Author Topic: The road to hell is paved with subscription (Read 24894 times)

Sean Locke Photography · « **Reply #50 on:** July 04, 2009, 22:39 »

Quote from: PixelBytes on July 04, 2009, 20:41

Jonathan, your understanding of what istock's goals are makes total sense. Although after seeing the impressive quality of your work I can't help but wonder if they are making the wrong decision to limit your ability and that of other similarly experienced individuals to get your portfolios on the site.

No, there are plenty of talented individuals who have paid their dues as iStock exclusive contributors who are able to benefit from this.

Adeptris · « **Reply #51 on:** July 05, 2009, 01:55 »

Quote from: PixelBytes on July 04, 2009, 19:58

I do wonder, though, how many of the traditional photographers would ever be eligible to contribute to Vetta. My understanding is that Jonathan and most other of these talented pros have RF commitments already to Trad sites and would never be eligible for istock exclusivity. Therefore they would be shut out of contributing to Vetta.

Also, by Big Two, do you mean IS and Fotolia (which has its Infinite collection) or did you mean IS and SS? Does SS have a high end collection in the works? If so I would love to contribute to it.

Hi PixelBytes,
Thanks for your comments, when I wrote about the traditional artists sitting on the fence, I was thinking about artists not shooting classic micro, not the 'established traditional' artists like Jonathan who's assets are already established with macrosites, but the 'new traditional' artists that do not have a home for their mid range assets, these artists assets are not ready for Getty or Corbis, and they do not support the microstock model in it's current form.

There are not many options between the microstock sites like Istock, and high end like the Getty and Corbis collections, there are many specialist boutique collections with small contributor and customer bases in this market, but currently no real big players, some services like PhotoShelter have tried to fill this gap and failed, artists aiming at this market have very few options to place their assets at the moment, Alamy being 78% editorial over commercial with no markets to grow into are also trying to move into this market with their own commercial collection which includes RF images.

The big two are Getty and Corbis, if we look at Getty they own Istock and have Microstock and traditional Macrostock well covered with little room for new growth, other possible buy-outs would have to small a customer base and many of the same assets and customers, the area they do not have covered is the mid range market, they cannot grow in the mid range market like they did with microstock by acquisition, there are no real big players to purchase, creating a new mid range agency would take to much time and resource.

They already have a vast contributor base with some assets that will fit the mid range market, and they are also aware of the number of artists out there with no markets for their new mid range assets, so the way they have dealt with this is to create collections within their existing microstock models, this will bring some of the mid range assets from existing artists back in house, but also make the model attractive to the new traditional artists.

As much as these microsites are courting existing artists for content, they are running a business so it does not mean that this will remain the case in 18 months time, the artist exclusive model works well for Istock and where they lead other will follow, so there may be many of these mid range collections, some will be by image exclusive invitation not artist exclusive, it will be interesting to see how these collections grow.

It would be nice to think that this is about offering the artists more options, but it is only about business growth, there is no more scope in the market to grow by acquisition, but there is a smaller mid range market to look at, they already have the staff, infrustructure, model, customers and vendors to make a move into this market.

David (I do not have a crystal ball these comments are just my thoughts)

Jonathan Ross · « **Reply #52 on:** July 05, 2009, 02:17 »

Hi Pixelbytes,

Like SJ said they are supporting their contributors that have been there to help build their collection. I find this admirable of any stock agency. In the past most stock agencies have not followed this path. It would be nice to see this kind of support spread across the industry. I support their choice even if it keeps me from being able to compete at an equal level. I wasn't there to help build the company, I am just a newbie to Micro. Thank you for the super kind words about my work. I don't know about you but I am like so many artists I am my own worst critic. Your words are comforting.

Best,
Jonathan

PaulieWalnuts · « **Reply #53 on:** July 05, 2009, 06:12 »

Quote from: stockastic on July 03, 2009, 12:50

We're starting to sell into a generation that grew up on cell phone photos. Feelings about, and expectations for, imagery in general are changing. This generation also expects digital content to be free, or close to it.

I think that before too long, today's carefully posed and ighted stock shots of suspiciously good-looking people will look as stiff and comical as 19th century portraits often look today, and will no longer be in demand for advertising and promotion.

Everythng changes. It will be interesting to see what future "professional" photography actually has.

Yes, everything changes and free things on the internet are slowly disappearing.

Whatever major newspapers are left will go online and will become subscription only. The ones that don't charge will go away.

So while this generation expects everything for free they'd better start getting used to paying for anything that has any value. The leftover stuff that isn't worth paying for will be free. Same thing will photography. The tiered system that's emerging now I believe will be the future.

puravida · « **Reply #54 on:** July 05, 2009, 17:41 »

what we truly need is not only the option of having a premium collection, but a departure from having too much homogenous (not sure if i got the spelling right) selection in the Big 6+ 3,etc..
at this moment, i see a total waste of time to upload to any more than really 3 of the big 9. i have a nasty feeling that the same reviewers are moonlighting for more than one site. why i say this is due to the fact that i sell the same images that are also wide range approved across the board in the Big 6+3. so, either the different reviewers have telepathy to select the same images, or the same reviewers are working for all these sites. i am inclined to believe the case is the latter.
so, i am not going to waste my time uploading to more than 3 of the Big 9, only uploading the those 3 discrete sites which have by tradition selected quite different images from the others. in doing so, i will perharps save time and have more time to create more images.
i figure that in doing this, i will have less duplicity in the stock sites, and therefore the buyers will still buy my images from those 3 sites . this also means i will no doubt reach payout a lot sooner, as now i will be selling more of the same images in one site vs 6 other sites.

is this unrealistic? i don't think so. we already know Istock select entire different images from SS, and Veer Marketplace has opened to show that they too are not interest in duplicity of getting our same images from SS, IS,etc..

which now leaves open the other situation ie. sites that have vision to create opportunities for contributors to earn more commission with a premium collection. as already mentioned, Photoshelter was one but sadly failed. John of Cutcaster also has a similar vision. However, also in my case, Cut has the problem of not having a viable market as say IS, SS, or FT.

I like to see John succeed in his vision to get where Photoshelter failed. But somehow I am not very confident of it, and see only Corbis and Getty being able to do this due to their exposure in the marketplace (no pun intended).

perharps a bit off topic, but i think it's pretty much relevant to what we are discussing in general. there is great redundancy in the stock sites at this moment. i am sure others will agree we don't really need 35 sites , when really only a handful produce.

PixelBytes · « **Reply #55 on:** July 06, 2009, 10:35 »

Quote from: Adeptris on July 05, 2009, 01:55

It would be nice to think that this is about offering the artists more options, but it is only about business growth, there is no more scope in the market to grow by acquisition, but there is a smaller mid range market to look at, they already have the staff, infrustructure, model, customers and vendors to make a move into this market.

David (I do not have a crystal ball these comments are just my thoughts)

Well, whatever you are looking through, your ideas are plausible and make for a good read

Thanks for clarifying about the big two - Getty & Corbis. Sort of the Godzilla vs. Megallon of the stock world, LOL.

I certainly hope that you are right that the "growth by acquisition" phase is petering out. Monopoly isn't good for any industry and I doubt "duopoly" would be much better.

PixelBytes · « **Reply #56 on:** July 06, 2009, 10:44 »

Quote from: Jonathan Ross on July 05, 2009, 02:17

Hi Pixelbytes,

Like SJ said they are supporting their contributors that have been there to help build their collection. I find this admirable of any stock agency. In the past most stock agencies have not followed this path. It would be nice to see this kind of support spread across the industry.

Oh, yeah. Totally agree. It is great for exclusives that istock supports them the way they do. Just not so sure how long that will hold up. The Vetta collection is a great example of supporting and promoting exclusive's work, but coming so soon after the Photos.com-Jupiter thing it is hard to know exactly which way the wind will ultimately blow over at Getty.

Quote

...I am just a newbie to Micro. Thank you for the super kind words about my work. I don't know about you but I am like so many artists I am my own worst critic. Your words are comforting.

You may be a newbie to micro, but the decade plus of experience you have shooting stock at all levels gives you a perspective that even the top dogs in micro might envy.

And yep, I am super critical of my work too, but trust me, my criticism of my own work is totally justified, LOL. Unlike yours

stockastic · « **Reply #57 on:** July 06, 2009, 12:38 »

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on July 05, 2009, 06:12

.. free things on the internet are slowly disappearing.
Whatever major newspapers are left will go online and will become subscription only.

I question whether that will happen. It may be too late for the big print media to start successfully charging for an online version - the content has been free for too long. NYT tried paid subscriptions for a while, and gave up. It's true that free music came under heavy assault and eventually many people got used to paying something for downloads. However, I think the price of music downloads will only continue to decline.

madelaide · « **Reply #58 on:** July 06, 2009, 16:22 »

Some of our newspapers limit the information you can access without a subscription. You may access most news for free (with ads), but some special reports, previous editions, etc are available to subscribers only (paper edition subscribers, as fas as I know). One of the newspapers that also own TV channels (one free and others cable) offer a special subs for online content, where you can watch their TV shows.

PaulieWalnuts · « **Reply #59 on:** July 06, 2009, 19:40 »

Quote from: stockastic on July 06, 2009, 12:38

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on July 05, 2009, 06:12
.. free things on the internet are slowly disappearing.
Whatever major newspapers are left will go online and will become subscription only.

I question whether that will happen. It may be too late for the big print media to start successfully charging for an online version - the content has been free for too long. NYT tried paid subscriptions for a while, and gave up. It's true that free music came under heavy assault and eventually many people got used to paying something for downloads. However, I think the price of music downloads will only continue to decline.

Print newspapers aren't making money and are going out of business. Their online divisions that rely on online advertising aren't charging money and aren't profitable. Readers are quickly headed toward online content. So what options are left? Go under or charge.

At some point the only news companies left will be the ones who have enough capital to last long enough to survive the transition from unprofitable print and unprofitable online advertising to profitable subscriptions. Slowly the free sites will go away until readers have no option but to pick one or a handful of pay sites.

And it may takes years but I also believe stock photo values will correct themselves. Low value images will stay in micro and higher value images will move upward in price. Bigger sites like Getty will drive prices up by luring higher value images away from free/micro (Flickr? Istock/Getty?).

Online advertising as a whole doesn't work. Targeted advertising does a bit better. When is the last time here anyone clicked on a banner ad? You buy anything?

What happened to all of the free Internet access like Netzero? New free offerings will always come up and after a few years with none of those companies making any profit they will start dying off and the ones that are left will start charging.

This is how Amazon.com is still around. Their plan was to survive dotcom circus until all of the unprofitable business models were gone. It worked.

melastmohican · « **Reply #60 on:** July 06, 2009, 19:50 »

Paid online content will not survive either. The reason everything printed died is availability of free content on internet. Same with TV, I think if I still need cable if I got everything I need from internet for free. The only way to survive is to find the way of monetizing on free content which Google does. They are now more advertising company than software house. They actually give away most software for free and try to link it to search engine which is money making machine.

Phil · « **Reply #61 on:** July 06, 2009, 20:33 »

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on July 06, 2009, 19:40

Quote from: stockastic on July 06, 2009, 12:38
Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on July 05, 2009, 06:12
.. free things on the internet are slowly disappearing.
Whatever major newspapers are left will go online and will become subscription only.

I question whether that will happen. It may be too late for the big print media to start successfully charging for an online version - the content has been free for too long. NYT tried paid subscriptions for a while, and gave up. It's true that free music came under heavy assault and eventually many people got used to paying something for downloads. However, I think the price of music downloads will only continue to decline.

adblock on all our machines, 90% of ads dont even show up, the rest are "invisble" you just dont even see them, I think it has been years since I've clicked on one of the few online ads that I do get

Print newspapers aren't making money and are going out of business. Their online divisions that rely on online advertising aren't charging money and aren't profitable. Readers are quickly headed toward online content. So what options are left? Go under or charge.

At some point the only news companies left will be the ones who have enough capital to last long enough to survive the transition from unprofitable print and unprofitable online advertising to profitable subscriptions. Slowly the free sites will go away until readers have no option but to pick one or a handful of pay sites.

And it may takes years but I also believe stock photo values will correct themselves. Low value images will stay in micro and higher value images will move upward in price. Bigger sites like Getty will drive prices up by luring higher value images away from free/micro (Flickr? Istock/Getty?).

Online advertising as a whole doesn't work. Targeted advertising does a bit better. When is the last time here anyone clicked on a banner ad? You buy anything?

What happened to all of the free Internet access like Netzero? New free offerings will always come up and after a few years with none of those companies making any profit they will start dying off and the ones that are left will start charging.

This is how Amazon.com is still around. Their plan was to survive dotcom circus until all of the unprofitable business models were gone. It worked.

microstockinsider · « **Reply #62 on:** July 06, 2009, 23:19 »

Quote from: Phil on July 06, 2009, 20:33

adblock on all our machines, 90% of ads dont even show up, the rest are "invisble" you just dont even see them, I think it has been years since I've clicked on one of the few online ads that I do get

Online advertising as a whole doesn't work. Targeted advertising does a bit better. When is the last time here anyone clicked on a banner ad? You buy anything?

Oh I think you'd be surprised at how much online advertising you see, even with an ad blocker. How many people bought moo cards? did they do it after they say a banner ad? or was it after they were on flickr and clicked on 'partners' or read a blog from someone who had their cards printed? What about new microstock sites and their photographer affiliate links, most of the text ones don't get blocked, and even if it's just the name of the site in text it's still branding that site and getting their name into you field of view.

Banners never really did get high click though rates, but people still see them, and that's a big chunk of what advertising is about - getting the message out. text links make click throughs.

Ad blockers are great, I don't use them but they all work with defined rules (sometimes crowd sourced), they allow you to create ads on your site that sneak through the filter, those are really powerful as people with ad blockers are not accustomed to filtering out the general background noise of ads that everyone else sees.