Greenhouse opens image library on the Web

As the syndication arm of one of the UK's leading newspaper groups, Mirror Syndication International (MSI) has a wealth of photographs celebrating over a century of news gathering.

Digital image technology and the advent of the Web are enabling Mirror Syndication to make its images available to buyers more easily than ever before. But its vital that visitors to its website can get a fast, reliable response when viewing and downloading large images. An e-DAM solution, based in the Picdar Greenhouse, is providing a firm foundation for Mirror Syndication's business.

As well as up to the minute news and current affairs, MSI also has archives dating back to the early 1900s. A recent visit to its picture repository in Watford unearthed a hoard of glass negatives capturing historical events such as King George V on parade, and Gandhi and Charlie Chaplin making an unlikely joint public appearance in Southwark.

'Nobody really knows how many images we've got,' admits Frank Walker, managing director of MSI. 'Some say at least 20 million; some say 30, 40 million - it is certainly more than we can count.'

Walker quickly realised that by providing digital images which customers could preview and order over the Web, he could open up new business opportunities for the syndication business.

'Until now, our images have just been sitting in filing cabinets, and it could be 50 years before someone asked for some of them,' says Walker. 'But the Web is like a shop window that 80 million people walk past every day. If only 1% of them come in and buy something, that's an awful lot of business.'

The MSI web site at www.uk-press.com has been set up with the shop window principle very much in mind. Anyone can browse the site, with no need to register or set up an account beforehand, though there is a special area for account customers. 'We wanted to make the site as open as possible,' Walker explains. 'After all, no-one asks for your name and address before they'll let you into Marks & Spencer, or locks the door so you can't get in.'

Each day the front page features a new, topical image to draw people in, and browsers are encouraged to check out special collections such as 'Images of the 20th Century' and 'The Beatles Files'.

Visitors can search MSI's electronic archives of, currently, 250,000 photos by entering key words and immediately see thumbnail versions of all the matching images. This means a more responsive service for customers, and lower running costs for MSI. As Walker puts it, "It's a great way to get other people to do the picture research!"

For the media clients who form the bulk of MSI's customer base, the responsiveness of the Internet is a boon, as Walker explains. 'A typical customer is Channel 4's 11 O'clock Show. What they want is news pictures to go with today's news stories. Now, the pictures can be up on their screen within 10 minutes of looking at our website.'

And because MSI's range of images can be viewed over the Web, the company is now, for the first time, able to attract and serve an international customer base. 'Suddenly, we're getting orders from Milwaukee and Santa Cruz,' says Walker. 'A significant proportion of Web sales are now coming from the US.'

The Mirror's picture desk was already successfully using Picdar's FASTFOTO image database to manage its digital images, so when it came to choosing a Digital Asset Management system, Picdar was the obvious answer. But finding an Internet service provider to turn Walker's vision of an online picture library into workable reality proved to be more of a challenge.

After two ISPs had tried and found it difficult to deliver the service Walker was looking for in a reasonable timescale, he asked Picdar, which had recently launched its Greenhouse website hosting and management service, to take on the MSI site. 

Walker is pleased with the service he gets from Picdar, and with the company's willingness to listen to his business requirements. 'We have a dialogue with them, and we know that if there's a new feature we need, they'll do their best to deliver it,' he says. For example, Picdar is currently extending the e-commerce facilities available via the site, so that MSI's clients can pay for images and download them automatically from the Web.

The performance and reliability of the website has not been an issue since he signed up for Greenhouse. And as more and more images are scanned into MSI's collection, the scalability of the solution means that Greenhouse will not run out of steam. Consequently, Walker is happy to leave the technology to Picdar and focus on the task of growing a successful syndication business.

Click here to see MSI on the Web...