"micro stock" photo agencies on the internet

[FlyingKiwi]

Good article in the NY Times (requires free registration) on microstock websites which pay tiny commissions to photographers, but which have supposedly been working well for some of those photographers:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/05/technology/circuits/05syndicate.html?em&ex=1181188800&en=687225a44f80273c&ei=5087%0A


A quote near the end:

Still, railing against the sites is about as useful as hoping cellphones will go away and phone booths will make a comeback.

“Every month, my income from microstock sales gets better,” Ms. Cline said. “You have to go with it or be left behind. Otherwise you’ll be saying, ‘Woe is me.’


Richard.

[RichardVM]

Yet one decent stock sale is generally better than a whole bunch of tiny ones. If clients find they can find photographers who undervalue their work and give it away, it just exacerbates the problem. 

Richard

[FlyingKiwi]

I'm with you, but some of the photographers interviewed for this article claim to be making $70K - $100K per year from the micro stock agencies.

Of course, they're doing very generic business type photography, and aviation photography is a much, much tinier market.  For that reason, maybe it's not a workable model in this field.

Richard.

[FlyingKiwi]

Now Corbis is setting up its own microstock website, following the lead of Getty:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/25/technology/25corbis.html

Here's a chilling quote from the article:

“Cannibalization is going to happen in our industry,” Mr. Shenk said. “We can either let it consume us or be part of it.”

Richard.

[Roger]

Now Corbis is setting up its own microstock website, following the lead of Getty:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/25/technology/25corbis.html

Here's a chilling quote from the article:

“Cannibalization is going to happen in our industry,” Mr. Shenk said. “We can either let it consume us or be part of it.”

Richard.

Nice...

[CAVU Mark]

The Micro Stock agencies are here to stay. There may be some consolidation some day but, fighting them is like pushing a string up hill.  Thankfully they are mostly generic images, less specific to aviation although you can find people posting aviation images.  The more images you have the more you make. Oh, these times they are a changing.