Wired magazine this month has an article on crowdsourcing that talks about the benefits (and, to be fair, the downsides) of utilizing large groups of individuals willing to work for lesser wages (or stipends, fees, rates, etc.) to produce work that was previously quite expensive to produce.
The example they use that most caught my eye was iStockPhoto, an online stock photo agency that uses a "team" of 20,000 amateur photographers to fills its libraries. The one benefit it offers to customers is that most of their photos are available starting at just $1 apiece. Compare that to the rates of $100 per image or more charged by big houses like Getty and you begin to see the benefit of crowdsourcing, at least in terms of your bottom line.
As a photographer, as well as a designer who buys stock photography, I was intrigued by the article's mention of photographer Mark Harmel who has seen his freelance business take a hit because of sites like iStockPhoto.
For one of my new design freelance clients I found myself in need of some stock photos so I decided to give iStockPhoto a spin. I was feeling a bit cynical and expected to find a poorly designed site full of cheesy photos that would be fairly useless. I was really surprised to find the opposite: a very slick, pro-level e-commerce site with all the same bells and whistles as the big stock houses and a load of pretty good photos. After a few minutes of searching I found several images that will work just fine for this new job. And since I only require images at screen resolution, each one is available for the bargain price of $1 each.
And, so now... I'm quite conflicted about this. While I hate to see crowdsourcing (and sites like iStockPhoto) put a dent in the income of high-quality professionals, I'm also thinking of my bottom line and what I have available to spend on my freelance projects. For today at least, iStockPhoto is working for me .
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