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History Repeats Itself - CustomStock Resurfaces

Don't people learn? When we wrote "nOnRequest - This is Not Your Father's "Agency" (6/20/07), we quoted Daryl Lang over at PDN, who wrote in his article "Revolutions That Never Happened", "Sometimes bad ideas take care of themselves. OnRequest Images never backed down from custom stock, but the idea was hard to explain and held little appeal to art buyers... Another custom stock service, iStockPhoto.com's BuyRequest, also failed to capture much interest and was quietly discontinued last year.", yet, "genius" repeats itself, with StockShop On Demand, which suggests:

On Demand is StockShop's newest feature. Can't find exactly what you're looking for? Let one of our talented photographers capture it for you!

Are you kidding me?

Wasn't it already tried by several companies who, no doubt, have smart people working for them? This idea is (and remains) just plain bad. However, I guess this is what happens when people have time on their hands, and decide they will fill it with "custom stock" projects. Projects that, quite frankly, are ASSIGNMENTS that should be commissioned by the clients, with all expenses paid, and so forth.

We wrote back in July of 2007 - OnRequest - Realizing the Obvious, "David Norris, the head of OnRequest, after building a business around the CustomStock Model...said of the CustomStock model:"

"that model was interesting, but didn't pan out."

And again, the refrain rises: WELL, OF COURSE IT DIDN'T!

Yet, again, we have a company that thinks they can do it better. Think again.

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