It’s been a brilliant year. Nothing compared to 2008 (which is going to be huge :)) but it’s been a really fulfilling time so it’s worth reflecting on what’s gone down in the last 12 months.

• We moved swiftly into Live Beta on 5 March 2007. This was our giant leap for mankind moment. We had been in closed beta since late 2006 but we hadn’t had full public exposure and feedback until now. We survived a couple of critical reviews, made some improvements, got a bit of international Web 2.0 attention and dusted ourselves off. At least, and at last, we were live and kicking.
• IOL embedded one of our videos. This really blew us away. In our very first month, South African news giant IOL embedded one of our iWitness News videos in one of their articles. Most impressive of all, it took Juanita Williams (IOL’s News Editor) exactly 10 minutes from us talking on the phone to the video being published in the article. This was really the start of a very symbiotic relationship. Since then, IOL has embedded our videos in 232 of their articles. The most recent one was published in an article on Christmas day.
• Things started to ramp up. iWeek magazine covered our launch and Helen Zille joined Zoopy and established Politics 2.0 in South Africa. On the revenue/advertising/sponsorship/integration side of things, we released our first co-branded collaborative project with BMW. Happily, it went down well with everyone.
• Warp speed, Mr Sulu. The year flew by with loads of hard work, events and planning for Zoopy v2. Bizcommunity joined Zoopy, we attended The Loeries in Margate, the World Association of Newspapers Congress and we were even voted number 2 in iWeek’s Top 10 Favourite Web Destinations. Not to mention our inclusion in Intelligence magazine’s Top Web 2.0 Startups to Look Out For. We also worked with Vince and Matt at M&G on the Secret McBride Tapes and notched up a record number of views. We also launched Zoopy Street Cam to capture public opinion on popular issues.
• On the road again. We started getting out of the office a lot more. 27 Dinners, Podcamp, meetings with sponsors and partners and more trips to Joburg than the average Capetonian takes in a lifetime. All with good reason, as we prepared for our December unveiling.
• Zoopy v2 goes live. With Nokia goodness. Yeah, December was big for us. We flew up to Joburg (again - see above) to reveal what we had been planning and building since July this year. Together with a crack team from Nokia, we hosted a media conference to announce that Zoopy’s been selected as Nokia’s regional imaging partner for South and West Africa. In practical terms, this means that any Nokia Nseries owner can now install a quick config file by visiting http://www.zoopy.com/nseries and voila, any image or video in your phone’s gallery can be easily uploaded to your Zoopy profile, directly from your phone. You can even browse your media on your phone. And in in the months to come, it’s just going to get better. Future models of Nokia Nseries phones in the region will be sold with Zoopy embedded on the phone, straight out of the box.

  Second on our December Surprise list was the launch of Zoopy v2. Finally, we put into place what we had envisaged for Zoopy all along. A social media hub that allowed users to combine their media and easily link to that media in their blogs - all in one place. We also overhauled the entire front-end and started from scratch on the back-end code as well. This, let me assure you, was a long road. We planned everything item by item, page by page, feature by feature - some of the pages went through 3 or 4 design stages before we ticked it off the list. And though we still have a few bugs and unfinished bits lurking around, we’re thrilled to have moved Zoopy into a new space. Stability, security, scalability, enjoyability … all there, the way it should be.

  And perfectly timed, as we head into 2008.

Thanks to everyone who’s viewed, shared, blogged or uploaded to Zoopy in 2007 - you helped us make the last 12 months an incredibly enjoyable start to the journey ahead. Now hold on tight for 08. Happy new year!