The newest image publication-tracking service, PixTrakk, has French-American roots. Image-search and recognition company LTU Technologies, operating out of Paris and Washington D.C., French photo portal PixPalace and leading U.S. research and information provider TNS Media Intelligence have partnered to provide to the photo industry a new system to track print and Web-based image uses.
LTU Technologies is a 10-year-old company that claims to have been first to successfully deploy large-scale image-search and recognition solutions for purposes such as child exploitation monitoring and investigation, general law enforcement, intelligence analysis, intellectual property, media, life sciences and high-tech applications. Founded by MIT, Oxford and INRIA researchers, LTU works services advertising, photography, e-commerce and public sectors. Its clients include Corbis, Fotolia, Meredith Corporation and a number of French and American government agencies.
Since 2004, PixPalace aggregates the daily production of 90 French and other photo agencies. It provides daily access to 15,000 new sports, news, entertainment and creative images to magazine, newspaper, advertising, design and publishing clients. PixPalace currently services over 250 clients and 800 users. It has recently launched a separate creative-image offering, PixCreativ, that targets advertising agencies.
The largest of the three partners, TNS Media Intelligence works with 16,000 customers in 25 countries. The company’s tracking technologies collect advertising expenditure and occurrence data, as well as select creative executions; it also monitors news, evaluates sports sponsorships and tracks the performance of some 3 million brands. TNS employs over 600 data-collection specialists and has long-standing relationships with most U.S. media sources and associations, including the Publishers Information Bureau, which governs the collection of magazine advertising data.
PixTrakk will draw on each partner’s expertise. TNS will provide digitized versions of print publications and images captured on the Web. LTU will bring image-recognition technology and PixPalace will commercially offer the service starting September 2009. PixTrakk will monitor close to 2,500 publications and 500 Web sites, will be announced to the attendees of this week’s CEPIC congress in Dresden and will remain in private beta through the summer.