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Immediate Launch FAQ  Uploading ....
Note: to report bugs in Zooomr please submit them to: http://beta.zooomr.com/groups/help/discuss/7/
1. Tell me about Zooomr:
Zooomr is a universal photo sharing site. The site was started in late 2005 by Kristopher Tate originally as a place for him to share photos with his friends in Japan. Since most other photo sites were only in English Kristopher decided to build a site that could be viewed in both English and Japanese. The site was relaunched in April of 2006 after a favorable write up from TechCrunch's Mike Arrington. Since then Zooomr has continued evolving and is now localised in 18 different localizations.
In order to change localization you just click on your language of choice at the bottom of any page.
Zooomr is under continuous development and we hope that you will frequently provide feedback and suggestions so that we can make the site better and better.
2. So who are the people behind Zooomr?
Kristopher Tate is Zooomr's Founder and our Chief Technical Officer. Thomas Hawk, a San Francisco based blogger and photographer, is CEO and Chief Evangelist. You can read Thomas' blog here. The company is private and mostly owned by by Kristopher and Thomas.
3. How much does Zooomr cost?
Zooomr is free. There is no upload limit, bandwidth limit, download limit, file size limit, set limit, or number of photo limits. We believe in no limit photo sharing. We think it's about the best free photo sharing account you can get right now. We do offer a way for people to upgrade to a Pro account if they want to see an ad free version of Zooomr (and more than this want to support us which we really need, and means a ton to us). Pro accounts are $19.99 per year. We are accepting donations at our PayPal account if you feel so inclined.
4. I've seen a few Pro4Life accounts, what are those all about?
Pro for life accounts are special accounts that we gave out to a few of our earliest photographers who stood by us during some of our early growing pains. If you've got one we think you are simply awesome. if you are newer to Zooomr and don't have one we still think you are awesome.
NOTE: Right now Pro4Life status is not showing on people's avatars. But we have a record of everyone who was Pro4Life and this will be reinstated on your avatar very shortly.
5. Where are you located?
We are located in San Francisco, California, USA
6. How can I contact you?
There are several ways to contact us at present. We have a blog at http://blog.zooomr.com where you can leave comments (be nice). You can send an email also to feedback@zooomr.com. You might also try zmailing either Kristopher or Thomas. Keep in mind though that we are just two guys and get thousands of emails. We apologize in advance if you can't get back to you personally right away. We do try to read every zmail we get though and hopefully will be able to add more staff in the future to better handle correspondance with our photographers.
7. Do you have a limit on the file size like other photo sharing sites?
Did we mention that we love no limit photo sharing?
8. I can log into Zooomr but I can't get to my photos page.
Does your photo url or username have capital letters in it? This is a known bug that we are working on. If you can't get into your photos and your url or user name uses capital letters please shoot us an email to tothetop@bbridgetech.com and we will get your account fixed.
Registration
1. What is OpenID?
OpenID is a free decentralized user based identity system. It's used by sites like Live Journal and others to provide identity. It is not owned by anyone and no one is making any money from it. We support OpenID and at present you must get an OpenID in order to log in to Zooomr. We will also be adding an alternative simple email and pw log in option with our Mark III release. To learn more about OpenID you can check out their website here.
2. Can I register for Zooomr without going through OpenID?
Sure, you can also register "Old Skool" style with simply your email address and a password that you set.
3. I'm having problems merging my old Gmail or other acocunt into OpenID, what can I do?
Best thing to do is to re-register for the site and upload the photos under your new Open ID or email based ID system. if this is not possible please contact us.
4. I want to convert my OpenID log on to an email/pw log on, can I do this?
Yes, but in order to do this you will need to do it on the account settings page which won't be available for a few days.
Uploading photos
1. How do I upload photos?
There are a few different ways to do this.
You can use our web form under the upload tab on the site. This allows you to simply point to the photos on your computer and upload them to the site.
You can also use email. This is especially convenient if you want to upload photos from your phone. To find out what email address to use you can just go to the "Your Account" page under the "You" tab and click on upload via email. You can get an email address that will work to upload there.
Note that with the launch of Mark III bulk uploaders are presently disabled. We expect to have them back up and operational on later this week.
Finally, we think the best way to upload to Zooomr is with bulk uploaders. At present there are two bulk uploaders that work for Zooomr.
jUploadr is a bulk uploader that allows you to simply drag and drop your photos from your computer into jUploader and upload them in bulk. You can also bulk tag, use descriptions etc. with jUploadr. jUploadr works with both the PC and the Mac.
PictureSync is another bulk uploader for the Mac only at present but they are also working on a PC version.
Blogging
1. Can I blog a photo?
Yep, it's easy. Simply click on the magnifying glass above a photo and choose what size you want. Then you can simply cut and paste the html code that Zooomr generates into your blog.
SmartSets
1. What are SmartSets?
We think SmartSets are a smarter way to build sets or albums of photographs that you'd like to group together on Zooomr. Rather than relying on manual set building, SmartSets allows you to use advance filters to create dynamic sets. You can organize SmartSets by many different criteria.
To start with you will want to decide if you want to build a SmartSet of only your photos, only your contact's photos, or everyone's photos. You choose one of these three criteria when you build a SmartSet.
Next the most common way to build a SmartSet is to use tags. Let's say you wanted to build a SmartSet of images that you took at the TechCrunch7 party. The easiest way would be to use your user name as the owner in the set and then use the TechCrunch7 tag to filter photos out. Of course, the tag is up to you. You could build a set of your images of neon signs, or dog or cat or... well the possibilities are endless really. Neon signs rock by the way (Thomas said that).
In addition to organizing by owner and tag you can also use other criteria such as date taken, date uploaded and number of views. You might, for instance, create a SmartSet that contains all of your photos with over 100 views.
To start a SmartSet you just click on the "Build a SmartSet" link on your main photo page.
2. Are there limits on the number of SmartSets that I can have?
No, why would we? Remember what we said earlier about no limit photosharing. Limiting the number of sets you have is silly.
Zipline
1. What is zipline?
Zipline is a cool notification system that lets you know when your contacts do interesting things on the site. This includes when they upload photos or join groups or simply have something to say in their zipline. You choose who you would like to follow in your zipline on Zooomr.
Portals
1. What are portals?
Portals are ways to connect photos that relate to each other. With portals you can create a note that links to another one of your photos. You can use portals to show changes in time, changes in space, details in an image, tours, and any other way that you can think of. When a photo has a portal if you hover over the photo you will see it.
2. Can I link to other people's photos with portals, or only my own?
At present only your own, but we are working on this.
Discover
What is Discover?
Discover is a place on Zooomr where we like to highlight some of the most awesome photos being uploaded to Zooomr at any given time. At Discover you can browse by photos in the last hour, day, week, month, or year to date. We rank these photos and show you under any time period which 100 are showing up as the most awesome. You can filter discover by everyone's photos on Zooomr, by just your contacts, just your friends and family or just your own.
How do you guys decide which photos are awesome?
This is done by an algorithm but in general we look for both social activity around a photo (i.e., how many faves, commets, tags, etc it may have, as well as metadata associated with the photo (eg. geotags, tags, peopletags, descriptions, etc). We also make more editorial and subjective modifications from time to time.
Marketplace
1. What is Marketplace?
Zooomr believes that the next wave in stock photography belongs to all of us. In the past you used to have to be a Pro photographer to sell your photos for commercial use. Big companies dominated this industry and the little guy didn't really have a place to sell photos online for a fair price. With Zooomr you can list a price to sell your photo for (anywhere from $5 to $1,000). The first step will be for us to build a library of these images for sale. That's what we are doing right now. In the next few months we will be launching our marketplace site for photo buyers.
When photo buyers buy your photo they buy a royalty free license to use your image. They don't own your image, you are simply giving them a license to use it commercially. You always own your own image.
2. How is Zooomr different than microstock sites?
Well to start with most microstock sites sell your images for $5 or less. We believe that your images are actually worth a lot more. Microstock sites (in our opinion) also don't pay all that well. Some pay you as little as 20% of the proceeds of sale of your image. At Zooomr we'd like to redefine the relationship between photo buyer and photo creater (that's you). We'd like you to get as much of the money as humanly possible. Because Zooomr needs to pay the expenses to run the site though we have to hold back a little for ourselves. To start with we are going to pay photographers 80% of the money that their images sell for (after our transaction cost with Paypal). We'll keep 20% and try to run the site on that. Hopefully we can increase the payout for photographs to 90% soon if we can run the site on a 10% cut. Keep in mind that it is not our goal to get rich with our cut. We simply want enough to run the site. Zooomr was started by photographers for photographers. We will always do our very best to do right by those that choose to sell photos through Zooomr and give them as large a cut as we possibly can.
We hope that you will see that by paying out as much as we can we are advocates for all who wish to sell their photos online. And we hope that when we launch our photo marketplace for buyers that you will help spread the word that Zooomr is a place that people ought to buy their photos. If you know magazines or art directors or anyone on the creative side of things, pointing them to Zooomr will help us and you out.
3. What about model releases?
Yes, if you have an identifiable person in a photo you will need a model release for that person. Even if the person is you, you will need to sign your own model release. If people in photographs are minors you will need their legal guardian to sign a model release. Before we can sell photos with identifiable people in them we will need to have these model releases on file. We will have a submission process for model releases shortly.
Avatars
1. How can I get one of those slick avatars?
On every photo page in the right hand column is an Extra Tools section. If you click on the "Use This Photo as an Avatar" link you can use that photo for your avatar. This is currently not available with our Mark III release but will be back up in a few days.
City and Country listing
1. I've noticed on some people's comments that it says what city and country that they are from. How can I get this too?
You will be able to do this in a few days when our Accounts pages are up.
Easy, just go to the You tab and click on "Your Account." Next click on edit your profile. Under the offline information section you can in the city and country that you live in. When you enter information in there it will show when you comment on other people's photos.
Privacy
1. Can I mark a photo private if I don't want people to see it?
Yes. On the main photo page there is an icon of a little lock on the right hand side of the page. Click on that icon and you can designate who may see one of your photos. It can be for everyone to see, just for you, only for your friends and family, or only for your contacts.
2. Can I restrict the size that people can see of my photos?
Not with Mark III at present but we are working on a solution for this in the next few days. Bear with us.
Licensing
1. I want to designate my photo as Creative Commons. Can I do this?
Licensing changes will be available in a few days.
Sure just click on the licensing line and you can change your license as you wish. We are developing tools to make bulk changes that should be out shortly.
Lightbox
1. What is Lightbox?
Lightbox is a great way to view a photograph. Simply click on the little photograph icon when you hover over any thumbnail or smaller photo on the site. That photo will then enlarge and the background will darken so that you can get a great view of the photo. Click anywhere off the photo to return to regular viewing. You can advance through photos looking at them this way.
Faves
1. How can I mark a photo as a favorite?
Simply click on the empty little heart above any photo on it's photo page or hover over a small photo in someone's photostream and click on the heart. Faving is a good thing. Share the love. Spread the joy.
Faves are currently unavailable under Mark III, but expect to see them back in a few days.
Tagging / Labeling
1. Can I tag photos or add labels to photos?
Yes, you can tag yours and others. There is no limit to the number of tags you can have on a photo but we ask that you not spam tag photos with keywords that clearly don't relate to the photo.
Groups
1. What are groups?
Groups are places for you to hang out with other members of the Zooomr Community. You can post photos to groups and have conversations in groups. Groups are started by administrators who have some control over the basic function of a group.
2. Why aren't the photo pools working with groups.
Expect to see these in the next few weeks.
Geotagging
What is geotagging?
Geotagging is a way that you can use Google Maps to tag where your photograph was taken. To geotag a photo you click on the "Geotag it Now" link on any photo's main page. You will then be taken to a Google map that you can use to pinpoint the location of the photo on a map and mark it. If you use the "Jump" feautre on the map you can type in a city or a place and it might pop up and let you jump the map directly there.
People Tags
1. What are people tags?
People tags are a way for you to identify your friends who are on Zooomr in a photo. To create a people tag simply click on the "Add People" link on the main photo page and then you will be prompted to draw a note around the person you are identifying. You will then be prompted to add in their first name, last name and email address. If we already have a record for this person this photo of them will be added to their record. If we don't have a record for them we will send them an email letting them know that you've uploaded a photo with them in it. This way they can see the photo too if they'd like and claim their profile if they have not already.
API
1. Hey Zooomr's great. Do you have an Open API that I can develop to?
Yes, we will announce the page to get an API key shortly.
Translations
1. I'd like to translate Zooomr into a language that it's not in yet? Can I do this?
Yes, you can learn more about that here.
Community Stuff
1. What is your position on nudity?
Nudity is a tricky thing. We definitely don't want Zooomr to turn into a porn site. But at the same time we think that nude fine art photography, although potentially edgy certainly, has a place. So we allow nude photography within limitations. These limitations are that we reserve the right to use an "explicit" screen over certain photos on Zooomr. If you see a screen like this you can simply click on it and you will see the photo. But if you don't want to see something potentially offensive you can just skip it. We think that at present this represents the best way to both allow photographic freedom while protecting others from viewing potentially unwanted material.
If we see stuff that is not really artistic expression but really is more porn than anything, we might need to mark it private for only you to see. We have to look at these on a case by case basis and we're sorry we can't be more definitive about things than this. In general if two people are engaged in a sex act in the photo then we probably are going to look at it as porn. If on the other hand there is just a single person in the photo we will probably be less inclined to look at it as porn. If you want to object to our decision though to mark your photo as private only for your viewing we are happy to hear your case.
If you see a photograph that you think is particularly offensive please email us a link at abuse@zooomr.com.
2. What is your position on copyrighted photographs?
We strongly discourage anyone from uploading photos that they did not take/make themselves. If you didn't take the photo yourself then it probably shouldn't be in your stream. Unless you label it as not your own and have explicit permission from its owner. Stealing images for sure is not cool. To report one of your photos that is appearing on someone's account please email us at abuse@zooomr.com. If you steal people's images we will probably terminate your account.
3. Someone on Zooomr is harassing me, what can I do?
Please report this person to abuse@zooomr.com. We will deal with it the best that we can.
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