• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, September 16, 2009

Getty Images has made a "strategic investment" in aggregation technology startup Daylife, the company said Wednesday. Previously disclosed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Getty is putting about $4 million into the startup.

In addition, Getty and Daylife have signed a commercial agreement to create new "SmartMedia" products designed to help publishers large and small to more easily incorporate imagery into their Web sites.

"The partnership between Getty Images and Daylife will enable our customers to stay ahead of emerging trends in real-time media, content curation, and more fluid user experiences," said Upendra Shardanand, CEO of Daylife.

Launched in January 2007, Daylife has raised roughly $12 million from such investors as The New York Times, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark and Techcrunch's Michael Arrington.

While the company initially envisioned itself as a destination site, it has since focused its efforts on providing white-label technology to various clients, including the Huffington Post, USA Today, USA Network and The Washington Post.

The first product to come out of the partnership, SmartGalleries, provides users with a photo publishing toolset -- including photo gallery pages and widgets -- drawing from Getty's cache of editorial Imagery.

A fully hosted solution, SmartGalleries is being positioned as a way to help increase page views-per-visit through a visual user experience without additional IT, bandwidth, or hosting demands.