The importance of technology in media today is immeasurable. Tools, content and validity of information is crucial. Tim Pool and Isaac Phillips, Tagg.ly team, want to improve reporting quality and protect original content. Here’s our interview with Tagg.ly Co-Founder Isaac Phillips :
What is Tagg.ly?
Tagg.ly is a mobile app that allows you to brand and watermark your photographs. This provides crucial context to your photos and videos.
- Get credit when your media goes viral! Keep your content from disappearing into the social media abyss without proper credit.
- Include consistent, singletouch branding on your photos and videos.
- When someone sees a photo online, common questions include: “Who took this photo?” “When was this photo taken?” and “Where was this photo taken?” Use Tagg.ly to answer these questions.
Example:
When Tim Pool of VICE News posts a photo to Twitter with his name in one corner and the VICE News logo in another it can be retweeted again and again, but @timcast still gets proper accreditation for his content. Here is an example of what Tagg.ly looks like on photos with Tim’s username and the Vice logo.
Our Inspiration
Tagg.ly was inspired by the real world of mobile journalism and social media sharing. We wanted to help photographers get credit where it’s due!
The story is quite simple:
1) I take a photo and share it on social media. I want people to see it and to share it so it gets seen by even more people!
2) My photo gets retweeted, posted on Reddit, or put on Tumblr or Facebook without giving the me credit. This makes me sad, because even though more people are seeing my photo, I don’t get credit for it.
Using Tagg.ly for photos and videos is the easiest way to retain credit for my photos. While there are many apps for watermarking photos, these apps require many clicks for each photo. We created Tagg.ly to be simple: one click to take a photo or video and brand it; one click to share it on social media.
Our inspiration was to create simple tools that help journalists, photographers, new media gurus, and social media influencers get credit for their media and extend their brand.
What does Tagg.ly have to do with citizen journalists?
We consider citizen journalists to fit under the realm of “content creators”, or people who post their work on the web for others to view. Today, with mobile journalism on the rise, the Tagg.ly app gives citizen journalists, not affiliated with any specific news organization, a blanket of protection by watermarking their photos. That way, the photo or video can always be traced back to the person who produced it and never used without his/her consent. This can be used to verify information, get rights for the media, or just to ask questions about the context.
How do we feel about citizen journalism?
Journalism is changing quickly. Before, most breaking news was reported by correspondents from large organizations that had a physical presence at the site of the news event. Today, breaking news come from social media users who are on the front line. In this sense, we all have a responsibility to tell the stories we see around us.
Citizen journalists, independent reporters, and individuals need to fact check and verify news being reported by large organizations. On the other hand, large media organizations and citizen journalists aggregators need to verify their sources. Tagg.ly hopes to help with image verification and source validation.
Tagg.ly and Traditional Media
Tagg.ly hopes that publishers and organizations will use our app, and we are currently working to gain users among news organizations in New York. This will allow each news company to gain influence in the social media aspect of producing content. We are working today with several media companies and journalists from WSJ, Fox, and other traditional media outlets are already using Tagg.ly.
Our Goals
Today, Tagg.ly helps users get credit for the media and protects them from copyright theft. In the future, we will offer tracking and monetization of media.
Tagg.ly currently offers a free tool to help journalists. We will always provide free tools for independent journalists. However, we see a need for managed services for larger social media teams. We will offer a premium version to these organizations.
The Future
What we envision for the future of journalism in general is quite revolutionary.
The constant advancement of mobile devices and their capabilities allows for an idea of what we should expect for the future of journalism, both journalists employed by a single publisher or freelance/citizen journalists.
Both the production and consumption of news is being radically changed by mobile technologies.
Tagg.ly intends to be a driving force in this conversation.