Site Updates

Thanks for being patient everyone and providing a ton of great feedback. Here are some of the things that were fixed, are being fixed and added to the line to be developed ;-)

Non-registered visitors can now freely browse, view all clips and studio pages. Unregistered users just can't upload, purchase content or create a studio.

Added watermarking to all Images that are uploaded to the site so they are well protected and tested but still working out a small bug that is causing some issues with resizing and cropping images. I am pretty sure we have it figured out but we are just testing.

Added Pagination so you can now see all your uploaded content on different pages in a user friendly layout.

Updated our search algorithm which is still being worked on heavily. I will keep giving updates on that.

In the process of doing a major upgrade to our pricing algorithm which we are very excited about.

We were getting a good amount of spam so we incorporated CAPTCHA to the feedback and register areas.

Testing our bulk uploader on the site. Looks good and ready to roll it out very soon which should make uploading a lot easier and will be one of the better uploaders in the industry ;-)

Fixed the mystudio display of members.

The checkout line and process has been made simpler.

The registration process was scaled down and we moved some of those fields to the edit profile area.

Testing-
Adding prices and authors name to the spotlight area on the homepage.


Here are a few designs we are working with now for the homepage. Let us know which one you like the best.

The original- http://www.cutcaster.com/

The green version

The blue version

Let us know if you have any questions or see anything we could do better. Thanks

Thoughts about an Online Content Revolution

An online content revolution is drastically changing the traditional media and distribution landscape. The market for online content, especially video and audio, is growing at an extraordinary pace. Fueled by open standards for digital media, the deployment and continually falling costs of broadband access, the explosion of user-generated content populating the Internet, the growth of broadband, mobile, set-top boxes and digital recording devices in addition to the advancements made in Digital Rights Management software, digital video and still-image content is becoming more widely available and easier to access.

The one obstacle these technological advancements have failed to properly address is how to efficiently monetize online content. In the past, aggregators and content providers worked only with traditional means of media distribution including through television, theater releases, DVD/VHS purchases and rentals. Moving content to the Internet has presented itself as a new, highly efficient medium to view and distribute digital media and ultimately is helping to build new ways to promote, build revenue streams and other non-traditional monetization mechanisms.

Indeed, we are witnessing the long-term trend away from the inefficiency of legacy delivery and the associated sub-par customer experience of the legacy model. New digital media start-ups and their emerging technology will gradually complement and possibly replace traditional television business models in the future. Now anyone with a camera and a desire to produce content can record, upload and distribute their work over the Internet. This type of access used to be just a fantasy for most content creators, but now it is fast becoming a reality.

Clearly, the emerging standard for video and information is on-demand, à la carte interactivity: consumers being able to find, download, store, recall and transfer content of their choice on virtually any platform or device. Digital interactivity will be the driving force to unlocking the bottomless content in this Pandora's box. However, search and filtering is the means by which to find and manage the data, television program, movie, music or other content of choice. One cannot exist without the other in this brave, new media world.

Media Request at Cutcaster

Let us know if you have any images like this ;-)

media_type : JPEG
project_type : Photo
description : Need "Internet" images for an invitation. For a corporate
invite for an Internet event. No people, or writing can be on the image.
JPEGs only please. Thank you!
priority : urgent
deadline : ASAP

New Office and headquarters for Cutcaster

Tomorrow will be our first day working out of our new offices down in Soho in the Big Apple. We will be joining our friends at Blip.tv and are ecstactic and blessed to be working in close proximinity to such a great company.

Can't wait to move in fully and if you need us now we will be at 187 Lafayette between Broome and Grand, 6th floor ....

Trading Swan Song

My last two years have been an absolute whirlwind. I am sure I am not the only one who feels like that, however I have had to live a double life in my professional world. This was my choice as it was the only way I could get to where I am today and if you’ve been a reader of the blog for a while you’d have read about this before ;-)

During the day, I spent my days on a trading desk pushing buttons and trading stocks on Wall St. for an English bank. At the same time, every night when I got home from the “day job,” I wrote and executed with the help of our Cutcaster team our ideas for a new marketplace. This marketplace was open to anyone who wanted to buy or sell content and mimicked the stock marketplace that I worked in during the day.

My double life is now over. No more getting up from the trading desk to make secret calls to content creators. No more looking over my shoulder at work to see who was looking over my shoulder at on my computer screens. No more stress of having to keep a secret. And all I have to say to that is “Hallelujah!”

I have been called crazy by most. (Yes, I have a bit of ADHD) I have been wished well and congratulated by others. And I have had the weight of two lives lifted off my shoulders and replaced by the excitement of working on our passion. Last week, I left my stock broker job on Wall St. to pursue a new kind of stock; stock footage and photos at Cutcaster, fulltime as the guy that does the things that have to get done and give our community and marketplace a fighting chance to distinguish itself. It’s exciting, risky, scary and the best decision I have ever made, as any person who becomes their own boss would probably tell you. It feels that way now ;-) I knew this decision and time was coming but moving out of my comfort zones has never felt so exhilarating.

In conclusion, as a first time boss (of myself), I am setting my hours long and my work week is 7 days, so that Cutcaster reaches its full potential. My email is john at Cutcaster dot com and my cell is 215-688-2751. I have made a pledge that I will make myself available and give people a way to contact me.



So will you remember your first…

Sale?

I will.

Welcome to Cutcaster

Go NY Giants!

Love it!

Happy MLK Day

Today is really a special day and one that should always be remembered. I hope everyone can take a moment and reflect on what MArtin Luther King did for the United States and humanity in general. Here is a photomontage for MLK which I found very inspiring.


Enjoy your day off.

The Making of Richard Hammond Bloody Omaha (the graphics)

It's amazing some of the work that we have come across while scouring the globe for the best creators for our Cutcaster marketplace. It's truly inspiring and unbelievable that people can create works like this on a shoe string budget and in only four days. Three graphic designers created this D-Day recreation for the timewatch program "Bloody Omaha" and its simply awesome to see how they put it filmed it and then combined it with the special effects. Just goes to show you that technology and hardcore determination can create an amazing product. They really recreated the carnage and mayhem that was the Omaha Beach invasion of World War II and all with only three men in four days. Sorry I had to repeat that ;-)

Here is a link to the creator's blog and look forward to seeing more creative and inspiring works like this.

Tentative Deal in Writer's Strike

The Writers Guild of America (WGA) and independent film, television and digital studio, MRC, formed a comprehensive interim deal with terms similar to the agreements the WGA recently forged with Worldwide Pants and United Artists.

Updates

Here are a few updates:

We have now hit over 1500 pieces of content and are in the process of releasing more to the marketplace.

We have over 500 registered users.

We have included some code to parse out IPTC metadata for photographers now during the upload process. All meta and IPTC data is now being transfered correctly into our backend from the upload 2 form. This will make it easier on photographers who are uploading a lot of images to the site. Let us know how you like it.

We have updated the media details view page to only show relevant media info.

We fixed some issues that people were having when logging in. The login is case sensitive so remember your username exactly.

What we are working on?

We are still working on our bulk upload which is almost finished.

Updating our pricing algorithm with more content pricing info.

We are working on the collection of metadata for video off a template we are creating for our video producers which they can use to autopopulate the metadata fields of their content.

We have almost completed the watermark for our images. We switched encoding engines and this caused a small issue which we are clearing up.

We are working on transaction history, a "my download" page and automated reciepts.

We are working on our release process to get your videos and photos into the marketplace sooner.


We just hired a new developer to help out with a lot of these features which we are excited to roll out in the next month. Definitely let us know what you would like as well and we will plan that out.

aniBoom...

If you haven't heard about it yet, this Techcrunch article does a great write-up of the animation site aniBoom. aniBoom is really an online animation studio that allows users to create content, then gives them a place to showcase it (there are competitions, etc), pool resources, and most importantly, receive access to a global distribution platform. It's what CEO Uri Shinar calls a "digital pipeline that bridges the gap between the need for cost-effective development and production." And it seems to be working.

The most interesting part of the article though (and its main focus), are that merchandising is where the bulk of the money is really generated (just see Crazy Frog). Content in and of itself is not king...it's like Yoghurt says in Spaceballs: "Merchandising, merchandising, where the real money from the movie is made." It seems that Veer understands this, and all the rest of the online digital content space should definitely take note.

Creating a Blur to get to Clear.

Got a compelling piece of footage or image that you don't have a model or property release for? One way you can still license this to others is to blur out recognizable faces, trademarks or anything else that could be a copyright violation. Metacafe put out a simple and clear video on creating a blur in Final Cut Pro.


Creating A Blur In Final Cut Pro - Funny video clips are a click away

Angela Grant, over at News Videographer, pointed the video out to me, which I am happy to share with all our users. Angela has a great blog if you haven't checked it out. News Videographer is meant to be a useful service for journalists who produce online news video.

The Next Threat to Photographers? Graffiti Imitating Life

clavahead.com
Originally uploaded by solanaher

Just some fun on a Friday. Here is a cool peice of street art by Clavahead. It was created and shot down in Miami Beach.

Digital Railroad Cuts Staff in Half

Charles Mauzy, who was just appointed CEO of Digital Railroad in November after Evan Nisselson stepped down, announced today that the online photography service is restructuring and will be cutting back on its staff. The number of cuts has not been reported but blogger John Harrington has speculated that Digital Railroad would cut as many as 22 jobs, or roughly half its staff. Mark Ippolito, who I met at this years Picturehouse, and Tom Tinervin, who I saw speak at the Apple store in Soho, will remain in their respective roles.

This is a definite shift in their business strategy most likely to focus more on the marketplace model, which we also believe at Cutcaster was the way to go, or they are running out of money and hanging on. What was the amount of their last round of investment?

Mauzy says, "The friends and colleagues we say farewell to today have laid the foundation for our mutual success," and notes, "Our investors have tremendous confidence in our leadership team, our strategy and have renewed their financial support with additional investments in capital this month."

What is Cutcaster?

Cutcaster is a dynamic marketplace to license digital video or photos. Cutcaster offers royalty free images, stock photos, stock footage and stock photography for advertising, publishing or web design. The platform helps people who have taken a really good photo or captured some amazing video footage to monetize their content through licensing it to someone working in advertising, publishing, filmmaking and graphic design. Most people wouldn’t know how to price their content when approached by an interested buyer and even the most experienced ones have always let the agency dictate the price. In order to help these people determine the price they could charge for a royalty free license, the site has an algorithm that helps find the correct and highest market price based on a number of important variables or if the creator is an old pro, they have the option to set their prices as high as they want based on past experience selling content.

The twist Cutcaster has introduced to licensing is buyers can now license content on demand or they can bid for it by submitting a price to the seller seamlessly over the site, which the seller can accept, decline or resubmit a new offer back to the buyer. In addition, if a publisher from a magazine came to you, they could also bid on extended rights for content like exclusivity in certain markets or over certain periods of time. This bidding platform helps buyers find content within their budget, provides incentives for them to license content at Cutcaster because they can create better deals for themselves than they would find at other sites and highlights for sellers where the demand is at different pricing levels and how to price their content so they don’t lose sales because their content isn’t priced correctly.

Promoting sustainability one image at a time.

Our friend, Mike Kahn, has launched his Green Stock Media photo site and we are really impressed not only by the site but also the issues he is tackling. Mike has been busily working away on this while also maintaining his day job for EcoIQ, a company promoting sustainability via a speakers bureau, EcoSpeakers.com, and a stock video footage agency, EcoFootage.com. We met Mike originally from EcoFootage. Mike's site is really unique because it combines great photography with excellent coverage of a wide array of environmental and sustainability issues. According to his website and from speaking with Mike, "the current emphasis is on selling high-resolution Rights Managed photographs. Some images will be sold Royalty Free."

We wish him the best of luck and look forward to helping out in any way we can. We think he is really hitting on an issue that will garner a lot of attention from publishers around the world.

15 ways to Get Paid to Shoot Photography and Videos

Here are some things that people are willing to pay you for shooting video or photos of. Some of them require a bit of work on your part to set up but can serve as ideas for creating content or finding new customers.

1. Corporate Meetings or Corporate Execs
Stay close to the dealmakers and you could be the last one smiling. They often want to document the results before they sign the deals. Same goes for Corporate Executives. Shooting powerful people is a unique form of portraiture that brings a special challenge and a special rate too. Find the big fish and you can get a big payday.

2. Dating Site Portraits
Online dating has created a new demand for eye-catching profile photos — and a new market for your portrait skills.

3. Wannabe Models/Actors
There’s no shortage of young women (and men) chomping at the bit to break into Hollywood or the Paris catwalks. They all need professional headshots. What they put in their portfolio, you can put in yours and add a little jingle to your jeans pocket.

4. News
Who said you had to work for CNN to get paid. You don’t have to be a staff reporter to get your picture in the press. Many outlets these days use stringers and accept freelance shots. See what they need, then hit the streets.

5. Annual Reports
Did you know that Annual reports are one of the biggest markets for photography agencies? The bosses of the companies behind them can be a huge market for you too. See the first example.

6. Celebrities
There’s always a market for a photo of a star, especially if they’re doing something they shouldn’t like Brit Spears. But you can elbow your way to the front of the red carpets to get that great shot and the papers, magazines, blogs or online publications will buy it.

7. Wedding Events
The "bread and butter" of any professional photography business and a go to for a quick fix ;-). Rates are decent, demand is constant and you get all the free food you can handle.

8. High School Yearbook Photos
Hundreds of people crammed in one space all waiting for you take their pictures… and often paying in advance. What can be better than that?

9. Children
Children grow up fast so parents want those youthful moments frozen before they’re gone forever. The market is enormous and the marketing is easy. Just get your ads around playgrounds and day-care centers.

10. Facebook Portraits
Facebook has millions of members, many of whom use the site for business as well as pleasure. Add on LinkedIn, MySpace and everyone else, and you’ve got a huge potential market of people who want to be seen and look good online. I think I need this ;-)

11. Publicity Events
Grand openings, charity giveaways, competitions and every other kind of publicity event is useless if a photographer isn’t there to record it. Talk to a PR firm.

12. eBay Items
Of course, you don’t have to get friendly with Sotheby’s to shoot for auctions. Everyone’s on eBay and many of them lack the pictures that bring the sales. Now, there’s a market for photographers.

13. Award Ceremonies
Sure, it would be nice to be official photographer to the Oscars, but there are plenty of industry awards given each year. They pay too.

14. Conferences
Conferences are as much about networking as listening to speeches. What better way to remember who was there — and what they look like — than have a photographer on hand? Make a pitch.

15. Fundraisers
If someone’s paying a lot of money to attend a fundraiser, the organizers should be willing to pay you a little to give the donors a momento. Call a charity and work for a profit.

This list has been condensed and reworked from a list over at Photopreneur.