At the PACA Conference in Miami Beach, Google and imense will talk us through advances in search technology, the potential impact on image and video search, and on a user's search experience.

Search engines have traditionally been based on matching keywords typed into query boxes with words associated with images, video, and other online data. Semantic Search technology is smart enough to understand what sentences or combinations of words actually mean, returning more accurate and relevant search results.

Your website is a marketing tool that helps you make money, not just a place to show pretty pictures. So, are you measuring its performance?

Smart photographers are using Google Analytics - a free and powerful service by Google - to understand their website traffic and make better business decisions.

This free kit by PhotoShelter & Adorama shows you how to implement and make sense of Google Analytics. Gain a true competitive advantage by learning more about your website visitors, where they come from, what they're looking for, and why they're leaving.

Read more at PhotoShelter

Most microstockers figure out the relationship between quality and quantity early in their careers.  All microstock superstars certainly did.

Success in microstock requires that you learn how to consistently create high quality (high selling) stock photos before you increase your volume of production.

Read more at MicrostockDiaries.com

Internet Manifesto

1. The Internet is different.

It produces different public spheres, different terms of trade and different cultural skills. The media must adapt their work methods to today’s technological reality instead of ignoring or challenging it.  It is their duty to develop the best possible form of journalism based on the available technology. This includes new journalistic products and methods.

Read more at internet-manisfesto.org

Media spending in the second quarter of 2009 declined steeply compared to the second quarter of 2006 -- but the same period saw an even larger increase, in percentage terms, in Internet revenues.

It's worth noting that -- with the exception of newspapers -- the percentage share of most traditional media in overall spending has remained roughly the same, according to a MediaPost analysis of figures compiled from the Newspaper Association of America, the Television Bureau of Advertising, the Publishers Information Bureau, Radio Advertising Bureau, Outdoor Advertising Association of America, the Interactive Advertising Bureau and Nielsen.

Read more at MediaPost.com

Stanford photo scientists are out to reinvent digital photography with the introduction of an open-source digital camera, which will give programmers around the world the chance to create software that will teach cameras new tricks.

f the technology catches on, camera performance will be no longer be limited by the software that comes pre-installed by the manufacturer. Virtually all the features of the Stanford camera – focus, exposure, shutter speed, flash, etc. – are at the command of software that can be created by inspired programmers anywhere. “The premise of the project is to build a camera that is open source,” said computer science professor Marc Levoy.

Read more at ScienceDaily.com

Healthy living comes from healthy eating. Selecting fresh produce can lead to good nutrition.

Have you ever shopped at a Farmer’s Market? Hundreds of choices of fruits, vegetables, canned pickles, dried beans and so on.

Shoppers can spend a lot of time, roaming, looking and selecting the items for sale.
People who visit Farmer’s Markets usually arrive with a $20 bill and leave with garden fresh goods. Farmer’s Markets are a good example of what on-line Internet stock photo shopping has become.

Read more at PhotoStockNotes

New tool – projected monthly income calculator

Read more at Arcurs.com

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

We break down the laws that protect your photos.

By Kathleen Davis

Read more at PopPhoto.com