A diverse group of more than 200 journalists, entrepreneurs, techies, nonprofit organizers, artists, activists and others gathered last week at UW with the grand mission of re-imagining the news ecology of the Pacific Northwest. This Journalism That Matters “unconference” focused on journalism’s relationship with the community.

I was delighted and relieved that this was not a pity party about the good old days of journalism. The participants were open to change and were there to figure out the future, not to pine for the past. Sure, when you get dozens of laid-off people in a room, there are going to be some depressing chats about filing for unemployment, but overall, the mood was amazingly optimistic and upbeat. “The snark level is very low,” remarked one woman.

For me, the biggest benefit was meeting people who are involved in a variety of interesting startups and experiments. I learned about Xconomy, a news site that covers tech industries in three cities, and TheNewHive.com, an innovative social networking site set to launch by the summer. I learned about InvestigateWest’s business model and the need for a better online system to share content among community radio stations.

It wasn’t possible to be a part of all of the sessions and chats going on, but based on my observations, several themes emerged:

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Beginning with 1990s, multinational super-agencies dominated stock photography industry. Getty Images and Corbis are the leading corporations of the industry by bringing together new licensing models, digital media management tools and a comprehensive offering of creative and editorial imagery, microstock, footage and music. Therefore, it is more accurate to call it visual content industry instead of stock photography in the digital era. Both based in Seattle, Washington, Getty Images and Corbis distribute their products online and they have customers in more than 100 countries around the world; most of their sales come from outside the United States.

In order to have a better idea about the expansion of the industry, I will particularly examine the market leader Getty Images and its major acquisitions beginning with its foundation from 1995.

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