The assault on stock photography giant Getty Images (NYSE: GYI) continues, as more small players seek a slice of their monopoly rents. Stock Photo Talk provides the intelligence:
The next new stock photography micropayment site is open for business: Stockxpert, launched on Sept. 11, 2005.
Earlier, in 2004 ("Free" Stock Photography and Royalty "Free" Stock Photography Sites without Breaking the Bank) and in 2005 (Free High Quality Stock Photography), I published here two lists with micropayment sites.
Meanwhile no one knows exactly how many of these stock photography micropayment sites do exist out there. Some of the bigger ones are certainly Dreamstime, Shutterstock, iStockPhoto.
Earlier we made the case that Getty looked shortable.
I agree that Getty is potentially vulnerable. In fact, when Munjal Shah and I were brainstorming about Ojos, this was a big driver. Ultimately we went another direction.
At Leapfrog we have seen several micro-Gettys like these over the past two years. I think someone is going to be an aggregator (maybe a photosearch engine, rather than a micro-Getty) and aggregate all these sites into something. The barriers to entry to be a micro-Getty are just too low to build a meaningful business. IMHO.
Posted by: Peter Rip | September 27, 2005 at 11:36 AM
Interesting thread with the subsequent purchase of Istock by Getty! (see: http://www.ccnmatthews.com/news/releases/show.jsp?action=showRelease&searchText=false&showText=all&actionFor=579577 for press release).
That plus the appearance of even more new stock sites such as http://www.totallyphotos.com and http://www.ourstockworks.com over the last 6 months and it seems we are in for interesting times.
Posted by: Nicky Harte | May 15, 2006 at 11:21 AM