A couple of stories this month that didn't quite merit a whole post:

Getty announce their intention to buy Jupiter Images.

The worlds largest stock photography company and owners of microstock site istockphoto have announced their intention to buy Jupiter images. Jupiter are (or were) another key player in the stock industry and own a large interest in StockXpert. The deal if it goes ahead, will see Getty continue to operate the Jupiter images brands (photos.com etc). At the moment it's unclear what, if anything, will happen to stockxpert. Story on pdn

Update: A more recent news story here, states that jupiter are only selling their imaging business to getty so that they can concentrate on their other internet interests including Mediabistro.com and Graphics.com.

DDR Closes Unexpectedly

The macrostock site digital railroad (DRR) closed with little warning to it's users. To the 'whistles' (sorry) of a lot of unhappy contributors and news headline puns about "going off-the-rails" and "running out of steam". Contributors were upset as they were not given enough time to transfer their images to another server (note the differences in the style of operation between DRR who allowed users to archive their photos and microstock where submitters cannot normally download the files that they have uploaded). This news comes only weeks after the other 'leading' macrostock agency photoshelter closed it's doors on selling stock images. more details on imaginginfo

For those not sure exactly what this means form a microstock perspective, my comments are:

istockphoto has been making a growing share of Gettys profits, it has been a stable business for at least 5 years. The other major microstock sites appear to be doing equally as well.

macrostock sites which pop-up and in a cloud of marketing spin accusing microstock of killing the industry, only to then close down due to a lack of people willing to pay their high prices really should consider where they stand in the current stock industry climate. It's not raining down here in micrstockland.

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