Within its half-open, half-closed status, 2021 will be remembered as a transition year: A melting pot between ending lockdowns, rising vaccines and masks mandates, new variants, ending and restarting restrictions. But if anything, it did nothing to slow down the pace of online innovation—quite the opposite. If visual tech experiencedContinue Reading

https://www.visual1st.biz/programdyi2021

As an exclusive sneak peek preview of the upcoming Visual 1st conference to be held virtually on October 19 – 20, we sat down with one of the many captivating presenters, PicUP.Ai: – A little about you, what is your background?  It was back in 2018, the founder of PicUP.AiContinue Reading

hand full of paint colors

Canva. Adobe – where art thou? Part 1. If you can’t keep up with the phenomenal growth of Canva, you’re not alone. Last week the company announced it has raised $200M at a $40 billion valuation. Wasn’t it only a few months ago the counter stood at $15B? And itContinue Reading

3D , the old fashion way

Shutterstock’s acquisition of 3D marketplace Turbo Squid is significant for a few reasons, some of which might not be obvious. The first and well-understood purchase trigger is that the microstock company is under pressure to expand its offering horizontally. There is a known ceiling to the paid licensed still imagesContinue Reading

According to a recent study, over 63% of Americans say they often come across fake images online. Whether those images are truly faked or perceived as such, the damage is done. We are rapidly losing trust in what we see, our evolutionary number source of information. If this trend continues,Continue Reading

The battle is on. The forces of truth against forces of deception. With visual AI making it easier to fake visual content, its credibility is at stake. And with it, the income of thousands upon thousands of people worldwide who depend on the credibility of visuals to thrive: Newspapers, magazines,Continue Reading

It made a giant noise as it caught everyone by surprise — $230 million investment in a company providing photo services.  After Adobe’s $800 million purchase of French microstock photo company Fotolia, Pond 5’s $64 million investment and Shutterstock’s  $76.5 million IPO, it is the highest figures ever seen investedContinue Reading

Shoebox

Last week Shoebox announced it’s closing its door on May 22nd, signifying the end of an era when one innovative cloud-based photo management/synching solution after another came to market in the 2010-2015 timeframe. Founded in 2012, Shoebox has always stood out to me for its novel interface, which enabled users to search for photosContinue Reading

About a week ago, Unsplash announced that they had raised $7.25 million, along with plans to bring cryptocurrency to its free stock photo service. While most see their move as a potential Shutterstock killer,  Unsplash  could end up becoming a  potent competitor to Instagram, Pinterest, and Snap as they share more DNAContinue Reading

Outside of Instagram, the biggest success in the world of photo apps is certainly Facetune.  With millions of paid downloads, it was the number one paid app in over 120 countries. The creation of 5 Israeli friends, it certainly benefited from Instagram’s success and especially its insatiable appetite for selfies.Continue Reading