Press Releases 10

3

December 6, 2005

Business Conditions Ahead

In a Trend Watch Graphic Arts survey in the Summer of
2005 Ad, PR, and Interactive Agencies were asked what they expected business conditions to be like in the next 12 months. 41% expected business conditions to be excellent.

But TWGA says, "Agencies, especially those who work in new media, have every right to be optimistic. Forecast after forecast of advertising and marketing spending indicates high levels of growth-especially online. Web ads, rich media advertising, and particularly search engine marketing are all expected to see double-digit growth in the next 12 months. Studies also indicate that much of this new media growth is coming at the expense of traditional media growth (yes, print, but more so network television). Creative firms that specialize in 'traditional' media are finding increased pressure to hone their interactive and rich media development skills. As culture becomes even more electronic, this may be simply a matter of survival."

PhotoSpin "Franchises" International Distribution

PhotoSpin, www.photospin.com, a leading royalty free stock subscription service in the United Sates has appointed Pepper Stark Ltd., www.pepperstark.com, as their exclusive agent to set up and manage an international distribution network for PhotoSpin's unique subscription model. Pepper Stark Ltd. is a specialist consultancy, training, and recruitment provider to the stock photography industry with extensive experience in creating and maintaining international distribution sales.

PhotoSpin offers thousands of photos, illustrations, fonts, film and sound as an annual service, with new images uploaded monthly. Annual subscribers pay one fee, and can then download whatever they need. Distributors can sell a localized version of PhotoSpin.com on a monthly fee basis. Subscription prices will be tailored to each distributor's currency and market.

PhotoSpin's sophisticated back-end technology enables native language site translation plus allows the distributor to monitor and manage client buying behaviour and accounts.

PhotoSpin intends to revolutionize international distributor relations by returning a percentage of the distributor's monthly fee so that each distributor can acquire local content for its subscription service. "With so many great photos and images spread all over the planet, we feel PhotoSpin can offer something novel to the independent stock agencies world wide -- a good old fashion relationship that happens to utilize technology.

This way, we all gain access to universal imagery, and we all share in the revenue. It's good for PhotoSpin, it's good for the distributor, it's good for the client," said Val
Gelineau, CEO of PhotoSpin, Inc.

To discuss potential distribution rights of the PhotoSpin subscription model, please contact liz.pepper@pepperstark.com or claudia.stark@pepperstark.com

Corbis Expands Partnership With PicScout

Corbis and PicScout, have announced an extension of their partnership to improve the monitoring and tracking of Corbis images.

The Image Tracker™ Service enables the monitoring of usage of 1.2 million Corbis Rights Managed images. Corbis will use Image Tracker to better protect its photographers and images collections against misuse.

"Corbis is constantly expanding the tools it uses to protect against misuse of its represented imagery. Our images are seen daily by millions of people around the world-in magazines, newspapers, and films, on television, and in thousands of advertisements. Image Tracker will add to Corbis' ability to track down and eliminate illegal use of Corbis images" said David Weiskopf, Corbis Corporate Counsel.

PicScout Image Tracker™ is the market standard for monitoring visual assets and is capable of detecting highly distorted images. PicScout applies the most sophisticated crawling and image recognition technology in the world to find image misuses in print and websites in major stock photography markets, such as US, Canada, UK, Germany and France.

"The last two year experience showed that the stock photo industry has been leaving great sums of money on the table due to inability to track web and print piracy. The Image Tracker™ Service helps our customers in turning countless number of commercial infringements into loyal imagery customers and expands their enforcement capabilities. We expect this long term partnership to contribute to the common goal of Corbis and its creative contributors worldwide" added Eyal Gura, PicScout CEO.

PictureHouse Starts Monthly Promotion

Starting in 2006 (just over a month away!) picturehouse will be producing a monthly e-mail newsletter to go out to around 35,000 picture buyers in the US, UK and France. In each newsletter it will feature three libraries, each with a thumbnail image and copyright line linking to the library's web site.

Libraries will automatically qualify for inclusion if they have:

• an active subscription to be listed in the public Image Sources directory;

• at least one thumbnail included with your listing.

Some key facts about Image Sources:

• The Image Sources directory now attracts over 1,500 unique visitors each week.

• Over 600 libraries are currently included in the complete directory (accessible to picturehouse network members), of which 137 are listed in the public directory.

• Image Sources is promoted alongside every picturehouse event to picture buyers in the US, UK and France.

• The search engine favours specialist libraries by listing them first when a buyer searches for specific image content.

• A subscription costs just £55 (approx $100 or €80) for a year, or 30% less if you're a one-person business.

• Your subscription includes access to real-time stats of how your listing is doing.

• Your first subscription to be listed in the directory entitles you to a free three-month trial of the picturehouse network.

• You can update your listing yourself at any time.

Purestock Grows To 16,000 Images

SuperStock, Inc. a subsidiary of a21, Inc. has announced, that the company's Royalty-Free (RF) brand, Purestock (www.purestock.com), is experiencing solid growth in both the number of images available for sale and the number of global distributors carrying the brand.

The Purestock RF collection now totals 16,000 single images to enhance its existing collection of 30 CD titles. The collection is represented by over 115 global distributors including those from China, Malaysia, Russia, South America and the United States. The Purestock RF collection also spans 16 major categories including business, education, healthcare, nature and travel. Images are added to provide fresh and relevant content, and are available in different resolutions from 1MB to 80MB file sizes.

Thomas V. Butta, CEO of SuperStock and Vice Chairman and President of a21 noted, "The market for a value, quality brand such as Purestock appears to be in great demand based on the momentum we're seeing in both direct and channel sales. We are excited about the progress made since Purestock was first launched this past summer. We remain committed to supporting Purestock even more aggressively in 2006."

Superstock Supports UK Expansion

SuperStock, Inc., a subsidiary of a21, Inc. has announced the launch of SuperStock.co.uk, the company's new UK web site.

SuperStock.co.uk is part of the company's overall integration plan for the UK marketplace. In addition to launching SuperStock.co.uk, SuperStock recently acquired Ingram Publishing Limited, a UK-based global publisher and distributor of Royalty-Free images, and Ms. Candice Crough joined SuperStock as Vice President of Direct Sales to oversee the company's US and UK sales teams.

"We have built our UK web site to mirror our successful US website, SuperStock.com, by focusing on delivering superior customer service and support. We believe our new UK web site, combined with increased product offerings as a result of our acquisition of Ingram Publishing and an increased focus on sales and customer service and support with the addition of Ms. Crough, will enable us to better serve our customers in the UK. Beyond these benefits, we believe that we now have an improved gateway for expanding our overseas operations as we continue to build SuperStock's product offerings," said Thomas V. Butta, Vice Chairman and President of a21 and CEO of SuperStock.

The SuperStock.co.uk web site is a user-friendly, e-commerce enabled marketplace. Visitors are able to search, access and purchase more than one million Rights-Managed and Royalty-Free digital images. SuperStock.co.uk features also include:

• Advanced lightbox workspace with drag and drop image positioning and the ability to copy and move images from one lightbox to another;

• Unlimited shopping carts for flexible project and single image price quoting;
  
• The opportunity to email a fully priced shopping cart;

• The ability to create lightboxes and price a shopping cart without logging onto the web site; and

• A flexible format that facilitates adding new content and features.

Veer Receives Record Number Of Awards

Veer has been honored with ten awards recognizing excellence in graphic design in 2005. Veer received awards for its direct-marketing catalogs and custom-designed T-shirts. The American Graphic Design Awards, HOW magazine, and Applied Arts magazine are among the award organizations praising Veer for its design efforts.

"We're blown away by how many design awards we've received this year." says Sheldon Popiel, Creative Director at Veer. "It's nice to be recognized for producing some of the best creative work in the industry. We strive to produce the type of unique and compelling work that gets us, as designers, to sit up and take notice. These awards tell us that Veer's pieces are resonating with our peers in the design community. Our team has a great synergy and it's great to be honored for something that we enjoy doing so much."

The catalogs include: The Veer Image Showcase series of catalogs reveals the depth of Veer's royalty-free and rights-managed photography collections; Veer's Very Big Summer Activity Book for Creatives and Veer Visual Elements Catalog. It is possible to view downloadable PDF files of Veer's catalogs at: http://www.veer.com/ideas/catalogs/.