Tagcow Provides Organizations with Fast, Cost-Effective and Accurate Tagging of More Than a Million Digital Images a Day

SEATTLE, WA - November 12, 2008 - Tagcow, an emerging player in the rapidly-growing digital asset management (DAM), enterprise content management (ECM) and metadata as a service (MaaS) categories today announced that is has signed two new companies, Art.com and Autobytel, to use its digital image tagging service to make their massive databases of images searchable and manageable. The Tagcow service accurately tags more than a million images a day, and the company’s tagging platform can scale to meet the peak requirements of virtually any organization that needs to organize and make their images searchable. The online metadata service, which adds relevant information to the image, is much faster and more cost-effective than in-house manual tagging. Tagcow can also efficiently screen content to ensure that images and blog comments that are uploaded to sites such as those used in online dating and social networking are not of an offensive or questionable nature.

Many companies today try to tackle the task of image tagging by having employees manually tag each image. Whereas Tagcow can cost–effectively tag more than a million images a day, an in-house tagging group of five people would take approximately one month to tag only 10 –15 thousand images, and at a significantly higher cost per image. Tagcow provides a fast and streamlined process that is also more reliable and accurate than current manual processes. The company quickly builds customized taxonomies for each client organization’s images, making it extremely fast, accurate and easy to use.

“Our online metadata tagging service is highly customizable to meet the specific needs of each client,” said Michael Droz, chief business architect of Tagcow. “Tagcow essentially enables organizations to shorten the digital product manufacturing process and maximize the value of their digital image assets.”

Tagcow services are especially valuable to the following types of companies:

• Catalog production, e-tailers, stock photography collections, online museum collections and marketing companies. This includes any company that has huge volumes of images such as photos and artwork that need to be organized and searchable.
• Online sites needing to screen content. This includes online dating sites, social networking sites, newspapers and "communities” such as online sports forums. Often these sites need to deal with issues of their users uploading “mature” or otherwise offensive content and Tagcow can efficiently manage the task of screening images and blog comments that are uploaded to ensure the site maintains its integrity.
• Resellers. This includes search engine optimization companies (SEOs), digital asset management and enterprise content management software companies that are looking to differentiate their solutions and solve problems for their customers. Resellers can send referrals directly to Tagcow or integrate the Tagcow tagging platform directly into their software solution for an integrated customer experience.

Art.com Uses Tagcow to Increase Sales

Art.com Inc., a leading authority in wall décor and the world’s largest online retailer of posters, prints and framed art, is continuously increasing its product offering through the procurement of art collections from publishers, independent artists and other sources. By integrating Tagcow’s tagging platform into its digital asset manufacturing process, Art.com Inc. is able to quickly obtain metadata information and categorize its new collections in just a few days.

“As the world’s largest online retailer of wall décor, Art.com Inc. offers over a million items through our AllPosters.com and Art.com brands,” said Mark Rupert, senior director of merchandising at Art.com Inc. “Empowering potential customers to find the right product from such a huge assortment is critical. Tagcow’s cost-effective tagging service has helped Art.com Inc. customers to quickly find the specific products they’re looking for, while enhancing the customer’s overall experience.”

Autobytel Inc. Uses Tagcow to Enhance Consumers’ Ability to Find High-Quality Car Photos

Autobytel Inc.’s flagship consumer website, MyRide.com, provides consumers with automotive information and media to help them research new and used cars, get price quotes, keep up on car trends, and shop for parts and accessories. Consumers can access over 100,000 high quality car photos on MyRide.com. With the addition of detailed automotive tags from Tagcow consumers will now be able to find car photos using search terms beyond just the year, make and model of the car. They will be able to easily move from interior to exterior shots, select different colors and photos of specific areas like wheels, grills and emblems. The detailed information associated with each photo will also enable MyRide.com to provide excellent results to Google and other search engines for consumers looking for car images.

“With the help of Tagcow, Autobytel is now able to provide online consumers with an even richer, more user-friendly experience when they seek, find and look through car photos on the Web,” said Richard Homan, director of content for Autobytel.

About Art.com Inc.

Art.com Inc. is a privately-held company headquartered in Emeryville, CA, and the world’s largest online retailer of posters, prints and framed art. Since 1998, Art.com Inc. has sold high-quality wall décor to more than eight million customers – including home decorators, businesses, art collectors and art lovers – in over 200 countries worldwide. Art.com Inc. has two core brands, AllPosters.com and Art.com, as well as one emerging brand, ArtistRising.com. For more information, please visit www.art.com or www.allposters.com.

About Autobytel Inc.

Autobytel Inc. (Nasdaq:ABTL) is an Internet automotive marketing services company that helps dealers and manufacturers sell cars and related products and services. The company owns and operates consumer-facing automotive websites, including its flagship site, MyRide.com®, which is designed to help consumers find, see, buy and learn anything related to automobiles. The company’s other websites are: Autobytel.com®, Autoweb.com®, Car.com®, CarSmart.com®, AutoSite.com® and CarTV.com®. By providing a convenient and comprehensive automotive consumer experience across the purchase and ownership lifecycle, Autobytel seeks to provide dealerships with opportunities to connect with a steady, diverse stream of motivated, serious shoppers, while providing manufacturers with precision-targeted brand and product advertising opportunities. In addition to its websites, the company generates leads and advertising opportunities for dealers and automakers through its marketing network, which includes the AutoReachSM ad network, co-brands, such as ESPN.com, and marketing affiliates such as AOL, Edmunds and Kelly Blue Book

About Tagcow

Tagcow, based in the Seattle area, provides a fast, easy and cost-effective way for organizations to tag and screen large volumes of digital images. The company can tag and screen more than a million images a day, saving organizations valuable time and money. Customers include digital asset management companies, online sites needing to screen content and resellers that want to provide complete solutions for their customers. For more information, please go to www.tagcow.com or call 888-860-3024.

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For more information, please contact:

Gaby Adam, OnPR, m: 206.931.5942, gabya@onpr.com

Jessica Harrison, OnPR, w: 425-454-6840, jessicah@onpr.com

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