Some months ago I was contacted by an entrepreneur preparing to launch a new site for sellers and buyers of digital content. John Griffen and his newly launched site - Cutcaster - are aiming to please both the producer of digital media content, and the purchaser. It's a tough job, but I think they may be on the right track. Cutcaster accepts many forms of media: animations, short movies, video clips, photography, illustrations, art, backgrounds - just about any form of visual media you can think of. A big plus on their side is that they are willing to accept ideas from the membership and add to their acceptable content if you come up with an idea that has merit - and they are willing to work with you to get that content loaded. They've spent many months studying the market from both sides before the public beta release, and have put a lot of research under their belt. They have done, and are still doing, their homework.
By now, you're probably thinking..."oh, another stock site"...
Not exactly. Cutcaster may be newly released, but it's concept has been in the works for a long time now - the "planning and preparing for" and the ideas this site have been based on have been in the mind of it's creator long before it became a reality. There has been a lot of "behind the scenes, before the release" work go into this.
Cutcaster is aiming for a dynamic marketplace and have instituted some unique ideas. Not new in the traditional stock world perhaps, but fairly rare in the micro-stock industry.
At Cutcaster, you set your own prices for your content and they give you the ability to accept or reject bids for your content, and are preparing to release a function that allows you to negotiate the licensing terms for your content as well. It's these two options, along with their open door policy that are likely to attract those artists who are tired of the "tried and true" micro-stock platform.
While the site is still in beta, they've worked out a lot of kinks and are working now on improving the upload function. Ease and stability of upload is an important function for submitters, particularly those with large portfolios so getting that worked out is going to be paramount to drawing new submitters.
The other side of the table is attracting the buyers, and one thing Cutcaster is willing to do is advertise, not just across the net, but one-on-one, and face-to-face. They also seem to have the financial backing in place to get the job done. Whether or not the platform succeeds remains to be seen, since it's still very early days and their marketing strategy is only about to be released, but if you don't mind getting on board a brand new ship, I'd certainly recommend a look.
I signed on as a submitter right after I had my first conversation with John (before their actual release) - I'm not on their staff, just a submitter like any other submitter - one whose looking for a way to maintain some control over my own work and I think John Griffen and Cutcaster just might be the way I'm looking for.
Decide for yourself - read through the blog (http://cutcaster.blogspot.com/) and see some of what's happening at Cutcaster, and have a look at their site at http://www.cutcaster.com
