If you’re a blogger, web developer, media person or anyone in Africa who has to work with images, especially online, you’d know how hard it is to come by culturally and ethnically relevant stock images. While popular Stock Image platforms like Shuttershock are undoubtedly awesome, they leave a lot to be desired. And sometimes, simple Google image searches just don’t cut it as you may never find exactly what you’re looking for. Foto wants to fill that void.
Jason Njoku announced Foto.com.ng today on his blog. Apparently they’ve been at it for about a year now, and he says SPARK has so far invested about $70,000 into Foto, with a further $80,000 to be spent in the course of 6 months, post beta launch.
Boasting a current database of 10,000 stock images (to expand hopefully to 100,000 by the end of 2014), categories include food, outdoor, couples, business etc. You can search for photos by category and orientation type. So far, searching is not very intelligent, something that Jason admits to. But he says they’re working on it. Cost of images range from N2500 to N7,500, depending on the desired resolution.
