Welcome to the Imagesphere! Our blog features the latest news about images, Luminate, and so much more. Learn about our products, our team, the data we find, and what’s new in the imagesphere. Please don't forget to let us know what you think, so comment and share.
It is that time of year again, where we get together with our family and dear friends to give thanks and to eat of course! Here at Luminate we are passionate about our food, and we wanted to share a few recipes of our own - from traditional to unique, there is something for everyone.
Mouseover the dinner table to explore.
Our CRO, Chas Edwards was interviewed by David Kaplan from AdExchanger about how Brand Advertisers Look Better In Images -Not Text
Chas explains how…
"We see the opportunity to help brands that have photo assets, that have their own Tumblr pages, Instagram feeds, things that are more image-heavy than text-heavy, and we see brands are starting to develop an image strategy for their advertising. If we can marry that with better distribution and ad strategy, we can help bring them a business model for their gallery content. The ultimate winner is the consumer. After all, television is still the biggest single ad medium and that's all about images. At the end of the day, brands that want to talk to someone in image mode, and with the internet, much of that conversation is starting to happen around photos."
Another interesting element of any discussion about images vs. text is the way that images create more questions than answers.
The rapid increase in online images holds great promise because images provide such a natural way of absorbing information, but images don't just answer questions; images also raise them.
Images evoke curiosity. Who? What? When? Where? Why? In the same way that text-rich web pages are designed to provide answers for users, the transition from text to imagery will have to address the questions that images raise.
As humans, we serve as the very best image processors available. We look at something, and we either immediately know what it is or we can form a question about it. Unfortunately, our brains don't connect directly to the Internet and can't immediately access all the world’s knowledge, so we sometimes have additional work to do to answer those questions.
At Luminate, our goal is to get the consumer from question to answer as easily as possible. This is not a simple problem. In fact, any one image can generate almost an infinite number of questions.
Not to fear. There is hope!
The more data we can extract from an individual image, the better chance we will have at helping to answer those questions. Luminate extracts information by using a combination of algorithms and human judgment. The key is to extract the most important data first and make it accessible to interesting and informative applications. Additionally, we are learning what questions people ask, so we can target more efficiently the data we extract.
The number of questions that need answers will increase significantly as people get even more instant access to pictures. We have a lot of work to do, but as Chas points out the “ultimate winner will be the consumer."
Last week Luminate CEO, Bob Lisbonne, sat down with four Stanford graduate students as part of a mentorship program with the Stanford Graduate School of Business. The program connects Silicon Valley’s top venture capitalists and start-up CEO’s with second year students as part of a class project about creating a business plan. Having spent 9 years as a venture capitalist and an enthusiastic Stanford Alum, Bob is a great fit as a mentor. The entire Luminate team enjoyed having the students in the office and we look forward to hearing about their success in the business world soon.
We had a great turn-out last night for a community chat version of a "Golden Globes Party ". Many of the experts showed up to shop the looks shown on the Red Carpet event. Of course sharing our opinions about each and every look was a big part of our evening fun. Old Hollywood glam appeared to be the fashion theme of the evening as one after another dramatic gown showed up on stage. Mermaid and fishtail gowns were plentiful and the experts and I noticed that there seemed to be a big focus on textures. Feathers, layers, ruffles, and even an elaborately laser cut gown made for some interesting viewing and some enjoyable yet challenging shopping. The look for accessories appeared to trend towards keeping it to a minimum, but having impressive focal pieces such as a pair of elaborate chandelier earrings or one of Judith Leiber's gorgeous clutches. As usual, the experts and I had a great time spending the evening enjoying the show while we discussed the looks and helped each other out in finding those perfect matches.
Recently, I had the pleasure of dining with a few of my former colleagues from Netscape. As we were engaging in our typical catch-up dialogue about life and work, I mentioned that we just hired Troy Chevalier, with whom we all previously worked at Netscape, as our VP of Engineering. The response said it all. “Wow! You guys got TROY – that’s awesome.”
The exchange made me reflect for a moment about how fortunate we are in Silicon Valley to have the opportunity to work with talented individuals not just once, but often multiple times. At a start-up, the excitement of introducing new companies and products, is coupled with the enjoyment of getting to work with your favorite colleagues once again.
At Luminate, we consider ourselves lucky to come to work and see many familiar faces from previous companies. It’s fascinating to see what happens when you mix a handful of people from one company, with several from another, sprinkle in a group you’ve never worked with before and layer it with a shared vision. It gives new meaning to the expression – all the right ingredients for success.
So, we’re pleased to announce that yes, we got Troy and we welcome him to the Luminate team.
Last night was the MTV Movie Awards and once again the Pixazza experts gathered in our community chat. We enjoyed watching the show together while we shopped and critiqued the fashions. Our own fashion police were at work and I did my best to channel Joan Rivers!
Reese Witherspoon was presented with the Generation Award and she arrived in a short printed dress with a sweetheart neckline. Short dresses were the look of the evening for the majority of the celebrities. Kristin Stewart wore a short red glittery dress and the closeups revealed that it was covered in safety pins. Must be a vampire thing!
The experts and I are all fashion obsessed so we love to see all of the beautiful dresses and jewelry. It's not only fun to tag these photos with what matches well, but we also derive great pleasure in helping others "get the look" so they can feel as if they are on the red carpet too. Check out The Daily Mail for some great photos.
When I was a kid, way back in the late 70's, I had one of the simple computers of the time (a Commodore Pet), and I had a lot of fun writing simple little games. It was a great feeling to be able to say "looky what I made!"
But as the years passed and I grew more mature, I did this much less.
No, that's nonsense. I haven't matured at all. It's the computers that have matured.
In the 70's, computers were much simpler than today, and so were the games. A single developer would do everything, including all the artwork. No artistic talent was required, because the graphics were so simple that you could hardly do anything pretty anyway.
But computers have gotten bigger, and these days real games have real graphics. Games are big productions, with teams of engineers and artists and directors and other folk all involved. All the games that a single artistically-crippled developer can do have already been done, or so it seemed. So I've faded out of the game-writing scene.
Well, a few months ago I was playing with my iPhone 4, and I got an idea to use its gyroscope in a fun way that I haven't seen other people use. And I came up with a game design that required no artwork (*); it just has green and purple balls bouncing around.
It's been a real blast to write a game again. Looky what I made!
See my "Ball Pit" game in the App Store
(*) Well, almost no artwork. All iPhone games need a "splash screen" that it shows on startup, and for various reasons I decided a screen shot wouldn't do. So I recruited my son Jacob; he made me this:
Thanks, Jacob!
