Zooomr 2008: Still Not Sure Who They Are
by
on March 06, 2008,
It's been a while since I looked to see how Zooomr was doing. They recently received their second Webware 100 nomination, so I thought it was time to revisit the site.
The good news is that Zooomr is still around. After their problems with launching Mark III last spring, they've managed to keep the site running, relocate their servers (albeit with an issue or two), and even start to monetize the site with ads and a freemium model, where “Pro” users can eliminate the ads and gain access to additional features.
In the past year, however, Zooomr has apparently reinvented itself yet again. While it formerly marketed itself as a competitor (and near-clone) of Flickr with additional features, the new, improved Zooomr 2008 is being marketed as more of a social tool, with all the newest Web 2.0 buzzwords included:
“Zooomr is a social utility for friends, family and co-workers who want to communicate securely through both photos and text messages in realtime.”
The new Zooomr Zipline is a lifestream complete with microblogging as well as photo posting. Other users can subscribe to Ziplines with RSS, and the Pro upgrade adds in friend feeds as well on another page with a “Social Stream.” The “Pro” designation has the same name as Flickr's premium service, and the Zipline page looks nearly identical to Twitter, right down to the layout, and that may still be Zooomr's biggest problem.
Zooomr has obviously established themselves as a great photo-sharing site. They've been nominated for the Webware 100 two years running, and won last year. But they seem to face a constant identity crisis, identifying themselves in terms of other sites. Web 2.0 is a constant barrage of building on top of other apps, but I suppose I have higher expectations for Zooomr. I keep thinking that if they could figure out exactly what they want to be rather than defining themselves in terms of what other services aren't, they would gain a far larger user base and be the photo-sharing site to beat.
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The problem is exactly that, they don’t know what they want to be. Mr. Tate apparently has ADD and he wants to implement or integrate whatever he finds cool at any given moment. Now he’s living in Japan and primarily targeting Zooomr at the Japanese market.
Honestly I get a headache when I go to the Zooomr site. It just isn’t as nice as Flickr. Just look at the new Zooomr homepage, it is absolutely horrible.
I dunno, I just can’t see putting my photos in the hands of something that seems pretty unreliable to me. It still has the feel of some high school kids pet project, which is exactly what it started out as, and not a professional product. It gets old (he’s only 19) hearing all the (he’s only 19) hype surrounding (he’s only 19) the service (he’s only 19) and Tate himself. I don’t really care how old he is, I don’t like the site. He likes to be promoted as some sort of web prodigy and I think it is complete crap.
I will take Flickr or Smugmug over Zooomr anyday, you couldn’t pay me to use Zooomr.
Kind of funny as their site will not load for me. I have always had issues with it’s load speed and decided not to use it for that reason.
@ Carl I think that the age thing is completely irrelevant in this climate. There are tons of entrepreneurs out there still in college. It shouldn’t be used in a prodigy sense, nor should it be used as an excuse when things don’t work. Either you can do it or you can’t do it, but I agree that the flavor-of-the-month updates don’t look good when it comes to corporate vision. I’m also confused about packing up servers and moving them to Japan, but then again, I’m a big proponent of cloud computing, so I’m probably not one to talk.
@ Jason My last interaction with the site was during the Mark III horror-fest, and I have to admit I haven’t been back until I started writing this article. The site was up and appeared to be working fine when I looked at the new(ish) features and took the screenshot, but it’s good to know that reliability may still be a factor.
Despite all the previous pains, I happened to like Zooomr, and think there are some pretty amazing photos in Discover… Flickr is great, but I have to pay! Which is a big deal for me..since Zooomr gave me a Pro account for free…so there’s the pros and cons…choose your fav one.
So the main difference to you, Leona, is that Zooomr didn’t charge you for a Pro account? It’s not like they are going to give a free Pro account to everyone, so that really can’t be used as an argument for why anyone else would use them.
@Carl: Complete rubbish. Microsoft, Google, Amazon.com and a couple of other very big coorporations started out as garage or college projects and they’re doing fine
@Bas: My comments have nothing to do with Zooomr being a startup or college project. It is entirely to do with how they go about promoting themselves, and the reliability of the service. The self promotion is pretty silly, I really don’t want to look at Tate’s ugly mug as much as you seem to have to in order to use Zooomr. The fact that they had to bring the entire service down for the better part of an entire day while they deploy their updated version is pretty ridiculous and it isn’t the first time.
@Bas I don’t think you are understanding Carl’s point, if I may be so bold as to assume I know his point. *grin*
You keep hearing the “he’s only 19″ mantra as if he is the next Bill Gates, but at the same time, when INSANELY poor knowledge of how to do something as simple as roll out a new version is apparent, it’s used as an excuse: “he’s ONLY 19.”
The comparison with Bill Gates and Microsoft had me laughing. Gates was so single-minded in his focus that he never deviated from his purpose, at times to the detriment of things like his schooling. At no point did he say “Hey, Twitter looks cool! Let’s make it look like THAT!” It’s one thing to have a small, bootstrapped project, but quite another to have no vision other than molding yourself in another company’s image, changing depending on what company looks cool or trendy.
@Carl Sorry… your comment came in as I was responding to Bas. And I agree on the self-promotion angle, although I personally would love to see a video of Mr. Tate getting schooled on software development best practices. Simple things like development vs. production servers might be a good place to start.
Has anyone noticed that the zooomr is down, or is it just me. I’ve been trying to access it since the 12th of March, and haven’t been able to do so.
Zooomr is down - AGAIN - (March 24).
Sure, will give it a try. I like its no upload limit features, unlike orkut, flickr and picasa which have limits.