July 2009

Google recently announced the launch of some new features in their Google images search tool. Google previously provided a creative commons search but not integrated into Google images. The new filter allows users of Google images to search for images licensed for free use under creative commons licenses. Google is not the first to offer a creative commons image search everystockphoto has been doing it for a while (although they only seem to show me results from flickr and sxc).

Is this going to "spell the end of image libraries like iStockPhoto"? I doubt that very much - not everyone wants a creative commons attribution plastered on their website or printed design. From my tests the results are nothing like as correctly matched as those on a stock photo website.