Press Release 2

9

August 11, 2005

Index Stock Forms Alliance with Polfoto of Denmark

Through a partnership with POLFOTO, a leading Danish picture agency, Index Stock Imagery, www.indexstock.com, is expanding into Denmark.

According to Kirsten Anker Sørensen , Sales Manager: "POLFOTO is one of the leading photo agencies in Denmark and part of Denmark's largest media Group, JP/Politikens Hus A/S, which publishes three of Denmark's largest newspapers: Politiken (founded in 1884), Ekstra Bladet (founded in 1904) and Jyllands-Posten (founded in 1871). Our customers choose POLFOTO because we represent some of Denmark's leading press photographers. POLFOTO was established in 1959, and our archives go back to the 1860's."

"Since spring 2004 POLFOTO has run a news service which supplies newspapers all over the country, with both news and archive photos. Today, POLFOTO controls more than 50% of the Danish newspaper market. Our sales department supplies advertising businesses, the publishing world, individual customers, and weeklies and magazines, with photos of all kinds."

"At POLFOTO we are very anxious to provide our customers with high quality images, and through our online archives we offer one of the largest photo collections in Denmark. We are known for our professional network and strong support."

Peter McClusky, VP International at Index states: "Denmark is a growing market, and with relatively few competing picture agencies, it presents a sound opportunity for expanding our marketing. We are pleased to be working with POLFOTO, and look forward to good sales."

Index Stock Imagery has a broad, deep library, composed solely of images contributed by independent artists and agents. Index does not own or create its own images. The company is a major International player in the stock photo industry, with a 900,000+ image library and more than 100 distributors. Its library includes more than 200,000 royalty free images and more than 20,000 illustrations. Index Stock's products include Index Open, a high-resolution subscription service with unlimited access to 60,000 images for $599. Mac users can enjoy a Mac interface, and all of Index's loyal U.S. customers receive gifts through the Image Points Program, which is featured on the Index Web site.

Index Stock Forms Alliance with Bruno Press of The Netherlands

Index Stock Imagery, www.indexstock.com, is continuing to expand International alliances, working with Bruno Press B.V., from the Netherlands. Index' Rights Managed and Royalty Free collections will be represented, along with Index Open, its new subscription service.

According to Nelleke Bruno, Managing Director of Bruno Holding: "Bruno Press B.V. (www.brunopress.nl and www.brunostock.nl) the fastest-growing photo agency in the Netherlands. We started the Press division six years ago, with a complete and advanced set up of IT technology to support our customers' needs, and have by now a database of more then six terabytes of information. The Web site has more than 2.5 million high-res images, and is growing every day. It is tailor-made for us, and is unique in our country. Through built-in software we can check whatever the customer needs, and act upon that information instantly. This makes a great and unique sales tool, which is very much embraced by the customers. We have been able to become the broadest specialized agency in selling copyright. Because of this, we created the one stop shopping facility, both on the copyright side and on the technology side, which enables us to market to all kind of industries."

"Bruno Press BV is part of Bruno Holding, including Bruno Productions and Art Merchandising Benelux. These divisions are specialized in licensing brands, including art and children's characters to manufacturers and advertising agencies. Because of the interaction of these divisions, Bruno Press has connections with companies that normally would not be easily accessible for a press agency. This has resulted into licensing deals with companies such as Philips, Grolsch (beer brewer), and all major banks."
Peter McClusky, VP International at Index states: "Index Stock has great expectations for the young and energetic team at Bruno. Before the ink dried on our agreement they had already generated impressive sales. We are pleased to be working with them and are forging ahead with our expansion of International alliances. Our agent network now extends to 65 countries."

Inmagine Represents 1 Million RF Images

INMAGINE (www.inmagine.com) with sales offices in USA, UK, Australia, Singapore, China, Hong Kong and Malaysia currently represents over one million RF images from such brands as Photodisc by GettyImages, BrandXpictures, Comstock, Digital Vision, Imagesource and Stockbyte and is adding tens of thousands of new images every week.

Stephanie Sitt, VP Sales and Marketing of Inmagine, commented, "With our ever increasing content from the world's best image producers, Inmagine ensures that it provides a one-stop shop for outstanding and refined royalty-free photos. Apart from that, our 24 hour customer oriented service aims to provide our clientéle with not only top-notch images but also services".

In conjunction with this event, Inmagine is offering a one-month free subscription service worth $138 at www.123royaltyfree.com, its premier subscription-based website for clients who purchase more than $999.

Media Bakery Offers Visual Search

Media Bakery has announced a new search technology that allows users to sort search results based on thousands of visual clues in an image. The initiative was launched in response to a critical need for better search strategies that enable stock photo buyers to easily locate the most appropriate image in a large database. The new technology augments traditional keyword searching by utilizing the right brained visual function of the photo researcher.

It works better than keywords alone when searching for concepts, moods, colors, or specific layout options. Visual search takes full advantage of the right-brain intuitive, the inherit strength of most creative people. Now researchers can point and click on images to quickly define visual points that bring all similar images to the top of search results.

Visual search actually re-sorts the key worded results bringing the best visual matches right to the top. One click provides positive results for many concepts. Images that are not chosen provide information too. Consolidated feedback from multiple images quickly finds all the desirable images and cuts down significantly on search time. "Media Bakery is the largest stock photo site to offer their customers the power of visual search. Considering they have over 750,000 images, visual search will likely save each of their clients a minimum of 10-20 minutes per search, if not hours." said VIMA CEO David Telleen-Lawton.

Media Bakery chose VIMA's technology platform for a variety of reasons. Unlike technologies that visually match to a single image, VIMA MindReader™ Technology actually learns from each positive and negative selection made during a search. Visual clues, even seemingly contradictory ones (e.g., a red sky and a blue sky), are combined by advanced machine-learning to understand what the searcher has in mind. "Media Bakery has never been shy about bringing uniqueness to the stock photo consolidator model. We are very proud to offer this revolutionary service. Because we carry so many collections, we have literally hundreds of thousands of image choices in our database. With visual search, researchers relying on the convenience of one stop shopping will now find that perfect image on our large databases in less time." said Chad Newell CEO of Media Bakery.

"What's also interesting to me about what we can deliver with VIMA is that we don't prematurely throw away ideally matched images because they weren't keyworded consistently or didn't apparently have the same visual look as images in a results list. Instead, the researcher keeps providing additional visual clues and the best images keep coming to the top - virtually none are ignored." stated Newell.

For more about visual search and VIMA see Story 644.

Pepper Stark Consultancy

Liz Pepper and Claudia Stark launched their consultancy, training and recruitment business at the CEPIC conference in Prague in June. Now with a growing portfolio of clients worldwide, and their website www.pepperstark.com just launched, Liz and Claudia talk about the success of their first month trading.

"We have been totally amazed and delighted by the positive response we received following our company launch at CEPIC" says Liz Pepper. "Claudia and I have been working in international sales and business development in the picture industry for a combined 10 years. We know a lot of people and have been overwhelmed by the interest so many have expressed in our services. We have already been commissioned by a total mix of clients from the UK, Europe, US and Asia- from smaller local representatives looking to expand within and beyond their territories to larger global players wanting to grow further and faster."

Pepper Stark was founded to fill a gap in the market for a professional consultancy, training and recruitment service dedicated to the specific needs of those involved in stock photography. In such a fast moving industry, continually evolving and becoming ever more competitive, Pepper Stark works with companies throughout the world who are looking to expand their business and develop their sales channels, turnover and profitability.

Particular projects that Pepper Stark is currently working on include assessing business practices for companies looking to streamline workflows and processes to improve sales performance and the effectiveness of their marketing spend; setting up and managing international distribution networks for RM and RF collections; tailored training programmes for sales teams conducted in English, French and German depending on the local language of the client and the placement of sales, marketing and creative personnel in vacancies worldwide.

For further information on the consultancy, training and recruitment services that Pepper Stark can provide, please contact Liz Pepper liz.pepper@pepperstark.com or Claudia Stark Claudia.stark@pepperstark.com or go online at www.pepperstark.com. Candidates can submit their CVs and clients their job specs directly online.

Aurora Launches Outdoor Collection

Aurora Photos has announced the release of it's new stock image collection, the Outdoor Collection at www.outdoorcollection.com with 3,000 images. This rights-managed specialty image boutique focuses on outdoor adventure lifestyle photography and represents 100 of the best shooters in the field.

The collect will blend outdoor lifestyle and concept images with hard core adventure photos, according to Peter Dennen, Aurora Associate Director. He may be contacted at pdennen@aurorphotos.com or at 207-828-8787 x108.

Spencer Images

John Spencer Ellis, has officially launched www.spencerimages.com, a web site specializing in fitness and wellness photography. The company is soliciting the participation of photographers who would like to use the site for the sale of their photography. Details about image requirements can be found on the site.

Jupitermedia Puts Graphic Design Magazines Online

Jupitermedia Corporation has announced that it has increased its efforts to reach graphic designers and creative professionals by bringing the ontents of STEP Inside Design Magazine www.stepinsidedesign.com and Dynamic Graphics Magazine www.dynamicgraphics.com online. Both titles had previously been available only in print editions.

"We are excited to provide graphic designers with free access to these well-respected magazines online," stated Jupitermedia's Chairman and CEO Alan M. Meckler. "This is an example of our interactive publishing and image business' working together to expand our offerings for the graphic design community," added Meckler.

The Web sites will be part of the Graphics.com Network of Web sites, which already includes GraphicDesignForum.com The creative Forum.com and Graphics.com

Chiang To Leave SuperStock

Kai Chiang, Senior Vice President, Market Department of Superstock has announced that after 12 years he has decided to leave the company to pursue new adventures. Contact points in the future are:

Photographer affairs -Stacey Goldberg, 904-680-1914, sgoldberg@superstock.com

RF vendors - Elizabeth Greene, 904-680-1928, egreene@superstock.com

Distributors - Susan O'Brien, 904-680-1910, sobrien@superstock.com

Marketing matters - Paul Ryall, 904-680-2862, pryall@superstock.com

Finance & accounting - Bill Murphy, 904-680-2736, wmurphy@superstock.com

Technology matters - Chris DeLellis, 904-680-1818, cdelellis@superstock.com