Cutcaster Blog

We've moved our blog to http://blog.cutcaster.com/

2009-01-08T18:58:00.002-05:00

Please visit us at the new Cutcaster blog at http://blog.cutcaster.com/ and get the most recent updates.

The Cutcaster Team

Costa Rica Earthquake - Image Request

2009-01-08T16:58:00.003-05:00

A 6.1 magnitude earthquake shook Costa Rica on Thursday and we have had some requests for images of the destruction. Does anyone have images of the Costa Rica earthquake that they can upload to Cutcaster? We have had two requests for images of the Costa Rica earthquake in the last two hours and would be great to upload some of these editorial images. There were no reports of injuries or deaths. Thanks again.

Getting more views for your Cutcaster images

2009-01-06T20:06:00.002-05:00

Here is something very easy you can do to drive traffic to your studios and work. Some of you may not use these "share" buttons on your media details page or your studio pages but you should be.

They are a very important form of driving traffic to your studio as well as your images on Cutcaster or your own site and you should use this button to leverage getting more traffic and views/downloads of your content. And they are completely free.

On the media details page on the right side...

To promote your work or someone else's work (if you like their stuff) on Cutcaster you hover over the "share" button and click on the different networks you want to send the content to. The different sites will allow you to title it and put in a description and then feed it to their millions of users. It is very Easy. From our research and experience, this works in driving traffic and buyers to see your work and translates into sales.

Try it out for yourself and see how the views and traffic will pile up for you. Just click on the share button and send to the networks that you are a member at. My personal favorites are StumbleUpon, Digg, Myspace, technorati, facebook, reddit, twitter and delicious. But there are many places you can drive traffic from and I bet you will be happy that you tried it.

If you need some help understanding how to do this, just email us.

Cutcaster year end wrap up- An idea turns into a movement

2009-01-05T11:19:00.003-05:00

Cutcaster began 2008 as an optimistic unknown; an innovative idea that was just taking shape and full of potential. Our aim was to develop a dynamic marketplace where buyers could easily find and license fresh and unique user-generated content while content creators worldwide could discover the true value of their work. No one had heard of Cutcaster outside of a handful of people. We had 800 accepted files, fewer than 300 members and I was still trading stocks on Wall Street. At the end of January, I left the stock market to work full time on Cutcaster. What started with a few hundred files blossomed into a community of over 3600 members and 107,393 accepted files on January 1st 2009. (Congrats to both Marburg and Beth Pulsipher for having the closest predictions to our year end total accepted files). What a difference a year makes.

What Happened in 2008 - A few highlights:
1. Buyers outreach program started in mid-September- Email, print and web advertising, Google Adwords campaign, press releases, direct sales calls and email blasts, SEO techniques, joined two affiliate programs, our internal referral program, handwritten introductory letters, onsite Cutcaster demos, participation in buyers’ conferences i.e. Picturehouse, and participating in different forums.
2. Contributor outreach program- Grew from 800 files to over 107,000 by years end. Pretty amazing growth, I’d say, and the quality has been excellent so keep up the great work.
3. Started the year with 300 members and now we are over 3600 members and 1700 members have uploaded a file or more.
4. Numerous site features and enhancements rolled out. We have always been fast to correct things and roll out features that the community needs and things will continue to be like that in 09.
5. New image and vector search algorithm
6. Best customer service in the industry- We roll out the red carpet for everyone.

What to expect in the New Year
1. I’m moving the Cutcaster headquarters to San Francisco at the end of January and you shouldn’t notice any changes except a new address. This is so I can efficiently run Cutcaster and be close to the talent and money that I need to take on our competitors. I’m sad to leave NYC but extremely excited to be on the West Coast.
2. A lot more attention and work on the buyer front i.e. roll out corporate accounts, introduce credit packages and extended licensing, enhanced clipfolders, search algorithm tweaking and re-weighting the results, more direct sales calls, attending more buyer conferences, Cutcaster API’s, promoting more exclusive content on Cutcaster, tiered pricing for different resolution sizes and much more advertising in both print and web.
3. More sales, more data to help you make better decisions, more tutorials to help you know what to shoot and how to shoot it, more image and illustration requests
4. A much faster site

Goals for 2009
1. More sales, more revenue lines for contributors, more ease of use on the site.
2. Surpass 1,000,000 images and vectors
3. Get over 400,000 new images in the marketplace from sources that weren’t in the shallow pool of stock we see today
4. Increase membership to 20,000
5. More fun

Obviously, Cutcaster is a tool to earn money from your content or find outstanding content for the projects you are working on. However, Cutcaster is a community in action and is only as good as our contributors, supporters and buyers. We know we have nothing if we don’t have a strong community and that is why we work tirelessly to best serve our members. A special thank you goes out to Ashley, My family, Justin, Michael B., Zac, Lope, Barbara, Tara, Charley, InSITE, Lita, Dennis, Janie M, Linda, Carolyn, Jeffbeck, Martin, Shaolan, Victoria, Moriya, Dan M, Vasiliy, Jason, the whole Blip.tv team, Gracie, Henrik, Jeff S. and Shawn to name just a few.

There have been more, and I can’t thank you all enough for providing your support and patience as we grow. We know that it is a community in action that accomplishes more than any individual does, no matter how strong they may be. Spread the word, keep up the enthusiasm, and continue to be a part of something from the ground floor.

Here is to a great 2009,

John and the Cutcaster team

New Image Ideas for your new year shoots

2008-12-28T22:41:00.004-05:00

At Cutcaster, we have been speaking with more and more with the magazines out there and are hearing from quite a few that they are working on their spring issues. This is a great time to think about upcoming shoots. Here are some ideas we heard kicked around from our calls.

1. Spring Break travel spots/Concepts
2. Kids activities inside or outdoors
3. Fixing up the home/Home Renovation
4. Diet/dieting concepts
5. Upcoming fitness season
6. House/Spring cleaning
7. Home Gardening
8. Moving Season

Lets kick around some ideas here and see what new shots we can come up with. I will make sure it is seen.

New Cutcaster watermark. Better than the old one?

2008-12-18T13:23:00.006-05:00

What do you guys think? Here is the old one.

Here is the new one.

Let me know your thoughts.

How to add your Cutcaster studio to Google?

2008-12-17T20:00:00.004-05:00

Share your place on the net with Major search engines and get more views.
Adding your Cutcaster studio link to major search engines is really simple and really effective to get more exposure. Here is a link to my, John Griffin's Cutcaster studio page i.e. http://www.cutcaster.com/studio/pub/582007626.

See the last paragraph under the bottom of the "About me" section. That is where your public link can be found. To submit your Cutcaster studio to Google, you can follow this link. Or you can copy and paste this link into your browser as well, http://www.google.com/addurl/.

If you have problems, let me know.

Advanced Search at Cutcaster

2008-12-17T15:46:00.003-05:00

Cutcaster is developing one of the most targeted image search engines on the Internet in order to save you time and return the most relevant, highest quality results from the start. Try it and never reach for the aspirin bottle again after every photo and vector search.

Four easy steps to find the perfect choice from the first keyword searched.

1. Start with basic keywords or a compound phrase, then Refine
2. Enter singular or plural terms. We recognize either.
3. Our system supports Boolean operators like AND and OR so you are free to use them within a search. We do not offer NOT at this time.
4. Click Advanced Search to see a more detailed set of search filters. Check any desired box and find what you are looking for.

You can use several modifiers to narrow down your searches.

Use AND between search terms to find images that contain ALL the words you type. Or just separate words with a space, which will be interpreted the same way. Note: Typing & or + between words also finds images containing all those words.

Use OR between words to find images that contain any of your search words. Note: typing a comma (,) or vertical bar (|) between words also finds images containing any of those words.

Use quotation marks around several terms to find a phrase.If your multi-term search already exists in the Controlled Vocabulary as a phrase, those search results will be returned, with the option available to see other results as well.

For advanced keyword searches, enter a specific keyword in the search area box. Then you can apply any of the search filters in the advanced search before you press Find (such as file types, Categories, Model or Property released or Exclusive to the site).

Search by Members- If you want to take a closer look at a Members portfolio, click off the Members check box and type in the person’s name.

Adult Content - you can set or unset the 'Adult Content Filter' by checking / unchecking the box.

Search by Categories - You can select up to 5 categories that you wish to search by.

And if you really can not find the perfect image or vector in our Library please contact us by emailing content AT cutcaster DOT com.

Top 10 best selling categories of the year

2008-12-17T10:34:00.003-05:00

1. people- adults, mature adults, senior citizens

2. business-business tools and concepts

3. objects on white background

4. business people

5. vector graphics and illustrations

6. travel- transportation

7. signs & symbols

8. food

9. sports related

10. architecture & interiors-building exteriors

Thanks for you all your great images and keep up the good work in the new year. We have an exciting year ahead of us at Cutcaster.

Beware of the Doghouse, Cutcaster Men ;-)

2008-12-12T14:09:00.002-05:00

Great video from JCPenny on "the Doghouse." We have all been there. I'll probably be sent back there again by the time the year is over ;-) Will bring a smile to your face. Have a great weekend and go get your holiday presents.

Full Credits
Client: JC Penney
Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi, New York
Chief Creative Officer: Gerry Graf
Executive Creative Director: Amie Valentine
CD/Copywriter: Josh Rubin
CD/Art Director: Jason Musante
Head of Digital Production: John Swartz
Integrated Producer: Kwame Taylor-Hayford
Senior Producer: John Doris
Director: Bryan Buckley
Production Company: Hungry Man
Executive Producer: Kevin Byrne
Producer: Mino Jarjoura
Post Production: Big Sky
Editor: Chris Franklin

Another Milestone reached

2008-12-10T15:43:00.003-05:00

Just hit 500 blog posts the other day at Cutcaster and we keep on rolling strong. I can remember writing my first one and having no idea what a long and great trip this would become, plus all the amazing people I have met and have supported the site. I was still trading stocks on Wall st. then. Thanks to everyone who has participated in the discussion, help educate us and added to the laughs. We try to use the blog as a tool to communicate what is happening at Cutcaster but also to let you know what else we are seeing that could be of interest to you or bring a smile to your face.

Lift your glasses in a worldwide toast for 500 more posts and beyond. Thank you.

As a side note we are a few thousand files away from our goal of 100k files by the end of the year. I couldn't be happier and thank everyone. Just picture me with a huge smile on my face and giving you all a big high five ;-)

Travel Images Requested

2008-12-08T12:26:00.002-05:00

Request made - Please let us know if you can help. Just add a note to the upload in the submit area so we know you are sending us material for this.

Thanks.

I am looking for a front cover photo for the books

San Francisco with Kids
500 Places to take your kids before they Grow Up
Travel Guide for Norway
Travel Guide for Ecuador

Both the kids books are horizontal in format. I need to convey San Francisco specifically, so it can't be generic. Happy kids with a landmark, not cluttered.

The 500 Places title-- need to show white kids as tourists in a exotic locale. Turkey, Egypt, something recognizable. I am open to the place. (I showed kids wioth pyramids already, so I am open to other locales.

See what you have in stock. I don't want to limit you.

Ecuador-- need exotic birds, colorful landscapes. I don't want iguanas, they never are picked. Go with colorful birds and exotic scenics. Needs to be VERTICAL with room at top for the title of the book to have space.

Norway-- a great water scenic or people shot, or a not crowded image of Begen. Any of these might work. Needs to be VERTICAL with room at top for the title of the book to have space. Something simple, graphic, and bold.

The Importance of Public Clipfolders, How to Promote Them and How to Make Them….

2008-12-03T13:16:00.005-05:00

We have recently been noticing an increasing click through rate on our existing Public Clipfolders here at Cutcaster. This also shows us that buyers are going directly to the Clipfolder area to do their searching. So how can you help them.

Clipfolders are Cutcaster's version of Lightboxes. A Clipfolder or lightbox refers to a folder used on stock photography websites that allows a user to organize digital photos. Photos can be assigned to a public Clipfolder by subject, for later convenience, or used to compile unrelated photos for a specific project layout. Lightboxes also allow graphic designers to show clients options for a project in one simple uncluttered folder.

At Cutcaster, you can make Clipfolders with from your own work or you can take a variety of contributor's work and make a mixed Clipfolder. We suggest using as many different contributors' photos as well as your own in the Clipfolders you create. It is all about creating the best and most diverse Clipfolders from a wide array of contributor's work.

Clipfolders are a way to showcase, share and promote your work and the work of others. This makes is easier for a buyers to find what they are looking for right away, by simply clicking on a Clipfolder that specifies what they are searching for.

Clipfolders can be emailed to a friend or colleague who may be searching for something specific. To e-mail a Clipfolder you simply go into your Clipfolders and choose the little envelope next to the Clipfolder you would like to send to a friend.

Now, I know what your thinking….how the heck to do I make one. So without further delay…..here is the ‘How To’ on creating Clipfolders at Cutcaster:

First log into your account. In the upper right-hand corner of your screen you will see “My Clipfolder” – click on that.

Now, simply click on ‘Create New Clipfolder’ – this should be about mid-screen for you to click on.

This brings you to the Create New Clipfolder section. Here you want to name your Clipfolder, being as specific as you can such as: "Music – Piano’s" or "Woman – Smiling." Seasonal or holiday clipfolders are great too! You just fill in the information ‘Clipfolder Name’, ‘Description’ and ‘Keywords’. Please be sure to use only relevant keywords and no spamming your Clipfolders! Then you just click ‘Submit’. Buyers will search for clipfolders using keywords so they have to be accurate.

Once you click on the submit button, you now need to make the Clipfolder ‘Public’. To do this, click on your ‘Clipfolders’ tab and choose which Clipfolder you would like to make public by clicking on the pencil icon under manage. Then under ‘Sharing:’ – choose Public.

Now all that is left is to put some pictures relevant to topic or concept into the Clipfolder. You can do this by choosing your own pictures from your portfolio or you can do a keyword search and add several different contributors’ photos, as well as your own, by simply clicking on the folder with a plus sign under the photo. Clicking on the folder with a plus sign with give you a pop-up that will allow you to choose to add it to an existing Clipfolder or a new Clipfolder.

Let us know what you think and looking forward to seeing your clipfolders. If you have one that you are particularly proud of let us know and we will link to it from the homepage.

The PLUS Coalition. Your thoughts?

2008-12-02T18:50:00.003-05:00

I had a conversation last week with Jeff Sedlik from PLUS about using their licensing framework at Cutcaster. How many of you have heard of PLUS?

If you don't know about PLUS it is an international non-profit initiative on a mission to simplify and facilitate the communication and management of image rights. So what does that mean in English...well, PLUS is a system of standards that makes it easier to communicate, understand and manage image rights in all countries.

What are peoples thoughts on using PLUS as an option for licensing images on the site? What do you feel are the pros and cons? I want to open this up to discussion because this site is as much yours as it is ours.

I think some really interesting news for people who are selling their images is that "three major publishers have called for the adoption of the PLUS (Picture Licensing Universal System) standards by picture archives, photographers and all other image suppliers. Representatives of McGraw Hill, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and Pearson each announced that they will adopt the PLUS Picture Licensing Glossary definitions in their contracts, and that they encourage image suppliers to begin embedding PLUS license metadata in all images within one year." Personally I think more will follow and this will be a good opportunity for contributors to Cutcaster but we are all ears here so let us know what you think.

For the latest news on PLUS to see what they are doing check this out.

Moneybookers no longer a payment option

2008-11-26T13:17:00.002-05:00

I just logged into Moneybookers to make a payment to one of our contributors and saw this message.

Warning

IMPORTANT NOTICE

We regret to inform you that payments between US customers, and US customers and international customers using the Send Money service are no longer supported.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

We are still reviewing our options but I believe that going forward we will have to pay out international contributors via check. Has anyone else heard of this news?

Cutcaster Holiday Contest Winners and Runner-ups

2008-11-24T14:13:00.010-05:00

First off, I want to thank everyone who submitted images and vectors for our first Cutcaster Holiday contest. We recieved a really diverse set of images and vectors and had a hard time narrowing it down to just one winner for the vectors and images. Below are the top three submissions in both file types and the winner. Congrats to all those that participated and to the winners.

First we will start with vectors as there were a ton of great submissions. We are a huge fan of vectors here at Cutcaster so keep them rolling in. The two runner-ups in this year's contest were: Leonid Dorfman for "Illustration of Greeting card for Christmas"

and Michael Travers for "Illustration of snow globe ribbon."

Great work guys.

And now, without further delay, your 2008 Cutcaster vector contest winner is Jip Fens for his Illustration of Christmas party.

This illustration was chosen for its' concept and uniqueness. Nice work Jip.

Now we will move onto the photo side of the competition. The runner-ups for the photo contest were from two great contributors.

First runner up was Robert Byron's "Christmas Stocking."

Just nipping him out for second place was Robert Carner's "Christmas, the magic time of year."

And the winner is...drum roll pleaseeeeee.....Vince Clements and his "child's christmas wish list."

Chosen for the excellent composition and colors. This photo truely brings out the Christmas Spirit.

Very proud of everyone and excited by all the submissions. Congrats to everyone and especially Jip and Vince. You guys have won the first annual Cutcaster Holiday Contest.

Cutcaster Holiday Contest

2008-11-19T12:58:00.002-05:00

Our Holiday contest is almost over and wanted to tell you to quickly get in your submission before the deadline on Friday. You have two days to submit your favorite images and vectors for a chance to win the prize. Just upload them and check them off so they are included in the judge's discussion.

Good Luck.

For more info on the Cutcaster image and vector contest click here.

What does Google's partnership with LIFE and Getty mean for you?

2008-11-19T11:49:00.007-05:00

I'm sure most of you have read the news of Google and LIFE announcing that they will make LIFE's vast photo archive available for free public perusal on Google. Sounds very cool but where do you fall in this digital media debate.

This deal could be interesting and bad on a few fronts.

First, if Google takes care of the archiving, adshare and searching, Getty deals with all the licensing and LIFE just provides the stills, then they all share in the advertising revenue and they can split the marketing efforts between three sites. This partnership could drive a lot of traffic to LIFE.com, which is a joint venture between Getty and Time Inc. LIFE.com will make money from advertising and sales of photo books and prints. Now images are displayed on Google with links that allow customers to buy framed prints through the print-on-demand service called QOOP.com. The three participants will not pay attention to personal uses and will offer a mid sized image without watermarks but the high resolution files will be watermarked. Not sure how the licensing will be worked out yet and what the user experience will be like. The watermark on the high resolution image after checking it out is really small and just in the lower corner of the image. Doesn't really protect anything. I did hear from one source that the images all had Digimarc embedded watermarks for tracking but after checking that out it appears that in the medium and large sizes there
were no Digimarcs, and absolutely no metadata.

On the flip side this development could create a few problems. What about the issue of orphaned works? David Riecks at Controlled Vocabulary argued that LIFE magazine's parent company is basically flooding the market with a lot of orphaned images. Working with Google, they will know have an archive of images from the 1860s to the 1980s online (I found an image shot in 1989) and the images will be without the embedded metadata.

If you are interested you can click here to see the images yourself that will be available.

PDN reported on the deal here.

A Google blog announcing the partnership and new collection can be found here.

What do you think about all this? How will this affect you or won't it affect you?

New Cutcaster Search released

2008-11-11T15:02:00.002-05:00

Search and Keywords management have been the name of the game the last 5 months at Cutcaster. What an effort! We have been trickling out updated variations of our search and updating some of your keywords over that time but today we updated a large portion of the search engine which you will notice when you do keyword and advance searches. It is still a work in progress and will only improve if you guys keep emailing us and telling us where we can fix it and make it better. A huge update / change is coming up at the end of the month so your help is very much needed. We promise you will be happy with the results.

Test it out and let us know what you think. Also if you are logged in and do a search, make sure you click on the red X below thumbnails if the thumbnail shouldn't have shown up in the search results that were returned to you.

Very exciting day and lots more good things to come. Lettt'ssss Gooooo everyone at Cutcaster.

Ideas for new shoots- What buyers are looking for

2008-11-11T12:16:00.004-05:00

More and more we are hearing that graphic designers, advertisers and publishers are seeing the same images on every single site and they feel they have seen every image out there. We need to shake it up a bit.

There are a lot of categories that are not well represented in RF and need to be photographed in a non-cheesy, non-stocky way. I hear it all the time. Buyers really want pictures of real life situations that are candid, non-posed imagery that depicts its subjects behaving naturally. Authenticity is key. Here are some topics from the Photoshelter buyer research that can help you determine what you want to shoot. Post any ideas or other suggestions you have below.

The Photoshelter buyers survey found that there were major categories in which the "availability/quality/diversity (usefulness) of images typically found" was "poor to average". The following categories were pinpointed as the top 10 weakest:

1. Healthcare. 88%
2. Multicultural/Diversity. 86%
3. Seniors. 86%
4. Technology & Products. 85%
5. Interior Décor. 84%
6. Eco-Friendly. 81%
7. Business Situations & Settings. 72%
8. Celebrity. 72%
9. Sports/Activities. 71%
10. Children/Young Adults. 72%

The key will be to take original and interesting new shots that look authentic. If you can do that you will have a winner.

How I Keyword Images? By a Cutcaster Contributor

2008-11-10T16:00:00.004-05:00

As you know we have been going over some of your files and helping people with their keywording. We still need everyone to go back in and do this themselves. However when I was going through one contributors work, I was pleasantly surprised to see how well he keyworded his images. He was great at adding in singular words and compound phrases that really describe both the image and to a smaller degree concepts surrounding the image. I emailed him to ask about his keywording workflow and this is what he said. It's simple and I hope it helps.

"As is well known, keywording is just as important as having a good image and without effective keywords an image will never be found and thus will never be sold. I keep a searchable database with all of the keyword combinations that I use. When I shoot a new image I first go to the database to find keywords that are good matches. I always ask myself the same questions about every image; who, what, when, where and why. I try to think of the best keywords that answer those questions and then search the Internet for things relating to those keywords. I carefully filter out anything that I don't think is relative to the image and the good results go straight to the IPTC of the image and in to my database. It used to take me a considerable amount of time to use this method but after using it for several years, it now takes me less than 5 minutes to effectively create keywords for an image. Practice makes perfect."

Everyone has their own workflow and process for adding keywords. We would like to hear yours. Add it to the comments below.

Keywording is going to be so important going forward so I need everyones help in dealing with this issue.

Photographers Unite

2008-11-07T14:13:00.003-05:00

More great news out of Getty ;-)

Photographers are suing Getty Images over a subscription pricing plan. The group of stock photographers has filed a class-action lawsuit which asserts that by including rights-managed stock images in the Getty Images Premium Access subscription product, Getty violated copyright and broke its contract with rights-managed contributors. The suit says Getty’s product makes rights-managed images available under royalty-free license terms for unreasonably low prices.

According to the class action suit, Getty is paying photographers a pro-rata share of Premium Access fees when their images are downloaded through the program. Payments have been as low as $2.08, according to the lawsuit – substantially lower than a photographer’s share of a traditional rights-managed stock sale. “In Premium Access, Getty essentially allows its customers to set the amount of photographers’ royalties themselves,” the suit says. “Not surprisingly, this results in royalties equal to a tiny fraction of the commercial value of the photographers’ photographs.”

Makes me sick. Getty is undercutting the market and destroying the value of these images even more in the future. Here is to Photographers flexing their muscles, demanding change and expecting a fair shake. This is a great step and development.

A virtual site walk-through...

2008-11-05T21:33:00.003-05:00

We just made this quick site tour with a cool new (free) screen recording app called Screentoaster. Pretty cool stuff, check it out:

Recorded with screentoaster.com

Three Billion Photos At Flickr

2008-11-04T12:31:00.002-05:00

Today marked a big day at Flickr. Flickr member, Garrett Ryan Smith, uploaded the 3 billionth photo to the site today. They hit 2 billion photos just last year ago.

Facebook leads the pack with over 10 billion. And Facebook is moving fast. A year ago Facebook had just 4.1 billion photos.

Flickr launched in 2004.

Get out and Vote today

2008-11-04T12:17:00.001-05:00

If you are in the USA, please get out and vote today. I just got back ;-)