tagging.tech

Audio, Image and video keywording. By people and machines.

Tag Archives: Keywording Services


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Tagging.tech interview with Maura Framrose

Tagging.tech presents an audio interview with Maura Framrose about keywording services

 

Listen and subscribe to Tagging.tech on Apple Podcasts, AudioBoom, CastBox, Google Play, RadioPublic or TuneIn.

Keywording_Now.jpg

Keywording Now: Practical Advice on using Image Recognition and Keywording Services

Now available

keywordingnow.com

 

Transcript:

Henrik de Gyor:  This is Tagging.tech. I’m Henrik de Gyor. Today, I’m speaking with Maura Framrose.

Maura, how are you?

Maura Framrose: Hello, Henrik.

Henrik: Maura, who are you and what do you do?

Maura: My name is Maura. I am an independent keywording specialist. I worked with Getty for five years in the early 2000s, integrating partner data to standardize inputting on search methodology.

I keyword for photographers on their own sites and for distribution and provide consultancy services for archives and migration. I assess existing data and requirements to streamline, simplify, reduce database noise, and to ensure search results are consistent and relevant.

Henrik: Maura, what are the biggest challenges and successes you’ve seen with keywording services?

Maura: The demand for high volume at low cost can lead to compromise in the quality of keywords and to keyworders being exploited. A good edit is important before images even reach keywording services, as is an understanding of the importance of investing time and attention into keywords.

There is a lovely challenge in the link between what is being tagged and what people actually want to see. As this shifts and changes, keeping up with search trends and adapting keywords to reflect and fulfill expectations beyond the basics, while still being relevant, is a lovely challenge to meet.

Success is a clean and clearly relevant search return on any given keyword or its variants, as this tends to improve sales figures and return visits to websites.

Henrik: As of March 2016, how much of the keywording work is completed by people, versus machines?

Maura: We have to keep up with technology as it changes. We drive those changes ourselves with bugs and fixes, and wish lists improvements, and enhancement features. In tagging an image well, you reflect its true value.

Good software with hierarchy and synonym functionality improves speeds and can automate relevant keywords onto images. These hierarchies, in themselves, require human input and maintenance as language changes and new content is added.

Thanks to the Internet, we are able to research and double check facts much more easily than we could 15 years ago. A curiosity and willingness to check facts is one of the elements which encourages good keywords on an image.

While there is image recognition software in development, which to some extent may be able to automate keywords to images, as a keyworder you’re looking for the attributes which make the image distinct and of human interest.

You’re able to evaluate concepts, emotions, relationships. Who drew the map, who sailed with it, on which voyage, and when? This curiosity for significance may only be answered by machines where the intelligence exists and has been accurately programmed and input to data files in the first place.

Henrik: Maura, what advice would you like to share with people looking into keywording services?

Maura: I would advise you to not be looking for the cheapest option. Having it done cheaply is not necessarily having it done well.

Henrik: Maura, where can we find more information about keywording services?

Maura: We wrote an article with the British Journal of Photography, and I also have several papers planned. I’m on LinkedIn and work with the keywording guild called Word Association.

Henrik: Thanks, Maura. For more on this, visit Tagging.tech.

Thanks again.

 

For a book about this, visit keywordingnow.com


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Tagging.tech interview with Mark Milstein

Tagging.tech presents an audio interview with Mark Milstein about keywording services

Listen and subscribe to Tagging.tech on Apple Podcasts, AudioBoom, CastBox, Google Play, RadioPublic or TuneIn.

Keywording_Now.jpg

Keywording Now: Practical Advice on using Image Recognition and Keywording Services

Now available

keywordingnow.com

Transcript:

Henrik de Gyor:  [00:02] Welcome to TaggingTech. I’m Henrik de Gyor. Today I’m speaking with Mark Milstein. Mark, how are you?

Mark Milstein:  [00:07] Fine, thank you very much, Henrik, for asking me to come on board today.

Henrik:  [00:11] Mark, who are you and what do you do?

Mark:  [00:13] I am the managing director and founder of Microstock Solutions. Microstock Solutions is a leading provider of DAM agnostic congestion, curation, keywording and asset management services to the visual media industry.

[00:24] In early 2015, we launched digital content solutions, a freshly designed and staffed brand to support the DAM needs of the Fortune 500. Both companies are headquartered in South Dakota, with offices in New York City and operation centers globally.

Henrik:  [00:38] What is DAM?

Mark:  [00:38] Digital asset management.

Henrik:  [00:40] What are the biggest challenges and successes you’ve seen with keywording services?

Mark:  [00:44] Challenges abound. The cost side is a major issue. Every client has a shrinking budget, and exploding numbers of assets, that desperately need discoverability. The second with our primary clients is a lessening understanding that quality keyword adds lasting value to any asset.

[01:00] I emphasize the word “lasting value” quite often, but the nature of today’s stock photography world is volume, volume, volume. Assets, both still and motion seem to resemble cups of coffee, great when hot, less so when cold.

[01:14] We’re very proud of a recent project. First, was the moonshot‑like effort we made to keyword 25,000 user-generated still assets in a bit more than three weeks on behalf of the most successful marketplace for mobile stock photography.

[01:28] Second, has been on our work with Shutterstock’s premium royalty-free library, called Offset. This is a labor of love for everyone involved, and so as to develop an in‑house team of specialists focused on interior and exterior design photography. Nearly every aspect of food presentation and preparation.

[01:48] Last, but not least, has been our work on behalf of VideoBlocks, a Washington DC-based marketplace for still and motion content. Their recent acquisition of the Discovery Channel library, they have been given the Discovery Channel library.

[02:06] We have worked to keyword tens of thousands of motion clips on behalf of both companies that have been made over the past decade.

Henrik:  [02:13] As of late February 2016, how much of the keywording work is done by people versus machines?

Mark:  [02:20] All of our work is done by humans. So far we have yet to come upon a software solution that fits our needs. We are, however, very much open to the idea. Right now, it’s a wait-and-see issue. When the right product shows up, we’ll probably absorb it into our tool belt.

Henrik:  [02:33] What advice would you like to share with people looking at keywording services?

Mark:  [02:37] Communicate your needs. Know your end users, both internally and externally, and their various needs, and be able to describe it to the service provider in order for them to able to customize the output. Be prepared to share samples of common search queries in order to…the service to customize a taxonomy which fits your needs.

Henrik:  [02:58] Mark, where can we find more information about keywording services?

Mark:  [03:01] First, you can go to www.microstocksolutions.com, or digitalcontentsolutions.net. If you are in North America, the DMLA, which is the Digital Media Licensing Association, formerly known as PACA, would be a great start.

[03:17] They have a well‑sourced membership directory, and within that membership directory, you can find all sorts of similar services to ours. If you’re outside of the United States or Canada, I may recommend CEPIC, which is cepic.org, which is the Center of the Picture Industry.

[03:33] It’s a singular umbrella organization for the still and motion licensing community. Also in their directory have many, many services that provide keywording.

Henrik:  [03:43] Thanks, Mark.

Mark:  [03:45] Thank you very much.

Henrik:  [03:46] For more on this, visit Tagging.tech.

Thanks again.

For a book about this, visit keywordingnow.com