smugmug subscription prices to rise

Ben:::D

really?

Baldy wrote:

This is probably unmentionable but if you don't ask you don't know...

We get a lot of JPEG 12 images, which means they basically have no compression. If we stored them as JPEG 10, they'd be 1/3rd the size. Research shows that no one, not even with a fine eye, a lupe, and images with hard lines, can tell the difference between a print made from 10 or 12...

What research? Is there any source you could reference? (No offense intended, but if you are challenging Adobe et. al., seems like you ought to actually back it up.) ....

_____________________

And for what's it worth (probably not much at this point in a 10 page thread), I agree that raising the base price for entry-level accounts is risky in terms of attractiveness to un-seasoned customers. I certainly haven't done the research, but know for sure that IF I wasn't concerned about co-branding or printing costs, Flickr or pBase or one of the others would certainly look attractive vs. $40. Again, just my $.02. At this point it's two things that are keeping me around
1) Printing. Love it. Works great every time. and...
2) The amazing, super-awesome, kick-ass, best-in-the-world hands-down customer service

('cuz I gotta admit, Flickr is a lot more fun : )

Andy

Ben:::D wrote:

('cuz I gotta admit, Flickr is a lot more fun : )

what's more fun about it?

Mike Lane

andy wrote:

what's more fun about it?

This is pretty fun: http://metaatem.net/words/Flikr%20api
This is neat: http://www.marumushi.com/apps/flickrgraph/
This is pretty cool: http://www.mappr.com/
This is totally sweet: http://krazydad.com/colrpickr/
This is ... well ... mostly just kind of strange: http://krazydad.com/defacement/
Not sure if flikr really helps with this, but it may be easier to collaborate: http://krazydad.com/squaredcircle/
Rad: http://krazydad.com/metascope.php
This is unreal!: http://www.deviousgelatin.com/montager/

I certainly haven't seen anyone do anything like that with smugmug. Those are all fun but would I necessarily want my pics to be used for that? Not really. Although I would like to be able to create a photo grid for my blog or my sm site and some other things that it looks like you can get flikr to do.

Andy

Mike Lane wrote:

I certainly haven't seen anyone do anything like that with smugmug.

stay tuned, mike .....

Mike Lane

andy wrote:

stay tuned, mike .....

You wouldn't kid a guy with teeth like these would you?

Andy

Mike Lane wrote:

You wouldn't kid a guy with teeth like these would you?

i would not indeed

Angelo

Wow. How did I miss this post? I would've definitely taken advantage of the grace period to save $49. :cry :cry :cry

Barb

Angelo wrote:

Wow. How did I miss this post? I would've definitely taken advantage of the grace period to save $49. :cry :cry :cry

I don't think their prices have gone up yet, have they?

Angelo

DigitalDaze wrote:

I don't think their prices have gone up yet, have they?

Barb

Angelo wrote:

well, if you go to the main site like you're going to sign up, the prices are still the same. so i think you are still okay

swcolleen

Hi. I just wanted to say that I too love smugmug as many others have said. I have been reading these forums since the "down day" the other day and I find it very refreshing to see acutal smugmug workers reply and keep us posted. I have also ALWAYS appreciated their fast email response time-one of the things I love best.

The one thing I would like to suggest and I think others might have mentioned it and I have no idea if its a feasible idea or not but....

I REALLY think it would be a generous move from smugmug to send an automated email to ALL account holders regarding the price increase-with notice too so its not like "buy today not tomorrow" but more like "buy now-limited opportunity before price increas on ...."

I suggest this because had I not stumbled across these boards (I had a username already so I guess I have poked around before but forgotten they existed-now I am hooked!) but had I not stumbled across the thread discussing the down time yesterday, I would not have heard rumbles about a price increas which led me to search the forums for more info where I finally heard about it. I was relieved myself that I had choosen this week to upgrade to pro account from power account b/c I had been procrastinating on it and I would have kicked myself if the prices had gone up before I upgraded-and been upset if I had not had warning but later found out others did.

So I guess what I am saying in my long winded nature.....I LOVE smugmug...support them 100% but I recommend a mass e-mail to all account holders about the price increase to give them notice BEFORE it occurs.

Thanks!!
Colleen

colourbox

Exactly. The price increase is big news...but only in a sub-forum in a thread that rolls off the bottom of the screen after a couple days when nobody posts.

I agree that the base price should not go up, but the upper levels can rise. I just upgraded to Pro, and I don't even sell much (or any, so far), but I think the entry barrier should be kept real low. Once they're in and have more than a week to see the possibilities, I think a lot of them will be tempted to upgrade. I'm certainly in for the long term, especially after Phase 2! Place looks better than ever.

Andy

color, colleen:

i've made sure that the folks at smugmug will see your recent posts here. thanks so much for your input, we really appreciate it

Baldy

Good suggestions. My only concern is that we don't make it too promotional because we want to be true to our promise of no ads, no spam.

swcolleen

Baldy wrote:

Good suggestions. My only concern is that we don't make it too promotional because we want to be true to our promise of no ads, no spam.

I can understand that but I think as a customer-if I got ONE message that alerted me to an upcoming price increase I wouldn't see it as advertising or spam....I would phrase more like a service announcement to give the current customers the heads up. I just know if I had not upgraded this week (actually before I heard about this price increase stuff-by luck!)I would have been upset to not know anything about it ahead of time when others did just b/c they read the blogs or forums...I always tell myself to go read them but then get distracted and go on to something else!!

thanks for all you do though!!

landrum

Baldy wrote:

Good suggestions. My only concern is that we don't make it too promotional because we want to be true to our promise of no ads, no spam.

I agree that it would only be an announcement...I certainly wouldn't consider an email of this nature to be spam or an ad even. I have been a customer since October 2003, and I think I've received 2 emails from you guys in that time...not an issue! A mass email with notification would probably be a good idea.

Andy

notice will be given for sure. in fact, the first notice of this was given back in april 2005 and the pricing still hasn't been changed. smugmug has even said that customers would be grandfathered - protected - read the posts in this thread....

notice will be given - please don't let it ruin your day - it's not worth it, becuase nothing's happening today

rich56k

wow..thanks and ...

andy wrote:

notice will be given for sure. in fact, the first notice of this was given back in april 2005 and the pricing still hasn't been changed. smugmug has even said that customers would be grandfathered - protected - read the posts in this thread....

notice will be given - please don't let it ruin your day - it's not worth it, becuase nothing's happening today

andy,
wow fast response i had just reread my post and thought it was way too "rough" and had deleted (actually saved to my desktop for future use ...took 20 mins to type!)
again i woke up early and stumbled literally on to the price increase thread and freaked out ...thats just it, to read all the posts in all the threads to stay abreast of whats up is kind of daunting and time consuming ..but if im going to post i guess i should have a look around
this just reinstills the mass notice to ind. affected concept ,its not spam and im sure others agree (re: other posts i did see) and would be appreciated,
sorry to get all in your face like that ,

thanks again,
rich56k

cyoung

Crap, I was just debating on whether to upgrade to power user since I just got my wife a P&S that can grab videos. I just want a clarification, if I were to upgrade now I'd pay the new rates correct?

rainforest1155

cyoung wrote:

I just want a clarification, if I were to upgrade now I'd pay the new rates correct?

Yes. They planed on doing this for quite some time and also published those plans here and via message to your smugmug account.

Sebastian

cyoung

I saw that message back then, but had no need, but was hoping for the best to see if it was grandfathered into the pricing structure, oh well, one can only wish

rainforest1155 wrote:

Yes. They planed on doing this for quite some time and also published those plans here and via message to your smugmug account.

Sebastian

ankit

cyoung wrote:

Crap, I was just debating on whether to upgrade to power user since I just got my wife a P&S that can grab videos. I just want a clarification, if I were to upgrade now I'd pay the new rates correct?

I am in the same position as you - I finally decided that it would be nice to upgrade, and have sufficient referral credits to do so for this year, but looks like I'll be paying the new rate if I am to upgrade now.

Any chance of making an exception for us late-comers? As things stand, this seems like a nice incentive to NOT upgrade...

kwalsh

ankit wrote:

I am in the same position as you - I finally decided that it would be nice to upgrade, and have sufficient referral credits to do so for this year, but looks like I'll be paying the new rate if I am to upgrade now.

Any chance of making an exception for us late-comers? As things stand, this seems like a nice incentive to NOT upgrade...

NOTE: REFERAL CREDITS CAN NOT BE USED TO UPGRADE!!!

I didn't read the fine print and got caught on this one. The way it works is referals are only for renewals or gift memberships. If you do an upgrade your credit card will get charged the pro-rated difference between your current level and new level over the remaining time til your next renewal. So, if you want to "upgrade" with referals what you need to do is upgrade just before your renewal date, you'll get charged a few bucks or cents on your credit card and when the renewal happens that will come out of credits. Option two is to abandon your current account and give yourself a gift membership at a higher service level (but you pay the base amount again in referals in this method). So don't get surprised like I did, smugmug charged me a bunch of money all of a sudden and I hadn't read carefully enough. I though I was upgrading on my referals but that's not the way it works .

Ken

jfriend

It does seem that upgrades should be able to be used for upgrades

kwalsh wrote:

NOTE: REFERAL CREDITS CAN NOT BE USED TO UPGRADE!!!

I didn't read the fine print and got caught on this one. The way it works is referals are only for renewals or gift memberships. If you do an upgrade your credit card will get charged the pro-rated difference between your current level and new level over the remaining time til your next renewal. So, if you want to "upgrade" with referals what you need to do is upgrade just before your renewal date, you'll get charged a few bucks or cents on your credit card and when the renewal happens that will come out of credits. Option two is to abandon your current account and give yourself a gift membership at a higher service level (but you pay the base amount again in referals in this method). So don't get surprised like I did, smugmug charged me a bunch of money all of a sudden and I hadn't read carefully enough. I though I was upgrading on my referals but that's not the way it works .

Ken

This one hit me too. I don't quite understand why they have upgrades constrained so they can't use referrals. Originally, it may have been a cash flow desire, but now that you can gift yourself a new account using referral credits at any level or you can upgrade with one month remaining and use referral credits for the full renewal, it doesn't make so much sense for smumug to not let you use referral credits to upgrade.

I also was surprised when I upgraded to pro and found a charge on my credit card. I'm sure the fine print covers that and smugmug isn't intentionally misleading anyone, but the referral credit system they have leads most people to assume (wrongly) that an upgrade would be paid for out of referral credits.

I wonder why smugmug doesn't want to allow upgrades to use referral credits?

Andy

jfriend wrote:

I wonder why smugmug doesn't want to allow upgrades to use referral credits?

They'll get used upon renewal for the account.

jfriend

Providing feedback

Andy wrote:

They'll get used upon renewal for the account.

Yes, we all know that.

But given that you're willing to do that and they can be even used to gift yourself an account at any level, we don't understand why referral credits can't be used to just upgrade you directly. You're doing 75% of it, just not the 25% that many of us assumed would be possible. It's your business decision, so we're providing feedback that the current upgrade restriction isn't making sense to us and isn't matching our expectations.

cyoung

Oh well, I bit the bullet and just upgraded, I guess I can't go out for lunch for one day , its money well spent anyways. I've got to reiterate that I've never seen any other company/site where the CEO, IT Gurus, Support teams participate and talk to their customers as much as I've seen OneThumb, all the moderators, and such do. Great job folks!

armani

He????
This must be a joke ?

armani

where ?
I cant find it here...
http://www.desmurfjes.smugmug.com/help/smugmug-affiliate-program

It would be fair to mention.

Andy

jfriend wrote:

Yes, we all know that.

But given that you're willing to do that and they can be even used to gift yourself an account at any level, we don't understand why referral credits can't be used to just upgrade you directly. You're doing 75% of it, just not the 25% that many of us assumed would be possible. It's your business decision, so we're providing feedback that the current upgrade restriction isn't making sense to us and isn't matching our expectations.

Thanks John - as always - for letting us know.