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.
Creating Expono Albums
May 10, 2009
Expono lets you display your photos in many ways. An album view is just one of them. However if that is how you prefer to look at your photos, then here is how to do that.
New User
When you log in to Expono for the first time, you’ll have no photos of your own. So either you go looking at the photos of your family or friends or you get ready to upload some of your own.
Upload Process
Your first move to get some of your own photos to your Expono account is to click the Green Upload Button on top of the page, no matter where you are in Expono.
When you have clicked it, you’re presented with a link to click to select files you want to upload. Files include photos, screenshots, graphics etc. in these formats (.jpg, .png, .gif)
In the Explorer Window (windows), Finder Window (mac), or Nautilus/Konqueror (linux) you’ll be able to select either a whole folder with content and/or single files/photos. In Mac you can also go directly into your default iPhoto library and choose events, albums, last imported, photos etc.
The selection is added to the Expono WEB uploader, and you’ll see the File Names and File Sizes. You’ll also see the total amount of files and file sizes. While uploading you’ll be able to see the estimated time remaining here.
Before Starting the Upload, you can create a New Album or add these files to an existing Album. In addition you’ll be able to set Who can see these files/photos. Default is Private ( =nobody can see them).
If you don’t create a new album or choose an existing one, the uploaded files/photos will be visible in the “All Photos” TAB.
Either way: Press “Start Upload” (green button). You’ll now see the estimated time and a progress bar.
When the upload is complete, press NEXT (green button).
Place, TAG all, Descriptions, individual TAG
Entering a place for where the photos are shot, makes sense only if they are in fact shot in the same place. Also TAGs added in the dialogue are for all photos. You can add TAGs to the individual photos. You can also add a description for each photo.
Click ‘Save changes’.
Find Album
The album just uploaded will be the first in the list of Albums under the Albums TAB. All the Photos uploaded will also be shown under the TAB ‘All Photos’.
Create Album.
If you didn’t creat an album you can do that now. Click the ‘New Album’ link to the right in the ‘All Photos’ TAB.
Once you click that link, you’ll be taken to the same view as if you clicked ‘Edit Album’ from an existing Album.
Only, there will be an option to give the Album a name. And select who can view it.
Photos are easily dragged from the horizontal row downwards, either as single selected photos or by holding the ‘Shift-button’ several selected photos in a row. You can also select several photos not directly next to each other by holding the ‘ctrl-button’ (mac) and click the photos you want to add, or right-click (windows/linux).
Once you have added all the photos you want, make sure to save the Album.
Expono and authenticated Media RSS
April 15, 2009
Did you ever wonder how you to view your digital photos without having to sit in front of the PC, or how you could let other people see some of your photos without having to log in to their PCs or their Expono account.
The answer is simple: Authenticated Media RSS
After signing up with Expono, you can do the obvious and upload some photos. But we give you another opportunity to use Expono.
Go into your Settings “Me” Arrow down and then look towards the bottom (in this page: My » Settings » Privacy). You’ll find “Authenticated Feeds Settings”.
You’ll find a Key and a URL example.
Copy this sequence from the URL:
/rss?ak=”Your key”
What to do with it
Find any album on Expono (while logged in) which seems to be available to you. It can be a friend’s or family member’s album or a public one. Paste the copied part of the URL including the key at the end of the album URL. Then copy the whole “new and longer” URL.
Then what?
Paste the whole copied URL into the Screensaver URL field, into your internet connected digital photo frame’s URL setting. Or if you are really good at it, enter the URL into your Wii Opera Browser URL field, run it fullscreen, et voilà, your TV becomes a huge photo frame with circulating photos.
This works on any expono user photo stream and album.
NB! You may see photos using this method, that are solely meant for your private viewing.
