Years of video: Adobe Stock reaches 20 million videos
Adobe Stock surpassed 20 million videos. Even if each video were five seconds long, it would still take someone 190 years to watch everything.
Credit: Adobe Stock / Stu Ballinger.
Adobe Stock just passed having 20 million videos in its collection. To put this amount of footage in perspective, even if each video were five seconds long, it would still take someone 190 years to watch everything. The sheer magnitude of this might seem overwhelming, but it is a testament not only to the growing importance of video in the digital economy, but the democratization of video creation as well.
YouTube, founded in 2005, seems to have been the beginning of what is now an era where video is our main visual currency on the internet. It was an immediate success with 8 million daily views in a matter of months. The first iPhone then came out in 2007, the same year Netflix offered their first streaming options. By the new decade, apps like Vine, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook became progressively more video-centric and we were interacting with screens and videos on an hourly basis. Now, upwards of $40 billion is spent on video advertising on social media alone.
Adobe Stock started featuring videos in 2015 and it rapidly grew into one of the core components of the Adobe landscape. While the stock video library expanded, so did the ease of use for video editing programs like Premiere Pro.
“Users now can search, preview, download and purchase directly within the application, which helps them keep their creative flow,” says Dennis Radeke, content development manager at Adobe Stock. As brands and creators found more ways to communicate to their audiences, their need for videos has dramatically expanded.
Need a video of a chinchilla with a grocery cart in front of a greenscreen? Dozens of cauldrons of goulash cooking over an open flame? A super slow motion video of a boy shooting a potato gun? Adobe Stock has you covered.
“Twenty million clips gives Adobe Stock customers unprecedented depth and breadth,” says Radeke. “You can have confidence that you’re going to find a clip that matches your ideas in our collection.”
Credit: Adobe Stock / Banana Republic.
20 million clips also speaks volumes about the democratization of moving images on the internet.
“20 to 25 years years ago, video production was limited to professionals and the media,” says Tom Spota, head of motion at Adobe Stock, “but now, anyone with a smart phone can create a beautiful video piece.” Spota also notes how the internet, streaming services, and social media have opened up millions of ways for videos to be distributed and seen.
“Video is becoming the world’s main communication medium,” says Radeke, with “creatives from all backgrounds contributing to Adobe Stock’s success.” Cameras are getting smaller and more affordable (not to mention skybound) while innovations like the HEVC codec mean that even 4K, 6K or even 8K content will not break your hard drives.
This interplay between an active community of artists and creators contributing video and a growing marketplace for clients who need it, is what makes Adobe Stock such a unique visual economy. It is possible to create a documentary, advertisement, or video diary that not only makes use of gorgeous 4k video, but that also seamlessly integrates stock motion graphics, curated typefaces and fonts, and visual effects.
Credit: Adobe Stock / Gorodenkoff.
Endless frontiers with videos from the Maxon collection and DevinSuperTramp
Coinciding with the 20 million milestone, Adobe Stock is also excited to announce a new curated video collection with Maxon. These videos, ranging from the conceptual and abstract to “I can’t believe it’s not real,” demonstrate the striking creative range available now in the marketplace.
“These videos highlight what is possible with 3D applications,” says Radeke. “The unbridled creativity is truly mind-bending in this collection.”
Artists like Mitch Myers use 3D graphics to recreate cosmic landscapes that feel just about as authentic as NASA satellite imagery and are as epic as scenes from films like Interstellar. Vladislav Solovjov contributes some of the more hallucinogenic-seeming animations, which seem to explore spaces that bend the laws of geometry, physics, and motion. Studios like Maxime create liquid graphics that are stunningly real and yet somehow dreamlike and hypnotic.
Credit: Adobe Stock / RocknRoller Studios.
In addition to featuring Maxon’s artful world of 3D graphics, Adobe Stock is also continuing to partner with cinematographers like DevinSuperTramp and Gorodenkoff. Especially in a travel-starved world reeling from a global pandemic, artists like DevinSuperTramp offer intimate windows to some of the world’s most beautiful places.
With our lives and work increasingly mediated by a video-centric world online, it’s clear that 20 million is just one milestone among many for Adobe.
“Video as a medium is always innovating,” notes Radeke, “whether it is increased frame sizes, improved color depth, advancing codecs and streaming delivery.”
Much of that growth will be driven by creators working with video images and motion graphics and the clients who increasingly find ways to seamlessly animate our daily lives.