Introduction
There has been a steady rise in 360ﹾ content on micro-stock sites like iStock and Shutterstock, because of the growth of action cameras that can capture 360ﹾ images and videos. Just because stock sites have 360ﹾ images doesn’t mean their platforms are user-friendly for finding and using them. The issue is that 360-degree photographs have the same file format as regular images, so any site that offers images can also offer 360ﹾ images. Most of traditional stock photographs sites do not offer any features for 360ﹾ content. In fact, only one of the top 10 micro-stock sites offers any features specific for 360ﹾ photographs. This article reveals which one and includes the other top sites tailored for 360ﹾ content.
What You Need to Know
Before we look at some specific companies, it’s important to understand a couple of features that make a site good for 360ﹾ content. Most of the large micro stock site offer 360-degree images but most have not added features to their sites that are tailored for 360ﹾ images. This makes them difficult to use if you are specifically after 360ﹾ assets for a project. Our list of recommendations excludes any of the sites that have no features specific to 360ﹾ content.
Interact With 360ﹾ Images
Only a handful of micro stock sites have the tools to visualise 360ﹾ images correctly and one of the most popular sites includes this feature. Most show them as a flat, rectangular image with no way to rotate the view. This distorts the image, making it very difficult to understand what the image actuality looks like. What you want is a way to interact with the image like the one below.
Filter Results by 360 Content
Pretty much every site allows you to search with keywords to find images. This means you could use the text field to search for ‘360’ images, but this will often return results that aren’t true 360ﹾ photographs. Some images might look like a 360ﹾ image, but as soon as you try to use them in a 360ﹾ viewer, they don’t look right. Having a filter to do a search and then a check box (or something similar) to filter results to only 360ﹾ content makes it easier to get to the content you are after. None of the most popular micro-stock sites offer this feature.
1. Getty Images
Getty is the only company from big micro-stock sites included in this list. All the companies mentioned in this article are from much smaller companies. This highlights how 360ﹾ content is still very much a niche area. Getty has an extensive library of 360-degree content and clearly marks which are 360 images in your search results. They also have a nice 360ﹾ viewer.
2. 360Cities
This site is tailored for 360ﹾ content. The major weakness is that you need to contact the company to licence any of their content. This means that you can search through their library of images but cannot download them straight away. We plan to get some quotes to understand how their pricing works, but this will happen later in the year.
