Mira Picks Digital Railroad . . .

Stock Asylum Staff Report
Nov. 20, 2006

Mira, which represents some 40,000 images from 200 stock photographers, announced on this date that it has chosen Digital Railroad to host its new web site.

Mira has been testing the new web site since the beginning of November.

John Greim, chairman and CEO of the stock photography cooperative, said his organization already sees benefits from the three-week-old association with Digital Railroad, an internet hosting company that provides sophisticated image management services to 700 individual photographers and 35 stock photography distributors.

Though November is far from over, Greim said Mira already has surpassed October sales as a result of the new business relationship.

In addition, he noted, Mira has seen more than usual interest from photographers wanting to join the cooperative. And the sophisticated hosting package is considerably cheaper than the one Mira had been using, Greim added.

"What I like about Digital Railroad is that they really do listen, not only to people using their platform, but also to the image buyers," Greim asserted. "They are developing the platform based on what the buyers want."

Digital Railroad technology offers Mira customers a number of new features including an advanced search engine, the ability to download up to 24 high resolution images at one time and larger image previews.

Back-end technology will make uploading and keywording images easier and quicker, Greim said. He noted that Mira also benefits from being part of a system that already has 23,000 registered users.

Greim added that Mira should see even greater benefits once the hosting company uploads new software that will let image buyers simultaneously search for images across numerous collections. Digital Railroad has said it is working on universal search capability.

"It feels like we've been in a cave and we walked out and suddenly we have real tools," said Greim. "We really think the Digital Railroad marketplace has real potential."

Mira's web site had been hosted by ImageScan since the summer of 2005.

The Mira web site is at: http://www.mira.com.

Digital Railroad is at: http://www.digitalrailroad.net.