Yee yee! The Zoosk iPhone App is here to feed your raging internet addiction!

As there are 50 million (and counting) worldwide registered users on Zoosk and 40 million worldwide iPod and iPod Touch users, a sizable swath of our Zooskers are also serious Mac people. Lucky for them, because our iPhone App promises to make social dating quicker, easier, and more efficient than, well, freaking ever.

Now you can Zoosk it up at work during that boring conference call or while you’re at the grocery store or while you’re at the gym or while you’re on a bad date with someone else (you’re just, er, responding to an important text) or in the bathroom or like basically anywhere you can find a signal. Which means, essentially, that you can flirt with online hotties wherever you go. With social networking, downloadable desktop, mobile, and iPhone applications, Zoosk is dating for the connected world.

Download the free iPhone App at the iTunes App Store online or right on your iPhone. If you’re not a Zoosk member currently, you can register and validate a new account, right on the application itself. After your first iPhone log-in, we’ll give you 30 free Zoosk coins. Use them to send a virtual gift to someone who catches your eye. Then get your thumbs ready for a flirting frenzy because that touch screen will put them to work!

Lastly, don’t be bummed if you don’t have an iPhone — Zoosk still has you covered on the mobile front. If you don’t have an iPhone, you can still access Zoosk on your standard phone with Zoosk Mobile. See how easy we make it for you to flirt shamelessly? What are you waiting for? Get out there and start flirting!

Hurray! It’s that time of the month again, when we reveal the winning couple of the previous months’ Success Story contest. We’ve heard many beautiful love stories that left our hearts fluttering, but the August story that particularly tugged on our heartstrings was sent to us from a Zoosker from Detroit named Jason. He initially sent in this message on August 20, after he encountered a woman named Ang on Zoosk. In fact, he sent us this  success story before he actually met Ang in real life, while they were still just chatting on the phone!

I met someone on Zoosk named Ang who rocks my world.  We have been talking on the phone for around 3 weeks, sometimes 4-5 hours at a time.  Our conversations are very diverse, and quickly realized there may be something special here.  In reality, it is only on the phone, but we are both consistent and honest with each other.  That I do know.  Basically, we found that we are looking for similar things in our life and the compatibility between us is remarkably unbelievable!  We are excited because in 2 weeks I will make the 4 hour trip from Detroit to Cincinatti to meet her and already have the day planned out.  We both admit to being a little nervous, anxious (and all those good things), but it will be a relief to have finally met one another.

The message definitely stuck out to us. It was intriguing, romantic, and hopeful. Here was a guy who sent us a Success Story between himself and Ang, before they even met. That’s some bona fide, honest to goodness faith in another human being. It was as if Jason knew, before even seeing Ang for the first time, that he’d found someone special. The rest of the story will convince even the most hardcore cynic that two people really can meet online and make it work. On September 3, two weeks later, we heard from Jason again.

Things are going great between Ang and I. This Labor Day will be our second date.  The distance between the 2 of us is 4.5 hours, but well worth it from Detroit (my hometown) to Cincinatti.  Our first date was last Saturday.  After 4 weeks of talking on the phone every day for 3-4 hours, we finally met up at one of her favorite parks.  We embraced with a hug, and poor Ang was shaking a little bit.  So I told her, “Everything is okay and will be fine. Let’s have some fun!”  We took a walk on the trail that went around a small lake, did some chit chat, then went out for an early dinner, went put-putting, back to the park for some pictures and more conversation.  The one thing I did notice about Ang was that ‘look’ that she gave me: that stare into my eyes, my soul.  I guess after talking for so long on the phone and being emotionally attached to each other, when we finally met it was a big relief and weight off of our shoulders to finally look into each others eyes.  We held each other hands, hugged, kissed a few times, and we enjoyed each others company and still had that connection that was developed over the phone.  We still talk everyday and send emails to keep the communication strong.  I consider Ang a rare gem, someone who is hard to find, and I feel lucky to have ’stumbled’ across her on Zoosk.  There is no way I will let 4.5 hours stop our relationship because she is one great woman and has so many genuine qualities that I am looking for.  The cool thing about Ang is that we have mutual respect for each other.  The way I feel about her, is the way she feels about me.  How do I know, well, because we tell each other every night!

And to this day, they are still going strong, despite the distance between them. So romantic! We wish Ang and Jason the very best.

August is over, and now it’s September. Have you met your love on Zoosk this month? Found a fun date, a significant other, or a life partner? Hit us up at success@zoosk.com. We’ll select one story from September to feature right here on the Zoosk blog. If your love story is selected, we’ll send you a $100 Amazon.com gift card.

For more Zoosk success stories, read about Thomas and Blondy from Washington state, our success story selection for July. Or Adam and Lauren from Australia, who met on the site and recently got married. Or this story by Patricia from Baltimore, who found her love on Zoosk and regales us with her story of the perfect date. Don’t forget Kelly and Andy, who met on Zoosk in February and got married last month! Congratulations, happy Zooskers. You make our lives complete!

By Juliet O

Zooskers often write in our Community Forums asking for advice on love. The Zoosk Community is incredibly supportive of each other, and when a Zoosker seeks love advice on the forums, other Zooskers weigh in and offer their assistance. It’s a nice feeling, knowing that there is a community of people willing to help you work through your love and relationship problems.

As more and more questions arise on our forums, we’ve discovered certain similarities among the questions we’ve seen. Questions often fall into distinct camps. And questions tend to be finite. We get a lot of the same questions over and over again. That should be reassuring news! This means that — for each person out there who has love or relationship problems — there are other people in the world with the same problems. You are not alone! And we want to help too. You don’t have to take our advice, or even listen to what we have to say, but we want you — yes, you! — out there to know that we really do care.

We want to participate in the conversation. So, each week we’ll be taking a question from the Zoosk Community Forums and giving our take on the situation. Unofficial advice from official Zoosk. Here’s this week’s question, posed by Zoosker Jay. This is taken from our Broken Heart, Now What forum.

I consider myself to be a nice person, my friends claim that I’m intelligent and funny, although I can be very cynical sometimes about my view of the world. I have no problems hanging out with guys. I can talk about sports, music, books, politics – you name it. I have no issues drinking a couple of beers and having some laughs.

Yet with girls, it’s somehow different, especially single girls. I’ve been investing time exercising and buying fashionable clothing, tried to learn things about girls… yet it’s very hard for me to approach them. I feel like this invisible shield that prevents me from being with them and feel really comfortable.

What we see here is the classic case of shyness. There isn’t anything wrong with Jay — he’s an attractive, intelligent, and interesting person. His problem lies around this very sentence: “it’s very hard for me to approach them”. Jay has no problem spending time with his male friends, but around women, he admits that he locks up. Many people have problems overcoming shyness or awkwardness around members of the opposite sex, but these problems can be overcome.

Shyness often stems from high degrees of self-consciousness in social settings. Self-consciousness can be extremely stifling — which explains the paralysis that shy feelings often induce. This is what you’ve called “an invisible shield”. There’s nothing weird about being shy, because we all experience timidness from time to time. It’s when shyness prevents you from living the life that you want to live, that it becomes a problem. And Jay’s shyness does prevent him from living that life. It’s difficult for him to approach women, and he feels highly uncomfortable when interacting with members of the opposite sex.

There are ways to deal with shyness but, like overcoming any obstacle, tackling shyness take practice and diligence. The first step is to understand that shyness is a problem. You must commit yourself to dealing with it, just as you would any other problem. Next, reflect on the things you enjoy about yourself: aspects of your personality that make you feel good as a person. Jay has already listed them for us: he is funny and intelligent, and he is a great conversationalist (when not around women) who can talk about sports, books, politics, music, and many other topics. Our advice for Jay is that he focus on his strengths, rather than his weaknesses, to help build the confidence he needs in order to approach women.

Another way to deal with shyness is to conquer your social anxiety. Jay needs to control those anxious feelings if he is to ever feel ‘normal’ in his interactions with potential dates. One method of dealing with anxiety is to physically (from a behavioral perspective) control anxiety’s effects (or ’symptoms’). It sounds cheesy, but focusing on your breath is really helpful. Don’t allow your nerves get the best of you. Take slow, calm breaths in tense situations. Breathing rhythmically tricks your body into believing that you aren’t anxious, and it really is possible to induce yourself to behave calmly.

It’s also important that you don’t flee from uncomfortable situations. When people say “face your fears,” they aren’t just repeating cliches for the heck of it. There really is truth to this saying. How are you ever going to grow as a person, if you let your fears get the best of you? Jay is probably better at talking to guys, because he’s had more practice doing so. He hangs out with his guy friends way more than he hangs out with single members of the opposite sex. He doesn’t have the same level of ‘behavioral practice’ around single women as he does with his platonic friends.

Our advice to Jay is to put himself in situations where he is forced to deal with women.

People learn things quickly. We adapt to new situations around us with ease that often times takes us by surprise. By putting himself around women, even if he flounders at first, Jay will realize over time when things work and when things well… fail. And there is no shame in failure, as long as you pick yourself up and learn from your mistakes. Everyone faces failure in the game of love. Sometimes we hit the jackpot, and sometimes we have spectacular losses. But we survive and grow as people, which is why despite how bruised we get along the way, we keep on fighting, round after round. Hope this helps you in your search, Jay.

photo credit: lepiaf.geo

By Juliet O

… Zoosk is introducing coins to our site! Why coins? Because we like shiny objects, and we like pirates, so it follows logically that our currency of choice on Zoosk would be gorgeous glistening gold doubloons.

Argg matey! So, with coins, (1) what are these pretty little babies, and (2) what can you spend them on? Currently, coins can be spent in 3 ways, depending on if you’re a premium subscriber or a basic member on Zoosk. Peep this.

A. If you are a premium or a basic member, you can buy gifts with coins — and gifts raise your chances of being responded to by 76% according to our last Zoosk survey. And now, with gift categories, we have tons of new gifts (including naughty ones) and sending them is easier now than ever. Who doesn’t want be surprised by a bouquet of roses, a chocolate covered strawberry, or a hot dog? Frankly, we’d love to get a hot dog.

B. Coins are used to unlock the “Who Viewed Me” functions on your Zoosk date card. In the image above, you see how this works. If you are a basic subscriber, you can check out the profiles of Zooskers who’ve viewed your date card by purchasing 15 coins. To unlock all the profiles, you can subscribe to premium membership. Why should you want to see the profiles of people who’ve viewed you? Notwithstanding the curiosity factor (you can’t see which people view you on Facebook or other social media sites, so Zoosk offers a fun way to see who’s stumbled across your profile), viewing is just another way of flirting. Everyone has been in the following situation: a hottie checks you out at a party or a bar, and both of you are too chicken to make the first move. You then stay up all night kicking yourself for not having the cojones to strike up a conversation. Don’t let this be a habit you take from the real world into the online dating world. If someone checks you out, don’t be shy. Carpe diem! Seize the day. Find out who they are, and send them a message first. Passivity is about as attractive as funky breath when it comes to the art of love.

C. Coins can be used for Boost. Boosting your profile guarantees you a set number of “Boost Views”, which means that your profile will appear that same, set number of times at the very top of a search result or on a Zoosk front page. Meaning, if you buy 500 Boosts, you will land at the top of the search results or the front page of Zoosk 500 individual times. How’s that for a leg up? You can even track your current Boost numbers by visiting your Settings tab and clicking on the Boost link (like in the photo above). See the icon with the lightening bolt on it? Click the icon with the word “Boost” next to it in order to track your views.

photo credit: tao zyn

By Juliet O

“Hello Jane!”

“Hi?”

“This is John. From Zoosk! How are you, Jane?”

“Hi! I’m good.”

“So I’m calling you cuz I thought your boobs looked really great in your photos.”

“What?!”

“I mean, I’m calling because I thought we hit it off and–”

Click.

Err… real smooth, John. Now Jane thinks you’re a total creepazoid. Right after she hung up the phone, she went to see if your name was on the national sex offender registry. It goes without saying that this is the type of phone conversation an online dater should do his very very best to avoid. But you already knew that.

While phone conversations seem unimportant, trivial at best, in reality they’re quite the opposite. For online daters, the first phone conversation is just as important as the first date. Why? Because, in the universe of online dating, the first phone convo is the first date. Particularly if you and your potential Zoosk match live at great distance from one another — in which case, phone conversations become a vital aspect of your whole relationship — chatting on the phone is a great way to mentally gauge whether you feel a connection with a person whom you have never met in real life. The phone is also a good ‘in between’ step to take after sparking some initial chemistry online, before making the decision to meet IRL (‘in real life’ for you online dating n00bs).

So you sent a few winks, then you started sending a few messages, and by the end of the week, message volume is at a frenzy and you’re already looking up one-bedrooms on Craigslist? Um, Quicky McDraw, before you rent that U-Haul, you need to pick up your phone. A diamond of wisdom for daters = take it slow.

The first phone conversation you have with a potential match is not just a social formality. The point of the phone conversation is to gauge the likelihood of a future real-life connection, right? We who date online do so with the hope that our online activity will lead to fruition, one day, with a tangible real life romance. The phone conversation should be a part of your personal dateability test (sometimes negatively referred to as your ‘freak location radar’) to judge if a real life romance is at all within the realm of possibility. Talking on the phone with potential dates is a smart use of your time. And your time is precious and ought to be used effectively.

Here are some tips on how to successfully use your phone conversation to determine if a real-life connection does in fact exist — and some tips on how to use the telephone as a way to attract potential matches, once you decide that the IRL step is one you wish to take.

5. The same rules that go for first dates also go for first phone conversations.

Treat this first phone conversation as a first date. Get exited for it! Take a shower beforehand and put your “I’m sexy” jeans (or your “I’m too sexy for my jeans” jeans) and your “I am so getting laid tonight” shoes. We even think it’s okay to drink during the conversation so long as the person on the other end of the line is drinking too. If they are not drinking, you should probably not drink either, unless you are really good at hiding all evidence so as to not come across as an alcoholic mess who can’t even have a simple phone conversation without reaching for the Wild Turkey. The point is, treat this like a real date and take it seriously. Expect that the person on the line will have the courtesy to extend the same treatment to you. And remember: no phone sex on the first date! You are not that kind of caller.

4. Stay calm.

The only really ‘physical’ thing this person on the phone has to go by, in your case, is your voice. And if you get all crazy nervous and your voice starts to tremble, you will come off as a scary, paranoid psychopath — and we guarantee this will make the other person uncomfortable. Trembling voices is a huge giveaway that you are nervous, and nervousness shows a lack of confidence, and a lack of confidence is super unsexy! Staying calm will also give you a clear head to navigate a conversation smoothly and naturally. Your oratorical skills are the first thing to go when you get nervous, and your explosively sexy skills at light banter will go down the toilet if you let your nerves get the best of you. So, simmer down now. Slow and steady wins the race.

3. Take some imaginary conversation Viagra so that you can last longer.

Think of your first phone conversation with your potential match as a bottle of expensive wine that someone just happened to give you, for free. In this case, would you shotgun that shit like a six-pack of Keystone Light during a game of flip cup? Hell to the no! You would savor it slowly, treating every sip like it were ambrosia from the gods! You have the chance to talk on the phone with a person who might end up being the love of your life. You have never met. Don’t you want to savor this moment of poetic blindness and prolong the sweet lingering feeling of blossoming love for as long as you can sustain it? Duh. Don’t jump into an IRL meeting after a 5 minute conversation. If you can’t even last 5 minutes on the phone with someone, how will you sustain a lifetime with them, through thickness and thin, IRL?

2. It’s okay to get personal.

Conventional wisdom says, don’t get personal on a first phone conversation. Conventional wisdom is wrong. We actually believe that talking on the phone is the easiest way to get personal, because you aren’t actually face-to-face with the individual in question, so you have enough physical distance to bridge an emotional distance. So many intimate, vulnerable conversations happen on the phone due to this simple fact. Just think about how much easier it is to ask someone out over the phone, as opposed to in real life! And we also believe that, because you are meeting this person on the internet where you can’t see them in person and have less ‘tools’ at your disposal to judge what kind of person they might be, it’s perfectly okay to compensate by asking questions of a more personal nature. Like, does this person smoke? Does this person have children? Roughly, what is this person’s financial situation like? Ask the questions that you need answered right away so that you don’t have to deal with them down the road, when you have more invested and there’s more at stake.

1. Flirt like it’s your job.

The first rule of a phone conversation is to flirt, flirt, flirt your little butt off. You are ultimately on Zoosk to get dates! And, in general, dates respond well to shameless flirting. Try your hand at charming banter, light teasing, and complements so smooth it’s like you put Astroglide on your phone. If you have questions on how to flirt, get a second opinion. Ask the Zoosk Community. Check out our many community boards, like ask a girl, ask a guy, and best/worst pick-up lines forums, among many more. If you want to learn some varsity level flirting skills, the Zoosk community is the place you want to go. Holla!

photo credit: leorelei

By Juliet O

While most of you Zooskers probably couldn’t run a marathon with your legs, you sure know how to run them with your mouths. Your chat-alicious, loose-lipped, loud-mouthy, over-sharing, word-spitting ways have greatly endeared you to our hearts, and we applaud the fact that many of you have problems shutting the front door.

Our hyperactive community forums are one of the Zoosk features we’re most proud of, because the many voices on the forums come from YOU, the community, and the community is the life of Zoosk. It appears that the average Zoosker on our forums is chattier than an ADHD kid who just washed down all his Halloween candy with a 6-pack of Red Bull. You will get that talk on, and we find that to be a beautiful thing. On the forums, topics range from discerningly erudite (like intelligent reflections on the meaning of love) to unabashedly low-brow (like talking in detail about the female anatomy), and all these topics come together to form a mish mash, hodge podge, all-encompassing community board that accurately details all the multiplicity of things going through the collective mind of the Zoosk community, something we admire, foster, and want to actively engage. Today, we want to shine a spotlight on the community, because the community the shining light of Zoosk… and now we’re getting sentimental. Make it stop.

Topics on our forums range from fun stories, like best/worst pick-up lines and best/worst dates, to advice forums, like ask a girl and ask a guy topics, to regional forums, like the ones below, separated by country. Props to the Zooskers in the United Kingdom for having such serious chat mojo.

We also have a ton of great boards for people looking for love advice, which range from How to create a great Date Card to Single Parents to Broken-hearted, now what?. These forums are a great resource for those looking to find love on Zoosk, because they provide, figuratively, a ‘mental snap-shot’ of what Zoosk users are thinking, doing, and desiring, all of which are useful pieces of information for any Zoosk dater to have. You basically get an all-inclusive peek into the heart of your very own dating pool, which is priceless in the game of love.

Another plus of the forums? For every post you make, an automatic status update occurs on the activity feed of your date card, and an update gets published in our Zoosk Desktop application — which shows up on the desktop feed of local Zooskers in your area. Forums are a great way to put yourself out there on the radar screens of potential dates.

GLBT Voices and 50 Plus Singles are two of our newer forums on the boards, and we’re proud to create space for people of different real-life communities to have a place to grow a virtual-community on our site. As Zoosker AndreaNottingham says on GLBT Voices, “It’s nice to have our own little corner on here.” We couldn’t agree more!

I could sit here and talk all day about these forums (and trust me, I’m a real Chatty Kathy so I could, literally) but if you want to know more, hear more, see more, read more, check out our forums in person. They will provide you with a host of information, both useful and useless, mindful and mindless, and at the very least, if nothing else, then these forums will provide you with an endless source of entertainment. Trust me, you can easily get lost in the vortex.

So go ahead and run your mouth on Zoosk. We not only condone your excessive verbosity, we wholly endorse it.

photo credit: db photography

Monday just went from blaaaahhh to YAYYYYY, ‘cuz Zoosk Desktop is here to help you keep the spirit of the weekend going all week long. What’s Zoosk Desktop, you might ask? We reply — in our most falsely modest voice — that we dared, we hustled, and here’s what we got: the very first downloadable desktop application ever introduced for a social online dating community. Or, in simpler terms, Zoosk Desktop is a ridiculously awesome new way to be on the prowl… rawr.

By downloading Zoosk Desktop, you get a real-time stream of activity by other Zooskers in your local area who match your search criteria (you’re notified when new posts on community forums are made, new pics are uploaded, new users join, etc) as well as instant notifications when you receive winks, emails, likes, or virtual gifts. Zoosk Desktop links you directly to your ZooskBox and other Zooskers’ date cards and makes online dating simple, fast, and accessible wherever you may be online — really, it’s so good, it feels wrong (and wrong never felt so right). Also, Zoosk Desktop let’s you stay on Zoosk without having your browser open, so it’s super discreet (so you don’t have to worry about the boss, the roommates, or anyone else looking over your shoulder as you search for cuties online).

Zoosk makes online dating so easy, my grandmother could do it.

Download it now!

This is what it looks like when you install the application:

There is a feedback button! Please use it and tell me you love me. Or, if not that, then send us feedback if you have any issues whatsoever with the application or have any questions about how to use it. We are here to help. Obviously, you can always go to our support page too! Thanks for listening, and stay tuned for more rad updates from the Zoosk team — we have tons and tons of goodies in store for you. And, lucky for you, our goodies don’t stay in the jar.

Hella quick, efficient Facebook Connect integration in da HIZZOUSE!

If you’ve been at our site today, you might have noticed the presence of a curious little button that says “connect with Facebook,” to the right of the regular login fields. Oh my! What can this mean?

I’ll tell you what it means. The “connect with Facebook” button (otherwise known as Facebook Connect) means that you can now log onto Zoosk with your Facebook account information – rather than needing an entire separate account just for Zoosk. Holy crap!

We are trying to make process of online dating radically more simple. Using Facebook Connect to log into Zoosk not only makes the entire login process easier for you, but it also makes it quicker for you — savvy users of the world wide web — to have online dating right at your fingertips. Considering that Zoosk is the number one dating application on Facebook – and the fastest growing dating site in the world with 40 million users and counting (most of whom use Zoosk as a Facebook dating application) – it makes sense for us to utilize FC to more closely integrate the process of online dating via social media.

One thing to note is that Facebook will ask you for permission to publish your Zoosk activity on your status feed. I know some of you don’t feel comfortable making your online dating information public. You can hide your Zoosk activity by adjusting your “Applications Settings” (Settings –> Application settings –> Zoosk –> Additional Permissions –> uncheck all permissions)  in Facebook. When you log into Zoosk in FC for the first time, you will be prompted with a window that states, “Allow Zoosk to publish posts or comments without prompting me. Posts will appear on your Wall, in your friends’ News Feeds and in applications like Photos, Videos and Notes.” If you don’t want Facebook publishing, make sure you choose “Don’t Allow” when this prompt pops up.

Another thing to note is that signing onto Zoosk with FC is basically the same thing as (1) signing onto Facebook, and then (2) adding the Zoosk Facebook application to your existing Facebook account. FC just does it for you in one step. Where it gets trickier, however, is if you have multiple Facebook profiles (weirdo…) and want to link each one to the same Zoosk account – which is bona fide no bueno. At this point, you can only merge one Facebook account to one Zoosk account. We run a tight ship here.

FC to login and let us know what you think. Zoosk is excited to bring FC to you because it’s off the heezy! With FC, the process of online dating is made more convenient for new and existing users alike. New users can sign up for Zoosk with their existing Facebook information rather than needing to create a brand new profile on Zoosk. Existing users can log in with their Facebook information and take advantage of Zoosk’s Facebook capabilities!

Happy Tuesday and happy Zoosking, folks.

When we were designing this feature we had a feeling it will be a huge hit given the feedback we were getting from our users. However, it was really hard for us to gauge how much capacity we need to plan for and we didn’t want to spend a ton of money on infrastructure to accommodate a feature that might not turn out as big as you think it will (startups MUST be frugal to survive!).

So we decided to use Amazon Web Services for our photo processing subsystem to give us the maximum flexibility in terms of capacity planning while keeping our costs down. We had a few requirements for our design:

• Should scale horizontally
• Should be fairly decoupled from our existing data center (not expose our DBs to public network)
• Should be cost effective

In order to satisfy our second requirement above, we had to figure out a way to keep track of the in-progress-jobs without depending on our databases. Fortunately Amazon has a Simple Queue Service (SQS) that is very well suited for this purpose. We basically use it as a job queue for our photo processing.

Our ability to scale horizontally meant that we had to be able to add processing boxes on-demand as our load varied. We decided to utilize Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) for this purpose.

Our process is conceptually very simple. Each photo uploaded by our users temporarily is stored on our data center. We have worker processes that copy these raw files to S3 for backup and also create a ticket in an SQS queue for it to be processed. Once in the queue, the next available processor on EC2 will pickup the ticket, process the photo, publish the output to proper location on S3 and then create a “done” ticket in another SQS queue. In our data center, we look for these “done” tickets and mark completed photos ready-to-serve for our users.

You might ask if all this complexity was worth it. It turned out that the photo feature was a big hit with our users. With millions of photos uploaded in the past few months, we are sure glad we designed the system this way and we love our ability to adjust our capacity on-demand for this feature.

Just to put the advantages of using cloud computing in perspective, I have summarized the size of photo data we have stored on Amazon S3 and also how much content we serve off of it in the following charts. Yes, those axises show numbers in TeraByte range . We would have really had a tough time to expand our data center to meet this load on top of the existing usage growth that we had to deal with. Off loading this work to Amazon has certainly paid off for us.

If you are interested in more Amazon Web Services usage data, checkout the 37signals blog as they chronicle their usage of the S3 service.