Stipple Introduces Marketplace, the Next Generation Image Licensing Service

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - Sep 20, 2011) - Stipple, pioneering cloud services for images, today announced Stipple Marketplace, the definitive image discovery and licensing service creating the web's most valuable, interactive images. Instead of paying to license images and then running ads to hopefully offset the image's cost, publishers can now license photos pre-loaded with revenue and interactive, searchable content.

Marketplace, the new image discovery tool for content contained in Stipple's Media Cloud, enables bloggers and publishers to search for and find real-time news, sport, celebrity, entertainment, and stock photos. Marketplace launches with more than 1 million images from many of the world's leading photo agencies and companies, and receives over 10,000 new images daily. Stipple offers images that are not simply cost centers for publishers; instead, Stipple images can generate revenue and pay publishers for audience and engagement.

"Stipple changes the game for content publishers," said Lawrence Yee, Managing Editor of TooFab. "Stipple has evolved how images are licensed and monetized. Stipple'd images generate revenue without spamming our audience or sacrificing user experience. As a publisher, Marketplace opens up a whole new set of editorial possibilities."

Starting today, anyone from semi-professional photographers to large photo agencies can request access to connect their photos to the Stipple Cloud and make them discoverable by publishers in Marketplace. Once an image is included in the cloud, the image owner retains permanent, real-time control of the content layer on their images. Once an image is tagged, commerce, product credits, coupons, media, two-way information and advertising will all travel with Stipple images wherever they go online, generating engagement and real-time analytics. The interactive layer is completely spam-free and 100% user-initiated.

"The photo licensing industry is dominated by an oligopoly and was broken," said Rey Flemings, founder and CEO, Stipple. "Photographers and independent photo agencies struggle to make a living while publishers spend too much for online images by paying middlemen that contribute nothing to a photo's lifetime value. Stipple now offers an entirely new revenue source and business model that enables the industry to unlock the lifetime value of photos."

"The moment a photo is published on the web it's essentially dead for the photo owner," said Paul Harris, CEO of Pacific Coast News photo agency. "We lose control of our photos, we can't measure their performance, we can't monetize them and we can't engage audiences in conversations. Stipple forever changes the concept of an online image. Your images can remain your images forever. And yet the photos can still spread freely throughout the web, from site to site, and build larger audiences. Photo owners, content creators and marketers retain real-time control of their image's interactive content layer."

For more information, and to start using Stipple Marketplace today, please visit http://stippleit.com/marketplace.

About Stipple
Stipple is pioneering cloud services for online images. Stipple powers commerce and content inside of images on the web and mobile. The company's patent-pending technology permanently connects images to their owners, who can share information, media and commerce through their images. Stipple's investors include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), Floodgate, Justin Timberlake, Eghosa Omoigui and more than a dozen other leading companies and angel investors. For more information, visit: http://stippleit.com.