Thomas Hawk joins Zooomr

by Kristopher Tate | 19 June 2006 | Announcements | 7 Comments

Some exciting news today, Everyone.

Thomas Hawk, one of the coolest bloggers and photographers around, has just posted some words on why he has decided to join and what his new involvement here at Zooomr will entail.

Thomas will become Zooomr’s ‘Chief Evangelist’ and employee no. 2.

For the longest time, I wondered how long I could go as a one-man development team — and the answer is pretty far — Surprisingly to the extent where Zooomr has been written-up in newspapers around the globe.

And, while being a one-man development team has its perks, there is one area where I wish I could have some help, and that’s community — Thomas understands the community. He knows great people and new people alike — he also understands how communities interoperate. You will see that Zooomr will become more rapidly community operated. You will see many new features in Zooomr 2 that will make it a much more community driven site, most of which can be attributed to Thomas’ involvement.

So, it is with great enthusiasm that today with Thomas, we are announcing his joining of Zooomr.

In his own words:

So Flickr did a lot for me. It encouraged my photography, it inspired me, it created lasting friendships. And I am today really, really into it. I started a Flickr blog. I post virtually every day on Flickr. etc. I still love Flickr and will always love Flickr. But…

About two months ago Mike Arrington wrote a blog post about a “Flickr on Steroids”. This, as you would imagine, greatly peaked my interest. After Mike’s post I took a look at Zooomr myself. And I really really liked the potential.

Since then and over the course of the past few months I’ve gotten to know Kristopher Tate, Zooomr’s founder and only employee, a bit better. Kris Tate is this ambitious 18 year old software genius.

[…] This decision to join Zooomr, by the way, is in no way meant to imply that Flickr is not great. On the contrary. I spent a bit of time last night talking on the phone with Stewart Butterfield from Flickr about my decision to join Zooomr. How it represents for me personally a unique opportunity to jump into the tech startup world hands on. How working with Kris will give me an opportunity to influence many more of the great features that I feel ought to be developed from a photogeek perspective. Why I felt it an exciting opportunity and one I ought to pursue.

Welcome aboard, Thomas!

Kristopher Tate

7 Comments

  1. The Daily Om : » Hawk joins Zoomr said on 19 Jun 2006 at 12:21 pm:

    […] Why is it so hard for life and people to stay still. One week I am gone, and cannot blog, and people are making all sorts of moves. Thomas Hawk, whose photos I simply love is joining Zoomr, the company says, and is ecstatic about it. Another blogger who gets a gig of his dreams. Good luck Mr. Hawk! […]

  2. Matthew said on 19 Jun 2006 at 1:38 pm:

    This is great news for Zooomr. Congratulations Kris and Thomas!

  3. Jeremy Pepper said on 19 Jun 2006 at 2:41 pm:

    Nice news, but not the huge buildup you made it to be. I thought you were going to unveil the new Zooomr today, or something else that is truly earth shattering.

  4. paradox said on 19 Jun 2006 at 6:15 pm:

    That’s great! This is the growth and expantion of potential we’ve all been talking about.

  5. Daniel said on 20 Jun 2006 at 3:33 am:

    Great News! Looking forward for the release of zooomr 2.0. Good luck & many brilliant ideas :)

  6. shane said on 20 Jun 2006 at 3:25 pm:

    i know this isn’t really the place to ask this but i’ve been having a couple problems with zooomr and didn’t see any place to report anything. problem #1 is that the first ten pictures on my photos page aren’t showing up. if you could check it out that would be great. problem #2 is that somehow i have the wrong email setup to notify me of new comments. anyways hopefully everything will be better with zooomr2.

    thanks for all your work.

  7. hash said on 22 Jun 2006 at 10:34 am:

    Glad you’re on board Thomas. I like the photographs you take, have a couple fav’d on Flickr.

    Since I couldn’t find a contact form anywhere, maybe you can help make some changes at Zooomr.

    As much as I love what Zooomr is doing, I really really hate the registration and login. Why can’t there just be something normal? OpenID blows.


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