| |  |  |  | | | |  | |  | | | 8/6/2008: Voila! Keywording in 7 languages | (Published by Keith Tuomi) | On the flip side of having created quite possibly the fastest batch upload and describe system in the industry,the multi-language functionality of Zymmetrical has expanded further.
As mentioned in the previous news item about the new
Submissions page, Artists can translate the keywords going into the
system from the following languages, into English: Bulgarian, Chinese, Croatian,
Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Italian,
Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian,
Spanish, and Swedish.
Now, the keywords (tags) of all files put online for licensing are translated into all the 6 additional languages supported by our international mirrors:
Zymmetrical.de (German, de-DE)
Zymmetrical.es (Spanish, es-ES)
Zymmetrical.fr (French, fr-FR)
Zymmetrical.it (Italian, it-IT)
Zymmetrical.nl (Dutch, nl-NL)
Zymmetrical.pl (Polish, pl-PL)
Next on the list to expand the buyer experience on Zymmetrical is the expansion of currency and payment options, to help smooth out truly useful, local portals.
| | | 5/10/2008: Tag Searches Enhanced | (Published by Keith Tuomi) | We've known from the start that our search and linguistics technology is a step up from the crowd, now we are bringing some new widgets online that take the behind-the-scenes workings a bit more forward into the users realm.
First step: 'Similar Searches' has been added to the bottom of the Tag Search Results screen, providing up to 30 related terms, and it's one smart little box.
Perform a search for a word or phrase, by entering it in our main search input, or clicking the tag link on any art page. As an example, we'll use the word 'break'.
On your results page, http://www.zymmetrical.com/tag-search-results/tag/break/, you will get the usual thumbnail results, and the following 'Similar Search' suggestions:
broken break coffee break broke
breaking broke-back break-dancer
Note the key difference between this and many other agency searches: 'break' is matched to 'broke'. Seems logical enough, however this technique of word-stemming (breaking a word down into it's root form, and matching all it's variations), is not the easiest thing to pull off in computer programming - especially so on a dynamic image library. Fortunately, our coders are well-caffeinated and highly motivated.
For our Buyers, this means a big increase in search satisfaction and more importantly, finding the images they want. In most stock search engines, typing in one variation of a word will -not- return results for the other, including pluralizations. A customer should not miss seeing a file because they typed a slightly different form of a word.
For our Artists, this means simply, more sales and success.
Next step: disambiguation. "Did you mean: Turkey (bird) or Turkey (country)". Stay tuned.
p.s. this word-stemming technology we use works equally well across all 8 languages we support on the site. ;)
| | | 3/17/2008: PicLens Technology Preview | (Published by Keith Tuomi) | Think beyond the browser
PicLens instantly transforms your browser into a full-screen, 3D experience for viewing images on the web. Photos will come to life via a cinematic presentation that goes well beyond the confines of the traditional browser window. With PicLens, browsing and viewing images on the web will never be the same again.
The new interactive "3D Wall" lets you effortlessly drag, click, and zoom your way around a wall of pictures for an extraordinary, full-screen viewing experience. Why mundanely flip through online photo galleries or squint at thumbnails when you can fly through an immersive, full-screen experience instead?
To use PicLens on Zymmetrical, please download the plugin from PicLens (http://www.piclens.com/). After installation, click 'Start Slide Show' on http://www.zymmetrical.com/info/labs/piclens/.
We are excited about being the first stock agency to leverage this technology and want to know your opinion! Please drop us your thoughts in the 'Leave a Comment' area on the bottom of the PicsLen demo page.
| | | 2/14/2008: Expanded Search launched | (Published by Keith Tuomi) | Expanded Search launched
Digital Art site Zymmetrical, the first user generated marketplace for photography, video, fonts and graphics where members can price their offering, today announced the launch of its new “expanded search”, reinventing the search for visuals.
With hundreds of millions of images and graphics available in the stock photography world, the “expanded search” delivers the highly-focused results that buyers need. After extensively researching and analyzing user needs, the Zymmetrical team has created new query tools that allow for a more natural approach to finding the perfect video, graphic, font or image; all at a budget-friendly price.
The Freerange ™ option allows users to find images with a designated area of blank or clutter-free space to facilitate adding a logo or text. When combined with the Color Picker tool, which allows users to select the dominant color of a visual, the result is a highly accurate result. “Image buyers already know what they need when they perform a search,” says Keith Tuomi, CEO and founder of Zymmetrical, “our new tools allow them to get to the perfect result much faster.”.
Zymmetrical’s breakthrough approach to search blends a semantic search with a purely intuitive experience. While the majority of midstock and microstock sites rely heavily on a basic keyword search, Zymmetrical is building a user-friendly site with intelligent search options.
The many “expanded search” tools work in perfect combination with each other, acting as a virtual search assistant, quickly filtering out the unnecessary content explains Tuomi. “We have sprinkled some human intelligence in our search tools”, he continues, “making it more useful and less complicated”.
Zymmetrical is also the first and only midstock site to offer a Free Firefox plug-in (available here) that allows to search right from your tool bar.
With traffic doubling every six months, Zymmetrical is quickly becoming a familiar destination for anyone in need of a video, font, graphic or photograph. Moreover, available in 8 different languages, it is fast becoming the preferred creative tool to a large international community of art buyers.
About Zymmetrical.com:
Created in 2006, Zymmetrical offers a unique one-stop-shop experience for creative professionals worldwide looking to greatly expand their inspiration. It is the premier destination for user-generated royalty-free photos, graphics, videos and fonts at budget friendly price.
Zymmetrical features a high-end technology platform, a Fair Trade approach to crowd sourcing and a Google-Search friendly design maintained by a highly dedicated international team. Visit http://www.zymmetrical.com for more information. |
| | | 1/4/2008: Firefox Search Plugin | (Published by Keith Tuomi) | Firefox Search Plugin
Do you use Firefox? If not, shame on you, it really is a nice piece of internet browser.
You can now search Zymmetrical art from the Firefox search input (on the top right of the browser).
Click here to install our custom search.
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| | | 10/7/2007: FTP upload service launched | (Published by Keith Tuomi) | We've just launched our new FTP upload option.
While still out of the box, it is ready to be evaluated by anyone who would like to be an early adopter of its technology.
Here are a few tips:
1. We accept either individual JPG files (uploading all JPG's in a directory), or a .ZIP file containing JPG files. Do not include other files such as model releases, thumbs.db, etc.
2. No maximum file size, and no upload limit, although we suggest you don't use more than 5 concurrent connections at once (subject to change upon smoke coming from our servers).
3. Uploaded files will remain visible (but not downloadable) in your private FTP folder until our Editors review them. Currently (soon to be fixed) the uploaded files will not show up in your Submissions list on Zymmetrical until we approve them. Once you have uploaded your Zip file into your own private upload folder, you can verify that it has arrived safely and securely. No one but yourself can see your images before they are approved on the site.
Artists, please proceed to www.zymmetrical.com/account/submissions/photos/ to try this new service.
Now that this is finished, we will be announcing a bunch of very interesting marketing initiatives, not only for photographers and graphic designers, but for image buyers.
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