When media moved online journalists quickly realized that writing an article wasn’t enough anymore; the unwritten rules of the internet dictate that visual elements, such as images, need to accompany text. This is true for news websites, as well as personal blogs or company websites.

But finding images that are free and not copyrighted is a time-consuming task, which is why Israeli startup Imonomy was founded to eliminate the search process. Imonomy automatically scans its database of over 10 million copyright-free images to find ones that relate to the text and that are free to use.

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Automate and monetize!

imonomy developed an algorithm that automatically scans the written text from a webpage, and retrieves the most suitable image from the database to match the content. The company tells NoCamels: “While scanning the text, imonomy’s technology focuses on key words, titles, and other elements in order to understand the depth of the text, and find the best image for the web page.”

Once the images are in place, Imonomy’s second function is to make these chosen images interactive. When the user holds their cursor over an image, an interactive player shows links to relevant content on the website. The player also displays a relevant advertisement, creating a monetization platform for users and allowing Imonomy to provide its services to publishers for free.

Imonomy claims that using their new technology has proven to increase the amount of time users spend on a publisher’s web page by up to 30 percent, decrease bounce rates by 7 percent, and increase page views through content recommendations made by the interactive image player by 5-12 percent (we were not able to verify these figures).

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Marching ahead

Imonomy co-founders Oren Dror and Amit Halawa-Alon both previously held senior positions at Yedda, a community driven Q&A service recently acquired by AOL. They tell NoCamels: “We worked with content-heavy websites, and realized there was a need for an automated process that could make webpages more visually attractive and create richer user engagement, while saving the publishers time and money.”

With over 500 websites currently using Imonomy, ranging from small blogs to major sites such as AOL Answers and Articles Base, the company is expanding rapidly. Imonomy is currently a nine-person team and is hoping to hire another ten by the end of the year.

The next step for the startup will be to launch a new and improved installation wizard that will make it easier for users to install Imonomy on their specific platform.

Imonomy recently closed a $400k seed round from Angel investors. The founders tell NoCamels: “Our plan now is to continue to develop imonomy so that it requires minimal funding to continue to grow. The fact that there have been so many leaps in technology really works to our advantage at this stage. Nowadays, a good idea, and some hard work can really get you far. We think that with all the technological advancements, and options available to us to keep improving imonomy, there will be little need for more major investments in the near future.”

Photo: Imonomy.com