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In this age of international, low cost (sadly), subcontracting I am wondering why Alamy doesn't operate 7 days a week? It would be relatively easy to maintain quality standards through human or AI methods, or a combination of both. Getting product to market is a no brainer, surely? I don't understand why everything grinds to a halt at weekends, apart from News. I'm sure this must also cause a backlog of images to process at the beginning of the week, which again slows everything down further. The added cost of providing this semi-automatic facility must be quite small and mostly outweighed by the benefit of getting images 'out'  and on display more quickly. Am I missing something?

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I have little doubt that Alamy has undertaken a cost benefit analysis of this issue.  They work in a highly competitive market and will no doubt have income maximisation, at an appropriate cost, as a priority as does the majority of businesses.  
 

As an analogy, and this is not meant rudely, I worked in an investment bank that advised and help fund (many years ago) the purchase of one of the best known football clubs in the U.K.  I had a marginal role in the deal.  The club’s management team and sport advisors were some of the best in the business and were paid vast sums of money to run the club.  Yet, everyday the club received thousands of messages from fans, pundits etc, on how they should do their jobs.  People who had no access to the vast amount of data and analytical muscle available to the management.  I am not saying for one moment that the management always made optimal decisions but they had a vastly higher probability than the general public or even die hard fans.

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5 hours ago, IanDavidson said:

I have little doubt that Alamy has undertaken a cost benefit analysis of this issue.  They work in a highly competitive market and will no doubt have income maximisation, at an appropriate cost, as a priority as does the majority of businesses.  
 

As an analogy, and this is not meant rudely, I worked in an investment bank that advised and help fund (many years ago) the purchase of one of the best known football clubs in the U.K.  I had a marginal role in the deal.  The club’s management team and sport advisors were some of the best in the business and were paid vast sums of money to run the club.  Yet, everyday the club received thousands of messages from fans, pundits etc, on how they should do their jobs.  People who had no access to the vast amount of data and analytical muscle available to the management.  I am not saying for one moment that the management always made optimal decisions but they had a vastly higher probability than the general public or even die hard fans.

You are quite right, of course. I'm sure Alamy / PA have analysed the cost/benefit thoroughly. However, sometimes decisions are not always as clearcut as people would like to imagine. If my post caused just one person at Alamy to re-examine this situation, I would be happy. Do you know what the situation is with other agencies? Do they run quality control and process images at the weekend?

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I uploaded 3 times over the weekend with instant QC passes & they were on sale the next day. I’m probably due for a hands-on QC check soon. So images are being processed on the weekend, even if automated.

Edited by Betty LaRue
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17 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

I uploaded 3 times over the weekend with instant QC passes & they were on sale the next day. I’m probably due for a hands-on QC check soon. So images are being processed on the weekend, even if automated.

It's reassuring and good to know that there are systems for immediate upload and display for quality assured peeps. Makes perfect sense.

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