Friday, February 15, 2008

Getty Images For Sale: Panic, why panic?

Once I received the news that Getty Images was up for sale my phone hasn’t stopped ringing. Panicked calls from photographers who are represented by Getty Images as well as other stock companies rang in by the numbers. These worried artists were wondering what would happen to the industry if Getty sells. What would happen? Truth be told, I really don’t know. But what I do know, I learned from what I read:

“The auction of Getty Images appears to be in jeopardy.”

Though several bidders, mostly private equity firms like Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Bain Capital and Providence Equity Partners, had expressed interest last month, according to the New York Times, Getty received no offers significantly above its current market value of $1.6 billion”.

So, what does this mean to the average image supplier or user of images? The short answer is nothing. Getty as the leader in the stock image market has a responsibility to its shareholders to explore all possible avenues to gain a high return on the investment. If the company does sell, aside from the possibility of reorganization or of selling off some of their assets, not much will change. Photographers will still get paid and customers will continue to get their images. I suspect that prices will more than likely increase again for some of the more popular Microstock images, which for the customer that uses subscription sites like PhotoSpin, is only a positive gain. Currently, an X large image from iStock Images sells for $15.00 per image while an annual subscription from PhotoSpin sells for $299.00 and allows you to download as many high res images as you need throughout the year. Therefore, whether you need 10 images a month or 100, it won't cost you more than the annual fee.

Getty Images For Sale: No need to panic!

Friday, February 08, 2008

The recession is coming! The recession is coming! The recession is coming?

Sounds like a war cry from the American Revolution or an old nursery rhyme about a little chicken and a piece of fruit. The truth is I don’t know if a recession is coming and, from what I’ve read, neither do the economists.

If a recession were to happen, what will it mean to advertising? Back in 2001 when we heard the cry of recession, advertising budgets dropped by almost 10% and internet advertising by a little over 25%. History has shown us that television and print ads are likely to be cut back first. I personally know commercial photographers that never recovered from the drop in assignment work and believe another recession would cause the assignments to drop even further. And, perhaps, the media that would feel the sting from the cut in advertising the worst will be the newspapers, which are already reeling from a drop in circulation (sorry guys).

So batten down the hatches, we may be heading for rough water! But, before we launch our proverbial life rafts, let’s ride the waves of opportunity. One of the greatest opportunities we have today is online advertising. Times are very different and more and more money is going towards internet advertising than ever before, resulting in a greater return on our clients’ ad dollar investment. And, to help get these ads noticed, are the SEO’s (search engine optimization) companies. These companies are growing faster than the national debt and are expert at expediting the visibility of these online ads.

As a designer you may consider developing more internet strategies for your clients. Become educated on SEO companies and how to help better position your customers’ advertising in the search engines. As a photographer I go back to what I have always said: you need to have multiple sources of income including assignment photography as well as numerous stock agencies representing your work.

Whether a recession is coming or not, we wanted to offer you yet another way to get your work noticed. This quarter we will be launching our new MYSpin Community and offering you a great way to advertise your services for free to over 1,000,000 people that buy or create commercial art. We’d love to hear your thoughts and welcome your feedback on our newest project as we enter into the beta testing phase: http://www.photospin.com/myspin-directory.asp.