The Really Mobile Project - Latest Comments in STOP PRESS: ShoZu to start charging!

Re: STOP PRESS: ShoZu to start charging!

Gabe — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:10:33 -0000

Yeah. ShoZu's kind of bloated now. Hard to build a good app that people will buy, especially as everything is going to the browser.

My statement was more: *if * there's a good app, surely it's worth the price of sandwich.

As an example, I paid for Gravity (a good app, no complaints), but mostly I just use @dabr in the browser because it's faster.

Re: STOP PRESS: ShoZu to start charging!

Gabe — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 07:10:33 -0000

Yeah. ShoZu's kind of bloated now. Hard to build a good app that people will buy, especially as everything is going to the browser.

My statement was more: *if * there's a good app, surely it's worth the price of sandwich.

As an example, I paid for Gravity (a good app, no complaints), but mostly I just use @dabr in the browser because it's faster.

Re: STOP PRESS: ShoZu to start charging!

caaarlo — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 19:57:34 -0000

The problem for me, though, Gabe is that the way ShoZu's been performing, I'm not sure I like it all that much :)

Re: STOP PRESS: ShoZu to start charging!

James Whatley — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:48:46 -0000

Hey Brett,

Just seen your Tweet, (http://twitter.com/pixelpipe/statuses/2043971546), glad to hear that you're a) listening and b) there's a fix coming.

The Share Online setup *is* confusing and a step by step guide would be best, maybe for each OS/integration option.

'@flickr' vs 'flickr' - who knows? ;)

James.

Re: STOP PRESS: ShoZu to start charging!

brettb — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:17:59 -0000

James,

As I explained briefly on twitter the Routing Tags are all prefixed with an @ character. We scan the body of the post and look for corresponding tags associated with your destinations. If we find a tag that's been associated with one or more destinations we override your default services for upload and just send to those associated with the routing tag. So in brief you needed to include "@flickr" and not simply "flikr" as a tag to be utilized for routing.

Here's a few tips:

- Turn off TwitPic and other services that send to Twitter as a default destination and only enable through routing tags

- You can create groups by giving the same tag to multiple services eg. @friends, @status

- We create a tag with the service name by default however you can rename and add additional tags eg. Facebook: @fb,social,all. Now I can include any three of those tags and Facebook will be included in the upload as well as any other service that includes these tags.

Hopefully that makes things a bit more clear then my brief explanation on Twitter, customer support can be frustrating at a 140 char limit. Thanks for all of the feedback, we're incorporating a few of your suggestions now to make things a bit more obvious.

-Brett

Re: STOP PRESS: ShoZu to start charging!

caaarlo — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:57:34 -0000

The problem for me, though, Gabe is that the way ShoZu's been performing, I'm not sure I like it all that much :)

Re: STOP PRESS: ShoZu to start charging!

James Whatley — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 11:48:46 -0000

Hey Brett,

Just seen your Tweet, (http://twitter.com/pixelpip..., glad to hear that you're a) listening and b) there's a fix coming.

The Share Online setup *is* confusing and a step by step guide would be best, maybe for each OS/integration option.

'@flickr' vs 'flickr' - who knows? ;)

James.

Re: STOP PRESS: ShoZu to start charging!

brettb — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 11:17:59 -0000

James,

As I explained briefly on twitter the Routing Tags are all prefixed with an @ character. We scan the body of the post and look for corresponding tags associated with your destinations. If we find a tag that's been associated with one or more destinations we override your default services for upload and just send to those associated with the routing tag. So in brief you needed to include "@flickr" and not simply "flikr" as a tag to be utilized for routing.

Here's a few tips:

- Turn off TwitPic and other services that send to Twitter as a default destination and only enable through routing tags

- You can create groups by giving the same tag to multiple services eg. @friends, @status

- We create a tag with the service name by default however you can rename and add additional tags eg. Facebook: @fb,social,all. Now I can include any three of those tags and Facebook will be included in the upload as well as any other service that includes these tags.

Hopefully that makes things a bit more clear then my brief explanation on Twitter, customer support can be frustrating at a 140 char limit. Thanks for all of the feedback, we're incorporating a few of your suggestions now to make things a bit more obvious.

-Brett

Re: STOP PRESS: ShoZu to start charging!

Gabe — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 10:36:16 -0000

"it's hard to see those features justifying the price." -- in that case, no, you wouldn't buy it. Any product has to be worth the money, obviously.

But an app you like that works better than a free alternative would be worth 5 euro, I'd think.

Re: STOP PRESS: ShoZu to start charging!

Really Mobile — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 09:53:06 -0000

As a snapshot of the competition right now I think you're right - to a greater or lesser extent you can match Shozu's features for free. ...but with the exception of Nokia's buit-in option I don't think the others business models are sustainable, so they'll either have to start charging or go under.

Re: STOP PRESS: ShoZu to start charging!

James Whatley — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 08:16:58 -0000

You guys just spammed my damn Twitter account!

....

Hi Brett, thanks for the words.

I no longer have the HTC Magic (but I am still having problems - which I'll come to), I appreciate the detailed explanation. It's not entirely clear from first installation that this is how you can share your photos.
Maybe something to review given that I'm not the only one here who's mentioned the UI issues?

Since swapping my Magic with Ben however, I've tried to use Pixelpipe via Share Online on my Nokia. This morning when I tried to upload a 19 photos to flickr, and ONLY flickr - Pixelpipe didn't pick up the 'flickr' tag on the photos and you guys spammed my Twitter account with 19 twitpics.

Really, really not good.

Was this an error or was there something else I was supposed to do before I hit 'upload' ?

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=whatleydude+...

Re: STOP PRESS: ShoZu to start charging!

Gabe — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 04:36:16 -0000

"it's hard to see those features justifying the price." -- in that case, no, you wouldn't buy it. Any product has to be worth the money, obviously.

But an app you like that works better than a free alternative would be worth 5 euro, I'd think.

Re: STOP PRESS: ShoZu to start charging!

Really Mobile — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 03:53:06 -0000

Re: STOP PRESS: ShoZu to start charging!

James Whatley — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 02:16:58 -0000

You guys just spammed my damn Twitter account!

....

Hi Brett, thanks for the words.

I no longer have the HTC Magic (but I am still having problems - which I'll come to), I appreciate the detailed explanation. It's not entirely clear from first installation that this is how you can share your photos.
Maybe something to review given that I'm not the only one here who's mentioned the UI issues?

Since swapping my Magic with Ben however, I've tried to use Pixelpipe via Share Online on my Nokia. This morning when I tried to upload a 19 photos to flickr, and ONLY flickr - Pixelpipe didn't pick up the 'flickr' tag on the photos and you guys spammed my Twitter account with 19 twitpics.

Really, really not good.

Was this an error or was there something else I was supposed to do before I hit 'upload' ?

http://search.twitter.com/s...

Re: STOP PRESS: ShoZu to start charging!

roland — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 00:25:01 -0000

the 10MB/video upload cap is still in place. I too have asked for it to be raised, 50MB please ShoZu

ok, so to up the ante

I'll pay 20 Euro for:
1) non ninja :-)
2) 50MB or higher video upload cap

...Roland 28000 photos via ShoZu to flickr and hundreds more every week
http://flickr.com/roland

Re: STOP PRESS: ShoZu to start charging!

caaarlo — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 21:23:30 -0000

It will be difficult for ShoZu to convert existing free users to paid ones. Yes, it will remain free for current users, but when they get a new device, or cross whatever threshold ShoZu's set up (version upgrade, or something, who knows), it appears they will have to pay. Perhaps 5 euros isn't much, but when other services exist that do largely the same thing for free, it is a lot. What's ShoZu's differentiation that warrants the price, and more importantly, how will they communicate that to users alongside their free competitors, or the built-in capabilities of devices?

This speaks to Dan's point: on its own, 5 euros isn't much. But it's measured relative to the free competition. And I've never bought into the "it's a service, they deserve to get compensated for their costs" argument -- business models don't exist in a vacuum. Just as ShoZu has a choice of business model and pricing, consumers have a choice of whether they want to buy in or not, too.

This harkens back to the flap over the cost of the Gravity app. Seems like largely the same thing: if you don't like the price, don't pay it. Surely that's the risk of any business, and we as consumers shouldn't be compelled to give any business our money because they previously used a business model that saw their services provided for free.

ShoZu does have some nice features over other similar apps and services. But it's hard to see those features justifying the price.

Re: STOP PRESS: ShoZu to start charging!

roland — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 18:25:01 -0000

the 10MB/video upload cap is still in place. I too have asked for it to be raised, 50MB please ShoZu

ok, so to up the ante

I'll pay 20 Euro for:
1) non ninja :-)
2) 50MB or higher video upload cap

...Roland 28000 photos via ShoZu to flickr and hundreds more every week
http://flickr.com/roland

Re: STOP PRESS: ShoZu to start charging!

brettb — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 18:14:15 -0000

If you're getting double posts make sure that you haven't setup multiple service that post to the same place. The most common is to send to multiple sites that all post the result to Twitter, sending to Twitter from Pixelpipe and Twitpic will result in the same post twice. You can also add the same service multiple times, this is useful if you want to post to multiple accounts on for example Flickr however will result in a double post if their both configured to the same account. You can verify this setting under My Pipes.

Tip: You can override your default destinations at the time of upload by use of Routing Tags, simply include the service name and we'll send just to those destination @twitter, @facebook. You can customize the names and even setup groups by using the same name with multiple services eg. @family

Re: STOP PRESS: ShoZu to start charging!

brettb — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 18:04:37 -0000

We are free to consumers however do charge application developers and content providers to utilize our platform. They get to plug-in to the Social Web by developing just to one API and we provide the services and platform to make it happen. We charge simply based on bandwidth and storage utilized or revenue share so it's a really cost effective solution since the developer get to remove the expense of development, servers and maintenance.

Re: STOP PRESS: ShoZu to start charging!

brettb — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 17:49:48 -0000

Hmm, we're not running the exact same firmware as you since we have the Google ION phones. We've been using ours almost exclusively and uploading loads of photos and videos without any issues so I'm a little confused why they're having problems. I'll see if we can get our hands on a Magic and get this sorted out.

Re: STOP PRESS: ShoZu to start charging!

brettb — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 17:42:47 -0000

We integrate with the default camera and album applications on Android phones so you really never need to open our application other then setup (I recommend doing from a desktop web browser). Because of the clever way that Android allows applications to share capabilities you can actually upload from the Share menu through Pixelpipe from most any application that supports media.

Just select Share from the Menu button, scroll down to Pixelpipe and we'll open a very pleasant dialog that allows you to set Title, Caption and Tags. Press Share to start the upload and then the Home key to put us in the background and you're done.

The main application is really for users that want to upload groups of media (photo, video, audio) or text only posts to blogs and status services. I agree it's busy however it's not an easy task doing all we do on a phone.

You should also have a look at our huge selection of desktop solutions as well, the same Pixelpipe account provides a very robust set of options for media upload for desktop and mobile. Give us another shot and get back to us with any feedback to android@pixelpipe.com.

Re: STOP PRESS: ShoZu to start charging!

fernando — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 17:39:55 -0000

never liked shozu anyway, now as you have to pay for installing a bloated app, I doubt many will use it

Re: STOP PRESS: ShoZu to start charging!

MarkW — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:13:25 -0000

I agree that four quid isn't a lot for decent functionality. And let's face it, Shozu have been doing this for free for ages. It would seem a shame if a load of inferior pap suddenly appears on Ovi Store and starts taking money, yet a service you could describe as something of an S60 pioneer/leader is left trying to find other ways to generate income. If they can get a few quid for the app, they should go for it.

Re: STOP PRESS: ShoZu to start charging!

caaarlo — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:23:30 -0000

This speaks to Dan's point: on its own, 5 euros isn't much. But it's measured relative to the free competition. And I've never bought into the "it's a service, they deserve to get compensated for their costs" argument -- business models don't exist in a vacuum. Just as ShoZu has a choice of business model and pricing, consumers have a choice of whether they want to buy in or not, too.

This harkens back to the flap over the cost of the Gravity app. Seems like largely the same thing: if you don't like the price, don't pay it. Surely that's the risk of any business, and we as consumers shouldn't be compelled to give any business our money because they previously used a business model that saw their services provided for free.

ShoZu does have some nice features over other similar apps and services. But it's hard to see those features justifying the price.

Also, in my personal experience, ShoZu's performance has slipped over my last two devices (N82 and E71). Given that, I'm more likely to seek out alternative solutions than pay the cost whenever it comes due.

Re: STOP PRESS: ShoZu to start charging!

Ricky Cadden — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:48:20 -0000

What killed ShoZu for me was several things:

1. The addition of bloat - ZuCasts, etc - they slowed the app down, and made it use far too much resources, which made it unusable on the original N95 and the N95-3. In fact, I was a huge supporter until then. I posted several times on their forums, and never got a clear answer as to why we couldn't get a 'lite' version for phones like that.

2. 10MB vid upload cap - you can't use ShoZu to upload videos larger than 10MB (this might have changed in the past 2 years, who knows). When I got my N95, I was creating even 20-60 second videos that were WAY larger than 10MB, but I couldn't use ShoZu to upload them. Again, posting on their forum didn't help, even when I offered a 'Plus' subscription version with a higher limit (paid monthly or so). No response (and clearly no action, that was in 2007).

3. I switch phones - often. Being able to switch phones and not miss a beat is CRUCIAL, and everything I use thus far can do it - except ShoZu, as Kevin pointed out. Why would I pay for a service (and re-pay repeatedly as I get new phones) that's actually going to make my life harder?

I'll agree, ShoZu's interface is nice, and the auto-upload without asking feature is handy, but I'm not going to pay to download an app that doesn't do things I want it to, and that comes from a company who clearly doesn't listen to their users.