Hi Friends, we’re excited to be launching our 2008 Release here shortly! After working on several bugs and our well awaited mobile version, we’re excited to be delivering this special installment of Zooomr to everyone.
There will be some upload outages as marked above as we are moving some data to our Japanese Data Centers, but we plan to have both Web and Static photos online for your viewing pleasure.
Our team and myself have been working hard here for the last 5 months in Japan for everyone’s benefit. I’m glad that we’ve been able to save Zooomr from a money crisis that could have killed Zooomr for good — but, instead, we have found investments and are moving full speed ahead for you guys — our users.
We’ve also launched the Zooomr Knowledge Center where you can find more information about our upcoming release, as well as submit bugs. We’re trying our best to keep everyone in the loop.
Please be safe — we’re only 9 days into the year and moving strong!
Friends, it’s been an amazing year. One that, together, has taken us to bigger and bolder heights.
In this year we launched an entirely new platform, moved server farms, launched our global blogging platform and have also seen the success of Zipline and how it has raised community awareness — All thanks to your support.
Up until now, Zooomr was completely manufactured, coded, maintenanced and administrated by myself. Doing this by myself has been a truly humbling and insightful experience — but what I will remember the most is how touching it has been for me to be able to share my life with all of you — our community.
Believe it or not, for the last two years, I have worked every living moment of my life for this Web site: For Zooomr and for its community. (And, if that is hard to believe, please look at my vimeo stream or the thousands of photos that I have uploaded on my photo stream in this year alone.)
So, in a few words: It has been an honor to have put everything, including my blood and sweat, into zooomr for this community.
And even now, I have traveled over 5,000+ miles away from America to Japan to not only find financing for Zooomr to keep its community alive, but also to open what we all know and love about Zooomr up to new markets, as well.
This is also the first holiday season that I will not be spending with my family — and oh how I miss my Mother, Father and younger brother Ryan. No doubt, they probably miss me too.
This post isn’t about me, though — it’s about all of us. It’s about Zooomr, the community and what we have all put into it to keep it going for the better of everyone included.
When I was sitting in my 5×5 foot (!) sublet room in Silicon Valley, CA first creating Zooomr, I only imagined what it could become. I wanted to create a place where everyone could share their experiences in life with the rest of the world in as many locations and languages as possible. Today, we’re still finding more ways to connect people globally and being an active part of other people’s lives is what keeps me attached to this project day in and out.
And while I have over 15,000+ hours into making Zooomr, I’m still going strong out here in Japan working hard to make Zooomr stronger, more reliable and ready for the next wave of challenges and advancements in photo sharing and communication that we can provide.
After three months of solid work here in Japan, we’ve got a new Web build ready that fixes much of the bugs and issues with Zooomr today. And, thanks to on-going Japanese investments, I can say that we’re working to make Zooomr stronger than ever by increasing man-power and also moving data from the US to Japan so that we can continue to build up Zooomr’s infrastructure and make Zooomr faster for everyone around the world. (This new build will be launched soon after the move is complete.)
As I leave this post and get back to working on Zooomr, I want to just take a moment to thank all of our users and all of the companies and individuals who have given to this project in order to make it better for everyone.
This is a time for giving and remembrance; I want everyone to know that even though I may not be in front of a warm fire with close friends and family, I am instead filled with a different, special kind of warmth — the warmth of community and togetherness.
Hey friends! It’s been awhile since I’ve been able to sit-down to talk to you about the latest exciting news over at Zooomr & Company — lots to talk about!
First order of business?We’ve grown. We’ve partnered closely with Cross Borders Japan and now have office space in Harajuku & Suidobashi along with a complete staff of over 10 people. A warm welcome to our new teammates! Yay!
Okay, strong focus on Japan and the World, new team of bright faces. Who is going to lead operations? Introducing Hiroshi Asaeda and Toru Murakami:
Hiroshi Asaeda (Japanese: 浅枝 大志)
One of the youngest and successful entrepreneurs in Japan, Hiroshi is already an author of three books, including one on Second Life and Real-Time Experiences — all at the incredible age of 24. Hiroshi is fluent in both English & Japanese and will become the CEO & President of Zooomr Japan.
Toru Murakami (Japanese: 村上 亮)
Friend, Mentor and Future Investor, Murakami-san has been a force in the Japanese Web industry since the early days working as an Executive VP and Founding Member at IMJ in Japan and Korea. Today, Murakami-san is a professor at Digital Hollywood, Japan’s first College designed for digital content authoring. Murakami-san’s influence has certainly helped sculpt Zooomr into a strong player for the Japanese Market. His understanding for talent and ideas goes much further than his deep qualifications; Murakami-san is a welcome addition to our advisory board.
We’re very excited to be working such talented and experienced individuals such as Mr. Asaeda and Mr. Murakami — Welcome aboard you guys!
Ah, but today is not a normal day! This is just the beginning in our bevy of exciting news to share.
Today we’re adding a new service to the Zooomr Family: Zooomr Mobile (Zooomr ShareLife in Japan).
Zooomr Mobile is ripe for Real-Time Experiences
Is something going on around you right now? Now you can share it with your friends and well over 100,000 users strong from the comfort of your Mobile Phone — This is the message we’re sharing with our friends in Japan starting Today.
While this service will be Japanese-Only to start, it is available in both English and Japanese languages.
To the over 50 million 3G+Mobile users in Japan on DoCoMo, au by KDDI and SoftBank, Zooomr is soon to make a welcome entrance into a market where Web 2.0 hasn’t quite yet dared.
This is new ground for us and many others, but we feel strongly about our value proposition. Here’s a quick round-up of the Mobile feature-set:
EZ Login (One-Click Login!)
Follow your Friends and Family on the incredibly addictive Zipline.
Seamless Camera Phone Capture-to-Share Integration on all three major Japanese carriers!
Works with Built in GPS, iArea and aGPS (More on this Below!)
Add, Edit and Remove Contacts
Post and Reply in Real-Time on both Photos and Text.
The easiest Location-Based Content Discovery system we’ve seen! Thanks to Built-in GPS, users can search for near-by Restaurants, Movie Show Times, Friends and Photos.
Of special note, thanks to a API Partnership with Guru Navi, we can provide some of the best, up-to-date, restaurant information available in Japan.
To top it all off, inviting users is a snap with our unique QRCode Invitation System, that allows users to add each other by simply scanning a barcode. Super-Super-Viral — And easy!
In short: We’ve made Zooomr very accessible and super-addictive to the over 50 million 3G Mobile Phone Users in Japan. We’re opening up an area of communication that many Japanese people have not seen until today.
Zooomr API Gets Official
While we haven’t locked-down an exact launch date for our API, we’re excited to announce that we’re starting to issue API Keys to members of our new Zooomr Developer Google Group! The Google Group has documentation and other goodies available that make Developing on Zooomr a snap. We’ll have a more detailed post on the Zooomr Platform soon — please join our group and stay tuned.
Officially Introducing Zooomr Zipfox
What made your friends’ Real-Time Experiences on Zipline and placed them into an easy-to-view sidebar that updates every minute? Well my friend, with quick-launch buttons and minimalistic theme, this is exactly what Zooomr Zipfox is aimed at doing.
Real-Time Experiences are best when more people are in the loop. Thanks to Zipline’s smart-threads, you and your friends’ updates cluster together so that you can focus on communicating, instead of trying to figure out what was last said. Huge thanks to Gen Kanai over at Mozilla Japan who was a major influence in Zipfox’s production! And for you Flock users out there, Zipfox even works with the Social Web Browser, too.
HUGE Updates to Localizations
With all of this terrific work, you can expect that there’s more than just a few strings to change. Starting next week, we will be re-launching our Localization Google Group with the new files inviting our more than 80 volunteers to help us put Zooomr into More languages than ever imagined before. A big thanks to our Localization Members from all over the globe!
The Road Ahead: November Plans
With Zooomr Japan focused on Mobile, Worldwide Services will be working on keeping developers happy and plugging them into the wealth of tools that has made Zooomr into a rich Real-Time Experience Platform.
Over the last few months, I have worked very, very hard to bring you some of the most up-to-date fun experiences in the industry and throughout the month of November, there will be a significant amount of code clean-up and revisiting.
Our goal at Zooomr has always been about building the best way to experience the world around us as it happens. With Zipline, Zooomr Mobile and Zipfox, we are building tools that enable potential millions to communicate. The future is very strong here at Zooomr.
Very Special Mention and Thanks to Ron Conway, Timothy Van Loan & Co. at Sun Microsystems, Raju Vegesna and the ZOHO Crew for their continued support. Without these individuals and contributions from Users Like You, Zooomr would certainly not be here today! Thank-you.
I gave our good friendTajee a roll of Zooomr stickers before she left for Japan and it looks like they’ve been put to good use! Check-out the video by moto-san! Thanks, Tajee!
Organic invited Zooomr and me to join their workshop for thier programers and creative people.
I had already interviewed Kristopher, CTO of Zooomr, but it was very interesting to share
what they do with Organic people. I had a great time sharing thoughts about Web2.0 things!
After that, we joined “Photo Walking” in Haight Ashbury. I thought seeing in person was such a great way to communicate even in Web2.0 era:)
Wow friends, I’m pretty speechless over here. First it was our C|NET Webware Award and now the arrival of over 100k stickers (of 500k!) from Zooomr user RandyMan. Please comment on his photos and send a lot of love his way — he did this totally out of the kindness of his heart. This of course means a lot to Thomas and myself.
Hey Friends, It’s been a productive and satisfying last 24 hours. Many of you have been sticking with us in the UStream.TV Chat that we’re running — thanks for all of your impressive display of support!
So, the biggest thing that we’re doing here is working through all of the database translation from one system to the next, not to mention bringing-up satellite systems in remote regions all around the world. The latest issue had to do with some smartsets that weren’t processing correctly.
We will continue to update this post periodically, but please make sure to check-in with our Live 24×7 chat, courtesy of UStream.TV. (Regional coverage is also provided by our community blogs, shown in the header of this blog)
Today we’re adding a new service to the Zooomr Family: Zooomr Mobile (Zooomr ShareLife in Japan).
