ShoZu Showing Unreliability
One of the problems with me and mobile phone photos is getting them online. ShoZu.com seems to have a solution to that problem where it sits on your phone and enables you to upload them online in a breeze. There is the option to set a 1-click feature that automatically asks you after every photo taken if you want to send it to the service you specific (e.g Facebook, Flickr, etc). Then, to save you time, you can specify CC sites that enable you set services which automatically get sent a copy of the photo everytime you send a photo.
In principle, and when it works, it is great but the service is showing some reliability problems with my Nokia N95 8GB.
Last week, it failed to validate the Facebook account I had linked it to. The first 6 hours it worked nicely, but then rather embarrassingly when I showed it to my colleague, it failed to upload. I decided to try it out on Flickr. There have been no issues with Flickr as a service for ShoZu to upload to since. But having Facebook sync work would be nice if not essential.
However, today, it seems a new problem arose. When I took a photo, Nokia’s camera kept asking me if I wanted to delete the photo and the only option that worked was “yes”. I figured this might be ShoZu, and restarted my Nokia several times (with a soft reset).
Then a polite SMS told me ShoZu was having some problems in finding my account. I decided to log-in on their website but alas, it turns that my account no longer exists at all! Thankfully none of the photos are stored at ShoZu so I only really lose the synchronization history. Still, it is a little worrying from a service that promises so much.
I have sent an email to tech support. Let’s see what their reply is. The fight against tech complexity continues…
**UPDATE**
After posting up to their forums, got a reply from ShoZu…
http://forum.shozu.com/showthread.php?tid=1119
Turns out it’s not deleted but they are having a server outage. Probably the popularity of the service is catching up with them. Let’s hope it’s not too long.
**UPDATE**
ShoZu is back up and running as of 26 August. My account is still there and all seems to be well with the world.
**UPDATE**
Got the following from ShoZu regarding this problem:
Hi [Eshin],
Sorry for not getting back to you quicker.
I’m afraid that on Monday our service had what Fickr calls a ‘hiccup’, and that’s why ShoZu didn’t recognize your account. Sorry about that. It should all be fixed now – please let me know if that isn’t the case.
Cheers
Russell
Director, Product Management
Points definitely to ShoZu for a personalized response from somebody responsible – director level. Since their outage on Monday, the service has been working a treat.
