ShoZu targets social networks with one gateway

By Giselle Abramovich

May 9, 2008

ShoZu shows you

ShoZu Inc. expanded its mobile social media service to Photobucket, Dailymotion, Friendster, Twitter and four additional Web 2.0 and Mobile 2.0 communities.

With these new integrations, ShoZu enables mobile users to interact with 36 social networks from a single screen on their mobile phones. This is designed to reduce the time, effort and money required to upload images, update social profiles and check friends’ latest posts from a mobile phone.

“ShoZu prides itself on the gateway experience and is in no way a community,” said Jennifer Grenz, vice president of marketing for ShoZu, San Francisco. “There is not one community that serves all communities simultaneously and now through ShoZu, people can update all of their profiles in one place."

ShoZu’s newly expanded menu of communities lets mobile users upload images to Photobucket, Dailymotion and Friendster and also have their most recently posted photos sent to the handset for sharing on-the-go.

Users can also sign up to the latest friend and personal ‘tweet’ timelines and post replies from Twitter, a micro-blogging service.
 
In addition, ShoZu now supports uploads to photo sharing site Twitpic, photo and video sharing community Cellfish, interactive personal video  dashboard Seesmic and online storage site Ipernity.

Other ShoZu-supported sites include Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Google Picasa, Buzznet, Hyves Kodak EasyShare Gallery, Webshots, Windows Live Spaces, Moblog.uk, Dada.net, Pikeo, Netlog Samsung Fun Club, HotSMS and blip.tv.

Users can send photos or videos to their favorite community with a click, or mass-publish any photo or video to multiple communities andr email addresses simultaneously, without opening a mobile browser.

“This service is free to users and is not yet ad-supported,” Ms. Grenz said. “We want to roll that out smartly, with personalized ads.”

Other features unique to ShoZu include the ability to have friends’ photostreams, status changes and social network invites sent directly to the handset in the background without mobile navigation or download downtime.

ShoZu’s free mobile client is currently pre-installed on newer Motorola and Samsung phones and downloadable to nearly 340 additional handset models.

“Our goal is to give community members just one tool to stay connected on the go,” Ms. Grenz said.