Boring but necessary announcements

Recent problems with AlamyUpload

Alan Capel - Head of Content — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:51:00 GMT

AlamyUpload is the tool you use to upload images to Alamy.

You may experience occasional problems of lost connections or delays whilst using this service, we are aware of this issue and we are working on a solution. We have developed and are currently testing, an alternative system and are hopeful that it will prove to be much more reliable.

We may have to occassionally take AlamyUpload down whilst we are looking into these problems. Please accept our apologies for any frustration and inconvenience caused.

If a sale is 'uncleared' we are still chasing

Alan Capel - Head of Content — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:18:00 GMT

We often get calls and emails from contributors asking us to chase up payments on sales that are in their accounts but still uncleared.

We are currently investing a lot of time and effort in seeing where the sale is in our chase cycle and then responding to these queries to explain that we are still chasing.

This doesn’t really seem to be a particularly beneficial exercise, yes it might reassure you as a contributor that we are ‘on the case’ but it doesn’t speed up the process as we take all outstanding debt equally seriously.

It may help to explain our process and current performance. We have varying credit terms for different customers and this flexibility makes sense for us.

The average length of time a customer takes to pay their account with us is currently 49 days. We consider this to be pretty good in today’s climate. We are also happy to share our bad debt statistics with you. Bad debt for the last full year (2008) was below 0.05%, or to put it another way, if you make a sale today you've got a 99.95% chance of getting the money from it.

We vigorously pursue late payments, 99% of our debt is recovered within 90 days of it going overdue. In very rare circumstances, we may have to pursue a legal course of action and this can take a long term, sometimes years even.

If a sale remains uncleared on your balance of account (marked with an x) this means we are still pursuing the money using all the tools at our disposal.

It’s important that we dedicate our time to activities that will bear fruit for us all so please try to avoid sending emails that can only be met with the honest response that we are still chasing the payment.

e-books

Alan Capel - Head of Content — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:42:00 GMT

We have made a change to our online calculator so e-books are now included alongside conventional print books. Due to the practicalities with the way in which this was implemented the change does show on all old retrospective sales. We took the decision to implement it in this way to simplify the process and enable us to make this change quickly.

Customers are bound by the terms of the licence at the point at which the image was purchased, there is no retrospective granting of rights.

We also wanted to make it clear that e-books are seen as simply another mechanism that a publisher can use to make their book available to be read. It should not be confused with any 'online' uses.

Quarterly Statement Q3 2009

James West - CEO — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:58:00 GMT

Q3 2009 results reflect what we hope is the bottom of the downturn. It's too early to predict what Q4 will look like, but I can say that September and October numbers have been very reassuring. Until we have more data, however, we're sticking with our earlier forecast of a 15%-20% decrease on 2008.

We're working on some exciting investments for 2010, which include further expansion of direct sales teams, some great new search features for customers, new products, new markets, and a faster service (we'll have more to say about all this later).

Scheduled downtime this weekend

Alan Capel - Head of Content — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 10:46:00 GMT

We need to undertake some essential maintenance on Saturday the 10th of October and Sunday 11th October. During this time the contributor facing elements (upload, manage images etc) of the site will be unavailable. The work is scheduled to run from 6.00 am (BST) on Saturday through to 9.00 am (BST) on Sunday.

The entire site will also be down on Sunday 11th from 3:45 am (BST) to 7:00 am (BST).

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause. We'll be making sure the site is back up and running as soon as possible but we cannot guarantee that it will not take longer.

To avoid any possible complications for any uploads during this time, we recommend for you to not start uploading any images close to 6.00 am (BST) on the 10th as they may fail to reach us if they are still uploading during the time that the work starts.

Technical problems update

James Allsworth — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:16:00 GMT

On Tuesday (15th September) we discovered a computer virus had infected some of our servers. It quickly became clear that it was a particularly virulent strain and that we would have to take drastic measures to contain it and decontaminate our servers and workstations.

As a result we were only able to offer a restricted service to both our customers and contributors until today (Thursday 17th September). Our priority was to return all customer facing services to normal and so, only in the last hour, were we able to bring Upload back on line. We want reassure you that your systems were not at risk from being in contact with Alamy during this time.

Like all organisations, we take particular care to protect ourselves but in this case, our defences were breached. We are reviewing this outbreak with our anti virus suppliers to understand why it happened and what lessons we can learn.

Although all areas of the site are back to full working order, we still think its prudent to be extra cautious during this time. With this in mind, we may feel it's required to disable Upload again at some point without prior warning. If this happens please be assured that we will be working to make it available again as soon as possible.

Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience this has caused.

Technical problems at Alamy

James Allsworth — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:36:00 GMT

We are currently experiencing technical problems here at Alamy. A number of areas of the site may be effected, ranging from AlamyUpload to Manage Images.

We have been working on this issue through the night and are continuing to work towards a fix as soon as possible. We cannot offer specific time frames at this point but please be assured things will be up and running as soon as possible.

We appreciate your patience during this time.

UPDATED 10/09/09 : Alamy to offer Low Res pricing

Alan Capel - Head of Content — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:16:00 GMT

UPDATE 10/09/09 Please note that our previously published prices had a slight error. The 'Up to 450 pixels' size images (both RF and RM) will be €49 and not €39 as previously blogged.

UPDATED: We have updated this blog post to include more details on Rights Managed uses, please see below

We will shortly be offering 3 new file sizes for both RF and RM images on Alamy.

Royalty Free (RF) images will be available at the following sizes and price points:-

Up to 170 pixels: $5 / £5 / €5
Up to 280 pixels: $15 / £15 / €15
Up to 450 pixels: $49 / £39 / €49

Rights Managed (L or RP) images will be available as low resolution files for electronic use..

Electronic uses:-

Corporate website (single placement / one design - duration up to 1 year)
Editorial website (single placement / one design - duration up to 1 year)
Electronic presentation (single placement / one design - duration up to 1 year)
Promotional email (up to 10,000 recipients, single placement / one design) – duration 3 months)
One web advertisement (single placement / one design) – duration 3 months)

Price points for all the above electronic uses:-

Up to 170 pixels: $15 / £15 / €15
Up to 280 pixels: $35 / £35 / €35
Up to 450 pixels: $49 / £39 / €49

We will notify all contributors when these new file sizes are available to customers on the site.

Extracting the date taken, from IPTC and EXIF data

Alan Capel - Head of Content — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 11:21:00 GMT

We are in the process of rolling out a change to our system which will allow us to extract date information embedded in contributors' images.

If you have added a date in the IPTC data ('File Info' in Photoshop) we will populate our date field in Manage Images with that date. If you haven't added a date in the IPTC field but we can read the 'EXIF' data from your camera embedded in the image we will extract and use that date.

In both cases these dates will then be searchable via the date filter on the preferences options available to customers.

Our customers have told us that they like to search using specific dates or date ranges, so this move will improve the quality of the date information we provide. It also has the added benefit of saving contributors time and energy inputting the date if it is already embedded.

You will still be able to amend the date information in 'Manage Images' if you need to.

If you are using a digital camera be sure to check the date setting on your camera to ensure we extract the correct date.

We are introducing this improvement gradually so don't be suprised if the date is only extracted from some of your images initially.

Excessive similars

Ben Gray — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 11:11:00 GMT

We’d just like to take this opportunity to remind you all of the importance of editing your images prior to uploading to Alamy.

Firstly, there is the aesthetics of a customer being displayed pages of images with little or no difference between them. We try to ensure customers are given accurate results to searches but also a diversity of imagery. A varied array of content is one of the reasons clients use Alamy to source images.

Secondly, there is the affect on your Alamy Rank. Images returned in searches, viewed and then ignored will suffer a decrease in Alamy Rank over time. If a customer is displayed pages of similar or identical images they are likely to ignore many (if not all) trying to find one that stands out from the rest. A decrease in Alamy Rank will mean images being returned further and further down the search results and therefore having less visibility to customers.

When selecting images from a single shoot, try to edit down your submission and only include the best of the bunch. You can send up to five similar frames although it’s recommended to send in one or two at the most. Quality Control will only accept a series of images if they have very different angles, framing or model’s expressions, etc. However, if you upload similar images on separate occasions there is no way for QC to spot the problem.

We will periodically be checking the website and advising contributors to remove similar or identical images for the benefit of customers and also to protect your Alamy Rank.

You can assist us by identifying any similar images in your online collection and marking some for deletion. Using your new Manage Images tool you will be able to display multiple images enabling you to spot any similars and edit down using the batch delete option.