One of the best kept secret of this industry is how agencies work in foreign markets. In the prints days, an agency would work with a sub agent in a specific country. Photographers would send process or unprocessed film and the agency would take it from there, paying for processing, editing, captioning and duping. The … Read More →
While everyone is trying to find things to bury, form the death of photojournalism to the end of vertical images ( yes, I read that somewhere), in a desperate competition to be the first to announce “the end of..”, there is good news to report. The launch a new photo journalism agency. Not only that, … Read More →
Can an agency survive by itself anymore ? Can one create, nurture and maintain a client base of its own, like it used to be, without any fear of competition ripping through your front door and luring your precious income away ? One of the least understood evolution generated by the digital age is that … Read More →
Mediavat. Let’s think about it for a while. WHAT HAPPENED?. No VC would invest in a company whose business plan is to sell within a year. Especially 15 Million dollars. For one year? That is what happened to Mediavast. Furthermore, no company would open an office in Amsterdam one month before selling. Would they ? … Read More →
Getty Images project for growth is not such a mystery. Think about it: In order to continue its aggressive growth promised to their stockholder, it has to do 2 things: – Increase price per image. – Decrease commission percentage to photographers. Getty has been working on both fronts. By acquiring content, “wholly owned” as it … Read More →
~ A great idea is emerging from Europe and hopefully will cross the transatlantic pond. Instead of fighting the “orphan work” legislation, why don’t we try to work with it. One has to admit that it can be extremely hard to find the owner of an art work. Bad or no usage of metadata has … Read More →
Hey, I wasn’t too far off the other day when I wrote, in one of my recent entries, that the Apocalypse is near. We’ve been hit by a smooth criminal. People in this industry will remember this day like other people remember where they were when they heard the news that President Kennedy had been … Read More →
I have read many blogs and news snippets about Getty Images buying Jupiter Images for an obscene amount of US issued dollars. After what I have read and heard about royalty free microstock and looking at that space, if I was Alan Meckler, I would also quickly get out of that market before it collapses. … Read More →
There are too many images available in the editorial market these days. The pressure has been such that the prices of images are going down, following one the basic rules of economy: When supply exceeds demand, the prices drop. And like 1929, it could lead to dramatic results for the stock photo industry business. A … Read More →
Now that the bedroom wall street stock market analysts wannabes have gratified us with their “copy and paste” insight of what Getty reported for 2006, it is time to move on to other more important topic. I am sorry, but to me, it’s like copy and pasting part of Bush “State of the Union” … Read More →