Zooomr: More of the Same

I’ve been checking out the progress on Zooomr from time to time and when I notice something that strikes me as odd, out of place, or not working, it just reminds me of the fact that the site isn’t ready for prime time.

I need to take you back a few years to when I first discovered Zooomr. The beauty of it was obvious. It was a fully functional alternative to flickr, one of the single worst sites I can’t stop using. Zooomr had no community to speak of, but I didn’t care as much because despite it being one of flickr’s best features, the community is what I hate the most about it.

Their philosophy was simple. Exploring the world through photos. For bloggers, it was even better. If you were a blogger and put a bit of code on your page that the site could detect, you were in. Unlimited. For free. What could be better? While flickr was charging $24 a year for a “pro” account, Zooomr was giving them away in exchange for getting exposure on blogs by embedding pictures.

Then came Mark II. Mark II was the second launch of Zooomr, and really turned it into a powerhouse of a site. Geotagging was added, putting it way ahead of the competition, because it was actually integrated into the site; something no one else was doing at the time. Zooomr looked a lot like flickr, but feature for feature it was on a whole other level. Some minor interface glitches and a ton of down time were normal, but many people saw the potential.

Then they added what can probably universally be called the worst feature in photosharing site history: The stupid-assed Zipline. Think Twitter for a photosharing site. Why would anyone want this? Your guess is as good as mine, but if anything it distracts from what the site is about. Photos. That’s what got worked on. Things were still buggy and glitchy, but improvements to Zipline were readily coming in a steady stream.

Then came the announcement we’d all been waiting for. Mark III was coming. A revolution in photo sharing. Photo selling. Communities and groups. Searching by color. You name it, it was going to have it. Zooomr was going to be a model for photo sites everywhere.

Then came the downtime. They wanted a few hours as they moved over our photos. The time spread from hours into days into weeks. Uncov covered the whole thing:

Rule #1 of web application deployment: always have a backup ready. Why in the hell would you take down the current version just to get out the new release? Can you not walk and chew gum at the same time? Developers who actually know what they are doing would have released their “Mark III” in parallel to the existing system just in case the deployment got destroyed. The worst case scenario then is to simply switch back to the current system and keep users happy. But no you, Kristopher with a K Tate, chose to take everything down without a plan and were convinced you could get the new service up within 24 hours. Your first mistake: thinking that going down for 24 hours was acceptable. Your second mistake: failing miserably.

Then it came back online. 500 errors on photo clicks. Geotagging still isn’t working 100% reliably. No selling of photos yet. The search by color thing? Can’t find it. Even something as simple as view counts for your photos just came back online a mere two days ago. TWO DAYS. A photo site that can’t tell you how many views your photo got? I won’t even get into the Z-mail spam issue.

The final straw, of course, was when Zooomr moved to Japan. According to Kris Tate, they couldn’t get funding in the US because investors saw Zooomr as too close to flickr to warrant funding. They go to Japan, take the entire site down as they ship the hard drives overseas (some of which didn’t even make it there right away) and then begin rebuilding the site with a heavy mobile and social focus, which of course means that yet again, they’re distracted. Now, understandably, the site has to be tailored for the Japanese investors that saved the company and in Japan, mobile is king, but in reality, all they did was screw US users out of reliability and spend a lot of time working on features that people in this country (where they got their start) really don’t need or want.

As I’ve come across these major shortcomings / failures / priority problems, I’ve been posting about them on Twitter. Frankly, I think they’re hilarious beyond any comprehension of the term. What kills me, though, is the decline of the site and watching its features fail more and more with each passing new release. Things that weren’t broken two years ago are iffy and dicey now and the site’s reliability is, to put it gently, a joke. This is not the way to launch a new product.

I should note that during a few episodes of Information Salad, we plugged the hell out of Zooomr. This was done for multiple reasons. 1. At the time, we truly believed in Kris and Thomas to get the site to a whole new level. 2. We were both tired of flickr. 3. We considered them friends of the show. 4. We were trying to make a difference.

We arranged with Thomas Hawk and Kristopher Tate to have an interview as soon as Mark III launched. We were basically going to give them a pulpit to talk about their new product. Again, it was something we believed in, so we weren’t exactly selling out to do it. Multiple e-mails went into the nether and we never had them on the show despite pumping it up and promoting it for roughly 3 weeks.

Way to run a business boys, and I think it’s a great idea to alienate ardent supporters at the same time. Those fans can be so pesky.

So yeah, I no longer believe in Zooomr or the company. Yesterday, I got a random message on Twitter from Kristopher asking me what my beef with Zooomr was, so I laid it out rather simply for him (these are in reverse chronological order because that’s the way twitter displays them):

@kristopher Maybe you guys need to reset your focus on the Photos and stop trying to be twitter with pictures. Start there. about 19 hours ago from web in reply to kristopher

@kristopher: You got a lot of good will and great publicity for free and then ignored me. Whatever, but don’t get all indignant w/me. about 19 hours ago from web in reply to kristopher

@kristopher: Frankly, for all the promises of a chat when Mk III launched, you guys left me out to dry, so don’t tell me to go on my way. about 19 hours ago from web in reply to kristopher

@kristopher A; It’s not the up and down, it’s the basic stuff not working. b: You and TH standing me up has nothing to do with the site. about 19 hours ago from web in reply to kristopher

@vincenzof I’ll be the first one to admit that we have bugs to fix; If you want to help out, please do — If not, please go on your way. about 20 hours ago from web in reply to vincenzof

@vincenzof: We made you look like an idiot? I guess the same applies to Twitter going up and down sometimes? Do they also make you an idiot? about 20 hours ago from web in reply to vincenzof

@kristopher Your turn. Tell me why I SHOULDN’T have a beef with Zooomr. And… Go… about 21 hours ago from web in reply to kristopher

@kristopher And then of course you and TH stood me up for two months on my show after I pimped the hell out of Zooomr. So yeah, I’m pissed. about 21 hours ago from web in reply to kristopher

@kristopher You guys made me look like an idiot for recommending it to my friends by breaking it and never fixing some basic stuff. about 21 hours ago from web in reply to kristopher

@kristopher My beef with Zooomr is that Mark III promised a lot and underdelivered, and 2008 is no better; to put it simply. about 21 hours ago from web in reply to kristopher

@vincenzof, yo — what’s your beef with Zooomr? What doesn’t work that isn’t already ID’d on trac.zooomr.com ? 03:33 AM March 19, 2008 from web in reply to vincenzof Icon_star_empty

It’s a shame. I had high hopes for Zooomr, but it would appear to me that they’re nothing more than a casualty of the me-too end of Web 2.0.