Pixamba, the maker of popular micro-contributor software ProStockMaster, has announced the launch of a digital asset management platform to help microstock photography users manage their image collections. Offered as software-as-service at a starting price point of under $5 per month, the Pixamba Media Management platform is designed to help image buyers index, store, search, tag, back up and retrieve images for reuse.
Though the service explicitly targets the microstock buyer—expected, because the micro arena is Pixamba’s established niche—there is no reason why it cannot be used to manage image inventory of varying origins. Particularly useful for non-micro images is that the service provides information on when and how each individual stock image was used and the up-to-date status of respective legal rights for further use. According to the company, this media rights-tracking feature allows buyers to realize the optimum return on their image-licensing investment.
Other Pixamba Media Management platform features include centralized online storage accessible from anywhere, search functionality that works within a customer’s archive and with multiple stock agencies, an automated buy-and-stock feature with original metadata retention, version control and the more mundane functionality of folders, lightboxes and other standard image-management fare.
Pixamba says that the software-as-service approach is both convenient and cost-effective, as it allows image users to pay as they go, enables multiple-user access and does not require complex installations. Founder David Mail said: “With the exponential growth in the global microstock market, there has been a dramatic increase in microstock-based creative files. We believe that we are the first to market to provide a digital asset management system that puts the stock photography consumers in full control of their archives of licensed images.”