iStock hits 3 million
iStock collection continues to expand and now we can find more then 3 million of images. The perfect relationship between contributors, customers, inspectors, admins and everyone at HQ creates a perfectly mutual symbiosis. The collection continues to expand at a jaw dropping rate with over a quarter of a million files uploaded last month alone.
This article is dedicated to iStockphoto and its great potential.
iStockphoto was founded by Bruce Livingstone in May, 2000. Originally iStockphoto was a free stock imagery website (something like sxc.hu). Only couple months later, iStock was transitioned into its current micropayment model, and it has been profitable since then.
The website was originally supported by CEO Livingstone’s web development firm, Evolvs Media, but began charging money in 2001.
Five years later, (February 9, 2006) iStockphoto was acquired by Getty Images for $50 million USD. Livingstone promised that the site would continue “functioning independently with the benefits of Getty Images, yet, very importantly for them and us, autonomy. They will nurture and encourage our pioneering spirit so that our entrepreneurial culture will continue to thrive.”
Getty Images ownership brought us a new system called a “Controlled Vocabulary” which was borrowed from Getty Images and implemented on iStockphoto to control and manage keywords and searches, and to provide multilingual searching abilities. With this system, keywording is possible in any language and image became a searchable in any of the supported languages.
iStockphoto’s online community has more than 3 000 000 registered members.
Source: WikiPedia, iStockphoto
