Zoonar API network established!

As of now photographers will find in Zoonar's parnter management the new partner „Zoonar API Network“. Via our REST API we supply different partners like picture agencies, poster shops (print on demand business models) and more. In the beginning there are two new partners (F1Online/Strandperle and Reportagen.de) but in 2013 many others will join in. What is special for our photographers: price level and licence structure will remain the same. So all photographers can participate without worrying that any pictures would be offered to wrong conditions. Also the licence structure remains the same throughout.

"We have established the Zoonar API network so that we don't overload the partner management with too many smaller partners. Otherwise it would be too elaborate in the long run deleting photos or removing pictures from a partner. Via the API it is much easier and faster.", according to Zoonar's CEO Michael Krabs. "Via the new API we hope to distribute at least 80% of the existing photos as this offer is suitable for all photographers. Now that we are aiming at the 3 million photo mark, we also want to broaden our parnter network globally and nationally via the new API. This way our partners get access to certain photo sectors, licence structures and price levels in all possible combinations. A specific selection is also realizable via the API like e.g. creative photos, selected poster motives, cities, animals or illustrations. There will be no API integration in search engines which remunerate image views with microcent amounts.", according to Zoonar's CEO.

Zoonar photograhers can now accept the Zoonar API under "my profile/partnermanagement" and then activate the portfolio.

Zoonar Present Getty Images As Their New Distribution Partner

Zoonar announced it new partner Getty Images to their contributors:


Dear photographers,

we have important news for you:

1. We are pleased to present Getty Images as our new distribution partner. As of now you can only submit photos which don’t require a model or property release. We hope to offer you a new release management tool by the middle of 2012, which will make it possible for you to submit photos that require a release. Getty Images has generated high sales through its platforms Jupiterimages and Thinkstock which has made many photographers want to submit photos for this partner. We are expectant to see how many photos will be accepted by Getty Images. We have no figures based on experience yet, but we hope that most of your photos will be accepted. It is required however, that your submitted photos are not already on sale at Veer or Corbis.

2. We are also pleased about the number of submitted photos in our partner system. Because of high revenue generated by Getty, AGE, DPP Fotofinder and the other partners we get a lot more submissions now than a few months ago. Unfortunately, our costs for keywording, checking, translating, captioning and deleting photos has risen considerably.

For our partner system to be sustained and further expanded we need to decrease the commission rate from 60% to now 50%. We will change our terms and conditions accordingly, starting on 06/01/2012. From then on your commission rate for all sales through our partner network will be 50%. For your sales at Zoonar you will still get a commission rate of up to 80%.

Because we change our terms and conditions on 06/01/2012 you have a special right of termination within a period of four weeks beginning at reception of this newsletter. Should you wish to withdraw your photos from our partners please send us an email to info@zoonar.com with your username and the names of the partners you wish to withdraw from until 04/30/2012.

We kindly ask you for your understanding once more and we assure you that the additional money we receive is invested in our partner network and the distribution of your photos.

Kind regards,
Your Zoonar Team

Zoonar sets up an international partner network

Hamburg. The picture agency Zoonar announces the winning of cooperations of an international sales network. They alreaday have six partner agencies. The renowned picture agency Photolibrary is the latest partner.

In addition to the German suppliers DDP Imgages, Fotofinder, DFJV and Picturemaxx, the photographers can now also offer their photos via Alamy, AGE/THP and Photolibrary.

As of 24 December 2010, Zoonar offers the photographers a lump-sum share of 60% of all received commissions via the partner network. A brilliant commission in comparison to other international agencies.

Zoonar's CEO Michael Krabs announces the aim of integrating further partner agencies in 2011. "Our aim in the long term is getting 20-30 partners who are extremely well in direct selling." According to Michael Krabs 100 agencies can already be integrated in the selling with the existing partners.

The winning of sales networks is very popular in the agency business. Though the speciality of Zoonar according to Krabs is "that the photographers own the complete control over their pictures and that they can variously distribute single photos, price segments or licence types. Other than that, microstock photos can be integrated in the distribution network".

According to Zoonar's CEO, the sale via the new partner network will mainly start in the first quarter of 2011. That's why they calculate with a considerable growth in sales as of the second quarter of 2011.

Zoonar now offers more than 200,000 professional animal pictures as well as 400,000 nature and landscape pictures. That's why we have one of the largest stocks in the field of nature. Especially mentionable are our vast collections in the field of pets, wildlife, garden, nationalparks and seldom plants. A special service: Publishers of postcards, posters and calendars get manually retouched high resolution quality data up to the size A2 in an optimal high resolution printing without any surcharge!

Zoonar Added ddp Images As New Partner Agency

Zoonar has got a new distribution partner. ddp images will sell Zoonar photos of all price and license categories. Zoonar is pleased to have this new partner from Hamburg with whom they might cooperate in an additional way in future. ddp images is the photo agency of the renowned news agency ddp with its headquarters in Hamburg. Zoonar will provide ddp images with stock photos as addition to their existing press and event photos which are delivered to editorial departments in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway.

Zoonar assume that the pictures are for sale at ddp images within 2-3 weeks. ddp images will use the pictures only for their own platform, there is no subdistribution.

Zoonar acquires age fotostock/THP Photo Service as new partner agency

Zoonar presents with AGE/THP another heavyweight in the global picture market as a new content partner. You can now activate all of your photos for AGE/THP. The price level of your pictures is not important, i.e. you can activate your images whether they have a microstock, standard or premium price level.

You can find more detailed info in the terms and conditions which you can find in your profile page under partner management. Here you can accept the new partner and then you can activate your photos for AGE/THP in your picture management.

Find Zoonar on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Zoonar-World/155068624529186

Zoonar acquires Alamy as new partner agency

Zoonar talked about this before. They will acquire new content partners until the end of 2010. Zoonar is establishing a worldwide distribution network. As of September 22nd 2010 Alamy is activated as a new content partner in the Zoonar submitting system. This does not come as a surprise as Alamy is one of the top Agenties.

Alamy is however a more complicated Agency with the requirements of larger image formats, list of allowed camera models, "essential keywords", "main keywords", and the must of English Title and Keywords. The submitted images will first go through an approval process at Zoonar and then a second approval process at Alamy.

Except of the English keywording, Zoonar will take care of the English Title and essential and main keywords. They also will check the images at 100% zoom to see if the images can be submitted to Alamy. Zoonar will also marked these images by Alamy to increase the sales. That all will take time. Usually in the beginning of a new content partner, there will be a pileup of submission. Therefor the approval time may take 1-3 month, but it maybe also much faster.

IMPORTANT: Zoonar will not take part of the low budged program from Alamy.

Because of the time consuming preparation work for each image, Zoonar will pay 50% revenues. This is not more then other agencies, but Zoonar will most likely spend more time on preparing the images to increase sales. With the next content partners Zoonar plans to give higher revenues. Zoonar's goal is to be the agencies with the highest royalties for content partner connections. It is already at the top with Fotofinder and APIS with 80% revenue payout.

Zoonar Website In A New Design

Zoonar's website was relaunched last Friday. Apart from a modernized design, Zoonar also offers new functionalities.

You can now upload EPS vector graphics and you can use FTP to transfer your images. Furthermore, you can automatically release all of your uploaded images for Zoonar's content partners. Some more information follows below.

FTP-Upload
You will find your FTP login data in your profile. You can still use the Zoonar Media Manager though.

Vector Graphics
Please upload vector graphics only via FTP. First, you upload the EPS file and then a JPEG with the same file name, containing keywords, description and title. You can also add all relevant information to your EPS files in your "Manage pictures" section. You don’t need to upload JPEG files then. Important notice: it’s not possible at the moment to release vector graphics for partner agencies!

Automatic Partner Release
If you activate the automatic partner release option all of your photos which have the correct price category and licence model will be passed on to the selected partners automatically. So, if you choose to automatically release your photos for Polylooks, all of your new photos which have the price category "Microstock" and the Royalty Free (RF) licence will be passed on to Polylooks once every day, usually at night. If you activate the automatic release for Fotofinder, then all of your images which have a premium price category will be passed on.

To save yourself some time and work, you can select your desired default price category for all of your new images in your profile (go to your profile, and there click on "Edit profile" and then select the "Settings" tab) before image upload. For Polylooks, you only need to add the Royaly Free (RF) licence. Everything else is automatic.

At the time of writing you can still upload 150,000 images for Zoonar's 15 euro cent per image campaign. The photos you upload should ideally be ordered by series and themes. You can earn more money this way, because Zoonar can process complete series of pictures much faster than a haphazard collection of images.

Zoonar: Cash Bonus For Top Pictures!

Germany 4/13/2010 - Zoonar and Polylooks are launching an exiting new content offer! The official countdown begins on Wednesday 14th April 2010 from midnight onwards, The first 2000,000 images to be uploaded to Zoonar and then also accepted as image content for Polylooks will receive EUR 0.15 per image!

Make money immediately and make use of the many advantages we have to offer:

• Accepted image material will be placed and marketed on both platforms without giving you any extra work
• We will provide cost-free German keywording for your images, if required
• Accepted images will also be added to our Picturemaxx sales channel (Picturemaxx provides image buying software for publishers, agencies etc)
• Every accepted image will receive 0.15€ and the cash bonus doesn’t effect your future earnings
• Your images are provided on a non-exclusive basis, that means you can still make them available through other channels/platforms

There’s only one condition to get your cash is: The photographer details that you give to Zoonar will be passed onto Polylooks image portal. Also the images are to be sold on a royalty free basis. The offer will end as soon as 200,000 images are accepted by Polylooks. You will be able to follow the daily update of the running total by visiting the Zoonar website.

Here’s how it works:

1. Register with Zoonar
2. In your Profile area, click to accept the partner "Polylooks"
3. Upload your images with the cost-free Media Manager from Zoonar
4. Activate ‘Royalty Free Licence’ for all your images
5. Assign clearance to your images that have successfully passed the Zoonar editorial check

Finally, the partner ‘Polylooks’ will also perform a brief quality check on your images. This second quality check is necessary due to the fact that not all images can be sold under a Royalty Free Licence. Also, it’s important for Polylooks that the images they have on offer are of good quality and can be professionally put to use by potential customers. At the same time, the images, when required, will be given German keywords (a service that we are offering free-of-charge). This can take from 2 to 7 days to complete depending on demand. Fortunately, you can be assured that as soon as the images have been accepted by Polylooks, you will receive your 0.15€ per image accredited to your Zoonar account.