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Story 789
PRESS RELEASES 11
December 30, 2005
Amana Buys Orion
Mr. Hironobu Shinoda, President of Amana Corporation and Mr. Junichi Nakamura, President of Orion Press have announced that effective December 28, 2005 Amana will purchase 100 percent of Orion stock. Gross sales for Orion in its last fiscal year that ended on March 31, 2005 was 1,151,000,000 yen, or just under $10 million US at current exchange rates. It is believed that a significant portion of the $10 million comes from rents paid on prime Tokyo property owned by Orion, not from the licensing of stock photos.
Currently, Orion has 23 employees, but this is down from over 100 a few years ago. Am ana will continue to operate Orion's photo news service and stock photo business under the Orion brand.
Orion was the third largest stock agency in Japan (after Am ana and Getty Images). It is also rumored that Am ana has recently acquired Seiki Bunka, an agency smaller than Orion, but still of significant size, and that Amana is in acquisition talks with several other Japanese agencies.
Jupiter Acquires Animation Factory
Jupiterimages has acquired the assets of Animation Factory, Inc. from VA Software Corporation for $9.35 million in cash and the assumption of certain liabilities. Animation Factory, Inc., includes the MediaBuilder Network of Web sites, (www.animationfactory.com) and (www.mediabuilder.com) and is based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
The company offers paid online subscriptions for royalty-free 3D clip art, animated graphics, video backgrounds, Microsoft PowerPoint templates, and e-mail, and Web page backgrounds for business and personal use. Creative professionals and prosumers may access Animation Factory's collection of more than 400,000 original animations and Web designs to incorporate graphics into e-mail, Internet messaging, Web pages, presentations and mobile phones. Animation Factory's MediaBuilder Network of Web sites, which generates over 18 million page views per month, also offers free online graphics tools which help to drive users to buy Animation Factory's paid products.
"Animation Factory's leadership position in providing 3D animations, clipart, video clips and PowerPoint presentations further expands Jupiterimages' range of image offerings and solidifies Jupiterimages' position as the dominating company providing images by paid online subscription," stated Alan M. Meckler, Chairman and CEO of Jupitermedia Corporation. "We anticipate significant sales and business synergies between Animation Factory and our Jupiterimages division as well as our other Jupitermedia properties. We also expect that this acquisition will immediately be accretive to our earnings and cash flows," added Meckler.
New Specialist Portal
The Peter Arnold Group is a rapidly growing portal of agencies, available through one web site. The Group specializes in a host of niche categories including; MEDICAL, SCIENCE, ASTRONOMY, WEATHER, ECOLOGY and THIRD WORLD NEW EVENTS and ISSUES in addition to its two original staples: NATURE, WILDLIFE and ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES.
The web site (www.peterarnold.com) has grown from 5,000 images when it was launched in 1991 to just under 100,000 and is poised for explosive growth, thanks to new technologies.
The Peter Arnold Group, headed by company President, Peter Arnold, is one of many niche agencies that thrived during the golden era of stock and is fortunate to have survived the transition to digital. "Publishers used to rely on us as experts in our chosen fields of specialization" Peter explains. "Nowadays, we hear more and more that if it is not on your web site—it doesn't exist."
"The last few years have been challenging," Peter adds, "as our clients gravitated to the larger sites where many different subjects could be found without the need to move to another supplier."
"The Peter Arnold Group is our response. As a portal of specialist agencies worldwide, we are adding entire collections—anywhere from 30 to 75,000 images and up. Our goal is to grow to over 300,000 images on the site by the end of 2006 and to be seen as a 'first stop' for research in our specialized subjects."
VPD To Distribute De Agostini Images
The Virtual Picture Desk, the management services and consultancy business founded by industry veteran George Sinclair, has been awarded a long term brokerage contract to exclusively manage the distribution of the De Agostini Editore Picture Library through publishers and other major corporations, as well as third party distributors including stock picture agencies, content aggregators and channel partners.
De Agostini Editore, based in Milan, Italy, has 3,300 employees and publishes books in over 30 countries in 15 languages. De Agostini is the publishing division of one of the largest private companies in Italy with annual revenues exceeding $ 7 billion and has developed this wholly owned picture library for its own use for printed books, CDs, DVDs, and online educational products.
The Picture Library currently has over 600,000 rights-protected digitized photographs, prints, drawings, illustrations and cutaways, with 3,000 new pictures being added every month. These images have not been published or licensed in North American except for books co-licensed by De Agostini with other publishers such as Rizzoli and the Getty Museum.
In addition to the extensive collection of geographic (travel and cartography), history (including traditions, races and ethnic peoples) and art subject matter, the Library includes thematic content such as archeology (Mesopotamia, Egyptian, Etruscan, Phoenician, Grecian, Pre-Columbian and Roman civilization), astronomy, botany, food and drink, geology, music and the arts.
De Agostini provides an exclusive password protected search and selection capability with individual and project secure "light boxes" from its web site, and down loadable hi-res images. De Agostini also provides extensive offline research services and specifically for project related requirements through its Project Research Service ( PRS).
The collection will only be available to publishers with qualified corporate accounts and through major stock picture agencies for specific subject related and thematic content.
" We are delighted with our agreement with De Agostini since it offers us new and fresh editorial imagery, particularly in the areas of fine art," said Michael Ross the SVP for Encyclopaedia Britannica, " and their project research service ( PRS) has reduced the time and cost of sourcing our volume picture requirements, as well as providing, from the light box, a vast selection of relevant pictures to choose from."
"We are very excited to have entered into this research and licensing agreement with De Agostini" stated Melinda Patelli-Reo, the Director of the Image Resource Center for Pearson Education, "as well as making the Picture Library available to our researchers from their web site, we look forward to rolling out specific subject and thematic content through the Pearson Asset Library ( PAL) for our multiple publishing businesses and packaging houses."
For inquiries regarding the De Agostini Picture Library you can contact George Sinclair directly at: The Virtual Picture Desk, TFvapynve@ICQPbec.pbz, Telephone: 1-312-467-5699.
Social Issues Photo Library Uses TheDataArchive
John Birdsall Social Issues Photo Library (www.johnbirdsall.co.uk) is the foremost social documentary library in the UK specializing in model released pictures that reflect multiracial and multi cultural Britain today. It covers all social issues subjects, from children to health and disability, through old people to housing.
The website was designed by TheDataArchive to provide a powerful image search functionality behind a fast, robust and easy to use image assets management software. Users may store, search, share, distribute and license images online
The new John Birdsall site offers enhanced Lightbox management and a highly sophisticated image search function. It enables faster access to and delivery of images 24/7.
For more information, please contact vasb@gurqngnnepuvir.pbz, or phone 44 (0) 207-403-8866.