Updates Galore!
Hello fellow 72 users! Hope your doing well. It may seem we’ve been lacking in the blogging area lately, but I promise that will profoundly change after this incredible update.
We’ve been working extremely hard on fine-tuning and integrating tons of exciting new features for members over the past few weeks, features that will greatly increase the overall usability of 72photos and encourage communication between users. These features in question have finally materialized and have been released today.
I’ll spare the more technical details and jump right to the list of features/changes included in this months update:
Flickr / Picasa Importing
We’re extremely happy to introduce our long awaiting Flickr and Picasa importing features. The new Flickr importing feature not only allows you to import all your public & private flickr photos, but also has the ability to import your photo sets (automatically creating 72photo galleries for them!). But wait! It gets better. We’ve also included a “Merge” option you can select during import to grab photos from your flickr account that you may have added after your initial import. Picasa importing has also been added. We’re still working on ways to accommodate very large flickr and picasa imports, so if you happen to get timed out, you can re-run the import with the merge option to continue where you left off. Pretty nifty, eh?Configure 72photos Wizard
We’ve developed a new wizard to help you setup your basic account information in 4 easy steps. For new users, this “Wizard” will popup on your first login and for current members you can access the wizard via the “Configure 72photos” on the left side of your dashboard.User Messaging
Send personal messages to your friends and other users on 72photos with the new messaging system. Messages support embedded photos so you can show your friends that cool photo you saw on 72. Messages work in “conversation” form to make having a message with multiple people a breeze and to keep your inbox organized.Find / Invite Friends
Find out if your email contacts are already on 72photos and automatically add them as your friend or invite them if their not with the friend finder feature. Located at the bottom left of every page in your dashboard (Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo currently supported).Updated Profile Photo Selector
You now have the ability to crop your profile photo in any way. Your original photo is always saved giving you the ability to re-crop at anytime.There’s much more to these updates then I’ve included in this post, so in order to help everyone maximize their 72photos account, we’ll be posting periodic updates over the next few weeks elaborating on certain areas of the system.
How about that for an update? Let us know what you think!
Server Migration Complete!
As highlighted in last weeks post about our upcoming features, We’ve just completed a rigorous server migration to a stack of shiny new, blazing fast machines.
The migration has gone as smooth as we could hope for and minimal downtime has incurred. You should already be experiencing a noticable increase in the overall speed of 72photos. We do however, ask you to bear with us as we work out some outlying bugs/other side-effects from the transfer over the weekend.
This migration also included a myriad of fixes and a few new features, most of them being subtleties you’ll notice when using the system casually. So, instead of elaborating on these nonessential changes, i’ll be heading back to work and begin polishing up the more substatial features we have planned for next weeks release.
Enjoy!
The Need For Speed
Wow, has it been an exciting few weeks here at 72! After our official release of 72Photos we’ve received hundreds of new members, thousands of images and a whopping 350% increase in web site traffic.
As our community continues to rapidly grow, we have started to see our existing server infrastructure peak resulting in decreased site performance. Because of this we have installed some new powerful servers, upped our internet connectivity and the time has now come to stretch these bad boys legs.
During Friday the 27th and Monday the 30th our techies will be bringing these new servers online one-by-one as well as transferring gigs and gigs of images and profile data. I’d like to apologize in advance for any slowness or interruption this may cause, but I promise you it is for the greater good.
So Jon, what else does 72 have up their sleeves?
Well I’m glad you asked that question! Besides fixing a few bugs with the previous release, we have a few concoctions coming your way shortly:
- Flickr Import. Ability to import images and tags from your existing Flickr account
- First Time User setup. When a new users signs up an automated wizard will assist you in configuring your profile, uploading images, creating galleries and inviting people to view them
- User to User Messaging. We’ve build our own internal messaging system that will allow you to send each other messages (not comments) which can be read from their your personal dashboard page
- Inappropriate Image Reporting. A more advanced version of reporting inappropriate content or copyrighted material to 72 administration
- Friend Search. Search for friends by name, sex, age, location, e-mail address. If your friend was not found, you’ll have the ability to send an e-mail invite to them to join us.
The 72Photos team and I would like to once again thank all of you for your continued support and wish to remind you that we are always looking for bright new ideas that enhance our overall community.
Official Release of 72Photos
HOT FEATURES – NEW LOOK – IT'S ALL FOR YOU!
After much anticipation 72Photos is pleased to announce the official first release of 72Photos. First, let us thank all of our users and followers for their support over the past year in "Beta" mode. We've received lots of inspirational ideas that helped direct our community to it's current status.
So whats in the 72Photos.com official release?
- New look and feel for our image and gallery previous pages
- Ability to leave a member a comment on their profile
- The option to reply to a comment left on a users profile or image
- Advanced RSS feeds that can be used to export your 72Photos data and information
- The option to choose the font and size of photo descriptions and comments
- Updated user interface that streamlines into the main 72Photos.com theme
- Live login! No need to login then find the page you were previously on
- Easy photo viewing with "Next" and "Previous" links
- Multiple software, cascading style sheets and database tweaks to enhance the performance of the site
- Updates to the "Social Networking" aspect of the community
- Small verbiage updates, new icons, things you'll probably never notice
What can we expect in the near future?
- We'll be upgrading our servers and facility over the next few weeks in order to optimize site speed and overall member experience. The updates are expected to be completed by July 1st. Please excuse any intermittent issues that arise as it's for the greater good.
- Periodic software updates and bug patches will be released as needed. Notice will be posted prior to any major releases.
A New 72photos On The Way
It's been seemingly quiet here at 72photos lately, but I assure you, thats quite the contrary. Development has been heating up lately as the 72photos team has been working diligently on bringing you a new version of 72photos.
Yes, you've read correctly, there is a shiny new version of 72photos on the way containing an innumerable amount of new features and fixes. Keep in mind this "new version" is a complete rebuild of 72photos (code wise) from the ground up.
Without further adieu, I offer some highlights of what's to come:
- A smoother user-experience – Exploring photos will become much more enjoyable with new explore sections.
- Social Improvements - A tremendous amount of "Social" improvements and additions will been implemented to improve the way you track and interact with cool photos you see.
- Better backend - A more "fine-tuned" user backend including refined organization and editing features is coming.
- Better company - A ton of changes are planned for how we operate internally as well, but surely, I won’t bore you with those. However, you will be experiencing a much faster bug fixing turn-around time as well as more periodic updates and feature additions.
Now if that seemed anticlimactic in anyway, fear not! I have left out A LOT of things, as I don’t want to ruin all the surprises quite yet.
Check back often as changes will be released at any moment! (but more realistically, about 1-2 weeks 
)
NOTE: If you have any in mind or changes that you'd like to see…post a comment with your ideas.
