Hey great news Shazzle fans we got a message board to show ya!

We realized that a message board was important to give our communities a more interactive feel. A cool feature to the message board is the ability to hide the post/reply editor where you post messages. The thinking at Shazzle was, if your not using it to post then why have it block your view from other posts? You’ll find this useful when your in our Shazzle Unsigned Band community and you want to leave your favorite bands a post! So now you have a message board to go along with the best file sharing program, your welcome.

Well, for those of you who don’t know me, my name is Elsie. I’m just a simple cow. Some of you may know me from the musical Rent. That stupid witch Maureen tried to suck my udders so I had to tell her we’re only allowed to drink Diet Coke out here in Cyberland. That’s obviously false, even if we do loooooooove our Diet Coke. Anyway, ever since I was a young heifer, I’ve wanted to share wedding photos with the rest of my herd. Unfortunately, I’m not spotted, you see. Sad I know. My whole body is white. Not one black spot on me. Well the bulls just don’t go for that! Who would ever exchange wedding pictures with me looking the way I do? I tried every cosmetic gizmo they offered at Bovine’s, desperately expressing my passion for sharing wedding photos with every clerk who would listen to my sad tale. I rolled more times in the mud than I care to remember, desperately hoping I’d emerge with enough spots to attract a husband who would exchange wedding photos with me in our warm, cozy stables, but I never emerged with anything more than a fleeting coat of brown on my hide. The bulls just snorted.

“You’ll never share wedding images!” Bessie shouted. She was always putting down the rest of us cows, thinking she was the prettiest and all. But really, she was such a little hussy, always mooing with any bull that gave her time of day. OOO she LOVED to go on and on about how many wedding photos she shared. Eventually, I just resigned myself to the fact that I was ugly, and that I’d never be good enough to share a wedding photo, not even one.

Luckily, it was Cinco De Mayo not too long ago, and as you’re well aware, that is just a huge party for all the animals here in Cyberland. They come from all over to drink loads and loads of Diet Coke with us. Many of my girlfriends take Cinco de Mayo as an opportunity to set themselves up for sharing bridal photos with all their friends in the future. I was sitting at the Over The Moon, just sipping on my diet coke and bluegrass on the rocks, lonely as a cow could be. Of course, Bessie shared wedding photos with every bull that walked through the swinging saloon doors, the hussy. It was then that I knew that the only thing do to was make a leap…of fate.

Just then, this GORRRRGEOUS sheep walked through the door. And you say, “What’s a sheep doing in Cyberland” well sheep are more than welcome in Cyberland! What do you think we are, specist? We share wedding photographs with everyone thank you very much! I started sucking on my Diet Coke like never before, feeling the artificial sweetener pulsing through my body and making me bolder than any cow in the bar. I couldn’t stop staring at this sheep’s matted curls, those firm, perky ears and oh! Those sunglasses! He was…sexy. But then I remembered my lack of spots. How would he ever find me attractive if my own species had left me to grow into an old maid? Yet I yearned for his luscious black lips. Just then…he approached me.

“What’s shakin’, little lady? The name’s Chez.” OH how I wanted to share wedding photos with this scrumptious piece of chop! He was so smooth, leaning over my shoulder and going bad boy on me by ordering a CHERRY diet coke. Then, suddenly, the Suicidal Mickey Mouse that haunts Cyberland came barging through the saloon doors, drenched in fuel oil with a pound of dynamite strapped to his chest.

“I kill all you now!” he shouted in that horrible accent. He wasn’t getting any woman to exchange wedding photographs with him, but he sure was scary. I feared for my life, until Chez, my hero, shouted,

“Not so fast, Suicidal Mickey Mouse!” And with that, Chez leaped into the air, kicked his hind legs hard against Mickey’s chest, and knocked him clear out of Over The Moon, and just in the nick of time. As soon as he slid under those saloon doors, he reached the end of his fuse, and the dynamite exploded, blowing him into a million little pieces in the night air. But we were all safe. Chez had saved the day. What a great story to share wedding images over!

“Oh Chez! I can’t believe you saved us from Suicidal Mickey Mouse!” He took off his sunglasses and looked at me with those deep, dark, jetblack eyes and said,

“Well I guess a sheep’s gotta do what a sheep’s gotta do to protect his lady.”

“You’re lady?” I was batting my eyelashes, hopeful at last that I might one day get to share wedding photos.

“Elsie, it is Elsie, right?”

“Yes Chez!” He got down on his knees.

“Elsie, you’re the most beautiful cow I’ve ever seen. Will you marry me and share your wedding pictures with me forever?”

Bessie couldn’t believe it. Her stupid mouth hung open like a harlot’s. She was just jealous that I’d be sharing wedding photos before her. Still, with the whole room watching, my heart racing like Danica Patrick, I took one last big sip of my Diet Coke and screamed, “YES!”

Chez and I got married not long after that, and have lived happily ever after. We share wedding pictures and love exchanging bridal photos with anyone and everyone who asks us , most especially with each other. We are truly in love, and hope, one day, you will share wedding photographs as well.

NEW ARCHITECTURE

Good news! The developers at Shazzle have been working hard over the last couple of months to create a brand new p2p architecture to give Shazzle a huge advantage with file sharing. It is based off more of a bit torrent style which most of you know, however we have put our own twist on it. Shazzle uses relay servers that help cache downloads making it quicker to download, so the more friends your sharing with in your communities the faster the downloads! We know the huge digital photography buffs who share large photos will love it! And don’t worry, even though we’ve made all these improvements at Shazzle we’ll still be giving it away for free!

Shazzle’s “undocking” feature has been introduced to the Shazzle test environment. With the next Shazzle Beta patch, Shazzle will be “undockable.”

What it Means to Be Undockable

Undockability basically refers to your ability to manipulate different Shazzle sections. Shazzle has an area for file storage and file sharing, a web browser/viewer, a chat box, and a community member/buddy list.

With all of this going on, the Shazzle screen can sometimes feel a little crowded. So, the Shazzle development team’s latest project has been reworking the UI so that you can move around the various Shazzle pieces. This will allow you to emphasize whatever Shazzle function is most important to you. Since you came to the blog, you get a sneak peak at what docking will look like. Here’s the Shazzle screen:

And here’s a look at the Shazzle screen with the browser more prominently featured:

Pretty cool, no? Stay tuned (or, you know: subscribed) for further feature updates.

Shazzle hit a bit of a speed bump.  The marketing team went to Miami, and it turned out students on campus couldn’t connect to the application.  Certain colleges have very elaborate proxy server setups.  While Shazzle will run at most colleges (and, we’re attempting to ensure, the remainder of the colleges on the promotional tour), there will be certain unique proxies through which the program just won’t work.  Personally, I wasn’t aware of that fact, and articulated to people that Shazzle would work on their campus.  I was under-informed and wrong.  Sorry to anyone I misled.

Anyway, Shazzle works on a vast majority of internet connections; more than many applications, and it will probably work for you.

Thanks for reading,

Tom

All right so Shazzle’s marketing team has hit the road pretty hard. The tour started Monday, and we’ve already hit Duke and the University of Central Florida. We had some good feedback from some interested parties. I’ll touch on two points here:

Community-Based Sharing

The use-case I’m continually pushing is what I feel is the most powerful way that Shazzle works at this point: community sharing and communication. Public communities and private communities let you share files, share links, chat live…see who’s on-line and browse profiles. You can do all this in private. Private communities, for me, are the most interesting thing about Shazzle. Collaborative projects you might be working on with co-workers or classmates are really strong Shazzle use-cases, too. People seemed to respond pretty well to the potential of this functionality.

Mac Compatibility

The feedback wasn’t all rose-colored. Shazzle isn’t yet compatible with Macs. Unfortunately, Shazzle is built in the Java language, and with the way that we currently implement things and the current version of Java, Shazzle can’t be made compatible with Macs. As soon as there’s a new Java version, I’m told this will be rectified. Until then we’re at the mercy of Sun. We realize a lot of people use Macs. We clearly value every download, particularly as we’re in our infancy and trying to grow the program; it’s not that Mac compatibility and/or Mac users aren’t a priority. It’s simply not in our power, at this point, to create that reality.

The Rub

Thanks to all who gave us some of their time and tried out the app. We really do know that you have a lot of options, and that your time is valuable, and we greatly appreciate you donating some of it to try our product and help us make it better. Feedback’s great: we love any and all kinds of feedback (except criticism of me, personally, or anything I’m responsible for. We hate that kind of feedback).

Thanks for reading, and thanks for downloading Shazzle (if you did, that is…if you didn’t: go here. Now. Seriously: hurry).

Tom Demers

Addressing Some Concerns…

All right so I was over in the forum and we got a real-live question from a real-live person (thanks to Bumble).  The questions posed over there were about encryption and whether or not Shazzle has any “backdoors.”  I thought these were pretty interesting concerns, and I figured I’d address them here.

You guys encrypt? If not: you plan to?

No and yes.  As I mentioned over there, basically: we don’t have encryption yet.  The development team has been…um…I’ll call it clear on the point that they don’t want us to stick features next to dates, but encryption really is high on our feature list, and we hope to have it “soon.”  As soon as it’s in, I’ll announce it on the blog: promise.

What about backdoors? Will you guys broadcast my activities or install any spyware on my computer?

Definitely NOT.  Shazzle is affiliated with Landmark Technology Partners, and Landmark CEO Bob McGill is a major part of Shazzle’s management team.  Landmark produces a sales automation tool called BankBroker.  The tool’s used by a number of very reputable businesses.  We want Shazzle to be used by businesses.  We want it to be a free E-learning tool.  As Bob (McGill) stated “we don’t need a backdoor, because we have a frontdoor.”  It’s a little misleading, because we aren’t streaming any ads right now. 

We will be. 

We’re trying to gain adoption and get some feedback and ideas as to how best to make money, without taking away from YOUR user experience.  We want to give you relevant ads that won’t annoy you.  If we make money, advertisers make money, and you get a product you like, then we have something we scale and sustain.

Thanks for reading, and if you used Shazzle and have questions, post ‘em in the forum, post ‘em in the comments, or shoot me an Email (my first name at Shazzle dot com),

 Tom Demers

Hi again. 

 All right so the marketing team’s very own Sarah Faith has been hard at work putting together the Shazzle Featured Artists Community.  It’s chock full of music, links, photos, and other fun stuff…its a pretty good indication of the community and file sharing potential of application as a whole.  It’s under Music/Unsigned Bands/Shazzle Featured Artists.  Go check it out: everything in there’s free.

Tom

Ultimately, Shazzle’s biggest strength is the application’s ability to make sharing easier. Share files, share ideas; share anything you can move around digitally. One thing you might not intuitively think of as being a thing you can share with a file sharing application is “links,” or your favorite websites. Here’s how it works in Shazzle…

Share Web Addresses and YouTube Clips

• Share YouTube Videos - Say you have a handful of favorite YouTube videos. You’d like to share these videos with your friends; store a bunch of them in one spot. Just create a community. Designate one folder as your “links” or your “YouTube Clips” folder (call it whatever you want). Then just click “add links” and start adding links. Type in the address of the YouTube clips you like and everyone who enters your community can watch the movies in the viewer by double clicking on the link that’s in the folder you just created.
• Share and Sort Your Favorite Websites - When you create a community, you can share a bunch of things AT ONCE…so you have a folder for music, a folder for pictures, and a folder for links/websites. You can share YouTube videos, but you can also set up a folder full of your “favorite” websites. Or a few folders. Your favorite sports sites, interesting political blogs, etc. You can do all that in your personal community too. That lets people get a fuller picture of who you are and what you like.

Personally, I really like the YouTube links. Right now there are a couple of “movie clip” communities up (check out the Shazzle World, the hierarchy right when you sign in, under the category “movies”). Having a place to house all of these movies clips is pretty interesting. Public communities with a ton of people in there’ll be interesting, because you chat and throw the links up, and check out who’s saying what about the movies. You can look up and down a member list, then check their personal profiles really quickly. If you don’t want your community spamed and you’d rather restrict things to you and your friends, wall the thing off by making it a private community; that way, only people you know can see and add to the list of links.

So yeah: go play around with the links and let us know what you think.

Thanks for reading,

Tom Demers

OK so the Shazzle download has been up for a couple days. It’s been given a chance to marinate. If you downloaded the app and played around with it: thanks! Really. All right now to the post…

Shazzle, as an application, does a lot of the things you’re already doing online. We like to think that it brings these things together in novel, useful, meaningful ways. Whether it does or it doesn’t, though: the Shazzle application works a little different than what you’re used to. You can share files with Shazzle, but it’s not exactly a “file sharing” application. You have a shazzle personal profile, but it’s not a “social networking” app, in the strictest sense. Same goes for instant messaging and web browsing. SO, since some of the Shazzle functions are likely to be a little different than what you’re used to, what I thought I’d do today, is ask and answer this question: “I just downloaded Shazzle…what now?”

• Sign Up - This part’s easy. The sign up wizard’ll take you through the process. You’re creating your “personal community” here, too: but don’t worry: you can always go back and edit it (top left hand corner of your screen, yank down your Shazzle drop-down and open up “my community settings”). Fill out whatever you want, but FYI: the college and high school info defaults to 1908, so you’re probably going to look pretty silly if you don’t set a year (unless you graduated high school or college in 1908. If that’s the case: good for you! Email me and we’ll put you in Shazzle commercials or something).
• Start or Join a Community - Most of the stuff going on inside the Shazzle app is happening in communities. Find a community you like an join it, or start your own. Right now, there are Shazzle featured artist communities (go to Shazzle World and check out “music”), right now, there are a couple of “great movie clip” communities under “movies.” You can go check out people’s personal communities, as well…or invite them to join yours. Browse through “Shazzle People” to find out who’s on Shazzle.
• Share some stuff - Start swapping…trade files (documents, PDFs, audio, video…whatever), or trade LINKS. One of the cool things about Shazzle is that you can click on the handy “add link” button and upload all kinds of links into a folder. You can store all your favorite Youtube clips in one place; create a “funny clips” folder and a “news” folder and a “great movies” folder…whatever you want.
• Chat and IM - If you go to “IM sign on” you can sign into pretty much any and all of your IM accounts. Let your friends know what your screen name is on Shazzle, and find out theirs. Then, just click “buddies.” Once you’re in the wizard, click “add.” Now their on your buddy list. You can IM, check out their profile or personal community…whatever. Live chatting is going on within communities, too: personal communities, private communties, public communities: there is perpetual chatting in all the communities.

All right, well that should get you started. If you have questions…support questions, functionality questions, “how can I do something” questions, or if you have some sort of Shazzle suggestion: let us know. Post em here in the comments, or head over to the forum, and someone will answer them there.

Thanks for reading,

Tom Demers