The Visual Economy: A Double-Edged Sword In the pulsating heart of today’s digital marketplace lies a universal truth: visuals are the currency of communication. A photo, a video, a graphic – these are not mere adornments but the lifeblood of sales and marketing. In the visual economy, the adage “aContinue Reading
The question often comes up at our Visual 1st conference and in our strategic client workshops: What criteria to apply when selecting potential targets for strategic acquisition? And, from the standpoint of startups seeking an exit, how to choose suitable potential acquirers? Examining recent trends can provide helpful insights onContinue Reading
On one side, an economy exponentially craving for content. On the other, a static, unprepared landscape ripe for disruption. The stage is set for a redistribution of value in a vibrant and volatile environment: Witness the formation of a new visual content ecosystem. It’s been a cascading series of announcements:Continue Reading
You walk through the supermarket aisle until you face various choices for the product you wish to eat. In the case of cereals, it can be 20 or more different options. You reach out and pick one, which you feel is the right decision based on a well-educated process. InContinue Reading
Shutterstock’s acquisition of 3D marketplace Turbo Squid is significant for a few reasons, some of which might not be obvious. The first and well-understood purchase trigger is that the microstock company is under pressure to expand its offering horizontally. There is a known ceiling to the paid licensed still imagesContinue Reading
Remember Framen? This German startup’s CEO, Dimitri Gärtner, did a Show & Tell presentation at Visual 1st two years ago, showing his company’s digital frame photo viewing solutions. To my surprise, I learned a few days before Christmas that a company no less than Axel Springer had just acquired theContinue Reading
Some speculate that overall fake news could cost the economy $39 billion a year. Quite a market to grab for a savvy tech startup, even at 1%! But while fake news and in particular deep fakes have been accused of wreaking havoc on minds and economy, there is surprisingly only a minimal amount of companies offering tools to combat them. The reason?Continue Reading
Facebook’s acquisition of the Gif search engine Giphy proves, once again, that whoever controls visual content also controls audiences.Continue Reading
It made a giant noise as it caught everyone by surprise — $230 million investment in a company providing photo services. After Adobe’s $800 million purchase of French microstock photo company Fotolia, Pond 5’s $64 million investment and Shutterstock’s $76.5 million IPO, it is the highest figures ever seen investedContinue Reading
I’d like to share a few thoughts spurred by our recently released Building the Gig Photo Economy study, as well as the conversations I’ve since had with quite a few folks using or supplying Gig Photography services. First of all, we live in an era of diminishing stigma against outsourcing household tasksContinue Reading