Luminate Corporate Blog

Academy Awards 2013

By Cathy, Luminate Community Manager

After weeks of anticipation the experts and I were finally able to gather in Luminate's community chat for our annual "Oscar Party".   We all enjoy watching the show together while we discuss the fashions and offer each other a hand trying to find gowns and accessories to get the "look".   This year's Oscars did not disappoint and we noticed a few trends that seemed to be prominent.  Along with a throwback to old Hollywood glamor and sophistication shades of red seemed to be very popular as well as metallic gowns that glittered with every step.  Long trains and diaphanous skirts were showing up frequently on the red carpet, often proving to be challenging for the starlets to maneuver in but it was all about the drama of the night.  Side swept hair in the styles of vintage Hollywood and soft up-dos were perfect styles to compliment the millions of dollars in diamond jewelry worn by the stars.   Everyone had their favorites and there were not very many misses that we had noticed.  Some of the starlets accessorized with matching clutches while others decided on bright splashes of contrasting colors.   We were very busy last night  with so many photos to tag and we continue to be busy today, everyone loves seeing the Oscar photos and fashions.  We always enjoy what we do but the Award shows are always a lot of fun and we look forward to each and every one of them. 

Moving Pictures: Can Companies Create Engagement from the Exploding Imagesphere Online?

(Graphic by Shaw Nielsen, Adweek.)

By Chas Edwards

Let’s officially call 2012 the Year of the Imagesphere. To review: Facebook says its users upload more than 300 million photos per day (up from 31 million in 2009). To support this massive interest in photo sharing, the company acquired Instagram in April for $1 billion.

Meanwhile, Pinterest leapt out of the shadows to become the third largest social network (valued at $1.5 billion by investors in May) because of its unique and popular spin on photo curation. Almost exactly a year ago, Twitter launched its own photo sharing, and earlier this month it rolled out photo filters in a bid to steal usage from Instagram. Within days, Instagram responded by disabling integration with Twitter cards and erecting a wall between the two networks that makes it harder for consumers to share Instagram photos via Twitter. And a few weeks ago, the original photo-sharing giant, Flickr, jumped back into the battle with its own sharing app.

The Internet titans are placing big bets on the future businesses that will be built on the 3 trillion (and growing) online images. The unanswered questions: How will publishers, image repositories (such as Flickr or Facebook) and brands capitalize on the imagesphere opportunity? How will content creators turn the act of flipping through galleries and photo feeds into deep engagement? How will advertisers adjust from a marketing rhythm where they produced one beautiful photo every 13 weeks for a print campaign to one where they need 13 photos a day to feed a Tumblr?

And what’s in all of this for consumers? After a decade and a half of presenting consumers with online photos that they can look at — kind of like we look at photo albums at our grandmother’s house — will the Internet finally bring some interactivity to image content and turn photos into a stepping-off point for a richer experience?
It’s clear that consumers are itching for more. They want more depth, interactivity and the opportunity to explore more images beyond those the editor picked to populate a particular gallery. Publishers who want their attention will need to upgrade the photo experience, and advertisers will need to figure out how to tell their stories inside these photo experiences. This means one thing for sure: Brands and publishers need to figure ouhow to extract precise, granular metadata from the Web’s 3 trillion pictures.

Only when publishers know what’s inside images in their archives can they serve readers with additional relevant content from inside each gallery. Every image, then, will launch dozens more galleries — more Angelina Jolie images here, more pictures of fabulous shoes there. They can also monetize photos with precisely targeted ads, just like they do around other content on their sites.

Without image metadata, photos are the dark matter of the ad-server galaxy. Unlock this metadata, and brands will step into the imagesphere as sponsors. Turn those rectangular clusters of pixels into keywords, and ad budgets will support photo content as enthusiastically as they support keywords found in text. Hiring agencies and art directors to produce hundreds of new photo assets each month would break the bank. But attaching a brand’s message to thousands of photos snapped by fans could deliver the same results at a fraction of the cost.

Clearly, this is an emerging trend that Facebook, in particular, is betting on. It ignited consumer hostility by changing Instagram’s terms of service, raising concerns that the new rules would allow the company to license member photos (your personal photos!) to brands or other corporate entities. Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom responded on the company’s blog that it merely plans “to experiment with innovative advertising,” but will not license user photos to outside parties. It’s not our images Instagram wants — it’s the metadata.

The explosion in the image-based Web isn’t just an issue for brands. Publishers are experimenting with photocentric, responsive-design-oriented tablet sites. They’re also tinkering with images loaded with interactivity, whether as part of editorial or within ad units.

But it’s still early for applications and for ad products associated with images. The big headline in 2013 will be the evolution from photo creation and sharing to getting inside those images. Will you be camera-ready?

(Originally published as a guest column at Adweek.)

Seven Bridges Road

In 2011, Jim Everingham invited me to join him and a friend on a motorcycle trip. Although I hadn't ridden since my 20's, I thought it sounded fun, so I rented a big Harley Davidson, and off we went. Five days and 1,300 miles later, we'd seen everything from Highway 1 to Yosemite, from Lake Tahoe to Napa Valley. Speeding through the countryside, the three motorcycles took turns leading the way, naturally handing off from one to another. Today I'm thinking about that trip, because Jim and I are making another handoff, in the same natural manner.

In 2008, Jim lured me into a great startup adventure: joining him and a few awesome engineers, all of whom I got to know while working on the Netscape browser in the late 1990s. Together we took a big vision from raw idea to Luminate today: serving 5,000 publishers, 150 million unique users per month, 30 billion image views per year, as the country's #8 network according to Quantcast.

As part of our vision to "make images interactive," we are now working on some incredibly cool, new technology. I think it's the most exciting stuff we've ever done, so stay tuned. And in order to make the most of it, we're going to double down on engineering investments which we think could lead to a big step forward for images and the services that display them. As we reconfigure the company accordingly, I've decided to turn the CEO wheel over to my co-founder Jim.

In addition to being a dear friend, Jim is also remarkably talented. He is a technologist, who, as our CTO, has filed over 30 patents here at Luminate. He is adept at working with developers to create great products. He is a savvy entrepreneur, having played key roles at LiveOps, TellMe, Netscape, and other successful startups. And he has enormous passion for changing the world, one image at a time. Under his leadership, I am confident Luminate's best days are ahead.

Meanwhile, I'll contribute to Luminate's next chapter as a member of the Board of Directors, and an advisor to the company. I'll still raid the snacks, pet the office dogs, frequent the tiki bar, and add photos to the Luminate scrapbook. Beyond Luminate, I'll stay busy with angel investments, hobbies, and family. One of these days, I might even start another company.

Beginning in 2008, we pioneered the idea that images shouldn't remain static rectangles. That images could reveal relevant information and functionality. That interactive images could transform consumers' online experience. Today those ideas have become widely accepted.  And in a world where practically every person carries a camera in her purse or pocket, and social networks multiply the number of times each photo is seen, the opportunity to add value to images has never been bigger.