MicrostockGroup

Age Fotostock requires exclusive images.  I wonder if the new site will also be like that?

Regards,
Adelaide

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 For the past few months the age fotostock  IT and marketing teams have been hard at work developing easyFotostockTM, an innovative business model in stock photography, which is expected to become another source of significant additional income for the company.

age fotostock has always taken the necessary steps to ensure the long lasting existence and profitability of the company, which has been operating for almost 35 years, as well as the livelihood of its photographers and other specific provider collections age fotostock distributes. As business models change it was deemed necessary to develop one that suited the needs of an emerging market segment today.

easyFotostockTM is the result of the clear understanding the company has developed regarding the technological disruption digital photography has produced, and the benefits of the economies of scale it has generated, thereby giving place to an enormous volume of images that has undeniably affected the final price. This situation has made it interesting for many more segments of the visual market to use images cheaper, faster and even more conveniently than ever before.

easyFotostockTM is a "low budget Royalty Free" (LBRF) model, and the brand new site at www.easyfotostock.com is currently being beta-tested and will offer a very attractive pricing formula, for resolutions like 1MB, 6MB, 26MB or 50MB, also allowing to subscribe to the service in order for clients to enjoy the convenience of such a model, without the inherent collateral problems associated with the philosophy of the typical standard subscription model.

The new site will be accessible within the age fotostock website and easyFotostockTM will share in client names, as well as the functionalities of the e-commerce platform, lightboxes, Digital Access Management (DAM) back end and more, thereby offering a sweet deal for all those thousands of clients accustomed to using www.agefotostock.com.

Furthermore all age fotostock distributors using directly or indirectly our THP technology (over 120 in total) will have the opportunity to incorporate the easyFotostockTM module within their websites, thereby enabling their clients to enjoy the same facilities.

easyFotostockTM is not a another photographer community and for that matter it will not have a forum where photographers will be moderated and can explain stories about how many downloads they make, how much they like their colleagues´ images, debating about Model Releases or how much money most of them finally receive... easyFotostockTM is an extension of age fotostock´s core business, RM, RF and now LBRF that simplifies the purchasing process and correctly licenses images to all those clients that are looking for a good image at an affordable price.

easyFotostockTM is the answer for all those clients that still want images of good enough quality but are not prepared to pay RF or RM prices as they neither require the control or sophistication.

easyFotostockTM is also the answer for that surplus of images age fotostock receives from photographers around the world and that cannot be incorporated into the strict professional editing process for the age fotostock (RM) and Pixtal (RF) collections, and that are returned to the authors because while the images may be commercially viable they don´t have that leading edge that makes them a clear winner. With easyFotostockTM, a selling engine has been created that will enable willing photographers, as well as other participating suppliers, to expand the scope of images that can be chanelled to the market for the clients to select their preferred option.

The expected launch date is by the end of 2007, and all interested contributors are invited to contact age fotostock for more information.

he he.. yeah, I thought the same thing actually

Not another social community - professional workplace tied into one.  I would prefer to keep those seperate. 
I feel I have said it again and again but it is still true.  it is going to be interesting to see how this all shakes out in a year or two.  there seems to be a number of big players with a lot of backing cash and customers getting into the market.  I wonder how they will compete with the established agencies and if they will push any of the poor earners out.

On another, I found it amusing how they termed the phrase "low budget Royalty Free" (LBRF) model, and avoided 'microstock' alltogether ... perhaps they thought microstock had too many 'social marketplace' connotaions.

I think the next 12 months will be very important. Most of (all?) the big macros seem to be more or less involved in micro now, and those smaller entities that haven't started earning money for their suppliers within a few months, are probably out permanently. Nobody want to spend hours or days every month for a dollar or less per week.

I wouldn't be surprised if they will follow a similar pricing scheme to Snappvillage, being a combined micro/midstock alternative. In my view, that is very positive.

I've been in touch with them, and they say that they're beta-testing. Apparently, as opposed to many other microstock agencies, they prefer to do the testing before they go online. Good thinking.

They also said that priority will be given to existing contributors to agefotostock to start with. The quality of their images are really top notch, and from a creative point of view possibly the best out there, so they may place the bar a bit higher than the others. They promised to get back to me later.

Great! Congrats! What were their requirements with regards to camera/file-size?

I was more thinking: what file size did they require you to deliver? Did they have any particular requirements with regards to camera equipment?

Submitting your images

It's important to notice that they require exclusive images and the RAW files, or TIFF files when you're "being creative with your images".

For macro-stock, exclusivity the way they define it suits me fine, particularly when it comes to RM.

Nothing sensational, but the fact that they require worldwide exclusivity for photos and similars, leaves no room for misunderstanding. The alternatives are those who require exclusivity for photos, but not similars, or only regional exclusivity, or the IS way, with exclusivity for the photographer, but only for RF.