StreamZoo - the new love in my life

When Instagram finally caved in and let us lowly android users join the ranks of people keen to make new photos look old or oddly coloured I was quite excited, I joined, added a whole heap of Twitter friends and began using it to share all my pictures. 

The joy was short lived though, because very soon after this exciting new pictorial world was opened up to me it was sold to Faceborg,  FaceBook and those that know me well will realise that the loathing I have for FaceBook really knows no bounds. I hung on in though, maybe it was all those gorgeous pictures of people smiling into bathroom mirrors whilst half obscured by an iphone, maybe it was the clawed bright fingernails, or the ever cute kittens, or even the quotes and messages of motivation....and then Instagram went a bit wild, suggesting first that they were planning to sell any pictures they fancied from the uploaded selection (eg your grinning mugshot to a dating agency or a pile cream manufacturer) and yet give us, the photographers, nothing. Of course they backtracked a few days later explaining we had 'misunderstood' aand they had no intention of selling our pictures (yeah right, I can read as could plenty of lawyers and techies and we all saw what they wrote - if anyone was 'confused' it was Instagram) anyway this was my final straw and I deleted my account and ran for the hills.

Luckily someone on Twitter (@sardinetin) told me about StreamZoo and I have been hooked ever since.

It's like instgram would have been if anyone had cared about making it great, or given it steroids...

First off there is a web application so you can upload from a PC (including the filters and borders etc) and you can browse the photos from the web, this means it's great for sharing your pics with people that don't own a smart phone or don't want to have to look at pictures on a tiny screen.

My favourite thing about StreamZoo is that the pictures do not have to be square! They can be of course, but you can crop to any size you like and the pictures are then cunningly displayed on your home screen in a gorgeous artistic huddle.

Then there is the fact that the filters are lovely, and there are lots of them, and loads of borders too, lighting effects, contrast, saturation etc all the usual 'tweaks' your picture might need.

StreamZoo is available on Android and iPhone so everyone can play. There is even a collage option so you can group a bunch of pictures together to make an effect, changing the style and colour of the border as you do.

 There are badges to earn to show the sort of StreamZoo-er you are, badges for uploading lots of dog pictures, or nature shots, for being 'liked' a lot or for having a real skill with the macro lens. And there is a leaderboard to see who is popular

And did I mention the 'stream' element to StreamZoo? You can follow a 'stream' a hashtag, so that if you love dogs you can make sure you see all the pics uploaded that are tagged #dog, or whatever you love really, #art #nature all the best pictures, it really is lovely (I cannot resist following #food, #japan and #streetart)

And I don't know why but there seem to be less of the 'bathroom' mirror shots, less of the 'nails', less blurred cats, in fact in general the photographs on StreamZoo are beautiful, artistic and many are professonal standard. What are you waiting for? It's FREE, come and make an account, you have no excuse, if you are reading this you have the technology you need! Come and play.

Edited on 6th March 2017 to add - Since this blog post was written StreamZoo has sadly closed.