifferent to the quality of their product. After all, it was them or nothing. Even Getty, who once believed it could corner the “distribution of image” market and set it own rules got a nasty wake up call when Istock through the first kick and Flickr the second punch.

Today, the photo agencies have a lot of excess weight. Photographers they keep because of old friendship or by pure habit, endlessly submitting the same images in the hopes that the Golden age will soon return. While they wait, in absolute stubbornness, the majority have decided that playing with pricing will offer them a new opportunity.

Amidst unverified rumors that their competition is doing the same, prices are being slashed to levels that have never been seen and that defies even the law of gravity. Since print publications are not doing so well either, everyone is more than happy to comply, bringing the whole market to a spiraling absurd end. To top it all, Angelina’s twins selling for an allegely $14 million just adds more photographers in the pool, hoping that they will too, one day , hit the jackpot.

Take Florida based photo agency prphotos.com ( created by some wireimage ex pats), for example. Someone there with a brain the size of  sand has decided to offer red carpet images for web usage on a subscription basis. That wouldn’t be so bad if the prices were not so ridiculously low. Some of its offering is as low as  “Under A Penny Per Image”. At that stage, what is the point ? With what seems 5 people on staff, how do they intend to pay their bills?

Do they still believe the internet is the dumping ground of photography ? But more important, what does it say about how they value their photography ?

We haven’t seen the worst of it yet. There will be more of these whacked-cracked photo agencies popping up everywhere, one “smarter” than the other, offering waccadoodle prices in a desperate hope to become the new Google of photography.

Getty, now privately private will soon release a lot of weight ( read photographers) that will in turn compete not on quality but on sub pricing flooding of an already over saturated market with less than attractive images. It will not just hit editorial, but commercial stock as well, until only a few agencies survive. Already photographers have a hard time. If they associate themselves with foot-shooting agencies and their magic potion pricing, they will have to take other jobs to make ends meet.

There is no salvation in stupid pricing. It is just stupid.

Posted in celebrity, magazine, commercial stock, google, flickr, getty, editorial, finance, Microstock | Print | 1 Comment »

August 4, 2008 by pmelcher.

let them eat cake, she had said. As the eyes of the world are turning toward China and the upcoming Olympics, this is a good time to reflect on how photography is evolving. Not as a medium, but as a media.

Getty images licenses a series of exclusive images to People and Hello! for a reported $14 million. No one questions this. furthermore, no one seems to believe that the number is just plainly insane. On one side of the spectrum, images sell at a buck a piece and on the other, at double digit millions of dollars.  Doesn’t make much sense. And I will tell you why : Image pricing was a combination factor of quality/difficulty/usability. The more an image was going to be used, or seen, the more it would cost. The better, or rather, the more relevant the images were, the more its price would go up. Finally, the more an image was hard to get, the more the price would go up. If you look at the RF microstock model, none of the above is true anymore. Does the Jolie twins bring so much value that they will reep sales above $7 million ( assuming People paid half the bill ?) . lets see : Angelina first baby picture sold for $4million. People sold 2.2 million copies at a cover price of 3.95. That is roughly  $ 8.8 million if you complitely ignore the subscribers. If they raised their advertising space rate, they should have broken even. At $7 million, it becomes more of a problem. After all , it is not because she had twins that there will be double the readership, is it ?

Actually, these images have become a story by themselves. They were priced way before Angelina even had the babies. And by whom ? The media. Rumors, speculation, interviews, opinions were running  like a mountain stream in Spring, finally settling around anywhere from $11 million to $14 million.

Interesting thus, that Getty sold these images for the same price as people assume someone would sell these images. Did the  megastar couple take the hint from the crowdsourcing pricing or is it just hype ? After all, the crowd will be more eager to see images that are worth $14 million dollars than a few bucks. Thus both Getty, People and Hello ! profit from screaming that those images were sold for $14 million. It benefits everyone, even the couple who gets to give even more money to charity.

Furthermore, does anyone who has been in this industry for a while really think that competing magazine USweekly or IN TOUCH  stop bidding at 13,999,999 .00 and said we give up ? Or that if the National enquirer had bid $15 million, it would have been in their latest issue ? Publicists and stars want to be in People magazine, not in tabloids.

Who cares if it is not true, really. What matters here is that these images  got a celebrity status, even before they were even taken.

The second incident is the revelation by Newsweek DP that the Olympics will be mostly a .com event. Ex-photography director, Mary Ann Golon had told me that TIME will be doing the same a few months back . Seems that this Olympic season will be online with additional reporting in print. The slow decay of the paper support is becoming more apparent as it cannot compete with the feeding frenzy. Photography becomes free at last of the written word and regains a position of strength. It can live, breath and exist by itself  on an online slideshow that doesn’t need much explanation. This will only continue to erode the news weeklies here and worldwide. It will also put much more pressure on the photographers to fully report with images and not just be an accompaniment to the text. Its good news.

Posted in license, TIME, celebrity, magazine, Newsweek, photojournalism, slideshow, Royalty free, getty, editorial, transaction, Microstock | Print | 4 Comments »

July 29, 2008 by pmelcher.

This is not the next challenging mountain  path of the Tour de France. It is neither the now too familiar trend of the Getty stock. It is, however, the devastating path of the Jupiter Image stock.  Minus 68% in six months, for a company that is neither linked to the subprime rate or the price of oil, that is pretty bad. It looks to me, and I am not a stock market expert, that this little company is going right down the exit and is just prime for 2 fruity options : being acquired or shut down.

Insider info has also informed us of massive lay offs in New York last week, apparently kept very hush hush. As much as the numbers are unconfirmed, they are talks of maybe 100’s. As we all know, when a public company is failing, the first to be offered at the altar of the Wall Street gods are the employees. The old rituals of human sacrifice revisited for the business world.

There is no doubt in anybody’s mind that Alan Meckler and is team are doing the right thing. It is somewhere in its application by the common employee that something went wrong and thus they should be punished.

Without significant numbers, it is hard to figure out why Jupiter is having such a hard time. Guess is that they are suffering from the same effect as Getty Images : a declining rights manage market, a suffering traditional RF demand, and a microstock division not covering for the losses.  The “Call” where Alan Meckler will reveal it all  is scheduled for August 7. He is probably hoping that most people will be on vacation.

“That is obviously a bellwether of what the future brings and the fact of the creative destruction that is going to happen here.” once said Alan Meckler to PDN. I guess that was not the kind of destruction he had in mind.

Posted in Jupiter, commercial stock, finance, transaction, Royalty free, getty, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

July 19, 2008 by pmelcher.

It is not the usage but the image. A flew of photo agencies, including recently Alamy, have come out with special pricing plans for blogs ( non commercial ones).  It appears to be specially arranged  to compete against  microstock, as the prices are very, very low.

Which begs the question and realization that more and more, these days, images are sold based on usage and never on content.  Since the value of an image can vary immensely from one person to another, corporations, like Corbis or Getty have just decided to ignore it in their budgets. It is a known fact that corporations hate variables. So they take a whole sloosh of images and apply the same pricing. All of these over there are RF, these are Rights Ready, and those are too old. Furthermore, they believe that an image only has a value when it is used and that value is only quantified by the way it used.

As much as simplicity is appealing, as much as it doesn’t reflect the real value of an image. As we all know, some are really easy to get ( the Eiffel tower, for example) and some are really hard ( Angelina Jolie posing with her newborn twins) . One would never apply the same pricing rules to those 2 images, if one was a little versed in photography sales. But it doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. In between these two images, exist a whole range of pictures that are either more or less easy to take and also, have added value created by the photographers themselves ( the Eiffel tower taken by a National geographic photographer).

Example:

let say I take a nice image of the Eiffel Tower.  Nothing special. I license this image to a blog. I get 5 cents. Same image, I license it to Microsoft worlwide 10 years unlimited rights desktop usage. $60,000.  Hmmm… what is the value of my image? 5 cents or $60,000?

But more important, is it really the usage of my image that defines its value ? Shouldn’t be the image itself ? More like a painting ? You will buy a Picasso for millions of dollars regardless you put in a closet or decide to attach it on the walls of the British Museum.

Aaaaah, but photography is not art, you will say. You cannot compare. Well, my friend, why would an Angelina  Jolie and Twins go for a cool $11 million ?

Well, it is not the photographer that matters here, it is the subject, you will argue.

Absolutly !!! my point exactly. Photography is even more wicked that its value is not even obvious by who took the image, but what is on it. Sure you have the Masters who commend a certain price. But the bulk load of images are taken by complete unknowns that will remain so. But some of their image will command huge prices.

Because of how they are used? Or because of their content?

At this point you have to agree with me.

While editorial agencies are very aware of the statue and value of their image, stock couldn’t care less. Here, you can have all these images for a penny an image, because after all, no one comes and visits your site. Well, that is terribly wrong and reinforce the idea to clients that photography is a commodity. If someone doesn’t have the budget to pay for a great image, too bad, blog or no blog.

There is value in some images and client should pay for that value.

On another completely unrelated note:  Rumors are spreading that Getty and other wire service are asking their news  photographers to shoot  events with commercial stock resale in mind. Meaning that those  photojournalists no longer shoot what they see but try to , for example, to purposelessly blur peoples faces in order not to need a model release later. To maximize the lifetime potential for an image. As much as it make sense for the agency, as much as it is digging a little bit more in the wound of photojournalism, making it less and less credible every day.

We will probably see more and more denature photographs of world events as photographers will try to cover them on a more “stocky” way .

Posted in photojournalism, license, celebrity, commercial stock, transaction, editorial, Royalty free, getty, corbis, news, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

July 15, 2008 by pmelcher.

The truth about your photo organizations is that they have either no idea what they are talking about or they have no idea  what they are doing. Either way, they are slowly becoming obsolete and useless.
Take PACA for example. The Picture Archives Council of America is preparing for its next “international” meeting to be held in New York sometime in October of this year. One of the panel they have organized for their members   is called ““What Role Will Technology Play With New Business Opportunities?”.
I had to read it twice. Does it say “will” ? Like in the future “will” ? Has anyone at PACA looked around and noticed what is already going on here and now ? How technology is running their business already. For an industry that currently runs 95% on technology ( it always did , by the way) it is a weird panel to have. But this is not the worst part.

The worst part is that they are “excited” to announce that they have secured the participation of  Ben London/Executive Director, Northwest, of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Now, I do not know this gentleman and I am sure he is a fine person but inviting the RIAA to explain what opportunities exists in technology is like asking a bear what to do in winter.

I wonder what went into the PACA committee’s collective brain who set that up : “lets find an industry that has completely missed the boat on new technologies and is currently gasping for air, for what they think about new technologies and opportunities ?”

I mean, makes complete sense, no ? The RIAA is now known worldwide for its smooth aptitude to deal with change and a prime example of what the photo industry should do. Let’s see what we can take from the RIAA lessons:

Do nothing and then sue everyone.
Desperately refuse the introduction of new technologies and stubbornly hold on to antiquated business models.
Install technology that alienates your customers so intensively that they prefer to break the law then license anything from you.
When desperation comes, jump on any new business model around and dramatically slash your prices ( think iTunes). Regret your decision 2 years later.
Keep on suing. Maybe that will cover the losses
Alienate you artists until they also leave you for new business models
Merge or die.

Rich (it is a very expensive proposition to attend this congress) and successful PACA members will come from the whole world to listen to this man explain how brilliantly the RIAA has handled technology and new business opportunities. And then, after a few drinks, when all is said and done, everyone will go home with the deep satisfaction that this was money well spend . Some will even dream of a potential merger of the RIAA and PACA,  strongly united against the advent of new technologies, new business models and plenty of lawsuits.

Mmm, I wonder why Getty Images decided to sponsor that one event ?

For the latest from PACA, please go here.

Posted in technology, commercial stock, CEPIC, PACA, getty, law, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

July 10, 2008 by pmelcher.

As per a press release of today : “Open Text Corporation (Nasdaq: OTEX; TSX: OTC), a provider of Enterprise Content Management (ECM) software, has acquired eMotion LLC from Corbis Corporation of Seattle, Washington. Open Text purchased the division for approximately US $5 million, net of cash and assets, effective July 2, 2008.eMotion is a provider of hosted business applications for managing digital media assets and marketing content. eMotion is headquartered in Seattle and has an office in Rockville, Maryland.

Corbis acquired eMotion, Inc. of San Francisco, California for an undisclosed amount in July 2005.

Corbis is a visual media provider for the creative community, licensing the widest array of award-winning contemporary, historical and entertainment photography as well as extensive collections of acclaimed illustration and footage.

Waterloo, Ontario based Open Text is a leading provider of Enterprise Content Management (ECM) software solutions. It offers a wide range of ECM products that help its customers ensure compliance with industry regulations and internal policies, controlling information flows, and helping solve other content-intensive business challenges. Open Text currently employs approximately 2,700 people worldwide.”

end of press release.

credit Techfinance.com

In 2005, Scott Wilson, CEO, eMotion said : “Corbis and eMotion’s services are a natural complement,”

Mmm. I guess not. At least not long term.

“Our clients are increasingly seeking ways to manage the still and moving imagery they use in their creative projects,” said Mark Sherman, about the deal, senior vice president of assignment & representation and emerging businesses at Corbis, at the time.

I  believe he got fired since.

One year later Business Week Magazine added ( 2006):
“A year ago, finishing off a year when revenue rose 20%, Corbis’ leaders confidently predicted that they would turn the company profitable. That didn’t happen. Instead, organic revenue growth slowed to 4%, though overall growth topped 34%. The total take was $228 million, thanks to the company’s mergers and acquisitions spree. (Getty Images grew 17.9% to $733.7 million, mostly organically, and pulled in $150 million in profits.)”
Ouch !!

the  same article continues:
“Corbis’ acquisition spree was partly aimed at placing bets in emerging markets. For instance, last July the company bought eMotion, a provider of hosted digital-asset management software. Yet image licensing remains a dominant part of its business. To boost profit potential, Corbis is beefing up its own collections and the custom-photography service, which involves assigning photographers to capture images. “end of Business Week Magazine quote.
You remember that guy from Star Wars Episode I ?  The Rasta guy with the tongue sticking out after being caught in the electric field of  Anakin’s pod racer ( do i sound like a geek right now?) ?

Well, whatever his name is, that is the Corbis management right now: tongue sticking out saying : blabadabaaaadabadaaaaa. Bladaabadaaaaaaaaaa.aaaaaaaaa.

Corbis ex- CEO, Steve Davis said, according to the Corbis press release, at the time: “In 2005 we doubled our global footprint ( How the hell do you double a footprint ? With bigger feet ?)  and rounded out our content and service offering. As a result we are the only company in the industry with the ability to provide comprehensive solutions—great content, the rights to use it, and the ability to manage it.”

And  I should add, big feet …

Shouldn’t someone have smelled E-Motion footprint at the time,because, apparently, it smelled bad. Certainly, not the sweet smell of success.

By the way, how much is a “footprint” going for these days ? 1 dollar a footprint ? what the hell is a footprint in photography ?

Gaaaaaaaaary ? any idea ? where is Gary anyways?

There he is (or was):

British Journal of Photography july 4th 2007, reports ( almost exactly a year ago):

“Days after taking on his role, Corbis’ new CEO has slashed 160 staff in 17 offices worldwide.

Gary Shenk took over from Steve Davis on Monday (02 July 2007), but the decision to cull 15% of the company’s workforce was announced late last week. The job losses are as a result of a three-month strategic review, led by Shenk and his management team, which is driven by the ambition to pull Corbis into profitability for the first time.”

and probably out of the “footprint” business.

the article continues :

“Corbis is also to sell its Digital Asset Management (DAM) division, which currently manages media libraries for large corporations. The service, which was officially launched only last summer (BJP, 16 August 2006), came about after the acquisition of eMotion in 2005. Like the Assignment Division, it has been performing well, says Perlet, and has won 25 new customers in the last 12-18 months.”

I guess ( actually, I know) Corbis hates, just painfully and  physically hates, anything that performs well.

E-Motion:

Bought in 2005,

analyzed in 2006,

destroyed in 2007,

sold in 2008.

Welcome to the club, dude.

Corbis  does it, again

Posted in Canada, technology, commercial stock, multimedia, No sense, corbis, transaction, finance, getty | Print | 1 Comment »

July 8, 2008 by pmelcher.

By now, you must have read all about the Getty Image/Flickr deal. In a nutshell, Flickr announced that Getty Images has the right to go through the Flickr collection and pick and choose the images that they want to distribute.

Now, seldom know that Flickr has been shopping around for the last two years for a way to license its content. They have approach many existing companies in order to investigate their options. I am not at liberty to say which but lets just say they are not your traditional mom and pops. But like with any huge company, time is not an issue and most potential, at first very excited, ended their conversations with a resentful puff and walking away with what everyone thought was a goldmine. When you looked closer, it is more like a coalmine. Lots of digging for little return. One huge issue, is that, although Flickr has a clear copyright policy, most people don’t care and upload whatever they want anyway. Since nothing is for sale, no copyright infringement lawsuit has ever surfaced, but most certainly a lot of “cease and desist” notices have circulated.

The second very important issue, is that Flickr has a beautiful facade, but behind it,  lies a dump yard of crappy snapshots. Their “Interrestingness” engine is a model of programming done with genius. Only the best images  surface, hiding the ugly muck below.

While these talks where going on, some mash up 2.0 companies tried to take advantage of Flickr’s API to lure users to shift platforms and take advantage of their licensing engines. That was a lost battle as Flickr monitored those links very closely and shut down  any one who  apparent motivation was money. No more than a little slap on the hand.

Getty, having a whole department in charge of making new deals could simply  not let go. These guys lose their job if they do not make any new deals. So they came out with this wackadoodle arrangement: Flick makes deal with Getty Images.

Wait a minute, Flickr doesn’t own, nor does it represent any of its content. It is only a sharing platform. How can they make a deal on behalf of their users ? They can advise them, yes, but certainly not make a deal for them. Getty will still have to ask each and everyone of them for permission to license their images. But be no fool, this has been going on for a long time. I do not know of any photo agency that has not already contacted users of Flick in order to represent their work. And those who didn’t are either fools  or not in the commercial stock business. This deal doesn’t change that, as Flickr cannot dictate anything to its users.

Furthermore only Getty, or its retarded companion Corbis, could afford such a deal. It will take them a huge time to edit through the content and find the pearls. And that is money spend, not received. Let’s say they do find a photographer with great talent, nothing guarantees them that he or she will sign up with them. Nothing at all. Or they have might have already signed with someone else. This is Gargantuan work for little return.

This deal is just a pack of hot air. We all know that Getty is no fool and that this is just a big PR balloon. It will fly, get some people very excited and overheated, and just disappear after a short sting.

What is however captivating is that Getty now officially announced, with this deal, that it can no longer trust its own suppliers or photographers with providing them with the right images. It is  also an admittance of the failure of both  their internal “creative research and intelligence” and in its long held belief that it had secured the right partnerships. To proactively and officially reach out to amateurs is sending a loud and clear message that their current content is not adapted anymore.

After thought : So what happens to those poor pro photographers schmucks who paid $50 dollars to get their images on Getty Images under the brand “Photographer’s Choice“? Let me get this straight : you’re an amateur and upload to Flickr, Getty images includes your images for free. You are a pro unwilling to upload to Flickr, maybe because you don’t want then stolen and you have to pay $50 per approve image ? It doesn’t compute

Posted in Search, license, technology, commercial stock, yahoo, web 2.0, corbis, finance, flickr, prosumer, getty | Print | No Comments »

June 29, 2008 by pmelcher.

It is not going to get better. In fact, it is only going to get worse. With the price of gasoline rising everywhere in the world and political freedom slowly being burned out, journalism and  twin sister photojournalism, will continue to suffer a slow and painful death.

First, there are the newspapers, that cannot compete against the web anymore. While it was just  against the speed and visuals of television, newspapers still had a few weapons of choice : The written word, the photographs and the ease of location. Unlike a TV set, newspapers could be carried around everywhere. Against the web, none of these advantages exist anymore. We can get news as faster and in even more locations than any physical newspapers can provide. No need to find a newsstand, the news is on our phones, or laptops. We can select what we read where we want. And we get images, if not videos. The medium itself is dying.

News Magazines, at least weeklies, are not doing much better. They have to put all their efforts into exclusive reporting in order to continue to compete with the web’s immediate delivery. But with the rising cost of staff writers and photographers added to the ever rising cost of travel, it is very fast becoming a negative income proposition. If you cannot send your own team on location, you will not get any exclusive coverage.

As for the Web, well, it is obvious. Newspapers, magazines, TV stations, everyone is competing for attention while delivering the content for free. In a way, news outlets are cannibalizing themselves, eating away at their very own core.

Here is the dilemma with journalism today:  It is still trying to be a profit center when obviously it cannot be one anymore. News used to be for sale and people would gladly pay for it. They even went along with the fact that their attention was sold twice, to them and to advertisers.

The past and present news empires are a testimony of its success. Organization owned the news because they were the only ones capable of gathering it  and distributing it for profit . Not so anymore.

Because the cost is rising and because we are dealing with profit businesses who need to cut cost , more and more news outlet are not even selling their own news, but news and photographs bought at wholesale prices and sold at retail . AP, Reuters, AFP and others are some of these news wholesalers. They can spread out their cost of reporting to thousand of clients. But for us, readers, we only get a washed down version of an event. We see the same photographs over and over. We do not feel any connections to our favorite publications ever since the competing one has the same exact content.

Why should I pay for something that is everywhere ? To anyone, something that is everywhere is either very cheap, or free. News is not considered as it should be a paid  item anymore. It has been devalued to almost nothing. News outlets played a deadly bidding war against each other not by increasing the quality of their reporting but rather reducing the amount of money spend on gathering it.

Aggregation, shut downs, mergers are certainly are only elements of this downward spiral. In its insatiable thirst to remain profitable, the news industry is killing itself by cutting costs. They rely on Britney Spears to pump up the sales: cheap to cover and rather entertaining. Wrong idea.  A single guy with a desktop and no notion of anything but himself can outdo any organization with no money : Perezhilton.com. With free images nonetheless, as he allegedly stole photographs from photo agencies.

So what is the solution ? Cut the middle man. For the readers to directly pay for the news by making news a public service. Before you start spitting on the floor while throwing your fist to the sky and cursing my name, let me explain. Currently, you are already getting a lot of publicly funded news. AFP, for example, widely distributed in the USA by Getty Images, is a government-owned company paid for with French taxpayer’s money. DPA, grand master behind EPA ( European press agency),  is also partly funded by the German government.

Some of the best reporting, currently, is done by  non for profit companies. In the US, channel Thirteen does some of the most amazing news coverage. It has the time, the resources and the will. Because it is not trying to sell you anything, it focuses on the issues. I know, you will say that you do not want to read or see propaganda. That is like saying that all public schools are brainwashing your kids, that firefighters are bias when they put out fires or that public beaches are secretly bugged with microphones.

Of course the temptation will be great, for a government to want to censor the news, if they feel they own it. But like other public institution, like libraries for example, there are many ways to protect the editorial content. And in a way, government interference might be more welcomed than any current hidden big business agendas ( think Newscorp and Murdoch for example). At least I can vote them out. I would much prefer my tax money goes to help fund journalistic investigations than helping killing people.

Just think of it : openly public funded news outlets with finally the right amount of funds to properly cover the news. Journalist and photo reporter will  not be under the pressure of being fired all the time. Foreign governments might just be that much more careful if they know that the journalist are government employees.

We would finally get some news. Any and all news.  Some regular updates on Darfur even if only less of us care.We would enjoy original and in depth reporting, great original photography and a much, much better understanding of our world. Would you really mind knowing that the New York Times is own by the US government ? Or by public funding ? That it serves the public needs rather than a private group of investors ?

It would be a real boost for photojournalists around the world and the quality of reporting because, let’s face it : It is not because of the lack of quality and interest that photojournalism is dying, it is because of the current inadequate economics behind it.

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