Pro Hosting and templates

havanese

As I sit here trying to decide what hosting/solution to go with to take my photos to the next level as far as web presence... I wonder if SM is working on something like this for Pro users.

Something like Squarespace for photographers, blu domain or Showitfast.com

Knowing my luck I would invest in say showitfast and the next month SM comes out with something for Pro users...

Think there's a chance of that?

Andy

Comes out with something for pro users - we have had pros making $millions for years

What are you looking for?

havanese

Andy wrote:

Comes out with something for pro users - we have had pros making $millions for years

What are you looking for?

I was speaking to the ability to really customize SM outside of the header and scripting...calling it something like

Web Hosting for Photographers power by SM...

Yes the galleries are great and the different templates are easy to use...but I guess I'm saying taking it to the next step (cough cough like showitfast) with a better start page, blogging tools, calendar...etc...

Am I'm making sense?

Mac Write

Yes, but Smugmug isn't a web host, they are a Photo host. Adding blog, calendar is not going to happen as it is outside of the scope of Smugmugs Business Plan, which is to host photos and sell prints etc.

havanese

Agree they are the best Photo sharing site...but when you allow customizing of the interface (as they do) along with their templates and such...it wouldn't take much to provide hosting ... only for photographers using Amazon's web servers, once again I point out showitfast ... they are only web hosting for photographers as is some other companies...

I was just trying to ask the question to see if there was any interest by SM as they are extending their SM Pro brand.

Andy

http://www.studiokyk.com/
http://stuckincustoms.smugmug.com/
http://gregdavis.smugmug.com/
http://bdcolen.smugmug.com/

gobs more. Lots of folks integrate showit with SmugMug, too. We love DJ.

J Allen

havanese wrote:

Agree they are the best Photo sharing site...but when you allow customizing of the interface (as they do) along with their templates and such...it wouldn't take much to provide hosting ... only for photographers using Amazon's web servers, once again I point out showitfast ... they are only web hosting for photographers as is some other companies...

I was just trying to ask the question to see if there was any interest by SM as they are extending their SM Pro brand.

I'm not understanding what you are wanting? When you ask for "hosting"...what do you want to host, that you cant host at SM?


SM does everything for you all ready (IMO).. except walk your dog...and I've asked if they could do that also...still waiting on a reply though



When you ask for "wanting to really customize"...what would you like to do...have you seen some of the awesome SM sites around...takes some work, but you can pretty much do anything you can imagine.

havanese

J Allen wrote:

I'm not understanding what you are wanting? When you ask for "hosting"...what do you want to host, that you cant host at SM?


SM does everything for you all ready (IMO).. except walk your dog...and I've asked if they could do that also...still waiting on a reply though



When you ask for "wanting to really customize"...what would you like to do...have you seen some of the awesome SM sites around...takes some work, but you can pretty much do anything you can imagine.

Think ShowitFast with SM as the backend is what I want...

Andy

J Allen wrote:

SM does everything for you all ready (IMO).. except walk your dog...and I've asked if they could do that also...still waiting on a reply though

We'll walk him - we'll even give him a ride in the sidecar!

denisegoldberg

Andy wrote:

We'll walk him - we'll even give him a ride in the sidecar!

Sweet!

davidjay

havanese wrote:

Knowing my luck I would invest in say showitfast and the next month SM comes out with something for Pro users...

I think the odds of SmugMug changing direction and creating a website tool like Showit are slim but it's so awesome b/c now you can make a killer website with Showit and then incorporate all your images and video that are stored so well on SmugMug. We're working on ways to make this even more fluid using SmugMug's API so maybe that'll be what you're looking for.

Rock on!
dj

havanese

davidjay wrote:

We're working on ways to make this even more fluid using SmugMug's API so maybe that'll be what you're looking for

Can you be more specific on what your doing or going to do different? I am assuming you work for showitfast.

(just setup an account to try showit and downloaded the software)

davidjay

havanese wrote:

Can you be more specific on what your doing or going to do different? I am assuming you work for showitfast.

(just setup an account to try showit and downloaded the software)

Hey Randy

I'm stoked you're checking it out and in a few days there'll be a new download where you'll see a Start Up Guide that helps a lot in getting things going so be on the lookout for that.

I can't give any specifics right now but yea I own Showit and I'm also a SmugMug Artist in Residence.

Rock on!
dj

havanese

davidjay wrote:

in a few days there'll be a new download

So should I wait for that or start trying to build a site?

What is the best way to be notified of the new download?

davidjay

havanese wrote:

So should I wait for that or start trying to build a site?

What is the best way to be notified of the new download?

Awesome - i'd just start playing around and having some fun but if you find yourself pulling your hair out then maybe wait for the download and it'll happen automatically for you.

havanese

davidjay wrote:

Awesome - i'd just start playing around and having some fun but if you find yourself pulling your hair out then maybe wait for the download and it'll happen automatically for you.

Thanks David, if your support replies are like your SM forum posts you might be just as good as smugmug support

j/k

Andy

havanese wrote:

I am assuming you work for showitfast.

David -is- Showit

photokandy

I've yet to run across much that I can't do with Smugmug through one way or another (even if it's a bit of "hack"-ish javascript), but if I want to do something non-SM, I'll do it on my own host. Works beautifully for me. I've coded it so that both my own pages and SM pages are virtually identical in appearance, and some of my pages integrate with SM instead of living on SM. (For example: my homepage is on my own host. The slideshow is my own. But it pulls from SM's feeds.)

I'd rather SM not go towards being a straight-up host (short of partnering with a third party, I suppose) because that would take away from what they do best -- making our photos look better here :-)

As far as templates go, you can hire someone to come up with a site just for you ( http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=89938 ), or build your own. It's not terribly difficult to do, and if you do get stuck, there are lots of people here who would be glad to offer their expertise.

I've played with showit too, and that looks to be an excellent offering as well. That's the nice thing about SM -- there are lots of choices to choose from to do what you want to do. :-)