Bounty hunters armed with cameras

Spy Media, a Silicon Valley-based news photo marketplace, lets both amateur and professional photographers sell their photos at a price they set. They’ve just added a new twist: buyers can request a photo of an event, place, person, product or whatever, and place a bounty on the image. Buyer sets the price, and the first photographer with the right image gets paid. Current bounties include “Would like a picture of my first home once owned in SJ, CA” (USD 20), and “Red Bull Contest – The Photo with the Prettiest Girl and a Red Bull” (USD 100). This takes the citizen journalism model (which we’ve written about before: ScooptWords, Reporter.co.za, and OhmyNews) and turns it into an online photo classified system. Anyone, anywhere can tap into the global brain, and can send photographers on ‘image errands’. Besides news-related bounties, one can imagine FMCG companies requesting real-world shots of in-store marketing efforts, or potential homebuyers looking for realistic photos of a property’s surroundings. Not to mention all the other errands you can get minipreneurs to do… Time to start up a global errands intermediary, with easy access to members from Bangkok to Boston?