I'm excited to wrap up the year by writing a "State of the Market" on DAM. This has been a very busy year for us here -- our DAM subscriber numbers increased substantially and our customer inquiries for personalized help in a DAM procurement were near-constant. Could it be that DAM might finally be hitting the mainstream?

That question has been asked every year for the past decade, and though in early 2008 we stated that DAM was "always the bridesmaid and never the bride," it seems at least it's on a serious date. Pure-play DAM vendors like North Plains are expanding services teams, ADAM landed a few big-name clients in 2010 and grew its team by 20%, MediaBeacon added a raft of new functionality to its software, while Autonomy and OpenText are attempting to keep their longtime MediaBin and Artesia customers via an upgrade to major new platforms. 

The action and growth in the DAM world can in some part be credited to SMBs outside the media, advertising, and broadcast industries taking up an interest in this area. We have subscribers in the non-profit, medical, and government sectors who have started to ask how they can better manage their photographs and video, in particular, and are educating themselves in the discipline of DAM, as well as vendor weaknesses and strengths.

Meanwhile, longtime DAM system users from the M&E or ad agency world are looking at taking the next step - be it upgrading their DAM to a more modern, multi-faceted tool, or turning their system into something outward-facing to service customers or other 3rd parties. 

Our 2011 DAM market analysis takes a look at these trends, and delves into depth on how each of the 20+ vendors we cover plays a part.  Stay tuned - if you're not already managing multimedia or brand assets, you will be soon.