ORGANISMuseum is the first online realtime 3D Virtual Art Gallery. It currently features extraordinary images of reportage by Ami Vitale, one of the greatest modern reporters. To visit the gallery you need to install the 3D Life Player plugin.

ciSyndicate is a solution for social networking sites that lets Citizen Image harvest user-generated content and stream it into their content syndication portal. Once users opt-in their original photographic or video content, Citizen Image professionally represents it to news and creative services organizations globally.  PixPulse and Photagious are the first two photo sharing social network sites to adopt the ciSyndicate platform.

HP has joined the Nikonians website as a corporate sponsor. “Hewlett Packard has already gained worldwide recognition as an industry leader in the photographic products that our community has been using for years, such as computers, printers and imaging software. Our corporate partnership will provide them with a direct link to their end-users” commented Joachim Feser, director of publishing and communications at Nikonians.

PMA 2007: PhotoShelter now offers one terabyte of redundant storage at a cost of $1,000 per year to all Standard and Professional PhotoShelter account subscribers. The PhotoShelter system allows for 24-hour online accessibility, while simultaneously serving as a sales platform that enables photographers to create galleries, determine fair market value, sell images, add search capabilities to personal sites and create RSS syndication feeds. This extra storage space can be added to any of these accounts at the following prices - One Terabyte of storage: $1,000 per year, or 500 Gigabytes of storage: $600 per year.

Loren Worthington’s “Rolling F-Stop” blog is aimed at improving the equipment available to photographers with disabilities.

“I have probably spent more time searching for adaptive photography equipment than I ever studied for all of my edjukashun combined and still I can’t find much.  So I created http://rollingfstop.blogspot.com/ .  Perhaps it can lead to some photographer contributions about their equipment and techniques.  Someday, I really think it would be great to have a disabled photographers workshop somewhere on this rock.”

Website: Rolling F-Stop

shutter stories magazine is a new website that focuses on interviewing photographers and finding out what they have to say about their work. Founder Tomasz Trzebiatowski records conversations with some of the most interesting photographers that he knows, including Noah Grey, Jim Zuckerman and Yasuhiro Ogawa. Next up is an interview with Romanian photographer Irinel Stegaru.

“Photography is a strictly visual kind of art. In order to take a photograph, photographer is looking through the viewfinder of his camera. Later on, a viewer is looking at the photograph. It is all about looking and seeing. But what if photographers started talking about their images? I have always found it extremely interesting to listen to what artists have to say about their works. I am a pianist and I love to listen to other musicians not only playing but also talking about their music. The same applies to photographers. While looking at images of my favourite photographers I have been always wondering what they would like to say about them, about their work, about their ideas. And then, at some point, I decided to stop wondering. Instead, I started talking to them. That is how the shutter stories magazine has come to life. It consists mainly of my conversations with some of the most interesting photographers I know. I hope you will find my conversations with them interesting and inspiring. I surely do.”

Website: shutter stories magazine

The International Imaging Industry Association (I3A) has launched a new website which aims to educate consumers about how to protect and preserve their digital photos. The website http://www.savemymemories.org explains how to create a backup solution for long term storage, the pros and cons of various methods and media, and tips for organizing photo collections to make it easy to locate individual photos in the future.

Tamron have added a new Online Photo Gallery totheir website, the twist being that all the pictures have been shot with Tamron lenses. It could turn out to be a good resource for all would-be Tamron owners, although there are only a few photos there at the moment.

Photobird.com Press Release

San Francisco, CA - December 12, 2006 - Photobird.com, the easy way to share your photos, today announced that the new Photobird Photo Contest will start January 1, 2007.  This monthly photo contest will be free to enter and everyone who visits Photobird.com will be able to see and vote for as many contest photos as they would like.  Each monthly photo contest will have two winners who will receive several exciting, high-quality prizes.  Details about the Photobird Photo Contest are available at www.photobird.com/contest/ . “Photo contests should be free to enter, offer high-quality prizes, and allow everyone to see the photo entries.  The new Photobird Photo Contest gives you all of those features, plus your friends can vote for you,” said Ed Krimen, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Photobird.com.  “I’m looking forward to seeing the gorgeous photos that contestants will submit and to award great prizes that the winners will truly enjoy.”

Sharpcast Press Release

Sharpcast Photos iPhoto uploader is an ideal solution for people who use both a Mac and a PC; delivers a completely new way to back up and share photo albums online

PALO ALTO, CALIF. (December 12, 2006) – Sharpcast today introduced a completely new and effortless way for Mac owners to back up and share their iPhoto albums online, and to view their iPhoto albums on a mobile phone or Windows-based PC. With the Sharpcast Photos iPhoto uploader, Mac owners can export iPhoto albums directly from their Macs into their Sharpcast Photos Web albums in just a few clicks, where they are backed up, easy to share, and automatically synced all the way down to the person’s mobile phone and PC desktop.  Sharpcast’s iPhoto uploader is available as a free download at www.sharpcast.com/download.

Our Australian friends over at Buy-n-Shoot.com have just informed us that they’ve turned 5 years old this month. The site, run by photographer Michael Gazzola has for quite a while dominated the Australian market for photography news but in more recent times has been noticed by the larger global audience who are starting to add Buy-n-Shoot.com to their web browser’s ‘favorites’.

Scoopt Press Release

Scoopt (www.scoopt.com), the leading citizen journalism picture agency, seeks to release the untapped value of pictures on Flickr (www.flickr.com). Scoopt is inviting Flickr members to tag their images with keyword ‘scoopt’. This enables Scoopt to push tagged images to buyers in direct response to demand. Scoopt will also encourage buyers to use Flickr as a commercial image resource.

CameraArts Magazine Press Release

December 6, 2006 - Until December 31, 2006, CameraArts Magazine will be accepting entries for its very first photography contest at The CameraArts Blog. The theme for December will be “People & Portraits.” Only low res jpegs will be accepted, in color or black and white, digital or traditional. Every week during December, we will post the best submissions at http://cameraarts.blogspot.com . ...and that’s not all. For the first week of the New Year, our readers will have a chance to vote on their favorite entries. Three winners will be announced soon afterwards, and each will receive a FREE one-year subscription (or 6-issue renewal) to CameraArts magazine. Photographers will retain all rights to each image and CameraArts will be able to use images for publicity and promotion. One image per person, please!

Extensis Press Release

Manage This will offer information, resources and commentary on fonts, assets and Extensis happenings.

PORTLAND, Ore., December 5, 2006 — Extensis, a division of Celartem Inc., today officially launched Manage This, a new blog that will include interesting tidbits about Extensis products, employees and inspiration for the creative professional. Manage This can be found at http://blog.extensis.com . Every week, Manage This offers perspectives on current creative and design-related news, as well as updated information on Extensis products and its employees. Manage This also includes links to industry resources and a unique perspective on the creative professional industry as seen from a software developer’s perspective. Extensis’ Jim Kidwell leads the editorial efforts for the blog, with many staffers regularly supplying content.

Corbis Press Release

Exciting extension to well-known lifestyle collection now available

Düsseldorf, 01 December 2006: It´s zefa, and it´s Royalty-Free. This message will please all fans of the zefa collection which is known for its stylistic breadth of imagery. The lifestyle brand, heavily featuring European content, is particularly popular among European creatives looking for fresh fashion-forward imagery. Building on the well known rights managed offer, zefa Royalty-Free is a dynamic collection ideal for creative projects. Fast and uncomplicated, it represents unlimited possibilities for the creative community. The collection includes a breadth of lifestyle imagery exploring subjects such as ‘Afternoon Cool’, ‘Hip Hop Party Around’ and ‘Wealthy Decadence’. Those looking for stylish beauty motifs will be particularly excited by ‘Eyes of the Beholder’ and ‘Japanese Spa’.

BenekDesign Press Release

Flash and XML powered photo gallery offers unique map-based interface; let’s users explore photos in geographical context.

AUCKLAND, New Zealand, November 29, 2006 – BenekDesign has just released software that lets users embed photos into a map, placing each image at the exact location where it was taken. Navigating the map is as simple as clicking where you want to go. You can zoom in or out, drag the map to different regions, plus get a caption with the location, photographer and date of each photo. Each photo is represented by a small thumbnail on the map, which identifies where the photo was shot. When you click on a thumbnail, the screen zooms in and displays the embedded photo. Mouse over the top left corner of a picture to see its caption.

The Online Photographer Press Release

The Online Photographer (T.O.P.) is one year old today. T.O.P. is a photography news and opinion website in blog format that is updated daily. To celebrate, T.O.P. is today posting its (first annual?) TEN BEST LIVING PHOTOGRAPHERS list. There’s also an interview with proprietor and principal author Mike Johnston about T.O.P. today on The Luminous Landscape

liveBooks, Inc. Press Release

New Features and Functions Transform liveBooks 5.0 Into Powerful Online Marketing Tools by Putting Creative Control in the Hands of Photographers

San Francisco, CA, November 27, 2006 – Following the overwhelming success of its version 4.0 website management software, released in January 2004, liveBooks, Inc. is proud to announce the release of its new version, liveBooks 5.0. Thousands of professional photographers worldwide have benefited from the company’s web-based software application. It gives users the freedom and flexibility to manage all the content on their website themselves. More importantly, it allows for detailed management of their image portfolios using an intuitive drag-and-drop interface called the EditSuite lightBox. The new liveBooks 5.0 software builds on the intuitive navigation and professional aesthetic of its predecessor by adding new navigation options, website styling options, and features such as: slideshow movies, HTML gallery presentations, music upload, integration with other web services, and a robust shopping cart for selling prints. Additionally, Client Access, the feature that enables users to create a password-protected area of their site with customized content, and the website’s search engine compatibility have been enhanced.

Fabrik Press Release

San Mateo, Calif., November 20, 2006 – Targeting the approaching season of social events and new digital media gadgets, Fabrik today announces the commercial launch of its award-winning myfabrik (myfabrik.com) service and unveils its new myfabrik lite (myfabrik.com/lite) service. After a successful four-month beta test and evaluation period, and numerous accolades and awards for its sleek user interface and rich feature set, the myfabrik service is now available to the general public through a free basic account and subscription-based premium accounts.

Fliptrack Press Release

Mountain View, Calif.– November 16, 2006 – What would the holidays be without Christmas songs, greeting cards and family photos? Merge the three together, add the power of the Internet, and you have the makings of a merry photo-music mash-up for family and friends. Fliptrack today launched a first-of-its-kind, free online service that allows anyone to create photo-music mash-ups, setting their digital photos to music. Each song in its extensive library of licensed tunes, including dozens of holiday favorites, has been converted into a visual timeline. As images are added, Fliptrack’s patent-pending technology automatically synchronizes them to the beat or lyrics of the song.