iStockphoto Sees Great Demand for New User-Generated Stock Video Collection and Explosive Worldwide Growth

(CALGARY, Alberta, Jan. 8, 2007) iStockphoto®, the world’s leading community-powered marketplace for stock photography, illustrations and stock video, announced today that its user-generated stock video collection, which began selling clips for as low as $5 each on Sept. 5, 2006, has already garnered well over 12,000 clips from more than 350 contributors worldwide.

In addition, the site, which started by selling user-generated stock images, grew tremendously in 2006, reaching 1.2 million global customers who collectively downloaded nearly 11 million images and videos last year. Site demonstrations and sample images and video can be seen at Booth #1738 at Macworld San Francisco January 9-12.

Many stock video clips are often over $200, so demand has been high at iStock’s aggressive price point. There is tremendous appeal in searching for just one clip that you can be assured looks modern and current versus buying several on a CD.

A large-scale survey conducted online by iStockphoto, which garnered 18,000 respondents, showed that nearly 29 percent purchase stock video monthly, while nearly another 12 percent purchase it weekly. The most prominent recent searches have been for relatively simple themes: water, people, business, clouds, background and fire, as well as seasonal holiday items.

“2006 proved to be the year that people understood that the consumer has become his/her own brand manager and social networks built around common interests are here to stay,” said Bruce Livingstone, founder and CEO of iStockphoto. “The iStock community has grown tremendously this year because contributors are able to express themselves creatively while actually profiting from their work and our clients can always find an image or a video that looks cutting-edge and current at affordable prices.”

iStockphoto is one of the top 300 most visited Web sites in the world (according to Alexa.com) and offers well over 1 million royalty free stock images and videos for prices starting at as low as $1. An iStockphoto image or video is downloaded by someone in the world every three seconds. iStock was recently pictured in an article in Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year,” issue and is one of the few social networks to actually share profits on content sales with contributors.

iStock continues to welcome new member artists wanting to monetize their stock footage, film clips, and animations. Visit http://www.iStockvideo.com for details on technical standards for submissions, royalties and intellectual property concerns.