Pretty as a Picture

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If you don't know much about Jupitermedia (Nasdaq: JUPM), you're missing out on what is shaping up to be a great growth stock. Last night, the company posted another healthy quarter, with earnings rising from $0.11 a share to $0.19 a share on an 89% spike in revenue.

Granted, a lot of the company's gains have come from its acquisition sprees in digital photography. It has been nipping at the heels of rival Getty Images (NYSE: GYI) in the lucrative niche of selling commercial snapshots, thanks in large part to the seven different outfits that Jupitermedia has agreed to purchase over the past two years. Then again, even without the amped-up merger activity, organic growth in the company's bread-and-butter online images business is still up a hearty 41% this year.

Yes, this is the same company behind JupiterResearch. You may recognize that name from online studies about everything from online travel bookings to ringtone shopping trends. Jupiter is an expert on what consumers want, and that's all the more reason to buy into the company's commitment to consolidating the promising yet highly fragmented sector of online images.

Research prowess is great, but $31.9 million of the company's $33.8 million in June quarter revenue came from its digital photography stronghold. The wider availability of broadband has increased demand for commercial photography online; websites are more than eager to purchase original eye candy that will help them stand out in cyberspace.

Jupitermedia earned $0.48 a share last year. It's on track to earn $0.79 in 2005, and analysts have the company's profit potential pegged at $0.97 a stub for next year. Those numbers have room to grow if the digestion process proves seamless. While acquisitions helped fuel a lot of the June quarter's 89% top-line surge, the number of Jupitermedia's outstanding shares inched higher by a more modest 19%.

That's the beauty of the consolidation process, as smaller players get scooped up at attractive prices. Other dot-com heavies like CNET (Nasdaq: CNET), Motley Fool Stock Advisor pick eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY), and Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) have been doing exactly that for years.

Now it's Jupitermedia's turn to smile for the camera.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz thinks that behind every great company lies a really ugly yearbook photo. He does not own shares in any of the companies mentioned in this story. He is also part of the Rule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early. The Fool has a disclosure policy .