Happy new Zoopy!
31 Jan 2010 
12 Comments
It’s a new year, a new decade (yes, it is) and a brand new Zoopy that we’re very excited to introduce to you today.
This is the fourth major Zoopy version that we’ve released and we really do believe that it’s the best yet. After listening to our users, our staff and the constant voices inside our own heads, we’ve spent the last few months sculpting a Zoopy interface that:
- makes functions within the site easier to find, use and share
- gives content an even more beautiful platform from which to shine
- connects users and their media in a clearer way, with more information and control for content owners
- makes adding extra functionality much easier as we continue to grow
Here are some highlights of the improvements and additions you’ll get to know and love on the new Zoopy:
New video and audio players
We couldn’t help but give these guys a set of major facelifts. Our previous players had loads of room for improvement and after considering your feedback we’re thrilled to unveil the finished products. Not only are they unmistakably Zoopy in their unique design, but they also integrate better features in all the right places, including a super easy way to create links directly to specific timestamps in videos.
If you have any of our old players embedded on your website or blog, the good news is that the new players are completely backward compatible, so you don’t need to change any code – the new players will automatically replace their predecessors.
HD video makes an entrance
You can now upload, share and watch videos in brilliant high definition on Zoopy. Any videos uploaded at a resolution of 1280×720 or higher will be encoded into a special HD MP4 format, which can then be viewed either by clicking on the HD button inside the Zoopy video player or by visiting the Zoopy HD page at http://www.zoopy.com/browse/hd.
Zoopy TV everywhere
Zoopy TV now features more prominently across the site for quicker access to the ever-updating archive of videos, and all Zoopy TV shows are easier to find, more distinguishable from user uploads and will be growing each of their individual brands in their own dedicated pages they each own on our new site.
If you haven’t seen Zoopy TV yet, start watching now.
Smarter uploading, better profiles and mass editing
One of the most important areas of the site is the upload page. It’s here that users are either frustrated by laborious procedures or delighted by simplicity and ease-of-use. We’ve reworked this completely so it may take you by surprise. Give it a minute the first time and you’ll love it forever.
Your logged-in profile page on Zoopy now includes a whole collection of new and better features, from a viewing/space dashboard and publishing tools to advanced editing and improved messaging capabilities.
Media editing has also been improved dramatically, from managing albums to rotating photos. Thankfully, it’s now just as easy to edit one item as it is to edit hundreds.
Browsing, channels and location improvements
Our new browse page gives you a chance to explore great content uploaded by our users and featured by the Zoopy team. So other than searching Zoopy for something you’re specifically looking for, this lets you discover media that you didn’t even know you’d be interested in 
Zoopy Channels now replace the old Pages, in name and design. Channels provide a dedicated way to interact with interesting events, people, things and places. We’ve created these customised viewing experiences to give selected groups of content their own space to shine.
Until now, the location of media items uploaded by users has simply been displayed as City, Country e.g. Cape Town, South Africa or London, United Kingdom. The new Zoopy integrates GPS co-ordinates and then translates these into more detailed location descriptions and displays this location on a map.
API
To demonstrate the strength of our new API, we’ve built the new Zoopy website to run off it exclusively. You can read more about the available methods, as well as how to use them, at http://wiki.zoopy.com. Your own Zoopy-powered application is minutes away!
Although the previous API version is still up and running, you’ll need to upgrade any applications that use it to the new Zoopy API by 31 March 2010.
Over to you
Now all that’s left is to buckle up and enjoy the new Zoopy. Start now! When you get there, please send us feedback, ideas and comments by clicking on the Feedback tab on the right side of the screen.
P.S.
A huge thank you to the magnificent Zoopy team and those who contributed to bringing this new baby of ours to life. To Neil and Bobby especially, thank you for making me even prouder of what we have to offer.
Coverage here:
- Zoopy The South African Multimedia Sharing Platform Gets A Facelift, And The Changes Look Good – TechMasai
- Zoopy offers HD support – Bizcommunity
- Zoopy redesigns and adds HD – StartupAfrica
I’m new to Zoopy! Thanks for the update.
I checked it out. Very nice upgrade! I like it.
I really like the new Zoopy. Congratulations!
Happy New Zoopy indeed! Great new look there Zoopy-folks. Luv it!
just wondered why you guys went offshore. now guys with local only in SA can’t post their images on your site. not nice.
@Anthony, @Austinbob and @Mike: glad to hear it, thanks for the feedback
@Phil: please read more about our decision-making process here: http://blog.zoopy.com/?p=231. And read all the recent discussion about this on MyBB here: http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?213133-Zoopy-moves-its-hosting-overseas.
what about an HTML 5 player? I’m tired of flash causing a kernel panic, if not hogging my CPU and dropping frames left right and center.
@Kyle thanks for the comment – we have this in our development plan
@Kyle HTML5 video is still very much an unknown quantity, and we’re waiting to see how it plays out. The format war is not yet won, and we are not yet ready to relinquish some of the flexibility that Flash offers.
We’re keeping an eye on it, and as soon as we find that HTML5 video will work for Zoopy and our users, we’ll get cracking.
@Neil Garb: It’s not necessary to replace your flash player. The underlying MPEG codec remains the same (How are you going to handle h246 royalties, btw?), however you implement your in-browser stream player. And yes, flash is flexible; but HTML5 and Ajax together can often provide as much flexibility in web-enhanced video and audio playback without wasting resources, it just takes a bit of imaginative hacking.
@Kyle it’s true that the codec remains the same, provided that h264 does win the day, which is not certain with Mozilla bucking the (slowly developing) trend. It may turn out that another codec such as OGG becomes the de facto standard.
Our primary concern is that everyone should be able to watch videos on Zoopy, regardless of their client. This is not something we feel can be achieved just yet with HTML5. It is true that we can present HTML5 to those users who can use it, and Flash to those who can’t, but we’ve put a lot of effort into our new players and feel they do the trick just fine for now.