Hey guys sorry for the down time… But we promise its worth it!

Here are a few questions we thought you would have while we are down:

So What happend to Pikchur?

Nothing really, we are still here to stay, we are not closing down. We Just need to go offline for a few hours while we transfer over our services to new servers.

Are all my photos still going to be there?

Sure! You think we would run off with all your stuff? Not a chance, everything you had will be back up once everything is transfered over.

What’s changing?

Well, a whole lot, but one of the things you’ll notice immediately is a completely re-vamped user interface. We really hope you like it, and if you don’t make sure to let us know!

Well now that we are done answering questions, here are some words of wisdom for you to reflect on while you wait.

Hey Guys,

We are updating a few sections of the site and we didn’t want any weirdness or inconsistencies happening while we do it.

We will be back in just a few minutes

Thanks 4 your patience and happy piking!

Yeap, loads of Koornk love going around these days.

Pikchur is now offically integrated into the Koornk’s posting form!

Woot! If you are a Koornker and want to take advatage of this crazy awesome tool?  All you have to do is:

1. Go to your “Settings”.
2. Under “Other” (blue text on the right) Click on “Pikchur”
3. Sync in your Pikchur account!

Thats it! Once you sync in your Pikchur account you will be able to post Piks to Pikchur directly form your Koornk Homepage.

We would like to thank the Koornk Dev team for adding us, and if you’re wondering how you can integrate Pikchur into your next project please visit our API page.

API Info => http://pikchur.com/api

Google Group => http://groups.google.com/group/pikchur-api

Looking forward to seeing what else you guys come up with!

The Pikchur Team!

Hey guys, sorry for the down time we are currently migrating some new features we think you’ll like!

So whats new?

Yep GeoTagging!

If you are not familiar with GeoTagging its basically a way to tell your friends where you took that crazy Pik you just uploaded.

How it works.

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First off before we begin, you should know that if you wish to keep your GeoTagging information private you can do so by simply going to :

• Accounts Dashboard  => GeoTagging Privacy => On

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By default if you do not send us your Geo information, we take the “Location” from your profile to tag these images.

But if you wish to override this, simply send your location within your message.

Format of Location Override => * Location *

For example:

1. * Best Buy Kendal Miami *
2. * Slovenia Gorenjska *
3. * Paris France *

And we will search Geo Coordinates for your sent location and tag your image for you.

Some Cool Features Added Because of GeoTagging

1. Timeline Map View // location based searching // (click here)
2. Homepage Map View/Cycle (click here click on view map)
3. Landing Page Mini-map of Pik location
4. User Profile Map View //location based searching // ( example: click here)

// Integration

Thats right! You can now sync your flickr account with Pikchur!!

And of course with all this comes the standard threaded comments, triggers, and something new: GeoTaging (read more above).

Comment Alerts!

We know how hard it is to keep track of comments left on you Piks, so we added Comment Alerts. Basically within your Accounts Dashboard there is a contact email, that email is where we will be sending alerts every time one of your Piks gets commented on. The alerts will include a copy of the message as well as a link back to your Pik so that you can reply if you would like.

Custom user avatars

You can now upload your own custom avatar and set them to be your default avatar. You’ll find this under settings :-)

Twitter and Koornk Threaded comment replies

When leaving comments on Piks, we give you the ability to leave your comments on various services as well. The problem with Twitter and Koornk was that you could only leave @ replies to the last status update. Now that they have implemented threaded replies we made sure to make use of that feature as well. Now you’ll know the Twitter or Koornk status the comment belongs to.

API updates

API end points have changed!

Please use http://api.pikchur.com

For example before to authenticate your end point was

http://pikchur.com/api/auth

Now it is

http://api.pikchur.com/auth

Don’t worry http://pikchur.com/api will still work for now but please make changes to your end points before January 1st 2009.

New Additions to API

GeoTagging Information was added, in the form of:

• Latitude & Longitude
• Location , Example “Miami FL”
• Geo Privacy Switch (Enable/Disable Geo Privacy)

JSON has been added as a return format. To use JSON as a return format, simply change your end point to look something like this:

http://api.pikchur.com/function/json

For example the authentication above would look like this:

http://api.pikchur.com/auth/json

Check out our Google Groups API reference page for more information.

Coming Soon…

We have a few things in store for our next update. One of them is the ability to pull comments from services the Pik was sent to. Another will be some cool tricks with Flickr such as the ability to view you Flickr Piks => Select a Pik => Propagate Through Pikchur.

Hope you guys like these updates and looking forward to what you have to say!

~The Pikchur Team.

No, that wasn’t our frustration from cranking out the last load of Pikchur updates.. You think we’re tired? You think we’ve had enough? Well not so much, in fact we’ve been grinding away and have a new batch of badness cooked up just for you.

If the Bookmarklet, Pikchur Monkey, Koornk, Totspot integration, and complete revamp of our messaging system didn’t quite do it for you, well we are proud to announce .: Drumb-Roll :. Brighkite has joined the family! and it brings it’s nifty location posting with it!

That’s right, you can now post beautiful photos of your frogs, dinosaurs, hot girlfriends, mistresses, and more straight to Brightkite from your Pikchur account! Not only that, we added some location based posting. (helpful tip: don’t use location posting on stuff that’ll get you in trouble..) With just a small tag added to your message we’ll check you in to your place of choice! Read more about it on our posting tips page , it’s super easy!

Oh: some more yawning features for you include a new section dedicated to posting tips, which can be accessed from the side menu in the settings section, a direct link can be found at the end of the previous paragraph.

In addition, we added a general signup page, which was requested by some new users wanting to push photos to Pikchur and no other social networks. Note, that any existing user can simply set a password and log in to Pikchur at any time using their display name and password, but this is useful to some people who are new at the game. We here at Pikchur cater to everyone and continuously bring kickassness to all!

If you have any special requests, propositions, or ideas you think we should be working on next, just drop us a line, we are always listening and fine tuning the system to fit your needs!

This is just the beginning though, we are not even close to being done with all the features we want to get out there! Look for some more goodness coming to a town near you in the coming weeks :-D

Happy Piking

The Pikchur Team

Hey guys , sorry the site is down but we are in the process of migrating some cool new features and tools.

Whats new

Welcome Koornk users!

Woot!  If you don’t already have a Koornk account, you can sign up free @ Koornk.com

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Welcome Totspot users!

What is Totspot? Well TotSpot is a place to create a private page about your kids and share it with friends and family. It’s an online scrapbook and community for babies, kids, and their parents. Sign up here

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OAuth

With the advent of Totspot we have enabled OAuth log ins. What does this mean to you? Well basically we can now add services like Brightkite,  Flickr and a multitude of other services which only communicate via oAuth.

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API Changes

a) Added a new function post_url , which allows for the developer to send Pikchur a url to an image for posting.

b) Added Origin field, which allows developers to send a parameter to add the origin of a Pik. To request an Origin Key please email us @ support[at]Pikchur.com with the subject “Origin Key Request”.

c) Added Pikchur API Google Groups page, which can be found here.

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Pikchur Apps

OMFG we have apps that’s flippen l337. Err i mean… Pikchur has implemented an Apps section and is proud to announce that the newly created Apps section has launched with 2 new Apps. Read more below. (Apps Page)

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Pikchur Monkey

This GreaseMonkey Script will blow your mind.
It allows you to convert simple Pikchur URL’s to Photos on the fly!
Pikchur Monkey works on Koornk, Twitter, Identi.ca, and Pownce! (Get it now!)

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Pikchur Bookmarklet

So your on the net and you find a crazy pik of a cat tap dancing on a block of cheese. I know what your thinking, everyone needs to see this! Well, with this new Bookmarklet you can share piks you find on the net with all your buddies. All it takes is about 3 clicks! (Get it now)

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Pikchur Message Queueing System (PMQS)

The PMQS has been developed to alleviate the request time necessary to post piks and comments on Pikchur.com. When a Pik or comment is posted we queue the request, once queued, you can rest assure that our servers are grinding out those messages lickety split.

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Email Processor

As you may have read before we have already optimized our email processor , but lets just say this new update puts the last one to shame. Pikchur is now able to process 100X more photos sent via Email/MMS compared to its original design.

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Origin and Timestamp of Pik

The origin and timestamp of the pik is now displayed in our timeline, as well as on the Pik landing page.

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Well that’s pretty much it for this one, but it’s definetely not the end of our updates! We are working on integrating Flickr, Brightkite, and more! In addition we have some nifty little features that you guys might like ( hint: has to do with the commenting system.. shh..)

Thanks and keep Piking!

The Pikchur Team

As many of you already know Pikchur is based in Miami FL, and for the most part we are privileged to have beautiful sunny days 99% of the year. We do however get hit by a storm or two every once in a while.

This time it seems that hurricane IKE is coming to see what all the fuss is about in Miami, so we here @ Pikchur just wanted to let you know that we have created a global account for anybody who would like to upload photos pre and after the storm. This can also be photos of stuff you find online, such as graphical prediction models, or anything else you think might be worth a Pikchur.

Here is how to send Piks of IKE to

How to send Piks of IKE to http://Pikchur.com

send all piks via MMS/Email to

IKE.08@Pikchur.com

(Thats IKE [dot] 08 @Pikchur.com)

Now we don’t want you to go out there in 150 MPH winds and whip out your camera! We much rather lose a Pik than a person, and we don’t want anyone to put themselves in danger for a Pik! Also, please to not abuse this global account. Only piks related to hurricane IKE should be posted.

Where to follow the piks.

IKE

IKE08

IKE08

IKE08

IKE08

IKE08

IKE08

IKE08

RSS

Thanks to everyone, and we wish whoever is going through the storm well. Hopefully IKE won’t be as bad as predicted and we can all get back to business as usual.

The Pikchur Team.

Optimizations

• Amazon’s S3 network- Images hosted on S3 now, should help alleviate server bandwith and allow for a better user experience.
  

• Optimized mail parser - It should run 55.67923% faster.

• Upload Form - We have optimized our upload form using JQuery, as some of you may have noticed our upload form can take longer than expected. As a solution we have divided the proccess of uploading a photo using our form into 3 steps:

1. Upload the Pik to our servers.

2. Enter status message.

3. Post to your micro-blogs/social networks.

So how is the upload process different now? Well, before we optmized, all of these steps were done in unison and at times the services we are integrated with took longer to respond than expected. All these factors along with slow upload speed attributed to the delay in posting and the occasional timeout.

JQuery , now allows us to post to individual services and notify you when each service has been updated.

New Features

• Ability to re-sync your accounts -  You no longer have to remove and add a particular service to update your badge icon and info.

• Tumblr users (and any one else interested)  - Your requests have been answered by the Pikchur gods. You may now send your long messages in the body of your MMS/email, to do so simply leave the “subject” blank.

• The “Gear” that can be made out of  photos, can only be generated by the owner of the Pik. If you have not heard of our “Gear” option check out the right side of one of your Pik’s landing page and click “show gear”. With this you can make your photos into a veriety of goodies.

Upcoming Features

• Pulling Comments - We plant  to pull comments from our supported services to better sync conversations. (If you don’t already know, we post comments left on Piks to any service the Pik was posted to; if you choose to leave one)

• Comment notifications - Notifications sent via email, so that you know when your Pik is commented on.

• new Special case for Tumblr users -  If you send a subject and a body, we will use the subject for the title of the blog post and the body for the body of the blog post.

• new Comments - When you post a comment you might notice that it takes a little bit of time, we plan to enable status update queuing on comments, to help speed things up.

• new Updating our login/auth to support oAuth. This will enable us to integrate with services like Flickr, and more.
  

• new API - Allow for the API to accept image url’s as media to be posted. Enabling the creation of widgets, bookmarklets, and FF add-ons, with the ability to send photos found online directly to Pikchur, which we then  propagate to your synced services.

• And much more to come…

If you should find any bugs please feel free to visit our getsatisfaction page and leave us a note.

Thanks and happy Piking,

The Pikchur Team

Ok so I know you were expecting new integrations, bookmarklets , and even a toolbar, and believe us, we are hard at work adding these features, and tools to Pikchur, However the following updates are UI fixes and neat little features, but the goodness is on it’s way.

important: You will now find your notifications under the “Account Dashboard” page.

Updates Performed

• Revamped accounts page. (smaller cleaner)
• Revamped user information page (smaller cleaner)
• Moved notifications to account page.
  
• Added a delete icon on the pik landing page for the owner of the Pik.
• Links to where the pik was posted  (if available). Look to the right side of a pik’s landing page (where you can find views , etc) there will be a  Posted2 menu item. If the pik was posted to any service that returns a link to where it was placed, you’ll see it here.
• Fixed UTF-8 issue on the posting of status messages Via upload, and comments.
• Revamped Pikbox page. (smaller cleaner)

Upcoming Updates

• Pulling Comments from our supported services to better sync conversations. (If you don’t already know, we post comments left on piks to any service the pik was posted to; if you choose to leave one)
• Comment notifications via email, so that you know when your pik is commented on.
  
• Optimizing mail daemon, so we can get your piks out there faster! (currently any MMS/email can take up to 10 min to parse, in most cases it is way under)
• Ability to update/re-sync accounts.(update badges, and info, etc)
• Integrating new services.
• and much more…

Thanks for all who have supported us, we really appreciate it. If you want to help get the Pikchur goodness out there, Spare us a Digg .

Remember that we take your feedback very seriously, thanks for helping us make Pikchur better :-D

Thanks again! and Happy Piking

The Pikchur Team

Hey peoples, just letting you guys know that service may not be at 100%, since we are performing DB maintenance from 10:00PM PST - 1:00AM PST.

We want to make sure your experience on Pikchur is the best it can be, and therefore some scheduled DB upgrades and maintenance are underway.

You may or may not be able to access the site during these hours, depending on the level of maintenance being performed at the time.

Rest assured that all email services are up and running 100% so don’t hesitate to keep sending in your photos. The images will sit in the queue, and because of the maintenance, might take some time to update on the site.

Service is expected to resume at full capacity after this update!

Thanks for the Patience, and Happy Piking :-D

The Pikchur Dev Team