zoome (ズーミー, lit. "zoom me") was a video hosting service in Japan managed by zoome Co., Ltd. (zoome株式会社).
The name is a combination of "zoom" and "me", and means "My broadcasting station & community". zoome supported H.264/MPEG-4 AVC for the first time by a video hosting service in Japan. The site was the second largest video hosting service in Japan, after Nico Nico Douga.
The site was called a "CGM video hosting site" and "The third force" different from YouTube and Nico Nico Douga.[1]
These functions were all free for the zoome user, unlike Nico Nico Douga.
zoome was launched by ACCA Networks on January 30, 2007. However, zoome was overshadowed by Nico Nico Douga, which was launched at the same time, and zoome lurked in an unremarkable state until the end of the year.
zoome's popularity boomed via Hatsune Miku at the end of 2007. Nico Nico Douga, the fostering site of the voice synthesis software, became involved in a scandal which caused some of its members to move to zoome. Dwango, the owner of Nico Nico Douga, had registered the copyright of a Hatsune Miku song to the copyright management group JASRAC under the name "Dwango", without permission from the song's author, sparking outrage among Vocaloid fans. Sometime before the scandal broke out, ACCA had opened a Vocaloid video hosting circle TDKI (投稿動画向上委員会, Tōkō Dōga Kōjō Iinkai, lit. "TDKI (Video hosting improvement committee)"), which was officially recognized by Hatsune Miku's developer, Crypton Future Media. The scandal on Nico Nico Douga and the official recognition in zoome lured many members away from Nico Nico Douga to zoome. As a result, Hatsune Miku videos became one of the mainstays of zoome, and zoome became a leading competitor able to challenge Nico Nico Douga's monopoly of the video hosting service industry in Japan.
In addition, events of 2008 greatly aided zoome in its development. Stage6 was closed and the majority of the Japanese Stage6 users migrated to zoome. Also, zoome continued to benefit from various happenings within Nico Nico Douga. Particularly worthy of note was when Dwango announced the complete purge of anime MAD Movies from Nico Nico Douga in July. Many creators of MAD Movies moved to zoome because of this announcement.
On June 2, 2008, the zoome site split from ACCA Networks and became its subsidiary, zoome Co., Ltd. On July 21, 2011, zoome announced that it would shut down all its services on August 31, 2011.[2]