Adobe Acquires Fotolia
Adobe announced last week, as part of their quarterly earnings announcement, their agreement to acquire Fotolia for $800M in cash.
Adobe is the global leading software company for creative solutions including Lightroom, Photoshop, Illustrator and Premiere. Fotolia is one of the leading microstock agencies offering more than 34 million files created and submitted by thousands of creative from around the globe.
According to the agreement, Adobe is said to pay $800 million in cash for the stock agency, about one third of the market capitalization of Shutterstock which is listed at the New York Stock Exchange.
Adobe expects the acquisition to close in the first quarter of 2015 and plans to integrate the Fotolia offer into the Creative Cloud. However, Fotolia will remain up as a standalone offer and stock agency as it was in the past.
To know the full story, read Adobe Acquires Fotolia for $800M in Cash.
Because of this major news in microstock industry, Amos Struck, founder and editor of Stock Photo Press created an audio interview here with stock photo and technology veteran Paul Melcher. They discussed the impact on the stock market as well as changes which might affect Fotolia’s contributors.
Also, read Fotolia Acquired by Adobe – The Contributor Perspective to learn what contributors has to say with this major acquisition.
8 Secrets to Photos That Sell
Taking photos and taking great photos are two different things and taking fantastic photos doesn’t guarantee sales. So what does it really takes to shoot great photos that sell? Creative Market took a look of some of their top photo sellers and published eight secrets we can learn from them.
- This is a marketplace, not an art gallery
Selling your photos in an art gallery is a different story when selling your photos in an online marketplace. It isn’t enough for a photo to be beautiful, you have to think about who are spending money buying photos online and the obvious answers are designers and writers/bloggers.
- Choose your customer
Instead of uploading a bunch of random photos, why don’t you try this: choose a customer and target them with a product. Thinking of a specific customer in mind will help you make perfect images for them.
- Consider the competition
Before you decide what type of photos you would sell on any marketplace, always run a search for the images you have in mind. If there are very few competitions or none at all, go for it. However if the site is already loaded with the images like yours, you’ll want to tread more carefully.
- Leave room for copy
One of the things you need to consider when taking photos is that designers always need room for copy. They nearly always have a message to get across and they will be looking for images to support that message without it getting in the way of the photos.
If you would like to know more secrets to successfully sell your photos, head on to the Creative Market blog.
Cameras vs. Smartphones
Which device takes better pictures is an ongoing battle between cameras and smartphones. Smartphones have evolved into more advanced devices that now offer some of the best cameras with the best photo apps that allow smartphone users to take pictures anytime, anywhere.
To help you decide which device would you prefer, Treat created a ‘Camera vs. Smartphone’ infographic with illustrations showing a wide range of data such as how many photos a person takes on average; what percentage of people are on film or the difference between the usage behaviour of smartphone camera users to that of the digital camera owners.
Click here to see the full size infographic.
Now, which do you prefer, cameras of smartphones?
Interview with Yuri Arcurs
Microstock millionaire Yuri Arcurs of peopleimages.com was recently interviewed by an international magazine and shared some of his responses in his website.
The interview was basically about how Yuri started out in the microstock industry. Yuri was fortunate to hit a couple of high sellers within his first five hundred images which took him from a student to a professional photographer’s salary within the span of three months and it was relatively easy to get into business that time because there was not much of a competition yet. However, despite his being a top microstocker in the industry today, he was actually rejected at the Corbis Images saying “we don’t do walk-ins.” Yuri said, “I think that was their biggest mistake in terms of what they have done so far.”
Yuri has to two secrets to his success: first, don’t spend money on yourself, rather spend money on the company; second, work really hard. According to him,”most people who reach financial success in their company spend a lot of money on themselves. They will start having fun with it and drive big cars. etc. I didn't do that, for the first five years of my business I put every cent back into the business – this allowed my business to grow much faster than it would have under normal circumstances. When things were going well, I kept pouring money back into the business.” Hard work and making wise decisions when it comes to money is his key to growing his business quickly. For the first five years of his career, he worked an average of 70 hours per week. He had no capital to start with, but just his hobby camera and a sheer determination that grew his business into what it is today.
Read the rest of the interview here and know how much did he earned in his first year and what are his go-to cameras.
Shutterstock’s Additions to Executive Team
Shutterstock announced earlier this month that Chris Hoerenz and Catherine Ulrich have joined the Company’s executive management team.
“In many ways, Shutterstock is just getting started. Both Chris and Catherine will play pivotal roles in our next phase of growth bringing global experience, innovative thinking and collaborative leadership to their roles,” said Jon Oringer, Founder and CEO of Shutterstock.
Chris Hoerenz, President of eCommerce
An eCommerce and digital veteran, Chris Hoerenz is a proven strategist with an excellent understanding of how creative professionals work. In this role, Chris leads the Company's eCommerce business setting the strategic direction for the marketing, product and content teams. Mr. Hoerenz previously served as Chief Operating Officer at WhoSay, Inc. and Fox Mobile Group(now known as freenet digital) and has more than 20 years of experience leading prominent eCommerce and subscription businesses.
As Shutterstock's first Chief Product Officer, Catherine is responsible for leading the Company's overall product strategy and innovation roadmap. Catherine has expertise in creating global subscription products that delight customers and are easy to use regardless of platform or device. Most recently, Catherine was the Chief Product Officer at Weight Watchers, where she oversaw product, user-interface and design, as well as content and consumer analytics teams.
Chris Hoerenz, President of eCommerce
Catherine Ulrich, Chief Product Officer