April was a reasonably quiet month for microstock [3] news, but May was a lot more interesting!
IPOs, Investments and Rumours
There was a trio of microstock finance stories earlier this month starting with the Shutterstock IPO release [4]. Regardless of your opinion on this story the prospectus document makes a really interesting read! Shutterstock plans to raise around $115 million through it's IPO.
This was followed by fiance firm KKR investing US$ 150 million in fotolia [5] in return for a 50% stake in the company, in a "bid to consolidate the fragmented marketplace for licensing online digital images and videos".
Finally rumours of a possible sale or a public offering of Getty images (owners of istockphoto [6]) after reports [7] that the owners have retained bankers Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan.
With the possibility of up to three cash injected major microstock agencies I think we can look forward to seeing some major upcoming acquisitions and mergers. While It's possible, I don't think investment in technology and marketing is all they have in mind...
Yuri's New Site
Microstockdiaries published a detailed review [8] of the new PeopleImages.com [9] website from top microstocker Yuri Arcurs which was launched at the start of May. I think the new site is a spectacular achievement (plus a significant investment, and thinking back to the recruitment Yuri was doing for programmers it's been at least 2 years in the making!)
I personally think it's time to stop thinking of Yuri as microstock photographer; or at least separate the Yuri "a photographer" from Yuri as "Yuri Arcurs productions" a production company. Although Lee (microstockdiaries) keeps referring to Peopleimages as direct sales site I don't actually see it as that: it's not the site of a single photographer, it's multiple photographers under a single umbrella - to me that's "an agency".
In Other News...
Fotolia [10] announced that they are now distributed by AP images [11].
Crestock dropped the price [12] of their extended licenses.
Shutterstock [13] Introduced us to their new logo [14].
Dreamstime updated their Image Levels [15], effectively shifting all images up one level, meaning more credits for each download (apart from level 5) but at the same time cutting commission rates by 5%. This also means higher prices to consumers, but still maintains a selection of budget images (unsold for 24 months).
123rf [16] Put their previously announced new video collection online, the sizes and pricing for 123RF Stock Footage are:-
1080 High Definition - from $44.20.
720 High Definition - from $37.40.
480 Standard Definition - from $27.20.
240 Web Definition - from $10.20.
iStock [6] launched a CS6 plugin [17] to allow designers to download directly into Adobe Creative Suite applications.
Bigstock expanded their API [18] from image search to also include a full reseller product, bringing them into line with what most of the other agencies are offering in terms of API access [19].
For more posts and stories from the past couple of months have a look at my twitter [20] and facebook feeds [21].
It's quiet in here!