Monday, March 3rd, 2008

Introducing Humzoo

I am super proud to unveil a huge side project that I have been working on. For the past two months, after we tuck our families in bed at night, Denny Deaton and I have been hard at work on a project that we think will fill a huge void on the Internet today.

We both have been approached numerous times to build sites similar to our own for friends and family. Late in the fall of last year we started discussing the concept of building a web site that would basically offer a free web site to anyone and everyone. Of course there are plenty of sites out there today that offer similar services but we felt like some key elements were missing from each one.

Our primary goal was to create a free service that lets people create personal web sites that are easy to browse, easy to edit and easy on the eyes. We were tired of the ad-ridden web sites with unused features that are clunky and hard to navigate. No sites that we have seen make the users’ content the primary focal point. We hope to change that. Without further ado, we’re proud to introduce Humzoo today.

Humzoo offers blogs and photos in one site. It’s very simple and also may look a little familiar. Denny and I took a lot of what we liked about our own sites and what we thought worked well, made it better and created Humzoo. We plan on moving our own sites over to Humzoo as soon as we’re able to do everything there that we can on our own sites. We’re already quite jealous of the editing tools that each Humzoo site has, as our own sites have control panels that resemble HTML forms from 1994.

In addition to the free service, Humzoo offers a paid option that we refer to as a Humdinger account. Humdingers enjoy all the features of a free account, plus some added benefits such as: unlimited storage space, ad-free sites, custom header background images, a wider selection of site themes and more. A Humdinger account costs $25 annually, and free accounts can upgrade at any time.

To sign up for an account go to http://www.humzoo.com/signup/. Even if you don’t plan on publishing blogs or uploading photos, having an account will give you some options not available to the general public, such as having a custom image (an “avatar”) associated with your comments, skipping those fun little tests when making a comment (a “captcha” test) and the ability to edit and delete your comments from anywhere on the site.

I am very excited to announce that Courtney now has her own web site. She should be able to offer a different perspective on the craziness that is the Heinzel household. She is going to make an effort to put something new on her site every day. Check out her new web site at http://www.humzoo.com/courtneyheinzel.

Your feedback is very important. We want to know what you think about the site and what you like and don’t like. If you have any problems or something doesn’t seem right please let us know. I am a human and Denny is a robot so we make mistakes. We have a lot of big ideas for the site but the people who use the site will ultimately determine the direction of Humzoo.

Spreading the word about the new web site is imperative to the success of Humzoo. We believe we have a service that will be appealing on many levels to many different audiences. We’re very interested to see how people use it to share their life and story. Please feel free pass the web site along to your friends, family and even your crazy 3rd cousin with the hairy eyeball. We’d really love the support!

Click here to set up your free Humzoo account

RELATED TOPICS: computer geek stuff, documented items

Comments have been turned off since I moved over to Humzoo.

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