Alamy has added new features to its successful mobile app Stockimo that was
launched last February. To date more than 180,000 images have been submitted through the app and 99,000 have been accepted for marketing. These images can be found among the almost 53 million images on Alamy.com using the keyword “Stockimo.”
The new features include:
• The app now includes popular web tool IFTTT, a brilliantly simple way to help users optimise work flow and save time. E.g. ‘any picture I upload to Flickr also upload to Stockimo’.
• Users can now upload news imagery straight to the Alamy live news feed and get their images in front of global news outlets, broadening Stockimo’s appeal to another strand of the photographer community.
• The app now has a ‘customer likes’ feature, which gives live feedback on which images are popular with customers - what they like and what they’re buying.
• The latest release also includes helpful information if an image is rejected.
This will be the 3rd edition of the app following initial updates in the summer to introduce social media sharing and enhanced captioning and tagging tools.
Alan Capel, head of content: “This new release takes Stockimo to a new level. It’s a direct response to ideas and requests from our creative and insightful user base. Stockimo makes sense to its users because it's in sync with the changing landscape of mobile photography.”
There is already evidence that contributors are improving their skills and submitting more of the kinds of images Alamy believes customers will use. Capel says, “In the early days the average acceptance rate was around 45%, that leveled out to around 50% for a while, but in the last 3 months we’ve seen the acceptance rate climb to 60%. The introduction in the latest version of giving information about why shots are rejected should also help. Displaying customer likes also sets the tone for what customers are looking for.”
Alamy is a technology led business so its emphasis has been on developing a user focused app. Stockimo downloads continue to grow month on month, powered by word of mouth across the photography community. The Stockimo app has recently been shortlisted as a finalist in the lifestyle category of the ME awards.
Rachel Wakefield, head of sales, says: “This style of candid photography is extremely sought after, so the Stockimo collection has been welcomed by all our customers. Adding live news will boost the collection and have a special appeal for our editorial customers.”