Lobster: Uber for Stock Photography

Do you want to the find the perfect image or video for your brand or media campaign which is not a stock image? Have you found the process very time consuming? Well, this start-up helps you find the perfect licensed content for your brand.

Founded in 2013, the London-based startup, Lobster is a platform which enables brands, agencies and the media to license visual content directly from social media users. They have over 30 billion UGC (User-Generated Content) photos and videos with the ability to obtain instant licenses to 7 million UGC with billions more available upon request. Companies can either pay a subscription fee or pay for a picture/video that they want the license for.

Lobster's uses it's Artificial Intelligence, algorithms, image recognition and metadata to find high quality relevant content created by regular people around the world. The AI browses through 9 social media platforms (they include Instagram, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo, VK, Foursqure, Google Photos, Dropbox and Verizon). Once browsed, Lobster uses 11 different ranking factors to bring you the highest calibre of search results. This instantly helps you find the right content for what you require. In addition, for the license of any content that is purchased, the contributor of that content is given 75% of the fee.

Popular customers for this service include leading ad agencies, bloggers and the press. Companies include The Huffington Post, BBH, Google and Virgin Media Business. Furthermore, Ryan Lawler from TechCrunch quoted that "for marketers, digital agencies, and web publishers, finding media they can use as part of their digital campaigns or on their websites can be a pain". Using Lobster could help start the trend of bringing change in the visual content space.