1. Startup

Ayofoto Supports HD Photos on Their New Release

Ayofoto! has launched the latest version of their service, version 5.0. This version has been introduced since April 1, 2012 and announced under the name Ayofoto! HD. It offers several amenities such as wider view and easier upload system.

From the announcement given through its newsletter, update of this latest version is focused on providing convenience for Ayofoto! user and changes in appearance following the nowadays trend. There are at least three changes highlighted by Ayofoto!. The first is Ayofoto! HD (high definition), this new look is tailored for high-resolution screen, minimum width of 1280 pixels by maximizing access to their service from tablet, computer screen with 1280px resolution and HD TV with internet TV facility.

The second is the easy process for user to upload photos to Ayofoto! service. Now, registered user does not have to fill out a list of tools and makes comment on the photo first. And the third one is new layout on the exchange feature of Ayofoto! with a more informative and bigger product photo. It is said that aside from these three changes, there are hundreds of fixes and improvements from its previous version (version 4) of its service, although not mentioned in detail; I presume that those changes (aside from the three big changes) are more into technical stuff and optimization of its service. In addition, Ayofoto! also said that soon, it’s going to release another excellent feature.

I haven’t visit this site for some time, but judging from its appearance that now looks neat, with grouping and the display of uploaded photos description that really nice to see. I also tried to view the new photo gallery on iPad, it’s fun including when we want to see the thumbnail images if a user uploads more than one photo. Display images when selecting an image to be viewed in detail is also quite good. There’s a little inconvenience when opening Ayofoto! site from a laptop. I have to move the screen to be able to view Ayofoto! site in full. This does not happen when opening Ayofoto! from iPad, the site can be viewed in full without having to shift around the screen. I am using a laptop with a wide screen resolution of 1280px.

Ayofoto! is one of ‘senior’ services that has been around since 2005, winning several competitions and getting a turnover of about 100 million each month (of course, from selling photos only) and more than 40.000 members (October 2011 data, courtesy of MajalahDuit). With the increasing growth of photo and camera user communities as well as photography activities, this has become a kind of local version of photo stock service such as Getty Image or iStockphoto and interesting to observe, especially in the era where photography is entering the mobile photo era and the era where photo sharing is a ‘must’ for internet user.