Zooomr08, as the dust settles

Since we are just over a month into Zooomr Release 2008 (aka MarkIV) I thought that it might be a good time to reflect upon a few of the issues that were present in MarkIII and were going to be fixed in MarkIV, as well as a few items that were added since MarkIV. This list is in no way complete, and does not cover the "backend" issues, this if merely a view from a user's standpoint.

Broken/Fixed:

• Smartsets - (still broken) What's the point of creating a set of photos, if once you click to view one of them, you break out of the set and into the unordered photo stream. It's like organizing your rock collection but then storing it in scrambled eggs. Sure, it's all collected there and ready to look at, but it's messy as hell and you eventually give up on it.
  
  
• Geotagging - (somewhat broken) Geotagging within Zooomr is time consuming and often requires refreshing of the page in the middle of it all, which loses all of your unsaved geotags. Your other option is to geotag outside of Zooomr, and *maybe* Zoooomr will accept it, maybe not. Do you feel lucky...punk?
  
  
• EXIF - (somewhat fixed) Lots of cameras are showing EXIF info now, though not all. Also, once certain programs touch the EXIF, Zooomr seems to avoid it like the plague, even though all the other services still welcome the EXIF with open arms. Also, your back photos that didn't show EXIF before, yeah, they don't show EXIF now either (see also Batch edit). Zooomr apparently does not like getting chocolate mixed in with it's peanut-butter.
  
  
• Zipline - (broken, see Additions secton below) There is an issue with Zipline that has gone on since day one and which was supposed to be fixed in Zooomr08 but hasn't been. The issue is that when someone uploads more than X number of photos at once, the remaining photos (over 5?) that aren't shown in the Zipline take up space in the Zipline and offsets every other post. The result is that the Zipline will sometimes have several pages with 1 post on them, or sometimes it's the same post over and over for several pages if the person posted enough photos. It really cramps the Zipline's style.
  
  
• Zipline - (fixed) There was a delete button added to Zipline posts, eliminating most of the broken discussions in the Zipline. (see Additions below)
  

Missing/Lost/Dropped:

• Batch edit/delete/tag - (promised, missing) This one was a big one, and it was promised with 2008 release, but there it isn't. What more can be said, without it, you have to hand-edit each individual post.
  
  
• Geomap/TagMap - (gone) Removed prior to Zooomr08, though it hadn't been functioning for a long time already, so maybe it's best that way. though you can still find it, lurking in the shadows, and somewhat crippled.
  
  
• Trackbacks - (missing, dropped?) Trackbacks were there, they were gone, they were coming back, now they are...MIA.
  
  
• Analytics - (dropped?) Analytics was a feature promised with MarkIII, then put off, then...went into the Vaporsphere (see also Marketplace).
  
  
• Marketplace - (dropped?) The big selling point for MarkIII was the marketplace, where you could sell your photos. The market place was then pushed off until there was a "good base of photos in themarketplace first". Then, it packed up it's bags and left the country, no note, no call, last seen in Japan.

Additions:

• Zipline - (addition) The zipline received a few tweaks to it, some for the better, some for worse. The good, you can delete your Zipline posts, which is especially handy since the the Zipline works in weird ways sometimes causing users to mis-post replies. For instance, if you are reading a thread on the Zipline in it's entirety, and you post using the right side post box, your start a new post, where one would think that your post would be specific to the thread you are reading.
  
  
  The bad...Twitter integration. While it could be a good feature, it simply is not. Between broken conversations that nobody can follow on the Twitter side, to broken URL trackbacks to the original Zipline thread, that don't actually lead back to the original thread, this feature is pretty much useless, aside from letting your friends know that you've posted a photo. Also, if users decide to make their Zipline available to contacts only, it all goes south.
  
  The bad II...icons!? Really, I mean, what's the point? People love to complain about the MySpace-ization and dumbing down of other services, but who can take a photo service so seriously when the welcome page and Zipline (the two things you are presented with when entering Zooomr) are littered with dancing, blinking, waving icons? It brings me back to the days of AOL and AOL chatrooms...blech!
  
  
• Mobile - (addition) While this may be good for some, it shifts the focus of Zooomr from a photo site to a chat/im/cameraphone service(Shozu anyone?). Why mix photos that were worthy of selling in a serious stock photo manner last year, with 1.3megapixel camera phone photos of what someone had for breakfast? Really, it takes Zooomr down a few notches in the overall quality of photos.

As stated, this list is in no way complete, if you'd like a more detailed list, be sure to check out Zooomr's own TRAC system which has all of the recent, current, and continuous hiccups and bugs listed. Be forewarned, it will take some time to go through.