ClusterShot.com was launched today by Charlottetown, PEI based Silverorange. The site is really pretty straightforward: Photographers post their photos, Clustershot handles reformatting them for display and handles the back-end payments and other headaches.
If you are a professional photographer or a hobbiest, clustershot is an opportunity to get your work out there and to make sure it is available, but without all the headaches of selling your own work.
Finally, ClusterShot takes 12% of the sale, which is more or less nothing when you consider the bandwidth and transaction costs alone. If you look at other stock photo markets, they are priced far higher than ClusterShot.
The site is really well put together, I bought a photo and it was really painless.
Silverorange is the design and development company that has been behind the scenes on sites such as GigaOm.com, Digg.com, DECA.tv and Bebo.
Full disclosure (thanks to everyone who emailed!): I was a co-founder of silverorange, but currently hold no ownership in the company or any of its ventures.
November 10th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Full disclosure?
November 10th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
I'm not following. This site puts the responsibility of copyright into the sellers hands? I mean, there are a lot of legalities associated with selling images that have recognizable faces and brands in them. ClusterShot doesn't check for that when approving imagery?
I'd like to see how this pans out. I see a lot of legal issues.
November 11th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Love the Canadian content, but I use three or four stock photo sites and Cluster seems overpriced. Not overpriced compared to Getty or its ilk, of course, but there are plenty of low-end competitors in the <$10 shot range.
Great idea for a startup however, as you have a built-in exit strategy. Any kind of success almost guarantees you'll get purchased by one of the big stock houses.
November 11th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
One thing I noticed is that 1) photographers set their own price,. and 2) you can make lower offers that you think are appropriate (which I did).
November 11th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Love the Canadian content, but I use three or four stock photo sites and Cluster seems overpriced. Not overpriced compared to Getty or its ilk, of course, but there are plenty of low-end competitors in the <$10 shot range.rnrnGreat idea for a startup however, as you have a built-in exit strategy. Any kind of success almost guarantees you’ll get purchased by one of the big stock houses.
November 11th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
One thing I noticed is that 1) photographers set their own price,. and 2) you can make lower offers that you think are appropriate (which I did).
November 11th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
[...] StartupNorth, silverorange of Charlottetown, PEI launches ClusterShot. At first take, it looks like a standard [...]
November 11th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
I'm surprised you didn't mention iStockPhoto, a Canadian startup that was acquired by Getty.
Its the first place I look, after CC photos on flickr, because its economical. From wikipedia: “Images cost between 1 and 20 credits, depending on size (with credits ranging from $.96 to $1.30 [1] each).”
November 12th, 2008 at 1:30 am
I’m surprised you didn’t mention iStockPhoto, a Canadian startup that was acquired by Getty.rnrnIts the first place I look, after CC photos on flickr, because its economical. From wikipedia: “Images cost between 1 and 20 credits, depending on size (with credits ranging from $.96 to $1.30 [1] each).”