Alamy signs global distribution deal with ZUMA Press

- Alamy and heavyweight reportage agency agree partnership

- Daily supply of images from around the world direct to Alamy’s news feed

- Over 1 million images added from ZUMA’s archive

ZUMA Press, the California-based news agency is now supplying Alamy's live news feed with images from its global network of 3,000 photojournalists.  Owned and run by renowned photojournalist Scott Mc Kiernan, ZUMA has also made its back catalogue available online through Alamy’s global direct sales network. The supply includes the renowned “thepicturesoftheday” images.

Scott Mc Kiernan commented: "ZUMA is excited to be a part of the Alamy family. We see our new strategic alliance to be a natural fit, combining our photographers’ fine work with Alamy's wide client base. We are looking forward to a long and fruitful relationship."

Alan Capel, Alamy’s head of content said: “When we started to look at reportage agencies ZUMA was at the top of the list. Its pedigree in ground-breaking and challenging stories is unsurpassed.”

To view some of the best and most recent ZUMA Press images available through Alamy go to:

Lightbox for ZUMA archive

Lightbox for ZUMA live news

About ZUMA Press: ZUMA Press produces award-winning news, sports and entertainment content and represents some of the greatest photojournalists, media groups, newspapers and picture agencies around the globe. ZUMA's staff of 50+ represents over 3,000 photographers worldwide and over 60 of the world's best picture agencies spanning the planet, as well as over 100 newspapers and the daily feed and archive of 33 publishing giants. ZUMA's photographers have won numerous awards, including the Pulitzer, World Press, BOP and POYi.

About Alamy: Alamy is the world’s largest independent stock photo site. It connects thousands of designers, marketing departments, news desks, and publishers with some of the best professional and amateur photographers around.

Alamy does not make editorial judgements on pictures, nothing is rejected providing the quality is acceptable – it lets the customer choose the pictures they want.

Alamy’s revolutionary approach to the stock photography business means 60 percent of each sale is paid to the content owner – the lion’s share of the revenue earned. 

See about Alamy for more information.

DM2PHOTO Releases "Microstock Report" For The Android Platform

February 19, 2012 -- Dm2photo, Panama City, Panama February 18, 2012 - announces the release of "Microstock Report", for artist telling them their microstock earnings for the Android platform.

Microstock Report is a reporting application for artists who sell their work on microstock sites. Currently 29 of the the best agencies including Shutterstock, iStockphoto, Dreamstime, Fotolia, BigStock, Alamy, CanStock, Veer, Crestock, 123RF, Zazzle and Deposit Photos are supported.

The application provides a configuration screen for setting usernames and passwords, a main windows and a widget - both of them will tell the artist how much money he/she has earned converted in US Dollars and how much of that amount is currently payable .

Key Features:

• Designed to microstock contributors checking instant earnings in their android devices.
• This tiny widget will tell the contributor how much earned and how much can immediately withdraw.
• Currency conversion to US Dollars on agencies thats pays in Euros and Pounds.
• Account setting for contributors writing his logging and password.
• Usernames and passwords are used solely for downloading their microstock earnings and will never be stored anywhere except encrypted in their phone..

Device Requirements: Android 1.6 and Upward
Price and Availability: Microstock Report is on $2.99 and is available at the Slide Me Market, Business category.
Category: Business, Photography
Released: Feb 15, 2012
Version: 2.0
Size: 432 KB
Language: English
Seller: Dm2photo

About DM2Photo: 

DM2photo is a business application service provider that specializes in making life easy to all the companies or professionals that have business on the internet.

Dm2photo specialize in developing applications that can see earnings with just pressing one click on their devices. Also developing solutions in the Telecommunication and photography business in the different platforms: PC, iPhone/iPod Touch, iPad, Blackberry, Android and other devices.
 

The Dm2photo team consists of veteran web designers and developers, project managers, system administrators, database, network professionals and programmers. Expertise is provided for Web 2.0 open source programming languages, Linux, UNIX and Windows operating systems, Microsoft server products, security and firewalls. The Dm2photo team consists of a full time Panama staff of five, with an international staff of five located in the Republic of India for around the clock development and support services.

Dm2photo was founded by David Castillo and Maria Maarbes, both MBAs with extensive experience in the internet, technology and application development.

For more information, visit http://slideme.org/application/microstock-report

Next Commission Change at 123RF In January 2013

123RF.com will be changing its Contributor Commission Payout on January 1, 2013. From now till then, 123RF.com shall continue paying our Contributors at a rate of:

1. 50% net value for credits
2. $0.36 per download for subscriptions

From January 1, 2013 onwards – 123RF.com shall adopt the new Contributor Commission Payout schedule depicted in the table below:

123RF.com shall round the monthly cumulative earnings to the nearest $0.01.

The mechanics of deriving a Contributor’s Commission are as follows:

1. At the end of every month, a Contributor’s total credits from all downloads in the previous 12 months shall be summed according to this table:
   
   
2. The summed credit amount shall determine the Contributor’s Level.
3. The Contributor’s level will determine the commissions for each download in the preceding month.

The aim of the new Commission Structure:

1. Rewards Contributors who consistently send in quality Content that are in high demand to 123RF.com.
2. Takes into account the Contributor’s performance and consistency as well as acknowledge loyalty.
3. Takes into account the growth of contributors vs. the growth of sales and the dynamic relationship between the two growth factors.
4. Gives a stable, measureable, predictable and most important of all, specific milestones for achieving targets.
5. Fosters healthy competition for new and old contributors alike.
6. Encourages consistent and sustained uploading of fresh content to 123RF.com.
7. Takes into account every seasonal sales variation or fluctuation and changes.

Cutcaster Celebrates 1 Million Images, Quality over Quantity

Cutcaster.com, one of the internet’s premier sources of high quality, royalty-free stock images, announced a major milestone as its image collection surpassed 1,000,000 photographs, illustrations, and vector art.

“Everyone’s proud of the recent milestone,” says John Griffin, CEO of Cutcaster. “We weren’t the first or the fastest to a million but from the start we stressed quality over quantity and that guided our image growth strategy. Cutcaster is about providing world-class images through innovative solutions to meet our customers image needs and that will remain our top priority.”

The one-millionth image was submitted by Serbian photographer, iMarin, of a woman singing into a retro microphone. “I have been selling stock since 2006 and uploaded my photos to Cutcaster because of their high commission rates for sellers and their low $25 payout request for getting my earnings,” iMarin explained.

With a global customer base spanning many different industries including publishing, advertising, web design, blogging and product design, it’s crucial that Cutcaster provides images suited to a wide variety of applications. Image buyers have nearly limitless creative options when using Cutcaster images, which are provided under a royalty-free license with the option to purchase additional extended rights.

“Due to the smaller budgets, we are seeing an increased demand for affordable, premium royalty-free images,” Griffin noted. “As a result, Cutcaster is directly addressing the changing needs of the marketplace by providing an expansive selection of high-quality stock images via an affordable, user-friendly licensing model.”

The company attributes its growth to its innovative business model, which harnesses the power of talented photographers and illustrators worldwide, who regularly upload their work to the companies website. Over the last 6 months, Cutcaster’s library has been adding 20,000 new images per week or nearly two images every minute. Cutcaster’s expert review team screens every image for quality and compliance, enforcing some of the strictest standards in the imagery business. “Two out of every three images submitted by approved artists are now accepted at Cutcaster,” Cora Reed, the companies creative director noted.

“The photos I find at Cutcaster feel authentic and work perfectly within my layouts and budget,” says Mike Armenta of Taylor Stitch in San Francisco, who uses Cutcaster’s affordable images to make the newsletters he creates more appealing. “The website is simple to use, has fast search and great customer service.”

Earlier this year, the company introduced the commercially available search engine, SpiralSearch that was custom built using a unique controlled vocabulary and faceted search. SpiralSearch is just one of the many features of “Spiral” which is their custom framework used to build Cutcaster. Today, customers can find great stock images faster, more easily and with precision using the Spiral framework.

About Cutcaster
Cutcaster was founded in 2007 and has grown into one of the internet’s largest pay-as-you-go and credit-based stock image agencies. The company crowdsources the talent of more than 30,000 digital photographers and illustrators from around the globe who collect earnings each time a customer downloads their images.

Depositphotos’ library hits 6 million images

Depositphotos Stock Photo Agency has speed up its growth by adding another million of premium images to its collection only in 2 months.

Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 14 Feb. 2012 – Depositphotos, the fastest-growing stock photo agency in the world, announces the addition of its 6 millionth image. It took the company only 2 months to cross over another milestone.

Having started accepting and selling images for editorial use, Depositphotos has become an alternative microstock agency for photographers working in the field of editorial photography who previously had no possibility to sell their images with Depositphotos. Since its innovation the editorial images as well as demand for them have been steadily growing, so Depositphotos encourages photographers shooting editorial shoots to cooperate.

“We’d like to express our gratitude to all stock photographers and illustrators who have trusted us to sell their images”, says Igor Kaliuzhnyi, Head of Depositphotos’ Departments in Eastern and Western Europe. “We’ve been successful in expanding our image collection at incredibly high speed to meet such a soaring demand for high-quality images on various topics only owing to our mutual efforts.”

Depositphotos is going beyond just selling stock images. The company is going to launch stock footage and video clips marketplace in March.

Depositphotos is not only expanding its image collection but also is working on attracting prospective clients. Thanks to an extremely successful marketing campaign, the number of image downloads has sharply increased more than 10 times in 2011. In 2012, the agency expects even higher growth and intends to boost its sales on the strategically important American and European markets, and also capture Asian market by launching Chinese and Japanese versions of the site.

The agency has been constantly improving its services both for buyers and sellers. The world’s renowned companies such as Best Business Bureau, TRUSTe and VerySign have proved its employees’ expertise, fair and honest policy towards all its customers and the security of its services.

About Depositphotos Inc.

Depositphotos is the fastest-growing stock photo agency in the world. Currently, it offers over 6 million stock photographs and vector images sold under royalty-free licenses. The stock photo library is increased daily by thousands of images, carefully screened and selected by moderators. The company is headquartered in Florida, USA, and has business offices in Germany, Great Britain, Ukraine and Russia.

Alamy hits 28 million, revenue up in USA

• Over 1 million images added in the first 6 weeks of 2012
• US revenue up 48% in last quarter of 2011
• Company seeking to expand sales force in 2012

Online stock photo giant Alamy is near to smashing the 30 million image milestone, as 2012 gets off to a great start with 1 million images added in 6 weeks.

Rachel Wakefield, head of sales said: “The new content added so far this year is an exciting mix of contemporary stock imagery and unique, ground breaking reportage and editorial photography. This reinforces Alamy’s stronghold as the largest and most comprehensive photo agency in the market place.”

The US sales operation established in 2009, is proving to be a success story for Alamy with US revenue up 48% in the last quarter of 2011. The company has further strengthened its experienced management team with the appointment of high profile ex-Corbis employee Adam Goldberg as Vice President of Sales for North America (Adam left the post of Director of Corporate Development at the end of 2011). Adam will be focused on expanding the US sales team in 2012 and developing the US client base further.

James West, CEO, commented: “We’re seeing amazing results in the US market as more photographers are turning to Alamy as a trusted and financially stable option. Our customers are responding really well to the great content available on the site, returning the company to pre-recession growth rates. This is pretty incredible considering how tough the market is nowadays.”


About Alamy:  
Alamy is the world’s largest independent stock photo site. It connects thousands of designers, marketing departments, news desks, and publishers with some of the best professional and amateur photographers around.

Alamy does not make editorial judgements on pictures, nothing is rejected providing the quality is acceptable – it lets the customer choose the pictures they want.

Alamy’s revolutionary approach to the stock photography business means 60 percent of each sale is paid to the content owner – the lion’s share of the revenue earned.

See about Alamy for more information.

Shutterstock Surpasses 200 Million Image Downloads - Celebrates with Global Design Trends Infographic

Milestone Marks Shutterstock as a Leading Global Provider of Stock Imagery 

February 2012 - New York, NY - Shutterstock (www.shutterstock.com), a leading global marketplace for stock photography, vectors, illustrations and footage, today announced that it has surpassed 200 million licensed image downloads, making it the first company in its industry to declare such an achievement. In conjunction with this milestone, the company has released a series of findings about trends in visual media through an infographic, which can be found here.

“Serving over two hundred million downloads has given us a powerful glimpse into emerging visual trends, and the ways that people use images to tell stories,” said Jon Oringer, Founder and CEO of Shutterstock. “We’ve seen a dramatic increase in the popularity of vectors, for example, and shifts in the types of images used to represent certain themes,” he added. “Searching the word ‘networking’ used to return images of handshakes and business contacts; now it‘s all about online social networking. Additionally, it has been interesting to watch stylistic trends like vintage and graffiti-inspired graphics make their way around the world.  Being at the intersection between millions of customers and hundreds of thousands of contributors, the content and activity in our marketplace is an ever-changing reflection of the world around us.”

Shutterstock has been providing licensed images to businesses, agencies and media organizations since 2004, and as communications have become increasingly visual, the demand for licensable content has risen as well. With more than 17 million images in its library, Shutterstock continues to expand its leadership in providing high-quality and relevant visuals to communicators around the world.

About Shutterstock 

Shutterstock Images LLC is a leading global provider of high-quality stock photography, vectors, illustrations and footage to creative industry professionals around the world. Shutterstock works closely with its growing contributor community of artists, photographers, videographers and illustrators to curate a global marketplace for royalty-free, top-quality imagery. Shutterstock adds tens of thousands of rights-cleared images and footage clips each week, with more than 17 million files currently available. 

Headquartered in New York, Shutterstock also owns Bigstock, the value-oriented stock agency that offers both credit and simple Pay As You Go purchasing options.