Stick a fork in Zooomr, they’re done
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Twitter itIt looks like the Zooomr we knew is pretty much done for. A few months ago, I wrote that I was taking a break from Zooomr. The more I stayed away, the more clearly I could think about it, and the more I realized what a colossal waste of my time it was to get involved with a photo sharing site that wasn’t going anywhere.
When I made the photo you see below, I called it “Sometimes truth can be painful“. I think it fits in very well with the theme of this post.
We all know the promises that were made. We all also know that they weren’t fulfilled. Empty promises and grandiose language were paraded about for all to see, only to be whisked away when it came time for the rubber to meet the road.
More promises were made when I wrote my last post on Zooomr. Instead of delivering on them, or on the promises made previously about site features, a quick stopgap was put into place (a fix for Adobe Lightroom meta data imports on upload), and the rest of the complaints were shoved under the rug.
What’s more, braggadocio is still spoken by Kris, and this is the sort of language that makes me sick to my stomach. It’s so arrogant, so boastful, so out of touch with reality that I have to speak out against it. As a matter of fact, that very article is the reason for this post. I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut when I read it, and had to respond.
I say it’s out of touch with reality because the people that stood by Zooomr from the start are down in the mud, spit upon (figuratively speaking), having to put up with a crippled site, while Kris and Tom (but lately, mostly Kris), heap praise on Zooomr from whatever podiums are available.
What’s more, when Zooomr users dare to speak out against the constant bugs and other problems, their complaints are quashed and they are told to shut up because it doesn’t help the Zooomr cause. That’s been the line all along, and let me tell you, that sounds like propaganda to me.
There was and still is an alternative treatment for the users that dare to speak, and it’s to play the guilt card and tell everyone how “hard” the single developer is working. After that gets said, the upper hand is gained, and you can get right back to insulting them and calling them ungrateful, since they’re getting all these features for free… Only the thing is, the core Zooomr users, the ones that stuck by the site through thick and thin, were almost all Pro, or had donated money to Zooomr to keep it going. So they weren’t ungrateful at all, only frustrated, deserving users.
As if all of this doesn’t amount to a disaster, I was pointed to this discussion in the Zipline yesterday. You have to read it from bottom to top — that’s how it’s chronologically arranged. It started with more users speaking out against the bugs and unmet promises, only to have Kris start badmouthing Tom in public by accusing him of not doing his job, and ended up with more empty promises. Now it seems that what’s holding up the previous promise of bug-squashing in November (the umpteenth one that got made) is that every one of the photos needs to be moved to the Japan servers. But really, there’s a new version in the works, and it’s going to be just peachy… We’ve all heard that line before.
I’ve hardened since I left Zooomr. I’m sure it’s apparent. But I can’t stomach all the rhetoric. I can’t handle all that talk about “working hard” with no results. I’m sick of it. There’s a whole team at Zooomr now, and yet nothing’s really getting done for the users. Everything’s going toward Zooomr Mobile, which was still unstable last I heard.
This latest development has also unearthed the rift between Kris and Tom. If you think this is something new, you’re mistaken. No, Kris expressed the same feelings to me several months ago, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one whom he’d spoken about it. This is an old, brewing feud, and I have no interest in taking sides in it.
Back when I first heard of it, I told Kris that Tom had been vital for Zooomr’s growth and market penetration. After all, let’s face it, without Tom, no serious photographers would have bothered to join Zooomr. It was much too buggy, and much too copycat-ish of Flickr. What was the point, other than the geotagging and people tags? At any rate, that conversation ended on two notes. Toward Kris, I expressed concern for the situation and advised him to patch things up with Tom. Myself, I left the conversation thinking I’d gotten mixed up in some sort of mix-up where I didn’t belong, and I’d bet too much on Zooomr. You know how you get a bad, sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach sometimes? That’s what I felt. I knew it didn’t bode well for the long term.
Lo and behold, now the feud re-surfaces and becomes public… I have to wonder how Tom feels about this whole thing. The guy mortgaged his house to finance the pipe dreams. He bet everything on Zooomr by burning bridges with Flickr, where he’d gotten famous as a photographer, and now this kid’s badmouthing him publicly and telling people he’s not doing his job… Wow. On top of that, the kid decides to move operations to Japan, Tom loses the title of CEO, becomes just Chief Evangelist again, and is left all alone in the States. It’s got to be a pretty bad situation for Tom, in spite of what spin one might try to put on it. I asked him in an email months ago, before all this, (but after I’d heard about the problems between him and Kris), whether he’d made the right choice by betting the house on an inexperienced and — given the various behaviors shown in public so far — immature teenager. He said he was right. I wonder if he’d like to re-consider his answer now.
Some of the core Zooomr users have already started to leave. A Zooomr Exodus group was started on Flickr, and there’s a discussion going on. I don’t blame them. I for one am surprised they held out for so long. I wasn’t able to take that abuse and left months ago.
Let’s not forget the latest batch of “updates” to Zooomr resulted in that huge, monstrous gaffe where pornographic photos showed up in everyone’s photo streams, sets and profiles, and in Discover.
And let’s not forget about another “upgrade” to Zooomr that some people may not have noticed. I don’t think I need to take screenshots to show you this. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Zooomr user or not: just go to anyone’s photos and look for the copyright information. Guess what? You won’t find it. Apparently, all photos on Zooomr are free and non-copyrighted, since no copyright information is displayed next to them. If that doesn’t give you pause to worry, I don’t know what should. And with this move to Japan, I have to wonder what will happen to everyone’s photos, now that they’re going to reside physically in a different country where US copyright laws don’t apply. Updated 2/10/08: It looks like copyright information has been added back to the photos since I published this article.
You’ll find another insight in one of the comments. Apparently, when you delete photos at Zooomr, they’re not really deleted. The actual files are still available at their URLs. It’s only the photo’s display page that becomes unavailable. I consider this to be a serious legal issue, and I’m concerned about the fate of people’s photos once they’re deleted. Just what happens to them? After all, they belong to the people that put them up there, not to Zooomr. If these people want them off the site and the servers, entirely, they should be off the site and the Zooomr servers entirely, period.
Several months ago, I begged Kris and Tom to institute some sort of image security, so people wouldn’t be able to get to the original sizes. I wanted something that would let people choose what sizes they wanted to display. I showed them how Flickr handled image security, and how it was randomizing part of the file name so that the name of the original size was different from all other sizes and couldn’t be guessed even if the user could hack their way to the large size (1024×768). If Flickr could do it, so could they.
You wouldn’t believe how much I had to coax and cajole Kris into putting in place image security, and this was after he had himself promised that Mark III was going to have this huge image security module that would split images in half, and would have some transparent image on top, and watermarking, and etc. But that ended up being just another empty promise. He’s great at those, isn’t he?
But wait, there’s more… Kris’ answer to image security after all of that was to ape Flickr. He put in place the exact same fix, except the file names were slightly different. What’s more, there was no choice in terms of photo sizes. Original file sizes couldn’t be seen by anyone except the photographer. I told him I expected more than that after all our discussions. At the very least, he could have gone beyond what they did and randomized the large image size as well, and given users the choice of displaying 500×333 px or 1024×768 px or original sizes to visitors, contacts and friends and family. Didn’t happen… apparently it would have been too much of a strain on the database, etc.
And… there’s still more. The fix was not applied retro-actively, which meant that all photos uploaded before the day when the security fix was enabled were still ripe and ready for the plucking by any and all image thieves. Did Kris care? No. He wasn’t going to worry. His answer to me was that Zooomr’s lawyers would help any and all Zooomr users whose images were stolen for free. Yeah, Zooomr’s lawyers would apparently go after any image thieves and make sure things would all work out fine. [!] What lawyers, I asked? After all, Zooomr was broke or nearly broke at the time. Not to worry, said he. “You don’t know how things work”, he said, and that’s a quote. I suppose I don’t, but at least I know that lawyers work for money, not handshakes and hearty thanks. I saw that I wasn’t getting anywhere with that issue, so I dropped it.
I took a wait and see approach with my photos published at Zooomr. I’m still using some of them in blog posts, and I need to transition those posts to self-hosted photos. But after seeing all these developments, I am going to go through and delete every single one of my photos. I just don’t feel that my hard work is safe in Zooomr’s hands any more. Not when there’s a feud between the founder and the CEO/main investor/evangelist, not when user input is squashed, not when promise after empty promise is broken, time after time after time, and certainly not when all copyright info has disappeared while everyone’s photos are being transitioned to another country.
That, my dear reader, is the story. This is Zooomr, in all its shiny, sparkling glory. “Universally the best way to share, search, store , sort and sell your photos online.” From its Mastercard-like logo to Flickr-like name and slogan, to its majestic Marketplace, does it not gleam? Does it not attract the eye? Isn’t it the darling of VCs everywhere? Tell me now, don’t be coy. Are you not happy with the never-ending array of features and options?
If Kris and team ever get their act together in Japan, it’ll be an entirely different beast from the Zooomr we knew. Regardless of what happens, I think it’ll all be for the better. I think there’s a lot to learn for all involved, especially Kris and Tom, from this colossal failure. Should Zooomr recover at some point, I hope the lessons learned will stay with them forever. If they don’t, then let them be a lesson for all of us when it comes to making and keeping promises and establishing trusted relationships.
[cmiper, thank you for the relevant links! Everyone, please make sure to read through all the comments. There's a ton of insight in there.]
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Hi Raoul,
Again a good post - the only saving soul for Zooomr is the community and zipline, without them I’d be placing a refund request through PayPal to add 4 year onto my Flickr account.
Comment — December 21, 2007 @ 9:17 am
Raoul, thank-you for your thoughts and prayers. It means a lot.
I know it’s hard to see it now, after I Thomas Hawk and I have fought hard for photographers’ rights inside (and out) of the photo sharing community — not to mention opening up big competition — but zooomr is not flickr, so please do not make it out to be one.
Zooomr was built to help the entire world share photographs from around the world. That’s what I built it for and that core mission is what keeps us going even today. That’s why the site started-out in 5 languages.
Imagine that for a second… A (free) photo sharing site for the entire world: We call it Zooomr.
That core mission has taken us here to the amazing city of Tokyo, where I’ve been able to grow our business and secure money & resources to keep that core mission alive.
Creating a new company in a new country takes its time. Training new employees about a system that has been developed for more than a year takes time — but you know what? Good things happen when you give them the time to. I’m sure that’s something you know very well.
Sure, Japan doesn’t move at the same pace of America — but once we have all of the resources online and things going, I’m sure we’re going to see some great things happen.
I haven’t been in touch with you for awhile as you haven’t really wanted to talk, so who knows where you’re getting the information that you have or how you can see into Zooomr’s future. But don’t just give up yet — you might just have to eat your own words.
I’m learning a lot — but my mission in live is to help other people. Zooomr has allowed me to help thousands of people connect with their families and friends and share something that really matters — life through togetherness.
People say that other photo sharing sites are our competition, but I think that we’re a different kind of site that exhibits photo communication more than anything else. But since you can only try to tie words to the great images we see on the site every day, that is still up for interpretation.
I’m proud of our users and hope they are proud of me for sticking up for what I believe in: the right to share; the right to have a voice; the right to communicate.
Right now, Japan is helping me keep this community alive — maybe you should give that more thought.
Please have a safe and productive holiday season and new year!
kristopher
Comment — December 21, 2007 @ 10:31 am
Kris, I’ll be glad if I have to eat my words, but I’ll be glad for the users that have suffered through all the bullshit and downtime and empty promises.
In the meantime, you’ll have to excuse me if my stomach is giving signs of violent regurgitation upon reading your words.
You sound more refined this time around, and yes, you manage to skirt the troublesome issues nicely. (You’ve had some training, haven’t you?) The truth of the matter is that yours is still boastful, empty talk. We have yet to see any real results.
Please do me a favor and stay away from my site. I have a nice lunch to eat pretty soon here, and I don’t want to lose it when I read another of your comments.
Comment — December 21, 2007 @ 10:42 am
(Hmm, seems like you deleted this comment — going to post it again and hope for the best)
Raoul, ditto — if you’re going to trash talk my work and our users, please take it elsewhere — I hear that flickr is a cool alternative.. I could be wrong though.
If it sounds like I’m more refined, it’s because I’m speaking straight from the heart. I love our users and though the videos and everything I’ve given out there, you should only know better.
Please enjoy your lunch.
kristopher
Comment — December 21, 2007 @ 10:54 am
Kris, read the comment guidelines. I moderate my comments. And I asked you nicely to stay away. I’ve had enough of your rhetoric. Notice I’m staying away from the Zipline, and I’m deleting my photos. Unfortunately, there are no delete buttons on the thumbnail pages, so the process is a lot slower than it should be. I still have a few photos I’m using in blog posts, so I can’t delete every one of my photos just yet, but I will, over the next few days.
I will delete any follow-up comments from you. Seriously. I don’t think you have anything to add to the discussion that I or the other Zooomr users haven’t already heard. You have plenty of other venues to spread the “good news”, so use them.
Sorry, but that’s how things stand at the moment.
Comment — December 21, 2007 @ 10:58 am
Right. I think I should add a bit of good old, erm, how did the hawks in the US once put it, “old Europe”, that’s it - to the exchange. No BS, nor PR, no missiles back and forth. Just plain talking.
I think you have to give credit where credit is due, and Zooomr as a concept is sound. The delivery, despite the downtime, glitches, bugs, is tolerable, so long as a concerted effort is made to overcome them once and for all. No-one can deliver a totally water-tight website, especially on limited resources; Zooomr subscriptions are hardly substantial.
That said, there really is no evidence of client care or even a frank exchange of views (or just a plain reply) when it comes to issues like copyright, which quite rightly concerns a lot of people, including me. Without being complex, the images are the copyright of the author, and do not require a text to say so. I’m a professional, and take the chance that someone will copy my work onto their PC. That’s fine. Not legal, but so long as they don’t try to make out it’s their work, or sell it, then they won’t have my lawyers after them. Copyright is pretty cut-and-dried, so there’s no doubt that they would suffer if they tried it.
I think Kris is wrong to have allowed the issue to be buried, or simply didn’t respond to the users’ concerns. It was an obvious point to come out of the machine, and should have been fully anticipated before Zooomr ever hit the web.
But none of us are perfect. There needs to be less BS from Kris, that’s for sure. As an Old European, I, like many others, can see through all the crap, and it’s been pushed for so long now that it’s quite stale. Maybe, Kris, you should try being honest about the problems you face, rather than courting sympathy for all the work you face. But ultimately, you will need to address these basic problems, and by now, it needs to be done pretty soon.
I think my view, andit has to be that of many others, is that I’ll stick with Zooomr, but always with the feeling that it’s going down the pan, and that all those photos on there will one day just cease to be accessible. I don’t think anyone should be ’storing’ their images on there in any way, and it probably wasn’t created for that purpose. If there is ever another lengthy failure of the service as happened during the swap over to Z3, then I’m pretty sure I’ll be sailing off into one of the many wonderful sunsets captured by Zooomr users.
So, let’s moderate the words of the criticism, there are no prizes for being wildly antagonistic. But let’s also remember that Zooomr is paid for by many users, and as such, is a service that should be openly responsive to users, not burying it’s head in the sand over valid criticism.
Comment — December 21, 2007 @ 11:07 am
Hi Raoul-
Though I understand your frustrations, I’m very sorry that you will be leaving Zooomr. The washingtondc tag will not be the same without you.
The optimistic part of me hopes that Zooomr will realize its potential, bridges will be mended, and you will come back some day.
-Andy aka DuckBrown
Comment — December 21, 2007 @ 11:09 am
You can put your pictures where you like, it’s your choice. Another choice you have, is whether you are to be civil or whether you are to loose the respect of many people.
Have a lovely christmas.
Comment — December 21, 2007 @ 11:17 am
Hmmm, yes, but there is the point that by ignoring people, and their genuine concerns, and when they are paying, one becomes uncivil.
Comment — December 21, 2007 @ 11:21 am
Disclaimer:
I am a Zooomr User.
I have a Zooomr “Pro” Account.
I have a Flickr “Pro” Account, which I haven’t used in months.
Flickr was fun for a few days, in which I bought the Pro account in haste.
But when I got down to the core repeatedly used feature, I got bored at Flickr. My images sit in languish, with no activity to speak of. Money down the hole.
Zooomr has it’s problems, many of them suck pretty hard.
But some have been fixed. I remember when forum posts couldn’t be more than a paragraph or two, otherwise you’d get an internal server error. So the forum start looking like a zipline all it’s own.
That got fixed.
I’ll stop the warmhearted examples there.
The two things I have to say is:
(1) I feel very sorry for folks who have to add needless extra steps in order to upload their photos (remove IPTC Caption/all EXIF, etc.). I’m one of the lucky ones, between my girlfriend’s Cybershot and my Treo, I upload without issue.
(2) Try as you might, you can delete your photos, but due to a bug at Zooomr, they won’t be deleted :).
The HTML detail page will be gone, but the static file/photo (and probably all of the generated thumbs) will hang around on Zooomr’s server(s?) until god knows when.
(P.S. One of your examples [ http://twitter.com/EmilyElizabeth/statuses/516314942 ] wasn’t Zooomr’s fault, and fixed itself without anything having to be changed.)
Comment — December 21, 2007 @ 11:42 am
Jason, I think you’ve just unearthed something that’s even more scary than the copyright problem. If photos aren’t really deleted but stay on Zooomr’s servers after the user wishes to delete them, I think Zooomr has a big legal issue on their hands. This is serious, very serious.
Comment — December 21, 2007 @ 11:47 am
The problem with OpenID logins was apparently on the OpenID end, but it shouldn’t have taken so long for Zooomr to figure that one out.
I’m also disappointed that the Marketplace never has come to fruition. I suspect Tom and Kris have differing visions of what Zooomr can/should be.
Also I’m thisclose to making the leap to Photoshop CS3 (using a trial version now) and I’ve run into the EXIF issue. This should be a priority on their bug fix list. How many of their customers use Photoshop?
I’m not ready to give up on Zooomr, but I have started to post more over at Flickr and will use one of their partner services to sell some of my photography. (I’m not optimistic that I’ll sell anything, but I won’t know until I try.)
Comment — December 21, 2007 @ 11:56 am
Seems that every time something comes up, every time someone criticizes the lack of updates, fixes, features, that rather than answer to the questions, the tables are turned on the one who dares to voice a complaint against Zooomr. It always turns into a sugar-coated counter attack from Kristopher, rather than an response to the complaints against Zooomr.
Again, we see it…
Raoul NEVER “trashed” Zooomr users, if anything he defended several of them. He also didn’t bring this post to Zooomr, so I am not sure why you would tell him to take it elsewhere, it’s his house you are in.
Trying to get Zooomr users to side with you is also what was done with the ill comments about Thomas a few days ago. You (Kristopher) used Thomas as a scapegoat to skirt the issue that was pinned on you. Turn the blame to Thomas/Raoul/whoever, but never take responsibility for yourself and Zooomr as a whole.
I personally would not have used some of the words that were posted in the comments above, but then again, I have not been ridiculed by Kristopher in the past as Raoul has.
You can play on Raoul’s words, or Zooomr user’s sympathy all you want, but it doesn’t fix all the things that are wrong with Zooomr as stated in the original post. You would have been better off discussing the issues stated in the post, which have been in the wiki, the groups, the Zipline, and everywhere else, for almost a year now?
I don’t wonder why people are so frustrated…I wonder why people still don’t see what’s going on.
Comment — December 21, 2007 @ 11:58 am
So, if there are a load of us concerned about copyright, Zooomr isn’t delivering on its side of the contract (remember, many of us actually pay to use Zooomr’s non-existent features), why not launch some sort of class-action? No-one has signed their copyright away, so cancelling the contract means that users’ photos should not be retained. I can see a rough time ahead for Zooomr ‘management’ if someone decided to run with this one…
Comment — December 21, 2007 @ 12:07 pm
Side note…
The OpenID issue was not *directly* with OpenID.
The error was coming back from the ZooomrAPI that it couldn’t validate with OpenID, though you could log in and out of OpenID all day long and get into every other network site but Zooomr. When it started working again, it was (without verification) chalked up as being OpenID’s fault.
Comment — December 21, 2007 @ 12:18 pm
Just as a follow up FYI.
Don’t give me credit for this find :P. “anlan” and “Bearded Git” (member names) I do believe both found this, and figured it out around the same time.
anlan being a very educated member who has proposed some fixes, Bearded Git being a typical user saying “I deleted them, but they’re still there, fix it.”
Julie:
If it wasn’t Zooomr’s problem, it doesn’t matter how long it took them to figure it out. Due to the nature of OpenID, Zooomr could not have done anything about it.
Actually, that’s half true, but I’m not going to abuse Raoul’s comment space in order to detail what could and probably SHOULD be done. But this applies to OpenID consumers as a whole, not just Zooomr.
Iam:
We’re all MORE than well aware of what’s going on. The Zipline is abuzz with activity when there’s a problem. We don’t leave because community and active discussion is a strong feature. And some people can deal with “issues” more than others can. Call it a difference in priorities.
Comment — December 21, 2007 @ 12:21 pm
@Jason: I’m just sayin’ that if it was an OpenID issue, it would have been good for Zooomr to have looked into it, determined they couldn’t have done anything, and informed the people having trouble about the issue. I log in with OpenID and was living in dread that Firefox would send an update and toss its cookies, so to speak.
Comment — December 21, 2007 @ 12:27 pm
Jason:
I am not referring to the issues with the site in that comment, I am referring same response that happens every time there is a very squeaky wheel. People don’t seem to see the resulting pattern that follows every time.
Otherwise, I know there is plenty of discussion in the Zipline…too bad there is not as much valid response in there to match it.
Comment — December 21, 2007 @ 12:33 pm
Raoul,
Good Article, and typically a ‘typical’ response from Kris.
Re the deletion of your pics. I deleted mine, but when I did it, Zooomr also hosted my static images on an entirely different URL and therefore the ones I deleted whilst were not available on my account were still available on the static server. I then took my time going through my blog entries and replacing the pics with my flickr copies.
I suspect my pics will still be there actually.
I originally went to zooomr when TH moved over as I was a big follower of his early on and actually, the bit I miss most about dumping zooomr is not really seeing TH’s photos anymore, although I still keep up with his blog. I hope he gets himself out of that mess as soon as possible and just puts it all down to ‘mistakes made in life’.
Anyhow, enjoying your activity on flickr.
TravisP
Comment — December 21, 2007 @ 12:43 pm
Raoul,
I was sorry to see you leave Zooomr, but I understand your frustrations. However, the way you respond to Kris’s comments is not very professional or mature. If you want to criticize somebody publicly, that’s fine; but if you don’t allow them to defend themselves, it gives the appearance that you are simply spouting propaganda.
Just a thought.
jeremy
Comment — December 21, 2007 @ 1:09 pm
I agree with you Raoul, Zooomr needs tons of work, and after joining Zooomr, I feel more of a web developer than a photographer; reporting bugs, dealing with bugs, etc…
Zooomr probably isn’t going anywhere, it was a cool idea, but without proper financing it’s worth nothing. If you look at all the major web start-ups today, you see companies investing in them, helping them, writing checks. No one saw anything in Zooomr, there is no major donations coming in, there is no help, we the users are employees in ourselves, not photographers like we want came to Zooomr to be.
Comment — December 21, 2007 @ 1:19 pm
… I agree with Dawson to a point, but isn’t that one to the reasons Kris is working so hard in Japan, that is where the Zooomr resources and financing is coming from. I think Zooomr is on the cusp of something big, so I am sticking with it. I also agree with Kris and others that think Flickr is not a competitor to Zooomr, its a clearing house for pics of every sort, Zooomr is much more personal, and you can see that in the community that is still there.
Comment — December 21, 2007 @ 1:48 pm
Jeremy, you and someone else mentioned that my response to Kris’ comments was inappropriate. Let me ask you this, would you rather my sarcasm was veiled, like Kris’ opening sentence, or would you rather I called things like I saw them?
And for goodness’ sake, is it that hard for you to see through all that bull? This is the same stuff he’s fed the users for years. Before it was Japan, it was Mark III. Before Mark III, it was Mark II. And before that, it was a forthcoming API, which still has to show up.
For something like two years, it’s been the same line about stuff coming down the pipe, but that stuff never comes. There comes a point when you can’t take any more of it, you know, where you have to say enough is enough, I’m not going to listen to it, take it elsewhere. That’s where I am right now.
Just take the time to read through that initial comment of his. Do you really believe he means that stuff? I don’t. If he really wanted people to share stuff with their families, he’d have let us build private sets that could be shared through a simple email link, so that our families could see photos without having to sign up for accounts and log in every time.
Fighting hard for photographers’ rights? In what way, other than by dumping on Flickr and talking smack about other photo sharing sites?
I could spend pages analyzing every one of those empty words in the comment, but I’m not going to waste my time doing it. I’ve wasted enough time on Zooomr already.
Heck, the right to share, the right to have a voice, the right to communicate? Who does he think he is? Our savior? There are plenty of other sites that let you share photos for free, or communicate, or have a voice. You don’t even need other sites, you can have your own site where you do that.
What I can’t stand is this endowing of Zooomr and indirectly, of Kris, by Kris, with qualities that either aren’t there, or that belong to tons of other sites, and to the Internet as a whole. He’s making it out to be the end all, be all, and it’s just a buggy photo sharing site with missing features.
While we’re on the subject, please don’t forget what you told me about Zooomr months ago. I’m not going to share it here, but let’s just say I’m surprised to see you criticize me or others that have spoken up.
Comment — December 21, 2007 @ 1:48 pm
As a (web) software developper, what worries me the most about Zooomr isn’t the lack of information we receive, but the amount of new bugs we see, the amount of features that suddently stops working. And all of that, when we don’t see many new features being developped and released. we also don’t see that many things being fixed. I’m seriously starting to wonder about the stability of the code and design behing Zooomr. And about the development practices in place? QA, unit-testing, and all that…
Comment — December 21, 2007 @ 2:33 pm
Raoul, I’m not denying that Zooomr has problems, and I was not criticizing your viewpoint. The point I was making was that when you raise serious concerns and objections and then tell somebody that they will not be allowed to respond to the points you raised, and that they are not even welcome at your site, it tends to detract from the points you were making in the first place.
I know Zooomr has problems, but I think they also have potential, and I hope they make a success of it. Obviously, it’s not the end-all of photo sharing sites. Neither is Flickr, or SmugMug, or any of the others. There is a lot of room in this domain for innovation and competition, and ultimately that is good for us as people that want to share our photos.
Comment — December 21, 2007 @ 3:36 pm
Looks like my previous comment was deleted. Anyway…
I see where you are coming from. A lot of people have been waiting around for Zooomr features for a long time. Many improvements were mentioned and never materialized. That is frustrating. I particularly identify with your reference to password-protected private galleries for family and friends that do not require registration. That is the number one Zooomr feature I have been waiting for since joining.
Well, I suppose I saw where you were coming from up until your response to Kris’ comments. You made it known quite clear that you think Kris is immature. And do you know what? I agree that inner Zooomr turmoil has no place on the Zipline. But that’s where it ends - how can anyone take your accusations of childishness seriously when you respond to Kris with such snide, callous words of your own?
In the end, Zooomr needs some work, but I’m not going to tire myself out fretting over the details. Why? I don’t know what’s going on inside Zooomr, I don’t know what’s going on in Japan, and so I don’t care to worry about it. I stick around because I enjoy the site and its community. And when I want something different, I head over to Flickr. If you were expecting more from Zooomr (and I can’t blame you, because more was promised), then by all means leave and tell us why. But at least have some tact.
Comment — December 21, 2007 @ 4:40 pm
Raoul,
I do not know you and don’t really want to after reading the ferocity and immaturity with which you completely trashed somebody’s work (KT). I think that we all have the right to speak our minds but if there is a recipient (for our ideas that is) then that ramble of thoughts becomes directed, when you prevent two way communication (as you have in your response to KT) then you fail to live up to the very essence of the communication process.
I had a look around your site earlier and thought: what a cool guy, you’ve lost my trust now. Anyhow, this post is only to beg you to at least be as sensible as allowing some reason in your attacks to KT, if you are so personal about him why don’t you do things accordingly and keep it between yourselves?
just a thought
in case you moderate me I will be publishing the same idea elsewhere with a thread back to your webpage.
thanks
Comment — December 21, 2007 @ 5:09 pm
Jeremy, Tom, Carl, I hear where you’re coming from, but I disagree with you. I think he deserves it. There’s such a huge rift between what he’s saying and doing, that it’s ridiculous. If you think I’m being unfair to him, then you haven’t hung around Zooomr too long, and you probably weren’t there early enough. But don’t worry, chances are you’ll share my opinion, given enough time.
I didn’t expect to resonate in harmony with everyone when I wrote this post. It’s a bitter, angry post, but it needed to be that way. I wouldn’t consider it one of my highlights, and it hasn’t made me feel all that great, but I needed to say these things the way I said them, if only to shock some people and wake them up perhaps.
If you think Kris is being an angel with his response, then you don’t know Kris, and you haven’t seen some of his past responses. It wasn’t so long ago when he asked me to defend him publicly on another blog, and worked me up into a frenzy so I could take his side. I’m not going to name names, but I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised right now to find out he’s manipulated others into leaving comments on my site. It’s just the kind of person he is, and that’s exactly why I didn’t want to give him a forum here. This post was meant for the Zooomr users, not for him.
Just to set the record straight, I didn’t write this post to get “page views”, like Kris accused me (see his comments on that thread). I wrote it because I couldn’t stand to shut up any more. It was the BlogNation article, with its hyperbole and braggadocio, that convinced me to write this.
As for why I did this publicly, it’s simple. The false promises about Zooomr were made publicly, and they needed to be uncovered publicly. Do I expect you to understand me? No. But at least I did what I thought was the right thing to do.
Comment — December 21, 2007 @ 5:21 pm
Kristopher would never do that Raoul, I am not sure what you are getting at.
Just remember, it’s never Kristopher’s fault. It’s always someone else’s fault… always!
Comment — December 21, 2007 @ 5:57 pm
I’ve been watching this thread all day and haven’t had the time to pop back to comment. (E-mails to my mobile device. How cool! How connected! How obsessive!)
I would like to add my two cents about the community aspect. That is something I really like, and it does seem that I generally get more thoughtful comments about my photos at Zooomr than I do at Flickr. These are reasons why I’m not ready to pull the plug there yet.
Yet, I stand by my earlier remarks. Zooomr needs to pay attention to getting the little things right (IMO) before they embark on the next big thing. Honestly, I mean this as constructive criticism. Zooomr has so much potential, and I’d really hate to see it wasted.
Comment — December 21, 2007 @ 7:42 pm
Raoul, As I have said before I share your frustration. While I would not approach it in the same way with the same tone, you are making your voice heard on your blog and that is more than even I am willing to do.
I hate to see it come to this, but such is life I guess.
As I said before I’m going to still hang with Zooomr for the community, and hope the other issues get resolved. I want to see them succeed.
Raoul, you an awesome photographer and I will still admire your work wherever you post it.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and everyone reading this. In the spirit of the season, lets hope and pray someday these fences can be mended.
Comment — December 22, 2007 @ 12:40 am
Raoul, finally someone who is open and honest about the entire Zooomr situation. I too feel that the lingo used to hush down Zooomr users is extremely manipulative and quite disturbing, to be honest.
Who the hell starts a response to an extremely critical post like yours with “Thank you for your thoughts and prayers. It means a lot.” - that’s ironic, right?
And the blah blah goes on…”I know it’s hard to see it now, after I Thomas Hawk and I have fought hard for photographers’ rights inside (and out) of the photo sharing community”
Fought hard for what rights…? Exactly what have they done? I am sorry, but I don’t think there is a single photographer out there who has had their world significantly contributed to by zooomr/kris/thomas in any unique way whatsoever. Zooomr has not “changed” or contributed to a photographer’s rights. Zooomr is not a better community site than Flickr. “Zooomr is not Flickr” is true. It fails to make the impact Flickr did. Zooomr is doing nothing that hasn’t already been done before.
“Zooomr was built to help the entire world share photographs from around the world. That’s what I built it for and that core mission is what keeps us going even today. That’s why the site started-out in 5 languages.”
Again, what is the big deal here? How is this different to Flickr or any other photo sharing website online?
“Imagine that for a second… A (free) photo sharing site for the entire world: We call it Zooomr.”
Oh. Hurrah. In case we did not know the baby’s name.
“That core mission has taken us here to the amazing city of Tokyo, where I’ve been able to grow our business and secure money & resources to keep that core mission alive.”
Fab! So I guess we’ll NEVER again hear the “Kris is working hard all on his own, but needs to sleep, please be patient” line around next launch…? Now that there is money & resources involved, I guess we’re stepping it up a notch, then..?
So why do we still have to wait:
“Creating a new company in a new country takes its time. Training new employees about a system that has been developed for more than a year takes time — but you know what? Good things happen when you give them the time to. I’m sure that’s something you know very well.”
Patronizing those who are critical is a typical Zooomr way of dealing with their user’s concerns. “Good things happen” when you give them time. Good things happen when you don’t over promise. Good things happen when you keep a list of what features you’ve promised and implement them, one by one. On a test server first, for instance.
“I haven’t been in touch with you for awhile as you haven’t really wanted to talk, so who knows where you’re getting the information that you have or how you can see into Zooomr’s future. But don’t just give up yet — you might just have to eat your own words.”
He hasn’t been in touch with you. Sounds like he’s saying he hasn’t handled you very well. If he had been in touch, you’d never write such an awful post, right? Cause you would have gotten the RIGHT info straight from him, instead of making your own mind up. But hey, it’s YOUR FAULT. You haven’t really wanted to talk. (What info is he talking about, though? Looks to me that the zipline talks you are referring to are coming straight from the horses arse.) And we end it with a sweet little threat (you might just have to eat your own words) - a bit out of character for such a peace loving bug, isn’t it?
“I’m learning a lot — but my mission in live is to help other people. Zooomr has allowed me to help thousands of people connect with their families and friends and share something that really matters — life through togetherness.”
Cute. Flickr did this for me years before Zooomr. Zooomr, on the other end, gave me nothing but frustration. And now I can’t even delete my photos from that site. Connected forever.
“People say that other photo sharing sites are our competition, but I think that we’re a different kind of site that exhibits photo communication more than anything else. But since you can only try to tie words to the great images we see on the site every day, that is still up for interpretation.”
YES!! It is still up for interpretation, isn’t it…? But before we start this fascinating analysis, why not explain ourselves a bit better, if we can? What’s a “different kind of site” meant to be exactly? How do Zooomr exhibit photo communication more than anything else - “anything else” as in features offered on zooomr, or anything else as in any other site? Either way, what exactly IS so unique with Zooomr?
“I’m proud of our users and hope they are proud of me for sticking up for what I believe in: the right to share; the right to have a voice; the right to communicate.”
Get real. Zooomr providing a service, not nurturing a religion. Or maybe we should give this idea some “more thought”…?
“Please have a safe and productive holiday season and new year!”
Hey, taking the edge of it all! It’s the literary “undo”. Although you didn’t qualify for the “with peace and love” signature. What’s that about, then…
Comment — December 26, 2007 @ 7:59 pm
Elinesca, thank you. As you probably saw from my previous comments, I wanted to do that line-by-line analysis of Kris’ pathetic comment, but was too angry to dedicate more time to it. You did it very nicely.
That sort of double talk was why I disallowed him from commenting on the post. If he wasn’t going to be truthful and open, then I wasn’t going to tolerate his nonsense. Unfortunately some people didn’t manage to see past that and understand why I did it.
Thanks again.
Comment — December 26, 2007 @ 8:19 pm
@Kris Tate:
With all due respect Kris, when you say:
“I know it’s hard to see it now, after I Thomas Hawk and I have fought hard for photographers’ rights inside (and out) of the photo sharing community — not to mention opening up big competition…”
what exactly are you talking about?
How are Thomas Hawk and Zooomr fighting for photographer’s rights when:
A) there is no copyright info or right click/save as protections on Zooomr.
B) Thomas publicly states on his blog and many other blogs (Scoble, Arrington) that in regards to theft of copyrighted and CC protected imagery from online, is, “My response to this unauthorized use of my imagery? Who gives a shit? I certainly don’t….Our time on this earth is too short to get petty and spend hours worrying about people who might steal our imagery.”
This coming from a person who wanted to revolutionize stock photography by creating a photosharing/stock site for the hobbyist to sell work. Who doesn’t even use his real legal name in his business dealings. You want me to allow Zooomr to act as my middleman and advocate when your CEO/evangelist thinks it’s fine and dandy to steal photos?
I could stop there, but wait, there’s more!
C)While advocating the photographer’s right to shoot on public property, he has also been advocating the violation of other’s rights by insisting that photographers have a right to shoot on private property, too, specifically where they have been asked NOT to.
Personally I don’t want my name or images associated to him or his business. And when I asked both you and Thomas via Zooomr-mail, e-mail, text message, repeated zipline requests, help forum requests and posts on his blog to delete my photos and account, I didn’t hear a peep from you or him, and instead had to sit down and one by one, manually delete over 400 images.
How is this fighting for our rights? If I were you Kris, I’d apologize to the people that have stuck by you, return their money and call it a day.
-Lane
Comment — December 27, 2007 @ 6:17 pm
Thank you Lane! As for the manual deletion of images, I’m in the same boat. I had over 5,000 images posted to Zooomr. I’ve had to go through and delete each one of them, and they certainly don’t make it easy. I’m down to less than 1,000 photos now, and looking forward to zero in the near future. It takes forever, it’s cumbersome, and it wasted a LOT of my time.
Comment — December 27, 2007 @ 6:54 pm
[...] Updated 10/29/2007: I’ve revised my opinion of Zooomr entirely since I wrote this. See “Taking a break from Zooomr” for the details, and also read “Stick a fork in Zooomr, they’re done“. [...]
Pingback — January 1, 2008 @ 7:42 pm
Hey Raoul, forgive me for being so late to the party (with my comments). I think a lot of us who wre there at the beginning, or pretty damn close to it, are disappointed. There were big plans and a lot of promises. I think we could all see what Zooomr could become. We saw Kris’ passion and vision. When Thomas made the leap, we went with him, because we trusted his judgement. Now, all we see is broken promises and a large change in direction.
Some here have referred to Kris as a liar. While they have good reason to do so, I believe it to be more complex than that. I think Kris is one of those guys who doesn’t know his limitations. He promises things because he truly believes he can get them done in a timely fashion. Then he starts digging in, gets sidetracked, and we get Zooomr mobile instead of bug fixes or an update to Zipline instead of photo secuity. He’s wants to work on what’s fun, what interests him at the time, which is fine if you’re building something for yourself only, but is not ok if you’re “Universally the best way to share, search, store, sort and sell your photos online.”
I like Kris. He’s been in my house. We’ve emailed, texted, IM’d. He’s a bright kid. However, he needs someone to reel him in. Someone to keep him focused. Otherwise, his considerable talents will be wasted and his dreams will always be only that…dreams.
Comment — January 4, 2008 @ 1:00 pm
…and then there’s this
Comment — January 4, 2008 @ 2:15 pm
Once Thomas Hawke launched his ill-informed diatribe against Jill Greenberg and her methods, I knew I wanted nothing to do with Zooomr.
The arrogance and stubbroness Kris has exhibited over the past several months of the “crisis” has been hugely frustrating. If he is to play in further role in the Web 2.0 world, it will to provide a parable of the perils of over-promising and under-delivering. I rather suspect the Japanese will tire of him quickly.
Let’s face it - before all of this is over - there’s a fair chance that our beloved photos will become the property of Japanese stock photo agencies, as Kris and Thomas scurry about for the funds to cover the air freight and the hosting costs. Then again, since they seem wholly unable to restore the images to any kind of availability, so perhaps they will be safe from pilfering after all.
Regardless, I would advise Kris to put down roots in Japan, as maintaining a distance of 8-12 time zones from the folks whose time he wasted is probably a good idea.
Comment — February 10, 2008 @ 6:35 pm
I just joined zooomr after leaving flickr. I this it’s a great idea, but I really don’t like hearing about all these bugs. Photos not actually deleted etc. And I also do not like that my family cant see the large size.. thats pathetic!
Seriously, I am just going to create my own personal gallery on my website… that way I can have it the way I want.
Comment — April 13, 2008 @ 8:56 pm
[...] Stick a fork in Zooomr, they’re done (one of the reasons I left Zooomr was their poor image security, which apes what Flickr is doing, and was implemented only after many people complained) [...]
Pingback — August 3, 2008 @ 5:29 pm