FPG Launches Web Site

177

October 23, 1998

One week after Tony Stone Images introduced their on-line site (See Story 176), FPG

launched a site that includes images from all the Visual Communications Group (VCG)

agencies. Now, all of the world's major agencies have a

significant number of images available for on-line viewing and sale.

The URL for the FPG site is www.fpg.com . FPG

had between 16,000 and

18,000 images on the site at launch. FPG is uploading additional images on a regular

basis.The other VCG agencies with images on the site

include Telegraph Colour Library, Colorific, Planet Earth Productions, Pix, Giraudon

and Bavaria Bildagentue. FPG expects to have a fully transactional site in the months to come.

FPG uses slightly larger thumbnails than most of their competitors and pays a price

in download speeds. In our search tests the FPG site was much slower than those of their

principle competitors. Twelve thumbnails seem to come up on the FPG site in about 70 to 80 seconds.

PhotoDisc brings up 9 thumbnails instead of 12, but does it in 15 to 20 seconds. Both

The Stock Market and Tony Stone Images show 12 thumbnails at a time. TSM loads these in 30

to 36 seconds and TSI has a slightly longer load time at about 40 seconds. This test was

conducted on a PowerMac with a single channel ISDN connection (56K). Many corporations

and advertising agencies have faster connections.

Thumbnail size is only one of many factors that effect download speed. Other factors

that may effect download time include sender and receiver proximity to an Internet trunk line,

routing, modem speed, image compression, number of simultaneous users of the site and receivers

ISP. This is not an all inclusive list and many of these factors are beyond the control of

the stock agency or the client. Thus, there are likely to be wide variations in experience

between various users.

FPG users may download hi-res, watermark free files that may be used for full page,

full bleed, true-color comps, presentation and/or layouts for a a $50 service fee. Service

fees are normally not shared with the photographers.

FPG also offers a highly customized digital service that enables users who

require certain specifications (retouching, color correction, etc.) to work

with FPG to make changes, then have the images transmitted in a matter of

seconds.

Keyword Problems

For a site that is supposed to have over 16,000 images, very few come up when

clients search on often requested concept words. It is not clear whether this is due to

very poor keywording, or software problems. It is surprising that such a problem exists

given the fact that FPG has been Beta testing the site for well over a year. The site

was originally for release in the fall of 1997.

Rebecca Taylor explained that FPG has a proprietary system that

takes data from several different files maintained by FPG. At present all this data

has not been loaded into the on-line search system. It is FPG's intention to begin testing the

on-line system with minimal data and slowly add data, in increments, to

determine just how much is really needed.

Ms. Taylor said, "We hope to add additional data in a week or two and to have all the data in

place in at least a month. When we start adding data it will not be attached to all images at

once, but will be uploaded batch by batch." When asked if FPG was concerned that users would

take one look at the site, find

it inadequate, and never come back, she said, "We hope that doesn't happen." Art directors are

already receiving mailings from FPG encouraging them to "log on", and Selling Stock assumes

print ads will be following shortly.

The FPG search engine is designed to put "or" where ever there

is a space. Thus, when searching for a phrase such as "three generations," "good life," or

"rocky mountains" it is necessary to enter

"and" between the words in any phrase if you want the search to pull up only

images that have both words. If you look

for "three generations" it will find all images that have the word "three"

and all images that have the word "generations". FPG is trying to modify their

search engine so the default will be "and" instead of "or" whenever the computer finds

a space between words.

Accurate keywording of what is already there is also a problem. FPG has 25 images

keyworded "banking", but several have no

relation whatsoever to this concept. For example the images keyworded banking include:

a family group forming a human pyramid, a childs birthday party, a father and

son looking into an aquarium and a portrait of a female executive. Also included under

"banking" are two pictures of city skylines that are captioned

"Bank of China Building". Unfortunately, there is no information to tell the user

the city where this building is located. The hills in the background look something like

Hongkong, but when we search on Hongkong, Shanghai or Singapore none of these pictures

appear.

According to Rebecca Taylor, FPG's site is not keyword based in spite of the

fact that users are asked to enter keywords. Instead, she says it will rely

heavily on a thesaurus, not currently in operation, to make the site fully functional

for clients. The thesaurus is scheduled to be installed in a few weeks. Ms.

Taylor is confident that the thesaurus will greatly improve site operation. For the

real answer, go to the FPG site in a month, or so, and check some of the words on our

list and see if you get a better selection of images.

Site Comparisons for Selected Keywords

The following is a comparison of hits using various keywords. FPG www.fpg.com has 16,000 to 18,000

images on their site. Tony Stone Images www.tonystone.com (TSI) has approximately 40,000;

PhotoDisc www.photodisc.com (PhDisc) has

75,000 and The Stock Market www.stockmarketphoto.com

(TSM) has 35,000. While agencies tend to list the total images on-line in their promotional materials,

the more important number is the appropriate number of hits the user gets when

looking for any particular subject or concept.

So What?

Why should photographers care how many images any of these agencies has in particular

subject categories?