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Announcement: Alamy News Twitter account closed and merged with PAimages


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  • meanderingemu changed the title to Announcement: Alamy News Twitter account closed and merged with PAimages

This does not come as a surprise but what lies further down the track is of more concern.

 

There are many things that old Alamy that could have been done better imho and I think for an organisation selling news images its Twitter (news) account was very poor and that probably down to not being able to devote sufficient resources to it.

 

Too many gaps in terms of delays and news pics – whereas PA is one of the leaders in the field.

 

Moving forward it will be interesting and worrying to see if or how Alamy Live News (ALN) becomes integrated into the equivalent outlet in PA.

 

For those attending accredited events it could cause problems in terms of limited places – where are you pictures going? Alamy Live News (1) or PA (1) (2 places) v PA/Alamy (1) .

 

Much depends on ALN staying separate and that the 48 hr embargo on PA news appearing on Alamy continues otherwise I foresee problems for people like me down the track even though my limited news work in the current climate does sometimes appear in papers when PA staffers (competitors in the simplest of terms) are shooting the same event.

 

There would of course be opportunities where ALN stuff is sold via PA in terms of non-accredited events or shoots (e.g. weather/local news/on the spot incidents etc ).

 

Yes, the times they are a-changin.

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I would agree with Nodvandigtid on most of the points above. The twitter account felt unloved with limited reach and little interaction, likely due to resourcing issues, which often seem to affect the entire Live News operation. Not the fault of the individuals on the desk, but it is noticeable (also see the messy news feed). Many of the smaller to mid size press image agencies don't have brilliant social media accounts either, but do well when they maintain good inroads into clients, have well staffed desks who curate, cull and edit image sets filed, nurture their contributing photographer base and keep on top of what is actually happening, news-wise. But they also offer images beyond just the pretty, colourful weather and soft news filler images Alamy News are known for.

 

But if Alamy had wanted to have a florishing news arm, they could have done that years ago, and they clearly never did. So I share the concerns over whether this first step, the 'merging' of social media feeds, is just the beginning of the slow phasing out of Alamy Live News. Presumably, PAImages' News twitter feed will not promote Alamy news images, when PA was also attending. Which, in the case of accredited and Westminster news events in London at least, is almost always! 

 

So...Alamy to remain in the soft news, sunsets, hunts, dogs, lambs and colourful art exhibit page filler pics niche for now? Renaming it the 'PA Page Fillers', or 'PA Pretty Pics' as a sub-brand? Hmm. Sad times.

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This announcement seems to explain the earlier statement about Alamy doing "back end work" on their system and reporting of sales etc being cut back for a time.

 

Allan

 

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7 minutes ago, Allan Bell said:

This announcement seems to explain the earlier statement about Alamy doing "back end work" on their system and reporting of sales etc being cut back for a time.

 

Allan

 

And with the cryptic 19.10.21 alamy tweet, the change is likely much bigger than just moving the live news twitter account.

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10 minutes ago, meanderingemu said:

And with the cryptic 19.10.21 alamy tweet, the change is likely much bigger than just moving the live news twitter account.

 

See my post in "Contributor has left the forum".

 

Allan

 

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4 hours ago, riccarbi said:

Could it be the fist step towards Alamy being fully merged with PAimages and, consequently, to the disappearance of everything bearing the name Alamy altogether?

 

 

since PA mentions a "Renaming" of their account, I think this will be a good indication of direction.  

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  • 3 weeks later...

I've just uploaded some Live News and they've gone into QC. I'm assuming someone at PA has to decide now what is suitable, or might tread on one of their photographers toes.

Edited by Avpics
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5 hours ago, Avpics said:

I've just uploaded some Live News and they've gone into QC. I'm assuming someone at PA has to decide now what is suitable, or might tread on one of their photographers toes.

 

 

did they go into QC, or just had a label that said they did for about one minute, and they revert to being "passed"?  This is what happened to me last time, so i assume it's just a misnomer with the system takes longer and longer to process new images. 

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5 hours ago, Avpics said:

I've just uploaded some Live News and they've gone into QC. I'm assuming someone at PA has to decide now what is suitable, or might tread on one of their photographers toes.

 

 

I've not noticed anything and my last news submissions have'nt been earth shattering.

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22 minutes ago, Mr Standfast said:

 

 

I've not noticed anything and my last news submissions have'nt been earth shattering.

do you upload from Web or FTP?   

 

If Web, next time as soon as upload finished go on AIM, it states "in QC", until the " in process" part is done.  

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33 minutes ago, meanderingemu said:

do you upload from Web or FTP?   

 

If Web, next time as soon as upload finished go on AIM, it states "in QC", until the " in process" part is done.  

Via web. If they "visited" qc it certainly didn't register with me, but then sometimes I miss things when concentrating on the caption and headline. Which Adobe genius decided to set the order of the iptc fields so caption is above headline!

But... they definitely ended up in the news feed and not stock.

 

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2 minutes ago, Mr Standfast said:

Via web. If they "visited" qc it certainly didn't register with me, but then sometimes I miss things when concentrating on the caption and headline. Which Adobe genius decided to set the order of the iptc fields so caption is above headline!

But... they definitely ended up in the news feed and not stock.

 

 

interesting, i use C1 so they are in the correct order for me, other than caption being called description. 

 

My process includes a final check in AIM to make sure i uploaded right captions (i have made a couple mistakes in copying within C1), and make sure i didn't over-run the 600 characters (when i know i'm long i go in Excel to check (@Len()  but not always) , and this is when i got the "in QC" for a minute before the images were in AIM and i could check them.  

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2 hours ago, meanderingemu said:

 

 

did they go into QC, or just had a label that said they did for about one minute, and they revert to being "passed"?  This is what happened to me last time, so i assume it's just a misnomer with the system takes longer and longer to process new images. 

They were greyed out for around ten minutes, with 'in QC' at the top of the section, and in the left column instead of news. Maybe it was a glitch but I don't remember 'in QC' appearing in the left column whilst the thumbnails processed. My later uploads passed immediately.

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1 hour ago, Avpics said:

They were greyed out for around ten minutes, with 'in QC' at the top of the section, and in the left column instead of news. Maybe it was a glitch but I don't remember 'in QC' appearing in the left column whilst the thumbnails processed. My later uploads passed immediately.

Jumping at shadows, not surprising is it.

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