:Always Breaking

This week I decided to take Google Forms for a spin to test out a new feature that allows you to feed data from a web form into a spreadsheet. Since Zooomr had a major upgrade on March 3 and because the community there is awesome, I figured a Zooomr survey would be a good topic for my little experiment. If you haven’t taken the survey, please do.

Before I talk about the survey, I want to be clear about a couple of things. First, Zooomr is awesome. I believe it is the future of photo sharing online. Kris is building an incredible site to match the incredible community. Second, this survey was designed more for me to learn about Google forms and spreadsheets, not as a way to promote or vent about Zooomr. Take it with a grain of salt, less than 60 people have responded so far, so the sample size is way too small to hold any statistical significance. I had fun doing the survey and think people had fun taking it. That was the point.

Survey Results

Here’s what I learned about Zooomr users: They’re almost all guys who live all over the world, most like Barack Obama, use Windows, and use a DSLR camera. Ok, a bit of an oversimplification, but still mostly accurate based on the data. For those that want to see the summary data, you can view it at http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pdevXlWEbsfBu89OaL9_KYQ. This only shows the multiple choice questions, not the text fields. I even threw in a couple of pretty charts for those visual folks. I think a few people reading this like visuals, just a hunch.

I want to focus on the open answer questions. There were only two open answer questions on the survey (aside from DSLR model); here’s my take on the responses. Some commentary on the other questions is at the end.

What’s the coolest thing about Zooomr?
In a word, Community. The community and social aspects Zooomr are definitely what people like about the site. Oddly, no one mentioned quality of photos. I’m ok with that. My answer was community, not photography. My favorite response was “You and everyone else like you.” I think that pretty much sums it up.

A close second is the features Zooomr offers, specifically unlimited uploads and Zipline (which could be considered part of Community). A couple of people mentioned Kris, which is worth noting here because Kris has done an incredible job of building a great social site that also happens to be a great photo sharing site. There may be features we still want, but the main draw to Zooomr is the people and Kris understands that. He’s made it easy for us to be part of a community. So my personal thanks to Kris Tate.

What’s the one thing you want that Zooomr doesn’t have right now?
Even though I said “one thing” most people listed several. The responses to this question didn’t have any surprises because I’ve been using Zooomr for a long time and have closely followed the bugs and feature requests in the groups.

It’s hard to pick one or two things, so here are a few of the more common requests:

• Make all sizes viewable based on contacts and/or licensing (there were several variations on this, I’m paraphrasing)
• Bulk editing for things like licensing
• Improvements to Groups, like photo pools and searching
• Fix Geotagging

There were people that said they were happy with Zooomr and the recent upgrade. I’d like to say I’m glad to see EXIF data for my photos. The best response was “A direct link into my brain?”

All the other questions

I wasn’t overly surprised by any of the results. For example, the overwhelming majority of Zooomrites use a DSLR camera with a fairly even mix of Canon and Nikon users with some Pentax and Sony users in the mix. Based on the quality of photos I see on Zooomr, I expected that most people use DSLRs. DSLRs have come down in price in recent years, so people can afford them.

In terms of demographics, I was a little surprised that only 4 people who responded are female. I thought there were more women using Zooomr, or maybe it’s just that they didn’t respond. Geographically, users are all over the globe, which I think is great. One of things I’ve always loved about Zooomr is finding shots from parts of the world I’ve never visited.

Oh, people were split on the smiling clouds. Half got rid of them, half said they’re cute. As a side note, Kris put up a lot more themes that did not include clouds after the survey went online. The best part, you can change your theme. If you’re inclined, you can put rainbows and unicorns on your Zooomr page, but I’d caution against it.

Summary

Zooomr Rocks.
Seriously, people like Zooomr and the community. If you spend any amount of time there, then you already know that. The really cool thing is that you get a great photo sharing site along with the cool people.

Oh, and the Google tools worked great. I’m not a spreadsheet guru, but I was able to learn what I needed in a couple of hours.

1 Comment

Three days ago Zooomr announced paid Pro accounts for $19.95. Every Zooomr user saw the add for accounts when the logged in (except the the Pro4Life members, I assume) so pretty much everyone that uses Zooomr knows about the new offering. What does $20 get you on Zooomr? At this point, not much, just the promise that you won’t see ads and some “cool and interesting” features that Kristopher is developing.

So how does the Zooomr community respond? Judging by the comments on the blog entry, a lot of people are annoyed or down right pissed off. Many people posted positive comments, but I was a little surprised by the complaining. The major theme of the complaints is “Zooomr doesn’t work yet, why should I pay for a Pro account? When all the features work, then I’ll pay, maybe.”

Let’s just look at this logically for a moment. Zooomr is free. Zooomr is still in beta. Zooomr is the coolest photo sharing site on the web. How can you complain about a free beta version of something that while still in development is better than any other service? If you don’t want to pay, then don’t. If you want to wait, then wait, but cut Kris and Thomas some slack. They are doing great work and haven’t asked for anything in return until now.

And is $20.00 really that much? If you’re posting pictures on Zooomr then you have a digital camera. Odds are you spent at least a few hundred dollars (or a few thousand) to get the camera. You pay monthly for an Internet connection. You paid for your computer. All this adds up to a lot of money. I personally a have less $3000 into my camera, computer, and software so $20 is nothing. If you use Windows consider this - Windows costs a lot for an OS, and it is about the buggiest thing I’ve ever seen, still millions of people use it everyday with no expectation Microsoft will ever turn out a better product. I know Zooomr will work, and it will work fabulously.

Zooomr is only asking $20. That is such a small amount of money for anyone who can afford even the most basic point and shoot camera. If you go out with some buddies for the night you will easily spend $20 before you even start to feel a buzz. It’s such a small amount of money that I can’t believe people are complaining.

True, at this point you don’t get much for it. Just think of it as a donation to Zooomr. I ate out with my family and a couple of friends from out of town last night. We left a $20 tip for the waiter (it was not overly generous based on the bill, but respectable). Kris and Thomas have done a lot more for me than the waiter did. Rauol Pop makes some good arguments for upgrading to a Pro account on his blog. The most obvious one is that Zooomr doesn’t have limits on uploads. He also mentions some bugs that got fixed recently.

The price of the Pro account is not worth complaining about. You can afford it. The features will work, you know they will. Be patient, show your support, and pay the $20.

Search your soul, you’ll probably realize you’ve used $20 worth of Zooomr features, even the ones that don’t work yet.

I’ll have a photo tomorrow, I just had to get this off my chest and support Zooomr.

1 Comment

So I haven’t been out shooting, so have had nothing to post. There are a billion excuses, but no one wants to hear them. Bottom line, I need to get out and start taking pictures, even if it’s of the ground.
I have found a couple of sites worth mentioning, and signing up on. The first is JPG Magazine. They run a lot of “theme” contests where you submit photos on a theme, then other members vote. Winners get published in the print version of the magazine. Hundreds of photos get submitted, some of which are so-so, but there are a lot of really stunning photos in every theme. Check out the current themes at http://jpgmag.com/themes/.
The second site, which has a tie-in to JPG Magazine is 9 Rules. There is a photography group that also has members post photos based on a theme. The best picture in the current theme gets a free subscription to the print version of JPG Magazine, courtesy of publicenergy. I actually came across 9 rules via publicenergy’s blog. He has some really amazing infrared shots. Worth checking out.
In other news, I bought a 4 gb compact flash card so I can shoot more RAW photos. I brought my camera with me to work today, so I’ll go out at lunch and find something to take pictures of. Anything. I also recently bought a Gorillapod that I have yet to use to any great extent. Hopefully by Monday I’ll have something to post.
I have been putting some images on Zooomr if you want to see a few newer shots.

1 Comment

So, Wednesday night I was replying to a comment on Zooomr for the Flower Fairy photo and decided to go grab the manual for my camera to check something. I snagged my little toe on the corner of the couch and broke my foot. Damn. I should have taken a picture of my foot with the toe sticking out a sideways. It wasn’t straight out, but definitely not pointing the right direction. I have a few photos I took the day before that I’m going to post, but it may take a couple of more days.

I went to the doc yesterday, but didn’t get the call back until after I left work, so I didn’t get the message until this morning. The really lame thing is that I went the see the Giants last night (they won, Zito was great) and had to walk a long, long way from the car, then back. After the walking I had an idea it was broken, so I wasn’t real surprised by the message.

If I can get the x-ray, maybe I’ll post that.

In the meantime, check out publicenergy. He has some really cool infrared shots.

No Comments

Wikimedia is Wikipedia’s somewhat lesser known counterpart for media, including lots of photos. Apparently there was some kind of contest to choose the best photo of 2006. I found out about it today via Digg. The photo that won is really stunning. You can view it at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2006. I’ve always wanted to see the Northern Lights, and this just adds to my desire. Maybe someday.

About the photo, the final version was retouched and enhanced. The photographer posted the original to Wikimedia as well. I respect that because I often wonder when I see a stunning photo just how much it was edited. Photoshop is a great tool, but I have to question where the line is between artistic photos and realistic photos. I tend to be more minimalist regarding editing photos, and don’t get into the heavy enhancements or filters, but seeing the difference between the original and finished photo makes me want to learn more about retouching photos. I think the retouching done on this photo added to the visual impact without distorting reality.

Kudos to the photographer Joshua Strang.

No Comments

I’ve been waiting for Zooomr to come back online after their upgrade to Mark III, but as of right now it is still down. It was supposed to be up yesterday, but they must have run into some problems. I have a couple of photos there that I want to post here, but can’t get to them. Maybe later today or tomorrow.

Some of the new features sound really cool, as you can see from the screen shot. One that I’m anxious to try out is searching by color. From the Zooomr blog:

“Zooomr Mark III Boasts an impressive new search system along side our marketplace — one of the coolest features of marketplace is that we can now search by the overall color of each photograph. This requires intense processing of each photograph, and while we have 5 superfast quad-xeon servers processing multiple batches of photos, it is taking a bit longer than expected.”

Sounds cool, I wonder how it will work. What will a search for teal return? What about searching on hex codes? Anyway, can’t wait for Zooomr to get back up and running.

2 Comments

This is not a photo post, but some links.

I found this on Digg today. Some impressive aerial shots from around the world. I wish I had a nice helicopter to use for photography. http://files.kavefish.com/pictures/collections/pictures_from_the_sky/_index-list.html

Also, Adobe moved Photoshop Lightroom out of beta today. If you have $200 to drop, it’s yours. I’ve only looked at the online promo video for it, and at first glance it looks a lot like Picasa. I like Photoshop, but it is way out of my price range. I’m hoping Lightroom has the features I would like without all the extra stuff I never use. At first glance, I looks like it does. I stopped upgrading Photoshop at version 6 and have used up through CS2 at work, but can’t afford it for my personal use. However, Lightroom is much closer to my price range, although not as close as Picasa. It is definitely geared for professional photographers with a lot of export/printing functions geared toward pros, but the simple exposure and touch-up features are intriguing.

I’ll download the trial version and see if it is worth $200 more than Picasa.  Being a photo-hobbyist, it may not be worth the money.  But’s its worth looking at.
Maybe I’ll download the trial version and see how it behaves.

No Comments

It has been rainy for the past couple of days, and I don’t really like the idea of getting my camera all wet. I tried to go out yesterday, but it was absolutely pouring. I’ll try again today.  So I’m not doing a photo a day. If the weather continues like this, I’ll post some older images.
I did see an interesting article on Digg about megapixels as a marketing tool. It’s worth the read http://www.thetechlounge.com/article/379/

No Comments

My camera battery died, so I couldn’t transfer the images to the computer and don’t have an AC adapter.  I have an image, I just have to wait to post it. We had some friends over and I’m tired, so today’s image will have to be posted tomorrow.  At least I took the picture even if I didn’t post it.

No Comments