Lucky Oliver circles the drain

Lucky Oliver, the Silicon Valley-based Microstock photo company, has announced that it’s throwing in the towel, apparently by May 15th, 2008.

On a personal note, I’m saddened by this news, as Lucky Oliver was the a company that spent a lot of time and energy on what I found to be a really effective and compelling layout and user experience. In fact, I found myself actually admiring the way that they did what must be mundane UI work, always with wit and style.

Not only that, but I was fortunate (okay, “lucky”) to have met Bryan, the CEO, and found him to be smart, witty, and engaging. One can’t live in Silicon Valley, though, for very long without seeing and feeling the wreckage and failures. Google gets a ton of press; The Lucky Olivers just sort of fade away. 

Our best to the Oliver team. We wish them–here it comes–Luck.

For discussion: how does this affect the MicroStock space in general? Is this an indication of some degree of saturation? Is this town not big enough for (pick your favorites)? Discuss.

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Selling your Photos: Adventures In Microstock

Pop Quiz: Okay, so what do all websites, brochures and ads have in common? Answer: they all have images, often photo images. And where do all these photo images come from? Answer: Some dude named “Rudy”. Just kidding. His real name is “Earl”.

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