Yesterday I spent a good part of the day meeting with mutual and hedge funds managers at the Kauffman Brothers LP Technology Conference in New York City.

Every session revolves around the question "so what is the future of the stock photo industry?"

My answer is always the same: "The stock photo business is a good one but revenues, while they can grow, they cannot grow as rapidly as they did a few years ago."

Both Getty Images and Jupiterimages now have to deal with microstock and the glut of RF images that have come to market through the microstock revolution.

Interestingly both of our companies are working hard and launching new product lines and pricing plans to combat the microstock revolution. We have been pushing our Jupiter Images Unlimited and Getty has created a new Valueline product and announced some new pricing plans for Web sales. Perhaps all of these new concepts will be successful and perhaps not? Both companies are working from a strong base of continuing sales and profits. Over time there is an excellent chance that both of us (with our solid foundations) will be able to create new product lines and pricing plans and packages that bring positive news for the stock photo industry. In the meantime we are both very profitable and resourceful.

Needless to say this post has been written without checking with anybody over at Getty Images!