picWorkflow 2011 - 2012

What happened at picWorkflow in 2011, and what are the plans for the year 2012? Lets take a closer look:

What happened in 2011?

• picWorkflow:
  • added photo keywording and captioning services
  • a TON of interface-tweaks, so you can now…
    • Sort your workspace
    • Search your workspace
    • Check for metadata quality
    • Maximise the workspace view
    • Toggle larger thumbnails/previews
    • Set destinations ‘on’ import
    • Buy keywords/captions ‘on’ import
    • Download keyworded/captioned images manually
    • Check metadata quality against agency requirements
    • Copy/paste captions across images
    • Check your images for spelling errors
    • and MANY more
  • Export from lightroom to microstock agencies
  • Use our photo keywording/captioning API
  • Retrieve picNiche-rated highlights for your existing keywords
  • Embed image promotion widgets of all your agency portfolios in your website/blog
  • Agencies can now set themselves as a free-destination for uploads (Depositphotos took PicWorkFlow first ever sponsor spot
  • More free distribution in the ‘free usage’ tier AND free distribution for images with purchased keywords
• released the first cross-agency stock photo search mobile app
• presented at StockInRussia and posted my presentation about the mature microstock marketplace on youtube
• presented at Microstock Expo, the microstock expo presentations are all online here
• shared picNiche data into the keyword workflow on Leaf’s excellent microstock keywording tool
• Blog highlights:
  • Microstock 2011 – an Infographic Review all big the events of 2011 in the Microstock industry and a bunch of data I’ve pulled together throughout the year
  • TOP 1000 Stock Photo Buyer’s Searches
  • Do microstock agencies violate photographer’s DMCA copyright?
  • And others

What’s coming in 2012?

• Model release management will be along in January
• The picWorkflow retouching service should be along within the first month or two of the year
• Review service will be added for agencies to reduce reviewing costs (and provide better and more ‘actionable’ feedback for photographers)
• To improve workflow a LOT… picWorkflow will soon have an agency-api so they can ask picWorkflow for data about an image during submission
• Free storage (currently 7 days) will be extended significantly (secured backup storage will still be available for additional payment.
• Pre-review service for photographers so you can have someone else select which images should go where and provide you feedback on improving your portfolio
• Geo-tagging interface is in-development
• SEO-friendly portfolio mini-sites will be coming to help increase the search-engine visibility of your images on the microstock agencies.
• PicWorkflow is also looking at some social-media stuff, though using it in a non-spammy way is hard as they like to release something genuinely useful (not the spambots most microstock sites are doing already).
• ‘Social’ and promotion distribution (Flickr, Zazzle, etc etc) with watermarking and promo-metadata
• Shoot management and performance metrics (also toying with the idea of putting a model-user type in there too so your TFD models can download their images directly in web-friendly sizes)
• PicWorkflow also discussing partnering with the excellent Stock Performer to include microstock earnings stats into picWorkflow to really bring together some useful charts and the like for anyone who also uses their tool. (Soooo glad they’ve built it, and in a very innovative way… best possiblity I’ve seen yet for reliable earnings-stats collection)

Website: http://www.picWorkflow.com