Bill Gates-owned Corbis buys crowd-powered photo newswire service Demotix

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Corbis is expanding its footprint in the arena of photojournalism, announcing today that it has purchased photo newswire Demotix for an undisclosed priced. Corbis had previously invested in London-based Demotix, which boasts more than 30,000 freelance photographer contributors. Many of those are citizen journalists — armed with smartphones and the Demotix mobile app — can easily upload… Read More…

Tech Moves: Zones bolsters exec team; Bobber hooks gamification whiz; and more

Anne Wilcox

Zones has kept a pretty low profile in recent the years, but the seller of technology products to businesses has been on an impressive growth path topping $1 billion in revenue last year. Now, Zones is strengthening its executive team in order to push things forward. Mark Nehring, formerly a sales VP at HP, has… Read More…

Is Getty Images looking to go public, again?

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Getty Images, the Seattle-based provider of digital photos, videos and music, has hired investment bankers Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase & Co. to consider an initial public offering or possible sale, according to reports by Reuters and The Financial Times. An IPO would be an interesting move, since it would return Getty back to the… Read More…

Bill Gates-owned Corbis faces $12.75M in damages in fraud case

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Corbis, the digital image company owned by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, must pay $12.75 million in damages as part of a three-year fraud and breach of contract case brought by Infoflows, according to a decision by the Washington State Court of Appeals.  That’s down from an initial $36 million in damages that a 12-person jury… Read More…

Tech Moves: Ex-Drugstore.com CEO Kal Raman hired at Groupon

Kal Raman

Kal Raman, the former Amazon.com and drugstore.com executive who stepped down as CEO of Bellevue-based GlobalScholar last September, has been named senior vice president of Groupon overseeing operations in ten countries in North and South America. “Kal brings e-commerce and operational experience to Groupon which will benefit our customers and our merchants as we set out to… Read More…

Corbis CEO Gary Shenk explains why they’re excited about music licensing

Gary Shenk

We were pretty intrigued with the idea of GreenLight Music — the new digital music licensing business from Seattle-based Corbis — when we first wrote about it a couple weeks ago. So, you can hear Corbis CEO Gary Shenk discuss the idea in greater detail this week on CNBC’s Fast Money. GreenLight operates an online… Read More…

Bill Gates-owned Corbis unveils an ‘iTunes for music licensing’ with GreenLight Music

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Corbis may be best known for licensing digital images. But the Seattle company, started by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates in 1989, is expanding its footprint in the digital music arena today with the launch of GreenLight Music. Some heavyweights from the industry have already lined up behind the effort, namely major labels such as EMI, Sony/ATV… Read More…

Bill Gates-owned Corbis buys LA product placement firm

Some of the product placements from Norm Marshall

Product placements are everywhere, from movies to TV to city buses. Now, Corbis — the Seattle-based digital image company backed by Bill Gates — is making a big move into that advertising arena with the purchase of Norm Marshall Associates of Los Angeles. Terms of the deal are not being announced, but Norm Marshall’s 50… Read More…

Tech Moves: Banyan Branch expands; SonoSite taps a new CFO; Radarworks; and more

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Banyan Branch, the fast-growing social media agency, has named Jennifer Blank Hecht to the positon of senior vice president of client services. She most recently worked at Wunderman where she worked on social media efforts for Microsoft’s Emerging Media group. In addition to Blank Hecht, Banyan Branch also announced that Erik Arpe and Stephanie Camp… Read More…

Q&A: How an automotive secret can make for better software

David J. Anderson

Having studied the work of W. Edwards Deming and other pioneers in just-in-time auto production back in college, I was intrigued when I found out that a leading expert in applying those practices to software development, management consultant David J. Anderson, is located (relatively) nearby in Sequim, Wash. He’s a veteran of companies including Microsoft… Read More…