Official Zooomr Blog

Ever wanted to become famous? Well, now you can. Simply go through all your photos, and when you see yourself, click on the new “Add People” link on the side (it’s on the photo’s detail page).

If you’re in more photos than everyone else, you’ll see yourself rise to the top on the Zooomr Famous page. Be sure to get your friends in on the action as well.

Also, just to let you know, if you go to your profile page you can see all of the photos you are currently in. Here’s my profile page.

Thanks,

Kristopher Tate

This only applies to Mac people, but if you’re using Safari and happen to click on the LightMap link under the Photos menu, you’ll notice that Safari crashes. This is not a bug on our part, but on Apple’s Javascript Engine.

What I need everyone to do is have them send the crash report back to Apple with the following text attached to help them solve it:

Hello!

I was on Zooomr.com and decided to click on their “LightMap” under the Photos menu from the top. I assume that Safari crashed because of the high amount of pins displayed. This bug does not occur in FireFox. Thank-you.

The site I was using: http://beta.zooomr.com/home

Even if you choose to use FireFox or another alternate browser, please open-up Safari and crash it for us so that Apple gets the message!

Thanks everyone,

Kristopher Tate

UPDATE: Added screenshot of the crash

Hey everyone! I just wanted to let you know that I’ve been invited to talk about Zooomr at the Silicon Valley Mac Users Group on Apple’s campus this Monday (2/20) from 7 to 10pm. Julian Meinold (our German localizer) will be there, along with some other BlueBridge people. Afterwards, we’ll be going over to BJ’s Resturant for some snacks and more conversation until midnight. (We’ll also be raffling off 4 Pro accounts!) Here are some directions:

DeAnza Auditorium (back/south side of Apple DeAnza 3 building)
10500 N. DeAnza Blvd., Cupertino, CA

• Exit Hwy 280 at DeAnza/Cupertino, headed South
• Turn left (East) at Mariani Ave.
• Turn right into DeAnza 3 parking lot
• Circle around to the back of the building. Look for the BMUG South sign.
• The room is inside, up the stairs, and to the end of the hallway.
• There is an elevator available if needed.

Also of notice, Zooomr user Fábio Manzoni has translated Zooomr into Portuguese. Check it out here.

Otherwise, we’ve got Russian and Turkish on the way — and many more languages. If you would like to help us localize/translate Zooomr into your language — just drop us a line at localizeme@bbridgetech.com

Thanks,

Kristopher Tate

If you haven’t noticed by now, there is a new option under the Photos menu called “LightMap”. It’s quite similar to LightBox, only it displays an awesome Google Map with color-coated pins that represent where photos have been taken. Green () pins represent photos that you have tagged. Blue () pins are from people inside your Social Circle. Not surprisingly, red () pins are from people you have not invited into your circle.

There are some tricks involved with LightMap, not to mention some cooler stuff on the Zooomr developer box waiting for me to copy over.

As usual, please comment here if you have any comments, questions, or concerns — Thanks!

Kristopher Tate

(PS: Check-out this awesome blog post about Zooomr. I think it’s one of the most neutral ones yet.)

From many angles people have commented that Zooomr’s Google login feature is quite insecure. Even on the Zooomr Blog! While I certainly have no interest in collecting people’s passwords, I’m here to say that I have implemented a better method for logging-in via Google. It’s called TPass, and like the name suggests, it’s based off of Temporary Passwords.

Here’s a rundown:

• 1) Click on the Google Tab on the Zooomr Sign-In page.
• 2) Create a TPass.
• 3) Retrieve the TPass from Gmail.
• 4) Copy the TPass into the login window & Click “Go, Google. go!”

Things will get better when GTalk is enabled because the TPass will be sent DIRECTLY to your IM client and you won’t have to hunt around for it.

Comment here if you have any more concerns, comments, or questions — Thanks!

Kristopher Tate

Around the time Zooomr was just getting off the ground, a long time friend of mine, Skye Skjelset, wanted to know what “Zooomr” really meant.

Recently, many more people have been asking the same question. Here’s what I had said to Skye:

Skye: what does this zooomr stuff even mean
Kris: Huh?
Skye: zooomr
Skye: why three o’s and what does zooomr even mean
Kris: It has to do with speed. The idea that one can zooom through photos and pictures easily, finding stories, memories, and people — all through photos.
Skye: but why THREE O’s?
Skye: visuals?
Kris: zoomr.com was taken
Skye: haha
Kris: haha,
Skye: also a good reason
Kris: We have zooomr.com
Kris: and also, it’s 6 chars, and not 5
Skye: is that better?
Kris: balance
Kris: Zoomr looks too short as a name
Kris: Zooomr looks better, actually

And there you have it.

Kristopher Tate

(PS: Skye plays guitar in an awesome group called The Fleet Foxes. So, Check ‘em out.)

Well, we’ve finally hit 400 diggs — Thanks everyone!

But, anyways, I previously mentioned that we’re on a race to 10,000 users and photos. We’re well on our way, here are two winners:

• For being the 1000th user so far, Zooomr user oliverfrodo has been promoted to Pro
• Likewise, user nerdcore uploads photo number 3000, in all its glory

And lastly, Suren Dash has localized Zooomr into Mongolian. We’ve got more things planned, so keep tuning in.

Kristopher Tate

So, we were dugg yesterday, which was fun… We started to slow down until I finally threw the switch on our load balancers. I didn’t think we would need them this early, but they are enabled and ready for anything.

But that’s not what I want to talk about just now. To be frank, you guys (our users) mean a lot to us. Starting immediately, any user is eligible for a free Professional Zooomr account. Yes, that’s right: 2GB/mo. upload cap., No Ads, your originals are kept nicely archived, and to top it all off, you even get unlimited storage — and that is for the whole year!

How? Three ways:

• 1) Find a security hole in Zooomr and report it to security@bbridgetech.com. Be sure to describe with the most detail what the hole can do, how to invoke it, that sort of stuff. This is okay as long as you report it to us immediately!
• 2) Sign-up for/login to Zooomr and hope that your user id number falls either the one thousands place or 1.5 thousandths place all the way up to 10,000. (example: 2000 or 3500)
• 3) Orrrr, post the 3000,4000,5000,6000,7000,8000,9000, or 10000th photo!

Make sense? Awesome.

Happy uploading and again, Thanks so very much.

Kristopher Tate

Do you…

• Simply kick-ass?
• Dream in code?
• Think Zooomr is awesome?
• Speak in more than one language?
• Want a Job?

If so, we’ve got some pretty cool jobs waiting for you. Check-out our jobs page and submit your résumé. We need you!

That is all for now

Kristopher Tate

(P.S. Sorry for the lack of updates, but there is some pretty kick-ass stuff that will be showing up right around the corner! Stay Tuned.)