Hi All,

 Yesterday Getty released that they will be offering all their content at incredibly lower prices for new web size uses. They added two new smaller sizes to their customers for all their RM and RF Macro collections. This has added an entirely new level of quality and quantity at a very low price. Lots of changes taking place.

Best,
Jonathan

If anyone can tender a reason why "web" should mean "cheaper" i'm all ears. Don't make no sense at all to me.

 I haven't had time to really soak it in so I have stayed pretty neutral so far. I know it is going to effect both markets but I can't really say which way yet. I was a bit surprised by the announcement.

Jonathan

If anyone can tender a reason why "web" should mean "cheaper" i'm all ears. Don't make no sense at all to me.

"Web" doesn't mean cheaper.  "Smaller" means cheaper.  It looks like Getty and iStock are meeting in the middle, that's all.

Measuring the value of an image by its size seems pretty strange to me. The Mona Lisa is fairly small, as far as paintings go.

RF  170 px  $5 / $10     280 px   $15 / $25   413 px  $35 / $49
Rights-managed same sizes $15   $35 $49
Rights-managed images are licensed for a defined scope of usage that may include restrictions on territory, industry, duration, placement or print run.   

sounds * close to microstock to me, I wonder what their contributors think? I can imagine those professionals who come give us a rant from time to time being ecsatatic with this.  I can't say I'd be impressed with what 20-30% of a $15 sale that had restrictions on further usage, sort of kills the arguments in favor selling images as rm doesnt it??

Question is will other macros follow suit? (no idea if the go in for price wars)

This is not just about web but stuff like email and mobile device usage.
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Getty is seeing this as an opportunity for new revenue. Only time will tell if this creates new revenue or cannibalizes existing sales.

Thanks for the link I have shortened and tweeted it, using the laptop when the forum links or images are to long I get annoying scroll bars!

http://bit.ly/uhEsG

David.

whats your plan B besides being a microstock photog or artist?

Contribute to Getty? Keep my day job? 

Well it's not how big it is, it's how you use it.     Maybe HTML5 will include some kind of new image format that can track views natively without Javascript. Embed your hashed ID into the image directly, if it's not correct image won't display.  DRM for pics.  Regional restrictions could also be enforced.    That is, until some hacker from Scandinavia cracks the encoding and it all is for nothing.

You're making a basic argument about RM vs. RF, not Getty selling at a smaller size or anything.

I welcome Getty trying different things, the target is more mobile than website use from the sizes.
RF  170 px  $5 / $10, mobile phone more than website, (same size as an un-watermarked Alamy thumbnail)
RF  280 px   $15 / $25, and RF  413 px  $35 / $49, Website use but very limited, I would look for 415px - 500px wide, $2-4$ Istock image for a website, blog or article, cannot see the $15 - $49 added value from Getty,  and I would use a 900px wide as a website header element.

The prices might be nice for existing Getty business customers, but I cannot see the prices attracting many 'new customers', the positive is Getty leads and the other microstock and midstock watch and might push up the prices using Getty prices as justification.

David    

Size doesn't limit usage in the digital world. Yahoo.com could license a web size, and throw it on their homepage, and get millions of views a day on it. That's the current disconnect.   This fantasy that there's so many 'bloggers' in the world constantly licensing stock images (when a CC image usually will do to illustrate their point, or it's editorial) needs to be taken down a notch - website designs, website templates & other purely commercial uses are a huge deal in digital.

Look at the top blogs (like here: http://technorati.com/pop/blogs/ ) and examine the pics and if they are stock-y and don't have credits, Tineye them to find the source. It really doesn't seem like blogs are as big of a deal as is constantly marketed. The real market is people who are turning direct profits off the images, such as web template designers or B2C usages.    

I guess so long as people chase short term sales volume vs. long term market health it's going to take a while for this to sink in. Traditional print licensing of images can only be measured in vague, Nielsen-rating type ways which generalize "eyes on the image" quantities.  Digital should be exact since the data is there in 1s and 0s.  

Edit** I don't claim to know the answer for this issue, that's for example why we just don't do a "web size" at Zymm.  If you're stuck in the woods and don't know where to go, just stay put.       I think there can be no real conclusion for the imbalance unless some kind of digital RM system is applied.

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Look at the top blogs (like here: http://technorati.com/pop/blogs/ ) and examine the pics and if they are stock-y and don't have credits, Tineye them to find the source. It really doesn't seem like blogs are as big of a deal as is constantly marketed. The real market is people who are turning direct profits off the images, such as web template designers or B2C usages.    
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Edit** I don't claim to know the answer for this issue, that's for example why we just don't do a "web size" at Zymm.  If you're stuck in the woods and don't know where to go, just stay put.       I think there can be no real conclusion for the imbalance unless some kind of digital RM system is applied.

I research differently, looking at many blogs I find that most could be enhanced by a microstock image, the key problems as I see it to grab a slice of this market is the lack of editorial images in microstock and easy delivery.

Thinking outside the box, editorial image use has been much overlooked, the focus has been to saturate the market with trendy commercial images, the original thinking about basic editorial was magazines and newpapers, but things have moved on where anyone can have an editorial presence online, via a website, blog or contributing articles, these people are not serviced well with microstock priced editorial content, it is not there is no demand but there is no supply, Alamy have nearly 17 million images most of these are editorial, where is the microstock alternative?
  
Looking at things like business blogs where there are a few microstock images of server farms, business people, stock graphs, concept images for growth etc:, but what if I was an independent blogger writing an editorial article on the credit crunch and I needed an editorial shot of a banks frontage or HQ building where can I get one (spot size on Alamy ouch!), or if I was writing about the recession and the motor industry, where do I get the suitable editorial blog size images, in the small quantity and at a price point I want?

Example writing a banking editorial article about RBS like this one:
1. Google: Search Editorial Microstock: Yay, Shutterstock & Alamy
2. Yay Micro: search RBS No images
3. ShutterStock: search RBS images but no Bank
4. Alamy: �60 RF or �90 RM
5. Getty: Not available at new mobile or web use, calculator $49

So not being a business but an independent or personal blogger, I have to write the article as plain text and a photographer has missed a sale, just because I cannot get a suitable image as limited use for a blog article at a reasonable enough price, the question is why not?  
 
The image in that article looks like a stock image, but TinEye returned nothing.
 
Travel blogs require images of people and places, airline companies, all the others like lifestyle, environment, flowers and plants, animals, sports, where independent people write very informative articles and blogs on almost every subject but quite often they are just flat text and lack an eye catching image to attract and hold the reader, Getty look to have seen the potential of this market, will the prices be attractive enough for information providers and non business writers, and where is the microstock alternative?.

Back to Getty, generally delivery to or the label 'mobile phone use' would cause me more concern than the blog sizes, if one of my daughters or grandchildren could grap a nice RF/RM 'mobile screensaver' for $5-$10, and yes I know it says 'Mobile apps and sites' and the licence does not cover being used as a mobile screensaver, but from what I know of them they would not read or understand the T&C's, the image would just be downloaded to one phone and then be sent to a number of thier family and friends phones within minutes, then on to a number of thier friends friends and Tineye will not find these infringements.

David      

From that list, you should be able to find easily on microstock: people and places, lifestyle, environment, flowers and plants, animals and sports, though not big-name athletes.
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Im guessing that the reason that most micros haven't gone in for editorial is that hassle/time/expense which would be involved in monitoring usage. It's not as though it hasn't been begged for many times on the iStock forums, for one.
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For an editorial blog I would want the holiday shots of large crowds of people on holiday or at events, a beach full of holiday makers, an airport queue,  a festival or carnival, for lifestyle activities like a family vist to an event natural and 'wearing the Nike trainers', sports the same clothing and events, all these would not have a release for the people or property, so I would not find them on the microsites only empty places and small intimate groups of people released shots wearing plain cloths with no logo's.

Monitoring usage is a matter of license conditions, there are limitations on RF so what is the difference with RM, the onus is on the person using the image, providing it is clearly licensed for editorial use only, there should be no problem.

I do think with this move from Getty you will see microsites move to include editorial content, as there are no new markets to exploit.

David