Posts Tagged ‘image recognition’

Thursday, April 15th, 2010

ImageExchange Moves to Open Beta – Simplified User Experience Expands User Base

No-registration required installation and owner identified images make image search simple

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We all know the KISS principle. The general consensus is that this is good practice which one should aspire to deliver. While simplicity can’t be overrated, it can be overdone. Getting simple just right can be tricky, as even Albert Einstein cautions, “Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.” So, how far can you take simple and still achieve the desired result? We think the PicScout PicScout ImageExchange Icon icon is a model of simplicity for image buyers– one glance tells you an image can be licensed, and one click connects you to license and use. Simple actions, but with extraordinary results! …and we will continue to make simple better and better with the help of our users.

PicScout has been beta testing ImageExchange since October 2009. We’ve watched how our closed beta users install it; we’ve asked for their feedback to refine and improve the tool; and we know when, how and why it’s used. Our beta users provide the insights needed to continually improve ImageExchange to make it an even more elegant, yet simple, tool for image users of any and all types. We have learned much in our quest to provide robust simplicity, and we want to learn even more about image user engagement and gain more insight from more users to understand all that motivates them at the point of the image experience. We encourage everyone to install the free ImageExchange tool now to experience images in a new way and participate in this landmark internet movement that facilitates image use by presenting ownership with every image.

New users join current beta users in resounding enthusiasm for ImageExchange:

Moving to Open Beta of ImageExchange means we’re opening ImageExchange to a wider audience and enlarging our scope of ImageExchange use and users to sharpen our insight. Now, many new image users can experience a new simplicity and freedom in their work, the kind of satisfaction that early beta users continue to express in their feedback to PicScout. Those who install ImageExchange browser add-on will be able to see tens of millions of every type of image—RM, RF, MS, and UCG—identified with an PicScout ImageExchange Iconicon and ready for licensing and immediate use!

Help us celebrate this by sharing the good news. Invite your friends and colleagues to install the free ImageExchange. Registration for the add-on is no longer required – users can simply download the ImageExchange add-on directly for use with their FireFox browser.

Monday, October 26th, 2009

The Gift of Renewed Creative Inspiration and Increase Productivity Make the ImageExchange Add-on the Creative Professionals New BFF

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

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

Pickerell makes good points on using tech like PicScout to proactively stem copyright abuse

In a story on Selling Stock today entitled “Copyright Enforcement: Shifting from Prosecution to Buyer Acquisition,” Jim Pickerell raised an important topic. As PicScout was mentioned in the article, I wanted to take a moment to briefly comment. At PicScout, we completely agree that it is important to be proactive while at the same time being reactive to ensure no one abuses copyrights. While our data indicates that one image is licensed for every nine that are used without a license, we would like to believe that some of these infringements are unintentional. That with a simple mechanism, someone who finds an image using our leading image recognition technology, could be easily directed to a place where they can license it. It’s an exciting vision…it’s a big vision…and one that we shared online over two months ago (http://www.slideshare.net/PicScout/picscout-image-registry-1601481).

We believe it is in the interest of photographers, stock agencies and solution providers such as PicScout to find ways to leverage the internet better than we are today to drive more proactive licensing revenue, which should in turn help reduce infringements. We look forward to being a part of it.

Offir Gutelzon
CEO
PicScout

Monday, June 1st, 2009

See you at Cepic 2009

As a reminder, we are thrilled to be attending CEPIC and speak on two panels – both will be great forums for discussion on important topics that impact us all.

We’ll speak on two panels : CEPIC’s Orphan Works in Practice Panel (June 5, 11:15 AM) and MILE’s Know Your Rights Conference (June 3, 3:00 PM) where we and our German legal partner, Marc Hügel, will present PicScout’s Image Tracker service. We invite everyone to come and listen how PicScout is helping and will continue to help the photo industry.

We look forward to seeing you at CEPIC.

Thursday, April 16th, 2009

Jeff Downey, Director of Sales and Business Development to Speak at Paca’s Best Practices Symposium

PicScout has been invited to speak at PACA’s Best Practices Symposium in a session entitled “Where did this image come from?”.

This panel will discuss techniques buyers can use to track down images and what agencies can do to make it easier.

Jeff Downey, Director of Sales and Business Development at PicScout, will present in this session which will take place on Saturday, April 18, 2009, at 4 PM at the Millennium Knickerbocker Hotel.  Chicago is Jeff’s hometown and he is a White Sox fan in case you wondered.

Thursday, April 2nd, 2009

PicScout and ImageSpan Team to Deliver Best-in-Class Image Licensing and Tracking Solution

ImageSpan Inc., the creator of LicenseStream, the market-leading licensing and royalty payment automation platform for all media , and PicScout, are partnering to deliver a best-in-class image licensing and tracking service to help LicenseStream subscribers immediately monetize content found by PicScout and obtain more value from that content as it gets published across the Web. The announcement was made at the Web 2.0 Expo.

Together, ImageSpan and PicScout also are addressing a huge and growing problem: online image theft. Lost revenues from unauthorized uses of images online are estimated at upwards of $65 million, according to a comprehensive study by the Stock Artists Alliance. By combining PicScout’s market-leading image tracking and recognition registry services with ImageSpan’s Web-based LicenseStream licensing and royalty settlement service, the partners can provide LicenseStream subscribers with a view into where and how their images are being used online.  The exclusive three-year agreement calls for PicScout to be the exclusive image tracking service and image registry service for all content provided to it by ImageSpan and covers mutual customers in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

“PicScout is proud to partner with ImageSpan and to combine our complementary services: the ImageSpan LicenseStream service and PicScout’s Image Tracker,” said Offir Gutelzon, CEO and co-founder of PicScout. “Image Tracker’s reports will enable both photographers and enterprises to create more sales opportunities which can be monetized by the LicenseStream remedy tools.  In addition, LicenseStream customers will have access to our Image Registry which solves the problem of unidentified copyrighted images or orphan works.”

Please see the entire PR on our website: read more