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.

Citizen Image Press Release

CITIZEN IMAGE TURNS PHOTO SHARING SOCIAL NETWORKS USERS INTO GLOBAL CORPS OF PHOTOJOURNALISTS

New ciSyndicate platform lets social network and photo sharing websites offer users a way to profit from newsworthy and creative images by selling them to media buyers around the world.

NEW YORK, NY – March 12, 2007 – Citizen Image (www.citizenimage.com) today announced the availability of ciSyndicate, an innovative platform that transforms the millions of people who share pictures over social networks and photo sharing websites into an instant corps of citizen photojournalists.  ciSyndicate is a web-services based solution for these social network websites that seamlessly lets their users opt-in their photography and video content for sale by Citizen Image to photo editors and media buyers around the world.

“You can never know exactly where or when something compelling or newsworthy will happen,” said Dave Boyle, photo editor at the New York Post newspaper. “It’s important to be open to receiving images from new, non-traditional, sources.  Citizen Image is an exciting source that the New York Post has used to good effect.  One great exclusive picture we purchased from Citizen Image was taken by an amateur photographer who got a very funny shot of ‘Borat’ climbing out of the trunk of a New York City cab.”

ciSyndicate is an easy to install 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.  Users are paid for pictures that are sold, and both the social network and Citizen Image receive a fee. 

PixPulse (www.pixpulse.com) of Seattle, Wash. and Photagious (www.photagious.com) of Convington, KY are the first two photo sharing social network sites to adopt the ciSyndicate platform.  The inclusion of the image content from both these sites will instantly add more than 100,000 new images to Citizen Image’s content repository.

“We believe in pushing the envelope with innovative features for the users of PixPulse.com,” said David Xue, CEO of PixPulse. “PixPulse wants to empower each of our 300,000 members that capture a valuable and newsworthy image or take that great creative shot to do more than just share that content with friends.  Our partnership with Citizen Image gives our users a simple method to earn money for their pictures. The monetization of Web 2.0 has begun and PixPulse is embracing money-making options for our user base.”
Beyond the ability for Photagious users to syndicate their content for sale via Citizen Image, members of the Photogious portal will also have the opportunity to respond to the Citizen Image assignment board where professional photo editors go to solicit image content for editorial and creative projects.

“Major news can happen when it’s least expected, making it impossible to plan on photographing it,” said Feargall Kenny, CEO at Citizen Image.  “Yet everyday there are literally millions of people around the world carrying digital cameras, camcorders and camera phones who will be bystanders to history.  In the past, the most these amateur photographers could hope to do was to share their pictures with friends.  Citizen Image is a conduit between these important images and the people who need them and are willing to buy them.”

Citizen Image has been selling “citizen photojournalist” content since May 2006.  In many instances Citizen Image users have been on the scene at important news events, capturing pictures as news unfolds, beating professional photojournalists, sometimes by hours, who can only take pictures of the aftermath.  Citizen Image also represents creative images to advertising agencies and other creative services bureaus.

About Citizen Image
Citizen Image is an image agency that professionally represents photographic and video content of citizen photojournalists to editorial outlets around the world.  Through Citizen Image, any photographer – professional or amateur – can offer their images for sale to media organizations by creating an account and uploading their content.  Citizen Image allows news organizations to take advantage of camera-equipped bystanders who can take important pictures or video long before professional photojournalists can arrive on the scene.  For more information visit www.citizenimage.com.

User Quotes

“You can never know exactly where or when something compelling or newsworthy will happen. It’s important to be open to receiving images from new, non-traditional, sources.  Citizen Image is an exciting source that the New York Post has used to good effect.  One great exclusive picture we purchased from Citizen Image was taken by an amateur photographer who got a very funny shot of ‘Borat’ climbing out of the trunk of a New York City cab.”
—Dave Boyle, photo editor, New York Post

“New and affordable technology makes it possible for amateur photographers to capture high quality images, many of which are never seen outside of the photographer’s circle of friends. By reaching out to photo sharing sites and other news organizations, Citizen Image is helping photo editors find the best available photography, no matter what. Citizen Image is on the cutting edge of this new and important trend to find quality content from as many sources as possible.”
—Kelly Kingman, photo editor, The Week Magazine

“It is truly remarkable how many high quality pictures are taken by amateur photographers.  Some people have a knack for taking the right picture, and for others it’s a matter of luck.  So what happens once you take that great picture?  For many people, their wonderful pictures end up in a photo album or a screen saver, unless they know about Citizen Image.  Citizen Image lets our ad agency buy really great pictures taken by people with all range of photographic skill.  Skill to us isn’t as important as the quality of the image, and having Citizen Image as a resource really helps us find the best pictures for our creative services.”
—Lisa Stockfisch, associate creative director, GSD&M
(advertising agency www.gsdm.com)

FAQ

What is Citizen Image?
Citizen Image is an image agency that professionally represents photographic and video content of citizen photojournalists to editorial outlets around the world.  Through Citizen Image, any photographer – professional or amateur – can offer images for sale to media organizations by simply creating an account and uploading their content.  Citizen Image allows news organizations to take advantage of camera or camera phone-equipped bystanders who can take important pictures or video long before professional photojournalists can arrive on the scene. 

What is “citizen photojournalism”?
Citizen photojournalism is the photography and submission of important newsworthy pictures captured by ordinary people who are witnesses to news.  The concept isn’t new.  In fact it is theorized that the Great Quake of San Francisco in 1906 was the first major event where ordinary people, equipped with simple Brownie cameras, took pictures across the devastated landscape, many of which made their way into newspapers.

Why is citizen photojournalism important for new organizations?
So much of what is newsworthy are spontaneous, unanticipated events that news organizations cannot plan in advance to cover.  Yet every day, millions of people carrying digital cameras and even camera phones become bystanders to such events and are able to capture important images as news unfolds before their eyes.  Very often professional photojournalists arrive on the scene too late to capture anything other than the aftermath of a news-making event.  By harnessing this vast corps of photographers, news agencies around the world can take advantage of important pictures and videos otherwise unavailable to their readers and viewers.

Citizen journalism as a whole gives news organizations a way to interact online with their readers and create additional “stickiness” to their websites to ensure visitors return again and again. Many news organizations understand the power and value in citizen journalism and are creating citizen journalism hubs, with a view to attracting a new base of interactive readers and a new source of ad revenue.

Why is citizen photojournalism interesting for amateur photographers?
People take pictures of amazing things all the time.  But very often these pictures are only shared with friends and family because there is no seamless conduit between their picture and image buyers. Citizen Image bridges this gap and allows people who take pictures of news events or pictures with a significant creative quality to not only share their images with the public, but to profit from them as well – both monetarily and in the form of publicity.

Has Citizen Image placed any citizen photojournalist pictures in news publications?
Yes.  Citizen Image users have seen their pictures in major daily newspapers and national news magazines, as well as purchased by creative services organizations. 

What is ciSyndicate?
ciSyndicate is a unique platform that provides social media networks, image sharing sites and news organizations with the ability for their users to opt-in image content for sale. The ciSyndicate network automatically pulls opted in content into Citizen Image’s syndication engine where they checked for quality, newsworthiness and marketability before proactive online and offline marketing push worldwide.

In addition to social networks, news organizations can use ciSyndicate as an extra feature to encourage their readers to opt-in newsworthy image content to their own social network’s citizen journalism hubs. The news organization may take a right of first refusal to use the content outside of its own social network. If they do not choose to do so, or when that ROFR expires ciSyndicate ensures that those images are seamlessly transferred and effectively marketed through Citizen Image to third parties. The originating news organization gets paid when the image sells as does the photographer.

How does ciSyndicate work?
ciSyndicate is a mechanism for seamlessly obtaining opted-in content from social networking platforms. It works in two ways – content can be “pushed” from the social network or other image portal via ciSyndicate’s Web services-based application programming interface (API).  Alternately, ciSyndicate can be powered by polling opted-in image content using the popular real simple syndication (RSS), a web-based form of content syndication.

Once the ciSyndicate service is live, users of a social network can choose to upload images, one at a time, to Citizen Image.  The first time a user uploads an image s/he must agree Citizen Image’s terms and conditions. Thereafter, uploading an image is a simple two-step process: choose which image to upload; write a brief title / description of the image and tag it with basic keywords then click “submit.” 

How easy is it for social networks to integrate ciSyndicate?
For social networks with proprietary builds, other than building a-template based opt-in user interface,  integration work is minimal.  Turning up a new site can take only a matter of hours. 

Citizen Image is also currently working with numerous white labeled social network providers with a view to making ciSyndicate a standard offering of their services. The Pixpulse white labeled platform, for example, is now ciSyndicate enabled and Citizen Image expects to announce more platform builds shortly.

How does the ciSyndicate revenue model work?
Revenue splits between the ciSyndicate social network partner, the photographer and Citizen Image.

Does Citizen Image have any customers for ciSyndicate?
Yes. Photagious and Pixpulse with many others coming shortly.

Is ciSyndicate live yet?
Yes. ciSyndicate is live with both Photagious and PixPulse. We expect to announce some other major image sharing portals and news organization social networks shortly.

How do people use Citizen Image?
You begin with registering on either the Citizen Image site or through one of the ciSyndicate partners (such as Photagious or PixPulse).  From there your profile is added to the Citizen Image photographer database and users are ready to begin uploading images.  The process is the same for image buyers.

How much do citizen photojournalists get paid for a single picture?
For standard images the price can range from $10 to $300 depending on marketability, resolution and usage (print, television or online).  Exceptional images that could be used on a magazine cover or in an exclusive story may command significantly more. 

Is this fee an industry standard number (or higher or lower)?
Some editorial outlets have a standardized going rate for images based on the size required or the page placement. Citizen Image typically accepts the going rate for such publications which can be either higher or lower than our published prices.

Do citizen photojournalists get paid the same using a partner’s ciSyndicate service as they would via the Citizen Image portal?
Yes the photographer always receives 50 percent of the proceeds each time his or her image is sold regardless of whether they come to Citizen image directly or via a partner’s ciSyndicate solution.

Who gets the photo credit when a Citizen Image picture is placed?
Credits appear as “photographer name/Citizen Image.”

What kind of quality are the pictures on Citizen Image?
At Citizen Image our guiding factor on quality is marketability,  therefore all images on Citizen Image are all of high quality. Every image that reaches Citizen Image goes through an editorial review where images with limited marketability are weeded out.  Citizen Image, like other image agencies, filters out images that fall below accepted image quality measures including, for example, out of focus, low resolution or grainy shots. However, we will make exceptions for highly newsworthy images if they are unique or timely in nature. Creative or other editorial stock images get no such reprieve.

Is quality an important factor?
Quality is important, but so are the uniqueness and timeliness of an image.  Many times, timeliness can be the most critical criterion for a news agency.  If the only available picture of a news event is a grainy shot taken by a camera phone it may command as many dollars as a picture taken by a professionally equipped photographer.

What are the different ways that a user can interface with Citizen Image?
Citizen Image users can upload images using any computer over an Internet connection, or can upload from a mobile phone via MMS.  Increasingly digital cameras come equipped with Wi-Fi, making it possible for users to upload directly from such cameras. 

What are the quality guidelines for photographers?
Citizen Image provides submission guidelines to its photographers at www.citizenimage.com.  For newsworthy events the quality aspects of these guidelines can be waived by us in order to get that one important shot, such as unique cell phone camera picture of a major news event.  Creative pictures and stock images on the other hand must always be unique, in focus and of the highest marketable quality.

Are there any editorial policies or inappropriate content that Citizen Image won’t allow?
Judgment calls are made by our team of photo editors with senior management as an escalation point. Citizen Image adheres to the standards of good journalism guidelines and insists on accuracy and fairness in its content.

Can photographers offer their photos up for free on the site?
Citizen Image is a marketplace, not a photo sharing site so users cannot offer their photos for free on the site. We aim to complement such sites by giving their users the ability to market a subset of their best content through Citizen Image, seamlessly. 

Are there any restrictions on the age of users?
Citizen Image does not allow submission by people under the age of 13, and 13-18 year olds can only submit with parental permission.

How did the founders get the idea for Citizen Image?
Like most New Yorkers our daily lives are filled with ample opportunities for taking valuable newsworthy pictures – from celebrities on the streets of SoHo to local news events to the tragedy of 9/11.  Once the technology caught up, we wondered “what if” and created a model that leverages the ubiquity of both the Internet and digital cameras to create a seamless process for amateur photographers to sell their high-quality and newsworthy pictures to news outlets previously restricted to professional photojournalists.

What exactly does Citizen Image offer (specific menu of services)?
Citizen Image offers newsworthy and creative images for immediate purchase and download online via the Citizen Image website, www.citizenimage.com.  We also offer our clients a variety of methods to receive content offline, such as via email, or ftp push.
In addition to our photographers submitting photographs as they are taken, we also provide an assignment board where our purchasing clients post editorial and creative requests “on spec” so photographers can submit images specific to those requirements. 

Does Citizen Image work with any other content besides newsworthy still photography?
Citizen Image continues to have a great amount of success in the creative market. We offer a wide range of creative images which ad agencies and publishers need to keep their creative campaigns fresh and timely.

Is there any application to load?
For photographers who wish to upload multiple images at once, we offer a small Java applet to make the process easier.  But photographers who submit single images or images one at a time do not require any applications.  Single images can be uploaded via a web browser or from a camera phone via MMS messaging.

How do you monitor for “bogus pictures”? What percentage of the photos submitted are not used on the site for this reason (or another)?
Citizen Image has various layers of protection against “bogus pictures.” Citizen Image has a rigorous editing process which reviews every image before it is posted for sale. If we suspect tampering or copyright infringement, Citizen Image will contact the submitter directly to verify authenticity. Citizen Image also works with Attributor to verify authenticity against images registered on their system.  For a combination of these reasons the percentage of rejected images has been extremely low—less than half of one percent. 

Does Citizen Image only work with photographs and buyers in the United States?
Citizen Image’s platform is open to buyers and photographers from around the world. Our direct sales reach is currently limited to the United States but we have distribution partners that allow us to reach key international markets.

Is Citizen Image currently working with any “buyer organizations”?
Citizen Image works with all of the major media outlets, spanning online and print news organizations, TV stations, book and magazine publishers, ad agencies and design firms.

Do you help photographers with their keywording or image tagging, or do photographers select the most relevant keywords for their photos?
It is incumbent on the photographer to appropriately tag his or her images with keywords. In addition, as part of the Citizen Image editing process, we may make supplemental changes and corrections as needed.

Is Citizen Image strictly photo focused, or are there plans to expand into other media such as video?
Citizen Image will be expanding into editorial video in the not-too-distant future. It is the natural and logical progression for us.

How long are images stored with Citizen Image?
Citizen Image stores your images for the duration of the time you remain a registered member of Citizen Image.

Who are your main competitors? Do you have sub-competitors (that compete with you in one area, but not in another)?
In the citizen-photojournalist space there are a handful of small competitors: ScoopLive, Cell Journalist, Spy Media, and Scoopt.

What are Citizen Image’s core differentiators against competitive offerings?
Citizen Image allows all levels of photographers to participate in the process by discriminating on the image only. Citizen Image gives photographers an outlet for both their editorial and creative images. In addition, Citizen Image is the only image agency in the citizen journalism arena with an active direct sales force in the USA working on our photographers’ behalf to get their image(s) sold in a timely manner.

Citizen Image believes in engaging partners to gain access to compelling editorial and creative content, the key reason we developed ciSyndicate. We recognize that news organizations and image sharing sites will continue to be an important service for amateur and professional photographers who don’t consider themselves “citizen photojournalists.” Our goal with ciSyndicate is to make it easy for all photographers to opt-in their content for sale through Citizen Image via their favorite photo sharing websites.

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