MicrostockGroup

Scratch and Dent Photos?

I was asked by a friend about an idea he had for a bargain basement stock site for everyday folks and small web designers.  What he has put together is a site (not public yet) that will offer images for below micro prices.  The catch is the images will be only those rejected by the other sites.  Sounds kind of odd to me but I was listening.  I told him that I had no idea but it would be tough to make any money because the market is already flooded with stock sites.  He wants to offer images that a sub par to the current standards.  He also would sell images for as low as .25 USD.  He also said he had a process where images with noise and artifacts etc would be downsized by the reviewers to make them acceptable.  The image would be priced according to size only.  The smallest size would be 300x200 for 25 cents.  As the size goes up the price follows up to $2.00.  He wants to offer 70%  commission to the contributors. 

This much I do know, the guy is a good photographer and web designer.  He has the money to do Google, Yahoo and Ask for sponsored search and several magazines for web developers. 

One idea he had was to open up the world to photos taken at higher ISO like 1600 and size them down a bit to allow those images to be sold at lower prices.  I did like that part.  I have a lot of shots that don’t pass that wouldn’t pass the review process at any or very few sites because of noise.  However they still make great small web images.

I told him that I would ask the question and see what the community thought about it.  Your input would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks   

Hell, who knows..it might fly. The difficult part would be the potential for the site to be inundated with REALLY bad stuff. He would have to set some kind of bar for acceptance. As a web designer, I've frequently had to go outside of the "Big 6" to find the content needed to complete a project. That being said, I would think there is a market for lower rez images (for web, and maybe even print) that are passed on by bigger agencies. I would certainly check it out both as a designer and photographer, but that's just me.

Hope the .02 cents helps.

Personally I think that photos right now are cheaper than necessary. If a designer can not afford to spend a few dollars on a photograph, then they are in the wrong business.

Besides who would like sub par images even if they cost 25 cents? Just go to fli*r and look for images with cc licence for free.

I see that crapstock.com already exist, would that be the future home of this idea??

crapvillage?

devil's advocate: The prices they're discussing are in line with all of the existing micros. A great conceptual photo that suffers from technical problems (i.e. shot down by most agencies) may be exactly what a designer is looking for, so, the concept is feasable. I'm a believer in "more options" are better than "less options" as far as the consumer is concerned. Again, I'm a designer by trade. To have more choices is a value-add for me. I'm solid in Photoshop...I can take "unusable" photos and make them into exactly what the client wants. Flickr is as boring to me as any other vanity site..never go there (no dis intended J2K).

And by "friend" you mean you, right? 

You could try it but I don't see a future for this. I think below where microstock is today are the free sites. Are buyers really that cash strapped that they need a crappy image for $2 as opposed to a really good one for $5?

And does the image need to be "exclusively" rejected. Meaning, every single other possible site rejected it before it will be accepted?