This Month in Microstock – June 2009
Posted by Lee TorrensiStockphoto saved June from being a slow microstock news month.
Microstock News
iStockphoto changed how the quantity of downloads for both individual images and contributors are displayed on the website. Rather than displaying the exact figure, it now shows an approximated number. While they weren’t specific about the purpose of this move, they indicated it was intended to limit the ability of people and computers to extract and use the information.
The Photos.com and Jupiterimages Unlimited pipe was removed from StockXpert and connected to iStockphoto as announced last month. The partner program was turned on and iStockphoto contributors were given the opportunity to opt in or out.
Towards the end of the month iStockphoto announced the Premium Collection was launching and with the new name: The Vetta Collection. They simultaneously announced the introduction of localized search results and their expectation to hit $200 million in revenue for 2009.
Veer Marketplace opened to contributors with lots of positive feedback about the interface. The new Corbis microstock venture is already open to buyers with content ported over from SnapVillage.
Ex-iStockphoto executive, Garth Johnson, was recruited by Fotolia to head up contributor relations as Senior Vice President of North America.
German Telecom entered the microstock market with Polylooks, providing an interesting case study. Deutsche Telekom already have a buyer base and technology resources. If they can make a successful microstock agency out of Polylooks we may see other companies with the same assets enter the business.
David Mail, the programmer behind ProStockMaster, released his microstock agency Pixamba.
More portfolio milestones fell with iStockphoto passing 5 million and both Dreamstime and Fotolia passing 6 million.
Posted June 30th, 2009 by Lee Torrens
I think it was $200,000,000 not $200,000 in revenue iStock were targeting.
Thanks Tim, corrected.
Does anybody know when Polylooks will has english version of site!?
I haven’t seen any indication that they have the intention of providing an English version, but I wouldn’t rule it out.
Hi Lee, what is your current opinion about Pixamba? Is is worth? Do you the founder well?
Cheers
Hi Luis, I’ve corresponded with David over the past two years and I get the impression he’s a serious and legitimate business person. Pixamba is facing the challenges of all new microstock agencies, but I can’t see anything new or anything that will distinguish them from the new agencies which haven’t succeeded over the past few years. Unless I see one or more of these changes, I won’t be uploading my portfolio to Pixamba.
Lee,
From the Istock section “they indicated it was intended to limit the ability of people and computers to extract and use the information.”
It could be that in the economic downturn they would not want the scale of any downward trends reported by third party statistics services as this could affect their business.
If this move also affects their API, then data services like LookStat and upload programs like ProStockMaster that return summary transactional data might be affected, both Istock and ShutterStock have stopped Isyndica from transfering files and returning data on behalf of the Artist, which creates more work for the Artist in uploading, and being the two main microsites will have an impact on the projected growth of any third party services.
David