There are many services being launched around the Digital Artists Assets, many are just new sites that are just mirrors and mimic the existing big players business models, many of these services will fail quickly, because the market is already saturated with these services which do not have a unique selling point, all are trying for a share of the existing revenue pool which causes dilution and artists commission or royalties to be cut, where are the new ideas and markets going to come from?
Lets look at potentially the biggest untapped market, blog and article writers, I am writing this blog entry offline with Microsoft's Live Writer, a picture replaces many words and will attract the viewers attention, so what if I need an image to emphasise that many of these new services will fail?
I will need to join a stock imaging site buy credits or a subscription package for a couple of web sized images.
Ok off I go to Istock and enter the search “Failed Online Business”, the search returns 108 search results for Failure AND The Internet (Technology) AND Business.
After registration I choose a “Pay as you Go” plan, the option I choose is the lowest available, 12 Credits for £14.00, so that is £1.16 a Credit, I now download two images I had added to a lightbox, to be used in my post on the future of many of these new and existing services and their programmers.
These are the two I have chosen all I needed was XS and paid 1 credit for each.
But what if I did not have £14 to spare, or could not be bothered to go to the website, login, search and download, the Digital Artists and website owners have lost a needed Sale.
How could this be addressed when what I really want as an article writer or blogger is a simple way to add an image to my post.
A “Pay as you Go” system that uses the PayPal micropayments system for verified users in real time, with a plug-in for my browser and desktop applications like Live Writer and Microsoft's office suite to deliver the Digital Assets real time.
I would gladly pay £2.32 instantly to enhance a presentation, article or blog post, but I am not always up to paying £14.00 up-front for credits I will use over a period of time.
Think of the potential asset use with this untapped market waiting for a simple asset delivery system, one which is fair to all artists and end users alike, and how much illegal use would such a system quickly stop?.
It is time for a brand new service, one that will leverage images and deliver from many suppliers without registration, and to look at vast new untapped revenue rather than creating a variant of an existing model to dilute the shrinking pool, so service providers thinking hats on!
