Microstock Calendar

Hi SnapVillagers -

As you know firsthand – microstock is big. And getting bigger!  Corbis anticipates that within the next few years, microstock photography will represent more than 25% of the overall stock photography market. We are committed to taking a significant share of this market and providing photographers a leading brand and website to reach customers looking for affordable, quality photography and a great web experience.

We have learned a lot from SnapVillage, and we recognize that as the market has rapidly evolved over the past two years, we need a bigger, better offering to achieve success in microstock.

So today we’re excited to be sharing our plans to roll SnapVillage into a new microstock offering on Veer, which Corbis acquired in 2007.  Veer is a highly successful stock agency specializing in creative rights managed (RM) and royalty free (RF). It has a large, established, global customer base, strong brand loyalty and an industry-leading website, providing an ideal platform to rapidly build our microstock business.

We plan to build on SnapVillage’s assets to launch a new microstock-specific section at Veer called Veer Marketplace.  Veer will maintain its traditional high end offering, but will also offer clients more affordable, user-contributed microstock imagery in the Veer Marketplace section of the website.

While we can’t reveal all our secrets before the launch of Veer Marketplace, we can tell you that you’ll experience efficient upload, a great user experience and your work will be showcased and marketed within the amazing award-winning design and community for which Veer is recognized.

Veer Marketplace will launch in two phases with a small sampling of affordable images that can be purchased a la carte in late February, followed by a full launch mid year with contributor upload capabilities and credit-based pricing and subscriptions.

What does this mean for SnapVillage?
In the months ahead, we’ll be inviting SnapVillage contributors and customers to Veer Marketplace. Once Veer Marketplace is launched and fully operational, it will become Corbis’ only microstock brand and SnapVillage will be phased out by the end of the year.

What does this mean for you?
We will be in touch in the coming months with more information on transitioning your photography and illustration to Veer Marketplace. We have hundreds of thousands of images and thousands of contributors, so please be patient, and we assure you we’ll work as fast as we can!

Do you have friends who may be interested too?
Tell your friends that Veer Marketplace will have ingestion capabilities for new photography by mid year. Starting now, you can direct everyone to the submissions page on submissions.http://submissions.veer.com where they can submit their contact information and find further details about Veer Marketplace so they’re ready to contribute later this year.

Want to learn more about Veer? Wondering if there is anything you need to do? Click here to read the Veer Marketplace – SnapVillage FAQ to read through some frequently asked questions and answers. If you have any other questions that we don’t cover, you can email contactus@snapvillage.com or marketplacesubmissions@veer.com.

We’re excited about what lies ahead!

Thank you for your support of SnapVillage and get ready to be part of the new Veer Marketplace.

- Brian

Image: 43-00608312

Title: Railway tracks at sunset

Contributor: Stephen Strathdee

One school of thought in the stock photography world is that it’s often a good idea to keep your images aimed at a more general audience rather than a very specific one. This image is a good example of that philosophy. The trick is to find a balance between a striking image and something that can be vague enough to be useful in a variety of contexts. Easier said than done, but Stephen Strathdee pulls it off nicely in this composite shot titled, “Railway Tracks at Sunset.”

Travels, transportation, riding into the sunset, emptiness, isolation, vastness, are just a few of the ideas that this image could convey. Really there is no telling how many different ways this image could be used; we’ll let the buyers figure that out.

Some skillful but unobtrusive manipulation adds to the general aesthetic, proving once again that sometimes less is more or at least more useful.

- Dustin

Image Reviewer