Here is mail I just received. What do you think about 500px go commercial way.


500px   
Preview the 500px Commercial Licensing Marketplace

Hi there!

On the heels of our 500px Marketplace relaunch, we are hard at work building a brand new commercial licensing marketplace based on the feedback of our 500px Community.

This new marketplace will service commercial licensors of photography from the news, editorial, advertising and various other communities who are interested in licensing work by members of the 500px community.

If you are interested in commercially licensed photography from 500px, join our mailing list to be kept updated on our progress toward launch. Member photographers on 500px are being reached on an individual basis, based on their online portfolio, to participate in our pre-launch program.

Thanks!

Dustin Plett,
VP Business Development, 500px

If it's just another agency, not sure why they'd be able to succeed where PhotoShelter failed (not sure how many others here joined PhotoShelter's short lived effort to be a stock licensing agency). Or why they'd be a better choice than a new agency like Stockbo (or any one of the many new entrants who show up here).

I can see a reason why they might be more successful than PhotoShelter or Stockbo (never heard of them btw!). It might not be a valid reason - but it's a reason why they might be more successful:

500px is very popular and  it has a huge presence in the social media. Eg search for 500px on Pinterest. Quite the reverse of starting a thing up and then trying to attract interest like most new stock sites. I have no doubt that they will be hoping that the existing membership will help to promote the business by liking and pinning things etc (and that a relative few will actually contribute). So their membership will be ambassadors.

There's a big difference between showing off your work to others and licensing your imagery (model releases and property releases, plus derivative works such as the infamous Obama poster) - only a subset of work from the portfolio sites is applicable for licensing commercially.

It is not a free for all. A minority of photographers are being contacted personally. So presumably any legal issues can be addressed one thing at a time. And, no doubt, the team there will include people who have existing experience of the issues around licensing images. The personal approach means that for now at least it is going to possibly be much more like a curated collection. Like say Stocksy. Though I doubt it will look similar.

As a curated collection I can see it being modestly successful enough to pay its way - but not hugely profitable in a big finance kind of a way. That makes me wonder how much money the company as a whole costs to run, what other plans they have and where they would like to go.

StockXpert managed to do very well with stock.xchng as its leadin, but I thought that PhotoDune would have done better given all the other Envato marketplaces as a leadin, and it's just OK ...

... Pinterest and social media are good for buzz and eyeballs, but I'm not half as convinced that this has anything to do with sales. People spending a ton of time with free stuff is not a "gateway drug" for licensing stock images.

It's good for having been heard of if nothing else. Far more people have even heard of 500px than have heard of PhotoShelter or any of those other sites you mentioned. PhotoShelter never had a thing about it.

StockXpert etc are from another era, a completely different pre Facebook economy where companies had money to waste and even bloggers, hobbyists and community newsletters would typically buy stock photos. That market is gone for ever. Many companies and organisations barely bother with their websites anymore - most of what they do is on Facebook and will be on whatever replaces that.

From what I've read of Pinterest demographics, it's overwhelmingly women

Women are very influential. Young women especially are also great at recognising and identifying trends. More than men in my experience. PR and creative arts in general is increasingly staffed by women.

They don�t seem to say much about images with models in the terms of conditions: http://500px.com/terms

Nothing is said in the license that buyers agree to: http://500px.com/terms/download_license.pdf

(For example, as far as not being used in pornographic or defamatory ways�)

Unless I missed something?

they will survive well but they ain't getting rich

Perhaps (just suppose) that they are not greedy. Suppose they might be happy enough to just build a sustainable business where money in > money out.

i'm not sure about it but i remember they got funded by some VCs some time ago so indeed they're being pushed to monetize their service.

it doesn't mean they plan to go mainstream but like Flickr or Pinterest but for sure their new greedy VC investors will not settle for peanuts.