Microstock photo site Fotolia has just launched its video offering. Back in February, when the service reached one million registered users, the company indicated that the launch of its video service would come soon, and now it is here.
Fotolia is launching with 10,000 royalty free video clips that can be used in video ads, on Websites, mobile animations, and more. These are generic 5 to 60 second clips which can be used as filler, background or for transitional moments. The costs vary but they start at around $10. Competitor iStockPhoto has offered stock video for years and recently expanded to audio.
Fotolia’s selection still seems pretty spare when you search on a specific keyword like “flu” or “despair.” Fotolia turns up one video result for each of those terms, whereas iStockPhoto turns up 117 and 718 video results, respectively. But Fotolia’s collection should fill out over time. A generic video clip really shouldn’t cost more than $10. What would be nice, however, would be a system where you could request the kind of video imagery you want, and then have it produced by a videographer, who would then maintain the rights to resell it on Fotolia.
Here is a Fotolia video described as “ball with pain”: