September 3, 2010 by pmelcher.

So while most people are getting ready to take a long 3 day weekend to bid a last farewell to summer ( at least in North America) and others are frolicking among the cafe table of Perpignan, mighty Getty images doesn’t miss a beat.

What now ?  Called the “Artist Digital Toolkit” , it is basically a plain and dirty affiliate program with a Starbucks inspired name.  You know, like when you put a link to Amazon on your website and if someone clicks on it and ends up bying something you get a cut? Well, this is the same. Except, it uses contributors to do so.

How so crowdsourcing of them.

Here is the deal : You put one of their specially branded web banners, or e mail signature, or Facebook app, or whatever they give you and if someone clicks on it and purchases an image, you get a % of the sale: 16% if it is new customer, only 7 % if it’s a returning customer, whether it’s your image or not.

Help Getty sale images and get paid to do it.

Not only you give them content to sale, but you actually help them sale it too. What else, clean the offices after hours ?

You could even increase your 30% commission on certain sales to a whopping 37%. How cool is that? I smell riches here..

You will also contribute to Getty SEO campaign by creating new links for them. But you get no penny for that. Don’t push it, ok ?

So, if you are a Getty Contributor, get your free “Artist Digital Toolkit” and watch your bank account grow…

Posted in web 2.0, prosumer, license, commercial stock, Corpocrates, flickr, photojournalism, getty, editorial, transaction, finance, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

August 30, 2010 by pmelcher.

So what happens, you may ask, to a collection purchased by Corbis ? Well, you might not ask that question because you don’t care, but that is another story.

We have a clue:

1997 : Corbis purchases LGI, a celebrity photo agency, for a undisclosed amount of money . Immediately moves collection of one million color slides and black and white prints to what was then the world HQ of the Bettmann Archives on Broadway.

1998 : Exactly one year later, the director of the archive, looking bored, declares the LGI archive officially scanned. Obviously not everything was scanned, only what a bunch of Bettmann Archive trained editors considered worthy. What was not scanned of Lynn Goldsmith images, who sold her images outright, was destroyed, via a pair of scissors and a trash can. Remember, this was photo editor trained in historical images that were asked to assess the value of current celebrity images at a time when Corbis’s only interest was in commercial stock photography and not editorial.

2010 : Flea Market. Lower East Side. Manhattan:

.

This is a set of 4 color slides sheet of Kool and The Gang portraits, taken by “Susan Phillips” in 1992, clearly stamped LGI. Detail here:

The photographer, “Susan Phillips”, if my memory serves me well, was an alias name ( one many) for a famous Rock photographer.

O, and by the way, the person selling those slides was a very gentle old man who had no clue and couldn’t remember ( or didn’t want to say) where he took possession of those slides.

Sure, the photographer might have taken back possession of her images and decided to dump them. That is highly doubtful :  Photographers, even if they change careers, tend to be extremely possessive about their images, even bad ones. Those are decent portrait images of Kool and the Gang and would have some value in the licensing market.

She might have given some to the little old man to sell, out of pity.  A $20 bill would have worked much better.

Corbis tried to disposed of them in a trash can as they were recently moving offices from 902 Broadway to Hudson Street..Now you are starting to make sense. Question is, what else was in that trash ?

Posted in commercial stock, Corpocrates, celebrity, license, editorial, Search, corbis | Print | 6 Comments »

August 24, 2010 by pmelcher.

I don’t know, but it seems to me that the advice in this book are good for any stock shooter, not just Microstock

If you don’t take this opportunity to find out a little bit of what Ellen Boughn knows about this industry, you are making a HUGE mistake.

Posted in license, commercial stock, Midstock, Search, Royalty free, prosumer, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

August 4, 2010 by pmelcher.

From a Photo Editor job posting at Time, inc, the world’s biggest publisher of magazine in the world:

-Excellent editorial judgment and eye, must generate story ideas and identify topics to cover, must react to news.
-Edit and build various online photo galleries, notably never-seen LIFE archival content and LIFE.coms weekly feature: The Weeks Best Photos
-Oversee and perform the digital restoration of LIFE archival photos (basic retouching and color correction)
-Experience negotiating and managing usage rights and rates for digital, mobile and video content
-Assign, produce and direct original photo essays
-Liaise with Editorial, Legal, Sales and PR Teams in the execution of featured content packages
-Manage freelance staff
-Strong eye for young talent
- Must be creative in terms of doing more with less for less and must be ready and willing to do so

Revealing, isn’t it ? Especially the last phrase, which could be rewritten like this : Must be capable of getting the best images for peanuts and not complain about it. Ever.

This is symptomatic of the photo world today : Publishing companies profiting from the recession to squeeze top talent into a dilapidated photo department and forcing them to put pressure on photographers.

When will we see photo editors salaries only constituted of the money they save ?

Here is you budget. Whatever you do not use for photo purchase, you can keep for yourself.

Thus putting photo editor in direct survival competition with photographers.

As long as the publishing companies keep on treating photography as a necessary evil that needs to be crushed into “misc.” category along with other parasite expenses, nothing will change.

And, as long as there is photographers or photo agencies willing to accept this pathetic treatment , nothing will change.

O yes, if you wondered why we all had to sacrifice ourselves: 

Time Inc. Operating Profit Jumps 50%, Ad Revenue Climbs 4%

Posted in celebrity, license, magazine, Good Enough, Corpocrates, newspaper, SIPA, news, editorial, photojournalism, TIME, getty | Print | No Comments »

July 22, 2010 by pmelcher.

So, it seems that most people would consider that we have reach a turning point in our industry. Which one, no one is really sure. Let’s see if we can fix that.

What happens when people are asked to perform the same task for less  compensation they are used to receiving ? Well, they use the same skills they have always used but in less time, as they try to augment the number of jobs they can perform, in order to increase their revenue ( or at least keep them flat). Thus, they come out with more or less the same product or service, but just less worked upon. It caries less quality, less commitment, less attention to details.

When amateurs entered the  commercial stock market via microstock, they where very lucky. No one was looking for high end quality images, just images that did the trick. Art Directors and Graphic designers, using microstock, were looking for images that fit their needs, but no more. And that was fine because their was no masterpiece in there. As the market grew, contributors quickly realized that this was number games. The more images you could upload in the least amount of time could render selling via microstock a profitable proposition. And so they did.

Today the market, both from  amateur and pro offering , is filled with these images. They are ok; they are Good Enough. Because the image buyers are also under the same budget/time constrain, they are quite satisfied with that offering since they also will not spend the time to research more.

And so, here we are, in 2010 in the “Good Enough” market.  This middle place between perfect and not so good. It’s a comfort zone that satisfies all the available element : Time, Budget and Expectation. Those who handle the budget, those God-like figure that stand omnipotent behind any photography job , have unleashed a new powerful attribute to our everyday lives. And we all have  followed. Photo agencies have also lowered their standards and have accepted images they would have never accepted 10 years ago. There is nothing wrong with that : 10 years ago, there was no market for “goodenough” images. Today, there is.

Of course, the snake eats its own tail. This widening of the market allows more contributors to enter their offering, because that is the only thing they can do : Good enough images.

Who suffers ? Well quality suffers, obviously. Since it is not rewarding anymore to spend a lot of time on images, no one really does. If someone is happy with a half done job then that is great. Perfectionist suffer as their market is diminishing.

Who else ? Well, image consumers, obviously. They don’t get to see great images anymore. Just illustrations that didn’t cost too much to purchase and fit the need. No more, no less.

And don’t think for a second that this is a microstock only issue. Photojournalism, celebrity, sports, portraits,  wedding, every aspect of the photography world has been affected by the “Good Enough” mentality. Publications are quite satisfied in publishing good enough images and nothing more. Look at Time and Newsweek, for example. They are now full of wire service images which are the supreme masters in providing good enough images.

Even websites, supposedly on the cutting edge of  media publishing, use images by the pound, regardless of their quality. They are not looking to secure rights to superb images : Just those that fit the need. Who cares if their are not great, they didn’t cost much.

It seems to be fine with everyone : They pay less, they expect less.  Readers, especially online since it’s free, also know they cannot be demanding.

Maybe at the tail end of this recession we will see the resurgence of the exceptional, the high quality, the amazing.  For now, however,  it seems  we will  continue to fill our lives with good enough and dream of a better future.

Posted in license, web 2.0, celebrity, magazine, commercial stock, prosumer, flickr, editorial, transaction, finance, photojournalism, Microstock | Print | 2 Comments »

July 19, 2010 by pmelcher.

Man I love what this guy has to say :

Posted in license, multimedia, Search, TIME, celebrity, magazine, E Reader, commercial stock, technology, web 2.0, prosumer, news, corbis, getty, editorial, transaction, flickr, photojournalism, finance, Microstock | Print | 3 Comments »

July 15, 2010 by pmelcher.

Stop thinking about yourself and start thinking about your clients. Here and there, and almost everywhere you hear, or read, photographers and photo agencies complaining about this or about that. Their complains can be resumed to : ” But what about me”

Always starts with “I “. I used to make more money, I used to shoot this, I , I , I. aie.  Maybe the reason you are not making any money is because you do not think about your clients. They have shifted, evolved, not because they wanted to, but because they had to. Budgets or content, they needed to find other sources of photography. You, as you were continuing to think about “I”, you lost them.

The funny thing about sales, in any business, is that you always know how and why you gain new clients, but you never know why you loose them. They are tons of matrix to analyze  where new clients come from, what they do, how they purchase from you. But if they stop visiting you, you never know why. The reason is obvious : they are gone and you cannot communicate with them.

However, it is one of the most important piece of information that you might ever need; Why do you loose clients. Sure you can speculate. It’s my competitor pricing, it’s because I am too good, etc, etc. Because you do not have any hard data, the assumption is that it’s always someone else fault, not yours.

Well, recession or not, your clients retention should be the most important activity you have. You want them to come back, over and over again, even if you are not the cheapest. Because, unlike your new clients, you know them, their needs, their payments, their tastes. So much emphasis is made these days in new client marketing while nothing is done for current customer retention.

The same you probably managed to grab someones customer, someone else will take yours. Because you obviously do not care. You want new, now. Shouldn’t your growth of your business be measures as much by how many customers you retain than how many new you sign up ? Do you pay attention to their needs instead of looking for new markets ? Sure you can find yourself a niche, but what happens to your faithful customers, will they follow you ? Do they even care if you tweet ?

So turn the chair around. Stop looking at what you could do and focus on what can be done. Stop wasting energy ( and cash) on prospect and start fixing the leaks. Why are you loosing clients, why do they go for cheaper ? Do they feel that your content is not worth that much anymore? Did you even notice they left ?

Start building a sound and safe foundation instead of thinking about the tower . Sure new client marketing is cool and graphically challenging. But your stuff was cool too for those that still purchase from you. Why ignore them? So stop with the”I” complain and start listening to them.

Posted in technology, lens, commercial stock, focus, license, transaction, photojournalism, Midstock, editorial | Print | No Comments »

July 12, 2010 by pmelcher.

The Long love affair between photography and Media is over .

Because the editorial world is replacing experience photo editors with journalistic background for inexperience pixel pushers that are ordered to select the cheapest images, regardless of quality, they are opening the visual airways for steep competition.

A bit like traditional Royalty free opened the door to microstock by increasing prices and leaving a huge marketplace vacuum, magazines ( web or print) are leaving a wide open space for quality photography.  Because they still thinking terms of gatekeepers, they beleive the audience will follow them into whatever they publish. Problem is, this is the internet : the many to many market. They are no gatekeepers anymore, just influencers.

More and more, out of frustration to see great images go unpublished, photo agencies or photographers are doing their own editing/publishing. Zuma Press, with their Double Truck magazine was one of the first ones. Probably fed up of not seeing great images published in their rightful format, aka double page, they proceeded in doing their own magazine, featuring the images they liked the most. Is it a runaway success ? No. But it was a first.

Since then, a lot of photo agencies have launched their own blogs, featuring their own images, since their traditional clients would not use them. Not because they were bad, but because they were unwilling to pay a decent price for them. Some of these blogs, like X17online.com have become leaders in their markets. Photo agencies like VII have also launched  their own magazine, also in frustration of never seeing some of their great coverage go unpublished.

The result ? The public now has access to other sources of photography, previously hidden from them. They can see and compare. Gatekeepers are being challenged by influencers.

The smart publisher are the ones that will quickly realize and capitalize on this. Drop the most traveled image rat race for the lesser traveled side road of quality.

Here’s the deal : A well designed magazine with high quality- exclusive content will have no problem raising a successful paywall. The same way as people have no problem paying for very expensive Jewelry at Tiffany’s, or Cartier, they have no problem for paying for something they feel has value. They will not never pay for same middle of the road content. It’s not Pay walls that do not work, it’s what it’s what is behind them.

So here is the evolution of photography : More and more, creators of photography , disappointed of not seeing their best work being published, mostly because of unbreakable subscription deals made with mass providers, will start self publishing . More and more, those precious eyeballs that all want to retain so desperately will start navigating elsewhere and spread their attention span to other non mainstream sites.

The tide will be even greater when a critical mass will start understanding that they are not seeing the best , but the cheapest . Photographers will start combining their content with others and create their own outlets. Photo Agencies will gain momentum in their self publishing efforts. The media outlets that have spend millions to raise and maintain their brands will start being eclipsed by a guy and a computer.

Don’t think it can work ? Wireimage has been very succesful for many years in charging consumers to have access to medium  access to their images. No downloads, no editorial, just access to bigger thumbnails. Strangely, that model has never been replicated while their is no reason why it wouldn’t work elsewhere.

Editorial publishers are dropping the ball on their suppliers and forcing them to become their own competition. Or go out of business. Does that make any sense ? All that while lying to their clients. How long will that last ? Even with the advent of Ipads and E readers, this will not continue long.

Maybe the fall of Newsweek, and right behind, Time magazine, has a lot to do with that. If you have paid attention, you would have seen that in the last 4-5 years, they have reduced their image content to everything Getty/AP/Reuters in order to save money. Result ? Same images you all have seen on the web, but a week later…And then they wonder why people don’t purchase them anymore. They have laid off so many great photo editors that there is no way they can even find a great image anymore. In other words, they have both killed what had made them successful.

In other words, if photography is in crisis right now, its because Media is dying of a long slow agonizing death and trying the bring it along. Trouble is, photography can live without Media, not the opposite. These times are about to show it.

Posted in celebrity, magazine, Newsweek, E Reader, license, TIME, news, editorial, photojournalism, web 2.0, getty | Print | No Comments »

July 8, 2010 by pmelcher.

 Breaking news: Getty backs off the Rex Features deal..

See Getty’s internal email:

From: Nick Evans-Lombe, Chief Operating Officer and Adrian Murrell, SVP Global Editorial

Hello,

As you know, in April we announced our intention to purchase Rex Features. We decided to voluntarily go to the Office of Fair Trading in the UK for them to review this acquisition, and today they have released their findings. Their decision is that the deal should be referred to the Competition Commission and, as such, we shall not be pursuing this acquisition any further.

Below you can find the statement we are giving reactively, to this news:

“We are disappointed that our proposed acquisition of Rex Features has been referred to the Competition Commission and we respectfully disagree with the preliminary concerns expressed by the Office of Fair Trading. Given the distraction that this next phase could potentially bring to both Getty Images and Rex Features, and the parties’ desire to focus their business resources on the production and delivery of high quality services to their customers, we have decided not to pursue this acquisition any further. We still believe Rex Features to be a strong and valuable business and we wish the Rex Features team the very best in the future.”

Also attached is an FAQ document outlining some potential Q&A’s that may be helpful, particularly to sales, who may get asked about this decision/news. This document is confidential and is not for external distribution.

Any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact Adrian or myself. Should you or your team receive any questions from media, please refer them immediately to Alison Crombie.

Regards,

Nick Evans-Lombe & Adrian Murrell

—————————— This was written prior to the email above —————————————————

Apparently the swallowing of Rex features by Getty Images is not going so smoothly. The Office of Fair Trading in the UK has issued a press release ( see Below) stating that it will review its position on the acquisition and decide if it can move forward. The verdict will come at the end of this year, in December.

This is not good news, either for Getty or Rex Features. Rex finds itself as a sitting duck, unable to invest or retreat as it has to wait in position for the final verdict. In an economy that shifts brutally, that is not a good position to be in. The longer this drags, the longer it gives suppliers, which Rex highly depends on, to move somewhere else, as the future of Rex is uncertain.

For Getty, this is the first time that they are seriously starting to feel the Monopoly barrier. It is expected, that after purchasing so many of its competitor, that Getty, one day, will be denied any new acquisition by government eager to protect a fair market. Maybe this will be the first time. And if it is, this will certainly be a precedent for all other countries investigating Getty for monopolistic attributes.

Finally, for both, this will certainly mean a huge distraction, full of lawyers, filings, paperwork and money being spend in trying to convince the Office .

What is particularly interesting is that customers are complaining about the merger more than other competitor. Getty’s dream of becoming the absolute one stop shop of photography in order to better serve image buyers might also be hitting a brick wall of discontent. Well it is certainly helpful to find all of your images needs in one location, the fear of monopolistic pressure in price, and offering, is becoming stronger .

This is certainly not good news either for Hellman & Friedman, the private equity firm that purchased Getty images for $2Billion a few years . ago. As they always do, they had purchased  Getty in order to sale it later. If the company becomes branded as a pre monopolistic  business than no one will want to even want to remotely approach it.

OFT refers Getty/Rex merger to the Competition Commission

The OFT today referred the anticipated acquisition by Getty Images, Inc. of Rex Features Limited to the Competition Commission for further investigation.

Getty and Rex are two of the largest suppliers of photographic images for editorial use by publications in the UK. Getty has significant strength in the supply of both archive and current entertainment-related editorial images. The OFT is concerned that, if the merger is allowed to go ahead, the loss of Rex as an independent competitor could enable Getty to increase prices for customers.

During its investigation, the OFT heard a significant number of concerns from third parties, which supported the view that the profiles and extensive image archives of Getty and Rex mean they are close competitors.

The OFT considered carefully whether there would be sufficient constraint on Getty from existing agencies and/or new entrants into the market. However, the evidence available on this was inconclusive, and therefore there remains a realistic prospect of a substantial lessening of competition.

Amelia Fletcher, OFT Senior Director of Mergers, said:

‘This merger would bring together two of the largest and closest competitors for the supply of archive and entertainment images within the UK. A number of publishers, the key customers in this market, are concerned about the potential impact of the acquisition.

‘Some of the information available to the OFT in this case was patchy and inconsistent. We have not been able to rule out competition concerns on the basis of this evidence, and so the right course of action is to refer the merger for a fuller investigation by the Competition Commission.’

The Competition Commission is expected to report by 23 December 2010.

NOTES

1. The Reference Test - The OFT has a duty to make a reference to the Competition Commission if the OFT believes that it is or may be the case that arrangements are in progress or in contemplation which, if carried into effect, will result in the creation of a relevant merger situation; and the creation of that situation may be expected to result in a substantial lessening of competition within any market or markets in the United Kingdom for goods or services.
2. Under the Enterprise Act 2002 a relevant merger situation is created if two or more enterprises have ceased to be distinct enterprises; and the value of the turnover in the United Kingdom of the enterprise being taken over exceeds £70 million; or as a result of the transaction, in relation to the supply of goods or services of any description, a 25 per cent share of supply in the UK (or a substantial part thereof) is created or enhanced.
3. The Competition Commission may extend the 24 week period within which it is required to publish its report by no more than eight weeks if it considers that there are special reasons why the report cannot be published within that period.
4. The text of these decisions will be placed on the Office of Fair Trading’s web site at www.oft.gov.uk  as soon as is reasonably practicable.

Posted in finance, license, celebrity, commercial stock, transaction, editorial, Royalty free, getty, law, Microstock | Print | 1 Comment »

June 29, 2010 by pmelcher.

You gotta to work with facts. Opinions are good for cocktail parties and useless , endless conversation; facts are good for business. In the last year or so there has been an emergence of Social Media “specialist” popping up here and there arguing breathlessly on the magic wonders of using social media to make your business grow.

There is no success story right now proving that either Twitter or Facebook will indeed help you grow your business. Inversely, there is no failure stories either of anyone going bankrupt because of them.Yet, these self proclaims gurus that have way to much time on their hands think they have discovered the path to the new El Dorado of the photo industry. If you Tweet right, they proclaim, you will be extremely successful. Ok then, let’s take a look.

There is a cool site called Wefollow.com that shows how many followers a Tweeter based on the keywords they have. So we looked at #photography :

If we cancel the photo sites like The Creative Review or ID Magazine who are clearly not in the business of getting assignments or selling stock images, the first individual who tops the list is this guy : David Malby with 103,591 followers. He seems to have tweeted recently about the speed of a sneeze and seems to have a local radio show..mmm, ok, let’s go to number 2 .

With 93, 380 followers, TheBigKlosowski is Denver based photographer that does wedding. Seems his tweets are all over the place ( “All salad is better with steak on it.”) and not really photo related. Besides trying to sell his old gear, there is no evidence of him making any income from his tweets. Doubtful that any soon to be married couple care about his love of steak.

Nunber 3 Tony Mandarich ( 87, 163 followers ) seems to sell a SEO service business more than his photography skills. His Tweets are also a mix bags of Penny stocks obsession and links back to his SEO blog..

We are not having a lot of success here, are we ? we could go on and on down the list, jumping from Iphone lovers to gadgets junkies but no real photography junkies. The only ones close are those that offer tips and tricks and how to ’s.

Sure, if you like to caress your ego by counting how many no lifers have decided to follow your every brain burps, go Tweet. If you need to run a business, I would really avoid it. It is not photo friendly at all as the best you can offer is a link to images. Do people looking for photographers and photography go on tweeter.? No. It would be the last place they would go. There are more people using Craiglist to find photo service than on Tweeter. Except Craig’s List is not that cool anymore, so the Gurus won’t talk about it.

They say you need a plan so you can track your success. But will not tell you what plan would that be, because they don’t know themselves.

The problem with social media/web 2.0 these days is that everyone thinks he/she is a specialist because no one is.  They try to sell you their services without having a clue. As long as you are ready to listen, they are ready to talk. They have time on their hands, you don’t.

So here’s an idea ( for free). Don’t do tweeter for business, do it for fun. If it brings you business, good; if it doesn’t, well, at least your having fun. Whatever you do however, don’t listen to social media gurus or specialists : if they were that good, they would be making money with their tweets.

Posted in license, technology, commercial stock, Search, web 2.0, editorial, finance, Uncategorized | Print | 1 Comment »