Istockphoto Business Model
iStockPhoto Creating a New Market for ‘MicroStock’ – Background
IStockPhoto.com was established by Bruce Livingstone in 2000. Bruce had a dream of becoming a professional photographer and with over seven thousand photography images in his personal collection at the time it was difficult if not impossible to reach all the agencies to show what he is capable of. Instead of sending out his images he decided to share them on a website which allowed everyone to download them. With over several thousand quality photographs a business model was born. At the time the term “microstock” was nonexistent and in order to buy quality photography one had to pay a lot of money or hire a professional photographer. Companies, small businesses, professionals had followed this model up to the point where they were spending a lot of money and it was getting very expensive and costly to create art. Bruce’s intensions were not to establish a new market for this kind of thing, it was just a way to publish his portfolio and share with the community.
Explosion of MicroStock Market – Evolution of Business Strategy
“iStockPhoto established the market for “microstock” photography by providing high quality stock photos at extremely low price points. iStockPhoto’s innovation was offering all its photo licenses royalty-free, available via easy download over the Internet”. [1] By providing various types of photography for free the community iStockPhoto had revolutionized photography and art on a global scale. Instead of paying for professional photography iStockPhoto provided individuals with the ability to download theirs for free. As the community and popularity of the concept grew in scale so did the website costs. “Hosting and bandwidth fees for the site grew proportionally, forcing a decision upon Bruce as to how to pay for bills approaching $10,000 per month.” [1]. The fast growing popular microstock distributing company then decided to switch gears a bit and charge fees which would
IStockPhoto.com was established by Bruce Livingstone in 2000. Bruce had a dream of becoming a professional photographer and with over seven thousand photography images in his personal collection at the time it was difficult if not impossible to reach all the agencies to show what he is capable of. Instead of sending out his images he decided to share them on a website which allowed everyone to download them. With over several thousand quality photographs a business model was born. At the time the term “microstock” was nonexistent and in order to buy quality photography one had to pay a lot of money or hire a professional photographer. Companies, small businesses, professionals had followed this model up to the point where they were spending a lot of money and it was getting very expensive and costly to create art. Bruce’s intensions were not to establish a new market for this kind of thing, it was just a way to publish his portfolio and share with the community.
Explosion of MicroStock Market – Evolution of Business Strategy
“iStockPhoto established the market for “microstock” photography by providing high quality stock photos at extremely low price points. iStockPhoto’s innovation was offering all its photo licenses royalty-free, available via easy download over the Internet”. [1] By providing various types of photography for free the community iStockPhoto had revolutionized photography and art on a global scale. Instead of paying for professional photography iStockPhoto provided individuals with the ability to download theirs for free. As the community and popularity of the concept grew in scale so did the website costs. “Hosting and bandwidth fees for the site grew proportionally, forcing a decision upon Bruce as to how to pay for bills approaching $10,000 per month.” [1]. The fast growing popular microstock distributing company then decided to switch gears a bit and charge fees which would