To be honest, when I first went to PicDesk and looked at the front page I thought I’d been duped by purveyors of soft-porn.

I went back into the original email I received from the PicDesk crew, however, and realised that it’s not a porn site, rather, it’s a niche image site attempting  to compete with a global giant by providing a tailored, focussed set of images

Co-Founder Simon Moss explains what the site is about:

Picdesk Image Library is the Sydney-based ‘ Getty Images for women’. We license and syndicate high quality images of women that are sold to professional buyers around the world.

Our goal is to build the ultimate rights managed collection of images of women, with a ruthless focus on quality. Our customers include editorial, advertising and media publications such as FHM, Men’s Health, Cosmopolitan, Playboy, GQ, Harpers right through to customers looking for images for gyms, posters, products and other things

The site was started by Meg Moss, who used to be the talent scout for Ralph magazine, and her husband (Simon) who looks after marketing and IT and is currently investing in building and launching an existing new revamped version of the existing site

Although the site has actually been around for 3 years, the team are currently looking at ways to leverage new technology, media, social and professional networks to broaden their  reach into their customer base - designers, art and media buyers, advertising and creative directors.

Once such tool which has proven a big hit in the last couple of weeks is broadcasting their customers’ requests on Twitter (I’m guessing they keep the customer anonymous). When a new request for an image comes in, they push it out over twitter immediately and source new material that they may not have in their portfolio.

The site is a good example of an experienced team finding seeing an opportunity in a big market and competing by focusing on one area of that market and leveraging technology.

Make sure you check it out…