SA video, photo sharing site launches with competition

Though the virtual doors of the site only opened to the public yesterday afternoon, Monday, 5 March 2006, closed beta testing has been happening behind the scenes since the last quarter of 2006. The site has now launched its Live Beta version to South Africa and South Africans across the globe, giving users the chance to enjoy the site and help iron out any last bugs that may still be hiding somewhere.

Concept came naturally

Founded by four Capetonians (three under 30 and one over 60), www.zoopy.com as a concept came naturally – and with great enthusiasm, according to co-founder Jason Elk: “Sharing is a law of human nature. Having someone else’s reaction as part of the experience turns plain old events into hilarious, interactive and meaningful memories that last a lifetime.”

“We wanted to make sharing easier than dragging out dusty old photo albums. Or not taping over your wedding video so you could play it at every anniversary. And we wanted it to be more fun than just showing holiday snaps or pictures of petunias in your front garden (though there’s nothing wrong with either of these) to separate batches of friends at a time. Whatever Zoopy was to be become, it had to be easy, fast and fun.”

Elk says the team at Zoopy HQ is “proud to be South African and even prouder to be bringing South Africans closer together through Zoopy’s home-grown functionality, wherever they live.”

Just have fun

The golden rule at Zoopy is “just have fun”. After signing up, members are immediately able to:

• Watch videos and view photos in 27 different channels - ranging from Animals and Celebrations to iWitness News and Gross
  
• Upload videos up to 100MB and photos up to 5MB - free for life
  
• Let everyone know about their profile page at their permanent Zoopy URL e.g. www.zoopy.com/sa_mullet
  
• Customise their profile with backgrounds and avatars
  
• Connect with friends online through their own Zoopy Message Centre and choose to publish videos and photos as private or public
  
• Take control of their community, by reporting anything that they think is offensive (which is removed from the site automatically, pending review)
  
• Catch up on our daily trek towards many more features and Zoopy v2 in the Zoopy Blog (http://blog.zoopy.com)

To further bolster the safety of their users online, Zoopy has also been in discussions with the SAPS to work very closely at monitoring, preventing and prosecuting any abusers or potential threats to the Zoopy community at large.

Zoopy is privately owned by Full House Technologies, an online and mobile social media company aims to make the world a smaller place that’s far more fun to live in.