Image-licensing network GumGum is growing by leaps and bounds. Measured as an advertising network, it is now a Quantcast Top 100 site, reaching 13.7 million people in the U.S. and 23.5 million worldwide. More than 1,000 Web publishers are licensing images through GumGum, which allows them to pay based on how many people see the image or use them for free with embedded advertising.
Today, GumGum is adding blog network B5Media and gossip site DailyFill to its customer list. They join Glam Media, MTV, and Gawker. Sites that rely on celebrity pics particularly like GumGum’s model.
Sites contract directly with photo agencies, and GumGum keeps track of who is using what images and how many times they are viewed. That is what those Quantcast numbers are counting, thus GumGum acts like an ad network for images. Typical CPMs (cost per thousand views) are $0.15 – $1.00 per image for sites that opt to pay instead of accepting ads in their images. This kind of licensing model makes much more sense on the Web, where small sites want the same quality images as large sites but don’t have the resources to pay the same rates.
It is now night time in India, and I am absolutely amazed to see that today has gone by without a single article on techcrunch about Twitter, Facebook or porn.
I am just stunned.
So you are in India? Go pray to the cows and quit reading techcrunch
Thank you for your thoughtful comments. You don’t happen to be the same person who called me a f*****ing Desi on Techcrunch by any chance?
You write truly beautifully, and your posts are always very classy and insightful.
And I am sure many other Techcrunch readers also find your racist hatred very enduring.
Anjali Sen
Delhi, India
P.S. The second largest global audience for Techcrunch is India, just for your information.
These comments are just a sign of Immaturity so just chillax ..Techcrunch readers are “Mostly” matured psychologically..[There could be exceptions.]
If you really have to act like a racist pri*k, try and be atleast witty next time.
jpquezada dude,
Check this out:
http://img142.i...e=vaderfail.jpg
Hey jpquezada,
Go back to your farm. There is nothing here for you on Techcrunch.
Fail.
Wow, what amazing technology! Nice job adding pictures from last nights Academy Awards. Hey SBAS, it must have been a great night to be in India with Slumdog Millionaire winning so big.
GumGum is providing an awesome service for smaller publishers trying to compete with the big boys and it’s good to see TC giving it some love again. The model has a great chance of being the future of all content. Videos, photos etc available for free to publishers with embedded ads that pay back the publishers too. Great stuff.
We’re huge fans not just of the GumGum business model, but of how dead simple it is to use. We upload whatever images we want/have licenses for… GumGum serves ads on the ones they cover, we either make money back or get the images for free or both.
Plus, the team is fantastic.
Agreed. KIS is key in this increasingly crowded web world. Celebrities provide a great draw for any site (see http://gf.tearn.com/), but I’m not sure about the business model.
Amazing growth in a short period of time. Nice to see a startup doing well in tough times. Good work GumGum!!
Yes agreed, great business model, as long as its scalable and sustainable , should work out.
Praveen
http://spraveen...ro.blogspot.com
It seems like they are striking the right balance between user value and internal profitability.
I believe that the free with advertising embedded/or pay as you go model for APIs will be the right way to go for content owners trying to monetise their assets.
Given how easy it is to post illicit images from other websites on the Internet, I think a pay only model is just unrealistic from a practical perspective.
By giving people a legal , fully licensed choice at “no” cost, but in return for advertising, GumGum can grow dramatically and still generate incremental revenue each time it grows.
Anjali Sen
tech crunch is full of shit
http://blog.las...re-full-of-shit
cool down on the attacks on your host.
I am truly stunned by the stupidity and thoughtlessness of people such as user “jpquezad” (above)
“So you are in India? Go pray to the cows and quit reading techcrunch”
It is comments like the above which, at times, make me embarrassed to label myself as an “American”. This type of insular, idiotic small-mindedness is only representative of a very small minority of Americans who are unfortunately highly opinionated and enjoy broadcasting this type of hateful message at any opportunity.
Anjali, don’t let this form a concrete opinion of “Americans” as most of the people I know have friends from many nations across the globe (regardless of skin color, religion, political viewpoint etc.)
I think the typical reader of TechCrunch, no matter where we are located, realize we contribute to a global economy whether we program software, manage the IT/Operations of software, sell software, blog about software etc. (yes, I realize there are many other areas covered on TechCrunch besides software but for the sake of the example this is my personal background)
BTW, yes I was born in the US (going many generations back if that matters) and my only agenda here is to provide a voice of opposition to the needless hatred spewed by someone like “jpquezada”
Peace.
You know, the person that wrote that doesn’t necessarily have to be American.
good point!
You might even say that the assumption that they were American is an example of “insular, idiotic small-mindedness.”
Poor “jpquezada” just lost his job and Indians probably still have their job in the same company ..
You should pity on the poor guy …
KIS is critical. Celebrity photos bring credibility and draw, but I’m not sure about the business model. Lots of content on the web – like http://gf.tearn.com/
I wonder if GumGum can sustain the business model.
There better be a full retraction to your defamation of Last.fm in your next post. Or you have lost a shit load of readers.
http://www.tech...comment-2632012
Update 4 (2/23/09): Last.fm co-founder Richard Jones expands on his denial in comments with an official post on the Last.fm blog.
It’s not just them you dumbass. It’s several news sources that say you’ve done wrong.
http://blog.las...re-full-of-shit
http://arstechn...d-over-data.ars
http://blogs.te...ch_are_full_of_
And dozens more.
MAN FUCKING UP. YOU WERE FUCKING WRONG.
great news for GumGum, this is phenomenal success and they have truly revolutionized photo licensing…keep up the good work
Congrats, we use and love gumgum here at Tsavo.
They should roll a widget that puts nice images over retarded comments ^^^^
::cough::
Oh yea.. all i need is some more dumb!
Unfortunatly, GumGum management thinks that stealing ideas and walking on everyone they meet is the key to success. They have already alienated many people and will continue to do so until no doors will open for them anymore..too bad.