Photoshelter is closing

[jdmsds]

http://psc.photoshelter.com/about/index/news/20080911

[BlackJagger]

I always wondered if they would survive. They had a great idea but lets face it the world is so cost focus that why would a business pay $50 versus $.50. The perceived value difference wasn't there for the majority of clients. I'm glad they tried hopefully it will change.

Cheers to Photoshelter

[ChrisRabior]

Perhaps if you read the notice about why they're closing, you'd see that it has nothing to do with microstock. Photoshelter has always been geared towards their personal collections. The personal collections are for established shooters who already have clients regularly purchasing their work.

Collection was simply an attempt to make them more of an open submission agency, but buyers were loyal to the established shooters on the Personal part of the site, so sales never really took off.

It was a good run, sad to see them go.. but I will say I'm certainly glad I didn't spend any major effort contributing to them, because I'd be very irritated if I'd uploaded a great deal and gone through the work of prepping them for sale only to have it shut down. Least we all still have Alamy =)

[heycow]

I spent a week or so uploading, tagging, etc. Never had any bites, never made any money, and from what I read on their message boards, neither did anyone except MAYBE a handful of people. Can't say what their real failure was, but it was pretty collosal.

Sad to see the time I spent on them go, but as far as I was concerned they never really existed.

[amfoto1]

I think it was inevitable that there would be some fallout. There are simply too many stock agencies around. I'd expect to see some more close, or some mergers and acquisitions.

[primoz]

Your title is a bit misleading. Photoshelter is not closing. They are just closing their Collection thing. Photoshelter, as it was about year ago, before they started to do this Collection business, is still operational. At least as far as I know.

[John Mireles]

They contacted me a while ago and asked that I submit to the Collection. I asked them about their marketing. Were they going to advertise? How were they going to get in front of the art directors and designers that automatically go to Getty or some microstock agency when they need something?

The only answer they had was that their work was going to be better than what was out there so clients would just come to them. That's not a marketing plan; that's a prayer. That's like going into a modern battle with a sword and a shield. No surprise they got slaughtered.

I never submitted anything. Glad I didn't waste my time.

John

[Jadam]

Least we all still have Alamy =)

Alamy's pitfall is that they are over saturated with a bunch of crap. Images that really have no marketable value. It just boggs down those who are searching for images. They will only sift through junk for so long before they give up. If they did a better job of filtering out what is and what isn't usable they would be better off. They key words like "the" ... :-? seriously? come on. Photoshelter did have a good keywording system.