Rotzy Version 1.3

Version 1.3 of Rotzy is out! It's been a while since our last update, but we've been working hard on implementing some of the features that our users have requested. Here's a quick run through of what's new (where available, links will take you to more detailed posts about each addition):

1. Commenting with photos. Reply to a photo with one of your own! [link]
2. Landscape mode. See more text on feeds, view full-sized landscape photos, and type out comments with the larger keyboard. [link]
3. Auto status update on Facebook. With our Facebook app, you can auto update your status when you post Rotzy photos. [link]
4. Auto-post to your Tumblr! Just add your account information in the settings page.
5. On your feed, you can now see an additional page of results by clicking the 'More' button at the end of the feed.
6. Clicking 'options' from a photo allows you to 'Open in Safari' for advanced options and editing.
7. When clicking on the 'People' tab, you now appear at the top of your contact list.
8. 'Logout' from the settings page to clear your login information.

Update Rotzy today to make use of these new features!

Thanks,
The Rotzy Team

Facebook App!

After allowing automatic Twitter updates in our last release, we thought that adding Facebook to the mix would further help our users share their photos with their friends. We've written up a very simple Facebook app that mirrors some of the functionality of Rotzy on the web, and also gives you the ability to auto update your status when you post a photo.

There are a few steps to get this going:

1. Add our Facebook app and enter your Rotzy login info.

2. Give the application permission to auto update your status.

3. Enable/disable status updates from your iPhone. Enabling only takes effect if you've added and authorized the Facebook app.

4. Upload your photo as usual.

5. Your Facebook status has been automatically updated!

The rest of the application is quite basic at this point, but we definitely hope to build upon it in the coming months.

Thanks!
The Rotzy Team

Landscape View

A chief complaint about the iPhone is the inability for e-mail to be composed and read in landscape mode. Not surprisingly, our users have also mentioned this as a concern to us. We've heard you!

As part of version 1.3, many of the views are now available in landscape mode. Enjoy more of the text in feeds and photos with a wider view, compose comments with a much larger keyboard, and view landscape photos as they were intended... all with the latest version of Rotzy on the iPhone!

Thanks!
The Rotzy Team

Comment With A Photo!

Along with the release of version 1.3 comes the ability to respond to a photo with one of your own! Here's a quick run through about how to get started (click the images to step through):

1. When commenting on a photo, a camera icon now appears to the right of the usual text field. Click it!

2. Upload a photo as you normally would, either from your camera or your photo albums.

3. Your photo now appears as a comment to the original photo!

4. A link back to the original photo will be provided on your photo's page.

A couple of things to note when photo-commenting:

- Instead of adding a comment, the photo's caption now serves as the comment text.

- Photo comments must remain public, and this cannot be changed.

That's pretty much all there is to it. We hope everyone puts this to good use!

Thanks,
The Rotzy Team

Routine Maintenance on 11/15 at 2PM PST

Hi everyone!

Rotzy (both the iPhone app and the web site) will be inaccessible for a short time starting at approximately 2PM PST on Novemeber 15th, 2008. The downtime should be brief and full access will be restored shortly after. We are sorry for any inconvenience this will cause!

Thanks for understanding... we try hard to avoid any downtime but sometimes it just has to be done to keep Rotzy running smoothly :-)

Rotzy Version 1.2

Version 1.2 of our iPhone App is now available on the App Store! Updates include:

- Maps on the iPhone. For photos where location information is available, you can now see a map right from the iPhone. Just click the green [map] link in the photo details.

- Edit photo details. Photo captions and privacy settings can now be changed from the iPhone. Tap the action button on the top-right of a photo page to bring up the options.

- Twitter support. Rotzy can now auto-post to twitter whenever you upload a photo. Just add your credentials to the settings page, and turn on 'Post to Twitter'. That's it!

Other changes in this update include the ability to toggle between recent and popular feeds under 'Public Feeds', and miscellaneous fixes that will hopefully reduce crashes and increase overall performance.

Download the update now and take advantage of the new functionality!

Thanks
The Rotzy Team

Public and Popular Feeds, Removing Photos

Hi everyone! We just rolled out a few features on the web... partly in response to today's iPhone Version 1.1 release, and also to add some long overdue functionality:

- Rotzy on the web now has dedicated personal and public feeds, just like the iPhone app. Furthermore, we've added a "popular" version of the public feed, so you catch up with the top photos of the day.

- Users can now delete their photos via the web! Just drop down the "Edit Photo" box, and find the delete link all the way at the bottom (screenshot). Make sure you're certain about this, since this action cannot be undone.

That's all for now!

Good night,
The Rotzy Team

Rotzy Version 1.1

Version 1.1 of our iPhone App is now available on the App Store! Updates include:

- Separate personal and public feeds. Personal feeds show you information directly relevant to you, while public feeds show you a steady stream of everyone's photos.

- Choice of geo-tagging on upload. Going to 'Settings' back and forth each time you want to adjust your location settings can be a real pain. Now you can set your geo-tagging preference right before you upload.

- Miscellaneous bug fixes and optimizations.

To make room for the dedicated public feed, we've moved 'Me' into 'People'. You can now see your own photos by finding yourself among the rest of your contacts!

We hope everyone enjoys the update. Sit tight, because there's more coming!

As always, we'd love to hear about any feedback or comments you might have.

Thanks!
The Rotzy Team

Deleting comments

Yesterday evening we rolled out the ability for users to remove unwanted comments on the web. The purpose and use of this is two-fold:

- Every now and then you get ill-willed users spamming or otherwise polluting the comments area of photos that you've uploaded. As the photo uploader, you can now remove any comments made on your photos.

- Other times, carpal tunnel kicks in and you make a typo in one of your comments. An easy way out is to retype the comment and post again, but this leads to unnecessary clutter. As the commenter, you can now remove any comments that you've made.

When looking to remove a comment, just look for the red x (screenshot). As expected, all feed items related to that comment will be removed. And that's all there is to it!

Enjoy!
The Rotzy Team

Photo flagging and moderation

One of the leading concerns we've had since launch is the public posting of inappropriate content on Rotzy. We provide a public feed of the freshest content in hopes of showing users what's happening at the moment, but the drawback is that this opens us up to abuse. This isn't just about the feed though, as we do not want any inappropriate content to be floating around as public posts at all.

With that said, we'd like to announce the ability to flag public photos via the Web (screenshot). Photos that are flagged will be reviewed by the Rotzy team, and will consequently be marked protected or even private if necessary. Once marked, photo owners will have to contact us if they feel it should be set back to public.

Rotzy is a general purpose mobile photo sharing tool, and we encourage all sorts of legal use. At the same time we feel that for certain types of photos, a 'protected' or 'private' setting is more appropriate, and will narrow the audience to only those who are interested.

We encourage everyone to keep sharing their photos, and also to help us moderate our public space!

Thanks
The Rotzy Team

Public photos back in your feed

Hi everyone!

In the past day or so since our launch, the number 1 suggestion that we've been receiving from our users is that they want to see PUBLIC PHOTOS. You see them initially while your feed is empty, but once you make some friends and post some photos, public photos are out of sight forever!

We're working on the next version of our iPhone app which will make the public feed a dedicated and easily accessible view. But before we submit that and wait for the oftentimes lengthy review process, we've modified our service a bit to work with the existing app and provide you with some public items directly in your Home feed.

This is how it works... along with the typical items you're used to seeing in your feed already, we've sprinkled some of the latest public photos throughout, so you can see what's happening in the public domain. We've set these apart with a "[Public Photo]" header, so hopefully they easily stand out from the rest of the items!

We realize that this isn't the best way to handle it, but we thought you'd all appreciate a quick fix while we get the next version out. Let us know what you think!

- The Rotzy Team

Rotzy is now Live!

Rotzy finally went live today when Apple officially released our app onto the App Store. You can get our iPhone app here. So far the response has been great and hopefully we can get lots of people to try it out and give us feedback!

Don't have an iPhone... try us out on the web first. We will be supporting lots more devices in the near future once we get going :-)

We hope you like Rotzy!