Shorthand vs. Unsplash for Brands

Shorthand is ideally suited to visual stories where you have a good number of images and/or embeds or video to include. It is well-suited to long-form stories, where you wish to keep the readers' attention longer than usual. It can help to differentiate particularly important or intriguing stories from others on your website - and for this reason, it could be used as a premium content tool, perhaps for subscribers. It can also be used to showcase stories about awards you've organised, giving them special treatment. It is less suited to breaking news, or very time-sensitive news stories, as it can take some time to prepare, post or update shorthand stories. And it doesn't work well for stories with strong accompanying imagery

Incentivized

If someone is in a specific or super-niche industry, they may not find that Unsplash for Brands is a good option for them. I would say their site and their library of photographic images are a bit more general -- so if you need something stylized, it may not be the place for you.

Incentivized

• Enabling visual storytelling with multiple pictures
• Embedding rich media within a story, including video
• Engaging readers for longer than average dwell times
• Making it easy to create striking article design without coding experience

Incentivized

• Provides beautiful natural and in action photos
• Provided royalty free imagery which is great for charities who have a budget or not budget for photography
• Photos are more stylistic and creative than traditional stock sites like Adobe, iStock, Shutterstock

Incentivized

• Additional flexibility in how text is overlaid on pictures would be welcome so that there are more choices on what images to use with particular layouts
• Enabling users to control the path of text - for example, enabling runaround - could enable some excellent designs
• Adding additional section templates could speed up design
• More flexibility in caption placement would be helpful

Incentivized

• The layout and UX is not as friendly as many other similar platforms.
• Search engine could be improved.
• Bulk download would be wonderful.

Incentivized

I need to learn a little more about the product and its capabilities before I give a higher review. However, the availability of image trending is far superior to Getty or Getty Enterprise.

Incentivized

I have never known it to be down during my use of it. All you require is an internet connection to log in and you can use it on multiple devices. Adding ease of accessibility, there are simple ways to log in. I've also never known a Shorthand story to go down once live on our site.

Incentivized

Due to the integration with our content management software, there is a short delay on our site while it loads, which may cause some readers to drift away. However, I've seen other sites where it instantly loads articles, so I believe this to be down to the content management software behind our site more than Shorthand itself. Once that brief initial period is over, it doesn't require additional loading time.

Incentivized

There is one obvious major advantage to Pexels (and Unsplash really) in that the images are royalty-free. We can use them without fear of being sued afterward, and we don't even have to create an account, just download the image and it's ready to go. When it comes to Pexels' photos, you can photoshop words on them, but sometimes you don't want a photo designed for photoshopping, you just want a photo that's ready to use, such as Unsplash.

Incentivized

As a web-based service, it is easy for users to log into from anywhere. Content can easily be shared, as you can set up teams that enable access to each other's work as required. And content can be reviewed by others before publication using the sharing function. You can also view how an article will look on different devices.

Incentivized

• Helped us create one of our top 10 most-read and most-shared stories in the last year
• Enabled us to elevate key pieces of content, boosting dwell time on our site
• But can also be time-consuming to adopt for some stories, meaning you need to choose well what stories really deserve the investment in time
• Boosted collaboration between teams via its ability to share, including offering the chance for others to preview content prior to publication

Incentivized

• Excellent for using photos for content creation, keeps things fresh yet still on brand for our program's needs
• Ease of use, directly implemented in the program to directly find an image without needing to leave the site
• Perfect since it's free!