Yesterday, around 1AM ET Yazzem was hacked through a security hole that we did not no was there. We don’t know exactly what was viewed. At this time it still isn’t clear how the hacker got in but we are working around the clock to restore the Yazzem service to you. We are working very hard to make sure nothing like this happens again when Yazzem comes back online we will make sure there is no issues that you as a user will see & don’t think that you as a user will be impacted by this. The team is working on making sure that Yazzem will be more secure than it was before. We are taking proper steps as well as working with the leadership team at Teens in Tech to find out what needs to be done. Yazzem’s service should be brought back as late as March 4th though we do not plan to be offline that long.
Thanks,
Yazzem Team

If you have visted Yazzem.com in the last 20 mintues you will notice we are offline. At this time we have no comment on why we are offline and don’t have a timeframe set to when we will be back. If you have any questions or issues please message us through the Support Center.
Thanks,
Yazzem Team

Tonight we are proud to be launching something we here at Yazzem are very excited about – the Yazzem API! This will allow developers to build applications on top of Yazzem, including mobile applications, fun apps, and almost anything that can handle an API. Here’s how it all got started and finished so quickly in the last week:

Last Thursday, the CEO of Teens in Tech, Daniel Brusilovsky, sent Zack and I a message saying drop what we were doing and work on the API so Yazzem can make an appearance at the Hacker Dojo. About 24 hours later all the methods of the API were complete. We had a few bugs to work out and in a week the Yazzem API was finished with all the bugs squashed. We had designed the Yazzem API around standard HTTP requests to make it as simple as we could.

If you’re a developer who would like to build an application, you can read the documentation here. Also, if you’re going to the Hacker Dojo event this Saturday, feel free to stop by and talk to Daniel Brusilovsky or Spencer Schoeben who will be there. And if you have any issues with the API or have questions drop us a note in the Support Center.

Thanks,
Dustin Snider & Yazzem Team

Back in November we posted a 3 month road map that listed the features we wanted to add over the next 3 months. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to all the features on our last road map as we were in the middle of launching a few side projects and also working on Yazzem joining the Teens in Tech Networks. Now, we are back and ready to pick up where we left off. We have done some research and we have big plans for Yazzem over the next 3 months. After reviewing everything we have done over the past 9 months we have brought Yazzem many new features and will continue to do so. We have broken down the next 3 months goals for Yazzem and posted them below. We are going to try and come through on ALL of them this time.

• Customizable designs – We offer some great designs for users to choose from, however one can’t upload a custom background or change the colors. We are going to be adding customizable designs for all users.
• API – The Yazzem API is built around standard HTTP requests to post data.
• Report Spam button – If you are active on Yazzem and you notice at one time or another we may have some Spam. With our report spam button it will allow users to report spam to an Administrator to be looked at.
• Categories – Yazzem topics are all just thrown in one place and are not organized. With a goal to provide a service that allows you to get to your content faster and more simple, Geo-Location & Keyword Categories will allow you to get to what you want faster.
• Video Uploading on Status -  Allow users to be able to upload and attach videos to your status updates.
• Profile Privacy – A much requested feature was to allow users to have better profile and account privacy so we plan to work on this.
• Language Pack – At this point in time we aren’t sure if we will get to this as our platform isn’t at the stage to support the language pack but we are going to try and work it in.
• Yazzem to FaceBook- Many users have requested we try to integrate Yazzem into FaceBook. About 1 1/2 months ago we decided to make a FaceBook App but decided to wait for a update to the FaceBook developer platform. The time has come where we are going to integrate a lot of the features on Yazzem to work with a lot of the features on FaceBook.
• Yazzem to MySpace- Many users have also requested we integrate some of Yazzem’s features to work with MySpace. We are in the talks with MySpace to offer a 2 way status update similar to the way Twitter’s works. We will have more information on this later.
• iPhone App – A few months ago we posted that we have a iPhone App in the works. The iPhone app was about 90% done when we announced the API. We reevaluated what we want the iPhone app to do and we decided that we should wait until we finish the API and build the app to work with the API to provided a better user experiences.
• Palm App- After announcing our iPhone app we announced the Palm App. The Palm was just getting started when we announced the API and decided to wait for the API to build a better app for the users.

I would also like to take this time to welcome our newest member to the Yazzem team. Manmohanjit Singh who is a 15 year old developer. We contacted him around a month ago when we were looking to expand the Yazzem team and at the time was to busy to join the team. The other day contacted us asking if the position was still available and we just had to make room for such a great teen developer! Manmohanjit Singh will be working with Manu Gill &  Mohamed Elmejjati on 2 side projects that we will be launching around the end of the month or early next month.
Thanks,
Yazzem Team

Today, we are proud to announce that Yazzem is now a member of the Teens in Tech Networks. We were in the talks for quite a while now, however we know we made the right move. This will allow Yazzem to grow to new heights and help us grow.

Now, nothing will change here at Yazzem. Everything will pretty much stay the same. Dustin and I will still be in charge, and all of the great team members will still be developing.

This is very exciting to release this news to everyone.

Thanks,
Zachary Collins

Today, we have introduced two new updates to Yazzem – photo sharing on status updates and changing the 140 character limit to 200.

With photo sharing, you’ll be able to upload any photo from your computer and post it with any status update. All you have to do is click the “Photo” link under the status update box and upload a photo. Our plan is to allow mobile photo uploads so you can upload them on the go…and maybe videos someday.

Our second update (which was decided upon just a few nights ago) is changing the 140 character limit to 200. We did a lot of research and discovered that in just a text message with a 160 character limit, people still went over it. So, 200 seemed definitely reasonable (since we still wanted a limit).

You’ll also notice some other small changes to the interface, too. We hope you enjoy!

Thanks,
The Yazzem Team

As Yazzem grows, so does our team. Which means tonight, I would like to introduce Manu Gill and Mohamed Elmejjati to the Yazzem team. These two fantastic developers will be working on some very exciting products and features launching soon.

Manu Gill joined a few weeks ago and I never welcomed him officially here on the blog (sorry). However, working with Manu for the past couple of months have been amazing. He knows exactly what to do and how to get it done quickly with no errors, along with creating the amazing Jangsher.com. Manu is definitely the type of team member we are looking for. Welcome (officially) to the team Manu!

Mohamed Elmejjati is the newest team member I would like to welcome. He has worked on several projects such as Zik4 and also knows how to develop for Facebook. I am very impressed with his work and we are very excited to be adding him to the team! Welcome to the team Mohamed.

In the next few weeks and months, expect to be seeing some amazing new things!

Don’t worry, we’re still all alive here at Yazzem. We’ve just been working on some very exciting new features, which will start the new year (and new decade) off to a great start. Here are the plans for 2010 on top of still continuing to work on our road map:

• An API for developers to access and modify Yazzem data has been in the plans almost since the first lines of code were written for Yazzem. However, we didn’t want to say anything until we were certain everything could be done easily – and that we had enough features and data to make our API powerful. Within the next few weeks (around a month) we’ll be rolling out the Yazzem API to any developer willing to make an awesome mashup built on top of the Yazzem platform.
• About a month ago we were rolling out new features almost every week. Unfortunately, we kind of ignored that whole awesome idea for a while. Starting next week, you should see a new feature on Yazzem. Then the week after that, another new feature will be released…and so on.

As you can probably imagine, we definitely have a lot of other major plans for 2010, but there are too many to list here. Expect a lot in 2010 – seriously.

Happy New Year,
The Yazzem Team

We know we haven’t launched anything new for a couple weeks, but tonight we are introducing a new Search feature that anyone can use (registered or not) and a redesigned index page that shows off the power of Yazzem.

First off, the new search tool will enable anyone to search status updates and topic comments quickly and easily. Just visit search.yazzem.com and enter any search term. You can choose to either view all status updates or all topic comments. Within the next few weeks, we plan on enhancing search to it’s full potential.

The new index page takes search and integrates it, along with adding Latest Activities and some cool links and reviews we have gotten.

Hope you like the new updates to Yazzem!

Thanks,
The Yazzem Team

Today is the opening of nominations for the 3rd annual Techcrunch Crunchie Awards. We thought it would be cool to see how many nominations we could get for Yazzem, so I embedded a button below that takes you directly to the nominations page. All you have to do is click the “Share” button.

We’d love for your nomination!

Thanks,
Zack