Members of leading blog network using new PicApp image platform
for sourcing, illustrating and enhancing photos, artwork; bloggers to
provide feedback for future development
SAN FRANCISCO & TORONTO--(Business Wire)--
PicScout has begun working with b5media, a global new media
network featuring a diverse range of more than 350 blogs, to use the
PicApp platform of premium, licensed images and photos for enhancing
news and creative content across a select group of blogs. PicApp
provides licensed images from a broad group of premiere news and stock
photo agencies, giving bloggers and other online publishers legal
access to millions of images, while addressing content owners' usage
tracking and copyright concerns.
Once at www.picapp.com, bloggers can select any of the wide range
of images for free and use them adjacent to a news post or editorial
content on their sites. When the image is streamed from the PicApp
servers, it comes with a non-intrusive ad that provides a monetization
tool on the content owner's behalf.
"PicApp offers our bloggers tremendous selection in terms of the
range and types of content they provide," said Jeremy Wright, b5media
chief executive officer. "As content creators, ensuring all the images
we use are legal is extremely important to us. PicApp has proven to be
a valuable resource for the bloggers involved so far. We look forward
to continuing to work together to develop a solution for the entire
network, so that all b5media bloggers feel assured they are using
legal images at all times."
b5media includes 12 vertical channels of blogs covering a wide
variety of subjects ranging from entertainment, beauty and fashion to
technology, general news and sports. Participating bloggers can find
great breaking news photos of celebrities and athletes as they make
history and pictures of tech industry breakthroughs moments after they
are announced, as well as lifestyle stock photography shots on almost
any topic imaginable. The b5media network is home to more than 250
bloggers and receives more than 10 million unique visitors per month.
"We were privileged to cooperate with the b5media team ever since
we started our closed beta and are very proud they picked PicApp as a
source of images for their many authors," Eyal Gura, chief executive
officer, PicScout, said. "Getting their input early on, and now on an
ongoing basis, has been instrumental in ensuring that the development
of the PicApp platform is addressing the ever-evolving needs of
bloggers."
PicApp is currently in beta. News and photo agencies licensing
images to PicApp include Getty Images, Corbis and Image Source with
more content partnerships coming soon. Interested bloggers can go to
www.picapp.com to start getting images to enhance the content at their
sites.
About PicScout
PicScout (www.picscout.com) is the leading technology services
provider to the digital content industry. For years, the company's
flagship ImageTracker(TM) has been the industry standard application
for helping visual assets owners control and monitor the distribution
of their proprietary images across all media. PicScout headquarters
are in San Francisco. The company has a development and operations
center in Herzelia, Israel.
About b5media Inc.
b5media Inc. is a global new media network featuring a wide
variety of topics ranging from entertainment and lifestyles to sports
and technology. With over 350 blogs, including Problogger,
eBeautyDaily and Healthbolt, b5media reaches nearly 10 million unique
visitors and receives 30 million page views a month. Launched in
September 2005, b5media is a venture-backed company based in Toronto,
Canada. For more information, visit: www.b5media.com
Technorati tags: PicApp, PicScout, celebrity photos, blogger
applications, widgets, free images, images for blogs, breaking news
photos, stock photography, copyrighted images
The Bohle Company (for PicScout)
Kimberly Uberti, 310-785-0515, ext. 215
Vice President
kim@bohle.com
or
b5media Inc.
Rachel Segal, 416-727-1042
Marketing Manager
rachel@b5media.com
Copyright Business Wire 2008
