Tag Archives: Getty Images

Journalism Daily: Council newspapers, INMA/OPA event and more editorial outsourcing

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Journalism.co.uk is trialling a new service via the Editors’ Blog: a daily round-up of all the content published on the Journalism.co.uk site.

We hope you’ll find it useful as a quick digest of what’s gone on during the day (similar to our e-newsletter) and to check that you haven’t missed a posting.

We’ll be testing it out for a couple of weeks, so you can subscribe to the feed for the Journalism Daily here.

Let us know what you think – all feedback much appreciated.

News and features:

Ed’s picks:

Tip of the day:

#FollowJourn:

On the Editors’ Blog:

paidContent:UK: Getty Images VP on finding business models for cit-j photos

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In this interview with Catherine Gluckstein, the VP of Getty Image’s iStock, which the photo agency bought back in 2006, discusses the difficulties of finding a business model for images from citizen journalists.

Getty’s own foray into the cit-j space saw it buy and later shutdown Scoopt.

“[A] lot of people who take the pictures are not necessarily trying to monetise them – it works best when they send them to the news organisations,” explains Gluckstein.

iStock, which is a pro-am microstock play, is finding success with timeless images, she says. Contributors receive up to 40 per cent commission with images sold to users from $0.95 each.

Gluckstein, who is also CFO of Life.com – the resurrected photo magazine, also comments on the role of social media as a significant driver of traffic to the site.

Full interview at this link…

JEEcamp: Kyle Macrae on Scoopt: We’re all entrepreneurs now

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They don’t make ’em like Kyle Macrae, the founder of citizen journalism photography site Scoopt, any more – but maybe they should?

Speaking at Friday’s journalism and enterprise ‘unconference’, JEEcamp, Macrae posited that the only option for journalists at the moment is to be entreprenuerial.

Macrae sold Scoopt to Getty Images in March 2007, before the photography giant shuttered the site in February this year.

Macrae outlined some of the issues with the idea behind Scoopt:

  • every mainstream media organisation that bought into the idea of user-generated content e.g. send us your pictures of snow – took away from Scoopt’s business
  • Scoopt needed a default route to market for all valuable content e.g. a partnership with Flickr was discussed, where users posting potentially valuable images could click to sell
  • there isn’t an unlimited market for editorial photography
  • Scoopt wasn’t sticky enough – “People would register on site and then wait the rest of their lives for something to happen”

It was impossible to scale the business on a regional level

But, says, Macrae, selling the site was always his ‘exit strategy’ – something all entrepreneurs should have from the start and there were some very valuable nuggets of advice for budding independents in his presentation:

  • try to step outside of the journalism sector before starting a journalism business – you’ll spot more opportunities this way
  • similarly, get someone to sanity check your business – preferably someone outside the industry
  • pay less attention to what the ‘usual commentators’ are saying when considering if you’re idea is good
  • in an ideal world, you’d have the funding in place first, but start as you mean to go on – think about where the money is going to come from from the very beginnning

Life.com website launched

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Time Inc and Getty Images yesterday launched Life.com, which offers free access to more than 7 million photos that depict the news.

What was once a deceased US publication, Life has now been revived and is online.

The site features photos from as far back as the 1850 up to the present day. Around 3,000 photos are added each day.

Users can view, rate, share and link to the photos, which will be categorised into news, celebrity, sports, travel and animals.

Celebrities will also have the chance to create galleries of their favourite subjects or themes, with Ellen DeGeneres will be the first to do so.

Life.com editor, Bill Shapiro said in an article for Brand Republic, the tagline for the site is ‘See your world’, which he believes shows the sheer amount of photos that users can view that have shaped their lives.

The Business Insider: Is the party over for MediaBistro?

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MediaBistro owner WebMediaBrands, formerly known as Jupitermedia, has laid off 60 employees – about 25 per cent of its total staff, Nicholas Carlson of The Business Insider reports.

The remaining employees will get a 5 per cent pay cut.

Jupitermedia recently completed its sale of Jupiterimages to Getty for $96 million, about half the original bidding price that prompted protracted negotiations last year, according to Photo District News (PDN). Things look non too rosy for Jupiterimages staff either, with Getty similarly poised to make swingeing cuts.

In a memorandum to WedMediaBrands staff (reproduced in full by The Business Insider), CEO Alan Meckler blames the cuts on a major downturn in jobs board revenue for MediaBistro (which Jupitermedia bought for $23 million in 2007), plus a decline in general advertising and event registrations.

Full story…

News agencies suspend Australian cricket coverage over online coverage terms

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Reuters, Associated Press (AP) and Agence France Presse (AFP) will not cover matches, training sessions and events for cricket in Australia, because of ‘unacceptable accreditation terms’ set out by Cricket Australia, the sport’s governing body in the country.

According to a release from Reuters:

“No text stories, photos or video of any of the training sessions, matches, press conferences or events will be distributed by the international news agencies to media around the world for the first test against New Zealand later this month, and potentially for the South Africa test coming up in December.”

Reuters partner Getty Images will provide images and ‘fulfil their commercial obligations only’ e.g. not providing any editorial of the matches.

Rights organisation the News Media Coalition said the agencies had been in discussions with Cricket Australia for months before rejecting the terms, which featured several restrictions relating to online coverage including:

  • Rules on how newspaper websites can be updated
  • Veto power for Cricket Australia over which websites and non-sports magazines the agencies are allowed to syndicate content to
  • Restrictions affecting the distribution of content to mobile news services

“As in previous instances, this decision [the accreditation terms] compromises our ability to report independently and objectively, and comes at the expense of global fans and sponsors,” said Christoph Pleitgen, global head of News Agency for Thomson Reuters, in the release.

“We would like to resume our timely, premium coverage as quickly as possible, pending a solution to the current situation. However, freedom of the press and protecting the news interests and coverage rights of our global clients are at the core of both our business and Reuters editorial principles, and these must be upheld.”

Video search engine blinkx signs up Telegraph.co.uk

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Video content from Telegraph.co.uk will now be available through video search engine blinkx, as part of a new partnership announced today.

The publisher will share advertising revenue from ‘contextually relevant’ ads placed next to the clips by blinkx, a release from the company said.

The site already features content from Getty Images and previously agreed content deals with the Guardian and Euronews.

Getty teams up with Yahoo to tap into Flickr users

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Getty Images is to collaborate with Yahoo-owned image-sharing site Flickr to harness the potential of the site’s members.

Through the partnership Getty will invite Flickr members to contribute their images to a ‘Flickr branded collection’ on the agency’s website. Pics in this collection will then be made available for licensing by Getty’s clients.

Editors from Getty will select the members and the two companies are currently working on online tools for contacting Flickr users.

Members who chose to submit their images to the collection will hand over exclusive commercial rights of the photos to Getty.

“Flickr members will benefit from Getty Images’ global sales and distribution teams helping to market their images and from Getty Images’ expertise and experience in rights and clearances of visual content. Getty Images’ customers will benefit from the fresh, unique and individualistic perspectives of members within Flickr’s global community,” a release from Yahoo said.

A launch date for the collection is yet to be announced.