g Info -->
Story 766
PRESS RELEASES 6
October 13, 2005
Jupitermedia's JupiterImages Division Announces Acquisition of BananaStock
Jupitermedia Corporation (Nasdaq: JUPM) announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, JupiterImages (UK) Limited, has acquired all of the shares of BananaStock Limited for approximately U.S. $19 million in cash. BananaStock, based in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom, is a leading resource for royalty free digital images for business users and creative professionals.
"The acquisition of BananaStock's images and business operations further solidifies JupiterImage's position as one of the largest
organizations in the business of selling royalty free digital images," stated Alan M. Meckler, Chairman and CEO of Jupitermedia Corporation. "The acquisition adds another high quality collection of digitized stock photos to our image offerings, increasing our position as the largest owner of wholly-owned digitized images in the world.
BananaStock's operations complement our existing direct sales operations in the U.K. and will enable further expansion of our JupiterImages business throughout Europe. We are pleased that Cathy Yeulet, founder and principal creative director of BananaStock, will continue to provide world-class imagery for BananaStock and JupiterImages through an ongoing production agreement with her new company. We anticipate significant marketing and business synergies between BananaStock and our JupiterImages division as well as our Jupitermedia properties. We expect that this acquisition will be accretive to our earnings and cash flows," added Meckler.
a21 Acquires Ingram Publishing Limited
a21 announced it has acquired Ingram Publishing Limited, a UK-based provider of subscription, CD and individual Royalty-Free images as well as vector graphics and fonts, vehicle outline templates, and print price guides for the worldwide graphics design, printing, sign-making, advertising and publishing communities. a21 projects this acquisition to be accretive to its earnings and cash flow.
Ingram, founded in 1988, is a global publisher and distributor of Royalty-Free visual content. Its growing archive, with over 100,000 images, ranges from a just-launched subscription offering (www.ingramstock.com) to single images and CD-ROMs that contain a library of high-quality digital images based on multiple themes. The company's operations are based in Tattenhall, Cheshire, UK and its products are sold both directly to end users and through a wide network of distributors.
"We believe that Ingram Publishing has built a valuable portfolio of customers, photographers, distributors, and products within the UK and other European markets-one that we expect to be highly complementary to our SuperStock subsidiary," said Thomas V. Butta, a21 Vice-Chairman and President. "In particular, we are very excited about the launch of IngramStock.com and the opportunity it provides to expand SuperStock's offerings to include an innovative subscription product with multi-language and multi-currency capabilities. In addition, we believe that Ingram's outstanding management team should enhance our worldwide operations."
Louis Ingram added, "SuperStock provides us with an excellent opportunity to cross-leverage our products, customers and distribution channels with theirs, and a platform upon which we can work on building a global competitor." Ingram founders and principals Louis Ingram, John Bohill and Cathal Sheehy have all accepted positions within the company's UK operations.
Adobe Stock Photos Adds Four New Collections
Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) announced that four new royalty-free image collections are available through Adobe® Stock Photos, bringing the total number of images to over 450,000. Adobe Stock Photos is accessed through Adobe Bridge, a hub for productivity, imagery and creativity that provides multi-view file browsing and smooth cross-product integration within Adobe Creative Suite 2 and CS2 versions of Adobe products. The additional images give Adobe Creative Suite 2 customers access to an even broader selection of royalty-free images, making it even easier to find and buy the right image without leaving the application.
New collections added to Adobe Stock Photos include: IPN Relay, Image Source Ltd., Brand X Pictures by Jupiterimages and Masterfile Corporation. These companies offer a variety of high-quality, unique contemporary stock photography, featuring mainstream images in an innovative modern style. There are now 13 collections from a variety of leading providers such as Photodisc by Getty Images, Comstock by Jupiterimages, Digital Vision by Getty Images, imageshop royalty-free by zefaimages and amana, making Adobe Stock Photos the one-stop resource for creative professionals.
Professional photographers and stock agencies now have the opportunity to submit their images to Adobe Stock Photos via image partners including: Image Source, IPN Relay, Getty Images and Masterfile Corporation. Submitting images through these third parties provide professional photographers and small stock houses another option for distributing and licensing their images. A complete listing of all providers and details about submitting images can be found at www.adobe.com/adobestockphotos.
"Adobe Stock Photos continues to evolve its distribution model to support the addition of professional photographers and smaller agencies who supply royalty-free images," said James Alexander, director of Adobe Stock Photos at Adobe. "We are committed to helping smaller stock providers and independent rofessional photographers who shoot royalty-free images receive greater exposure and connect directly with image buyers, through the global reach of Adobe Creative Suite 2 software."
Adobe Stock Photos is included as a featured service in the following products: Adobe Creative Suite 2 (Standard and Premium editions), Adobe Photoshop CS2, Adobe InDesign CS2, Adobe Illustrator, CS2 and Adobe GoLive CS2. Adobe Stock Photos is available in 27 countries and four currencies. If you buy an image from Adobe Stock Photos and find the same royalty-free image at a lower price, Adobe Stock Photos' return policy allows you to return your image to Adobe within 30 days of purchase for a full refund.
IPN Relay Announces New Alliance with Adobe Stock Photos
IPN Relay has announced an agreement with Adobe to serve as a conduit to enable photographers and small agencies to sell their images in Adobe Stock Photos. Adobe Stock Photos is accessed through Adobe Bridge (see above). Through the use of its technology, IPN Relay will be able to take any royalty free collection that qualifies and add them to Adobe Stock Photos.
IPN Relay is a suite of technology solutions for photographers, designers, art directors or anyone looking to share their digital assets. IPN Relay enables the delivery of photography, illustrations, audio or video to multiple sales and distribution outlets, foreign distributors, news feeds and international portals and also meets a variety of storage and management needs. IPN also announced that there will be no changes to IPNSTOCK (the Independent Photography Network) or IPNStock.com as a result of this alliance.
Grazia Neri Selects Digital Railroad Online Distribution and Archiving Services
Digital Railroad, Inc. announced that Grazia Neri, an Italian-based photo agency representing world-renowned photographers and many of the most influential international photo agencies, has chosen the Digital Railroad's technology to minimize their costs and improve productivity for the sellers and buyers of their photography.
Grazia Neri founded the agency which bears her name in 1966 and has grown the company into the most relevant source for photography published by the Italian media. By adopting Digital Railroad's solution, the agency will modernize its online marketing and distribution system.
"To efficiently modernize the marketing and distribution of our images to the widest audience, we selected Digital Railroad's technology because of how easily it enables us to distribute and manage content," said Michele Neri, executive director, Grazia Neri Agency. "Working together with Digital Railroad, we are customizing a system and accessing the features and functionality that will best suit our needs. Ultimately, Digital Railroad will enable us to minimize costs and significantly ease the process of selling our images online, thus making them even more attractive to buyers."
Archives powered by Digital Railroad enable photo buyers to use a single member name and password at all times. This provides buyers with a portable, personal workspace for managing lightboxes, pricing requests and managing high-resolution downloads. Buyer-friendly workflow tools are critical to any photographer or agency to more easily to sell their images online.
"Digital Railroad empowers photographers and agencies with a powerful and affordable online archive system to distribute their images globally," said Evan Nisselson, founder and chief executive officer of Digital Railroad. "We are pleased that Grazia Neri, one of the world's most highly-respected agencies, has selected our technology services to help them streamline their business."
NewsCom To Represent PictureArts Content
Editor and Publisher has reported that NewsCom, a provider of digital content from more than 85 media organizations and agencies, has expanded its online photo collection by more than 70,000 images with the addition of PictureArts' collections. These represent a library of images from more than 1,000 photographers and illustrators, as well as from other collections.
PictureArts' collections now available on NewsCom include Brand X stock photography, FoodPix food and lifestyle images, Nonstock's collection of "cutting-edge" images, and Botanica's botanical images.
Last month, NewsCom announced that it was partnering with SuperStock to provide royalty-free images to NewsCom customers.
NewsCom is a joint venture of Tribune Media Services and Knight Ridder. Its content partners include TMS, Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services, Reuters, Getty Images, Agence France-Presse, the New York Times Syndicate, the Washington Post Writers Group, Kyodo News International, and others.
Index Stock Imagery to Release New Online Stores with Partner EZ Prints
Index Stock Imagery announced that it will co-develop new on line merchandise stores with its strategic partner, EZ Prints. This solution, which will be hosted by EZ Prints, will enable customers to order prints and gift items using Index Stock Imagery's vast library of stock images.
Among the fun and useful products available will be a full line of 4"x8" photo greeting cards, personalized calendars for a full year, 18 months or 2 years, two sizes of mugs with colorful pictures, t-shirts in four sizes, and 8"x9" mouse pads.
Index Stock Imagery CEO Bahar Gidwani chose to move forward with EZ Prints because of the successful and well-established partnership that already exists between the two companies. "Over the past three years, EZ Prints has produced thousands of high-quality custom posters using our images. We have only had compliments about the quality of these posters and EZPrints' packaging and service," states Gidwani. "We are looking forward to entering new markets and offering new products using EZ Prints' proven production and fulfillment systems."
"We always encourage our partners to push into new territory," said EZ Prints CEO Jamie Bardin. "Digital content is a big part of our growth strategy, and we are excited to join Index Stock Imagery in marketing their considerable image library more broadly, beyond the typical commercial uses."