iSyndica

By Norbert Weber, Head of Polylooks

iSyndica has teamed up with online photo agency Polylooks, meaning that microstock photographers can further expand the reach of their images to include Polylooks’ growing customer base. If you’re a microstock contributor and are unfamiliar to Polylooks, then that’s understandable, as the company only launched in the UK market in late autumn 2009. Our German site Polylooks.de has been live since June 2009 and has become one of the prominent sites for stock photos in the German speaking countries.

As a European stock image provider with predominantly European photo and illustration contributors, we believe we bring a much-needed European look-and-feel to the microstock market which has traditionally been dominated by North American image sites. This offers European stock photo and illustration buyers far more choice and relevance when searching for microstock imagery and we’ve now got more than half a million images on our database.

Rights Issue

The market potential for microstock grows daily as thousands of new Web pages are created in addition to offline marketing, publishing and other materials which require images. Yet we’ve found, in the UK at least, that confusion abounds when it comes to the rights and wrongs of using images from the Internet.

In December 2009 we surveyed 200 UK marketing and PR professionals and found that more than a third (37 per cent) admitted to using images illegally from the Internet. Not only do many not pay for the rights, but there is also widespread confusion over common microstock terms such as “royalty free” and “rights managed”. Nearly half (44 per cent) believed that “royalty free” meant they could use the image without paying for it!

At Polylooks we’re trying to educate those that want to use images from the Web about what they should and should not do when it comes to image copyright.

Why Microstock?

Polylooks is backed by Deutsche Telekom, one of the world's leading service
providers in the telecommunications industry, which often prompts the question; “why would a telecommunications provider want to get into the microstock market?”

We see microstock becoming more and more central to publishing going forward. Our survey found that in the UK marketing sector alone, 44 per cent of professionals legally download between one and five pictures each month, while seven per cent buy more than 11 stock images each month. In fact, while nearly half (48 per cent) do not have a microstock image budget, five per cent spend in excess of £100 each month on images, so there is huge demand out there.

For iSyndica’s contributors, it is reassuring to know that Polylooks is supported by a large parent company. It gives us reach and stability at a time of upheaval in the microstock industry.

Partnering For Success

Currently, Polylooks operates in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the United Kingdom and the platform is available in German and English, but the partnership with iSyndica will enable Polylooks to draw on an extended pool of creative talent by reaching contributors in new territories. We, in turn, look forward to thousands of new, high quality stock photos and illustrations being made available to customers from our archive.

Why not take a closer look at www.polylooks.co.uk!

Norbert Weber, Head of Polylooks