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 My colleague, Stan Rowin brought to our attention a Goldman Sachs slide about Getty Images (NYSE: GYI), sourced from GYI Management, which projects the future of Getty. Let's have a look-see at these thoughtful projections, and be sure to check out the article on the WashingtonPost.com website - Getty Images: The Long Road To A Sale; Interest Waned As Process Went On. RevenueIn 2008, Getty projects that 51% of their revenue will come from Creative Stills, and that, four years from now, that will plummet 43%, to 29%. So, if you're a Getty image producer in this department, this means that your income over the next four years will drop by 22%, even so as your cost of doing business increases over that same period. In 2008, Getty projects that the editorial department will only see growth of just 4% over the next four years, for 20% in growth. Not so good when you look at the margins below. Consider that this is one of those departments likely to disappear. In 2008, iStockphoto accounts for just 15% of Getty's revenue, which will grow about 50% over the next four years, to 22%. Between 2008 and 2012, the music and footage/multimedia sees astronomical growth - relatively speaking. Music grows by 200%, Footage/Multimedia grows by 50%. (Continued after the Jump)
 Gross Margins
Worse yet, In 2008, the Gross Margin (that is, the gross difference between total income and net sales) will plummet from 53% to 31% by 2012 for Creative Stills as well, a comparable figure. In other words, don't look to efficiencies to apply to your business of creating images that go to Getty to offset your 22% revenue loss, you'll still be on the losing end of a losing proposition.
In 2008, for Editorial, the gross margin will only increase by 5%, comparable to that of it's revenue. In other words, there will not be a substantial leap from revenue to margin for this division. That's not likely to be sufficient for the new owners to keep it around.
On the other hand, there will be a 70% increase in margin for iStockphoto (moving from 13% to 22%), as more and more people contribute, and the costs associated with paying out $0.20 or so per image will decrease. This is remarkable, as Getty will also see that 57% growth in revenue (from 13% to 22%), meaning that iStockphoto will command more and more attention of those rearranging Getty's deck chairs.
Further, there will be a 200% margin growth in B2B Music, and a 50% margin increase in footage/multimedia between 2008 and 2012.
Take a hint from what happened with AOL and Time Warner. Back in the heady days of the dot-com 1.0 era, AOL was the one who bought Time Warner. Now, it's Time Warner who is looking to jettison AOL, or, at the least, the losing propositions/divisions of AOL's from days gone by. Beware the day that Hellman & Friedman trashes everything that does not meet it's margin standard, and sells off iStockphoto/Pump Audio/et al along with much of the wholly-owned Getty imagery as a nicely wrapped up deal under the iStockphoto brand.
Don't think so? 11 months after iStockphoto.com was registered as a domain name, iStockaudio.com was registered - check here. It was renewed January 9th of this year.
You see - PumpAudio becomes iStockaudio.com, iStockphoto.com gets an infusion of the best of Getty Images, and oh, their video footage gets wrapped up in iStockvideo.com, which was registered late back in 2003, but was renewed on the same day as iStockaudio.com was - January 9th of this year. Check the Network Solutions registration information here.
All if it, of course, wraps up nicely and neatly into the iStock.com URL, which will likely serve as the central clearing house for all three. Registered way back in 1995, it was renewed on, you guessed it, January 9th, 2008, as seen here.
Thus, this April Fool's Day the only true fools will be those that fall for the Getty Images line about how great things are, or will be in the future. I see the light at the end of the tunnel, but know enough to lay between the tracks to avoid the freight train that will crush anyone standing in it's way.
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 So many Idiots With Camera (IWC) go out, and make our lives more difficult. Whether acting up on TV, or being unprofessional in the execution of our photographic duties, the world sees us as less and less a professional, and more and more a nuisance. Recently, I received information on two separate, and distinct demonstrations where professionalism was lacking, or simply devoid. (Continued after the Jump) The first was the fisticuffs that took place while paparazzi were covering the arrival of do-nothing heiress Paris Hilton in Turkey. Paris was busy trying to recover her image, as if she had one to begin with. Yet, the assembled photographers and videographers can be seen here throwing fists, and if you look carefully, you can see one TV cameraman using his $30,000 camera as a weapon, hammering down on an unseen victim.
The second is the situation where a wedding photographer was found to not deliver professional results - in fact, results not consistent with the portfolio they presented. (PhotoResearcher, by Joel Hecker, Esq) Further, the photographer did not deliver on the terms of the contract. Specifically, they did not bring an assistant they had said they would. Thus, they were found to be in breach of contract for this, and other reasons.
In an odd way, there are benefits to these incidents. Perhaps, people will become more discerning when they select a photographer. When I get a call from a 5-star hotel who wants to send me their "vendor agreement", which dictates how we may act, and comport ourselves while on site for the event (press conference, wedding, and so forth) and they require us to provide proof of insurance, I smile and send along the appropriate documentation, knowing that at-least 75% of my competition just got nixed from consideration, or, perhaps, when it's a last minute call for an event at those same venues, it's because other photographers (among that 75%) got nixed after the client had signed them because they could not meet the terms of that vendor agreement. It's surprising that I am among the minority of photographers who have liability insurance. One lost job is more than enough revenue to carry that insurance in the first place.
Over the years, I have covered countless movie premieres and events, and worked with many many A-level celebrities. It's easy to illustrate how we are different - ney professional - and clients fear the possibility of hiring an unprofessional photographer who does not know how to co-exist amongst the VIP's at their event. I recently received a call to travel to five countries this Summer over 12 days, for a premiere project. The client has indicated to me, when I asked "who have you used in the past..." responded about the trials and tribulations of working with an unprofessional photographer. This five-figure assignment was won not because I was the most talented with a camera, or because I had the best eye/vision, but because I have a track record with this client of being professional as I make my images.
Would I love to have all my assignments conveyed to me because of my unique vision? My creative capabilities? Absolutely! But, in the end, I am more than happy to that the assignments that come to be because I am 1) the only one available; 2) I was the only one who called back; or 3) I was the only one who had the right professional attitude to accomplish the assignment.
I see often clients who come to work with me, and then, for no apparent reason, stop calling. Then, they start calling back again. Over time, I've learned that these clients get lulled into a false sense of security thinking that the service level I deliver is comparable to that of others in my community who deliver at a price 30%-40% less than me. So, for a few hundred dollars, clients go elsewhere. Soon, they learn that there is a difference, and they return, with a new understanding and respect for a level of service that they expect on a continuing basis. These clients remain, over time, and are among my favorite long-term clients. Some of them have been calling on me for over 15 years.
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All to often, I hear stories about shoots gone bad. Not bad as in, the photos were horrible, but bad as in "the model tripped", or the lightstand crashed into that antique table..." bad. These are the kinds of incidents that turn the shoot from profitable to you into an expensive debacle that you'd just as soon have stayed in bed for instead of shooting it. Enter photographers working for the upstart Desi Life magazine, launched under a year ago by the Toronto Star in Canada, serving the niche South-Asian community in the area. Many photographers who find themselves working for startups are conned into accepting "startup" pay scales. These are photographers who, in many cases, don't have their act together when it comes to having their bases covered when things like insurance and so forth. I don't know the photographer who shot the cover in question, he may well have his insurance in line, but many many others don't. Insurance? Who needs insurance? (Continued after the Jump)
You do, when you're on set and the lion that is your prop attacks (even playfully) the human subject for your cover! To see the video (via RobGalbraith.com) of the attack, click here. It seems that four broken ribs occured during the lion's throw-down if it's prey.
I previously wrote about liability insurance as it pertains to sports photographers (10/23/07, Speculative Photography - Risks and Liabilities for Leagues, Venues, and Teams) where I outlined the risks of taking to the field without the proper insurance. In fact, there is a huge risk to the players and the league when individuals without the proper insurance coverage are allowed to be near multi-million dollar players where they could injure them and then not be accountable.
So too, when you're working on an assignment in a museum near priceless paintings, or with a celebrity where a wayward light stand could strike them, you have to have insurance. You need only read this report (and see the accompanying photo!) about former supermodel Lauren Hutton's shiner which happened recently on a photo shoot to get the idea!
If you don't know what a COI is, call your insurance provider and ask about them. If you don't have insurance for your business, what are you doing in business? You could lose your house, your savings, and everything you've ever worked for if something goes awry!
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I recieved a retort from a Chicago area photographer a week or so ago about an APA/Apple Store presentation he'd seen by Brittney Blair, Photo Editor of Chicago Magazine from back on February 11th. APA's website reports the presentation as "...Brittney’s Pro Session discussion focused on the best ways to break into photography, how to catch a photo editors attention, and steps to landing your dream assignment." However, one glaring issue arose. Ms. Blair is reported to have said, either exactly, or very near exactly, "You know that nobody can make a living off of editorial magazine photography." I'll share what the attending photographer was infuriated about. He noted in his missive to me: (Continued after the Jump)
- Is she poisoning everyones expectations to keep their idea of how much they should charge lower?
- Secondly, don't magazine writers earn a living?
- Don't magazine editors and PHOTO EDITORS earn livings?
- Doesn't the publisher of a magazine earn a living?
- Don't the ad sales team earn livings?
- Doesn't the printer of a magazine earn a living?
- In fact they would EXPECT to.
- Why should editorial photographers have to believe they can't earn a living????
- Isn't a photo on the cover what sells a magazine to the casual shopper?
- Are not photos the "stoppers" that capture something like 1.7 seconds of a page flippin' reader's attention and get them to read the article?
The attending photographer goes on to object:
"She later went on to say that she know sometimes that with pre-production and expenses a photographer might only break even or lose money on a shoot but that the exposure in a regional publication is worth it. Would she accept breaking even or losing money on HER job to be worth the exposure?? Maybe for an intern, but not a professional. Are the guest "experts" we as photographer flock to for advice telling the truth or building the walls of a ghetto?" Well said, well said.
I will note that I was a previous speaker at an APA/Apple Store Presentation in that same store in Chicago just over a year ago, and my message was exactly opposite this one. Further, Friday I completed a profitable editorial assignment, and today, Monday, I am completing both a profitable editorial assignment as well as an even more profitable corporate assignment.
I will say, APA nor Apple vetted these message points - they surely did not vet mine before I presented. I know that APA's thought process is 100% contrary to several of the points reported out above. Further, the good folks at Apple are truly committed to helping photographers succeed, hence not only this APA seminar series, but also, their ASMP seminar series, both of which have been extremely well received.
Even if this photo editor did not say this (and I believe this photographer's reporting that she did), it stands as a common mentality amongst many photo editors who believe we should all be blessed to have our work appear in their publications. Think again - its' our work that will enhance the otherwise blank or text-filled pages you are printing on those presses of yours.
You, dear photo editors, should be fighting to pay us assignment fees that you know will allow us to sustain ourselves. I know many that do, and I work for a substantial subset of that group. I appreciate the photo editors that I work for, and who look out for the creatives that supply art for their pages.
Further, the good folks over at Editorial Photographers, EP President Brian Smith among them, would also take issue with her suggestion of how the world turns for photographers. Or, perhaps, I am sounding a bit like the Bitter Photographer now?
To those of you who are content in your full time, self-sustaining jobs where you know the assignment fees you are paying photographers do not sustain your talent pool, I say, bollocks to you.
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I'm really getting tired of this. Colleagues, both highly respected and prosumer alike, who have no regard for copyrights. I recently watched an amazing presentation of work by a noted photographer, who's work was enhanced by the aural addition of music by Enya. I know just how next to impossible it is to get permission for uses like this, as I have tried, so I am almost certain that she was infringing on Enya's copyright. I also continue to watch as a other photographers continue to promote videos/presentations where music I know to be popular, but which are on YouTube with music that it is almost certain to be infringing uses. I wish they would just take a pause and realize what they are doing. (Continued after the Jump)
The hypocrisy continues. Friends who "share" a Photoshop or PhotoMechanic serial #, yet complain when their own work is stolen.
Interestingly enough, were I to provide a photograph that was not my own to an organization for their presentation, or to a website/blog to grow traffic/hits, the infringing party would be the organization or website/blog. It is the "publication" of the material, by the "publisher" that is the infringement, in large part. For a public performance, it would be the corporation or organization that provided the forum/programming that would likely be held accountable.
Several years ago, I was working a product launch for a pharmaceutical company for the sales reps who visit doctors offices to give them samples, and promote the product. The music that started the event was the Red Hot Chili Pepper's song "Give It Away Now", perfectly appropriate in terms of theme, inappropriate in terms of the infringement of the band's intellectual property by a company with IP of it's own in the form of the medicine they sell.
I am not a lawyer, but here's a good rule:
Unless you're commenting on the music itself, as in "listen to the multiple downbeats", or "the refrain here is repetitive...", making a claim that your use is "fair use" is likely not to hold water. When you use music to accompany your images, you need to get permission, or don't use it. Period.
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Getty Images (NYSE: GYI) is a lot of things. Right now, they are on the chopping block, having just left the auction block, with, as the AP reports ( Regulators OK Getty Images' $2.1B Buyout, 3/18/08), "Antitrust regulators have cleared private equity firm Hellman & Friedman LLC's $2.1 billion purchase of Getty Images Inc., a federal agency said Tuesday." The company that has acquired them, Hellman & Friedman, is known for stripping down the company to increase margins on the profitable divisions, and killing off those that are not, and then dumping it - yes, for a profit. They don't do this for all their aquisitions, of course. But, they are not likely to remain in the photography business as a purveyor of images. So, what's going to go? (Continued after the Jump)
1) The Getty wire service is the least profitable division, and I think that, without much of the re-sales that they get, that figure might even be worse. It takes a great deal of staffing and often a shot-in-the-dark mentality when assigning coverage. In DC for example, there are many many events, and it's very had to know just what to cover. I don't envy the editors who have to make that decision. Note though, this challenge is not unique to Getty. AP, Reuters, and AFP all face similar challenges. Bloomberg is, to a small degree, immune from this, only because they are a essentially a niche wire service, covering events from a financial aspect. They are not trying to be all things to all people. Yet, Getty's wire service will likely go first.
2) The Getty editorial department. I've spoken with a few folks smarter than me on this, and there seems to be some agreement here, that this department too will be trimmed to within an inch of it's life, and may just get cut altogether. The reason? The margins are just not where they should be.
What does this leave? Oh, of course, iStockphoto, and their commercial/corporate division. Getty actually does have the potential to generate huge sums from the commercial division with all the advertising sales, exclusivity up-charges, and so forth. In addition, most anytime you can get an assignment out of someone, that's going to be fairly profitable, especially with the unfair percentages they are paying out.
In addition, Getty's sports contracts for the leagues will continue to bring them money, but more as an arm of the leagues as a distribution channel. Same for entertainment clients, more in LA and NYC than anywhere else, where event promoters want a distribution channel there as well that have the eyeballs of the entertainment news media to get pickup from their events. But, wait, isn't that editorial? Nope. When a corporate client pays you $5k to cover and event that has a few celebrities in attendance, and then you put those photos up from the arrivals area with a step-and-repeat backdrop with the clients' logo, or you are the "inside exclusive photographer" getting great photos that will look good for the commercial client, and these happen to appear in editorial coverage, that's commercial/corporate, not editorial!
Did you catch that above, I said "distribution channel" twice, for two distinct divisions? That's right friends, Getty will become a distribution channel for corporate America more so now than ever before. These are, after all, extremely profitable. Sure, they have some great archive materials, from acquired collections, but that, along with good margins elsewhere will make Getty attractive as a private acquisition.
By who? Probably Corbis.
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 I know I've been absent, but I'll have a post or two in the next few days, so, my apologies! In the meantime, Check out the following speedlinks: - Photoshop Disasters - This site is awesome because is shows you all the mistakes retouchers make, and breaks them down for you!
- Carolyn Wright, over at PhotoAttorney reports: - "an Illinois District Court held that Daniel Schrock of Dan Schrock Photography had no right to register his photographs of toys because they were unauthorized derivative works of the copyrights in the toys. Schrock was hired by Learning Curve Intern, Inc. ("LCI"), to shoot the toys for marketing uses. Alleging that LCI and others had used the photos beyond the license terms, Schrock sued for copyright infringement. But the Court agreed with the defendants that "without approval from the owner of the underlying [copyrighted] work, approval that was totally absent here, Schrock could not obtain a copyright over his derivative works."
- A little off topic, but worth a read: LEAKS: Best Buy's Internal Customer Profiling Document - "Consumerist is now in possession of an internal training document that teaches Best Buy blue shirts how to stereotype..."
- Scott Regan Photo Blog - Scott has a few nice words to say about my book, and also, some interesting images and insights about his own work that is worth a look.
Now go! Check 'em out, and come back soon!
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 While I will have more later on the highly successful NPPA Northern Short Course (NSC), if you had your photo taken in the photo booth, shoot me an e-mail and I will get you an invite to view and download the images that were made. To prove you were there, you'll have to tell me what floor the booth was on. Please no hints in the comments! (Continued after the Jump)
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 It's 3am, Wednesday, and I am finishing the booking of air and travel for the next 10-day assignment which begins after I finish photographing Kermit the Frog on Capitol Hill, travels to Rochester NY, then Los Angeles, then Las Vegas, then Oakland, then Los Angeles, before returning to DC. It's an exhaustive trip, and we spent much of the day today in pre-production, packing bags to confirm to size and weight restrictions, and so forth. In Los Angeles, the client is staying in the West Hollywod area, and gave us several recommendations for where to stay. Typically, we make these calls ourselves, however, we were surely amenable to their suggestions. One of them was the Hyatt West Hollywood. I checked Orbitz (graphic above), and it was $215 a night, for this 4-star "upscale" hotel. I decided to have a look at Priceline, to see where hotels would fall price-wise. (Continued after the Jump)
 Remarkably, by selecting 4-star, and West Hollywood as my options, I found myself and my team booked into...the Hyatt West Hollywood for $106 a night! A significant savings, to be sure! Laughably, Orbitz's site says "lowest price guarantee", which is clearly not the case here.
In the end, this was over a 50% savings from booking with Orbitz.
I post this as a suggestion that, as the title of the entry says, "it pays to do your homework."
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 There's an interesting footnote to the well-known Hillary Clinton ad about experience, they titled "Children", but which is commonly referred to now as the " 3am phone call commercial." The short description for the commercial on YouTube reads: On March 4th, your vote will decide who will be in the White House to pick up the phone when it rings at 3 AM. Yet, one of the children in the video is now all grown up, is 18, and is an Obama supporter. Such is the risk of using stock imagery (whether video, or stills), securing contracts from appropriate models, and so forth. The Wonkette website reports about the (then) young girl: (Continued after the Jump) her family shopped her out as a little girl to be in non-POLITICS OF FEAR commercials, and that footage was then sold to the wire service Getty. That way, cheap Getty subscribers, like the Hillary Clinton campaign, could use the footage for anything -- including the POLITICS OF FEAR. Clicking the image above gets you to the MSNBC footage from NBC's Today Show where they interview the now-voting-age young woman. Visiting the YouTube link above has other interviews of her by several other outlets.
I share this story with you not as a story critical of Getty (NYSE: GYI) per se, but as one that demonstrates the risk of using stock footage, where assignment work gives you guarantees and protections. We reported last November ( Black Friday? Try, "You Get What You Pay For" Friday! , 11/27/07) about the risks of RF, and, non-exclusive RM. In fact, with RF, for example, you have little to no control over the exclusivity of an image/video clip. With RM, you can at-least secure an exclusivity license for a term. The ASMP website has several examples of how this problem became a poke in the eye for dualing companies, (Rights Managed Stock vs Royalty Free Stock - Is RF the bargain they claim?), but it stands, thus, to reason that the better solution is the commissioning of original content that has A) never been seen, B) has an exclusivity term, and C) has been properly contracted so that the subjects in the images/video don't go destroying your message.
Since Getty should have had the releases on file, due-diligence on the part of the Clinton Campaign should have taken place where they not only paid additional fees for exclusivity of the footage for a period of time, but also contacted each of the people in their stock footage to ensure they were either a Clinton supporter, or would atleast remain mum about their position for the election.
Better yet, try not going the cheap route, and shoot the footage yourself!
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 Yesterday, while on a fairly straightforward assignment for a corporate client covering their day's conference, the day was scheduled to include a brief meet-and-greet with the legend Cal Ripkin. I'd originally intended to do this with on-camera strobe, but the client wanted me to bring a background. So, I selected my favorite - Thunder Grey. It wasn't until we were pulling the seamless from the car, that I got a thought: "I am about to photograph a legendary baseball player infront of a seamless. What can I do to make this better? (Continued after the Jump)
So I pulled out my Chimera 57 and set it up as a 7' softbox. We had it in the car from the day before, doing a magazine cover shoot, and hadn't offloaded the equipment because of the late wrap-time the night before, and a 6am call time for this shoot.
 We moved through the group photos fairly quickly (at left is an example), and working with Cal was an illustration of the height of professionalism. I'd worked with him several times before, doing official portraits (lights and all) for other endeavors he's involved in, but never with a seamless, which I'd wanted to do for some time. People were immediately put at ease by him, and even though people knew they were coming to have their image made with him, and he knew he was there for that reason (before giving a presentation) he still asked each of them "would you take a picture with me?" which put each of those being photographed with him at ease, and facilitated the process in a very efficient manner. Further, I had just the light I wanted to have Cal in for him against the seamless.
In the end, I had an expedited shoot thanks to Cal's making it smooth as people entered and exited the portrait area, a very happy client, and, for me, a portrait that I'd wanted to make for some time.
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 Awhile back, we wrote about how you CAN'T donate your time and services and claim fair market value for such as a deduction ( An Original Picasso for $50? That's what they say..., 2/10/07), and one potential solution that could get you a bit more credit for your donations, when you do ( The Non-Profit Challenge, 11/19/07), but once again, there is a bill winding it's way through Congress that would allow: "...artists to take a fair-market value deduction for works given to and retained by nonprofit institutions. The U.S. tax system accords unequal treatment to creators and collectors who donate tangible works (e.g., paintings or manuscripts) to museums, libraries, educational or other collecting institutions. A collector may take a tax deduction for the fair-market value of the work, but creators may deduct only their "basis" value—essentially the cost of materials such as paint and canvas." If you can enter your name and address, and click the "send" button, in less than two minutes you can actually send an e-mail to your elected official that represents you, through this very cool system. Americans for the Arts has their Advocate for the Arts website and all you do is enter your address, and they will automatically route your sentiments to your Senator or Member! If you'd like to her Senator/Photographer Pat Leahy (and the bill's sponsor) in an NPR interview on the subject, click here. (Comments, if any, after the Jump)
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A brief note that now you can export from Flickr directly into PhotoShelter, and also export from PhotoShelter directly into Flickr with watermarks and all sorts of other protections, ensuring that you're not one of the many people who have had their work stolen from Flickr. This Wired story - PhotoShelter Protects Your Images From Would-Be Flickr Thieves (3/4/08), which reads, in part: PhotoShelter takes a different approach to image sharing than Flickr, one that’s more suited to the professional photographer. Rather than simple image sharing, PhotoShelter offers the ability to overlay a personal watermark on all your photos, and web galleries can be password protected to limit access to clients...PhotoShelter is not a Flickr alternative, but is geared at the pro photographer looking to catalog, store and sell their images online. That said, some Flickr users who are getting more serious about their images and are considering a possible career shift might want to have a look at PhotoShelter.
And thanks to the new Flickr Importer, using both sites at the same time is a snap. Thus, the innovations by PhotoShelter continue, with outside-the-box thinking. I wonder what will be next? Automated copyright registration solutions to further protect your images? (Comments, if any, after the Jump)
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 Today (actually, yesterday, as you are reading this) I was traveling with my post-production person and my intern and we were crossing a state-line or two en-route back to DC after an assignment. About half-way back to the office, my post-production person asked "so, explain to me what SEO is." And the conversation started. And continued. And continued. You see, one of the things I am learning as I present at ASMP's Strictly Business 2, is that (at least it seems) more people want to learn how to get their websites to rank first on the search engines, than they want to get their contracts and business paperwork in order, if consultations and workshop attendance are any indicators, and my friend and colleague, Blake Discher has started a business aimed squarely at photographers, called GO-SEO, and he's doing (and has been) sold-out consults at SB2 and his Sunday presentations ( Workshop D -- Is Your Website Doing All It Can to Get You Work?) there have been major hits. We continued our conversation until we were almost back to the office, and we had barely scratched the surface of what SEO is. Don't know what it is yet? SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and as you can see from this link , there are far far to many "know-it-alls" out there who don't know anything about SEO. Test #1 - if your proposed SEO person tells you that Flash websites can't rank, hang up on them. Really. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, go directly to Loserville (and while you're there, say hi to JDK for me.) It really is the wild wild west, and people like Blake, and also the newly announced upgrades to liveBooks, bring reason and logic to the SEO world as it pertains to photographers. From liveBooks' ability to read and auto-enter your metadata, to page-by-page statitics of Google Analytics, enhanced improvements to the auto-generated html pages, and so on, this upgrade is a significant enhancement to their already stellar offerings. (Continued after the Jump)
For those of you who might think that I'm posting this because they're an advertiser, think again. No other solution gives you this much control over the back-end of your website and how it's seen by the search engines. I previously wrote It's Google's World, You're Just a Small Part of It, and after that, there were some interesting statistics I cited when liveBooks came on as an advertiser (Effective SEO - Please Welcome liveBooks, 2/20/08), that you might have missed.
So, let me direct you to an amazing report on how people look at web pages. This study, (F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content), and the well-respected Jupiter Research reports that the majority of searchers - 62 percent of search engine users - click on results on the first page of search listings. Further, and this is where it gets critical - 90 percent of users never go beyond the first three pages. Where do you fall?
I want to reiterate something that may have gotten lost when I posted it in the comments - we all evolve over time as it pertains to websites and investments in them. I've looked at the underlying code of my friend Mark Finkenstaedt's website. Mark is an amazingly talented photographer - dare I say - more talented than me, and he's got great content there. I gave him a bit of help early on, encouraging him not only to have MarkFinkenstaedt.com, but also, since people naturally have a hard time with his last name, to get mfpix.com. He did that, and he's done the requisite keywords and descriptions metadata, but you can't find him in the first 100 pages of Google for any of his search terms. How do I know what his search terms are? I asked him. (and I asked him if I could put him up as the poster-child for poor SEO, and he said I could.) Further, despite his purchase of a gallery site for several hundred dollars, there's nearly zero coding that is search-engine friendly. What this translates into, is in fact, lost revenue. This is, because, on several searches I performed, the only one where he gets to Google's first page is when I search for his name. While that's good when people are searching for him, the real benefit of being findable on the search engines that the search (and finding of you) will result in revenue because he is findable. To make matters worse, Mark headed into the wasteland of the wild west and spent $500 a month for six months with a "placement agency" without a single assignment to show for it. "money wasted" he said, and canceled his efforts with them.
So many people will set a limit of $500 or $1k for their site, not realizing how much it costs them in lost assignments because they're not being found! I suspect that Mark will (or at least should be!) looking into the new liveBooks offering.
Please post your comments by clicking the link below. If you've got questions, please pose them in our Photo Business Forum Flickr Group Discussion Threads.
 Chase Jarvis has done something extraordinary - out of the blue, Chase is giving away a FREE trip and conference registration to SB2, airfare included! Check out WIN a FREE Trip To ASMP Strictly Business 2 - Chicago for the details. If you're reading this blog, you should be there! (and you also will know that this is a repeat of my call for Atlanta!) The third of what will be a total of four stops (Chicago is the last stop, the destination for Chase) takes place starting this Friday, March 7, in Philadelphia. If you missed LA, I did a video report on it ( here) and it has been widely reviewed as a success, with people traveling to LA from as far away as Alaska and Florida. So, this isn't something that you should be saying "oh, it's not near me, I'm not going." Planes, trains, or automobiles - it doesn't matter how you get there, because this is worth traveling for! It is going to be a remarkable weekend that will either get you started right, or bolster your existing business skills. At this program you won't learn lighting, or video, or any other skill-set except how to run your business better and more efficiently. Beginners have come away with massive amounts of information and exceptional resources, while long-time photographers have taken away new tools and refined their current business practices to be better and more efficient in how they run their existing businesses. Need to know about marketing? ASMP has brought in Leslie Burns Dell'Acqua to give you real tools to use to begin to market yourself, or to evolve how you marketing into the new era that is e-mail and the latest in marketing trends, helping you to reach your intended audience. Blake Discher is also on hand to discuss the great unknown that is client negotiations and gets you thinking in the right direction about how to price your work so you stay in business. Don't know how to store, archive, and deliver your work safely? ASMP's President, Judy Herrmann will set you straight about how to protect yourself from the inevitable hard drive crash, and deliver clients images when they want, and how they want them. Judy knows a great deal on the subject, and listening to her is like pouring pure octane into your gas tank - you're getting so much fast-burn information, every tidbit is valuable. Further, and what is the starting point, Richard Kelly and Susan Carr start off with the basics, and make sure we're all on the same page, establishing baselines and foundations so we all are on the same bus together. (Continued after the Jump)
Oh, and I'm also there talking about the critical tools for your photography business. It's like this blog, come to life, with a bit more restraint and carefully chosen words than you might find here, except the information I'll be presenting is, as it's titled, critical to your business, including copyright registration, dealing with contracts (both yours and the clients), and so forth. As I said before, if you're reading this blog, you should be there.
But it doesn't stop there, because that was just DAY ONE!
Ready for day 2? We spend the morning training you to negotiate better. We show you how we do it in several situations, role-playing, and then we break up into small groups, and guide these groups of 15 or so through the process, pausing and refining, and everyone else gets to chime in - it's all very interactive.
After lunch (included, on both days!), there are smaller workshops, delivering more details and specifics on Marketing to Move Your Business Forward; Business Workflow to Bring You Profits; Taking Control of Your Career; and Is Your Website Doing All It Can to Get You Work?. Don't worry though, they are repeated, so you can take two of the four.
Not enough? You're crazy then, but, well, ok - how about we have Joyce Tenneson give the keynote on Saturday night, before the free Digital Railroad reception that's included?
Register now, figure out how you'll get there next!
Please post your comments by clicking the link below. If you've got questions, please pose them in our Photo Business Forum Flickr Group Discussion Threads.
 Xerox (NYSE: XRX) seems to have a problem with a healthy respect for photographers copyrights. Namely, if you are a student, they want yours. I've been watching this latest in photo contest rights grabs. At first, Xerox wanted ownership and unlimited use of all entries, by both Xerox, and their undefined "designees", and they wanted to use all entries (not just the winners) for any and all marketing purposes, and furthermore, they wanted to prohibit you from using your own work for anything but self promotion for 5 years. The fine print of the contest rules adds insult to injury, stating that all entries (not just the winners) are owned by Xerox. Yikes! Recently, Xerox inserted an explanatory text box on the rules page, with a carefully crafted statement that on the surface, appears to indicate that their usage is limited to “winning photographs” for an 18 month period. A careful reading of this new text reveals that Xerox merely limited the period of exclusivity, and not the usage period. The fine print still provides Xerox with ownership and unlimited usage of any and all entries, including non‐winners, for an unlimited time, in all countries, throughout the world. Rather than limiting usage of the photographs to promotional use related to the contest, the rules provide Xerox with the unrestricted right to use winning photographs for any and all advertising, promotional and other purposes without further compensation to the student photographer. Apparently, someone at Xerox got the bright idea to use a photo contest to source images for their ad campaigns. Scoundrels! But it gets worse. (Continued after the Jump)
What makes this contest particularly egregious is that Xerox has set their sights on unsuspecting student photographers, who are often eager to see their work in print, and are unlikely to read the fine print, and do not yet understand how to protect their rights. Further, they are using the schools and faculty members, many of whom might not read the fine print, to draw students into the contest.
And there's more:
Each winner is required by the rules to certify that they will "hold harmless" Xerox in the event that any third party sue sues Xerox as the result of their use of the photographs in their advertising. Nice - Let's take a billion-dollar company and transfer millions of dollars in liability to a student contest entrant who is already weighed down with student loan debt and is about to enter the profession during one of the most challenging periods in the history of photography. While it may be reasonable for Xerox to require that students certify that they are in fact the copyright owner of an entry and have obtained proper model releases from pictured subjects, Xerox steps over the line yet again by limiting the entrant's ability to sue Xerox in the event that Xerox oversteps it's already egregious boundaries for use of the photos, essentially eviscerating the rights of the entrant.
Further, the language of the contest rules would confuse even an experienced, seasoned professional photographer.
Oh, and one more thing - if you're "lucky enough" to be a winner, you have to sign a separate, as yet undisclosed contract with Xerox. It probably has something in there about giving away your first born or something. To an aspiring photo student, it feels the same way to do so with your first, best, images.
This contest (and others) should be about who took the best picture, not about who can screw unsuspecting students and photographers out of their rights. Xerox, time to get the white‐out. and Limit your usage to winning entries only, and only to promotion of the myShots contest. Remove the terms providing Xerox with ownership of entries. Revise the “hold harmless” clause to remove any liability placed upon the students, other than for falsifying their copyright ownership information. Limit the exclusivity clause to Xerox competitors only, and apply this only to the more significant prize winners. Allow students to make use of their own photographs during the exclusivity period, provided that they do not license usage to Xerox competitors. Provide students with approval rights and market‐rate compensation in the event that any winning image is selected by Xerox for usage other than promotion of the contest. Respect the rights of students and photographers. Do the right thing.
If you want to read the rules, check this link. MyShot08 contest rules.
After choking back the bile, send an e-mail to these folks:Be sure to take note of the folks who have signed on as sponsors of this contest rights grab, whose organizations are photo-centric and should know better by now:
- Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE)
- Fuji Film (NASDAQ: ADR)
- H&H Color Lab
This is just getting silly. If your company relies on photographers, before you agree to sponsor contests/events, you should have as a requirement that you get to read and sign-off on contest/event rules so you don't reap the ire of the photo community!
Please post your comments by clicking the link below. If you've got questions, please pose them in our Photo Business Forum Flickr Group Discussion Threads.
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