December 12, 2008 by pmelcher.

It’s all in the way you search. Stock photo agencies, now having reached a point where they are all pretty much offering the same content for the same prices, are desperately trying to make themselves relevant with different search engines. After all, Google’s success is made on search and not content, so why not stock photo agencies ?

Lately, Canadian based Masterfile, recipient of the A21/Superstock legacy and its assets, has just revealed a new “paradigm shift” ( don’t you just hate that overused expression?) , called “endless media”. Surely, exactly what an image buyer wants to see after doing a search is endless results. I think not. When playing around with it, it really looks like a vague combination of Brightqube’s 2 year old mosaic display idea sprinkled with a little bit of Cooliris. No shift here, just a lot of balloon air.

Steve Pidgeon explains to Selling Stock newsletter :

“The name of this toy is Endless Media, and with good reason: the primary search results are displayed as three horizontally scrollable rows of square thumbnails, presenting a seemingly endless amount of options. The style of review is up to the user. The search engine can auto-play results by scrolling and pausing at adjustable time intervals. It also allows a buyer to move back and forth with the help of buttons familiar from early cassette-player days, drag a slider to any point between the first and last screens—or even specify a “go to” position as a percentage of total. Sizes of image thumbnails can also be adjusted based on user preference.

Hovering over any thumbnail produces a small uncropped preview, and clicking on an image is where the real fun begins: Without losing the three rows of primary results, a buyer also sees a large image preview—unwatermarked for registered customers—and a series of similars.

“You did not ask for similar images, but we gave them to you without penalizing you by losing your primary search,” explains McDonald, who stresses the importance of this never-lose-your-place functionality and the ability to work both literally and laterally at the same time.”

mmm. sounds easy and simple: early cassette player, multiple options, scroll right and left, adjustable sizes, lots of similars ..and so on. But what about the core essential result expected from doing a search ? Like, finding the right image quickly and easily? Doesn’t seem like they worked on that.

While we are on the topic of search, two new image search portals have been launched recently. One in the UK, called Imprezzeo, looks for similar based on content. Nothing new here, as other companies, like Idee, have been offering this for many years. But Idee has never offered it as a global portal but rather as a plug in to existing image database.With there latest Tineye offering, they offer even more as you can now locate the exact same image, rather than similar. Not useful for a internal database but very useful for a public search. Imprezzeo seems to tap the same market, that is photo agencies, according to their “about us” page. Funny that they would consider it a segment of the industry to invest in, considering how its about to tank.

Another one, which is a complete surprise, is Hitachi. Yes, the same Hitachi that you might have in your living room. You know that when the Japanese industry gets involved in something, they do it right. Called Gazopa, it is also a similar image search engine ( or a SISE, as we say in the connected world) with a few pluses. It has a browser plug in that allows you to search outside of their site. You can upload or draw the images you are looking for. and finally, it has a ” stream of consciousnesses” features that continue to search for similars of your similars as long as you want it to. Called “Flow”, it is more a gadget than very useful, but still interesting. Still in Beta, this service seems fully geared to the public and not to the photo industry.

Similar searches are still the exception rather than the rule in photo agencies search. No data has been made public on whether it is being used by image buyers  at all. But with all these publicly accessible image search engine using it, it will soon become another tool people will expect. It has the huge benefit on not relying on keywords anymore (those nasty little keywords) and is a more “natural” way to search for images. As usual, the photo industry is lagging way behind. Furthermore, none of these public search engine seem to index existing image database, making the professional offering invisible to casual buyers. The photo  agency industry stubbornness to keep their assets behind closely protected close doors is all to the advantage of Microstock platform who thrive on them. While each traditional agency is busy trying to enhance their local, in house, propritery search engine, they forget that less and less image buyers will come to their website but rather look for global search engines. And thus, they will loose on many sales to come.

Posted in Canada, technology, Piclens, commercial stock, idee, Search, filter, web 2.0, google, keyword, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

October 31, 2008 by pmelcher.

It’s been a long week, or rather couple of weeks, for the photo industry. Between the various shows in New York city, Paca, picturehouse, Photoplus, panels and parties, anyone that has remotely anything to do with photography was in New York for one or all of these.

But its been an even longer week with was has been happening in the photo world. First, the official announce of the Meckler/Jupiter debacle and fire sale confirming that it just doesn’t take a lot of cash to be succesful in this industry. Getty will absorb the collections and agreements in place, get rid of most of the staff , clean up the finance and move on. It was an easy and fruitful catch for them. Someone can inform Corbis of the deal, in two weeks, when they wake up.

Talking about Corbis, well, they couldn’t find any better deal then take money from their photographers. After having failed to generate a profit for so long and a stage that even if they remotely became cash flow positive, it would take another 20 years to catch up on all the money they have already spend, it wouldn’t surprise anyone if Bill Gates would finally pull the plug.

But all that is nothing compared to Getty getting slap with a 100 million dollar lawsuit by part of its photographers and contributors according to Selling Stock. Surprisingly, no one picked up that story. Pdnpulse has been too busy reporting on all the layoffs in publishing world, while others where commenting on the Photoplus panels and other useless events.

It been a while that Getty has been supplying staff and non staff images to a mysterious group of “premium subscribers”. These highly guarded few have “all you can eat” subscription deals with the Whale including access to photographers who only get a commission. And these guys have seen on their sales reports sales at $2 dollars. Even lower than Istock. But unlike Istock, these photographers are top notch pros that create image that command mucho dollars. Getty doesn’t care or cannot make the distinction. At the repeat demand of these photographers to be explained a bit more abut these deals that do not benefit them, Getty has remained silent. Contributors, like the science faction library, owned by ex getty VP Roger Ressmeyer, have even ask nicely to know more about the license granted and what industry these clients where in. More silence from the Whale. Same for the Minden collection, the famous and fabulous wildlife collection.

The reason for their demand for more information was not to  exercise control over Getty but rather to be able to inform their direct client if a particular image was available as an exclusive for a particular industry. Not only these images are sold by Getty for two bucks, but they become almost RF as the owners cannot guarantee any clients where these image are or have been.

Armed with they contract in hand, these guys have deposited a class action lawsuit, asking for reparation. We will see where this goes. Getty has a battery of strong lawyers and they will not go down without a long fight.

{An entry on Drr has been deleted}
A quick though on Picturehouse, and then I let you go. It always amazes me how much dollars is being poured in marketing  blunders. One company had the genius idea to stick into an already expensive bag, two oversized brochures. One was printed on glossy, very expensive paper. Big images, fancy layout, drooling fonts but absolutly no call for action. Basically you look at it once and you have only one thing left to do, throw it out.

The other brochure was printed on recycled paper. Same dimension, but all about how”green” and non polluting that agency is, and how “green” are they images. These two brochure side by side, in the same bag, just canceled each other.Lots of money than the drain. And no, it was not Corbis, for once.

There  were many other examples of “what were they thinking” and that show must become a destination for anyone looking for cheap pens or other useless ding dongs. If you took one of each item given for free and all claiming a space on your physical desktop, you could no longer fit your computer, let along get in your office.

Next year, I will beat everyone by getting giant real size stuffed elephants branded with my company name and give those away.

There is much more to write about these days but I see you are getting tired so we will do that another day.

Posted in magazine, Canada, technology, commercial stock, Jupiter, PACA, Royalty free, getty, corbis, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

July 10, 2008 by pmelcher.

As per a press release of today : “Open Text Corporation (Nasdaq: OTEX; TSX: OTC), a provider of Enterprise Content Management (ECM) software, has acquired eMotion LLC from Corbis Corporation of Seattle, Washington. Open Text purchased the division for approximately US $5 million, net of cash and assets, effective July 2, 2008.eMotion is a provider of hosted business applications for managing digital media assets and marketing content. eMotion is headquartered in Seattle and has an office in Rockville, Maryland.

Corbis acquired eMotion, Inc. of San Francisco, California for an undisclosed amount in July 2005.

Corbis is a visual media provider for the creative community, licensing the widest array of award-winning contemporary, historical and entertainment photography as well as extensive collections of acclaimed illustration and footage.

Waterloo, Ontario based Open Text is a leading provider of Enterprise Content Management (ECM) software solutions. It offers a wide range of ECM products that help its customers ensure compliance with industry regulations and internal policies, controlling information flows, and helping solve other content-intensive business challenges. Open Text currently employs approximately 2,700 people worldwide.”

end of press release.

credit Techfinance.com

In 2005, Scott Wilson, CEO, eMotion said : “Corbis and eMotion’s services are a natural complement,”

Mmm. I guess not. At least not long term.

“Our clients are increasingly seeking ways to manage the still and moving imagery they use in their creative projects,” said Mark Sherman, about the deal, senior vice president of assignment & representation and emerging businesses at Corbis, at the time.

I  believe he got fired since.

One year later Business Week Magazine added ( 2006):
“A year ago, finishing off a year when revenue rose 20%, Corbis’ leaders confidently predicted that they would turn the company profitable. That didn’t happen. Instead, organic revenue growth slowed to 4%, though overall growth topped 34%. The total take was $228 million, thanks to the company’s mergers and acquisitions spree. (Getty Images grew 17.9% to $733.7 million, mostly organically, and pulled in $150 million in profits.)”
Ouch !!

the  same article continues:
“Corbis’ acquisition spree was partly aimed at placing bets in emerging markets. For instance, last July the company bought eMotion, a provider of hosted digital-asset management software. Yet image licensing remains a dominant part of its business. To boost profit potential, Corbis is beefing up its own collections and the custom-photography service, which involves assigning photographers to capture images. “end of Business Week Magazine quote.
You remember that guy from Star Wars Episode I ?  The Rasta guy with the tongue sticking out after being caught in the electric field of  Anakin’s pod racer ( do i sound like a geek right now?) ?

Well, whatever his name is, that is the Corbis management right now: tongue sticking out saying : blabadabaaaadabadaaaaa. Bladaabadaaaaaaaaaa.aaaaaaaaa.

Corbis ex- CEO, Steve Davis said, according to the Corbis press release, at the time: “In 2005 we doubled our global footprint ( How the hell do you double a footprint ? With bigger feet ?)  and rounded out our content and service offering. As a result we are the only company in the industry with the ability to provide comprehensive solutions—great content, the rights to use it, and the ability to manage it.”

And  I should add, big feet …

Shouldn’t someone have smelled E-Motion footprint at the time,because, apparently, it smelled bad. Certainly, not the sweet smell of success.

By the way, how much is a “footprint” going for these days ? 1 dollar a footprint ? what the hell is a footprint in photography ?

Gaaaaaaaaary ? any idea ? where is Gary anyways?

There he is (or was):

British Journal of Photography july 4th 2007, reports ( almost exactly a year ago):

“Days after taking on his role, Corbis’ new CEO has slashed 160 staff in 17 offices worldwide.

Gary Shenk took over from Steve Davis on Monday (02 July 2007), but the decision to cull 15% of the company’s workforce was announced late last week. The job losses are as a result of a three-month strategic review, led by Shenk and his management team, which is driven by the ambition to pull Corbis into profitability for the first time.”

and probably out of the “footprint” business.

the article continues :

“Corbis is also to sell its Digital Asset Management (DAM) division, which currently manages media libraries for large corporations. The service, which was officially launched only last summer (BJP, 16 August 2006), came about after the acquisition of eMotion in 2005. Like the Assignment Division, it has been performing well, says Perlet, and has won 25 new customers in the last 12-18 months.”

I guess ( actually, I know) Corbis hates, just painfully and  physically hates, anything that performs well.

E-Motion:

Bought in 2005,

analyzed in 2006,

destroyed in 2007,

sold in 2008.

Welcome to the club, dude.

Corbis  does it, again

Posted in Canada, technology, commercial stock, multimedia, No sense, corbis, transaction, finance, getty | Print | 1 Comment »

June 10, 2008 by pmelcher.

We are getting there..slowly.  It is not an easy road, but we are getting closer.  In the last year or so, we have seen more and more image search companies come out and expose themselves. Even the even mightiest, and certainly the worst, Google Image is thinking about changing its algorithm.

The holy grail is, of course, the end of the keyword based search ( aaaargh !). The first baby step we are currently seeing only focuses on face recognition. For two main reasons :

- A face is always a face, a triangle between two eyes and a mouth, and rather easy for a computer to recognize.

- Between celebrities and relatives, when you deal with image search, the majority of people are looking for either friends, relatives, themselves or more pix of celebrities . There is a huge market.

So here goes many worldwide software engineers claiming image search nirvana. At least when looking for people. I have tested a few, recently, all in Beta and none quite there yet.

TinEye: In a league of it own right now as it does much more than just face recognition image search. Probably the most advanced of all,  its limitation is its extreme accuracy. Looking for an image and it will find that image, nothing less, nothing more. Every altered version of it. Great for many, many usages, but a bit limited for those just seeking a similar or inspiration.

Very far away are :

- Polar Rose. Swedish based, it has been full of promises for many years but with disappointing result up to now. Also starting in the face recognition, its algorithm just became clear to me when it recently invited me to Beta test its Plug in. I was expecting a TineEye sort of plug in, but instead, they put me to work. What is up with that ? .

The plug in works like this : every time you are on a web page, it scans every image for a face. It then puts a square around the face and asks you to put the name. As you enter the name, it starts suggesting options. It was always right on the money. At first, I was really impressed, as in ” How does it know ?”. And briefly later on, I recognized the trick. It scan any available text around the image, looks for two words next to each other starting with a capital letter and assumes that should be the name of the person in the pic. All I have to do is confirm. Thus, Polar Rose is currently no more than an elaborate and free version of Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Putting the community to work. While there nothing wrong, in principal, with this approach, with all these website these days that ask for my free input, I am close to putting full 24 hours days of work, for free.

Their chances of success, using that approach, is minimal. I, for one, will not become a slave to the machine.

- Picollator : Russian by birth, this new image search also looks for faces. You can even upload a sketch and it will try to match it. I tried with this image :

surprisingly got no result.  So I went for the TinEye favorite, the Mona Lisa:

.

I got this :

Some matching results, some very weird ones.

Face recognition and matching can be a very useful tool for the news and celebrity world as photographers and editors could quickly edit film with proper name spelling by scanning the web for matching results. Especially for those B to D celebrities. It is, at this stage, still very sketchy and not quite ready for the big time.

It is also a good indication of how far we still are from a computer recognizing, properly, everything in an image. Right now, we are only scratching the matching part and even that, has it flaws.

It is also very important to know that all these sites are in Beta, meaning far from claiming 100 % accuracy and should not be dismissed until officially proven ineffective. You can try all of them, for yourself :

Tineye

Polar Rose

Picallotaor

Posted in Canada, technology, idee, celebrity, keyword, web 2.0 | Print | 1 Comment »

May 9, 2008 by pmelcher.

First, I have to admit I have always been a big fan of everything that comes out of the Ideeplex in Toronto. These guys have the best image tracking system I have ever seen, PixId, already used by the top photo agencies in the world to save countless hours in their billing process. They have a visual search that is incomparable and might just be the secret weapon of the Alamy armada. They also have a color search that is the most proficient out there . You can see and play with all of them in their lab section. These guys are doing for photography what Einstein did for physics, making it progress by leaps and bounds. If you are not using one of Idee’s services these days, you  have a big problem.

So when Idee announced the beta version of their image search earlier this week, called TinEye, I could not wait to play with it. Premise is simple: Take an image that you either upload or find on a website and ask Tineye to  seek any place it is published. That would seem simple enough, but Tineye will also find that image, wether its been cropped, resized, re colored, twisted, bended, you name it. Even with major (and we are talking major) alteration, Tineye will find it. Alterations that would make a human eye miss it. Impressive. very impressive.

That image:

brought up this image, among many others:

Because it is still in Beta, the results are not impressive in numbers. They have only indexed half a billion images and are in the process of indexing the rest. Hey, Google was not built in one day either. If you live near Toronto, you probably can see the smoke coming out of the Ideeplex. It’s those server crunching data under the watchful eyes of master genius CTO Paul Bloore. Or could it be from CEO Leila Boujnane head, fuming with impatience because it is not finished yet ?

I played with many different types of images, using the cool Firefox plug in that lets you perform a search without leaving the site you are visiting.Hard to stop and I know I will continue to use it intensively.

So what it is good for ? Well, for one, speaking of Orphan Work, this image search engine that could will find all usage of an image, including, very certainly, the owner of the image.  It is going to much, much harder to claim that an image is orphan with this guy. But it can do much more. Think of all those micro and midstock  photographers who would love to see where their images have been used. Same with those CC happy Flickr members. Pro photographers will be able to keep a watchful eye over their agencies, as well as agencies can keep a watchful eye for unauthorized usage (Picscout, beware ).

There are many other potential for this free image search which suddenly puts google image into the medieval ages. And it will be a pleasure to watch and grow and mature. There is no doubt this will be one of the biggest success of the internet in recent years. Because people are fed up of searching for images with text. It just doesn’t make any sense. This is just the beginning of the end of keywording, the fall of the controlled vocabulary despotism.

Tineye returns exact matches, for the time being, and that is  maybe its most important shortcoming. It will return the same exact image and not similar. But knowing these guys, that will not last long, and the option to return images that look like the image you are using shouldn’t be that far.

If you have a chance, jump on this as soon as you can. They are taking suggestions and I am sure would love to hear your. It is time to make history . ( oh no, I sound like Obama now…)

Either way, these guys have a reputation: If it is not perfect, its not finished. So, do not expect them to open Tineye to the public before every little crumb of image is properly indexed.

Posted in idee, Canada, technology, copyright, license, editorial, web 2.0, Search, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

April 14, 2008 by pmelcher.

 Ever since I wrote the piece “orphan work is good for you”, I have been slammed with emails which all pretty much revolved around the same issue : Orphan work bill is a open door for Copyright Infringement and the legalization of free usage.

First and foremost, I keep on refering my readers to a very concise and readable link created by the Copyright Office . In no way do they propose or would facilitate free usage. It is not their intend. It is also quite admirable that they have, and will continue to hold hearings  to listen to all and everyones concerns.

But the most important, to me, is to see that Canada has had a Orphan Work bill in effect since 2005. Quite effective, it requires the potential user of an Orphan image, after proving its good faith in researching the copyright owner,  to be granted a license by the Copyright office. It has happened  only 19 since  then. Granted, Canada is not as big as the United States, but 19 is almost not worth a second look.

Furthermore, the Canadian law leaves 5 years after the license has been granted for the owner to retrieve his/her license. It is still early to see if this provision has ever been used by anyone.

The copyright office, and any all serious image licensor know very well that technology can be a very serious ally in copyright protection. Regardless of any petition and whining, the bill WILL pass.

As said before, It will be a great  incentive for everyone to respect metadata more seriously  and for the photo industry to finally grow up.

Posted in idee, Canada, focus, technology, copyright, license, web 2.0, keyword, IPTC, law | Print | No Comments »

March 7, 2008 by pmelcher.

Make a pinhole camera: Corbis, the company we love to pick on, has posted a really nice paper project for your week end. Called the ReadyCam, It is a set of instructions that let you build your own cool pinhole camera. Someone at Corbis marketing has brains. Try it here: ( click on any image)

Give yourself a face lift: Toronto ( again, the Canadians!!) based company ModiFace, Inc. just launched a website where you can make appropriate adjustments to see how you would look after plastic surgery on your face.

Founded in 2007 by University of Toronto professor Parham Aarabi, ModiFace Inc. utilizes advanced computer vision and image processing algorithms to visualize different facial operations including plastic surgery, facial aesthetic treatments and hairstyle changes. ModiFace’s patent-pending technologies empower consumers to redefine their images by automatically visualizing face enhancements, treatments and modifications.

You can redo you face, for free, here: liftmagic

Posted in technology, lens, Canada, multimedia, prosumer, corbis | Print | No Comments »

January 14, 2008 by pmelcher.

“By posting user content to any part of the site, you automatically grant … an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide licence … to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such user content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise. … Facebook does not assert any ownership over your user content.”

 CBC.CA, the Canadian news website, has a great story about Facebook. I a nutshell, it explains, with a recent example, that any image that you upload to you Facebook account can be used without your authorization, for free, anywhere . And unlike the tricky option of Creative Commons, Facebook does NOT grant you a choice. It is all or nothing.

Which is fine if you are posting a mugshot of yourself so your buddies can see you griming face. But what happens if you upload, on your profile, an image of Britney Spears you lifted from Wireimage that you found on the People.com website ? or like Fotolia, you create a profile on Facebook, suddenly allowing Facebook to license your images for free. Well, according to the EULA, it can now be distributed freely around the world . Not good.

CBC.CA example shows images used for news purpose and the Canadian law that allows for such “fair use”.  It is understandable that a site such as Facebook, or Flickr, cannot worry about licensing rights on everything that is posted on their site. It would be an impossible task. But to take full licensing rights by default is a bit extreme, no ?

So photographers and photo agencies beware : Before you create a member page on one of these web 2.0 social site, please read the EULA correctly.

Posted in license, Search, copyright, Canada, technology, keyword, web 2.0, news, law, transaction, flickr, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

December 18, 2007 by pmelcher.

From Canada, again. Seems like every thing good or innovative in photography these days is coming from Canada (istockphoto, Veer, Idee, Zymmetrical, ….) . The TV channel and website CBC ( Canadian Broadcasting Corporation ) has posted an interview of uber-humanitarian and extremely talented photographer Marcus Bleadsale.

You can, and you should ( it’s an order ),  view it here:

Marcus, for those who might not know, is the new member of the VII photo agency and recipient of many, many awards. However, as much as he appreciates the attention of his peers,  he would much rather people do something about the situation he photographs. In a way, he would love being out of a job.

I had written an entry about Marcus a while back.

Via Mediastorm’s blog ( another site you have to visit)

Posted in idee, magazine, Canada, mediastorm, multimedia, editorial, photojournalism, news | Print | No Comments »