Some serious brownie points go to Aquila for showing us CT slowpokes how they do it in GP, and uploading a funky-mix video and a whole bunch of pics.

Check out the 27 Dinner photo channel here.

Check out the 27 Dinner video channel here, including full talks by Graham Knox (from Stormhoek), Glen Verran (from The ZA Show) and Mike Scott (creator of Bru and Boegie). A small technical glitch resulted in some focusing problems during Ian Gilfillan’s talk, mostly as a result of Gerry being too engrossed in what Ian had to say to notice that the camera needed a stabilised zoom Apologies Ian - but if anyone wants a copy of the talk anyway (and doesn’t mind the badly focused visuals), give us a shout.

Loads of great meet-ups and memories. See you at 27-6!

Just got back from this month’s 27 Dinner and our heads are still spinning a little. Not from the very drinkable Stormhoek wine (thanks Graham!), but from the overall satisfaction and excitement of a fantastic evening, spent with some very passionate people.

It was definitely an evening of firsts. Our first 27 event, first time meeting Dave Duarte (Dave, we love you man - props!) and first time being able to connect on the same level with some of SA’s sharpest and most creative internet minds. Henk and Skyrove team were there auctioning off some stuff for the iCommons cause, Ian Gilfillan left us thinking about the neutrality of technology, Bru and Boegie creator Michael Scott took us through his illustrative process and Rouvanne from Peak Performances was an incredibly enjoyable table partner. Also met and saw/listened to/admired loads of other really great people - including some valuable tech time with Neil (thanks man, we’re with you and we’re on it!), Kevin and Stelio (watch your inbox in the morning!).

It was also our first public outing of Zoopy Mobile - our video and photo sharing cellphone app that lets you register at Zoopy, upload videos and photos and include all the info you would when uploading via our site. It really is Zoopy-on-the-go. We’ll be putting up lots more info on this on Monday! (P.S. We posted a video and a couple of photos while at the event!)

Full videos of talks (and some photos) will be live on Saturday afternoon, so come back and see what happened!

I also took Dave up on his open mic request and shared some of the recent experiences we’ve had with others in the industry, supporting the notion of openness and exchange, rather than hanging on to exclusivity and old-school media ownership. Apparently I spoke too fast? *blush*

While in the spotlight, we also announced that we’re adding ANOTHER Sony DVD video camera to the prize pool at the next CT dinner in June. To qualify, you need to have attended and filmed/photographed SOMETHING at the 27 Dinner on 27 April. To submit your entry, just upload your stuff to the 27 Dinner video or photo channel and make sure you’re at the next 27 Dinner in CT. One vidcam will go to a random user (photos or videos) and the other will go to the user who posts the MOST videos and photos (combined). If it’s a tie for the most posted, we’ll take ratings into account. If it’s a tie on ratings, then we’ll look at views.

RIGHT. Time for bed - it’s freezing! The party’s still going on somewhere in a narrow street in Obs. Hope you guys have your cameras with you

Tonight was fantastic. See you all again in June!

Vincent Maher took a break from being a dad for a couple of hours to bring us the M&G Online interview with Jimmy ‘Wikipedia’ Wales, hosted by Matthew Buckland.

Here’s JW is in all his Web 2.0 glory!

We can’t wait to take our rain check from Feb’s 27 Dinner. While the rest of Cape Town’s geekdom were chatting and partying it up at Relish, we were patiently waiting for the drinks trolley to come speeding down the aisle in Economy Class (a couple of thousand feet in the air, on our way to meetings in Joburg).

But with the next CT Dinner rolling around this Friday, we’re pulling out all the stops. Between us, we’ve postponed a weekend away in George, put off a celeb dinner (they’re B list anyway:)) and, most importantly, spoken to Dave and Mike about adding a bit of Zoopy to the 27 mix.

Dave and I threw a few ideas around and here’s what we’ve come up with. We now have a video and photo channel specially created for 27 Dinner vids and pics on Zoopy.com. Anything that you’re willing to share/expose/flaunt can now be stored in one dedicated space, for Joburg and CT to see and share. And all of your private 27 stuff can still go up, just marked private - for special friends

For us, this really does expand on the true concept of Web 2.0. The only truly ‘official video’ should be the combined contribution of everyone’s take on the event: from 5 second mobile clips to full 10 minute videos of talks. Not to mention photos!

But Friday is FREEdom Day, so …

THEN, we thought why not give the whole thing a bit of Cape Town zing? We think this should do it. We’re giving away a shiny new Sony DVD video camera to one lucky 27 attendee who uploads something to the 27 Dinner channel on Zoopy BEFORE 27-6 (the next CT dinner in June). As long as you upload at least one video or pic taken at this Friday’s dinner, you qualify to win this baby. The draw will be random, and you have to be at the June dinner to win. But where else would you be, really?

Exciting times. See you on Friday!

Quick link to 27 Dinner video channel: http://www.zoopy.com/video_channels/88/27_Dinner
Quick link to 27 Dinner photo channel: http://www.zoopy.com/photo_channels/88/27_Dinner

In the middle of the night last night, a Zoopy member (gonewild) uploaded a video called Anti Telkom ad says it all.

Since then, the video’s racked up 256 views in just 12 hours - overwhelming proof of the power behind online social networking in SA, especially when the content evokes such strong emotions from the viewing public. Incoming links to this video have been pouring in from MyADSL, saix.net and Muti. And the views continue to soar.

If you haven’t caught the video yet, start watching now:

Have a great weekend guys. And don’t forget to keep your camera on you at all times! Lights, Camera, Action, Zoopy!

Not sure how many more days we can take of keeping our new mobile platform under wraps. In the meantime, we’re not slowing down on other fronts - here are a few exciting highlights this week:

- We had a quick but worthy mention in this week’s Finweek magazine. The Amatomu guys hogged the visuals but we can’t complain when you’re sharing the spotlight with Matt, Vincent and Mike.

- Fresh off the back of an SABC protest, Bob Woolmer’s memorial and the Two Oceans Marathon, another video from our news channel has been featured on an IOL story about the Chaos as drivers try to renew licenses.

- Zoopy was featured in TechSmart’s article on ‘The DIY Internet‘.

- RSG (Radio Sonder Grense - the radio station that flighted that off-the-wall TV ad with the crazy sheep) chose Zoopy as their ‘Webwerf van die Week’ Listen to an excerpt of the show!

Have a good Wednesday

Between 6.30am and 8.30am this morning, our servers went fishing. Well, not exactly. According to our hosting company, the data center had a ‘power issue’ around 6 this morning and in between moving from generator power back to renewed power supply, something went bye-bye. Bottom line, we were down for two hours this morning - so you might need to hard refresh the site if you’ve visited before. You shouldn’t have to, but if you’re still seeing an Internal Server Error page, just hit control-F5 on your keyboard.

Sorry about the downtime for those of you who were affected. The super news is that the timing is quite interesting, as we’re not far from announcing some very interesting news about how and where we host. So watch this space - in a few short weeks, we’ll have the good news. And most importantly, what happened this morning will be a distant memory, never again even able to occur.

Happy Sunday

As promised on Thursday, here’s the lowdown on new features that we pushed out into the Zoopy Betasphere last week - and some of you were sharp enough to notice just 10 minutes after we blogged it

For those of you who haven’t discovered the new features yet, here’s what’s been happening at Zoopy:

1. Zoopy Mobile: this is the one we hinted at last Thursday (‘revolutionise the way you share media with friends’) and we’re pleased to let you know that it’s now hovering on the fine line between Alpha and Beta. We’ve taken what other social networking sites have done with mobile and totally reinvented it! We’ve had absolutely terrific feedback from our Alpha testers across the country (thanks guys, it’s been great sharing the video diaries of your lives as they happen!) who’ve just loved the fact that they can do all sorts of things with their media without ever having to visit the site. Watch this space in the next few days for the Alpha to Beta Zoopy mobile launch party. It’s going to be a goodie

2. Create and manage your own Video and Photo Albums: just like the name says, we wanted to give you the option to create separate areas for your media. So even though ALL your videos and photos are still visible on your profile page, you now have the option to create Albums too. For example, you might want individual albums for home and work. And a few extras for your son’s barmitzvah, last weekend’s braai and your sister’s wedding. Create as many albums as you like and add to them whenever you upload.

On the info page after you’ve uploaded your video or photo, you’ll now see a line asking for your Album preferences. Either choose an existing Album in the dropdown or create a new Album on the spot. Whatever you’re uploading will then be stored in this Album once you click ‘Publish’. And managing your Albums down the line is just as easy easy: click on ‘My Photos’ or ‘My Videos’ in the blue navbar (under ‘My Profile) and you’ll easily be able to change which videos and photos are stored in which Album. And if you want to scrap an Album altogether, just click ‘Delete Album’ at the bottom of your profile page and it’s gone (without losing the videos and photos that you had once stored in the Album, of course).

3. Zoopy photos are now large as life: you asked for this and now it’s here! From last Thursday onwards, any photo you upload to Zoopy is now visible in TWO sizes. The first is the photo size embedded into the Zoopy viewing page and the second is the ‘original size’, activated by clicking on the embedded photo. Because of PC and laptop screen limitations, if your original photo is wider than 1024, it’ll be resized to max 1024 width, with height in proportion.

4. Now you can choose LARGE or SMALL embed sizes for video: again, thanks to your feedback, we’ve realised that there are situations where a small video player would be better suited to your blog/site/profile page. So now, under every video there are TWO sets of embed code. Take your pick between displaying the video in a large (482×384) or small (322×264) Zoopy video player. It’s just as easy as it always was, but now you have options!

Lots happening. Lots more to come. Please keep the feedback pouring in - we can’t get enough of hearing what you have to say, and bringing it to Zoopy life!

Zoopy is exactly 1 month young today! We launched into Live Beta on 5 March and what a journey it’s been since then.

We’ve had terrific reviews, been published in blogs, newspapers and magazines, had videos featured on IOL, started developing new ideas with top brands across the country AND have two new features already live on the site, which will be officially announced on Tuesday. And another one waiting in the wings, set to revolutionise the way you share media with friends. See-ree-us!

Until then, have a super Easter. Get horribly covered in chocolate and hurry back with your videos and photos. See you on Zoopy

iWeek was sharp inspired brilliant kind enough to cover Zoopy’s launch (and impending massive growth) in their magazine this week.

If you’ve never seen the mag, it’s a really jam-packed read for a weekly magazine. Especially this week Any CNA will have a copy, usually available at the front of the store, near Business Day, Financial Mail and the rest. It’s published by ITWeb, publishers of other magnificent titles like Unwired and Brainstorm.

Hope you’ve got your cameras charging for Easter weekend coming up!