Extra keywords- Do you use them and are they effective?

On another forum, people are discussing the usefulness of certain types of keywords. I was just wondering as to how useful these keywords actually are. What do you think? Here's the list:

# Insignificant People - For those blurry folks in the background.
# Nobody - To tag a shot with no humans in it.
# Selective Focus - When the foreground is in focus and the background is not, or vice-versa.
# Blurred Background - Specific type of selective focus (above).
# Blurred Foreground - Same as Blurred Background (above).
# Blurred Motion - Long exposure maps to this.
# Full Frame - When composition encompasses entire viewing area.
# Horizontal - Wide format.
# Vertical - Tall format.
# Waist Up - Top half of human subject only.
# Waist Down - Bottom half of human subject only.
# Isolated - Separated object or person done by color or background.
# Isolated objects - Separated object or person done by color or background.
# Clipping path - Isolation includes a path embedded in the file data.
# Isolated on white - Isolated on a white background.
# isolated on black - Isolated on a black background.
# Square - Square format as the name implies.
# Copy Space (Copyspace) - has designated location for copy text.
# Still Life - For example, a vase of flowers is a still life.
# Single Object - When a single subject is the only thing in the frame.
# Concepts - A photo that tells a specific story. Think metaphor.
# Backgrounds - Photo's primary use is a background, incl. patterns, etc.
# Studio shot - Photo taken in a studio or similar controlled environment.
# Portrait - Head and shoulders shot is typical.
# Head On - Straight on (no angles) from lens to subject.
# From Side - Shot taken from a side angle.
# Profile - Same as From Side (above).
# Low/Down Angle - Taken from beneath the subject or there abouts.
# High/Up Angle - Taken from above the subject or there abouts.
# Full Body - Capture entire human form, from head to toe.
# Perspective - Any unusual angle to include Low and High (above).
# Sepia - Photo given a sepia tone process to make it look old.
# B/W (Black and White) - A black and white image.
# Monochromatic - A single color tint, usually black (with white).
# Grayscale - See B/W and Monochromatic above.
# Color Image - Shot in full color.
# Full Frame - Subject comprises entire exposure area.
# Color Image - Shot in full color.
# Single Object - I guess the name says it all.
# Group of Objects - Ditto, but multiplied.

Add Cutcaster to your contact list and address book

Here's how:

Gmail
1. Click Contacts along the left side of any Gmail page.
2. Click Add Contact.
3. In the primary email address box, type newsletter@cutcaster.com and john@cutcaster.com
4. Click Save.

Yahoo!
1. Click the "addresses" button
2. Select "Add Contact"
3. Save the newsletter@cutcaster.com and john@cutcaster.com to your contacts list.

Hotmail
1. Click Options.
2. On the left side of the page, click Mail, and then click Junk E-Mail
Protection.
3. Click Safe List.
4. Type newsletter@cutcaster.com and john@cutcaster.com, and then click Add.

Outlook
1. Right-click on a message from newsletter@cutcaster.com and john@cutcaster.com.
2. Point to Junk E-mail, and click Add Sender to Safe Senders List.

AOL (version 9.0 or higher)
1. Click the Mail menu and select Address Book.
2. In the pop up box, click the Add button.
3. In the "Other E-Mail" field, type newsletter@cutcaster.com and john@cutcaster.com.
4. Make our From address the "Primary E-Mail" address by checking the associated check box.
5. Click the Save button.

AOL 8.0
1. Open this confirmation email.
2. Click Add Address.
3. Verify the sender’s contact information (newsletter@cutcaster.com and john@cutcaster.com).
4. Click Save.

Update to Cutcaster Algorithm

Just wanted to let you guys know that we updated a bunch of the variables to the Cutcaster Algorithm and tweaked it a bit on what we have learned and seen over the last 6 months. The biggest change you will see is the start price that we will determine if you do not select the starting default price for the algorithm. The new prices will start between 8 and 15 dollars, which is based on a number of variables and will take into account how well your files are keyworded, described and titled as well.

You are still able to set the start default price for using the algorithm. The startng price will move up or down from the number that you choose. So if you wanted to choose $40, the algorithm will start to go to work for you from there. If you let us choose it for you, we will look at a number of different variables to determine the starting price and set it for you. You will start to notice the difference today going forward.

In addition, you can still set your own price and it will stay put.

Let us know if you have any questions.

Trends in video-based advertising...

Don't know if anybody caught this recent post on Techcrunch, but according Lehman, online video ad spending will "reach $1.1 billion this year (up 63 percent), and more than double to $2.4 billion over the next two years."

That's a whole lot of growth in 24 months and even if they're 50% off the mark, given the soft state of global economy, finding growth opportunities like this really shouldn't be passed up. Hopefully this will be beneficial to sites (like Cutcaster) that provide web-ready graphics and footage, and make the economics of online video viable for all sort of new and existing online business models.

Check out this new blog on Niche Photography and what you can shoot

The blog is called micro-stock niche photo ideas. Three times a week, the blog will get updated with 10 new niche photo ideas. Thought it may help you guys get some creative ideas and will be a good place to list some ideas you have for future shoots that might help others.

Pitch today after Alan Meckler

Excuse me for the radio silence over the last two days. I am getting ready for a pitch today I am giving to potential investors and entrepreneurs, which I am delivering after Alan Meckler, CEO of Jupitermedia. He is the keynote speaker of this event put on by StartupAlpha.com. Pretty funny. Not sure how relevant he is to starting a new business but when I heard he was speaking I was very interested in going and hearing him nonetheless.

If anyone is in Midtown Manahattan today at 530 and wants to go, let me know. The event is at Midtown Pub.

First beer or soda is on me.

Wish me luck ;-)

John

UPDATE:

The pitch went great last night and thanks for the well wishes. It was short and sweet but I nailed it and was happy to get a chance to practice it and meet some new people.

In addition, I got to meet and had a good conversation with Alan Meckler, who I met right when I got there. I started off by telling him about Cutcaster and how we were getting ready to take over Jupiter. HA. Kidding but we spoke for a while about the future of online video, what Cutcaster was doing, the different web properties that Jupiter owned and how they use them in coordination and also a bit about each others background. Was nice to meet him and put a name to a face now. Someone mentioned that he looked a bit like the dad from Everybody loves Raymond, a sitcom here in the States, which I thought was pretty good.

After I met him, Alan gave a talk on his professional background to the audience and how he got to where he was at Jupiter. He spoke more about his investing background, working with VC's/banks, raising money for different investment funds and which businesses he has invested in to become a billioniare (lasted just 4 months and was only on paper he said), then he did about the image business. He also spoke about building a "vertical" on the Internet and where he saw the Internet going in the future. I can't say I completely agreed with him on everything but it was an interesting story nonetheless and a pleasure to meet him.

Cutcaster site moving faster

We have been working a ton of fixing the sluggishness that the site was experiencing. It is hard work diagnosing these things. Here is what we have done so far so you should notice an improvement in the time it takes to load pages.

Total page size has been reduced significantly by removing the rollovers which we will put back up once we fix this issue. The home page now clocks in at 886,551 bytes - down from 3.5MB - about 1/4 of the page size. I've also added GZIP compression to almost all the files being served by Apache, which also made a significant different.

Play around with it and let me know what you think. I've also started compressing certain files which were fairly large. As an example:

1. The background image bg_top.gif was 80KB - I compressed this to a
jpg

2. I compressed the prototype.js library

3. I compressed the SpryValidationTextField.js

I've looked around the site and many other files / images can be compressed similarly - such as all the images on the My Studio page so I will have my hands full this weekend but you should notice a difference.

If any of you can offer any other suggestions for things that we can do please let me know. This will help everyone especially me. Your expertise is greatly appreciated.

Cutcaster is.....

Cutcaster is a dynamic marketplace to license digital photos, vector illustratons and video online. The platform helps people who have taken a really good photo or captured some amazing video footage to monetize their content through licensing it to someone working in advertising, publishing, filmmaking or graphic design. Most people wouldn’t know how to price their content when approached by an interested buyer and even the most experienced ones have always let the agency dictate the price. In order to help these people determine the price they could charge, Cutcaster helps them learn how to price their content or has an algorithm that helps find the correct and highest market price based on a number of important variables. If the creator is an old pro, they have the option to set their prices as high as they want based on their past experience selling content.

The twist Cutcaster has introduced to licensing is buyers can now license content on demand or they can bid for it by submitting a price to the seller seamlessly over the site, which the seller can accept, decline or resubmit a new offer back to the buyer. In addition, if a publisher from a magazine came to you, they could also bid on extended rights for content like exclusivity in certain markets or over certain periods of time. This bidding platform helps buyers find content within their budget, provides incentives for them to license content at Cutcaster because they can create better deals for themselves than they would find at other sites and highlights for sellers where the demand is at different pricing levels and how to price their content so they don’t lose sales because their content isn’t priced correctly.

Image, keywording and description help

At Cutcaster, the majority of our search results use your title, description and keywords to get your images and videos found. How well you title, describe and keyword your content is how well it will come up in search results on the site and on popular search engines. I really need your help making sure that your content is properly labeled. I know it takes more time but we need this to be concise, clear and relevant so buyers are put off. Since we are in the early stages of our site we have a real opportunity to keep the search results as relevant as possible and keep buyers happy. I had a conversation with 2 potential buyers today and they said they biggest consideration for using a site was search results relevancy so I am going to be stressing this and working to help you guys. We are only so many people here at Cutcaster i.e. not many, so we need all your help.

Here we go.

From the title:

- the subject and the "role" it plays ("boy petting dog," "mother feeding child," "dog barking at squirrel")

- do NOT use punctuation, exclamation or any other marks or weird characters in the titles

From the description: Get as descriptive as you can

- Information about age (newborn, young, old, senior, mature adult, over the hill, child, stone age)
- What is it like? (hot, dry, putrid, wet, yellow, rusty)
- What is the subject wearing? (t-shirt, nude, coat, viser, jean shorts, etc.).
- Name of or type of building or designation? (apartment complex, oil rig, office).
- For animals/plants - scientific name, common name, color (if relevant).
- What time of day, if relevant (sunrise, dawn, dusk, midday, noon, sunset, night).
- Seasons, if relevant (spring, fall, summer, winter).


From the keywords:

- Words that match the subject/concept
- Synonyms (words that mean the same thing, but look different)
- you only need 10-20 keywords at most
- don't over keyword

If you notice content on the site that is spamming on keywords or not categorized right will you please notify us by clicking on this button "Flag this Media" on the media details page. You will be helping us all if you do it and buyers will be more likely to come to the site because results will be relevant.

Need images of the following flags and maps of South America

From a buyer:

need images of the following flags

Argentina
Brazil
Chile
Colombia
Mexico
Peru
Venezuela

If you have images of maps of South America please send those as well.

MORE INFORMATION

The flags need to be the entire image. Most likely the images should all come from the same photographer probably so they all look similar.

The buyer needs them by Friday at the latest. They are going in a banner like the arrangement below।

Thanks a ton guys.