Greeted with more evidence of the slowdown this morning

Today is a particularly sad day for all of us at JPG and 8020 Media.

We've spent the last few months trying to make the business behind JPG sustain itself, and we've reached the end of the line. We all deeply believe in everything JPG represents, but we just weren't able to raise the money needed to keep JPG alive in these extraordinary economic times. We sought out buyers, spoke with numerous potential investors, and pitched several last-ditch creative efforts, all without success. As a result, jpgmag.com will shut down on Monday, January 5, 2009.

The one thing we've been the most proud of: your amazing talent. We feel honored and humbled to have been able to share jpgmag.com with such a dynamic, warm, and wonderful community of nearly 200,000 photographers. The photography on the website and in the magazine was adored by many, leaving no doubt that this community created work of the highest caliber. The kindness, generosity, and support shared among members made it a community in the truest sense of the word, and one that we have loved being a part of for these past two years.

We wish we could have found a way to leave the site running for the benefit of the amazing folks who have made JPG what it is, and we have spent sleepless nights trying to figure something out, all to no avail. Some things you may want to do before the site closes:

- Download the PDFs of back issues, outtakes, and photo challenge selections. We'll always have the memories! www.jpgmag.com/downloads/archives.html
- Make note of your favorite photographers. You may want to flip through your favorites list and jot down names and URLs of some of the people you'd like to stay in touch with. You may even want to cut and paste your contacts page into a personal record.
- Catch up with your fellow members. Our roots are in this humble flickr forum and we recommend going back to find fellow members, discuss the situation, or participate in another great photo community. www.flickr.com/groups/jpgmag/
- Keep in touch. This has always been much more than just a job to each of us, and we'll miss you guys! We'll be checking the account [email protected] in our free time going forward. We can't promise to reply to every email (since we'll be busy tuning up our resumes) but we'd love to hear from you.
- Stay posted. Although the magazine is ceasing publication, we'll be updating you on what's happening with your subscription early next week.

We're soggy-eyed messes, but it is what it is. At that, JPGers, we bid you goodbye, and good luck in 2009 and the future.

Laura Brunow Miner
Editor in Chief

David   

I am glad they go, I hate amateur photographers supplying  free photos to magazines, and magazines taking advantage of that.

Now I hope all microstock sites, other than SS and IS, go down the same path.

Having seen IS go from 1st of the "Big Six" to 5th I would be more concerned about that!

I remember when "safe" stores chains that have now gone into liquidation were the pride of the high street

David 

David, you're basing this on the poll results of 140ish people where the people chooses between 0 and 10 on earnings and that has little to no discernible meaning. Not to mention many people don't participate in the polls because they're exclusive to iStock. You end up with a poll that is negatively skewed against iStock that doesn't really measure anything to begin with. When I was nonexclusive iStock was still my best performer because I had close to the same number of images on each site. That's the main problem with the poll, the only objective way to measure one site against the others when using many people's opinions is revenue per image per month.

In all fairness it's the same poll and same people voting that had iStock placed 1st a few months ago and now their results have put it 5th so yes it does have a discernable meaning, certainly amongst the people here anyway.
Plus the poll is designed to compare earnings amongst all the microstock sites, so obviously it's not aimed at iStock exclusives, however assuming that some iStock exclusives do still vote and vote iStock a 10 and every other site a 0 it would actually mean iStock are even lower than they appear in the results.

I'm non exclusive and up until a few months ago iStock were my biggest earner by far, now for me they are 4th. But as the poll is designed to take into account the majority iStock come out overall as 5th.

As for JPG magazine, I never read it and to be honest I used to get fed up of all the forum threads from people on microstock sites asking others to vote for their images, if I entered and won a contest I'd want to know my image won on merit not because I begged for votes.

... (extract)
As for JPG magazine, I never read it and to be honest I used to get fed up of all the forum threads from people on microstock sites asking others to vote for their images, if I entered and won a contest I'd want to know my image won on merit not because I begged for votes.

So true. What's the merit if you 're just some dude (or dud) with lots of friends to sway your votes. Woo hoo !

IS used to be a clear winner for earnings each month for me and just over a year ago I was considering going exclusive as soon as I hit diamond. but  IS earnings have dropped so much that last month I earnt 3 times more at FT and twice as much at SS.  I sold 4000 less images last year than the year before at IS even though the quality of my work has improved.

My overall 2008 earnings were 70% more than 2007  and I have had an amazing year everywhere except for IS.

David, you're basing this on the poll results of 140ish people where the people chooses between 0 and 10 on earnings and that has little to no discernible meaning. Not to mention many people don't participate in the polls because they're exclusive to iStock. You end up with a poll that is negatively skewed against iStock that doesn't really measure anything to begin with. When I was nonexclusive iStock was still my best performer because I had close to the same number of images on each site. That's the main problem with the poll, the only objective way to measure one site against the others when using many people's opinions is revenue per image per month.

I think the point of the thread is "The Economy."  JPG is just one of many that will lose advertising dollars.  It is a signe of the times.  Went thru this in the 80s, when many magazines first cut pages, then staff, then folded .... ie; cycle, cycle guide, etc etc. 

JPG obviously had much less content cost than many "more serious" publications/media.  There lost is NOT a good thing.

I really liked jpgmag, although I questioned the viability of a print version. Just too narrow sector for most. I did not buy the print versions, but did check for the releases of the PDFs every now and again. In any event, sad to see it go as there are few truly creative publications to be had.

Regarding one of the comments above about the online vote pimping - yes these are really pathetic and anyone who feels the need to do it is truly a loser.

Campaigning for votes is pretty much sales, isn't it?  Making yourself, your product visible?  Politics, Oil companies, Defense Contractors ... even beauty pagents are determined by a very similar process.  Certainly belittling but it is what it is.  Don't we all do the same thing.  "Please buy my pictures."  

Quote from: RT on January 02, 2009, 11:29

...
As for JPG magazine, I never read it and to be honest I used to get fed up of all the forum threads from people on microstock sites asking others to vote for their images, if I entered and won a contest I'd want to know my image won on merit not because I begged for votes.

Although there was indeed voting for images, I think that was more of a gimmick than anything else. It was the JPG editors who selected images for publication, not the masses of people voting for their friend's stuff.

You mean I wasted all that time going and voting for everyone else's photo apart from the begger that started the thread 

I never read (or even heard of) jpg magazine, so their closing is not any loss to me.

But the trend of newspapers and magazines folding does concern me.  We used to have two thriving newspapers serving my local area - the St. Pete Times and the Tampa Tribune.  Recently the Tribune made massive cuts in staff and content.  It is a shadow of its former self and may end up folding altogether at some point. 

From what I understand publications around the country are facing the same. 

With marketing down and now publications too, who's gonna buy our stuff

You bet Lisa - I am publisher of 4 magazines largely dependent on ad revenue and we are scared right now I can tell you that - so when you start to see sites raising their prices when so many publications are simply hoping they have the revenue to break even and/or the reserves to operate at a loss for a while it makes you wonder about the business strategy of those sites and whether they have really done their homework.

I understand the move to online news, especially when it is free.  I seldom read news online, except when its really news - something happening right now with constant update in the online newspaper.  I still sign paper newspapers (!), and I do prefer to read them this way.  One of them give me access to the entire site content, what is not available to non-subscribers.

Regards,
Adelaide

I know it's been a while since Derek Powazek was at the helm of JPG, but I can't help thinking about this news alongside his latest project that also recently shut down, Pixish. Derek has a pretty clear track record of using crowdsourcing as a business model, and so far is 0-2 when it comes to successes in his independent ventures. I wonder what may come of his latest magazine Fray if the economy stays down throughout this year.

Quote from: hoi ha on January 02, 2009, 22:10

You bet Lisa - I am publisher of 4 magazines largely dependent on ad revenue and we are scared right now I can tell you that - so when you start to see sites raising their prices when so many publications are simply hoping they have the revenue to break even and/or the reserves to operate at a loss for a while it makes you wonder about the business strategy of those sites and whether they have really done their homework.

Yeah, I definitely wonder about the wisdom of price raises in the micros right now.  Personally I would rather see prices stay the same and preserve customer loyalty in the long term, rather than squeeze them for more money in the short term. 

I hope your publications are able to hang in there and weather the rough times. We need you guys, and I agree that holding a magazine in hand is still preferable to reading it online.  For one thing you can take a newspaper or magazine anywhere easily - who wants to tote a laptop to the beach, bed, park, or to the bathroom for that matter?

Lisa you mean all those stockphotos I see of beautiful people typing on laptops on the edge of cliffs, beautiful tropical beaches are set ups, I thought they were just photos people snapped whilst walking around in their local neighbourhood