The PhotoPeach Blog: 2009

2009-12-11

Presenting PhotoPeach All-New Look and Premium Account

We are proud to announce several great new features for you to enjoy. They include the new premium account with wonderful special features as well as a completely updated look and feel! We will continue to serve you to the best of our ability.

Now, PhotoPeach has an All-New Look!

To reflect the improvements made to the site and make your experience with us more enjoyable, we have worked with a professional designer to create a new look. This includes a new logo, new colors, new skin for the slideshow player, and a new favorite feature. Don't be alarmed, the same basic functions of the site have not changed.

Three Great Reasons to Upgrade your PhotoPeach Account to Premium (Yum!)

For just $3 / month you can upgrade your account to Premium and:

Download your slideshows as videos in DVD (burnable .iso) and HD (embeddable .mpeg) format
Get exclusive special features including unlimited Music uploading, Customizable transition effects, and more.
Get unlimited photos displayed in each show, up from the normal account limit of thirty.

Why go premium and download slideshows as videos?

Imagine the look on your friends and family's faces when they see your latest photos in high definition moving across a big TV screen.
Make your photos into personalized gift DVDs in glorious quality along with your music and comments-- perfect for the holidays!
Put your slideshows on YouTube, Vimeo, or any other sites that support video uploading.

What are you waiting for?
Purchase a Premium Account now and begin enjoying the next level of features and service today.
Your business allows us to continue producing quality web services that are mostly free for your enjoyment.

Love,
The PhotoPeach Team

2009-07-17

New Twitter Social Graffiti Service - Announcing twitPaint

Dear PhotoPeach users,

It makes us very happy when people use and enjoy our online services so today we are excited to announce a brand new social graffiti service called TwitPaint released at July 9th. With this new service everyone from kids on the streets to businessmen in business suites can now share graffiti tweets.

How to Use TwitPaint

1. Sketch a new concept or finish details on some graffiti letters but don't go over 140 strokes.
2. Instantly share with your followers and invite them to reply with a TwitPaint brush.
3. Reply to each others comments and start a conversation with brush strokes on the same painting.

Features

It is a very simple service that offers rich painting features such as width, opacity, and a good color palette.
With your twitter account you can send a message to your followers direct from the painting page on TwitPaint.com.
Share comments and brush strokes on the same painting by typing @username and pasting the same link.

Free-For-All

We hope you enjoy finding new ways to use this free service.

Our users have already created masterpieces in 140 strokes like Wierd-Al in Hawaii, Vader's Head, Funny Cats, and Anime Characters.

Roll up your sleeves and grab a brush,
The Nota, Inc. TwitPaint Team

2009-07-08

Highest Slideshow Quality Ever And Much More

Dear PhotoPeach users,

1. Now Among the Highest Resolution Pictures in an Online Slideshow

We are proud to announce our tech team has greatly improved the picture quality of all Photopeach slideshows.
Now you will get very high image resolution in all of your slideshows.
We have also resolved the problem that sometimes PhotoPeach slideshows would "twinkle" when pictures zoomed and moved- they are now clear and very fluid.
Your existing PhotoPeach slideshows will all be automatically converted to this new better quality show.

2. Better Transition Effect "Ken Burns Plus"

"Ken Burns" is an expression effect that PhotoPeach has been using to show your photos like a video. We have now evolved that effect to "Ken Burns Plus". With the evolved effect your photos will move more dynamically and beautifully than ever before.
See a wonderful example made by user simbarashe.

Africaspix on PhotoPeach

3. Description Automatically Added Into Slideshow Captions

We have added a description area in the "create new slideshow" function so you can quickly add your thoughts.

After you finish creating new slideshows, we will separate your description and change it automatically to be included in the captions of the slideshow.

We developed this feature to help you tell even better stories with your slideshows and we would love to know how you feel.

We hope you enjoy the service and all of the new updates.

As always, please feel free to contact us at feedback page with any thoughts you may have.

Love,
The PhotoPeach Team

2009-06-26

New Feature Updates: New Labels, Click-To-Answer, Favorites

Dear PhotoPeach users,

1. Quiz and Story Labels

New on the Explore page, we will now automatically add a [Quiz] label to your shows that include at least one quiz slide.
Likewise, we will add a [Story] label to shows that include more than five captions by the author .
This way you can easily find interesting quizzes and stories at any time just by visiting the Explore page.
We now also have a "Quiz" category.

2. Click-To-Answer Quizzes

Now you can click the answer you think is correct in a quiz slide.
Once you click an answer, the color will change to notify you and your selected answer will be posted as a comment on that photo automatically.

3. New Add Your Favorites Feature

Choose which interesting shows the PhotoPeach community will see by voting.
Now you can save the PhotoPeach shows you like the most with the new "favorite" feature we have just developed for PhotoPeach.
Simply click the "favorite" button next to the title now on each slideshow page to save them to your Home tab's new "Favorites" page.
Now Introducing...

The Best New Quiz Shows Of the Week!

If you have not made a quiz with one of your slideshows yet, here are some good examples to get you started:

Summer 08/09 Demonstrates using a quiz to tell a joke.

NBA Test Is a quiz for basketball fans.

Because we feel quizzes hold a lot of entertainment value, we encourage you to try some of these ideas and see how much fun you can have with this new feature:

Use Quizzes to:
- gather your friend's opinions on something you want to buy or sell
- asking friends to describe something you do not quite understand
- getting feedback or advice on a project
- making decisions

To make quiz, simply click the "edit caption" button at the bottom of your slideshow and click the "quiz button".

We hope you enjoy the service and all of the new updates.

Please let us know what you think by shooting us a feedback.

Love,
The PhotoPeach Team

2009-06-14

New Features For You! : All-New Editor View, Speed Control, and On-Slide Quizzes

Dear PhotoPeach users,

This week, we have completed some wonderful new features that we think take PhotoPeach slideshows to the next level.

1. New Peachy Editor to Help You Tell Better Stories Online!

With our new editor you can now:

Choose where to show the caption on each photo (center or bottom)
Explain your stories in more detail by inserting a blank slide with text only.
One-Click Duplicate photos to make better explanations and transitions.

Start using the new editor today by clicking the "Edit caption" button below your slideshows! The editor is incredibly simple yet supports making more elaborate slideshows than ever before.

For your comparison, here is an example of both the new slideshow and the old one to showcase its features:
Tug of War 2: The New Editor
Tug of War: Original

2. Fine-Grain Speed Control Options

Want to change the speed of photo changes in your slideshow?

Step 1: Simply click the "edit caption" button at the bottom of your slideshow and to enter the new editor and you'll see the speed control slider at the bottom.
Step 2: Drag the bar to change the speed to your desired value and then click "preview" to check the result.
Step 3: Click "OK" to permanently save this speed for the entire slideshow and return to the normal view.

Here is an example of a really fast slideshow to show what you can do with the speed adjustment:
Kaiyukan Aquarium - See 40 photos in 30 seconds

3. Introducing the All-New Quiz Concept to the PhotoPeach service.

Now you can make slideshows with a quiz for your friends and family to test their knowledge.

When inside the editor,

Step 1: Select the slide you wish to add a quiz to, and click the quiz button on the left.
Step 2: Add a question for your audience, add two or three possible answers, and be sure to click the circle next to the correct one.
Step 3: Click "OK" to save the changes.

Use our sharing buttons below the slideshow on the viewing page to send the quiz to your audience and test their knowledge or get feedback.

We can't wait to see you create your own new public quiz show! See an example here .
That wraps up our new features for this week. We sincerely hope you enjoy them.

As always, please provide any feedback you may have; we always love to hear your opinions.

A Big Thank You goes out to all of our users who responded to the questionnaire. It has already proven to be invaluable feedback and the Amazon Gift cards have been sent to the 10 lucky winners.

Thanks for using our service.

Love,
The PhotoPeach Team

2009-05-14

Two New Features, Free Gift Cards For Feedback!

Dear PhotoPeach users,

Today we not only have new features for you, we are also announcing the launch of our gift card reward campaign!
Just fill out the questionnaire in the link at the end of the email and you will be entered to win one of ten, 10$ Amazon.com Gift Cards.

Also, just this week we are adding two new features to our service.

1. Explore by Category that you are interested in.

With public categories, creators can place their shows in a category that best targets their audience and everyone can enjoy watching shows from other people with similar tastes.
Here are the list of categories : World & Travel Pets and Animals Nature Science Commedy Sports Art & Illustrations Education Computer & Tech Politics & Society Cooking & Food Family & Wedding Party & Event

2. Import from Web

Do you have a blog with photos? If so, you are already setup to make a photopeach slideshow with one click!
Now we have added an import from web page function .
Just copy & paste the URL of your blog in upload page and click the "get" button.

We will retrieve all images from that web page automatically. You can remove unnecessary images or change the order as always, and make new slideshows in seconds!

Questionnaire

By answering these questions you will be helping to make PhotoPeach better and be automatically entered to win one of Ten, 10$ Amazon gift cards.

As we wrote above, we want you to answer the questionnaire so that we can better grasp your needs, and then improve our service for you.

To answer the questionnaire, please visit this page:
http://bit.ly/photopeach_questionnaire

The questionnaire will only be available until May 22 so act now.

We will inform the Ten winners of Amazon.com Gift Cards, selected at random on May 31 by email.

Thanks for reading and hopefully helping us provide a better service for you.

Love,
The PhotoPeach Team

2009-05-03

Three Freshly Grown Features for You

Hello from PhotoPeach!

We have been busy at work and are releasing delicious new features into the wild for you to enjoy. Check it out:

1. More Music Options

We have added more than fourty tracks to our music library so now you can enjoy more music options and make your slideshows more unique.

2. Hot Slideshows Added to Explore Mode

We have just added a "Recently Popular" tab in the explore page. In this mode, slideshows that received more than 5 comments from others will appear. Now you can easily find slideshows that are hot right now and add your two cents.

3. Watch Your Favorite Creator's Newest Shows Automatically

Last week, we released a brand new "watch the creator" function. Many people are now enjoying their favorite creators shows as soon as they are made. If you are not watching anybody yet, find your favorite creators in the new creators page or go to friends you know and start "watching" today.

Collect your favorite creators' slideshows and follow their latest updates automatically!

As always, thanks for enjoying the service and let us know if there is anything that could make your experience sweeter.

Love,
The PhotoPeach Team

2009-04-16

Just Released: Three Major New Features

Dear PhotoPeach Users,

At PhotoPeach, we are constantly working to make the service better for you
and we are proud to announce three new changes that we think.

1. New fun way to comment

We just added a new way to comment on slideshows.
You can now exchange comments in a chat window while you're watching a PhotoPeach slideshow.
The comments are connected with each photo in a show, so you can easily chat about all the great pictures that appear.

As a creator, you can also manage comments left for your photos by clicking "Manage Comments" in the Owner Options of each slideshow.

We think that this new system makes it even more easy and fun to comment, so get in there and start chatting!

2. Faster Upload

You might have noticed before that our Java-based photo upload tool took a while to load up.
Well, that's no longer a problem. Our new Flash-based uploading tool loads quickly and even automatically optimizes the size of your photos to improve the upload speed even further.
We think that we now have one of the fastest uploaders on the web!

3. Watch Your Favorite Creators

We also just added the 'Watch' functionality to PhotoPeach. When you find a creator with slideshows that you like while browsing featured shows or your friends' shows
you can simply click 'Watch this creator' and whenever they publish a new public slideshow, it appears on your home page automatically.
You can also see when slideshows that you are watching have new comments.
I watch a lot of good creators at featured show. I always look forward to seeing their updates!

Lastly, our Canon Digital Campaign has come to an end! We got so many great entries and it was really difficult choosing,
but the winner of the Canon Rebel is Iheartmonster and Alexgmitu with this great slideshow entry! Congrats!

To see the complete results, check our results page.
http://photopeach.com/campaign/result

We hope that these changes make PhotoPeach even more fun and easy for you to use! We can't wait to see what new slideshows you come up with! Enjoy!

Love,
The PhotoPeach Team

2009-03-21

Announcing the Latest PhotoPeach Feature: Feedshows

Want hands-free internet news so you can finally relax?

Try PhotoPeach's new FeedShows today:

You can enjoy content (like Digg, Delicious, TechCrunch, and more) in a format as gorgeous as TV.

PhotoPeach FeedShows present news in a slide show format with big photos and the title of each piece read aloud automatically by the computer.

Now you can follow the latest news even while you are doing other tasks like checking email or reading your real newspaper.

Imagine watching the news from your computer in the morning while you relax and have a cup of coffee:

We have also created a special Feedshow for the World Baseball Classic game of the day and it is available until March 23rd (the final game). You can also check out all past WBC games from the same page.

World Baseball Classic on PhotoPeach

We hope you begin enjoying your news in style on Photopeach Feedshows today.

2009-03-06

Win A Cannon Digital Rebel and More!

Dear PhotoPeach Users,

To celebrate over 150 Thousand photo uploads in our first two months, we have started our first ever "Embed PhotoPeach, Win a Canon Digital Rebel" prize campaign.

Enter now to win!
Two First Prize Winners Will Receive: Canon Digital Rebel XSi
10 Runner-Up Winners Will Receive: Vista Quest VQ1005 Digital Toy Cameras

Canon Digital Rebel XSi 12.2 MP Digital SLR Camera with EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Lens (Black)

VISTA QUEST VQ1005 Digital Toy camera

Anyone can apply for the campaign in three steps!

Step1 : Make a PhotoPeach Slideshow.
Step2 : Embed it on your blog or website.
Step3 : Click the button below to submit your entry by April 5th and wait for the results.

We are looking forward to your visit!

Love,
The PhotoPeach Team

2009-02-26

Users Page and More

New Features
Users page has been added;
you can check out other users' public shows and profile.
"Join PhotoPeach" link was added in ending.

Small Changes
Increased server network speed
Changed email icon at "Share" window
Embed button icon changed
Faster slideshow flash loading
Added page navigation at "Home" and "Explore"

2009-02-10

Three All-New Features We Developed From Your Requests

Dear PhotoPeach Users,

Thanks for using the PhotoPeach Beta-- you have put a big smile on our faces. Today, we have added 3 big features to the PhotoPeach service. We love serving you and, though there's still much we have to do, we hope that you're finding your PhotoPeach experience more exiciting.

#1. Comment Moderation

Today we are announcing a new function that allows users to remove comments. You can remove your own comments or ones made by others from your slideshow if you feel they are inappropriate.

1. Now you will find 'Manage Comments' in 'Owner Settings' or 'Edit' button next to 'Latest Comments' area below your slideshow.

2. In the comments list, just click the trash icon of the comment you want to delete.

#2. Express Import

Now you can use more powerful importing features to grab pictures from other services. Express Import lets you import all new albums from your existing albums on other services and automatically convert them to PhotoPeach slideshows. For now background music will be chosen by our system, but you can change it afterwards.

If you use Express Import in the future, the system will auto-detect new albums, and import only albums that you did not import to avoid duplicates.

#3. Cover Photo For Your Embedded Shows

Now we will display a cover photo for your embedded show with a transparent effect. We believe this looks much better than just a black box with a play button.

One More Thing... Check Out Hundreds of Great Shows

365 public slideshows have been created by out wonderful users since January 27th. Find great slideshows here and enjoy watching them or kindly leave a comment.

Since January, we have more than 88,000 photos and 1,800 slideshows. This was not accomplished without your support. We thank you all and we will keep working hard to make our service better for you.

Love,
The PhotoPeach Team
http://photopeach.com
contact@photopeach.com

2009-02-03

[Review] PhotoPeach @ GENBETA

PhotoPeach was reviewed at Genbeta, a well-known Spanish tech website. They introduced PhotoPeach as a simple slideshow maker. Thank you!

http://www.genbeta.com/2009/01/29-photopeach-una-forma-sencilla-de-crear-pases-de-imagenes-en-internet

[Review] PhotoPeach @ ReadWriteWeb

PhotoPeach was reviewed at ReadWriteWeb. The writer evaluated that "PhotoPeach takes a more minimalist approach and focuses purely on the actual pictures without using flashy effects and themes". We are very happy to read this review:-) Thank you!

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/photopeach_photo_slideshows.php

2009-02-02

[Review] PhotoPeach @ DinSide

PhotoPeach was reviewed on DinSide, a tech website from Norway. The writer, Pål Joakim Olsen wrote very intelligible description on how to create slideshow. The screenshots and the PhotoPeach slide show which he made is excellent as well. Thank you!

http://dinside.no/802633/lag-flotte-lysbildeshow

2009-01-29

[Review] PhotoPeach @ makeuseof.com

PhotoPeach was introduced in makeuseof.com, a tech website, as a cool website. Thank you!

http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/photopeach-easily-create-cool-slideshows-music/

Just Released: Five Major New Features

Dear PhotoPeach Users,

Thank you for using PhotoPeach Beta. Today, we have big news for you: 5 big additions to the PhotoPeach service.

We love serving you and, though there's still much we have to do, we hope that you're finding your PhotoPeach experience more exiciting.

#1. Embed PhotoPeach

Now you can embed small photopeach slideshows in your blog.

When you want to show a bunch of photos to your blog readers, PhotoPeach is a great tool.

It works just like embedding youtube videos.
Just click the "Blog (Story)" button below your show to get the embed code.

#2. Spiral View Renewed

Have you seen the spiral viewing mode on PhotoPeach?

Now, you can drag your spiral view with your mouse smoother than ever
and you can embed this spiral art in your blog too.
Your visitors will be surprised that they can interact with this gadget on your blog so easily.

Just click the "Blog (Spiral)" button below your show to get the embed code.

#3 Users Can Now Comment Without Signing-Up

Visitors without an account can write their name and comment on your slideshow without signing up.

Now your friends can leave comments on your photo slideshow more casually.

#4 More Privacy Options

We offer you a choice of the best privacy settings for each slideshow from three options: Public, Unlisted (default) , and Private.

Privacy Options:

Public: Anyone can view your public show and it's searchable by search engines like Google or Yahoo.
Unlisted: Only those who have the secret link can see your show.
Private: Only those you specify by email can view your show.

To learn more about privacy options, click here.

#5 Flash Uploader

You can now use a flash uploader so that you can upload images more easily without Java.
Use the shift or ctrl key to select multiple files like you are used to.

So those are the five features that you can try! We hope you enjoy these all-new additions to the service.

By the way...did you know the author of the photo on the PhotoPeach top page?

This photo is taken by a professional photographer, Thomas Hawk.
You can see his recent work here.

If you have any suggestions you would like to share with us about our service, tell us.

Since we have launched beta, we have been reviewed by over 30 blogs.
We appreciate all beta users and bloggers! We promise that we will work to keep making the service better and better.