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.