Site Updates

The Zookoda service is going through tremendous growth; just last month we have almost two million active list subscribers and this month will break that. That explosion in growth over the past few months has undoubtedly caused problems and exposed the weaknesses in the Zookoda software and some of our users where affected. Now that I have a moment to update all with some of the issues, what we are doing about them and some of the steps to go for the future.

Email broadcasts. If the lists last month were sent once then our system naturally sent around two million emails. However without an exact figure at the moment it was really more along the line of six million emails sent as broadcasts were also recurring. That really put a strain on our mail servers and pounded the database servers. We needed to improve these areas and did so by redesigning the back end software to be more efficient and timely with broadcasts.

Ticketing system & support. I understand that some of the support requests have gotten lost and some questions have gone un-answered. This weekend we have implemented a whole new ticketing system. Now when you have a question you will be able to first look for the solution prior to submitting a ticket, but when you do your tickets will be more visible across the entire Izea Customer Love support team.

Additionally by replying to the email if any further communication is necessary it will be added to your support ticket. This is a huge improvement over the existing support system.

Spammers. Not wanted here. I've personally been actively fixing/improving Zookoda for two months now and at the onset discovered a number of members that were abusing the system and sending out blatant spam. For the first couple of weeks I patiently looked at the commonalities of these broadcasts and began putting together a system to stop these.

For the past month and a half spammers have been having a hard time using Zookoda as there are now automated and semi-automated systems in place to detect spam. Members who have been caught are quickly disabled. Because of these aggressive approaches to spammers not only means that the recipients of emails are not subjected to spam but also means that Zookada resources are kept for you and your broadcasts.

While it's true that spammers continue to test the Zookoda system we are resolved to continue to stay current with the tactics and continue to develop means to detect and stop these.

Being or becoming a member of Zookoda at the moment means you are part of a service that provides information to millions. We unfortunately went through some growing pains because of the recent explosion in the growth of our system but we are working pretty much 24/7 to quickly resolve issues and implement new systems.

Scott Krutsinger Izea Code Ninja