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Tech news was flowing faster than Niagara Falls this week as acquisitions continued to rock the world of tech. Following on the heels of Facebook’s purchase of WhatsApp for $19 billion, tech companies went on a buying spree this week, snatching up some of The Wonder of Tech’s favorite tech services.
While some companies were busy spending money, Getty Images made a major move that could save you money if you’re a fan of high-quality images.
In case you missed any of this important tech news, don’t worry, The Wonder of Tech has you covered!
Getty Images Go Free!
Good news for bloggers and readers of blogs! Getty Images has made its vast collection of images available to use for free. In an effort to control and monitor use of its images, Getty Images is making many of its images free to use for non-commercial purposes. What formerly could cost hundreds of dollars is now available free of charge for many.
See, Getty Images Terms of Use for more details.
If you’re a blogger and are constantly on the hunt for free images to use, this is great news, you’ve just hit the Mother Lode. Getty Images has over 80 million images in its archives, though not all of them are available to embed for free.
Go to Getty Images Embed to search for images you can embed for free. You can search for an image such as this one and hover your cursor over the embed icon:
Copy the embed code that pops up, paste it into your blog post, and the image will be embedded on your blog with full attribution:
For full instructions on how to embed Getty Images into a WordPress blog, check out this WordPress Getty Images Tutorial.
Stay tuned to The Wonder of Tech for more beautiful photos from Getty Images!
Flipboard Buys Zite
When I saw Zite as the top trending topic on Twitter, I knew that the news had to be big. Sure enough, Flipboard, a personal magazine app, announced that it was purchasing Zite from CNN. The purchase price of $60 million was three times the $20 million that CNN paid for Zite 2 1/2 years ago.
Zite is a news curation mobile app that delivers articles in a stunning and rich format. While other content curation apps, such as Flipboard, exist, Zite is unique in honing in on a reader’s interest based on topics instead of on publications.
See my review of Zite: Zite – My Go To App! for more information about Zite.
Zite comes in my two favorite types of “free”:
- Free to use
- Free of ads
While CNN maintained Zite as a separate app, Flipboard will be ending Zite as a stand-along app and instead incorporating Zite’s technology into the Flipboard app. Flipboard will be using Zite’s technology so you’ll be able to find content on Flipboard that’s a better fit for you.
Zite will continue to exist as an app for at least six months so it’s not too late to give it a try. Zite is available as a free app for:
For more information on the transition of Zite into Flipboard, check out the Zite blog.
Yahoo Buys Vizify
Vizify, the website that turned your social media activity into interactive media, announced that it has been acquired by Yahoo. Like Zite, Vizify will be enveloped into its acquirer, ending its stand-alone services.
Unlike Zite though, Vizify is no longer allowing people to sign up for its service. Current members will be able to download a snapshot of their Vizify bio. If you’re a Vizify user, look for an email from Vizify with instructions soon. You have until April 7, 2014 to download your Vizify bio.
See, Make a Vizify Video to Showcase Your Twitter Profile! for an example of how you could use Vizify to visualize your activity on social media.
Also see, Who Are Your Twitter Rockstars? to learn how Vizify helped you identify and thank your top Twitter peeps.
In Vizify’s official announcement the company indicated that its technology will be adopted by Yahoo and incorporated into Yahoo’s services. Stay tuned to The Wonder of Tech for future announcements if Yahoo offers Vizify-type media to its users.
Your Thoughts
Were you surprised by all of the tech news this week? Which tech news has the biggest impact on you? Will you be missing Zite and Vizify? Are you looking forward to seeing beautiful Getty Images at The Wonder of Tech? Let us know in the Comments section below!
That’s very interesting news Carolyn and with all the talk I’ve heard about Getty Images I’ve stayed clear of that site. It’s good to know though that they’ve now be acquired and I might have to just stop by and check them out now.
Are you happy with the news about Zite? I know it’s one of your favorite sites but you said that it’s still available via app for at least the next six months. Does that mean major changes are coming?
I had heard about Yahoo acquiring Vizify so I’ll be curious to see what’s in store for them too.
Great shares and you’re always on top of things. Thank you Carolyn and hope your weather is behaving itself you and guys have a great weekend.
~Adrienne
Hi Adrienne, Yes, most of us bloggers steered clear of Getty Images because of the fees that they charged to use their images. that’s why this news is huge for bloggers. To have access to Getty Images for free is simply amazing. I look forward to embedding their images here at The Wonder of Tech!
Just to be clear, Getty Images wasn’t taken over. They just changed their policy to help bloggers and to be able to track how their images are used. Commercial sites still need to pay for Getty Images but we don’t. How cool is that? Readers will really benefit as we can make good use of Getty Images to illustrate our articles.
Yes, I am very, very sad to learn that Zite is going away. Zite has been an essential source of tech news for me, often an inspiration for article topics! But I’m hoping that Flipboard becomes the new Zite so that we can keep the features of Zite, just in a different package.
Yes, we are supposed to have a warm Saturday tomorrow. Of course our “warm” is probably your “cool”!
Hi Carolyn,
Well this is most interesting and thanks for writing about it. Images have been one of my major problems during the past year or so. I’ve paid plenty for images, but their terms and conditions changed all the time.
I resorted to doing my own, which is pretty shabby! I didn’t want to use an image that will come back and bite me in the you know what later on.
This is something I am glad to see and will look into.
Thanks so much!
-Donna
Hi Donna, You’re very welcome. When I learned of this huge news about Getty Images I couldn’t wait to share this with Wonder of Tech readers. Like you, Donna, I search for images to add to articles that help illustrate my words. I’ve tried taking my own photos but they never turn out well enough to make me proud that I included them in my articles.
Flickr has been a good source of Creative Commons articles but they don’t always have what I’m looking for. To have the resources of Getty Images for free is pretty amazing.
I hope you find a lot of helpful images there, Donna!
Hi Carolyn,
I am sort of torn by Getty. It would be great to use their stuff, but I have a bunch of questions. Many are covered in http://www.niemanlab.org/2014/03/getty-images-blows-the-webs-mind-by-setting-35-million-photos-free-with-conditions-of-course/
I liked using Zite and Vizify.
Hello Jack, Yes, the free Getty Images do require an embed which is different from Creative Comments which allow you to download the image and often edit and modify the image. But if you want to purchase the images you don’t have to embed them. That article made a lot of excellent points, thanks for linking to it!
They are only doing this as part of a link building campaign. Each “Free” image will link back to getty. It will be interesting to see how Google reacts, whether they will let it slide like they do DMCA.com or if they will penalize them like Rap Genius..
Hi Erik, Yes, Getty Images will get links back from the embedded images but I’m sure it would prefer the royalty payments. Anyone who doesn’t want to give Getty Images an embed link can pay for a photo or get one elsewhere. But for those who don’t want to pay for images and are willing to use the embed links, this is an exciting development.
hi Carolyn, I’m excited about those Getty images. I did read some folks did not like the embed feature but it’s worth trying out for sure. I was surprised about Vizify, I do like that application/site. The video’s are really cool too. I’m not much into flipboard or Zite, I haven’t really explored those 2 places.
Thanks for sharing how to use the Getty image embed feature Carolyn, have a great weekend!
Hi Lisa, Yes, ideally Getty Images would be available for downloading instead of embedding. I would love to be able to edit them and have people pin them to Pinterest from my blog.
While we can’t have everything, I would much rather have free access to embeddable Getty Images than having to pay for access to any Getty Images.
I’m glad that Vizify was successful but, like you, I will miss them. I hope we see their technology available through a Yahoo service. If so, I will definitely cover that news here at The Wonder of Tech!
Even though Zite is going away, you may want to check it out. The content curation capabilities of Zite are second to none. I find more articles of interest to me on Zite than from any other source. I truly hope that its technology is incorporated seamlessly into Flipboard.
Hi Carolyn,
I think that’s definitely a smart move by Getty Images.
As wonderful as it sounds, their embed code comes with a good sized logo of their own with a share button that gets their images, some shares. What an awesome way to get free back links from all over the web in style.
Well, I have stayed clear of them so far and I will continue to do so. I buy my photos from depositphotos and I think I will continue to do so simply because I just want my images to become an advertisement avenue for Getty Images 🙂
Thanks for sharing!
-Kumar
Hi Kumar, You’re right, there is a tradeoff because Getty Images are available free for embedding instead of downloading. I can understand if you would rather pay for images than have them embedded in your site.
While downloading images is ideal, I am very willing to embed Getty Images at my site. I have no problem with linking back to a quality website such as Getty Images. In my mind that’s a small price to pay for the quality and quantity of images that Getty Images offers.
But every site owner needs to make their own decisions. You have to decide what works best for you. For those who don’t want to have to pay for pictures, embedding Getty Images can be a very exciting option.
This is a really a great news for bloggers like us as we spend considerable amount of time in finding the right image to be used in our articles.If you read their terms there is a catch which states that at any time the image which has embed code currently can be pulled off in future, the question comes what would happen to the articles which has referenced that image?
Hi Jayashree, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! You’re right, any time you’re embedding code into a post you run the risk of the content becoming unavailable later. This can happen with images, YouTube videos, infographics and other content. You would have a broken link in those articles and have to replace the embed code with an image from another source.
I think that’s definitely a smart move by Getty Images.
As wonderful as it sounds, their embed code comes with a good sized logo of their own with a share button that gets their images, some shares. What an awesome way to get free back links from all over the web in style.Thanks for sharing the great article.
Hi Abdul, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! Yes, I’m glad Getty Images made their images available for free for non-commercial use. You’re right, the embedding gives them a link back as well as attribution with their logo. Anyone who isn’t willing to give Getty Images these can pay money for the images instead or not use the photos.
I’m glad you enjoyed this article, Abdul. I hope you enjoy using Getty Images!
Hi Carolyn,
Great write-up. I’m impressed with Getty’s decision to make embedding available for bloggers. I may partake at some time in the future, but I prefer to use my own photographs and graphics I create. It’s interesting all the changes coming with technology. Just imagine what things will be like 5 years from now. 🙂
Kind Regards,
Bill
Hi Bill, Yes, this is great news for bloggers and readers of blogs. More free images means more accessibility to visual enhancements for our sites.
That’s great that you can use your own images, Bill. That’s really ideal because you don’t have to credit anyone and you can be sure no one else is using the same image!
Hey Carolyn
Some interesting news there.
Vizify has effectlively been killed from what I can see. Pity when some of these companies are bought they are done so only to buy the knowledge and employees. C’est la via!
The Getty Images news is great and caught my attention. Although it is only embedding and not the ability to change. But still, if I need an image to use within a post, then that is a great source indeed!
thanks for keeping us up to date
ashley
Hi Ashley, Yes, I will really miss Vizify. I’m optimistic that Yahoo will give its users a similar service but that may be too much to ask.
Downloading Getty Images would be ideal but if we can’t have that, embeddable images are the nest best thing! I hope you find some useful images on Getty Images, Ashley.
Hi Carolyn,
Thank you so much for providing this valuable information.
Surely this will be a great help to all bloggers who are in search of some beautiful pics for their posts. I usually take pics from sxu.hu and these days its really difficult to get good pic free of cost. I need to check out gettyimages for my use.
Thanks for sharing this.
Have a good day.
Hi Philip, You’re right, finding free, quality images can be extremely difficult which is why I was so very excited to learn the news about Getty Images and then share this news with my readers. I hope you’re able to find many useful images there, Philip! :-bd
Hi Carolyn,
Glad to hear that GettyImages are allowing people to use their photos without the copyright. Coz they were the first one I used to use to get photos for my clients. And I remember spending a hundred dollar just for one photo. They are very expensive and I think way overprice, now that I think about this again. I prolly wouldn’t use them again if I have to design a print promotional item for a client. But that’s nice to hear that they are getting a little bit more flexible. Thanks for sharing these with us!
Have a great week.
Angela
Hi Angela, Yes, Getty Images can be quite expensive, but the quality of images is generally quite high so they can command high prices. Yes, Getty Images has put limitations on the use of its images for free, but they do have to stay in business.
If the client really wants to use a quality photo for commercial purposes and is willing to pay for it, then Getty Images can be a helpful source for you.
Carolyn, it is a good news for bloggers that Getty Images Go Free. However, there is little problem to use these images. It is not good idea to use images which are hosted on other server, most of the time such images do not load fast and take much time. I prefer to use royalty free images, flickr images and give credit to original source of image as “Image Source”.
Hi Pradeep, Yes, not everyone will like using Getty Images, but some people prefer to have images hosted on another site to keep their site leaner and meaner. The selection of images at Getty Images is impressive as well. But if you prefer to buy royalty free images or use Flickr images, those are options as well!
Hi Carolyn,
I looked at Getty Images and all the ones I wanted weren’t free! I’ll have to keep taking my own pictures! I keep trying to find new subjects for my photos and new ideas. I’m going to be experimenting with filters and hopefully soon I’ll get a new telephoto lens. I might be taking photos of things in the garden this summer to keep a record of my grow my own vegetables mission!