Shutterstock apparently just launched a new search option calles “Undiscovered” in their images searches.
As it appears, the search results are only showing images with 0 downloads, be them newer or older files.
Shutterstock‘s new “Undiscovered” search option
This might address clients who are looking for images that haven’t been all over the place yet. And it might give images a new change to be found.
However, it has to be said that while the image might not have sold yet, similar images from the same series might be out there already. And of course the image could have been licensed through a different agency by another client. So there is no guarantee about being a “first time user” but at least chances are it’s not an image that has been seen in many other places before.
Overall a nice idea in my opinion.