Stock Asylum's Web Watch . . .

Stock Asylum's regular look around the World Wide Web

Mar. 5, 2008 . .  .

Stock Photography –– Even as Getty Images tries to consummate a deal to be acquired because of stagnant growth, The Harvard Business Review has published a major piece about just how difficult restarting growth can be. Click here for the story.

Alamy is asking contributors to change their passwords. Click here for a blog entry.

Photography –– Photo District News has a piece on the first New York Photo Festival, which hopes to draw 100,000 visitors May 14 to 18. Click here. For the festival website, click here.

PDN also has a list of upcoming photo events and contests. Click here.

Advertising and Design –– Clear Channel Interact lets people with cell phones obtain more information about a product or service in an outdoor ad. The program has been launched by Clear Channel Outdoor, United Kingdom. The interactive program lets consumers find out more about the product, request a mobile voucher, view a mobile website, find the nearest location, provide feedback, vote, text message, voice message, picture message and find a directory listings. Click here for a story at Dexigner or here for the Clear Channel website.

Feb. 29, 2008 . .  .

Stock Photography –– Here's some commentary by Paul Harris. More than a little depressing, but some hope at the end. Click here for the entry at Paul Melcher's blog.

Micropayment Stock Photography –– Jupiterimages' Stockxpert gets into video. Click here.

Editorial–– Major League Baseball is trying to limit publication of images in the latest rights grab by a professional sports league. Several media outlets are fighting the move. Click here for a PDN article.

Photography –– The other Getty, the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, offers an exhibit of work by Andre Kertesz. Click here from a story at The Clarion Online.

Advertising and Design –– Forbes discusses technology that zaps internet ads. "Adblock Plus takes a minute to install and instantly replaces annoying banner ads and intrusive videos with pleasant white space. It is one of the most popular free downloads for Firefox . . . ," says Forbes' Victoria Barret in her story. Click here for more info.

The Creative Pro website has a new look. Gone is the ugly mustard-yellow banner. Check it out! Click here. Unfortunately, due to a trendy slide show that flips through the day's headlines and ads that can't stand still either, it is hard to concentrate on reading the copy on the page. Sorry Creative Pro –– way too distracting! The Creative Pro folks ought to check out the Forbes story above.

Feb. 20, 2008 . .  .

Stock Photography –– Jupitermedia Chief Executive Alan Meckler notes in his blog that his company's Jupiterimages division is launching an office in India. He quotes a report from India that says the new office will serve South Asia and Dubai. Meckler notes that there are some factual errors in the report, but does not say which facts are wrong. Click here for Meckler's blog entry.

Micropayment Stock Photography –– Here's another story about the iStockphoto contributor who submitted someone else's images. Click here for The British Journal of Photography piece.

Editorial–– A Chinese newspaper editor has resigned after learning that a photographer at the paper faked a prize-winning photo of antelopes and a railroad. Photographer Lui Weiquang's image showed more than 20 of the endangered Tibetan antelopes moving under a controversial railroad overpass. Click here for a Reuters story.

London Features is closing its New York office. Owner and Director John Halsall says the celebrity and entertainment agency can no longer compete with Getty Image's pricing. Click here for PDN story.

Advertising –– The New York Times reports that Google is testing some video ads. Click here.

Technology –– Adobe Systems offers a new version of Director, the company's multi-media authoring software. Click here for a press release.

Business –– Gene Gable at Creative Pro takes a humorous look at nudging customers to pay up on those past due accounts. Click here.

Feb. 13, 2008 . .  .

Stock Photography –– Getty Images received a lot of attention after the New York Times reported the company may not be receiving the kind of acquisition offers it would like. Click here for the original Times story. Or, click here for a Seattle Post Intelligencer piece, here for a WebProNews story or here for a Puget Sound Business Journal piece. One can also read what Jupitermedia's Alan Meckler thinks. The CEO (who generally has little love for his company's biggest rival) slipped a comment into the middle paragraph of a blog entry. Click here.

Micropayment Stock Photography –– An Icelandic photographer found her original work being sold on the iStockphoto web site according to this entry at Webware. IStock took care of the problem, but this is not the first time we've heard of this happening. It is apparently very easy for participants of some micropayment sites to upload and collect income from the work of other shooters. Click here for the Webware entry.

Copyrights –– PACA attorney Nancy Wolff reports that orphan works legislation may rear its ugly head again this year. Wolff also provides information about a proposal that would let courts make multiple awards for infringement of compilations or derivative works. In addition, the attorney comments on two possible state publicity laws. Click here and scroll down to Wolff's Legal Update.

Photography –– Darryl Ohrt, a founder of Plaid, a design and branding firm, offers some advice for photographers who want to capture the attention of a small ad agency. Click here for Ohrt's entry at Black Star Rising.

Advertising and Marketing –– Advertising Age gives us another look at the so-called Millennials, this time at work. Click here.

Feb. 6, 2008 . .  .

Stock Photography –– A satirical web site recently used an image of a firefighter (apparently from Jupiterimages' Photos.com website) with an article that suggested the subject of the picture is dead. Capt. Rudy Lindia is very much alive and asked for an apology. "Lindia said when he called the Onion to complain, the CEO found the situation hilarious and pointed out that he had bought rights to the photo on a website," the Ottawa Citizen said in its first article about the situation. Maybe the Onion talked to its lawyer after the CEO's response because an apology has been made even though the firefighter apparently signed a release. According to the newspaper, Chet Clem, a spokesman for the Onion website said "We feel really crummy about it and we apologize to the firefighter in question." For the first article, click here. For the second article, click here. For the Onion article (which is still up with the picture), click here. For a New York Times rewrite, click here.

The transcript of Getty Images fourth quarter 2007 and full-year conference call is now available as a PDF download. Click here.

Photography –– Kodak says its new image sensor will improve images made with camera phones. Click here for Associated Press story.

Technology–– Apple says the new MacBook Air is now shipping. Click here for the press release.

Editorial –– PDN takes a look at news organizations photographing the primary elections. Click here.

The Philadelphia Tribune has launched a new web version of its newspaper. It is designed to behave much like a real newspaper. Maybe we were missing something but we could not figure out how to actually read the web version. The print was too small for our monitor, which is not tiny to begin with. We could not figure out how to make the pages big enough in either of two browsers. Oh, well, why let functionality get in the way of cool technology. Maybe you, dear reader, will have better luck. Click here.

Advertising and Marketing –– If you think baby-boomers are all the same, you probably are not getting the most out of your marketing, according to this article in Advertising Age. Click here.

Tim Calkins and Derek D. Rucker at Ad Age suggest that marketers are placing too much emphasis on return on investment (ROI). Click here.

Jan. 30, 2008 . .  .

Stock Photography –– Getty Images co-founder Mark Getty is quoted in a story about Sutton Place Managers, a media specialist investor. Getty is a partner in Sutton Place, which is leading a group of investors funding 7digital, an online music and media provider. According to this report, 7digital is getting about $8.5 million from the group. Click here for the story at Netimperative.

Pino Granata weighs in on the possible sale of Getty Images at StockPhotoTalk. Click here.

Photography –– The Star reports on photographers' efforts to get a shot of rogue trader Jerome Kerviel. Apparently, even a picture of an ear is enough to get a shooter excited. Click here.

PDN has an interesting interview with photographer Steve McCurry. Click here.

Jack Reznicki will lecture on lighting in seven cities during March. Click here.

Editorial Photography –– Heather S. Hughes writes about staff reductions in photography departments at newspapers. Click here for Black Star Rising entry.