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anyone dealt with Photobiz?

FoquesFoques Registered Users Posts: 1,951 Major grins
edited December 13, 2011 in Mind Your Own Business
Folks,

has anyone dealt with photobiz.com?

I love smugmug service and hosting, but lack of easy customizations and ability to use flash templates is really getting to me.

that said, I am starting to look elsewhere.. I am considering either starting a wrodpress, blog like structure and keeping smug for sales only or leaving smug completely.. From what I am gathering, photobiz is an option for the latter.

thoughts?
Arseny - the too honest guy.
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    idiotabroadidiotabroad Registered Users Posts: 246 Major grins
    edited October 6, 2011
    Seems expensive Arseny. Maybe I'm not taking all factors in to account.
    Mark

    If you don't agree with me then your wrong.
    I can't be held accountable for what I say, I'm bipolar.
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    FoquesFoques Registered Users Posts: 1,951 Major grins
    edited October 6, 2011
    thank you!
    that's what I was also looking at, and trying to figure out if it is too pricey. a lot of options, but it is expensive.
    Arseny - the too honest guy.
    My Site
    My Facebook
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    Molotov EverythingMolotov Everything Registered Users Posts: 211 Major grins
    edited October 6, 2011
    They charge a monthly fee based on how many photos you upload it seems. I took a quick peek at your smug site, you seem to have about 3000 photos on it, which under their pricing would cost you $720 a year minimum from what I can tell. That's damn expensive. Just from poking around on their site, I'd personally pay under $100 a year for hosting from one of the tons of hosting services out there and use wordpress as a platform to set up the site.
    http://www.quickdrawphoto.com
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    WachelWachel Registered Users Posts: 448 Major grins
    edited October 6, 2011
    I used smug for a year or so around 2008. I found it too hard to customize on my own. I moved to Zenfolio and love it. Zen just added video hosting and you can make your own webpages (WYSIWYG). I love the Smug folks on here though...much better community.

    I am not loyal to any one brand or service...what fits your needs is what you should get.
    Michael

    <Insert some profound quote here to try and seem like a deep thinker>

    Michael Wachel Photography

    Facebook
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    angevin1angevin1 Registered Users Posts: 3,403 Major grins
    edited October 6, 2011
    Foques wrote: »
    Folks,

    has anyone dealt with photobiz.com?

    I love smugmug service and hosting, but lack of easy customizations and ability to use flash templates is really getting to me.


    Easy Customizations? Are you kidding. I think it is quite easy here, unless you want to look like everyone else, or every third person.

    And flash. Flash is supposed to be so small and quick to open. But now that I am in the land of S L O W connection, I am so very glad I didn't go flash! tread carefully! And good luck!
    tom wise
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    rhommelrhommel Registered Users Posts: 306 Major grins
    edited October 7, 2011
    I currently use Photobiz for my portfolio site (just recently, im still working on it :) ).. customization is great and lots of templates to use (no extra charge for changing templates)

    other similar sites that I tried.

    http://www.clickbooq.com/
    http://www.creativemotiondesign.com/

    I tried most of them and I find that using Photobiz is the easiest to use, and best customer service

    most of them you can try for free... just check 'em out :)

    also most of these sites would automatically go to the HTML version if your website is being viewed on iPad or iPhone.. :)
    Toronto Photographer
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    FoquesFoques Registered Users Posts: 1,951 Major grins
    edited October 7, 2011
    Michael, thank you. I'll have to look into Zen once again. I did, a long time ago, and it wasn't the greatest at the time.

    Tom, my site IS like every other site right now. I do not know Java, and HTML isn't my favorite think to use either... and I sure as hell do not have 5000+ laying around to spend on any of these programmers that smug is trying to suggest here.

    Rhommel, thank you for your insight. I couldn't find any spot where I can play around with features there.. for free.
    Arseny - the too honest guy.
    My Site
    My Facebook
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    rhommelrhommel Registered Users Posts: 306 Major grins
    edited October 7, 2011
    Foques wrote: »
    Rhommel, thank you for your insight. I couldn't find any spot where I can play around with features there.. for free.

    for photobiz, they have the 30 day money back guarantee... I've cancelled on them before (back in 2007, wasn't ready to pay for it) and it was no problem getting my money back. during that time (30 days) i was able to play around the site and tried all their templates.

    for clickbooq and creativemotiondesign, you can register and you will get to play around their site for 14 days. they will not ask for your credit card info

    other sites i've tried:

    http://bigfolio.com
    http://wix.com

    I also have the http://500px.com, it's only $50 for a full year and they do have some templates available. they're not flash based tho but it sure behaves that way (html5)


    there's another one but can't remember the site...
    Toronto Photographer
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    angevin1angevin1 Registered Users Posts: 3,403 Major grins
    edited October 7, 2011
    Foques wrote: »
    Michael, thank you. I'll have to look into Zen once again. I did, a long time ago, and it wasn't the greatest at the time.

    Tom, my site IS like every other site right now. I do not know Java, and HTML isn't my favorite think to use either... and I sure as hell do not have 5000+ laying around to spend on any of these programmers that smug is trying to suggest here.

    Rhommel, thank you for your insight. I couldn't find any spot where I can play around with features there.. for free.


    What Can I say: Templates are templates. SM even has some ( form-of) to help get ya started.

    I looked at your site and You, (yes you!) could easily change that thing around right Here & Now without spending one red dime. That said it does take one thing: Seat time. You do not need to know any HTML, CSS, JAVA or any such thing. All you have to be able to do is read/write English, right click copy and paste, do search queries, and ask in the Support forum when yer stuck! That is what I did, and have done a dozen times each time I wanted to re-invent the wheel. Oh, and I got the Webdev for Firefox ( paid the donation; it's free!) and seriously I copied so much crap and pasted it into my CSS customization just to see what it'd look like. Seat Time is what you'll be out, nothing more unless you choose to hire someone, and there is no reason on earth to do that unless you like to do so. There are geezus who knows how many threads of people helping people do their Websites up on SM!


    Cheers,
    tom wise
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    WachelWachel Registered Users Posts: 448 Major grins
    edited October 8, 2011
    Foques wrote: »
    Michael, thank you. I'll have to look into Zen once again. I did, a long time ago, and it wasn't the greatest at the time.

    It is completely different now. They have added tons of features since I joined in 2008.

    I don't smug bash because smug rocks...it just doesn't do what I need it to do as easily as I need to do it. I don't have the "seat time" to put in to it, unfortunately.
    Michael

    <Insert some profound quote here to try and seem like a deep thinker>

    Michael Wachel Photography

    Facebook
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    GlortGlort Registered Users Posts: 1,015 Major grins
    edited October 9, 2011
    I don't get what the fixation with these sites is?

    it's so easy these days to get your own site and shopping carts etc and handle all your own online ordering without having to pay these other places such a preimum.

    I tried setting up one of these things a while back and found it a complete pain in the butt and as with so many other hundreds of posts I have read, they didn't have the features i wanted.

    Much better to invest a bit of time in your own knowledge and do your own site IMHO which you can set up to do exactly what you want and vary it for each job as and if nessacary.
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    WachelWachel Registered Users Posts: 448 Major grins
    edited October 9, 2011
    Glort wrote: »
    I don't get what the fixation with these sites is?

    it's so easy these days to get your own site and shopping carts etc and handle all your own online ordering without having to pay these other places such a preimum.

    I tried setting up one of these things a while back and found it a complete pain in the butt and as with so many other hundreds of posts I have read, they didn't have the features i wanted.

    Much better to invest a bit of time in your own knowledge and do your own site IMHO which you can set up to do exactly what you want and vary it for each job as and if nessacary.

    There are two main types of people that buy houses. The ones who want to put some elbow grease into it and then those that want a turn key house where they walk in and live.

    I wouldn't say there is a fixation with these sites..as you put it. People just want to know the differences between each one. Apparently you are one that would rather do it yourself. Congrats on that. Some people find it a pain in the butt to do it yourself.

    I would love to see your handy work. Care to share your site...perhaps you will convince me to go the do-it-yourself route?
    Michael

    <Insert some profound quote here to try and seem like a deep thinker>

    Michael Wachel Photography

    Facebook
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    rhommelrhommel Registered Users Posts: 306 Major grins
    edited October 9, 2011
    Glort wrote: »
    I don't get what the fixation with these sites is?

    i t's so easy these days to get your own site and shopping carts etc and handle all your own online ordering without having to pay these other places such a preimum.

    I tried setting up one of these things a while back and found it a complete pain in the butt and as with so many other hundreds of posts I have read, they didn't have the features i wanted.

    Much better to invest a bit of time in your own knowledge and do your own site IMHO which you can set up to do exactly what you want and vary it for each job as and if nessacary.


    i am a web developer/web designer for a large bank here in Toronto. html, PHP, ASP, Javascript, vbscript, C#, PL/SQL, T-SQL are all in a days work for me, but I still opted to subscribe to Photobiz. I know exactly how much work to build your own website (I am not talking about wordpress, joomla and other OPEN SOURCE that you are probably using) and I don't have the time to do it.

    I would rather pay someone to maintain my site and spend my extra time with my daughter than try to 'reinvent the wheel'

    The shopping carts and websites you mentioned, I am almost a 100% that these are the free ones that you just install with AUTO installers. These are also TEMPLATES IMHO

    Unless you are also a web developer BY profession, I doubt that you can build one on your own without using a template/open source

    and please, I am also interested in seeing your website. If you are a web developer/designer by profession, then you know that 'building a shopping cart is EASY' is BULL.
    Toronto Photographer
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    GlortGlort Registered Users Posts: 1,015 Major grins
    edited October 10, 2011
    I am not talking about building a site from scratch with every bell and whistle hardcoded.

    What I was refering to are the many templates available for sites and add ins like shopping carts that are simple as to customise.
    I don't have a shopping cart site for pic selling anymore as i gave that up as a bad joke and concerntrate on my onsite sales and printing but the one I did took a few hours and using a shopping cart template I got off the net, setting that up WAS easy and I customised it for different events I was selling like dance, equine, cheer etc where I had different offerings and pricings.

    If people don't have the time of whatever, that's fine, i was merely pointing out that it is not that hard to do your own site to sell pics and things like smutmug and the like are not the only alternatives.
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    FoquesFoques Registered Users Posts: 1,951 Major grins
    edited October 10, 2011
    try working 60 hour weeks + have shoots + processing time.. We'll talk then.
    Arseny - the too honest guy.
    My Site
    My Facebook
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    SinghStyleStudioSinghStyleStudio Registered Users Posts: 3 Beginner grinner
    edited October 18, 2011
    Not yet, may try...
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    DwightDwight Registered Users Posts: 18 Big grins
    edited December 13, 2011
    I only use smugmug for sales only. It isn't the easiest thing to customize. Currently I use wix for my home page and direct people to their gallery on smugmug. I will however turn to photobiz.com for my home page just using the basic plan of 14 bucks a month and paying my smugmug fees on top of that for sales. Yes I know the templates are $125, but they look fantastic!
    Dwight Philpott
    Atlanta, Georgia

    www.photographybydwight.com
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    DwightDwight Registered Users Posts: 18 Big grins
    edited December 13, 2011
    Zoho Design has an offering in the smugmug template world.

    http://www.fastlinemedia.com/c/portfolio/smugmug-customization/
    Dwight Philpott
    Atlanta, Georgia

    www.photographybydwight.com
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    DwightDwight Registered Users Posts: 18 Big grins
    edited December 13, 2011
    http://www.fastlinemedia.com/smugmug-templates/
    Dwight Philpott
    Atlanta, Georgia

    www.photographybydwight.com
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    FoquesFoques Registered Users Posts: 1,951 Major grins
    edited December 13, 2011
    DWight, this is rather interesting! thank you for the linky!
    Arseny - the too honest guy.
    My Site
    My Facebook
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    DwightDwight Registered Users Posts: 18 Big grins
    edited December 13, 2011
    Your very welcome!
    Dwight Philpott
    Atlanta, Georgia

    www.photographybydwight.com
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