Flickr meets iStockPhoto

I recieved an e-mail today from the people at Lucky Oliver - a new stock photo website that is somewhere between Flickr and iStockPhoto - Flickr for the community and web2.0 layout and functionality and iStockPhoto for the way it’s been monetised.

Basically you buy tokens and use those tokens to buy photos that have been submitted - but equally you upload photos and get tokens everytime one is sold that you can convert to cash after you’ve made $100 or use to buy other photos (an approach I would take for pics for the blog and other projects).

I don’t like openly promoting services based on an e-mail and as it stands I haven’t actually submitted or purchased a photo from the site - but on first impressions alone I’m very impressed.

It seems very simple to use, it has a very web 2.0 interface with tag clouds and a blog to keep you up to date with the latest ‘behind the scenes’ development.

It also has some really nice advantages over iStockPhoto (my current source of choice for stock images), it gives you decent sized previews with a watermark in the corner, out the way and not slap bang across the middle of the picture.

It also has bloggers in mind with Blog as one of the size options.

For one token you can get a blog image at 400 x 300

For 2 tokens you can get a small image at 600 x 450

Three tokens gets you a medium image at 1200 x 900

A large image at 1920 x 1440 will cost you four tokens

You can also offer a take it off the site licence with your photos where you charge more for the pic but nobody else can download it after that which is an interesting concept for both designers and photographers.

Full Review in next few weeks

I’ll do a more detailed review of the site when I’ve had a chance to use it in anger - when I actually need a specific photo for a project or when I get round to uploading pics (I’ll review the application process, the portfolio screens etc).

The process of getting more tokens couldn’t be easier either - click buy tokens, choose whether you want to pay through paypal, credit card or use your earnings and go!

Buying a photo is simple too, you see the preview, select the size, see a box with the number of tokens you’ve got, click buy, see the token numbers go down by however many for the size you’ve purchased and download the photo.

Now might be a good time to sign up as well - at the moment they’re giving photographers 60% royalty until they reach 30,000 images - but they are close, so get there quick.

Oh and if you’re buying images and are in the UK - 10 tokens will cost you £5.63 instead of $10 which is (for a blog image) just over 50p a photo.

It’s almost exactly what I was thinking for PodShare with one minor difference - photos instead of audio files.

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