Unlimited Storage – “the limit-less update”
August 26, 2009
Unlimited storage, online image editor, improved geo-tagging, multiple layouts & browsing with focus on photos, BIGGER photos!
We are a company who believe in users’ rights to their own content. We believe we have a great service where our primary mission is to give as much power to the user as possible. We are competing with other services on features, but more importantly on our users’ rights to their own data, privacy, data portability and censorship (we don’t censor stuff like flickr). That is all good you say, but what about storage?
Today we are making Expono even better by introducing Unlimited Storage for all our Expono Plus users. Click here to learn more about Expono Plus.
This change is retroactive which means that our existing Expono Plus users will automatically be upgraded to unlimited storage. Expono Plus users who have purchased extra storage will have their account upgraded to unlimited bandwidth and their subscription extended to match the amount paid.
Online Image Editor
Edit your photos online
We also added support for one of the best online image editors available! Thanks to Pixlr, you now have a tool which is as close to Photoshop online as you can get, seamlessly integrated with Expono.
Bigger Photos
Multiple layouts for your enjoyment
Talking about BIGGER photos – we have introduced support for multiple layouts on photos and album browsing. We have added a couple on this release and more layouts will be released in future updates. We hope you will enjoy them.
Activity Feed Revamp
Improved layout on recent activities
We have also improved the visualization of recent activities on your userpage. Including filtering options so you can distinguish on album activities, comments or newly uploaded photos. Not only that, we have also increased the photo sizes so you can enjoy them even more! We also changed your dashboard and introduced recent friend activities with even more filtering options. You can even drill it down to groups and if you wish, see all recent uploaded photos by only your family or your poker buddies – as long as you fall into their privacy settings that is…
Improved GEO Tagging
We have enhanced Geo-tagging of photos, including the option of custom naming locations and we have also added drag-pin support. So now you can really pinpoint exactly where you took that beautiful photo near your summerhouse.
Other important fixes:
- Default colorspace for thumbnails changed to sRGB
- PNG thumbnails filesize bug fixed.
- Correct language is now supported on mail and notifications
- Fixed rare bug on missing tags and wrong tag proportions in your tag cloud
- External contacts from Facebook, Twitter and Friendfeed are periodically synchronized so your addressbook stays fresh!
Oh! We have also added Norwegian (nynorsk) translation. Thanks to Bjørn Svindseth for all the help! We hope to have more and better translations soon…
That’s all for now folks! Stay tuned for more!
For more on the account options and features, see http://www.expono.com/go/learn_more
Thanks for the massive feedback
July 17, 2009
Since Expono went on everybody lips this last two weeks we have received an enormous amount of feedback! And we really mean huge amount!
The great thing is that most feedback was overly positive. We are thrilled and really thankful for the support we are getting. It is great and we want to assure you that we will deliver on our promises and enhance our platform even more for your precious photos!
We are still in beta, but for us this is no excuse. We keep learning and adjusting the service to cater your needs and the beta stamp is just a reminder for you that everything is changing, improving and growing… and the best thing is that YOUR feedback is our driving factor. We will loose the beta stamp soon…. for now all our efforts and resources are focused on making a great service better, so keep on giving us your feedback.
So on to the good stuff. Here is a list of feedback and some answers addressing them:
- More and better integration with third-party services
Many people have asked for integration with a lot of services, and in integration we trust. That is why we are focusing a lot on our API these days. We encourage all of you to take a look at it and incorporate it on your own services. That is the best way to integrate! We have made our API pretty much like Flickr’s own API, making it easier for people who already support Flickr, support Expono.
We will also focus on making all our integration points more secure and use OAuth whenever possible. We actually implemented support for Twitter before they implemented OAuth support! But we will implement OAuth support soon. Until then, don’t be afraid of using our Twitter integration, it is a great way of sharing photos!
Facebook support have always been something we have struggled with. Mostly because they are so closed, because of their Terms of Use and that we couldn’t enforce your Expono privacy settings on Facebook. That is mainly the reason why we only allowed sharing of public photos to Facebook. But we are now improving the Facebook integration so you can share non-public photos on Facebook too. We will announce it as soon as we can!
- UI improvements & Browsing enhancements
We have been planing a big update soon with a lot of changes and improvements. We are enhancing the browsing of albums and photos, giving you better ways of viewing your photos. More view types, BIGGER photos and improved navigation. Take our word for it!
- Mobile version
We are heavy users of iPhone ourself, so you can guess what is on our wish list right? Yes, we want an iPhone app too! We have a lot of ideas on how it should be and how it should look. But we are focusing all our resources on creating a great API for now. We are sure that someone will use it to create not only a great iPhone app, but also useful uploaders and plugins for all your favorites apps and gadgets! A mobile version of the site is already on our todo list.
- Translations issues
We created Expono in english and then started translating it to different languages. Translation is a work-in-progress and we are improving the translation as we speak. We have a great translation crew working hard to provide Expono in YOUR language, and we will do our best to perfect it for our next releases. You are also more then welcome to help us out!
Oh, since some of you were wondering, the language files are open sourced. All translated strings are open to be used in any project. Check out how far we have come on translating Expono to your language on launchpad.net.
- Misunderstandings and Bugs
We discovered some bugs and we have been busy chasing and killing them, thanks to your feedback. We discovered that some of you did not understand how some of our functionality worked or simply didn’t find it on the site. This is something we are working on day and night, and we are improving the visibility and design to address those issues on our next releases. Be aware though that many features and advanced functionality seems hidden for a reason – because we didn’t want to clutter the interface with too many options. We will certainly try to find a balance there that works for everybody. We are also working on tutorials and better information and labeling.
You will find many good tips and how to’s on http://www.expono.com/tutorials/albums
See tutorials on expono.com/tutorials
- Basic vs Plus account
As we expected, nobody is ever satisfied with something that is not free or with limitations of any kind. Neither are we! But the reality here is that in order to ensure you that Expono is here for long time and that the platform can support a growing number of people and photos, we simply can not give it away for free. But as the saying goes, the customer is always right. With that in mind, we are addressing the limitations on our accounts to give you a better competitive offering. Expect the changes to be significant! The changes will be retroactive and apply to all of you who already purchased an account.
Thanks again for all the support! Keep on sharing…
The Expono Team
Special thanks to Eirik Solheim on NRKBeta, Ida Aalen on VG and Doug Coleman on ReadWriteWeb for the well written reviews!
Expono is getting a lot of media attention
July 8, 2009
We were delightfully surprised this week after a very positive article was posted on ReadWriteWeb by Doug Coleman. The article was very detailed and went through a lot of the features that uniquely positions Expono as a photo sharing site to look out for!
This article was quickly followed by articles in New York Times (based on RWW), Verdens Gang and IT Avisen in Norway. In addition many people spread the word virally via Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook.
Truth to be told, we got totally hammered this monday with inbound traffic from multiple websites. We have prepared for this stuff! But because we have been operating in “stealth” mode the last months we didn’t have all servers running. We didn’t have any before hand knowledge about any of the articles except the article posted by Verdens Gang (norwegian) which got published only a few hours after we received their initial phone call.
The good thing though, is that stuff got stress tested, and we’ve managed to make several performance improvements the last couple of days, and everything have been operating smooth in the last two days.
I would like to share some stats today. To get a sense of what’s happened in the last few weeks, and especially the last few days.
We got 223,514 unique identities added by users over the last couple of weeks. 41,764 were added yesterday. Not too shabby for a private beta site, that
only have been opened for a few days. We opened up the signup Saturday evening after we first read about the ReadWriteWeb story!
Well, what can I say.. there is no way going back now. We are OPEN and LIVE!
Come get your username while you can.
We will continue to remain in BETA until we reach a certain level of perfection. Help us build the BEST home for your photos in the world!
A big Thank You to everyone who has sent us feedback via email. We have received over a thousand emails the last couple of days with lots of suggestions and positive criticism. We are replying everyone as fast as we possible can. If you have suggestion or want to report bugs, please use getsatisfaction.com/expono. It will help us tremendously making the right priorities to respond to your questions, requests and ideas.
A few words about what we are working on:
- Enhanced Photo Browsing.
- Flickr Import (number one requested feature)
- Share To Flickr (oh, yes, we want you to have the ability export to Flickr too. It’s your data! Not ours!)
- Improving our API.
- Expono Plus! We have a very competitive offering in the works. The changes will be retroactive and apply to all of you who already purchased an account. Stay tuned!
We have released a first public beta of the Expono API which let’s you or anyone else develop support for Expono on any platform. Help us build plugins to iPhoto, Aperture, Lightroom, iPhone, Android, or whatever app or platform you want. Let’s get started!
A big welcome from all of us from Expono!
…
How to control Downloads in Expono PLUS
July 3, 2009
A great feature, PLUS users will learn to appreciate, is the option to make custom groups for contacts in Expono.
By planning, you can make the Expono PLUS account useful for restricting who can download, for both control and commercial purposes.
Download original files
Some are vary about who can download original photos and by utilizing custom groups and generic groups cleverly, users get a very flexible system.
Rules
1. Never set any photo- or album access right to the generic groups “friends” or “family”.
2. Make new custom groups for your friends.
- you may only have one group of friends, still call that group “My friends”.
- if not, make a useful name for each group of friends for easy recognition later.
3. Make new custom groups for your family
- if you treat all family the same just call it “My family”
- if you treat them differently, then make more groups ie “My family”, “Close family”, etc.
4. Now, you’ll only put people you want to download photos, in original format, in the generic groups “friends” or “family”, and at the same time put them in the appropriate custom friend/family groups.
At this point you’ll have full control over who can download and who can not. If you don’t want a person to download your original photos any more, then remove him/her from the generic group and leave them in the custom group.
You can set which group can download your originals in Me/Edit settings/Privacy,
or click here if you are logged in.
New: Custom location in maps
June 24, 2009
Expono users can now manually place and custom name locations for their photos. Simply drag the PIN and place it in the map where photos are taken, then give that location a name for easy access.
This is, for instance, great news for businesses attracting tourists.
Simply upload photos of your area and place the PIN.
Spanish translation of Expono
Want expono in YOUR language? You can help us and yourself out by joining our Translation Team! Sharing is our mantra and that’s why we like to thank the team for collaborating and helping us reach out to so many all over the world. It is the likes of you that makes the internet a great place!
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!
- Spanish: Edgar Alberto Urias, Pablo Lara, Alcubilla de Nogales, Carlos Cabanillas, Carlos Barbudo, Diego Romero Lopez, Juani Paccapelo
- Danish: Marte Muan Sæther
- Simplified Chinese: Hong Shen, Mole Zhang
- Traditional Chinese: Tino Chang
- French: Grosquick, Mathieu Pasquet, Pierre Slamich, Clement Grimal, Niicolas.com,
- Russian: Nick Gorbunov, Egor Bushemlyov
- Czech: Martin Jurica
- Italian: Thomas Bellotti
- Turkish: Zeugma
- Hebrew: Moshe
Here is the list of the top contributers: https://launchpad.net/expono/+topcontributors
Wanna join the team?
Qué es Expono?
You will have access to the latest features before anyone else and a Plus account free of charge!
http://www.expono.com/go/contact
Translations guidelines:
http://www.expono.com/go/translation
With the launch of our Facebook Connect integration, we believe it will be easier to share photos and photo activities with your friends and family. First you will need to connect your Facebook account with your Expono account through Facebook’s very own Facebook Connect. Simply go to Facebook Settings on Edit Services menu, press the “Connect with Facebook” button and follow the instructions. It takes 10-30 seconds!
After your accounts have been connected, you will be able to tag your Facebook friends on your photos like any other contacts you already have in your address book. With your Facebook friends now on Expono, you can add them to your contact groups, give them access to the photos you want them to see and tag them on your photos.
Expono photo activities on Facebook
Sharing with your audience
Sharing is a big part of our lifes, and now it is even easier to share your photos and albums with the people you know. By connecting your Facebook account with Expono you can post stories to your wall when you favorite a photo, comment or tag a Facebook friend on Expono! Giving them access to view your full quality photos with just 1 click. You can also share individual albums and photos to Facebook right from the Share menu. This way you get more out of both services!
Sharing an album to Facebook
Start sharing now with the link below:
http://www.expono.com/go/features/facebook
Become a fan of Expono on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=82608916654
Sharing on Expono
We have extended the integration with FriendFeed and Twitter on Expono to allow for more interaction and fun between the users of these services. Earlier we had automatic photo uploads announcements to Friendfeed and Twitter everytime you uploaded new photos to Expono. The functionality allowed our users to inform their followers and subscribers about newly uploaded photos in a innovative way. Now we have extended that to include direct sharing of public album and photos. Right from the Share menu. Giving your subscribers and followers access to view your full quality photos with just 1 click.
Album shared on FriendFeed
Face tagging
We also made it fun to tag your FriendFeed and Twitter friends on your photos. Just connect your Expono account with FriendFeed or Twitter and you will be able to tag your friends on your photos, add them to your contact groups and give them access to the photos you want them to see. Like any other contacts you already have in your address book!
Face tagging of Twitter friends
Get started now by connecting your accounts on Expono:
FriendFeed
http://www.expono.com/go/features/friendfeed
Twitter
http://www.expono.com/go/features/twitter
Subscribe to Expono on Friendfeed:
http://friendfeed.com/expono
Follow Expono on Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/expono
We are proud to announce a new type of account on Expono – Expono Plus – it’s everything you love about Expono, enhanced to give you more control and more freedom for your photos. We wanted to offer a solution for people with serious needs, giving them extras of everything we have to offer: more storage, more custom groups, extended monthly data transfer, bigger photo stack, premium support, guranteed ad-free service, better privacy controls and higher resolution photo feeds… And that is only the beginning! All our new coming features will be available for Plus accounts first – if not only… Here is a quick overview:
| Plus | Basic | |
| Storage Space | 10 GB or more | 1 GB |
| Monthly Data Transfer | 100 GB | 10 GB |
| Custom Groups | 10 | 1 |
| Advanced Privacy Controls |  |
|
| GPS / Google Maps Location Tagging | |
|
| People Tagging & Contacts Management | |
|
| Stacks Plus (1000 photos) | |
|
| Control Who Can Download Original Photos | |
|
| Premium Support | |
|
| Guaranteed Ad-Free | |
|
| High Resolution Photo Feeds* | |
|
| Expono Downloader App* | |
|
| Detailed View Count & Statistics* | |
|
| List More Features |
Features marked with an asterisk (*) are currently in development with a planned release in Q3 2009.
Get up to 30% discount today…
There’s no need to invest in expensive backup solutions anymore. On Expono, your photos are safe as any physical storage device and accessible anywhere in the world, anytime. We even help you keep them organized and prevent you from storing duplicates. Your photos are always kept in their original format and size, unmodified. For a limited time only we are giving away up to 30% discount on extra storage for those with large photo collections. That’s a bargain!
Get your Expono Plus account now:
http://www.expono.com/go/accounts
Don’t have an Expono account? Signup Now:
http://www.expono.com/go/register
The ONE insurance they can’t sell
May 12, 2009
They’ll stop at nothing and claim your needs for all kinds of things you never heard of. But the one insurance they can’t sell, is the one that secures your lost photos. It’s just not possible!
So if you are interested in keeping a hard copy of your memories, then Expono is the place to go.
We’re not saying we’re alone, but we are pretty confident that you’ll be more than happy to sign up and start saving your photos with us.
One good reason for doing that is the fact that you’ll get back whenever you need to the exact same photos as you uploaded. Original size and original format.
Even if you need to find only one photo that’s like searching for a needle in a haystack. Expono will be faster to help you than any other service.
With flexible ways to describe your photos, meaning by TAGs, by Place, and by People in them you’ll find your photos in no time.
You don’t have to remember exactly what TAGs you used, or where the photo was shot. We’ll present you with a list of TAGs, sized by relative use or show you pins in a map. Hoover over it and see if you recognize the scene or setting.
When you find it, you don’t even have to download it to pass it along. Just share your photo with whoever and you’ll be free to do what ever else you want to do.
It’s just one of those no-brainer things you either do or regret when it is too late.
Do yourself a favor, sign up.
