AC works launches Korean versions of free stock image websites

Source: AC works. Screen capture of illustAC.

AC works, which already has over 2.3 million users in Japan, is now expanding internationally. The company has launched the Korean version of its flagship stock image websites photoAC, illustAC and silhouetteAC. 

Traditionally, the stock image industry imposed a number of restrictions on the use of a stock image, charging each time the image is used for different purposes. Stock images and the vector files that govern their shapes often cost money, for example. Once an image is purchased, it can typically be used in limited circumstances, for example once in an advertising campaign for a specific website. Royalties may need to be paid each time the image appears. Recognisable people featured in an image must sign a model release to allow the image to be used freely, under any circumstances. Images may also come with other stipulations, such as who they may be credited to, whether they can be edited, or if they can be used in commercial settings.

AC works has cut through the complexity with the three sites, which offer free high-quality images and vectors which can be downloaded and used for commercial purposes, with no credit title required. PhotoAC has acquired all rights from photographers and models so that there are no image rights to worry about. IllustAC and silhouetteAC also offer editable AI/EPS format vector files for free. AC works further dispenses with account registration or requiring an app to use the services. Images can be downloaded with a single click, the company said.

The company plans to expand its content portfolio, and aims to reach more than 20 million users worldwide by 2020.

Accredited Singapore investors can go digital with Jachin Capital

• Jachin Capital enables direct investment in stocks in different countries with iAdvisor

• Twenty-eight portfolios representing diverse investment themes contain securities listed in different countries 

• In June 2015 a portfolio of 14 SGX-listed real estate investment trusts (REITS) and property stocks was successfully executed on iAdvisor

Jachin Capital, an independent fund manager in Singapore, has received a Capital Markets Services Licence from the Monetary Authority of Singapore. With the licence, Jachin Capital can now offer its digital investing platform – iAdvisor – to all accredited investors in Singapore. The company offers investment management solutions on a discretionary and nondiscretionary basis to accredited investors and private family offices based in the Asia-Pacific region. 

Starting from an investment theme or idea, Jachin Capital constructs portfolios based on a transparent rules-based framework. The portfolios are regularly reviewed and rebalanced.  For example, an investor can decide that the Chinese online consumer represents the wave of the future, choose to nvest in Jachin's China Online US portfolio and receive one-click access to investing in a basket of 20 US-listed Internet-related stocks domiciled in China, such as Alibaba and Baidu. 

Currently, iAdvisor boasts 28 portfolios with themes ranging from banking to security, robotics and driverless cars. The underlying baskets for each theme are stocks listed in five countries. This platform has been used by Jachin Capital for almost two years to manage its clients’ investments and has proven to be robust. Jachin Capital’s SMART Real Estate Singapore portfolio presently gives an annual dividend yield of 5% for example. 

Joyce Woo, founder and CEO of Jachin Capital said: “We are pleased that the Monetary Authority of Singapore has approved our application for a Capital Markets Services Licence to offer our iAdvisor platform in Singapore. We started our journey in 2014 with the belief that investors should have an efficient way of investing directly in the underlying stocks when they want to put their money into an investment idea. We also believe that investors should be empowered by knowledge. Thus, iAdvisor provides investors with 24x7 access to everything they need to know about their portfolios such as risk indicators, performance metrics and P&L*. 

“We are also glad to contribute to Singapore’s exciting, evolving fintech sector,’’ added Woo, who has extensive experience in private banking. iAdvisor was developed in collaboration with Hong Kong-based B2B fintech firm Quantifeed. Quantifeed provides digital wealth management solutions in Asia Pacific, with clients in Australia, mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore. 

Quantifeed CEO and co-founder Alex Ypsilanti, said: “Wealth management is rapidly progressing towards a more digital future and Quantifeed is at the forefront of this movement. Jachin Capital uses our technology and portfolio expertise to provide an engaging and personalised online investment experience to customers. Our partnership enables Jachin Capital to deliver wealth management at an affordable price and be a digital leader in the market.”

With iAdvisor:

 Investors can choose the type of portfolios they want to invest in 

 Expert Management Portfolios are constructed by Jachin Capital based on a transparent rules-based framework and regularly reviewed and rebalanced 

 At the click of a button, investors can invest in the underlying securities that make up the portfolio  Investors know which securities they have invested in and can monitor the risk and performance of the portfolio anytime, anywhere and on any device 

 There are affordable minimum investment thresholds and fees 

*Profit and loss.

ImageCrowd sees market gap for Asian stock photography marketplace

Source: ImageCrowd. From left, the ImageCrowd team: Ou Shiwei, Waverijn,
Jiang, and Wilson.

ImageCrowd, a multilingual platform, aims to crowdsource Asian photography by connecting international buyers to Asian photographers in their native language. Through ImageCrowd, buyers can make specific requests and ImageCrowd will crowdsource matching photos. Photographers, be they professional or amateur, can submit their photographs for the buyers’ consideration. Any unbought photos will be collated into a stock photography database.

"The latest trend to programmatic and targeted visual campaigns increase the demand for images more than tenfold. Content driven marketing is rapidly rising, which requires fast, authentic (not staged) and raw photos from real life,” comments Gijs Waverijn, CEO of ImageCrowd.

Overcoming language and copyright issues

Acquiring a common database of images from Asia has been inhibited by two key issues. The first is that local photographers may not speak the languages that buyers speak. The other issue is that of licensing. Local image users rarely respect the photographer’s copyrights, which has resulted in a reluctance by photographers to work as stock photographers, contributing to the lack of quality local photos in Asia.

Danny Wilson, co-founder and CTO for ImageCrowd says, “ImageCrowd seeks to overcome these issues with a language matrix and licensing agreements that are imbedded in the software and processes. In fact, our innovative approach to the language matrix design has been recognised by a grant for innovation, which awarded us funds to further develop the technology.”

The idea for the matrix came from Jiang Ting, co-founder of ImageCrowd and who also founded Bridge86, a multilingual advertising and marketing agency that specialises in copywriting and translation for Asia Pacific (APAC) markets.

"The matrix overcomes language barriers by automatically mapping keywords and tags associated with the images, which means that we can present accurately tagged content to the reader in their native language. The photos are therefore accessible to any buyer, irrespective of their native language,” Jiang said.

The market for photos is huge and growing. Xerox says that coloured visuals increase people's willingness to read a piece of content by 80%. Waverijn said, "Our research tells us that in 2016 content creators are prioritising creating more engaging content, especially visual content*. Visual assets, including photos, are core to how a brand story is communicated. If supported by relevant images, the content is read, whereas without relevant images, the same content is not read**.

*Four in 10 (39%) of marketers believe that more of their budget should be allocated to the acquisition or creation of compelling visual assets (CMO Council); 73% of content creators plan to prioritise creating more engaging content in 2016, and 55% plan to prioritise creating visual content (Content Marketing Institute)

**Two thirds (65%) of senior marketing executives believe that visual assets (photos, video, illustrations and infographics) are core to how their brand story is communicated (CMO Council); Content with relevant images gets 94% more views than content without relevant images (Kissmetrics)

MotionElements adds visual search technology to

MotionElements, a Singapore-based online marketplace for royalty-free* stock animation, video footage, After Effects and Apple Motion templates, has launched an improved search engine featuring visual similarity search technology in partnership with Pixolution, a visual image search technology provider, to help stock media buyers find relevant content more easily.

Speaking of Pixolution, Joanne Chua, Co-Founder of MotionElements said, “We saw a lot of potential in the amount of utility and ease of use it provides to both buyers and sellers of stock video content, which led to our decision to invest and implement the technology to MotionElements as part of our efforts to improve our site.”

The VisualSearch feature complements existing text searches through helping to locate video content through using visual cues. Text-based searches are limited by how well video content has been described with keywords, whereas VisualSearch is able to recognise the images themselves, providing users with more accurate search results for video content libraries. 

The challenge is compounded when users search in Japanese, Korean or Chinese, all of which are supported by the site. Keywords are often only in a single language, and while they are translated, may not fully capture the semantics in different languages. “What sets us apart is that, on top of our extensive video footage library, we also have a huge selection of stock animation and After Effects templates. This often places a heavy burden on having the correct keywords to describe, for example, animated video backgrounds with keywords like 'Swirly Lines' or 'Curvy Wave',” Mark Sun, Co-Founder of MotionElements elaborated.

"The visual nature of the search overcomes the various language and semantic limitations inherent to keyword searches. This effectively globalises search for all languages, which in turn gives our Artists** confidence that their content can be found by buyers with less emphasis on the keywords”.

The company further clarified that text-based searches for content to fit subjective criteria like mood can be unsuccessful as it is impossible to guess if the keyword combination used to search with matches the keywords provided for relevant content. VisualSearch can use a reference image to come up with a list of all content that has similar images, for example.

MotionElements says users should be able to locate content in fewer steps compared to a standard keyword search. VisualSearch in MotionElements is currently a beta*** feature. More improvements are expected to be implemented as more users become familiar with the new search feature.

The company receives about 10,000 pageviews a day, with more than half of the traffic coming from Asia, MotionElements said.

*All images from MotionElements.

*Royalty-free content may be free or may require payment. If it is royalty-free, royalties do not have to be paid thereafter.

**Artists provide content for sale on MotionElements.

***Beta software is close to the final version but may not work exactly as expected.