According to Matthieu Stefani, Co-Founder of ScoopLive, “Every event has its witnesses.” And with camera phones being so prevalent, every witness now has a chance to make some real money on what they’ve captured. The Web has exploded with amateur videos of everything from the Saddam Hussein hanging to Michael Richards hanging himself – all filmed by “citizen journalists.” Up until now, though, cashing in on these stories has been hard to do. A Marketplace for Monetizing Scoops ScoopLive just announced that it was out of beta in the Tech Crunch forums as one of a handful of entrants into the on-line marketplace for monetizing scoops, whose competitors already include Scoopt.com and SpyMedia.com. The solution doesn’t make as much sense for professional photojournalists that use well-established photo and press agencies. It makes far more sense for the amateur market that may only sell one photo or video, but it could be the one picture of Paris Hilton that nets them $50,000. ScoopLive was initially launched in the European market with approximately 150 buyers in 15 countries. The site has attracted 2,500 reporters in 60 countries and has already been successful in brokering sales including a cover image for Voici, the French equivalent of People Magazine in the U.S. (it’s the photo of two famous French actors kissing each other at a night club, but the real story is above that photo). Join, Upload, Sell Users of ScoopLive can create a free account and begin to upload their media, tagging it so that it can be found by buyers (my camera phone video of fans rushing the field after OSU stomped Michigan may not make me rich). If it’s a scoop, the media will be auctioned off to buyers and sold with a 30-day exclusivity clause. If it’s just an interesting item, it will go into ScoopLive’s image bank and be sold at a fixed rate. Sellers retain the copyrights to their media and can earn up to 85% of the final sale to a buyer. Popular and Profitable Today the average citizen journalist may think uploading a video to YouTube is a big deal. But in the near future sites like ScoopLive will allow authors to not only make their content popular, but profitable as well. Wil Schroter is a contributor to TechCrunch as well as the founder and CEO of GoBigNetwork. → Read More
Photo sales site SpyMedia relaunched this morning with two major new features. The San Jose company has since late last year let photographers sell their news photos to media companies or other interested buyers. Today the site has added a slideshow widget and a bounty system to let buyers offer money for photos they would like to purchase. Here’s a heart breaker; remember when we reported several weeks ago about the new MySpace security measure that disables outbound links from Flash widgets? SpyMedia is a great example of a company investing resources in a MySpace strategy that now, on launch, is no where near as viable as it was when the idea was hatched. The SpyStream, or widgetized slideshow, is an interesting test case. Users who display the slideshow will be able to play their photos, their friends’ photos, their designated favorites or all photos tagged as aimed at a bounty of interest. Company President Bryan Quinn told me that there are many widget features the company had planned that are now impossible or much more difficult since MySpace has leveraged Flash9 to block outgoing links. You can’t purchase SpyMedia photos with one click from a MySpace display anymore. The company had planned to offer revenue sharing for MySpace users who display SpyMedia images. Images can no longer be flagged as inappropriate with one click, making display of all items tagged with a bounty much less appealing. SpyMedia in MySpace is now largely a one-way phenomenon. Quinn said he felt sorry for other companies whose entire model was based on clicking back from flash widgets but that SpyMedia would use water marks and other means of letting viewers know what URL to visit on the SpyMedia site. SpyMedia’s whole model may not be shot, but it looks like the company’s new MySpace strategy is dead on arrival today. Every startup I talk to with a MySpace widget strategy (more than I can count) admits that the new MySpace code is a problem. Most underplay it, but the ability to click back to your site is what makes a widget play make business sense. There are certainly work arounds, like adding a text link below the Flash object – but as SpyMedia demonstrates there is still a major loss of functionality. The widget will still work on other blogs, but as Quinn told me, MySpace is the gorilla and everybody wants → Read More
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