All kinds of startup media companies are on the rise. They’re looking for newsworthy photos taken by smartphone users on the cheap. One such company is CrowdMedia. Last year, they came up with a social media monitoring tool they call Ejenio. Using geolocations and keywords they’re able to sift through hundreds of thousands of images posted to social media sites daily and find the ones they deem relevant. Then they can automatically send the user a message asking if they’re interested in selling it. They offer $20 per picture for new pictures and then $5 after 48 hours.

They’ve received criticism for such low compensation. Professional photojournalists feel their businesses are threatened. What do you think? Would you sell your smartphone photos for $20?

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