I heard from two independent sources this morning that Amazon, eager to expand their customized product suite after their 2005 acquisition of CustomFlix, is in acquisition discussions with young Seattle-based startup ImageKind.
ImageKind, a 14 person company launched just last August, is a site where artists can upload their work and sell custom framed prints to others. Like CafePress and Zazzle, ImageKind also does a brisk business in one-offs to people who want to upload an image and get a single print. Feedback from the artist community has been very positive about ImageKind to date.
I spoke to the President of ImageKind, Kevin Saliba, who denies the rumor. He says that the company has been in talks with a number of parties around their Series A round of financing, including “large online retailers,” but that the discussions are around an investment, not an acquisition.
ImageKind occupies a niche between current offerings by Art.com and those of Zazzle and CafePress. Art.com is rumored to be soon launching a more customizable product similar to what ImageKind offers today.
I just heard this today as well…if it isn’t true it’s odd that people are circulating it. My bet is that this was an acquisition discussion that has turned into an investment discussion.
I’ve been using ImageKind for a while to print all my pictures. They are the best solution on the web because they allow artists to set their own prices. I did a write up of ImageKind at http://stuckinc...toms.com/?p=984
Sorry, I should have added to the above that they also allow artists to control their own profit margins because they only take a fixed amount for each print… that is what makes them quite unique.
I have been thinking of a while – of something similar – in fact I already have a killer name and the printer also got connected with – a very good photographer –
– How about a Stubhub for Art work> ?
An Artist can pick out a frame (that the site sells) and upload his picture .. then list it on the site! –
– the artist makes a cut on the frame; and sets his price on the picture.
- the website, makes money on The FVF (final vaule fee), Frame, matting / framing –
– Over all – as long as people don’t whore the market (could be drastically reduced by Frame prices – and shipping and handling)
– the site would maintain a good image – ` Rbowles
Whether it’s aquire or invest, I think Amazon would benefit greatly from an association. Our company does business with Imagekind. Their staff is fabulous, they have attracted a ton of great independent artists (including a good number of artists from our site), and their product is miles above what I’ve seen offered elsewhere.
They mentioned on their blog a few days ago that:
“we’re really excited to tell you about a few partnerships that we’re working on.”
Might have been a small hint that something big was coming…
link: http://blog.cur...fice.com/?p=117
So two ‘independent’ sources who think amzn might be interested in buying the company are more reliable for you than the actual President of the company who clearly states they’re just looking at an investment round? It is odd how you reach your headlines…
That sounds like good news, big online stores looking at sites like Imagekind. It’s happened with the music industry, but I never thought it would happen to the visual art industry.
The limitation with Imagekind is that it only deals with artists producing 2D items. I wonder whether sites that sell the original artworks have the same kind of appeal, sites like http://www.etsy.com and http://www.arti...tsonline.org.uk ?
Pat – I think we all know that sometimes the news comes in the backdoor. The heads of entities don’t/can’t always tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Presidents of companies and their spokespeople are often bound by NDAs and legal documents inches thick and can get in trouble for disclosing certain things … rumors can affect stock prices and shareholders etc etc.
I don’t really understand why they’d make this move, but I can say that I think overall it’s been very interesting to watch what both Amazon and Yahoo are doing at the moment.
Prices seem kind of high, but I have to try it to see the quality / value. I more like the ability to sell prints on there, but again it depends on the quality and margin to the artist. -Chris (www.buzzpal.com)
Anybody who has used comparable solutions knows that Imagekind is leading the pack in the area. The site has more features and is better looking than most others out there. The key is whether they’ll branch out into other product lines. As a member, I’d heard they were working on other partnerships besides this announcement. I don’t know what that means yet.
That sounds like good news, big online stores looking at sites like Imagekind. It’s happened with the music industry, but I never thought it would happen to the visual art industry.
The limitation with Imagekind is that it only deals with artists producing 2D items. I wonder whether sites that sell the original artworks have the same kind of appeal, sites like http://www.etsy.com and http://www.arti...tsonline.org.uk ?
For me – Imagekind is really a dream come true – I have placed over 3,000 images on their site in public galleries so far during the last month and there is more to come – As long as they stay in business I will be there and if they were looking for investors from the artists -I woudl be there – as well!
I am very pleased with uploading to Imagekind! The two simular sites I tried before were almost everytime problems uploading. Imagekind also gives a limited free account that allows those of us who are very poor to show and sell our art too!
I’ve been following ImageKind since the beginning. They bring a complete new game to town, and it is hard to compare to others. Not only the interface is slick and easy to use, but they “get it”. This will be one of the success stories of Web 2.0.
ImageKind has a great concept they will go far.
I’m just about to place an order for wall art and I must say that when I found Imagine kind, the whole way I thought about shopping for art changed. This is a good thing. What seemed scare and not obtainable is now readily available. I’m am totally blown away with the diversity of imagery and the options available. If they can just provide some consultation services or hook me up with an interior decorator that would be grand. I think one of the cable channels that do home/interior make overs would be a better alliance for these guys than Amazon.com. I don’t know much about attracting investors and partnering with companies such as Amazon. All I know that I’m itching to order 10 or 15 images for a space I’m building out….
Nice scoop.
In a follow up post on my blog, ImageKind founder Kelly Smith tells me that they have been approached by multiple online retailers/publishers.
“Right now we’re making some money and getting great reviews from our users. So, I suppose my expectation is that we will choose financing from an appropriate (strategic) party and continue building the company over the next 12 months,” he says.
The other interesting tidbit here is how active Amazon.com and Jeff Bezos have become in investing in early-stage companies. Something I am certainly seeing up here in Seattle.
http://blog.sea...ives/110395.asp
John Cook
Seattle P-I
This would be a great move for the visual arts industry. I think the art industry has typically been slower in taking up this kind of technology.
The move to selling art online has probably been easier for some areas of visual art than others (e.g. photography) but it’s certainly a growing trend. The question remains about whether art buyers will make the transition to buying online – and judging by Imagekind I would say yes! Amazon would do well to get involved in this site.
I’m not sure what it means for sites like http://www.arti...tsonline.org.uk (and other original art websites) though, hopefully it will draw more attention to buying art online.
I agree with John (re: scoop). As far as an Amazon (or anyone else) acquisition, I think it would be better for ImageKind to remain in ownership and operation outside of another partner.
There it is, partnership. That’s the word I was looking for. Amazon (at least in my mind) is considered a powerhouse at delivering completed products gathered from many sources – a one-stop-shop if you will. They’re not particularly known (again, in my mind) as the kind of shop that would *builld* a product for you (as ImageKind does by allowing you to pick your own matting and framing and glass options). To me, that’s outside of Amazon’s business model. But I’m no business graduate…
As far as my opinion on ImageKind – what can I say here that I haven’t evangelized on street corners and to local artists? “Get your work up there! Get online!” Even without any affiliation to the company other that admiration (both their workflow, their design, and their professionalism), I still do my best to tell anyone that will listen – or benefit – how great ImageKind can be for their art business. Hell, my whole existence with my company is about exposure, and at the bare minimum ImageKind offers more exposure for an artist. It’s gravy to me that the artist can also make money from that exposure. Sweet, sweet, green money-gravy.
I’ve known ImageKind for a while and wrote a review in El Reg.
They have some great people working there, a product that seems, at least for the moment, completely different from most other sites allowing artists more freedom on pricing etc and very easy to use for both an an artist and purchaser.
If Amazon do buy them it will be a bonus for Amazon and giving their customers a great service.
I just noticed that Imagekind now gives its members a whopping 15% commission on sales of frames, mats, and glass. I’ve been selling my art through them for a month or so now, and I’ve been VERY impressed with their commitment to service. One time I called them up at 6pm, and an actual real live human was right there to take care of me. Amazing! You don’t see this level of responsiveness / quality from too many companies online. Oh, and the quality of the prints really rocks!
pat – well, I think that either the discussions started off around acquisition or investment and narrowed to investment, or the rumors are wrong and it’s always been about investment. Either way, Amazon is clearly interested in this space.
Imagekind has come to be a frontrunner rather quickly… I would not be surprised if a company like amazon.com was interested in looking under the hood. If you haven’t tried there service you should… it’s pretty cool!
ImageKind really does offer a cool, and currently unique service. My brother is an avid photographer so I bought a platinum subscription for him – he had no idea these types of services existed online but was quite pleased to learn it was easy to use and allows for so much pricing flexibility. We both have pictures on ImageKind now – http://www.imag...ae-581bae3cb8bc and http://www.imag...0f-bd2a24ef670e. Even for total novices like myself, this site is so much fun to use.
Having seen the ImageKind product, I’m amazed at the quality of the finished product. They have some great management there; I look forward to see where this company goes.
This is an extremely timely discussion. I just recieved my first order from Imagekind, and was really impressed with the quality of the product. I do a lot of framing and was worried that they might screw it up. It was really well packaged, everything looked great, and it seemed reasonably priced.
Just my 2 cents.
My friend gave me an Imagekind print for Christmas…I was amazed when she told me it wasn’t an original painting, but a print she’d bought off the website. I could see all the original brushstrokes, even to the minutest detail! I’m definitely thinking about buying some more prints for myself. The only problem is deciding what prints to choose from!
When I worked at Hewlett Packard in Commercial Print Division, there was a very successful internal startup product nearly the same as this (ordering gui, framing, print offers, etc.) That was done in partnership with Webshots. Internal profitability was great, growth was great, consumer satisfaction was great. Only issue was this was a consumer play inside commercial print, and the price points, and focus were not in-line with the division’s focus. HP, being in the business of selling ink and paper for DesignJets would of course have been interested in having Amazon pick this up (think we were doing something with them with Laserjets and books at the time). It never got off the ground with Amazon for some reason. I just really can’t understand Amazon’s lack of interest. The business would have penciled out as a significant amount of net income. This was roughtly 2001. NOW, nearly six years later they have to ACQUIRE a company when HP would have GIVEN them everything: code, contacts, customer base. Made some calls myself. Stone wall. After leaving HP, I still interacted with Amazon folks. Kept telling them about this buisiness model. How great it would be for them. Just pick up the phone, call my HP contacts. Nada. Jeez. Well, Bezos has his own rocket.
As a professional photographer I’ve been really pleased to see this company emerge. I’ve had private galleries with Imagekind for a while now that I use to proof images with various clients. So far the experience has been very good and quite helpful for my business despite the fact that I don’t even sell publicly on the site. The fact that I get private URL’s to point my clients to, gives me a ton of flexibility and their response time to inquiries is really exemplary — I’ve had emails answered literally within minutes!
As with any “online” printing service, I am always skeptical of print quality and Imagekind was no different. They have however, won me over for most of my printing needs as they really do seem to understand and adhere to color management principles. I’m not suggesting they should completely replace your local printer, but their prices and service do make it worth checking out.
I’ve been impressed with ImageKind since the beginning – it’s a cool site, with high quality product.
Congrats to them.
The concept is wonderful and the quality of product much, much better than many others. To me is the perfect solution for my printing works. I don’t want to be a slave of the printing process I rather want to paint, but more and more customers are requesting limited editions and open editions of my works and their service is the perfect solution for me as an artist at this time. I joined a few weeks ago and I’m uploading my images as well, just very easy and user friendly.
If they partner or not that’s really not a problem, the company started doing things right from the beginning in a very easy and affordable way for many, and that speaks for itself. Whatever comes along the road sure will be great.
Congratulations to the entire team.
If Amazon were to partner with ImageKind, the results could be staggering.
The key difference between Art.com and ImageKind is the amount of ready-to-buy shoppers that they reach – Art.com has the market right now, plain and simple.
But if Amazon would agree to put art directly from ImageKind into its system, the game would change considerably. ImageKind could set up the ISBN numbers and all the other things that Amazon needs; which individual artists usually can’t handle.
I’ve wondered in the past why Amazon hadn’t entered the art business already – maybe this is what they were waiting for.
I have been an Imagekind member since the Beta. The printing and framing are fantastic. All orders have been received exactly as expected. I think they have put together a great site and hope they get the investment they are seeking. I’m sure there are even better ideas to come.
Keep up the great work!
I just hope that whatever happens ImageKind does not “cheapen” the site by offering images on mugs, caps, tees etc, and sticks to art prints by serious artists.
Interesting site but a long way to go on the professional side.
1 – Uploading more than 1 image at a time – read their other options – FTP and then send them an email?!?
2 – Branding – I don’t want to customers to feel like they’ve left my site. If I pay for the platinum account, I should be able brand my galleries and/or be able to use unbranded site source code when setting up my site
3 – Customization – I didnt see a way to set different markups for different products or limit which products you offer.
I havent seen the work when it’s sent out but from an online presence perspective, their platinum account needs more options for customization.
I currently use printroom’s professional gallery services. No framing here but it is more robust on the customization side.
Imagekind,
thanks for your services, and for all the hard work that you guys put into this site to make it what it is, a Great Site.
Thanks
Yes as long as IK does not turn into POD for merchandise, it would be great.
I am an affiliate of both Amazon and IK so it’s a win, win situation for me.
I had been searching high and low looking for a POD site for art, when I stumbled upon IK.
I think they are great all the way around, the quality and service is all there.
I look forward to growing my business with them. For thus far I have yet to find a POD artist site that gives you what IK does, such as pricing your own art and making a comission on framing!
Finally an Artist POD site that’s really helping the artist make money!
Thanks IK
The prints I have received from Imagekind have been high quality. They still have areas to improve on but they are highly responsive and continually improving their site. I also like that they are based in Seattle, WA. A USA company. No offense to India but I appreciate being able to communicate and have the person I’m talking to understand me. I also use Shutterfly which has great quality but I go around and around with their customer service and they never seem to understand. Go imagekind, I can’t wait to see how you transform and become an even better company.
Pretty neat concept. Amazon has really been redeveloping its image.
Interesting news. I actually used Imagekind to print and custom frame a personal photo as a gift and the quality was excellent! I think they’re onto something. I thought it was easier to predict how the final framed product would look due to their virtual matting and framing before you order. (I could never quite visualize things based off those teeny 4 inch framing samples in the store). And their prices were cheaper than my neighborhood framing shop. I was very, very impressed and would not be surprised if Amazon decided to get into this market.
I am a ‘master’ photographer who has use Art.com. Imagekind, and CafePress to produce my artwork. If I had read carefully the agreement when my art photos were going on ART.com that said they would be required to be listed there for a year, I would not have let them get listed. I want them off there ASAP. They will very soon no longer be there. They only have my lower cost art photos. Their fixed pricing and 10% commission makes them irrelevant! My limited editions and figure studies are not there,
I set up at ImageKind several months ago when I first heard about it, and I find their print quality is pretty good and they seem to know what they are doing and I’ve seen evidence that they work pretty hard to make sure I’m satisfied. Though the point about 2D is a good one– what I’d like to see is a similar service that could make 3D models using a 3D printer of some kind. However, I’d suggest they wait to implement that enhancement until they’re sure they’re going strong enough, as it’s probably expensive to get that off the ground…
I sell my work on Imagekind, and I love them. Their customer service is wonderful, they listen to their artists, their website is easy to navigate and and very user friendly.
I like being able to see what the work will look like framed, and I like being able to manage my own galleries. We can set our own prices, add or delete pieces and arrange the order. I can create photographic art and have it available for sale 5 minutes later.
When I’ve emailed them with questions, I’ve always gotten fast, friendly and courteous responses. sometimes pretty late at night.
And they continue to improve the site and ask for suggestions and feedback on what would make it better.
I’m betting on Imagekind.com for the future.
I have been an ImageKind member for a while now, and the site is amazing. The customization options are quite good and the community as a whole really seems to be warm and open to new artists like myself.
If they can partner with Amazon and leverage the powerhouse’s marketing and financial backing this would be a great boon to the artists on ImageKind and those thinking about joining.
As long as it’s done correctly, this could be a great venture.
Largest Art Event Ever…
A new Michelangelo has been born?
A new Rembrandt?
A new Van Gogh?
A new Picasso?
No.
Larger.
The internet revolutionized computer business. By accident.
Art has not been revolutionized by the internet.
Yet.
For the last month I have eagerly tested ImageKind.com.
In the Beta test and after the launch some months ago.
I knew ImageKind.com was right for me.
You create your piece, you load it up, you set price, that’s it.
I have created 500 new peaces in 25 Galleries.
People around me are sure I’m in sane.
I was pleased about ImageKind’s ambitions: To build the largest and best platform for buying, creating, and selling art.
Easy to say.
But.
Very, very hard to accomplice.
This morning, however, I knew the Art world would be revolutionized.
The revolution is around the corner.
Talks are going on between ImageKind and Amazon.com.
Amazon.com has what ImageKind doesn’t have.
And what ImageKind probably never will have.
A brand.
The place you go when you want to buy online.
And a dream comes through.
I create my pieces, I load it up, I set the price and a customer looks at it a few moments after.
No Mr. 25 %, no Mr. 10 %, no Mr. 50 %.
No galleries, no curators, no museums.
No intervention.
Just me, the artist and the customer.
Do none of you shop at Amazon.com? You can already purchase posters and prints from Art.com ON Amazon.com. It’s not a direct partnership, but Art.com does sell things through there. In fact, I did a search for some of your names on Amazon.com and found your artwork available, all courtesy of Art.com.
Who is ImageKind, really? Most people haven’t even heard of that site. But ask them if they’ve heard of AllPosters.com or Art.com, and most everyone has heard of at least one of those sites. What this release sounds like is that ImageKind isn’t doing well enough and that they’re going to go under if they don’t get some serious financial backing from a powerhouse like Amazon.com. At least Art.com can stand on its own in that respect.
Who is Imagekind? A small company that just started last year and has amazing customer service, quality printing and framing, and has really taken off in the last couple of months. I’m not sure if art.com is paying people like Patricia here to write posts like this, because if you actually read the buzz around Imagekind, it looks to me like other companies like Amazon are becoming interested in the company, NOT the other way around.
Bottom line, Imagekind delivers more for the artist than art.com does. Why is art.com the biggest art site online? Because not many companies have begun to play in this space yet (print on demand art). Imagekind is kind of like Apple in this space right now – you’ve got a bunch of stodgy companies who have been complacently sitting around for a while now (kind of like Microsoft) – and Imagekind is shaking things up.
They offer 15% commission for artists, on frames, mats, AND glazing.
Art.com offers 10% off frames only.
I can actually upload images to my galleries at Imagekind. Art.com’s new OAP community thing, which I tried, doesn’t even work on my mac/firefox.
Imagekind is designed better. I have checked back often and see they are constantly improving their user interface, ease of use, and strengthening their brand.
If a company like Amazon is interested in investing / aqcuiring a small company like Imagekind, when they already have a slight partnership with Art.com, that speaks volumes about what they think of Imagekind.
Wow. I didn’t realize that Art.com is now rebranding itself as “Patricia.” (Who else would take the time to search for the names of a bunch of people posting on techcrunch to see if they are artists who also offer their work on Art.com)? And who else would know if they legally have a direct partnership with Amazon or not? I guess it is to be expected, but that type of posting just always leaves a bad taste in my mouth about a company. Art.com, don’t make yourself sound so threatened. I now have to wonder why your members would stray over to Imagekind if they were happy with Art.com.