livebooks news

Photography industry’s only scaling site that can be fully customized.

SAN FRANCISCO, July 19, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — liveBooks today announced the launch of Scaler, a new version of their industry leading websites. Scaler websites seamlessly grow and shrink to fit the viewer’s monitor providing maximum impact with high quality images that download super fast.

“We’ve known that the market wanted scaling websites, large images and new thumbnails, but the trick was to do it right. A few other companies have scaling sites and after studying the compromises they made in design, technology and price, we knew we could do it better and make it more affordable. Our team really nailed it!” said liveBooks President and CEO Andy Patrick.

Joe McNally, the world-renowned commercial photographer and lighting expert said, “Why liveBooks? Because I’ve always trusted their instincts. With Scaler they’ve once again merged great technology and design, allowing both you and your clients to maneuver effortlessly through your site with big impact.” You can see Joe’s new Scaler website here: http://portfolio.joemcnally.com.

As the leading provider of award-winning websites that help creative professionals effortlessly manage their work and promote their small businesses online through an intuitive, drag-and-drop editSuite, liveBooks has over 65 Scaler preDesign variations to choose from for just $39 a month. For those that want maximum flexibility and a web presence that is truly unique and tailored to their brand, liveBooks offers the photo industry’s only custom designed scaling website that starts at just $3600. liveBooks has a sophisticated technology with many marketing and workflow applications including their industry-standard search engine optimization module.

About liveBooks, Inc.

liveBooks is focused on being the most valued company empowering the success of creative professionals worldwide. Since 2003, over 15,000 of the world’s greatest photographers trust their online presence with liveBooks portfolio websites. For more information, or a 14-day free trial with no credit card required, please visit www.liveBooks.com.

SOURCE liveBooks, Inc.

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 12, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Musician, artist and son of John Lennon, Julian Lennon opened his inaugural photography exhibit at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing arts during Art Basel Miami Beach last month. The exhibit, called “Timeless” features over 30 pieces of hand-signed portrait and landscape photography, some of which will be exclusively on sale during the five-day exhibition. The exhibit also includes recent photos of the band U2 taken by Lennon. A portion of the proceeds will go to The White Feather Foundation, launched by Lennon in 2008 to embrace environmental and humanitarian issues in conjunction with partners from around the world, working to raise funds for the betterment of all life, and to honor those who have truly made a difference.

liveBooks, the leading provider of award-winning websites for creative professionals, was selected to create a website to showcase Lennon’s work online.  ”We needed a dedicated website for the ‘Timeless’ Collection by Julian Lennon.  I immediately went to liveBooks with this extremely important and sensitive project. They were able to quickly create a sophisticated, sexy and relevant site that showcased the art and delivered our message seamlessly in a very efficient manner,” says Tod Tarrant, President of the Tableau Fine Art Group who produced the show.

The great fashion photographer Timothy White, Lennon’s mentor and curator for this body of work, was an early enthusiast of Lennon’s photographs and encouraged him to develop a full repertoire for a show. Commenting on their relationship as curator-artist, Julian stated that he always enjoyed taking pictures, “but it was only after a meeting with photographer Timothy White, last year, that made me take my work seriously. He was the one that suggested I do an exhibition, which I thought was a crazy idea at first, but after working through all of the images I had, I began to see that that could be a possibility, with the right guidance.”

Julian is truly passionate about photography. He carries his camera on him “99.9%” of the time. He is particularly drawn to clouds and his schedule naturally puts him close to his favorite view at 35,000 feet very frequently. “I rarely sleep on planes & have seen most movies available, & have always enjoyed dawn, dusk & clouds… So whenever I see something that looks beautiful, naturally, I’m drawn to taking a few pictures. I could honestly do a whole collection on Clouds. There’s a peace & a calmness. Up there, time stands still for a minute or two. It’s a chance to breath, to think for a moment, but also a time to dream & let go…”

For information about liveBooks, visit www.liveBooks.com. To view Julian Lennon’s “Timeless” exhibit visit his liveBooks website at www.tableaufineartphoto.com.

About liveBooks

Since 2003, liveBooks, Inc. has created award-winning websites that serve as a business hub to help creative professionals save time, promote their businesses and make more money. The company works with an extensive ecosystem of advisors, partners and consultants to deliver unrivaled products, services, partner applications and customer experiences through the powerful combination of small-business acumen, award-winning designs, a scalable platform and extensible architecture. liveBooks is committed to customer success through design leadership, business integrity and its belief in the power of creativity to enable social change.

About Tableau Fine Art Group

Tableau Fine Art Group, Inc. specializes in helping their clients manage their fine art collection through acquisition, sales, appraisals, authentication, and museum placement.

SOURCE liveBooks, Inc.

Leading website provider will offer Vimeo Plus to all customers at no additional charge.

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 9, 2010 /PRNewswire/ — liveBooks, Inc., has teamed up with Vimeo®, an operating business of IAC (Nasdaq: IACI), to offer a fully-integrated, cost-effective, one-stop solution that helps creative professionals seamlessly incorporate high-definition, full-screen video on their websites. The integration maintains all of Vimeo’s social networking functionality, so that users can comment and share videos and slideshows on Vimeo with business associates, friends and family.

As the leading provider of award-winning websites that help creative professionals effortlessly manage their work and promote their small businesses online through an intuitive, drag-and-drop editSuite, liveBooks will automatically provide all of its customers with access to a Vimeo Plus membership. This offering will allow liveBooks users to host up to 5GB a week of high-definition videos through Vimeo – while controlling the look and feel of their brand – at no additional cost.

“liveBooks offers beautiful and highly functional website solutions for creative professionals. In our effort to support creators with all their video needs, we are pleased to offer Vimeo as part of these quality offerings,” says Dae Mellencamp, Vimeo’s general manager.

liveBooks’ CEO and President Andy Patrick said Vimeo was the easy choice for this new integration because the two companies’ visions are so closely aligned.

“Our companies share a passion for storytelling and we are committed to helping creatives showcase their work through the highest quality tools available,” said Patrick. “By turning to Vimeo to help our customers enhance their websites, we are providing them with exceptional video hosting and streaming technology that will preserve the integrity of their work and offer an outstanding user experience.”

Patrick went on to say that this integration – and the overall use of more video on liveBooks sites – will continue to enhance customers’ search engine optimization efforts, since Google recently redirected its focus on video as a search ranking component.

Vincent Laforet, a renowned commercial photographer and a Canon Explorer of Light, has been both a liveBooks customer and a Vimeo community member for many years. He began using video on his website as a means to connect with others in his industry and bring his images to life, and he is now recognized as one of the leaders in HDSLR filmmaking.

“liveBooks and I spent a fair amount of time coming up with a great way to integrate videos on my site. When I saw the way that they were embedding my Vimeo videos within the site, I jumped at the chance to integrate the new design,” he said. “The new breed of HDSLR cameras has fundamentally changed who I am as an artist and how my business functions. It’s been great to have liveBooks and Vimeo providing me with some of the best tools out there to control, track and share my work with others throughout the world.”

Vimeo Plus is an affordable way for Vimeo members to take control of how their videos appear on the Web. Using the advanced features and customizable tools of Vimeo Plus, users’ work will be presented exactly how they want it to be.  The benefits of a Vimeo Plus membership include advanced statistics, 5GB of video uploads per week, extensive customization of the Vimeo player, advanced privacy settings, original file storage and downloading, and more. liveBooks users will now receive Vimeo Plus memberships as part of their Vimeo-enabled liveBooks website at no additional cost.

For information about liveBooks, visit www.liveBooks.com. For information about Vimeo, visit www.vimeo.com.

About liveBooks

Since 2003, liveBooks, Inc. has created award-winning websites that serve as a business hub to help creative professionals save time, promote their businesses and make more money. The company works with an extensive ecosystem of advisors, partners and consultants to deliver unrivaled products, services, partner applications and customer experiences through the powerful combination of small-business acumen, award-winning designs, a scalable platform and extensible architecture. liveBooks is committed to customer success through design leadership, business integrity and its belief in the power of creativity to enable social change.

About Vimeo, LLC

Leading video sharing site Vimeo® provides the easiest way for people to host and share their videos in high quality.  The site provides great privacy features and inspiring videos from a vibrant, respectful community of creative users who care about how and where they show their work. Launched in 2004 and headquartered in New York, NY, Vimeo offers users a video sharing experience that is both entertaining and easy to use. Vimeo is a 2009 Time Magazine Top 50 Website. Vimeo, LLC is a subsidiary of IAC (NASDAQ: IACI).

SOURCE liveBooks, Inc.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA–(Marketwire – July 21, 2010) liveBooks, Inc. founder Michael Costuros today announced the formation of evolutionStudio Inc., a business consulting and coaching firm supporting entrepreneurial photographers to succeed in their business ventures.

“In the last few years numerous photographers have been inspired to start ventures outside the typical photo studio business model, but many of them are facing critical issues challenging the success of their businesses,” said Costuros. “Through evolutionStudio, I am using the experience I’ve gained helping liveBooks evolve and grow steadily over the last seven years to help these entrepreneurial businesses achieve their full potential.”

Still dedicated to the continued success of his first company, liveBooks, a leading provider of websites for creative professionals, Costuros remains involved in the business through his role as board chairman and major shareholder.

“Michael has been a huge contributor to this company over the years and, with his passion and knowledge, there’s no doubt that he will be a great asset to other businesses as a consultant,” said liveBooks President and CEO Andy Patrick. “We will continue to benefit from Michael’s strategic insight at the board level.”

Since he founded liveBooks in 2004, Costuros has held many key roles as a member of the leadership team that has grown the company to become a leading brand with multiple investors, 50 employees split between offices in the US and EU, and more than 10,000 clients.

Today, evolutionStudio offers two services: a unique month-to-month consulting/coaching combo program, and website consultations designed to make client websites more effective at getting both the right quality and quantity of business they desire. More services will be offered later in the year.

“I believe that the services I offer are totally unique in both structure and method, which is why I am able to deliver tangible value quickly, and don’t require a multi-month commitment,” says Costuros. “Every evolutionStudio client engagement is as unique as the clients themselves. For some, I help resolve relationship issues with partners, investors, vendors or employees. For others, I work with them to achieve challenging revenue goals or find the best strategy to take their businesses to the next level. The constant elements are close collaboration, my total commitment to the client’s success and complete confidentiality.”

For more information, visit www.evolutionStudio.com or contact Michael Costuros at (212) 361-9733 or m@evolutionStudio.com.

This past May, liveBooks and Rangefinder Publishing, monthly magazine for the professional photographer, teamed up for the first-ever emerge Photography Competition to spotlight some of the up-and-coming talent in today’s professional wedding market. Professional photographer J Sandifer, Wedding Marketing and Development Manager for liveBooks and one of the contest’s principal organizers, says “This competition provides emerging photographers with a high-profile platform where they can showcase their prized photos to key industry players and ultimately jump start their wedding photography business. The competition was judged not on a single image but on how contestants were able to tell a story with multiple images, making it unique in the competition space.”

Contestants submitted no more than 10 photos to five wedding categories: Preparation, Details, Wedding Venue, The Kiss, and Favorite Wedding. The top three photographers in each category were awarded a prize package (valued at $2200) of a one-year subscription to a liveBooks predesigned Web site, a one-year subscription to a Pictage account, a one-year subscription to a ShootQ account, a 2011 WPPI VIP pass, a Think Tank Photo Belt, a $100 Asuka Book gift card, an X-Rite ColorChecker Passport, an Induro tripod kit, and PhotoTools 2.5 Professional Edition from onOne Software. In addition to those prizes, the top photographer in each category also received an advertising package from TheKnot.com, a professional photography kit from Sony, LabPrints Album Design Bundles and onOne Software Plug-In Suite 5 (valued at nearly $5500).

Read more by clicking here.

Frederick Van Johnson, of This Week in Photo sat down with former liveBooks Chief Marketing Officer, John Philpin, to discuss the future  of Flash and how they are dealing with Flash versus html 5 on their websites for photographers.

Photographers are now, moreso than ever, faced with the dilemma of how to have the largest number of people view their work; i.e. if you are on an iPad and the website is flash-laden, you won’t see  anything at all. Philpin, however, believes the most important thing is a consistent and premiere presentation, which Flash offers. liveBooks’ sites are all Flash-based with html shadow sites. Now there is automatic software that detects if an iPhone or iPad arrives at a liveBooks website which redirects to an iPhone or iPad specific experience. The images are scaled up or down depending on the size of the device.

Click here to listen to the interview.

Rangefinder Magazine published an article about blogging as a marketing tool in the business world that has personalized companies large and small and given a face to corporate entities worldwide. Shauna Harris of Rangefinder sat down with J Sandifer, the former Wedding Marketing & Development Manager at liveBooks, and asked, “What makes a blog work so well – and why, specifically in the photography industry? What can you do to ensure your blog is well regarded and highly trafficked?” J, a professional photographer based in Portland, remarked that “Most professional photographers are individual entities. There is no community or workplace collaboration when we’re by ourselves. Blogs create a sense of community for us and allow us photographers at home to reach out and connect with a larger community.” The most common reason given for starting a blog is to share or connect with others. Providing various means of interaction among followers is the key to a blog’s success. Allowing feedback on posts via a comment box, supplying visitors with an RSS Feed to subscribe to your blog, posting links to otall play into and build off of the backbone of a blog.

To read the whole article, click here.

Tim Grey of Outdoor Photographer wrote on the usefulness of website hosting platforms for creative professionals that allow you to get your images out there without the hassle. He argues, instead of paying to have a website custom-made from scratch, try one of a few powerful, easy-to-use options designed for photographers like you.

Of course, one of the top options is liveBooks. Grey writes, “Some of the world’s top photographers are putting liveBooks to use, and with good reason. First and foremost, liveBooks provides you with the ability to create a stunning display for your photographic images with an elegant user experience. When you visit a site created by liveBooks, you’ll probably have a difficult time believing it was created with online tools. At only $39 per month, liveBooks offers a very affordable way to create an attractive photography website. liveBooks also has partnered with Pictage to enable the sale of prints directly through your site. You can try liveBooks free for 14 days to see what’s possible.”

Read the full article here.

CrunchGear, a blog covering gadgets, gear, games, and tech culture, reviewed liveBooks. Here is some of what Dave Freeman had to say about us.

There’s no shortage of websites out there designed for photographers. The problem is, most of them aren’t that good, or are intended for the Mom & Pop crowd. For example: Flickr. Nice site, but it’s not exactly for pros, and you have to pay for what pro functionality it has. Picasa albums aren’t as popular as Flickr, and certainly don’t have the same sense of community. Smugmug, on the other hand, is considered to be one of the best. The problem with SmugMug is that it requires a little too much tweaking. Sure, you can set it up to look really nice, but that requires a knowledge of coding and can be quite complicated. liveBooks however has a really elegant interface that’s easy to use, easy to customize, and easy to manage.

One of the things that really sets liveBooks apart is their search engine optimization. The site that the end user sees is Flash based, and extremely elegant. While this is great for the end user experience, it cripples your search engine optimization. liveBooks has come up with an effective solution to this, by cloning your site into standard HTML to allow web crawlers to keyword your site.

I was also very impressed by the level of support provided on the liveBooks website. They have an extensive area dedicated to everything from customizing your site to the best way to optimize your Google juice. I moved my personal site over to their hosting, just to see how long it took. liveBooks contacted my domain registry company for me and updated the DNS information. The entire process took about 8 hours (excluding the normal propagation time).

Read the full article here.

Digital Photography School, a site dedicated to showing you how to use your digital camera with tips from a community of photographers of all experience levels, reviewed liveBooks. Here is a clip of what they had to say:

You’ve put together a pretty impressive photography portfolio, and you’re finally at the stage where you want to show your work to the world. Maybe you just want to share your work for critique, or even more likely, you’d like to lure potential clients in with examples of your photography, or maybe you just want to try pursuing a career actually directly selling your work. Whatever the reason, most of us have come to realize that an online portfolio is perhaps the most elegant way to pursue all of the objectives above. Your own personal site can be customized to your own aesthetics, not limited to just any ol’ photosharing site’s layout. A personal site is more distinguished, it says something to clients – it hints at a certain degree of professionalism and seriousness. And frankly a personal portfolio site is just a lot cooler, nothing beats the cache and simplicity of providing folks with your own “www.johnsmithphotography.com” URL name.

If you’re looking to finally have your own professionally designed online portfolio, that’s easy to create and maintain, I certainly “Highly Recommend” liveBooks.com. Could it be done cheaper? Yes, but liveBooks attention to detail behind the scenes, their customization, and pre-built designs that really emphasize YOUR work (and not the liveBooks service) make it easily worth the relatively low cost.

Rob Galbraith of the blog Rob Galbraith Digital Photography Insights covered liveBooks’ iPhone and iPad compatibility release. Come May, a liveBooks service will automatically detect if one of Apple’s mobile devices is browsing a photographer’s liveBooks website and redirect the viewer away from a Flash-based gallery to an HTML version that includes the ability to navigate using a swipe gesture. The size of photos that appear will be dictated by whether it’s the smaller iPhone or larger iPad doing the surfing.

Read the full article here.

Photo District News (PDN), an award-winning monthly magazine for the professional photographer, wrote an article on liveBooks’ updated service for iPhone and iPad compatibility. The update, called liveBooks Version 5.9, will let web browsers on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch view liveBooks’ Flash-based sites. Since those mobile devices from Apple do not support Flash, photographers who’ve used liveBooks’ portfolio sites either couldn’t show off their work on iPhones, iPads etc., or have had to specifically customize their websites to do so.

Read the full article here.

Picture-soup.com, a photography blog writing on photography tips, techniques, marketing and business best practices, gear reviews and photography inspiration, reviewed liveBooks and discussed its affordability. Here are some of the things they mentioned about us:

Since its inception, website design/hosting company liveBooks has created sites for more than 7,000 photographers and creative professionals. liveBooks recently added a new option for photographers and creative artists who want a professional website to market their work but can’t afford a custom designed website—a subscription based service offering pre-designed templates.

The company explains that it is able to offer these affordable, flexible payments for the pre-designed options after having secured $5 million in funding from both strategic and private investors. The subscription based service means no up front commitment of a large sum of money, which is the norm with many website design companies and is the case with liveBooks’ custom designed sites. The pre-designed website payment choices include $39 per month, $399 per year or a one time payment of $1,199 plus $90 per year hosting. Custom designed sites typically begin at $3,200.

Photo by Jake Rosenberg

“liveBooks makes everything so simple, even someone with very limited technical knowledge would have no trouble using their services,” Jake says. “livBooks offers a huge variety of pre-made sites that cater to so many different styles of photography. It really wasn’t difficult to find one that suited my needs,” he adds.

Read more here.

SAN FRANCISCO – April 5, 2010 –liveBooks, Inc., today announced the recent launch of a new liveBooks-powered website for the Brett Weston Archive, the leading provider of award-winning websites that allow creative professionals to promote and manage their businesses online.

Considered one of the greatest and most respected American photographers of the 20th century, Weston passed away in 1993 and left a prolific body of photographs which have been highly acclaimed by the art world. While some of his prints can be found in select galleries and collections around the country, the Brett Weston Archive’s physical location is not open to the public, making the website the only venue to view this rare, private collection, featuring six decades of Weston’s work.

“This is the only gateway for the public to view the repository of work at the Brett Weston Archive,” said Julie Maguire, curator of the Brett Weston Archive. “We want this website to serve as the preeminent resource for people looking for information on the life and work of Brett Weston.”

In addition to his photographs, the website features Weston’s biography, bibliography and chronology of work, and also allows visitors to virtually step inside past and present exhibitions by scrolling through interior photographs of each exhibiting gallery.

Maguire said the Brett Weston Archive website will be continuously updated with the latest exhibition information and news, and regularly rotate in works from its private archive in order to present the broadest representation of Weston’s work.

Maguire also plans to make the website an interactive research environment. A catalogue raisonné, which will document each print and its attributable background information, is currently underway. The information collected in this process will be filtered into a research-friendly, online database.

Using technology to preserve – and showcase – historic photographs

liveBooks and its partners have worked with other photographic archives and galleries such as Richard Avedon (www.richardavedon.com) and present-day “National Geographic” photographer Chris Rainier (www.chrisrainier.com) to preserve past photographs and reintroduce historic prints to the online world.

“Online galleries can breathe new life into a photographer’s collection of work and help share his or her images with new audiences,” said Andy Patrick, president and CEO of liveBooks. “We’re honored to play such a significant role in the preservation of history and the celebration of these photographers’ outstanding careers.

Rangefinder magazine recently highlighted seven rising stars, three of which are liveBooks customers. Read below to learn how Natalie Dybisz, Adriana Mullen and Zackary Canepari broke through the noise to get noticed.

Chance meetings, photo sharing, plum assignments and serendipity have played a role in jumpstarting the careers of some of today’s most promising photographers. Each of the young pros showcased here hails from a different photographic and geographic background and is driven by an individual, inspirational muse. As a group, they share but one common denominator: pursuing a dream.

Read the full article here.