StartupRealities

Startup No 188 - StartupRealities 2020 series  PhotoPlatforms is a city branding and promotion company which installs free viewing platforms at major urban landmarks to allow tourists and visitors to have photos taken of them at the respective attraction. Some of the platforms are permanent structures, while others are temporary ramps that can be moved in and out for the tourist season. The location of the photo platform is optimised to allow the best angle, sunlight and exposure for a quality Instagram photo that the tourist would not hesitate to post on social media. The platforms are user-friendly for taking selfies as well as for having photos taken by others. CEO QUOTE " In a world of social media, we let tourists and visitors do the advertising of the city. All it takes is to have a nice photo taken of you and, say, the Eiffel Tower, and then posting it on social media. It is guaranteed that social proofing and social jealousy will make at least several of your friends, acqu...

StartupRealities No 134 CornerIP is an intellectual property (IP) agency that has developed proprietary image processing algorithms that integrate in strategic locations on photos and graphs the name and logo of a company, so that they cannot be cropped out without detracting from the value of the image. The name and logo blend in with the rest of the image by being organically incorporated into the original photo. CEO QUOTE "You know those stock images with the copyright holder's logos strewn diagonally across the entire photo? Well, we avoid this format like the plague. It's nonsense. Instead, we still position the name of the owner on the image but our AI algorithm picks for it a prime unobtrusive space next to the focus point of the image, usually on a corner billboard, door sign or plaque that appear to be part of the image (see photo below). Thus the IP is protected but the image itself is not mangled beyond recognition," said CornerIP founder and CEO Corn...

StartupRealities No 110 InstaPedia is an online wiki-based encyclopedia which has an Instagram-type reliance on visual information to describe terms and concepts. The images, infographics, charts and simple drawings on InstaPedia are accompanied by brief captions. As in all wiki-projects, volunteers contribute the images, photos and captions to InstaPedia and volunteer editors oversee and improve the content. AUTOMATED IMAGE CREATION In addition to humans, InstaPedia also uses bots to enhance the images and design computer-generated infographics and charts. To circumvent copyright restrictions and increase the availability of images in more conceptual fields in which little concrete imagery exists, InstaPedia's AI algorithms use Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) to create new images from scratch. CEO QUOTE " What Twitter is to Wikipedia, Instragram is to InstaPedia. Social media and online encyclopedias are not directly related but their conceptual models of conve...

StartupRealities No 91 PondMapper is a geographical information systems company that catalogues and maps artificial ponds in urban environments. The company asks for a $5 dollar donation to include each garden pond in its database and on its maps. The information is used by biologists exploring aquatic and amphibian habitats, while pond photos are shared on the website and on Instagram. Each pond owner has a dedicated page on the PondMapper website where they upload current photos of their pond. CEO QUOTE "People with garden ponds really care about their ponds and are proud of their ponds. We help create a community of pond lovers, but we also give a scientific and research purpose to this community. Exploring biodiversity and species migration is a central part of what we do," said PondMapper founder and CEO Pony Mascarpone. Garden pond in California (image source: Wikipedia )

StartupRealities No 62 BackgroundBillboard is a free stock image library whose photos have unique compositions in the foreground, while a billboard, shop front, signboard or branded packaging is displayed somewhere in the background. The company collects advertising revenue from the companies featured in the background of the photos under an innovative revenue model called #PayPerPlacement. The stock image library encourages free use of its images on blogs, social media and mainstream media and charges advertisers per photo used. CEO QUOTE "If you have an interesting composition in bright colours in the foreground, people who are attracted to this image and want to use it wouldn't really care what is in the background. Yet, the background still gets noticed unconsciously, which allows us to charge advertisers for it. We find GIFs even more popular than static images as several frames of motion or animation can pull a miracle for attracting attention," said Background...