iSyndica: The Cloud Based Digital Media Platform

iSyndica is a US based firm which was launched in May 2009. It is currently helmed by Seb Coursol, Gwyn Jones , Thomas Gorissen and Hugo Angelmar .

Hitherto, the company has managed to raise $400K of angel funding as part of its series A. Their 2 lead angels include Jayesh Parekh and Greg Blackwood, both of whom are experienced venture investors.

iSyndica is essentially a cloud-based digital media distribution platform which simplifies online selling by syndicating, promoting and tracking user content on multiple established channels. Their Upload Once – Sell Everywhere™ approach can be highly effective in helping users increase revenue while reducing workload.

Companies specializing in microstock photography are essentially defined by 3 features: first, they source for their images exclusively from online sources. Next these agencies also accept images from a wide range of photographers – this can range from professional photographers to hobbyists and amateurs. Lastly, images are priced at lower rates as compared to traditional stock photo agencies.

The microstock industry has yet to reach its zenith but online photo agencies like Polylooks are rapidly gaining traction as online marketing and publishing becomes du jour for companies in addition to the demand for images for offline marketing and publishing purposes. Morevover, with slimmer marketing budgets, the wide selection of images at lower prices makes it a very viable cost effective alternative compared to purchasing images from traditional agencies.

In fact, in a survey conducted by Polylooks, they found out that in the UK marketing sector alone, 44 per cent of professionals legally download between one and five pictures each month, while seven per cent buy more than 11 stock images each month. Moreover, even though nearly half (48 per cent) of the respondents do not have a microstock image budget, five per cent spend in excess of £100 each month on images. As such there is a big and validated demand for microstock images.

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iSyndica’s Distribution Channels

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Individuals who register with iSyndica need only to configure and upload their works once (be it audio/photographs/illustration/video) and it will be automatically available on the 50 over distribution channels working with iSyndica. This includes bigwig microstock photography agencies such as iStockphoto and Fotolia.

iSyndica’s distribution also extends to a number of the most popular social sites including Youtube, Viddler, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and Twitpic. iSyndica is built on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and their Virtual Distribution Server (VDS) is a patent pending, multi-category software-as-a-service (SaaS) distribution platform. With the VDS, which is a virtual server within Amazon’s cloud, users upload their works onto the cloud which then automatically distributes it to all the relevant channels on the iSyndica platform. This therefore reduces the need to reiterate the uploading process onto numerous different channels and saves time and effort.

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Cool Features That iSyndica Offers

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Since its inception, iSyndica has also been constantly upgrading its product offering to become more appealing for its users. Now, the site also includes persistent storage which is able to act as an online backup. More importantly, the system collects sales and earnings data from your personal microstock agency accounts and and presents the information in customizable earning charts. This therefore enables the contributor to analyze how clients are responding to their works and where the demand for their work lies in.

Other cool features of iSyndica include their web 2.0 run Design and User Interface – everything is where users would expect it to be and the system is very easy to use. In addition to the distributive effectiveness of their cloud based system, this system is also advantageous in terms of its online storage properties as well as its ability to adapt more rapidly than a software application when an agency changes they way how their system works.

iSyndica has also implemented third – party login support – this therefore means that one can login with an existing account from Google, Twitter, Facebook, AOL, Yahoo or Flickr. By so doing, iSyndica has proven to have really thought about their product from the consumer’s point of view and modified it to afford them greater convenience and efficiency. Furthermore, users are also able to voice their opinions to the iSyndica team via the UserVoice feedback system. This tool has indeed been useful for product improvement as iSyndica recently added Paypal as a payment method after listening to user feedback.

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Registering With iSyndica

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Only registered users are allowed to publish their work on the iSyndica platform (though new users are eligible for a 15 day trial period). There are 3 subscription categories ranging from standard, premium to pro (most expensive). Each category offers differing features with the pro user account providing 15GB more storage, 4000 more credits and 9 more FTP/SFTP channels amongst other features as compared to the standard account. Additionally, it also provides daily sales and revenue reporting as compared to weekly reporting for standard accounts.

Image credit: Eneva Nayapia

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