線上免費或低價圖庫 成市場主流
摘錄自：天下雜誌 經濟學人電子報 2014/3/28
2014-03-17 Web
only 作者：經濟學人
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| 圖片來源：flickr.com/photos/kk/ |
曾經塞滿過氣辦公室的帝國大廈，如今也出現了幾間坐滿電腦狂的開放辨公室。先是快速成長的LinkedIn紐約分部設立於此，現在，紐約最成功的科技公司Shutterstock也加入行列。
歐林傑（Jon Oringer）於2003年創立Shutterstock，原本的業務為銷售阻擋彈出式廣告的軟體。歐林傑寄發行銷電子郵件時，發現低價照片的供給有限；而當微軟軟體升級重創他的業務後，他決定將重心放在解決相片來源問題，而且就從他過去一年拍的3萬張照片開始，建立線上圖庫市場。
歐林傑的目標，是儘可能以資料帶動並簡化供需接軌。客戶可以買下單張圖片的使用權，也可以付費訂閱，每天可取得最多25張圖片的使用權。供給得接受品質審核，但任何想銷售相片的人都可以加入。相片附有詳盡的內容標籤及回饋意見，不但可以持續提升客戶的搜尋能力，還能讓攝影師知道哪方面的需求最高、最需要滿足。
Shutterstock的商業模式為先付費、再支出，因此很快就開始獲利，營收年成長平均為30％。全球5.5萬名攝影師，每天會上傳約3萬張照片，其中半數會獲得核可，加入擁有超過3,000萬張影像的圖庫。
2006年開始，Shutterstock也開始提供影片；專家指出，其高品質低價影片，可能會開始打擊昂貴的廣告製作公司。此外，Shutterstock還將觸角伸入教學影片這個新市場；歐林傑表示，教學影片市場與市值40～60億美元的圖庫市場相似，但有機會遠遠超越後者。
Shutterstock崛起，市場龍頭Getty Images受到的衝擊也最大。3月6日，Getty Images宣佈讓超過3,500萬筆影像供個人免費使用，使得Shutterstock的股價下挫14％。然而即使如此，自2012年10月上市以來，Shutterstock的價格已增加3倍，市值約為30億美元。
Getty Image作此決定，表示它已經感受到Shutterstock的強力競爭。Getty Image擁有自己的群眾外包線上市場，但專家表示，Getty Image擔心那會傷害現有業務，因此條款比Shutterstock繁瑣。正如歐林傑所說，Getty Image的免費圖片僅能用於非商業用途，而「我們的業務99.9％都是商業用途」。（黃維德譯）
©The Economist
Newspaper Limited 2014
The Economist
Photographic agencies
Moving
pictures
By The Economist
From The Economist
Published: March 17, 2014
Mar 15th 2014 |
NEW YORK | From the print edition
Having shaken up
the photo business, Shutterstock is now focused on video.
THESE days Silicon
Alley has a Silicon Skyscraper at its top end. The Empire State Building, once
stuffed to the viewing-deck with fusty, dark wood offices, has become home to
several geek-filled open-plan floors. First in was the fast-growing New York
arm of LinkedIn. Now, complete with gourmet cafeteria and video-game room, it
has been joined by Shutterstock, the most successful tech firm to emerge in the
Big Apple since it started claiming to be the new home of digital innovation.
Shutterstock was
founded in 2003 by Jon Oringer, a programmer who had previously sold software
to block pop-up ads. Sending out marketing e-mails, he had become frustrated by
the limited supply of cheap photos to use, and when a Microsoft software
upgrade killed his business, he decided to focus on solving the photo problem
by creating an online marketplace for stock shots, starting with 30,000 he took
himself over the course of a year.
Mr Oringer's goal
was to make the meeting of supply and demand as simple and data-driven as
possible. Customers can either buy the right to use a single image or pay a
subscription to use up to 25 a day. Subject to a rudimentary quality review,
supply was opened up to anyone who wanted to post pictures for sale, getting
paid between 25 cents and $120 each time they are downloaded. Detailed tagging
about what is in each picture (dog, hat, shades) plus feedback on what is and
isn't selling have led to constant improvements in searchability for consumers.
This has also helped to generate the right supply by telling photographers
where demand is strongest or most unmet.
In contrast to
many other startups, Shutterstock's business model of get paid first, pay out
later helped to make it instantly profitable. Its revenue growth has averaged
30% a year. Between them, 55,000 photographers around the world submit about
30,000 pictures a day, about half of which are accepted, adding to a total
library of over 30m images.
Since 2006 it has
also supplied videos; indeed, the firm's supply of cheap, high-quality video
may begin to displace the expensive production outfits that work for ad
agencies, says Brian Fitzgerald of Jefferies, an investment bank. Shutterstock
is also dipping a toe into the nascent market for instructional videos. Mr
Oringer reckons this is similar to the $4 billion-6 billion stock-images market
but is potentially far bigger. So far Skillfeed.com, its subscription-based
website, is mostly offering videos that teach the skills needed by its army of
photographers and those who consume their work. Its hits include "How to
cast realistic shadows in Photoshop".
Shutterstock's
share price has quadrupled since its initial public offering in October 2012,
giving it a market capitalisation of about $3 billion. That is despite it
falling by 14% after Getty Images, the incumbent whose business Shutterstock's
rise has hurt most, announced on March 6th that it will make more than 35m
images available free for personal use.
The move by Getty,
which is owned by Carlyle, a private-equity firm, suggests that it is feeling
the heat from its upstart rival. It has long had a crowdsourced online market
of its own, yet it has more onerous terms for both customers and photographers
than Shutterstock, says Mr Fitzgerald, who blames an indebted incumbent's fear
of cannibalising its existing business. As Mr Oringer points out, Getty is only
making pictures free for non-commercial users, whereas "99.9% of our
business is commercial use."
©The Economist
Newspaper Limited 2014
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