From USC Annenberg’s Online Journalism Review:

Imagine if you were a photo editor at a major publication, and you could view and search through every digital photo on every computer in the world to put together a feature … This dream of a global photo album, compiled in real time by amateur and professional shooters, hasn’t quite materialized, but photo-sharing services such as Flickr and Buzznet are giving us glimpses into that future …

The writer, Mark Glaser, points to some current newspaper projects that are incorporating Flickr images. He also raises questions:

One big issue when a media company wades into Flickr and its ilk is the need to verify the photos and the shooter’s right to a photo. Was it a hoax, or retouched in Photoshop? Was it lifted from a professional or stock photo site? Building in this layer might be difficult in the freewheeling Flickr, which provides an opening for a rival service that could include the technological underpinnings for vetting photos and filtering them.

Beyond the issues for journalists, of course, are a much broader array of concerns regarding the impact of photo-sharing on the business of photography.

If I were Getty Images or Corbis, for example, I would be very concerned. As Thomas Hawk explains:

Why couldn’t Flickr displace the world’s largest photo licensing company Getty Images or Bill Gates’ stock photography competitor Corbis? Have you seen some of the photography up at Flickr lately? It is stunning. Although primarily taken and posted by amateurs, the top shots on the site are every bit as brilliant as anything I’ve seen from the pros.

Guess what? I’ve bought, and continue to buy, stock photography all the time. And I completely agree with Thomas.

Sure, there are copyright issues to be ironed out, as there currently are across all content-based industries. But in time — and probably sooner rather than later –they’ll be resolved.

Last week, Fotolia announced

… the first global online social marketplace for creative digital stock images in four languages, where photographers and designers of all levels can store, share and monetize their photographs and illustrations. Fotolia’s free membership allows graphics artists, web designers, art directors, and consumers to obtain legal royalty free stock images for use in electronic and print materials for free or starting as low as $1.

Fotolia serves as an international distribution and purchasing center for quality digital content. It is a place for professional photographers, student photographers, amateurs, and designers to create an online image gallery of their work, receive feedback from peers, and earn money, with no charge or long term contract. Unlike competing sites, photographers and designers who use Fotolia will keep all copyrights to their images.

It’s simple Web 2.0 mathematics, folks — and it works like this:

If I go to the Web and find a universe of 10,000 photos available (from two or three sources) for use as stock in a corporate brochure, I’ll buy the best photo I can for the lowest price.

If I go to the Web and find a universe of 10 million photos available (from many sources), I’ll also buy the best photo I can for the lowest price.

But I can assure you — no matter how the business models evolve — that in the latter scenario, the price I pay will be significantly less.

The greatest financial opportunity here, in fact, is not for the photographers — but for those who can take this rapidly expanding marketplace and order it for efficient business use.

I didn’t think all this up myself, by the way. It’s called the Long Tail. Read up on it.

(Flickr photo by Emiko Hime.)

Technorati tags: Journalism, PR, Public Relations, Marketing, Photography, Flickr, Buzznet, The Long Tail