iStockPhoto - My Favorite Web 2.0 Site

Stock photography has come a long way since I’ve been building websites (sometime around the dawn of the new millennium). Back when I was first learning Photoshop, HTML, and Dreamweaver there were only a handful of stock photography sites around, and they all charged a premium price for photos. I remember spending around $100 per photo when I was building sites for my small business clients. The high price point made me use photos conservatively on all of my client’s projects.

Fast forward to 2006 and the landscape has changed dramatically. Stock photo sites like iStockPhoto and BigStockPhoto have made royalty-free images affordable. Instead of spending $100 per photo, I’m now spending around $1 per photo. Not only are the photos less expensive, but these new photo sites are also easier to browse, and in my opinion return better search results.

Another benefit of these next-generation photo sites is that they give more control to the photographers - enabling them to post full profiles, create their own portfolios, and upload new photos whenever they want.

In typical Web 2.0 fashion, iStockPhoto has become a sticky community-driven site that encourages participation from photographers as well as customers. Old-school stock photo sites like GettyImages have failed to keep up with the competition and are starting to look less relevant. I don’t think GettyImages will be going out of business anytime soon, considering they have massive photo collections, but I think more of their business will be diverted to more nimble and innovative competitors like iStockPhoto.