Author Topic: Photos.com is not dead, Getty's new plan (Read 4073 times)

Sri · « **on:** March 06, 2014, 01:44 »

I thought photos.com has been closed but i got a mail from getty, from which it appears, getty has some different plans for its domain photos.com.They have annouced this in getty/flickr forum too and there is also a discussion going on there. The mail/annoucement is-

"We are delighted to announce that we are expanding our product offering to serve consumers with our own wall décor product. A curated selection of our photography on gettyimages.com will now be available for purchase in high-quality frames and finishes from Photos.com by Getty Images. Working in partnership with experienced print production and fulfillment services, we are in the process of building a high-end wall décor offering. As some of you may have noticed, we are retiring the current Photos.com licensing platform. We are doing this in order to repurpose this valuable URL to serve the destination for Getty Images' consumer offering. We are preparing to announce and launch Photos.com in a few weeks and will be able to provide more detail then. In the meantime, here is a brief overview of why we are launching this consumer offering and how the collection is taking shape.

Wall art and décor is a multi-billion dollar industry and growing. Historically, iStock and Getty Images have catered to business customers and yet we know there are millions of consumers who visit our sites daily to view our imagery. This presents a huge opportunity to convert these photo enthusiasts to buying customers, thus opening the door to a significant new revenue stream. Major players currently include Art.com and Great Big Canvas, with online retail sites like One King's Lane and Fab driving even more growth in this segment. We are seizing this opportunity to convert Photos.com to a product tailored to consumers. The products will be limited to matted and framed images printed on paper and a variety of other surfaces. (We will not be selling loose prints, posters or merchandise).

How will consumers know about this new offering?
Consumers will have the ability to purchase some of their favorite images as wall décor on Photos.com. We have planned an aggressive marketing campaign targeted to consumers including social and affiliate marketing campaigns. In addition, visitors on gettyimages.com who see an image they would like to purchase as a print will now be directed to Photos.com via a "Buy" button that will display in the detail screen of any image that was selected for Photos.com. Our pricing will be reflective of the premium quality of the product, and contributors will earn their normal royalty for consumer products (details about pricing will be available within the next few weeks).

Curation
The market for wall décor is specialized and we know that not every great image is right for print customers. In order to showcase the best, most fitting imagery for this product, we are carefully curating the imagery that will be available on Photos.com. We will be choosing from amongst eligible images in Editorial and Creative (RM + RF) collections on Getty Images.com including Flickr, Photographer's Choice, and iStock E+ (note: we are not planning to include Vetta at this point).

Building Momentum
Through site tracking and analysis, including information we glean from keyword searches, we are in a great position to analyze the activity we generate. We will leverage search trends to inform ongoing content curation as we build the business. We are very excited to begin to serve consumers and will provide a follow-up announcement with more detail and answers to your questions in the next few weeks."

Mantis · « **Reply #1 on:** March 06, 2014, 08:47 »

Thank goodness this doesn't include independents.

Sri · « **Reply #2 on:** March 06, 2014, 08:58 »

yes. And i thought getty will now remove images from FAA but they wont. And their crown holders can still continue submitting their images to PODs but my intuition says they may change it in future.

cobalt · « **Reply #3 on:** March 06, 2014, 09:26 »

I think this is a good idea. Very good use for the domain name and it gives a real chance of increasing revenue.

Sean Locke Photography · « **Reply #4 on:** March 06, 2014, 10:10 »

Quote from: cobalt on March 06, 2014, 09:26

I think this is a good idea. Very good use for the domain name and it gives a real chance of increasing revenue.

Sure - I have no problem with this plan. Finally a useful idea.

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #5 on:** March 06, 2014, 10:30 »

The negatives about this - assuming they can find buyers who aren't purchasing elsewhere already - would be if contributors have no opt out. You'd then be forced to compete with yourself if you sell elsewhere (where it's highly likely you'd make more money than you'd make via Getty).

As the only images iStock has of mine are those I can't sell elsewhere anyway, I'm not fussed. But if I were an exclusive who had a thriving print presence elsewhere already, I'd be pretty miffed I think

pancaketom · « **Reply #6 on:** March 06, 2014, 10:47 »

It would be interesting to see what they will pay. If you get 20% of the (cost -printing -shipping -frame -anything else Getty can think of) it could be pretty low by the time it gets to the artist.

I wonder how this will effect FAA and others.

Still, that does seem like a good use of a good domain name and certainly not the worst news we have heard from them this week.

lisafx · « **Reply #7 on:** March 06, 2014, 19:54 »

Quote from: pancaketom on March 06, 2014, 10:47

I wonder how this will effect FAA and others.

This was my thought too. They are taking on Shutterstock and the other micro agencies with subscriptions and free images, and now they are going to take on FAA and other POD sites with Photos.com.

These As$_ho1es won't be satisfied until they've got the whole pie.