Saturday, August 29, 2009

Looking for your image on the web

I was thinking about a couple of my images which I've posted on www.flickr.com. They're been viewed a fair number of times and I figured that they might have been re-used elsewhere on the web.

Turns out that Tineye scoures the web (over 1 billion images and counting) for images and stores a 'digital footprint' of each. You provide your photo and it will look for the same image, even if cropped or altered. Examples here.

It didn't find my images (not even on flickr.com) for any number of reasons:
1. it hasn't crawled the entire web yet
2. the photos were added since the last time it crawled flickr.com
3. the Tineye web-crawler didn't crawl over particular parts of an otherwise public website which contained a robots.txt file.

Anyway, food for thought given our endeavours...
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3 comments:

  1. sourabhjAugust 31, 2009 at 7:39 PM

    niiiiiiice!! this could definitely be very useful...not only in finding illegal uses (though it clearly has its limitations), but also to potentially see where photos are being used legally. i reckon just seeing where photos are being legally used would be great...

    I tried searching some of my more popular files and it only found some microstock sites :
    http://bit.ly/DdkYw
    http://bit.ly/v5K6E

    ReplyDelete
  2. ParkesSeptember 9, 2009 at 1:33 PM

    Hi sourabhj,

    I'm sorry but could not find your e-mail address!
    I am the Marketing Coordinator for YHA NSW. We are in the final stages of development of a new Hostel in The Rocks Sydney.
    We are looking for some photos illustrating ‘Historic Sydney’ to print A3 size and hang in the rooms.

    I found your photo on istock:
    Queen Victoria
    Stock photo | File #: 4602103
    We are interested in purchasing this photo with a high enough size to print in high quality on A3, if you have any other photos you think may be suitable please let me know.

    Please let me know the cost of this photo and if you have any other similar stock photos.

    I look forward to hearing from you and hope you have a fantastic day!

    Regards,

    Shelley Parker
    shelleyp@yhansw.org.au

    ReplyDelete
  3. sourabhjSeptember 9, 2009 at 9:32 PM

    Thanks Shelley! I've sent you an email.

    Also, there's now an email link in my profile... :o)

    ReplyDelete

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