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

While the release of this person does not exist by three researchers created a massive wave of buzz, it never went beyond curiosity. When Ivan Braun and his team launched Generated Photos, the interest changed to concern and apprehension. Generating human portraits via AI was no longer a research paper but a real,Continue Reading

I’d like to share a few thoughts spurred by our recently released Building the Gig Photo Economy study, as well as the conversations I’ve since had with quite a few folks using or supplying Gig Photography services. First of all, we live in an era of diminishing stigma against outsourcing household tasksContinue Reading

The real strength of deepfakes or alternate images is not that they falsify the truth – we have been able to that since the birth of photography but rather, thanks to social media, that they are completely dissociated from their original creators and thus their intent. When the Soviet governmentContinue Reading

I’m a sucker for year-in-reviews, especially if they’re about soccer or speedskating (yes, really). So, with things slowing down before the holidays and a soon forthcoming CES that will bring us right back to the future, here are the six consumer imaging trends that I feel stood out this year. 1. AIContinue Reading

low hanging camera

The proliferation of cameras, visual formats, and monetization methods are transforming the consumer imaging industry   It’s not really new: consumers want – and are getting – more and more finite choices for buying exactly the types of products they need. Specialty retail stores are making a comeback, SMBs withContinue Reading

Last year we changed the name of our conference, from Mobile Photo Connect to Visual 1st. Besides wanting to affirm our focus that visuals are increasingly at the core of how people communicate and retain their memories, we also felt we needed to let go of the words “mobile” and “photo”Continue Reading

Just this past week, the European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs approved amendments to EU’s Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. Among which is included the infamous Article 13 which ” creates an obligation on information society service providers storing and giving access to large amounts of works and other subject-matter uploadedContinue Reading

The photo print products use case: A relic of the past? Or teeming with new opportunities? It’s been four years since we conducted our last photo print product survey. Given how dramatically the world of photo taking, enhancing and sharing has changed since, we decided to measure today’s consumers’ behavior andContinue Reading