Stock Photo Search Engine Arrives
A search engine covering the stock photo industry has been created to ease the burden placed on creative directors who no longer have to search for the perfect image by going from one supply house to another. It is all here, millions of images, sorted by keywords, with one click to reach the supplier and make the purchase.
New York, NY (PRWEB) April 21, 2005 -- StockPhotoFinder.com, the first image
search engine designed to “spider” stock photography databases, has emerged from
its soft launch phase. Enhanced with new site design and functionality, the
search site enables graphic artists, picture researchers and art directors to
find the perfect image solution in a fraction of the time it normally takes.
StockPhotoFinder.com is not a stock photo agency. As a stock photography
search engine, this web site aggregates images from all kinds of qualified
sources and provides state-of-the-art functionality, like a universal lightbox,
that applies to all the web sites being searched. Royalty-Free and Rights
Managed images are both available. Editorial images, such as news, celebrity and
archival imagery, will be added in the second quarter of 2005. And, the addition
of stock footage will be in Q3 2005.
Each week, 15,000 new users search
for photos at the web site. In the first few months since soft launch, this
photo search engine has passed the quarter million mark in users who are finding
centralized research to be a compelling reward for trying something new. Simply
put, StockPhotofinder.com provides two invaluable benefits to its image users –
a savings of time in searching multiple sites at once and the benefit of viewing
the newest images from a broad variety of photo industry web sites.
For
designers who normally search four or more sites to make sure they’ve seen a
good selection of images, they will save 75% or more of the amount of time they
have been spending to search multiple sites by using this image search engine
instead. This single site may very well be the most efficient starting point to
find that “one in a million” image. It empowers and supports a search of
excellence that has previously been too often curtailed because of time
constraints.
The second core benefit of StockPhotoFinder.com is its
ability to add the most recent images from so many web sites to every search.
Their technology continuously spiders or crawls the web sites of participating
image providers to add the freshest images to your search results. Keyword
search starts the process. Users can then choose from various follow-up search
options to quickly zero in on that perfect image, including searching within the
existing found set and a ground-breaking “similars” search that displays images
like the one selected.
Image licensing is handled by the image providers
who are just a click away. By clicking on a thumbnail image, you are instantly
connected to the source - the preview page at the web site of the stock photo
agency that handles licensing of that image. Navigation straddles both the
search engine and image provider’s web sites, enabling users to easily use the
full functionality of both sites.
One of the most useful tools of this
search resource is the universal lightbox that travels with you on your search
page and from computer to computer if you opt to login. In each lightbox that
you create and name, you can add images and other media from various web sites,
annotate each with your notes and comments, and email a copy of that lightbox to
your colleagues. Thousands of lightboxes are created and saved on the site each
month.
Being a completely open source site, no login is required to use
StockPhotoFinder.com. Benefits, like immediate access to all login protected
functionality on Image Provider sites as well as lightbox portability, encourage
the user to sign up in its Universal Registration Application which
simultaneously sends the user application to all participating photography web
sites to speed user access along the way.
For large volume image users,
StockPhotoFinder.com also offers customized versions of the public site that can
be “stocked” exclusively with images from preferred vendors that are specified
by the client company, and which provides corporate branding and additional
enhancements.
StockPhotoFinder.com has accomplished a rare feat in stock
photography – coming up with something that is excitingly new that has immediate
tangible benefits for the designers and researchers who use it.
For more
information about StockPhotoFinder.com, including possible interviews with
company officers, screen grabs, biographies and other materials for expanded
articles, please contact public relations representative Marty Appel at (212)
245-1772, or company President Randy Taylor at (212) 929-6965.
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Source: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/4/prweb231274.htm