Dear SnapVillage Contributor,
As a contributor you know how fast microstock is growing. So do we! Corbis anticipates that within the next few years, microstock photography will represent more than 25% of the overall stock photography market. We are committed to taking a significant share of this market and providing photographers a leading brand and website to reach customers looking for affordable, quality photography and a great web experience.
We have learned a lot from SnapVillage, and we recognize that as the market has rapidly evolved over the past two years, we need a bigger, better offering to achieve success in microstock.
So today we’re excited to be sharing our plans to roll SnapVillage into a new microstock offering on Veer, which Corbis acquired in 2007. Veer is a highly successful stock agency specializing in creative rights managed (RM) and royalty free (RF). It has a large, established, global customer base, strong brand loyalty and an industry-leading website supported by winning marketing campaigns. These elements provide an ideal platform to rapidly build our microstock business and to help you sell more. We plan to build on SnapVillage’s assets to launch a new microstock-specific section at Veer called Veer Marketplace.
What does this mean for SnapVillage?
In the months ahead, we’ll be inviting SnapVillage contributors and customers to Veer Marketplace. Once Veer Marketplace is launched and fully operational, it will become Corbis’ only microstock brand and SnapVillage will be phased out by the end of the year.
What does this mean for you?
Good news! In the months ahead, we’ll be inviting SnapVillage contributors and customers to Veer Marketplace. Marketplace will offer contributors efficient uploading capabilities, a great user experience and your work will be showcased and marketed within the amazing award-winning design and community for which Veer is recognized. (There will also be other good stuff too but we can’t reveal all our secrets before launch!).
When does Veer Marketplace launch?
Veer Marketplace will launch in two phases with a small sampling of affordable images that can be purchased a la carte in late February, followed by a full launch mid year with contributor upload capabilities and credit-based pricing and subscriptions. You can read more details about this in the attached FAQ.
It will take time to complete this process so please bear with us. By mid-year you’ll have the chance to sell your work to a whole new crowd of people and become part of the Veer community.
Questions?
Want to learn more about Veer? Wondering if there is anything you need to do? Please read the Contributor FAQ to learn more about Veer Marketplace.
We also invite you to join the conversation about Veer Marketplace. We’d love to hear from you so register and create a profile to make sure as Veer Marketplace grows, we continue to meet your needs.
Please don’t hesitate to contact us at [email protected] if you have any questions.
We want to thank you for your support of SnapVillage. We’re looking forward to your potential participation at Veer Marketplace!
By mid-year you’ll have the chance to sell your work to a whole new crowd of people and become part of the Veer community.
Rest In Peace. I always admired the talent of marketing guys to make an obituary sound like a celebration ;D
Sounds like Bill finally pulled the plug.
"Contributors will be invited..."
Does that mean a select few, isn't Veer a little more elite?
So what does this mean for those of us who did not upload? Have we missed a party, or should we start uploading to Snap now?
18) I have friends who will be interested in this opportunity. Where can I send them?
Tell your friends that Veer Marketplace will have ingestion capabilities for new content in
spring/summer 2009. But as of early February, you can direct everyone to the submissions page
on veer.com where they can submit their contact information and find further details about
Veer Marketplace so they’re ready to contribute later this year.
As another designer, I'd like to comment that Veer is very well known brand to us. They advertise a lot in design publications, and have a lot of direct mail marketing. This is awesome news. I'm hoping everything we currently have at Snap will be pushed over to Veer, without any additional uploading.
I sure hope they can move our snapvillage uploads over and we don't have to upload them all again.
I've just tried a few searches and felt the resulting images were relatively few in number and poorer in compositional quality than equivalent searches on microstock.
Does this mean we have to upload (again) our stuff to Veer, or do they move all the snapvillage stuff automatically to Veer?
Does this mean we have to upload (again) our stuff to Veer, or do they move all the snapvillage stuff automatically to Veer?
Nope - should be no need in most cases. We'll transfer accounts and images to the new platform for you.
Does this mean we have to upload (again) our stuff to Veer, or do they move all the snapvillage stuff automatically to Veer?
Nope - should be no need in most cases. We'll transfer accounts and images to the new platform for you.
Too many promises, hype, undue enthusiasm, and bald lies have come before.
Does this mean we have to upload (again) our stuff to Veer, or do they move all the snapvillage stuff automatically to Veer?
Nope - should be no need in most cases. We'll transfer accounts and images to the new platform for you.
OK - that is perfect. And is there any point in uploading more at SV or would it be better for us to wait? In general I am sorry to see them go... I liked SV...
Does this mean we have to upload (again) our stuff to Veer, or do they move all the snapvillage stuff automatically to Veer?
Nope - should be no need in most cases. We'll transfer accounts and images to the new platform for you.
OK - that is perfect. And is there any point in uploading more at SV or would it be better for us to wait? In general I am sorry to see them go... I liked SV...
Hi Peep -
Sure - please do!
The Marketplace team will be sourcing content from SnapVillage - it will essentially act as a ingest mechanism prior to the full launch. We'll be working over the coming months to transfer images and accounts.
Having said that - if you aren't in a huge rush - the Marketplace upload tools will be much better. If you feel especially frustrated by the Snap upload system I can understand wanting to wait until the full launch.
But whether you keep uploading to SnapVillage in the short term or not --- definitely go and sign-up on Veer and join the Marketplace group.
- Brian
...
Brian, if you are some kind of spokesperson for Veer, please speak plainly.
OMG, what will happen to my fifty cents?
Selected images are going to be automatically added to the Veer RF library.
I do not understand it properly. Did Brian really say we had to sign-up on Veer even if we had an account on SV?
They learned what they needed and now are headed down a different path with it.
Veer is pretty awesome actually. I've purchase some promo items from them, and they sure sock it to you with excellent marketing material. They have this little book for designers that they mail you and its fabulous. I take it on vacation with me and its very entertaining. Some of the fonts they sell are really amazing too. I can only aspire to be as good as their contributors and hope that a few of mine make it in.
I see a lot of non-designers who are underwhelmed, but speaking primarily as a designer, and secondarily as an istock exclusive, this is the most exciting news I've heard in a while. I will be watching very closely how this all unfolds, so I hope you all will be bringing lots of reports. ;)
Wow, I feel warm and fuzzy already?
Thanks for your invaluable input as a buyer about Veer. Funny it wasn't mentioned here before as an outlet for contributors. I've always been a Snap-sceptic based on their slow progress on the IT side, like watermarks and FTP.
Looking through what Veer has to offer, one gets the impression the content is far off from "traditional" microstock, like the isolated girl with headset. Do you think Veer is open for such content? Contributors that never uploaded to Snap might be encouraged to do so to Veer.
Anyway, I am eager to see how it all plays out. If things go well, it could mean big changes in my future.
Wow, I feel warm and fuzzy already?
Did you go to that ski cabin near Mt. Baker too? :P
Anyway, I am eager to see how it all plays out. If things go well, it could mean big changes in my future.
As designer or as contributor? As far as I can distill it from this thread, Veer used to be an RM agent and will now venture in RF microstock with a separate collection. Search engine etc... will be different. They have no real experience with RF microstock and they are relying on the debris of SV to provide them with the know-how. Don't know if that's an asset since on the IT side, SV wasn't that knowledgeable. When Getty bought iStock, they got a mature product.
I can also deduct from the thread (ready after summer) that all the IT machinery for RF microstock on Veer as well as the workflow has to be developed/rolled out yet. Many contributors that withheld massive upload by the rather unpleasant upload experience at SV will flock at Veer en masse, like it happens with every new microstock agency, so they will need loads of inspectors.
Finally their traditional RM contributors might not be so happy about the invasion of cheap microstockers, since some of what I saw technically would never make it to the "traditional" RF microstock. The current "Indie Dream" on the Veer photography frontpage ([url]http://www.veer.com/products/photography/[/url]) would most probably be rejected for bad cropping, bad composition, shallow DOF (the hands) and hard on-cam flash.
Just wait and see I guess.
The more I think about this deal the less impressed I am with it. Here's a company with no micro experience buying a train wreck of a company with weak technology and impotent marketing experience.
...
The more I think about this deal the less impressed I am with it. Here's a company with no micro experience buying a train wreck of a company with weak technology and impotent marketing experience.
My best guess is that they bought it for next to nothing except agreeing to keep Brian for some specified length of time as a somewhat familiar persona to the micro world. Sort of like when a company keeps the acquired company's sales manager until they pick his brains.
Stay tuned for February 23rd when the first batch of SV images go live on Veer Marketplace.
QuoteDear SnapVillage Contributor,
[clipped out]
We also invite you to join the conversation about Veer Marketplace. We’d love to hear from you so register and create a profile to make sure as Veer Marketplace grows, we continue to meet your needs.
Please don’t hesitate to contact us at [email protected] if you have any questions.
We want to thank you for your support of SnapVillage. We’re looking forward to your potential participation at Veer Marketplace!