CEPIC 2010, the leading congress in the Picture Industry served as a great platform to bring heightened awareness to the challenges and opportunities for images in an environment of expansive growth of technology devices and products. PicScout addressed one of the core challenges of image identification with the announcement of free credit for all images and a pay-per-click model for connection.

CEPIC 2010 also provided a rich set of speakers on key issues impacting the industry. These included: “Threats and Opportunities for Content Owners in the Online Space” by Benjamin Edelman from the Harvard Business School and “Initiative for Growth in the Online Special Environment” a panel of industry experts moderated by Frank Perrier and included PicScout VP Marketing and Business Development on a global basis, Amy Love.

Amy Love speaks at Initiative for Growth in the Online Special Environment (CTK Photo/Rene Fluger)

The Growth in the Online Environment panel identified several paths to create new revenue streams for the agencies and Amy discussed image buyer trends which are leading towards increased and preferred search engine usage for image sourcing.  Amy also addressed a series of participant questions regarding how PicScoutImageIRC™ for use with ImageExchange™ offers new opportunities for image owners and licensors to connect when an image is found.  The discussion included describing how the PicScout technology platform for image recognition has transferred from creating the de facto standard in image protection to now including image promotion in a digital environment.

The growth panel also addressed mobile and tablets as evolving and growing markets. According to a report issued June 17 by Forrester Research, tablet computers will outsell netbooks in the United States by 2012. The highly graphical interface increases the need for images and the availability of images to creative professionals is more important than ever. PicScout offers the solution that allows image licensors and owners to make images even more readily available and licensable to creative professionals. By 2015 nearly one in four personal computers sold to U.S. consumers will be tablets and image use will dramatically increase as personal publishing will reach unprecedented levels. In this market it is important to protect company assets while making images accessible and licensable and protecting copyright in the digital age.

For agencies and photographers, the conference provided clear insight into the importance of both image protection and image promotion.  At the conference, PicScout signed more than 20 new clients and we welcome them all on board as we deliver our market promise of Every Image Gets Its Credit™.  Agencies and photographers can still take advantage of the CEPIC event  promotion to try ImageExchange – you can learn more at www.picscout.com/cepic. You can also register for the service here.

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PicScout and PhotoShelter announced our partnership today, and there are thousands of photographers celebrating with us. This is our response to those thousands of photographers who have been pleading with us for a way to participate in ImageIRC™ and ImageExchange™ – we heard you and we have delivered!

Through PhotoShelter, any photographer now can have their images fingerprinted and indexed with the PicScout ImageIRC platform. As long as the photographer’s images are searchable and priced for license/sale, ImageIRC enables images to display ownership and license information as well as provide a one-click connection to license the image and/or obtain more information. That’s right, now any time an image user/buyer who uses the free ImageExchange tool encounters a photographer’s enrolled image online – whether on a search engine, at a content website, or wherever an image resides – the potential buyer will see who owns the image and can link directly back to the photographer’s ecommerce enabled site on PhotoShelter and transact to use it. Learn more. Photographers can move into the new image economy where image buyers and sellers are made aware of each other and connect to transact for image use in real time on the spot.

It works like this. Anyone using the free PicScout ImageExchange™ browser add-on will recognize the millions of PhotoShelter enrolled images every time they go online anywhere on the internet. Wherever they may appear, ImageIRC images are noted with the universal information symbol, a small encircled “i” icon – . Clicking on the icon reveals a box of metadata where ownership is identified along with an option to click and transact for use.  Owners and buyers are made aware of each other and connected at the point of encounter.

Awareness of image ownership and real-time transaction capability become increasingly important as new publishers proliferate with the use of iPads and ibook publishing. As more consumers access the growing volumes of digital content, more images become accessible, too. Images that are enrolled in ImageIRC will be recognized and protected even when they have been used and re-used by multiple users and in multiple applications over much time. Note more in the Huffington Post.

It’s easy for photographers to get image credit and promote their images anywhere they are seen online. If you’re not yet a PhotoShelter user, learn more about the program at our dedicated PhotoShelter/PicScout page. If you sign up for one of PhotoShelter’s e-commerce packages, your searchable images that are priced for licensing or sale will be automatically enrolled in the PicScout ImageIRC platform and equipped for the ImageExchange service.  For photographers who are already using any of PhotoShelter’s e-commerce enabled options, your searchable images are already being processed. Any photographer using a free PhotoShelter membership can upgrade to any option that includes e-commerce for immediate enrollment in the PicScout ImageIRC.  Enrolled photographers will find it valuable to encourage their customer bases to download the free Image Exchange tool, so potential buyers who have installed the free tool will always be able to recognize and transact for the photographer’s work wherever they see it online.

PicScout and PhotoShelter will hold a special webinar just for photographers on Tuesday February 23, Noon pacific/3:00 pm eastern. Photographers will be thoroughly educated in just what they need to do to be part of the new image economy that gives credit and promotes their images.  Plan to attend and register now.

Be sure to Experience ImageExchange add-on today and see first-hand how fast, easy and useful the  experience can be.

Those who install the free ImageExchange find out how convenient image research and sourcing can be …and now is the best time to start using ImageExchange, especially if you want to recognize and use your favorite photographer’s images wherever you may go online.

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On the horizon in 2010, is our extensive outreach to members of the creative professionals and creative commons communities as our ImageExchange add-on becomes a must have creativity, productivity and confidence tool for all who use and consumer images.

To support this expansion, PicScout is restructuring its team in the US to meet the significantly evolved needs of the company and its customer/client base. We are no longer solely a B2B play with a select group of rights managed agencies – our new services platform and resulting products now serve the needs of ALL agencies, platforms and aggregators of digital content and we now provide the game-changing solution for creative professionals to find, use and transact for digital imagery.

In addition to the restructure of the existing team, next week, we will be announcing several new position descriptions on our career website page. You may know someone who would be a perfect fit for our team – and we’d love for you, our loyal clients, customers and followers to play a role in who we hire and who you will have the chance to work with in the future. Here’s who we’re looking for…

They must thrive in a fast-paced, goal driven, client and user first culture. Their personality and style is where the glass is always half full. They can demonstrate experience and attitude of finding ways to do something rather than reasons why it cannot be done are a must. They do not want to be told how to do every step – rather they want to understand the deliverable and reason for it – and then they want the room to be creative to over deliver against the goal. They have a curiosity about their work – where they are always seeking to learn and understand. Bottom-line they not only work smarter – but they also work harder than average employees – our culture is one of work hard – play hard – and enjoy seeing the results in the marketplace and in our company’s own valuation.

The new team will be based in Silicon Valley and we are looking for product marketing, business development (content and technical partners), and sales/account management. Israel is also hiring talent, in particular engineers.

Best regards,

Amy Love
VP Marketing & Business Development
@Picscout @amydlove

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Creative Professionals and designers can now seek, search, or stumble upon the best Internet-based images they can find to enhance their work and gain more productive time in their day. Through research, and our own in depth conversations with Creative Pros, we learned that, until now, the Internet has been both friend and foe.

With the recent introduction of ImageIRC registry, Creative Pros can see the image information they have always needed — the who, what, where and how to acquire image rights — in one click of the mouse. Tens of millions of images are now available.

After downloading the free ImageExchange add-on, creative professionals will see a new Internet — a world of images where they see metadata such as licensor, image type, and photographer associated every time they go online.  Gone are the days when Creative Pros dare only use the open Internet for creative inspiration — now Google, Yahoo, Bing — actually any web page, can serve as creative inspiration as well as a productivity enhancer. Creative Professionals can use images found online immediately and with confidence.

The ImageExchange add-on is free and easy to use — just request your invitation to be one of the first to use it and begin changing your work life!

We welcome your comments and insights about the ImageExchange plug-in.  Use the contact form
or by Twitter.

Best Regards,
Offir Gutelzon, CEO,
PicScout
Twitter: @offirg or @picscout

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