No, I don't think you're being too harsh. I've a pro4life account (and also donated more than enough to cover a pro-account) but I think it's a shame that this is a pro-only feature.

I would prefer it if non-pro accounts gets something like a 7-day version of Recent Activity while pro accounts get the 31-day or better yet, unlimited days (like it was in back in the day...) version.

I agree with both Ponder and Ping. I am also a "pro4life" member who has donated more than the price of a pro account, but the lack of any sort of "recent activity" feature for basic users is astonishing. I used to think that Zooomr was a safe and welcoming haven for those seeking to to flee the more commercial photo sharing sites, but it looks like Zooomr is becoming more locked down than its competition by starting to implement Pro-only features that are available to basic users on numerous other alternative photo sharing sites.

Personally, I would have preferred that Kristopher saved this for later and focused on the critical bugs instead. The who Pro-only thing screams, "Upgrade to a Pro account to use this cool new feature! Oops, sorry, I forgot to tell you about all of the bugs, but thanks for the money!"

I would prefer it if non-pro accounts gets something like a 7-day version of Recent Activity while pro accounts get the 31-day or better yet, unlimited days (like it was in back in the day...) version.

Good idea ping, 7 days and no timeline view would be a good middle ground I think.

As for the unlimited days' recent activity of yore, I'm pretty sure the timeline will track all activity from now on just like it used to. Unless you've seen something stating otherwise? The whole day, week, month view thing is just a preset viewport. That said I would appreciate a higher granularity slider at the bottom for month view.

Well I don't have a pro account and the way things are going I'm not going to till the bugs are sorted out. I do find the feature cool and novel, though it doesn't seem worth upgrading for.

Personally, it's not so much what's new that's offered that would want me to upgrade, but rather the fact that it's working fine, so much so that I would be here and not anywhere else and therefore would "invest" in it.

I'm the same. I can't justify going pro until I have some confidence in the reliability of the site and some pretty basic functionality in place (like a user management console for deciding who can view what size of photo, password changes etc.). It would also be nice if the cool features that were lost in the "upgrade" to mark III like trackbacks were restored.

I'll be keeping my money and options open until Kris starts listening to what his users want instead of going off on a mobile tangent that nobody really wants.

Not surprise if there will be a limit to the number of photos & bandwidth space for non-pro users.

I've not been around long enough to know what it was like back then, but people seem to have been a lot happier with the features offered back then. I'm wondering what it was all about then.

Well this was the main reason why I joined zooomr, was looking around for a site to share my shots, so I really hope it doesn't ever come down to something as drastic as that.

I don't think social stream should be limited to pro-users only, cause it's one of the most important features for a social network. And there should be a tracking of what "me, myself and i" have done as well. Like it is at the moment i still loose track if someone answers to my own comments.

I agree with the need for comment notification, it's almost impossible to find the same image which I've commented on. It gets weird when I've asked a question only to realize that I've forgotten it totally since I never know if anyone replies to it.

I think restricting fairly basic functionality such as this to pro users is not the way to go. A well implemented marketplace (possibly pro only) would surely be a much better way to generate revenue.

Zooomr could also charge a small fee for each photo sold and it could be linked with some photo printing sites so people can buy a photo and order a print in one step. Zooomr should also get comission from the printing as well.

This would give Zooomr a real edge over the other sites out there.

Hold on...you want to have everything for free? Next you will be asking for Zooomr to pay for memory cards and your Internet access so you can upload photos.
You already have unlimited uploads for any size photos if you want the full functionality Its not that much just pay for it...its only a few $.
If you like Zooomr then why not pay to upgrade?

Looks like I get the dissenting opinion here. I think it's perfectly reasonable for Zooomr to charge for this clearly value added feature. I'm concerned about Zooomr's long term viability, especially when Kris says things like if mobile doesn't fly you can "kiss zooomr goodbye."
(to be continued...)

(...continued...)
That said I agree with all the other comments that zooomr MUST fix all the critical bugs, markII was able to glean camera information (exif) from every photo, mark III doesn't, thats clearly not right. Uploaded photos don't upload in order. Color information isn't available for all photos, the list goes on and on. But most troubling of all is the fact that zooomr lost original photos, about 80 of my photos are "missing", after I was assured they would be restored from backups they haven't been, nor has Kris or TH replied to my numerous requests to have the originals restored. There is absolutely no excuse for losing photos.
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In my opinion we still aren't even where we were at over a year ago with mark II, it feels like we're going backwards. Having said all that I think Kris is one of the best programmers and site designers I've seen, he's very talented, but obviously just one guy. We see long gaps of no changes to the site and no updates with whats going on. I really think this site has great potential, and I think it's very close to being a great site, but we need to complete that last 10%
(...)

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I'm happy to pay for reliable photo storage (I've been paying webshots for almost 10 years now), but the site has to be reliable (no photos will ever be lost, nor any risk of "kissing the site goodbye"), have long term viability, and be customer friendly (my customers are the people who view my photos). Zooomr doesn't even have slideshows a very basic photo website function, I had to go and write my own.
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I saw webshots move from their markII to their markIII which sucked. I saw flickr go from amazing to sucky. I'm right on the cusp of signing up for smugmug or photobucket to supplement my sucky webshots legacy photos, because I'm more certian those sites will be here next year. I think zooomr has the POTENTIAL to be a better site and I really want to stick it out
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Having met the site's CEO and CTO who are both super nice and smart people I really want to support them as much as I can. But support is a two way street, we need better communication, and faster bug fixes, we also need to address the missing photos issue, that one may be a deal killer. How do I know you're not going to lose more of my photos in the future? And it's not just old photos either, some of my shots from my trip to Europe in April of this year are missing, which makes me sad. So, in summary, I think it's ok for them to charge for value added features, but the site has to have basic functionality with rapidly diminishing bugs.

With regard to the socialstream, timeline view is pretty cool, but list view is messed up, tons of blank pages and unsorted, please fix ( should be sorted with newest faves and comments first). Also, what does the time period mean is it photos from the last week? comments from the last week? ?

Prophead: I agree. Up to a week ago I was able to monitor and input bugs on the internal Zooomr TRAC system but that site is down now. I tried to enter some bugs last week and got a Page Not Found for the site. I emailed Kris and got no response. There was very little change to the database over the past three months except for my bug entries so I know there has been no concentration on fixing bugs.

Kris is a very smart and talented programmer but it looks like he's trying to add features to save Zooomr and not worrying about saving the loyal Zooomr users. If nothing else Thomas and/or Kristopher should be communicating with the Zooomr community showing that they care about fixing the problems and that they are listening to us.

Had really missed the activity features good to see social stream as a much better replacement. Would agree with Ping that maybe having a more limited version of Social Stream available for non Pro members. Also would like to see Social Stream button up with the Zipline, You, Discover and the World buttons.

Also think the problems with Explorer are still there for explorer users often people not as comfortable with computing. Certainly lots of people I have been encouraging to join Zooomr are finding this a significant barrier.

The sooner zooomr does this the better IMO. All unlimited free photos creates is expenses, a whole bunch of ho-hum photos, and investor distaste.

Not surprise if there will be a limit to the number of photos & bandwidth space for non-pro users.

Also think the problems with Explorer are still there for explorer users often people not as comfortable with computing. Certainly lots of people I have been encouraging to join Zooomr are finding this a significant barrier.

Yep, half the features are not working with IE.

often people not as comfortable with computing

...or who have IE as a company standard.

I'm a 'Pro4Life' account holder as well... but I'm a bit uncertain what benefit 'social stream' is supposed to offer. Because when I follow the link to it from my profile, what I get is a blank page with numbers across the top and when I click on the numbers (which appear to be links) absolutely nothing happens or changes.

So to me it's just one more bug or nonfunctional feature of Zooomr to add to the always growing list.

Malixe, you should be able to see your recent activity. What browser are you using?

Speaking of recent activity, is there a way to see the comments I have left on people's photos? Is that something that could be included in the social stream?

That's a really important question...

Speaking of recent activity, is there a way to see the comments I have left on people's photos? Is that something that could be included in the social stream?

At present there is not. But that is certainly a good feature request.

Malixe:
See http://www.zooomr.com/groups/help/discuss/1086/

What it comes down to is; you probably don't have any activity. You're very likely an anti-social person.
Like me :P.

I don't get any faves, comments, etc. unless I whore out a picture.

I'm with malixe. I am weary of the easy photo, the thousands put up on flickr every minute. can we have some really great photos? or ones that make us think, make us think what we are doing?

there is no worth to this unless it creates community. I believe you can do that because you have good priorities.

Well while you guys are expressing some criticism. How about some useful features like a photo organizer? I really have to say that stopped using zooomr for now since new features are just utterly useless: zipline, etc what the heck, really. Where 's the good stuff?