With over 90,000 attendees from over a 150 different countries this show promises to be a great opportunity to learn and share best practices of bringing content to life. LicenseStream is excited to be meeting with media and entertainment professionals involved in the creation of music, video, and images, as well as those in the business of content distribution and broadcasting.

Conference Details:

NAB Show

Las Vegas Convention Center

Las Vegas, Nevada

Candice Muarray, Vice President of Business Development, will be on hand meeting with clients, prospects and partners. She will be demonstrating how LicenseStream helps media organizations automate content licensing, royalty settlement and content monitoring. Another powerful solution we will be showcasing is LicenseStream’s Content Tracker that enables companies to detect and curb unauthorized use of their content creating additional opportunities to monetize and discover new markets.

NAB provides a perfect backdrop to show how we optimize your overall product workflow whether content is monetized via direct download, subscription or ad-supported delivery, LicenseStream provides a quick path to market with either turnkey or fully custom deployments.

We look forward to seeing you there! Please contact us to ensure a time is available to secure a one-on-one meeting enterprise@licensestream.com.

A Busy Week in New York for LicenseStream: Visual Connections & PACA International

Starting with Visual Connections on Wednesday, October 13^th, LicenseStream will be showcasing client stock photo collections from the Chicago Tribune, SPIN, NYC Photo Library, Photo Resource Hawaii, the Missouri History Museum, Visions of America, Roth Stock and more.  LicenseStream will present how our platform enables major media companies to bring their vast content collections directly to content buyers and consumers.

View Online Client Showcase: http://www.licensestream.com/showcase

Proud sponsor of PACA’s 2010 Legal Session “Piracy: How to Find It and How to Fight It?”

LicenseStream is proud to be the sponsor of PACA’s 2010 Legal Session “Piracy: How to Find it and How to Fight It?”  The session moderated by PACA Counsel Nancy Wolff will discuss trends & issues concerning the prevalence of content piracy and how to address this growing problem.

During this session LicenseStream’s Candice Murray, Vice President of Business Development, will present how companies are using the LicenseStream platform to not only license their content and drive new revenues but also manage, monitor and remedy unauthorized use of their valuable media assets.  Other panelist include Masterfile President Steve Pigeon, PicScout's Amy Love, and copyright attorney Gregory Victoroff.  The legal session takes place Saturday, Oct. 16th at 11:30AM to 1:00PM at the New York Marriot Downtown (see details below).

Conference Details

Visual Connections Conference
Date: Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Time: 12:00PM to 8:00PM
Location:
Metropolitan Pavilion
125 West 18th St.
New York, NY 10011

PACA 15th International Conference
Legal Session: Saturday, October 16^th 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM EST
Conference Dates: Friday - Sunday, October 15-17, 2010
Location:
The New York Marriott Downtown
85 West Street at Albany Street
New York, NY 10006

The ImageSpan team just returned from Museums and the Web, an annual conference that drew 600 museum professionals to Denver to explore “the social, cultural, design, technological, economic, and organizational issues of culture, science and heritage on-line,” according to the event’s online brochure.

Museum professionals view the Web as a potential treasure trove of opportunities, which may help explain why attendance rose about a third for this year’s Museums and the Web event.

The question is: how to best leverage the Web? Presenters from around the world strove to answer that question by sharing ways to engage audiences online. For example, one presentation covered how best to present large collections online so that the public can easily find what interests them, while another offered ways to complement, enhance and extend on-site learning with on-line learning.

The biggest trend to emerge from this year’s event was “a focus on sharing data and putting data outside one’s own website into spaces controlled by others,” said David Bearman, a partner in Archives & Museum Informatics and a key organizer of the event.

For many long-time museum professionals, releasing content to the “wild” of the Internet is a scary and daunting prospect. However, most of those in the museum community understand the educational, cultural and even monetary benefits of making their content available online. A lot of museum professionals simply want to make their content available for browsing by art lovers, or for educational purposes. Others want to know who is using their content and want attribution for it online, but do not want to charge for its use.

This latter group expressed interest in the combination of LicenseStream Tracker with Digimarc for Images, which lets photography agencies, media companies, museums and archives add an imperceptible digital watermark to communicate copyright ownership and information on how to contact the owner wherever the image is found online. The LicenseStream Content Tracker then crawls the Web looking for uniquely watermarked images, providing regular reporting on where a content owner’s images are found so they can take appropriate action.

Yet other museum professionals are just beginning to realize that there may be new markets for their content where it would be fine to charge a usage fee – for example, for advertising or another commercial purpose such as store design. Many museum professionals had their eyes opened to this notion at Museums and the Web, where the Missouri History Museum  demonstrated how ImageSpan’s LicenseStream  empowered it quickly and efficiently to start discovering new markets and sell hundreds of images.

As a result, a comment we heard often at the event was: “I know that we are sitting on a gold mine, but it’s just such a huge undertaking.” Museum professionals recognize that there is value in their content, but do not believe they can begin licensing it until they have a content management system in place and until they digitize, tag or keyword ALL of their content to make it easy to find, use and license.  However, the Missouri History Museum’s experience with LicenseStream demonstrated that this is not the case. The museum has more than 600,000 images, including many that are not digitized, and it is still implementing a content management system. However, already it has begun licensing its images with LicenseStream.

How? While LicenseStream is not a content management system (CMS), it can host content to enable licensing, royalty processing, multiple-party fee disbursement, etc. In fact, LicenseStream can “plug in” to any existing architecture and/or CMS to generate revenues that will help a museum justify the larger content management initiative.

Another huge trend at this event was the interest in mobile applications. This spike in interest reflects the broader market’s interest in mobile applications, as highlighted in a recent announcement by the research firm Gartner said investments in mobile applications and technologies will increase through 2011 as organizations emerge from the recession and ramp up mobile spending.

However, while several vendors focused on museum tours, we discovered that museum professionals were most interested in learning about mobile applications that are NOT tours. They want to know what additional applications are out there to help them take advantage of this new medium and its explosive growth, especially with the introduction of the iPAD.

As museums wake up to new opportunities via the Web and mobile technologies, it will be exciting to see how they optimize the use of these technologies to engage with audiences and advance their missions.

Have questions or comments about this blog post? Please feel free to share them by clicking on the “Comments” link below.  

As newspapers refocus their business models to encompass multiple platforms, and look for revenue alternatives to advertising, there is a lot of interest in new technologies at the Newspaper Association of America mediaXchange this week in Orlando, Florida. More than 650 industry executives have gathered at the event to share audience and revenue development strategies that generate growth in print and online.

Hype around iPAD (and other eReaders) 

There also is plenty of buzz at mediaXchange about emerging hardware distribution platforms that media companies are adopting to help drive revenues. In particular, there’s a lot of hype focused on the iPAD as companies test it and other e-readers (including the Kindle and similar tablets) as well as devices such as the Samsung Go netbook.

As a result, everyone’s favorite parlor game at mediaXchange is speculating about the magic price point that will bridge the gap between what current subscription models charge and the new, lower-cost subscription models tied to such tablets and similar devices. For example, The New York Times annual print subscription fee is about $785. By contrast, The New York Times’ monthly subscription on the Kindle is now $19.99 – up from the initial teaser offer of $13.99. In addition, publishers including The New York Times are testing bundle offers where the price of a device is discounted in exchange for a subscriber commitment of a year or two. 

Platform Strategy vs. Device Strategy

Based on comments we’ve heard at the show, publishers are still trying to understand whether to pursue a platform strategy vs. a device strategy. Ideally, newspapers should be able to publish content once for use across all devices in a way that is optimal for the newspaper's bottom line as well as for the consumer. However, each device sports its own key features and capabilities, and pursuing an individual product strategy for each device will not scale up to cost-effectively meet or take advantage of mass market demand for content.

Why Does This Matter to LicenseStream Subscribers?

Demand for content will continue to grow exponentially as newspapers, magazines and other media companies form business relationships with companies that are creating new conduits to the consumer – whether it’s Apple’s iPAD, Amazon’s Kindle or Barnes & Noble’s nook. That means the ability for media outlets such as the Chicago Tribune or SPIN magazine to search for and easily license digital content is more important than ever.  Just as important is the need of the photographer or videographer to be fairly compensated for the original content he or she creates.

ImageSpan and its partners already provide the tools to make your digital content license-ready, to publish it to the Web and to major search engines in a way that protects it, and to help you monitor, manage and monetize unauthorized usage of it. In addition, ImageSpan and its partners make it easier for potential purchasers of your content – including major newspapers, magazines and book publishers – to drive the revenues they need during  this time of great change. 

Have questions or comments about this blog post? Please feel free to share them by clicking on the "Comments" link below.  

Apple created such a buzz around the launch of its latest hot product -- the iPad -- two weeks ago that sites and services all over the net slowed to a crawl and some suffered outages for upwards of 20 minutes. At the AlwaysOn OnMedia conference in New York a few days later, Apple’s new product remained a hot topic. Consider the amount of discussion about how this new product will not support flash by participants on a single panel, “Online Video…Who Profits?”

This kind of awareness is not created solely by the Apple PR machine, but is a clear indication of the widespread interest in changing the way we as consumers experience media. The demand for a real interactive experience and a thirst for new information mean the demand for high-quality, easily licensable content has never been greater.

Just look at the impact of the iPad. Although not as revolutionary as some had predicted, Apple's 10-inch touch screen iPad tablet packs a mighty punch. Along with the ability to surf the Web and handle email, the device can stream video from sites like YouTube and Vimeo and is capable of running powerful applications like iWork. In addition, Apple introduced iBooks.  The ability to download books is nothing new, but the iPad reader app adds a fresh look and feel to the idea of reading from a digital device.

Among the print publications featured in Apple’s official demo video for the iPad were LicenseStream customer SPIN magazine and The New York Times. At launch, Martin Nisenholtz, a senior vice president at The New York Times showcased a version of the paper on the iPad that displayed just like the regular paper, but that could be manipulated by the user to zoom in to read articles, flick through pages and access video right from within news articles. Nisenholtz’s declaration that “this is just the beginning,” makes it clear that the executives at Gray Lady are embracing the iPad in a big way.

WHY DO I CARE?

Companies such as The New York Times and other large publications already use massive amounts of visual content on a daily basis. They also face the growing costs of producing this content. In addition, advances in digital fingerprinting, watermarking and tracking for online content are forcing changes in the media industry as they require greater accountability by sites and publications that otherwise might use content illegally or without proper licensing.

Demand for content will continue to grow exponentially as newspapers, magazines and other media companies form business relationships with companies that are creating new conduits to the consumer – whether it’s Apple’s iPAD, Amazon’s Kindle or Barnes & Noble’s Nook. As a result, the ability for media companies such as The New York Times to search for and easily license digital content is more important than ever.  Just as important is the need of the photographer or videographer to be fairly compensated for the original content he or she creates.

ImageSpan's LicenseStream with ImageSpan's partners already provide the tools to make your digital media license-ready, and to monitor, manage and monetize unauthorized usage.

In addition, ImageSpan and its partners are making it easier for potential purchasers or your content – such as The New York Times – to monetize the content they publish. Instead of relying solely on advertising – which is a reactive model as ImageSpan CEO Iain Scholnick pointed out during a recent AlwaysOn OnMedia conference  panel in New York titled, “What's the Online Monetization Strategy that Will Save News & Publishing?”, content creators and owners should play to their strengths – which is leveraging their creative content more efficiently and effectively.  To actually monetize the content, he added, content developers need to be able to link into a licensing backbone, such as the one LicenseStream provides, from any iPad (or for that matter, iPhone) applications they’re creating to distribute content.

The upshot? LicenseStream offers content owners of all sizes a powerful solution that makes it easier for editorial and other media companies to find and license the content they need.

Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Deanne Fitzmaurice  defends the very graphic nature of the images coming out of Haiti as its people – helped by teams of international aid workers -- dig out from the debris that rained down on them after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck the island Jan. 12, killing at least 150,000 and leaving millions homeless.

Fitzmaurice also worries about the plight of Haiti’s people as news coverage of it inevitably fades.  

“There was just one column on the front page about it in this week’s Sunday The New York Times, and so it seems to be quickly dropping off in terms of the news cycle," said Fitzmaurice, speaking by phone from her home in the San Francisco Bay Area. "And that means everything the news coverage helps drive – the donations, the relief efforts, everything – will decline.”

Debates continue to take place online and in other media over the usefulness of photographers and journalists in the disaster zone, over their roles once there (should they be taking photos or bandaging the injured and distributing water?), and even over whether the images they’re taking are just too graphic for the folks back home to absorb. Acknowledging these debates, Fitzmaurice cited several reasons photojournalists need to shoot and send back honest photos of what is happening in Haiti. 

“The images coming out of Haiti have played a big part in how people have responded to this disaster,” said Fitzmaurice. “Seeing those images has really moved people both in the U.S. and around the world to donate money, time, and other resources.”

She added that it is the duty of photojournalists, after all, to bear witness and record history.

“As a photographer, you can’t sensor yourself while you’re shooting,” she said. “You need to just be there, get the images and send them back. Then let the editor for each publication or news website determine whether the images are appropriate for their audiences.”

Fitzmaurice knows something about making split-second decisions about what to photograph and what to let go in a difficult environment. She had many such moments while taking photos for the Pulitzer Prize-winning essay she created for the San Francisco Chronicle of a nine-year-old Iraqi boy who was badly injured when he picked up a bomb, mistaking it for a ball.

“I went in and photographed him having brain surgery and there were times when I had to decide, ‘Okay, don’t shoot this,’” she said. “You have to be aware of your surroundings and think about whether the image you shoot may be strong enough to risk upsetting people and possibly jeopardizing the more compelling images that you may be able to get later on.” 

However, when she’s in the middle of a shooting a situation that may be difficult, she added, “I’m very focused on the fact that it is my job to be photographing the story at hand.”

As for the images coming out of Haiti since the earthquake, Fitzmaurice said she has been most impressed with the images sent by Damon Winters, a photographer for The New York Times. “I think he was one of the first people there and has documented everything, and shot images with compassion and integrity," she said. "I think his pictures have been very powerful.”

Fitzmaurice has been trying to get to Haiti herself since the earthquake and has been in touch with various foundations, non-profits and other non-governmental organizations that may need a photographer to get the word out about the work they’re doing. But covering the current breaking news story isn’t that important to her.

“I’d be happy to go in a couple of months or in six months from now,” she said. “These people’s lives have been drastically changed – these are people who have lost everything. So I’m drawn to those stories.”

Does she have a specific framework in mind for telling a story once she gets there?

“A lot of times it’s nice to have some kind of an idea of what you want to do, so you have a framework,” she said. “But I think real life is way more interesting than anything I could preconceive and so I like to let stories unfold.”

To be a good photographer and a good storyteller, she added, “I think you have to go towards stories you are passionate about, that you really are about. That’s when you do your best work.”

Fitzmaurice said she currently is drawn to the story of the children and the orphans of Haiti. “I’ve contacted NGOs who work with children," she said. “To prepare, I’ll try to do as much research as I can before I get there. Right now, everyone is in emergency mode, trying to solve problems, saving peoples’ lives.”

As efforts shift from search and recovery to rebuilding infrastructure, she added, “I think a lot of different types of stories will emerge, and there will be opportunities to go deeper. It’ll still be important for the people of Haiti, and for the people of the world, that photographers are there to tell those stories.”

For those interested in hearing more from Deanne Fitzmaurice, you can catch her at the following events:

• March 4:  ASMP Tucson 
• March 9: WPPI in Las Vegas - Presenting Masterclass on Photojournalism and Multimedia
• March 8-10: WPPI Convention in Las Vegas with Think Tank Photo (a camera bag company that Deanne co-founded)
  

The ImageSpan team last week joined nearly 200 imaging industry leaders, media and analysts at the annual 6Sight Future of Imaging Conference in Monterey, California.

In case you missed it, it was at 6Sight that ImageSpan and Digimarc announced they are partnering to deliver a combined solution that helps content owners manage, monitor and maximize the value of their image assets.

Other 6Sight highlights included:

• A panel on “The Monetization of Amateur Photography” that included John Griffen, Cutcaster, Amy Love, Picscout, and Pete Wheelen, Blurb. The panel wrapped with host Richard Weisgrau, a professional photographer, photography book author, and former executive director of executive director of ASMP (American Society of Media Photographers) stating that “Those who know me, know that I’m hard to impress, but I need to tell you I’m impressed with what I’ve seen of LicenseStream today.”  To see more of Weisgrau’s comments on how LicenseStream fulfills a long-held vision for the future, click here.

An evening excursion to Monterey’s Cannery Row IMAX Theatre, where 6Sight conference attendees donned oversized 3D glasses to take in the eye-popping, ear-blasting “U2 3D” movie, which transforms a series of live 2006 concerts by one of the world’s most acclaimed (if aging) bands and turns it into a dazzling spectacle. At times, such as in a spine-tingling moment when he sings “Wipe your tears away” directly into the camera, it makes you feel as if Bono is reaching directly into the theater. At other moments, you feel as if you’re in the mosh pit, buzzy from the energy that envelopes you as the camera moves at eye-level through the crowd.

6Sight Attendees Tor Weatherstone and Martha Blanchfield Don 3D Glasses at Monterey's Cannery Row IMAX Theatre

• A presentation by photographer Rick Smolan, probably best known for his best-selling “Day in the Life” series of photography books co-created with David Elliot Cohen. Smolan talked about a recent project called The Obama Time Capsule, a book that includes the work of more than 140 of the world’s leading photojournalists as well as commentary from luminaries that include Arianna Huffington and General Colin Powell. It also offers readers an unusual twist: using HP’s print-on-demand technology, readers can customize the large-format book by integrating their own names, photos and stories.  “This is what the future of publishing looks like,” said Smolan. His claim was backed up by industry leaders from Kodak, HP and Xerox in a subsequent panel, who noted that custom photobooks, including school yearbooks, family-focused books and even books designed to market businesses already has produced a market ranging in the billions of dollars.

To learn more about the event, check out the 6Sight program

ImageSpan CEO Iain Scholnick will be among the leading voices to speak on such key imaging topics as monetization, 3D, mobile imaging, print on demand, and the rising industry clout of prosumer photographers at the upcoming 6Sight Future of Imaging Conference , November 10-12, at the Monterey Conference Center in Monterey, Calif.

The event brings together executives from all sectors of the imaging industry from around the world to gain strategic insights and network with other decision makers, media, analysts, and investors looking to accelerate the growth of imaging.

Iain will join other industry luminaries on a panel called “Monetizing Amateur Images” at 10:45 a.m. on Nov. 12th about how the convergence of human talent and technology has made the monetization of amateur photography possible. The panel discussion, to be moderated by Richard Weisgrau , former ASMP executive director and author of “Selling Your Photography,” will examine new opportunities in both personal and commercial content.

Following that panel, Iain will speak about LicenseStream as part of a New Technology Showcase. 

To learn more about the event, check out the 6Sight program . 

Even the Great Recession and a rainstorm couldn’t keep photographers, videographers and photo enthusiasts from this year’s PDN PhotoPlus Conference & Expo in New York City Thursday through Saturday of last week, where crowds at times all-but-overwhelmed ImageSpan’s LicenseStream booth. 

Part of the interest was driven by the introduction of a new LicenseStream service we rolled out at the show: LicenseStream Business Edition a new quick-start, all-inclusive, Web-based service for high-end photographers, and other owners of premier collections, archives and libraries to showcase, license, track and monetize the full value of their content through their own branded online stores. Among those already using the new service are the Missouri History Museum and “Visions of America” photographer Joseph Sohm.

Additional interest was driven by a workshop the opening day of the event (Thursday, Oct. 22) on “Tools for Selling Stock Direct” that included our own Candice Murray and that was hosted by Ellen Boughn  and that included PhotoShelter CEO Allen Murabayashi , LookStat CEO and Founder Rahul Pathak and Creative Commons’ Outreach Manager Fred Benenson.

The workshop drew a serious crowd and elicited lots of questions and cross-talk. The conclusion: photographers (and by extension, videographers) need to leverage online services and tools for going direct to potential buyers, especially now that more than 60 percent of buyers find images through online search engines.

It also doesn’t hurt to have a specialty, as several panelists, including our own Candice Murray and panel host Ellen Boughn pointed out. “Generalists won’t survive,” added Murabayashi during the panel, as in his blog post “Stock Photography is Like the Gold Rush,” stating “We have enough yellow rubber ducks against seamless. You have to specialize and understand who’s buying to really succeed.”

Why? The photography industry has gone through a tremendous technological transformation brought on by the increased availability of quality prosumer camera gear, a flood of royalty free microstock images that often were produced by amateurs, low pricing and the growth of quality low-cost photographers as the loss of staff jobs at many media organizations put more freelancers on the streets. These factors make LicenseStream particularly attractive to photographers and videographers seeking new ways to generate incremental revenues in an uncertain economy.

In fact, two luminaries see LicenseStream’s potential for doing just that: Pulitzer Prize-winner Deanne Fitzmaurice and New York-based photographer Lyle Owerko, perhaps best known for his 9/11 cover for TIME magazine, who were on hand in our booth Friday and Saturday respectively to speak about their work and about LicenseStream and liveBooks. 

Deanne spoke about the work that won her a Pulitzer Prize – a 2005 photo essay about an Iraqi boy who was nearly killed by an explosion and about his courageous battle as doctors in California tried to mend his wounds as he adapted to life in the U.S. Since winning the Pulitzer while a staff photographer at the San Francisco Chronicle, Deanne said she has seen the market for photographs change dramatically.

In this changing media landscape, she said, there’s a need for solutions such as LicenseStream. Among the key reasons she likes LicenseStream is the ability to track creative assets across the Web to find out where and how they are being used and then resolve unauthorized use with automated tools. She added that she likes liveBooks for its search engine optimization, its strong editing tools and its ability to support multimedia.

Photojournalist and commercial photographer Lyle Owerko, who showed off gorgeous photos  he had taken of the Samburu people taken in Northern Kenya as well as a series of images documenting some of the iconic vintage boomboxes from the ‘80s that will be showcased in a book available next year, similarly said he likes LicenseStream because it offers him greater control over his creative assets.

Specifically, it enables him to offer a wide variety of imagery from his library that previously has been unavailable through larger agencies, and allows for a more “of the minute” curation of images that taps his photographer’s sense of what should be in the imagery marketplace.

That’s a key benefit of LicenseStream: it allows photographers to put both the head and the long tail of their content online so that anyone, anywhere in the world can license it on the spot. As Lyle, who is considering a move to LicenseStream Business Edition, points out, LicenseStream also allows photographers and other content creators to choose the licensing parameters they want, the type of licenses they want, and to price their content as they see fit.

During a time when so much seems beyond our control, isn’t it nice to know there’s a service that allows you to take control of your creative portfolio and allows you to maximize its value?

Starting tomorrow, we'll be at the PDN PhotoPlus International Conference + Expo, which runs through Saturday, October 24 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City.  More than 32,000 attendees and 230 exhibitors are expected at this year's event. We’ll showcase a new LicenseStream solution and demonstrate new LicenseStream features and benefits. 

Check us out in Booth #1155 on the Expo show floor to learn about the latest LicenseStream developments. We'll even make it easy. For a free exhibit hall pass,  just CLICK HERE to register online with our promo code: License.

We’ll also be participating in and hosting several exciting events. They include:

• Participation by  ImageSpan’s VP, New Business Development Candice Murray in a panel at the International Conference on Tools for Selling Stock Direct that will include luminaries from other companies and organizations who are active in this area.
  • Time: 1:15 p.m. – 3:15 p.m. Thursday, October 22 , 2009
  • Location: Check PDN+PhotoPlus Conference schedule. 
  • Additional speakers:
    Fred Benenson – Creative Commons
    Allen Murabayashi – PhotoShelter
    Candice Murray – ImageSpan
    Rahul Pathak – LookStat
    Ellen Boughn – Panel Host & Stock Photography Consultant

For more information CLICK HERE    

• A talk by Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Deanne Fitzmaurice. Deanne, who is based in the San Francisco Bay Area, will speak about her work and about how using LicenseStream and liveBooks can help photographers reach a larger audience online and create new revenue streams.
  • Time: 11 a.m.  Friday, October 23, 2009
  • Location: ImageSpan Booth #1155 PDN PhotoPlus Expo

• A presentation by Lyle Owerko, a photojournalist and commercial photographer in New York City. Lyle, who travels the world shooting for many NGOs and human rights groups, will speak to the benefits of using LicenseStream and liveBooks to extend his online reach and generate new revenues. 
  • Time: 11 a.m. Saturday, October 24, 2009
  • Location: LicenseStream Booth #1155 PDN PhotoPlus Expo

We look forward to seeing you at PDN PhotoPlus!