Apparently, it wasn't as easy to launch a microstock site for lower-cost photography sales as Corbis thought it would be.
Corbis, one of the established powers in licensing stock photography, launched SnapVillage in 2007, arguing that the microstock market was still young. But on Thursday, Corbis announced that it will phase out SnapVillage by the end of the year.
Contributing photographers and illustrators, along with customers and existing imagery, will be moved to a new microstock part of Corbis' existing Veer property called Veer Marketplace. Veer, a stock art agency Corbis acquired in 2007, offers both royalty-free and rights-managed imagery.
"We recognize that as the market has rapidly evolved over the past two years, we need a bigger, better offering to achieve success in microstock," Corbis said in a blog post. "In the months ahead, we'll be inviting SnapVillage contributors and customers to Veer Marketplace. Once Veer Marketplace is launched and fully operational, it will become Corbis' only microstock brand."
SnapVillage competes with a host of microstock competitors that arrived on the market earlier. Those include iStockphoto, acquired by Getty Images; StockXpert, acquired by JupiterImages; Fotolia; Dreamstime; and ShutterStock.
SnapVillage, owned by Corbis, is one of a host of 'microstock' sites for inexpensive downloads of stock photos.
(Credit: SnapVillage)SnapVillage, a microstock site founded in June by stock-art sales company Corbis to compete with rivals such as Fotolia and Getty Images' iStockphoto, has expanded to include international sales.
Although the site now works beyond the United States, the Web site is English-only for now. The company plans to localize with more languages later, a representative said. The site is still officially in beta testing.
The site receives about 10,000 new image uploads a week, SnapVillage said in a statement Wednesday. Although there are several rivals already better established, Corbis believed it would be better off starting its own site from scratch.
The company wouldn't release specific download statistics, but said sales are growing. In the last three months, the number of image downloads per week has increased by a factor of 8 and the number of new accounts created per week has increased 60 percent.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
Flickr member Hamad Darwish is now a part of computing history, with two of his photographs included in Windows Vista. Usually Microsoft doesn't approach people with (we're assuming) large checks unless they're vying for a name or settling a lawsuit, but Darwish's work wowed Microsoft so much they hired him for a photo shoot.
Apparently there are three more images from Flickr users shipping with Vista, along with a few from Microsoft employees, too.
This is a cool use of services like Flickr. While Corbis, iStockPhoto, and Getty Images are all a hotbed for finding good wallpaper material, Flickr and other photo hosting services are a great place to find budding photographers who likely will be eager to have their work showcased and purchased.
[Found on Flickr blog]
- prev
- 1
- next
