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RANDOM THOUGHTS 101
April 26, 2005
Adobe To Buy Macromedia
Adobe Systems Inc. has announced that it will buy Macromedia Inc. in a $3.1 billion all-stock deal that brings together two of the world's most widely used digital print and Internet publishing programs - Acrobat and Flash. The deal is expected to close this fall.
Adobe CEO, Bruce Chizen said, "I know that we can put these two great companies together to create one of the most powerful software companies in the world."
Analysts said the deal should help the combined company expand beyond the personal computer and into emerging markets, such as software that delivers digital content to the booming cell phone industry.
Analysts that follow the two companies also believe that Adobe's widely used Acrobat and Photoshop products seem to be a "good fit" with Macromedia's Flash and Dreamweaver software that have become de facto standards for Web site creation.
Adobe generated $1.67 billon is sales in fiscal 2004 and Macromedia generated $422 million in calendar 2004.
EMPICS To Represent Associated Press Images In UK And Ireland
EMPICS, a Press Association Group company, has announced that beginning May 1, 2005 it will be handling commercial sales in the UK and Ireland for the photos of The Associated Press (AP), one of the world's leading international news agencies.
EMPICS customers will have access to AP's highly-respected daily photo production and archive photography via www.empics.com. All AP commercial picture requests and licensing administration for UK and Ireland customers will be handled by the EMPICS team of dedicated account managers and researchers.
"Over the last year, EMPICS has diversified from sport photography to also offer the best in news and celebrity images, through its representation of the Press Association's photos," said Phil O'Brien, chief executive at EMPICS. "Working with AP now gives EMPICS a truly international photography production to complement our existing editorial production and is tremendously exciting."
"Picture buyers in the UK will be able to access AP's photos alongside those of EMPICS and the Press Association from a single point of contact... that's high quality, relevant photography across all areas of editorial interest, with the high standards of customer service that EMPICS is known for," said Rob Taggart, Director of Commercial Photo Operations for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at the Associated Press.
Covering all significant world events in news, sports and entertainment, AP has received 29 photo Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization. AP's digital photo archive includes more than 1.9 million historical and recent pictures, and the AP photo library holds an estimated 10 million negatives and prints dating back over a century.
This new arrangement does not affect the photography and photography services provided by AP to its existing Wire customers in the UK and Ireland, who will continue to be served by the AP picture desk and archive in London.
Speight Resigns Corbis
Only five months after Corbis acquired zefa visual media Gmbh Tomas Speight, Chief Executive Officer of zefa has chosen to resign due to personal reasons.
The Corbis press release says, "Tomas spent the past 4 ½ years building zefa into the strong, fashion-forward brand that it is today, and since the acquisition, he has been instrumental in out integration processes. His professionalism and strategic contributions will be missed as we move further to bring zefa and Corbis together into a single family.
According to a Corbis press release, "For those of you that know Tomas well, you will know that he did not reach this decision easily. He plans to spend the near future focused on personal and family matters, primarily assisting his wife through the birth of their first child.
"Tomas will be at Corbis through April 15. Beyond that time, he will continue to be accessible, working with us as we integrate our two businesses. Please join us in wishing Tomas much professional success and personal happiness in the future."
WorkbookStock To Be Distributed By Getty
Workbookstock has announced that it has become an Image Partner with Getty Images.
Alexis Scott, publisher and CEO of Workbook, said, "We are delighted to become an image partner with Getty Images. Their distribution platform and market reach will enable Workbook Stock imagery to be seen and licensed by visual communicators around the world. This is a great opportunity for our contributors to gain additional exposure through the world's largest provider of imagery."
Robert Henson, director of image partner operations, Getty Images said, "The inclusion of Workbook Stock as part of our rights-managed offering underscores the quality and variety that our clients have come to depend upon."
Getty Images will feature Workbook Stock's Co/Op Collection on www.gettyimages.com. Creative and contemporary with an edge, this rights-managed collection represents the most current work from top advertising photographers, many of them affiliated with the Workbook's assignment products.
StockPhotoFinder Search Engine Arrives
StockPhotoFinder.com, the first image search engine designed to "spider" stock photography databases, has emerged from its soft launch phase. Enhanced with new site design and functionality, the search site enables graphic artists, picture researchers and art directors to quickly search to offerings of many stock photo suppliers.
find the perfect image solution in a fraction of the time it normally takes.
www.StockPhotoFinder.com is not a stock photo agency. Rather it aggregates images from all kinds of qualified sources and provides state-of-the-art functionality, like a universal lightbox, that applies to all the web sites being searched. Royalty-Free and Rights Managed images are both available. Editorial images, such as news, celebrity and archival imagery, will be added in the second quarter of 2005. And, the addition of stock footage will be in Q3 2005.
Each week, 15,000 new users search for photos at the web site. In the first few months since soft launch, this photo search engine has passed the quarter million mark in users who are finding centralized research to be a compelling reward for trying something new. Simply put,
StockPhotofinder.com provides two invaluable benefits to its image users -- a savings of time in searching multiple sites at once and the benefit of viewing the newest images from a broad variety of photo industry web sites.
One benefit of StockPhotoFinder.com is its ability to add the most recent images from so many web sites to every search. Its technology continuously spiders or crawls the web sites of participating image providers to add the freshest images to its search results. Keyword search starts the process. Users can then choose from various follow-up search options to quickly zero in on the perfect image, including searching within the existing found set and a ground-breaking "similars" search that displays images like the one selected.
Image licensing is handled by the image providers that are just a click away. By clicking on a thumbnail image, the customer is instantly connected to the source - the preview page at the web site of the stock photo agency that handles licensing of that image. Navigation straddles both the search engine and image provider's web sites, enabling users to easily use the full functionality of both sites.
One of the most useful tools of this search resource is the universal lightbox that travels with the customer on their search page and can travel from computer to computer if the customer opts to login. Once a lightbox has been created and named, the customer can add images and other media from various web sites, annotate each with notes and comments, and email a copy to colleagues. Thousands of lightboxes are created and saved on the site each month.
Being a completely open source site, no login is required to use StockPhotoFinder.com. Benefits, like immediate access to all login protected functionality on Image Provider sites as well as lightbox portability, encourage the user to sign up in its Universal Registration Application which simultaneously sends the user application to all participating photography web sites to speed user access along the way.
For large volume image users, StockPhotoFinder.com also offers customized versions of the public site that can be "stocked" exclusively with images from preferred vendors that are specified by the client company, and which provides corporate branding and additional enhancements.
Ambient Images Chooses Digital Railroad
Digital Railroad has announced that Ambient Images, a stock agency specializing in images of New York and California has chosen Digital Railroad technology and services to power their online photo archive.
Ambient's New York stock photo image collection can be found at "http://www.digitalrailroad.net/newyorkstockphoto">www.digitalrailroad.net/newyorkstockphoto and its California collection can be found at www.digitalrailroad.net/californiastock photo.com.
Digital Railroad provides individual photographers and photo agencies with the technology to manage, market and sell their images online.
"I've been operating my own stock websites for over six years, but Digital Railroad introduced me to an interactivity with my sites that I had never experienced before," said Peter Bennett, the founder of Ambient Images. "The advanced lightbox features and sharing capabilities have enhanced my ability to service my clients and to market to new ones. High-resolution downloads are accomplished with a few mouse clicks, taking a fraction of the time they used to. The tech support has been excellent. Set up was easy. And some of my suggestions and feedback have even been incorporated into current features as well as upcoming ones."
OnRequest Sponsors Art Directors Club Awards
OnRequest Images has secured category-exclusive sponsorship of the Art Directors Club 84th Annual Awards to be celebrated at ADC's Awards Gala in New York City on June 2, 2005. The ADC Annual Awards competition is one of the world's most prestigious recognitions, honoring the beswt work of the year in print and broadcast advertising, graphic design, interactive media, publication design, packaging, photography and illustration.