MicrostockGroup

Agency Based Discussion => Shutterstock.com => Topic started by: Jo Ann Snover on October 26, 2023, 11:06

Title: First-Ever Marketplace of Fully Customizable Stock?
Post by: Jo Ann Snover on October 26, 2023, 11:06
Shutterstock will be announcing their Q3 results next Tuesday (31 Oct) so perhaps it's not surprising that they are banging the drum about new AI features in the Shutterstock library:

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/shutterstock-integrates-creative-ai-into-library-of-700m-images-to-offer-first-ever-marketplace-of-fully-customizable-stock-301967961.html (https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/shutterstock-integrates-creative-ai-into-library-of-700m-images-to-offer-first-ever-marketplace-of-fully-customizable-stock-301967961.html)

A couple of days ago, one analyst report said the results weren't expected to be good:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/analysts-estimate-shutterstock-sstk-report-140042530.html (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/analysts-estimate-shutterstock-sstk-report-140042530.html)

"Wall Street expects a year-over-year decline in earnings on higher revenues when Shutterstock (SSTK) reports results for the quarter ended September 2023. While this widely-known consensus outlook is important in gauging the company's earnings picture, a powerful factor that could impact its near-term stock price is how the actual results compare to these estimates."

Blathering on about "infinite options", the CEO opined:

"This is an unprecedented offering in the stock photography industry," said Paul Hennessy, Chief Executive Officer for Shutterstock. "Now, creatives have everything they need to craft the perfect content for any project with AI-powered design capabilities that you can use to edit stock images within Shutterstock's library, presenting infinite possibilities to make stock your own."

It's in beta, but considering the abysmal quality of the Dall-E output that is currently in their AI generated section, it'd have to be much better to actually be useful to customers

Babies (https://www.shutterstock.com/image-generated/babies-working-workplace-2380114819)   -   Typewriter (https://www.shutterstock.com/image-generated/flower-typewriter-2380108283)  -  Podcast illo (https://www.shutterstock.com/image-generated/fantasy-cartoon-artistic-image-headphone-podcast-2380111583)

They will give a demo 9 Nov (https://shutterstockshowcasecreativeai.splashthat.com/Commsl)

Edited mid-day Friday to note that SSTK (Shutterstock's stock) is around $34.20 which is what it was at the beginning of June 2020 - when Stan Pavlovsky pursued his plan to boost the stock price by looting contributor royalties. Or "margin optimization" as they referred to it.

The stock ended 2020 around $70 and reached as high as $123 in Nov 2021. Except for a brief lurch up to $70 at the beginning of this year, it's been downhill since.