Category Archives: mobile

The Uncharted territory

content, finance, flickr, mobile, phablet, tablet, technology April 19, 2014 Paul Melcher Leave a comment

Mobile phones with cameras are certainly becoming ubiquitous and with them a flurry of apps battling to take control of their mini desktop. But what about Tablets? They might not be the most practical tool to take pictures but they are certainly perfect for everything else . Bigger screens, higher resolutions makes them ideal viewing, editing and sharing ( especially with people physically next to you). Worldwide sales of tablets to customers reached 195.4 million units in 2013, a 68% increase on 2012, according to Gartner, Inc.…

And the battle heats up ( updated )

Brands, Facebook, flickr, google, Interface, mobile, PhotoTech, Search, Social Media, Twitter April 15, 2014 Paul Melcher Leave a comment

It didn’t last long. Less than a week after Dropbox and Twitter announced new photo oriented features, the other major players responded. Loud and clear. Google bets on Email First Google. Today, it announced a tighter integration of its very popular Gmail with it’s photo backup solution Google Photo album. Now, it will be even easier to attached photos to any email directly from your drive account. One click easy. Since email is still the most used online communication tool – that is changing too*-,…

DropBook, TwitFace, what is it going to be ?

content, Facebook, google, marketing, mobile, PhotoTech, Social Media, technology, Twitter April 9, 2014 Paul Melcher Leave a comment

We all know that photos are key to engagement. Tech companies know it, but more important, the advertising world knows it. And although no one has fully mastered its potential, everyone knows that photography is the most important asset of the web today. That is why, more and more, we see a converging effort by tech companies to become the center of our photography life. Whomever controls your photo stream, controls your social life. The battle has raged between Facebook and Google + to be…

Mobile first, Mobile only

Brands, content, finance, mobile, PhotoTech, Social Media, technology, Twitter March 27, 2014 Paul Melcher Leave a comment

Let’s face it. The next successful photo tech company will be mobile first and mobile only. The key mistake most photo tech companies are currently making is trying to monetize on the laptop web. Besides traditional media, this is no longer the place where people consume images. They want to take, alter, share and view images on their mobile devices. Twitter knows this and it’s recent new feature release is proof. One can now put 4 images in a tweet, viewable immediately in a feed, as…

Getty / Flickr calls it quits

commercial stock, content, flickr, getty, license, Marketplace, mobile, PhotoTech, technology, transaction March 10, 2014 Paul Melcher 1 Comment

Busy week for Stock photography behemoth Getty Images. After opening up half of its images to free embedding, making a partnership with EyeEm, they have now announce that they are terminating their deal with Flickr. What does this mean ? On an individual level, photographers from Flickr who have images on Getty will continue to be represented by Getty according to their agreement. However, Getty will not continue to mine Flickr for new photos or photographers. Instead, they recommend Flickr users to pick up the…

Vessel underway, possibly the training ship MERSEY

The content or the vessel

Brands, content, editorial, Facebook, flickr, getty, license, marketing, Microstock, mobile, PhotoTech, Social Media, technology, transaction, Twitter March 2, 2014 Paul Melcher Leave a comment

Photo app EyeEm announcement today that it will be opening an image licensing database made of photos submitted by its users brings an interesting though to the photo tech space. Considered by many as the gentle Instagram’s – its ToS does not attempt a copyright grab- it has managed to carve itself a respectable area in the very crowded space of the phone app with a sharing network. Being a free app, it is now trying to find a revenue model that preserves its photographer/contributor…

Sell your photos apps : Why it’s a bad idea

content, editorial, finance, license, Marketplace, mobile, prosumer, transaction February 20, 2014 Paul Melcher Leave a comment

This week, on the same day actually, two companies released a new mobile photography marketplace app. Both with same underlying concept : With this app, anyone can shoot and submit their pictures to be licensed to image buyers worldwide. In a world where everyone snaps an images every 3.5 hour of their waking life, why not built a marketplace where people can submit some of these images so that others can license them. Great idea, no ? No. For many reasons : They are building…

Mobile Apps fuel Photo-Merchandise market to record high

finance, mobile, photo merchandise, transaction February 19, 2014 Paul Melcher 2 Comments

The Western European Photo-Merchandise market is on track to reach a retail value of €618 million in 2014, up from an expected €578 million in 2013, according to the latest photo-merchandise research from Futuresource Consulting.”Fueled by photo-cards, canvases and calendars and potentially evolving ‘hot’ single image gift sectors, the photo-merchandise market is forecast to grow by 4% CAGR between 2012 and 2017, to reach nearly €657 million in 2017,” says Jeremy Wills, Senior Market Analyst at Futuresource Consulting. “This will be assisted by mobile and…