Time to move on

Robertk

Guess its time for me to move on too. I have been waiting for over a year for all of these cool new things. Nothing. Now Andy is leaving.

schmoo

Robertk wrote: »

Guess its time for me to move on too. I have been waiting for over a year for all of these cool new things. Nothing. Now Andy is leaving.

Hi Robert, we're sorry to hear that you've been waiting so long for specific releases. We know it's frustrating, but hope it's always worth the wait. Although we'll miss Andy terribly and we can't argue that he's done incredible things for our company, our product and (of course) our customers, we are still moving full throttle to develop exciting stuff at SmugMug. It's just our policy that we cannot reveal any info about what's in development, or give release dates.

We hope you don't go simply because of this, and that you'll stick around to see what's in the pipeline. There's a lot of us on Dgrin who can help as best we can.

Robertk

I have been waiting on the pipeline for way to long. How much longer would you like me to wait? 1 more month? 6 Months? 1 year? 5 years?

jfriend

schmoo wrote: »

Hi Robert, we're sorry to hear that you've been waiting so long for specific releases. We know it's frustrating, but hope it's always worth the wait. Although we'll miss Andy terribly and we can't argue that he's done incredible things for our company, our product and (of course) our customers, we are still moving full throttle to develop exciting stuff at SmugMug. It's just our policy that we cannot reveal any info about what's in development, or give release dates.

We hope you don't go simply because of this, and that you'll stick around to see what's in the pipeline. There's a lot of us on Dgrin who can help as best we can.

You all now I've been a huge supporter for a long time, but patience is really starting to wear thin. I sure hope the floodgates are about to open on new and important features for viewing and organizing photos because it's been a really, really long time waiting for a bunch of the major new fundamental features that you've have talked about publicly (new gallery viewing styles, more levels of hierarchy, better ways to display gallery thumbs, etc...). When there's this much of a time gap since first talking about them and there's no steady stream of related valuable improvements, it does make us wonder if things are going well in development.

As we stand now, the viewing gallery experience is really, really long in the teeth and several competitors have blown by in terms of look, feel and experience. Since this is the single most important aspect for my viewers (probably for all viewers), I'm feeling like my site is getting left further and further behind.

The mobile experience is so bad that I've had to disable the mobile-specific experience and live with the normal browser experience (which isn't that great on mobile). Even Smugmug custom slideshows don't work on mobile. Badges and Show Off don't work on mobile (because of Flash).

It's been a really, really long time since there have been any significant advancements in customization tools. Except for some incremental improvements in EZ Customizer (which advanced users generally don't use), the more advanced folks are still basically living with the customization tools we had 5 years ago.

Redoing pricelists was probably a big deal for you to do and I gather it was an infrastructure thing that needed doing, but it doesn't really surface much to the end viewer.

There was a UI refresh on the control panel recently which was an improvement, but that didn't really offer anything new and doesn't affect my viewers at all. I'm not complaining about it, but it has no benefit to my viewers (I would have rated it a way, way lower priority than getting new gallery viewing styles out).

There was a new European lab and currency support which is great for expanding your market, but doesn't mean anything to me or most U.S. users.

All this makes me think that maybe the eye's been taken off the ball on improving the basic viewing experience for photos and videos. There was a day when I could honestly say that I thought Smugmug had the best photo viewing experience on the web. Today, I don't think you're even close and that's mostly because you haven't done ANYTHING to improve that in several years (I'm talking about gallery display and the way we can display and organize galleries - the crux of why we choose a photo site).

Zenfolio has blasted by you in the variety and quality of viewing experience. It just looks and feels so much more slick. I'm not a regular user there so I don't know what its warts are, but I do know that when I get directed to a gallery there, it just feels slick and modern - Smugmug no longer does.

So ... I hope you haven't taken your eye off being the best place on the web to make your own custom way of organizing, presenting and viewing photos. Right now, it looks like all your effort has been on ancillary things around that and the current design for viewing photos is pretty darn old.

Robertk

Agree 100%. I have put off using my site very much since these major changes where right around the corner. I will be opening a couple of trial accounts with other services in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully you have at least a firm timeline you can share.

schmoo wrote: »

Hi Robert, we're sorry to hear that you've been waiting so long for specific releases. We know it's frustrating, but hope it's always worth the wait. Although we'll miss Andy terribly and we can't argue that he's done incredible things for our company, our product and (of course) our customers, we are still moving full throttle to develop exciting stuff at SmugMug. It's just our policy that we cannot reveal any info about what's in development, or give release dates.

We hope you don't go simply because of this, and that you'll stick around to see what's in the pipeline. There's a lot of us on Dgrin who can help as best we can.

jfriend wrote: »

You all now I've been a huge supporter for a long time, but patience is really starting to wear thin. I sure hope the floodgates are about to open on new and important features for viewing and organizing photos because it's been a really, really long time waiting for a bunch of the major new fundamental features that you've have talked about publicly (new gallery viewing styles, more levels of hierarchy, better ways to display gallery thumbs, etc...). When there's this much of a time gap since first talking about them and there's no steady stream of related valuable improvements, it does make us wonder if things are going well in development.

As we stand now, the viewing gallery experience is really, really long in the teeth and several competitors have blown by in terms of look, feel and experience. Since this is the single most important aspect for my viewers (probably for all viewers), I'm feeling like my site is getting left further and further behind.

The mobile experience is so bad that I've had to disable the mobile-specific experience and live with the normal browser experience (which isn't that great on mobile). Even Smugmug custom slideshows don't work on mobile. Badges and Show Off don't work on mobile (because of Flash).

It's been a really, really long time since there have been any significant advancements in customization tools. Except for some incremental improvements in EZ Customizer (which advanced users generally don't use), the more advanced folks are still basically living with the customization tools we had 5 years ago.

Redoing pricelists was probably a big deal for you to do and I gather it was an infrastructure thing that needed doing, but it doesn't really surface much to the end viewer.

There was a UI refresh on the control panel recently which was an improvement, but that didn't really offer anything new and doesn't affect my viewers at all. I'm not complaining about it, but it has no benefit to my viewers (I would have rated it a way, way lower priority than getting new gallery viewing styles out).

There was a new European lab and currency support which is great for expanding your market, but doesn't mean anything to me or most U.S. users.

All this makes me think that maybe the eye's been taken off the ball on improving the basic viewing experience for photos and videos. There was a day when I could honestly say that I thought Smugmug had the best photo viewing experience on the web. Today, I don't think you're even close and that's mostly because you haven't done ANYTHING to improve that in several years (I'm talking about gallery display and the way we can display and organize galleries - the crux of why we choose a photo site).

Zenfolio has blasted by you in the variety and quality of viewing experience. It just looks and feels so much more slick. I'm not a regular user there so I don't know what its warts are, but I do know that when I get directed to a gallery there, it just feels slick and modern - Smugmug no longer does.

So ... I hope you haven't taken your eye off being the best place on the web to make your own custom way of organizing, presenting and viewing photos. Right now, it looks like all your effort has been on ancillary things around that and the current design for viewing photos is pretty darn old.

Robertk

What a way to treat a customer!? For anyone that hasn't noticed posts have been moved an deleted. Guess we shouldn't expect anyone to live up to the promises they make. You guys sealed the deal today!

jfriend

Robertk wrote: »

What a way to treat a customer!? For anyone that hasn't noticed posts have been moved an deleted. Guess we shouldn't expect anyone to live up to the promises they make. You guys sealed the deal today!

I don't think anything has been deleted (no intention to do so). I requested that these posts (including my long one) be moved to a new thread because they weren't about Andy leaving and they were sort of hijaacking his good-bye thread (a completely different topic) which I didn't think was appropriate.

This wasn't Smugmug's idea to move these posts - it was mine. I apologize if it bothers you. I thought I was asking for the right thing to keep the forum better organized and requested that even my own content be moved into this own thread.

FYI, I routinely request that moderators break out part of a thread into a new thread in order to keep the original thread on topic and give a new thread its own life. It helps make the forum more readable and reduces the cases I see in other forums where there are 15 different side conversations about different topics all unrelated to the original topic all going on in the same thread.

Robertk

That is a little different but I believe that this has relevance to Andy leaving. He was the one making the promises. I look back at threads more that 2 years old talking about new features that still dont exist.

Its frustrating that Andy would always push for people to stay and then he is the one bolting for the door.

jfriend

jfriend wrote: »

You all now I've been a huge supporter for a long time, but patience is really starting to wear thin. I sure hope the floodgates are about to open on new and important features for viewing and organizing photos because it's been a really, really long time waiting for a bunch of the major new fundamental features that you've have talked about publicly (new gallery viewing styles, more levels of hierarchy, better ways to display gallery thumbs, etc...). When there's this much of a time gap since first talking about them and there's no steady stream of related valuable improvements, it does make us wonder if things are going well in development.

As we stand now, the viewing gallery experience is really, really long in the teeth and several competitors have blown by in terms of look, feel and experience. Since this is the single most important aspect for my viewers (probably for all viewers), I'm feeling like my site is getting left further and further behind.

The mobile experience is so bad that I've had to disable the mobile-specific experience and live with the normal browser experience (which isn't that great on mobile). Even Smugmug custom slideshows don't work on mobile. Badges and Show Off don't work on mobile (because of Flash).

It's been a really, really long time since there have been any significant advancements in customization tools. Except for some incremental improvements in EZ Customizer (which advanced users generally don't use), the more advanced folks are still basically living with the customization tools we had 5 years ago.

Redoing pricelists was probably a big deal for you to do and I gather it was an infrastructure thing that needed doing, but it doesn't really surface much to the end viewer.

There was a UI refresh on the control panel recently which was an improvement, but that didn't really offer anything new and doesn't affect my viewers at all. I'm not complaining about it, but it has no benefit to my viewers (I would have rated it a way, way lower priority than getting new gallery viewing styles out).

There was a new European lab and currency support which is great for expanding your market, but doesn't mean anything to me or most U.S. users.

All this makes me think that maybe the eye's been taken off the ball on improving the basic viewing experience for photos and videos. There was a day when I could honestly say that I thought Smugmug had the best photo viewing experience on the web. Today, I don't think you're even close and that's mostly because you haven't done ANYTHING to improve that in several years (I'm talking about gallery display and the way we can display and organize galleries - the crux of why we choose a photo site).

Zenfolio has blasted by you in the variety and quality of viewing experience. It just looks and feels so much more slick. I'm not a regular user there so I don't know what its warts are, but I do know that when I get directed to a gallery there, it just feels slick and modern - Smugmug no longer does.

So ... I hope you haven't taken your eye off being the best place on the web to make your own custom way of organizing, presenting and viewing photos. Right now, it looks like all your effort has been on ancillary things around that and the current design for viewing photos is pretty darn old.

Interesting that Smugmug chose not to say anything here... That's not a good sign. Andy would have at least argued with me .

Andy

jfriend wrote: »

Andy would have at least argued with me .

I did make sure that folks at SM saw the posting, John

eoren1

I'll add an to what John and Robert are saying.

I chose to not host my photography project focused on my home town on my Smugmug site 2 years ago and instead built a Wordpress site for that purpose. The FB integration and photo display hadn't changed since I started here and I did not trust either to develop in time. I have since pulled all of my landscape photography from Smugmug and developed a second site for sharing photos outside my home town. Both offer me and my viewers much better experiences than what I was able to produce on Smugmug.

I have since taken all non-family photos off my Smugmug site. It's sole purpose now is to share kid photos with the grandparents and I still get frustrated when I hit a maintenance window (tonight) and with the mobile experience when passwords are enabled.

Video sharing has fallen far behind what sites like Vimeo have been doing and the ecommerce has fallen way behind what Zenfolio has been doing. I think the folks at SM really need to get back to fundamentals and concentrate on the viewer experience - both on site (thumbnails, mobile) and off (FB/Pinterest/G+/Twitter integration).

It feels like Smuggy is in need of a 'reboot' as Hollywood seems to be doing with everything these days.

Robertk

Figures that when I need it.....its down. Not good.......unless this is the big update we all have been waiting on?????

jhofker

I'll +1 pretty much all of this thread. For me, though, it's not the lack of new shiny things, it's the (apparent?) lack of communication around the new shiny things.

I completely understand that software, especially good software, takes time. But it feels like the team went almost radio-silent after a few big threads of good discussion over a year ago. Give an ETA ("Coming Fall 2012") or an updated sneak peek or something - you're in a competitive market and I understand not wanting to give the other folks a heads-up so they can get a leg-up (sorry, watched soccer earlier today), but it has the opposite effect on your users.

And I think you guys know that. I would bet cold, hard cash that you know that. But knowing isn't doing.

At the very least, please revisit your radio-silence policy.

Robertk

New features this week?

Andy

Robertk wrote: »

]
Its frustrating that Andy would always push for people to stay and then he is the one bolting for the door.

I can promise you that this isn't true

bike21

Frustrated still too, I'm keeping smuggy around through the closing of a recent wedding I just shot. After that I'm not sure. I've opened (and paid) for a 500px account. Currently building my portfolio over there and getting to know the layout.

C'mon guys at least give us some target dates (even if they are subject to change) and a general update/idea on what you're working on. As a business owner, I'd be scared of losing clients due to silence and a bit of feet dragging.

timnosenzo

jfriend wrote: »

You all now I've been a huge supporter for a long time, but patience is really starting to wear thin.

Agree with all of this. I've been a SM member for... 5 - 6 years now? The end user experience hasn't really changed at all since then and seems pretty dated these days. I'm really overdue for an update this winter, not sure if SM will be part of the equation or not.

Malte

I think I joined in 2005, December. This Christmas my gift to myself will be a new fresh start with photo sharing. The fact that SmugMug won't even respond here, after all this genuine, polite and well thought-out feedback is FRICKEN BEYOND ME! The new gallery stylle has been misleading new sign-ups on the hompage for, what is it, years now? That's disingenuous, at best.

I'm out.

Malte

smurfy

Similar thoughts here. It's such a pain to move everything over, which is why I've stuck around. That, and all the support heroes are great.
I love a lot about Smugmug, but the pro wedding forum I'm in, with 6000 plus members, seem to agree that sales are way better at your chief competitor due to being so much more user friendly for clients. And the fact that they have integrated blogs as part of their more current, far- easier- to -customize sites is hard to ignore.

Plus they allow stock sales.

Smug seems to make it harder to do all these basic things most of us want than you know who. Time is ticking. Communication with those of us who feel frustrated might save some of us from jumping ship, but for some unknown reason, Smugmug is really, really awful at communication.

Robertk

Andy wrote: »

I can promise you that this isn't true

Well you did promise a lot. Why not promise some more. Smug needs to release a timeline for the changes or refund our money.

bryanbrazil

I hope SM realizes that a lot of us that maybe aren't as vocal are following this thread and others very closely. I would imagine there are quite a few folks on the fence about switching services.

dbveto

smurfy wrote: »

Similar thoughts here. It's such a pain to move everything over, which is why I've stuck around. That, and all the support heroes are great.
I love a lot about Smugmug, but the pro wedding forum I'm in, with 6000 plus members, seem to agree that sales are way better at your chief competitor due to being so much more user friendly for clients. And the fact that they have integrated blogs as part of their more current, far- easier- to -customize sites is hard to ignore.

Plus they allow stock sales.

Smug seems to make it harder to do all these basic things most of us want than you know who. Time is ticking. Communication with those of us who feel frustrated might save some of us from jumping ship, but for some unknown reason, Smugmug is really, really awful at communication.

Who do you consider smug mugs chief competitor?

eoren1

Zenfolio - only limitation is the pro labs aligned with Smugmug (Bay and WHCC) are far superior to Mpix/Millers in my opinion.
Presentation, commerce, video all superior.

mike_k

bryanbrazil wrote: »

I hope SM realizes that a lot of us that maybe aren't as vocal are following this thread and others very closely. I would imagine there are quite a few folks on the fence about switching services.

This. And the absence of SM comments in this thread is concerning.

I just created a trial account with Zenfolio. Looks promising.

dbveto

eoren1 wrote: »

Zenfolio - only limitation is the pro labs aligned with Smugmug (Bay and WHCC) ate far superior to Mpix/Millers in my opinion.
Presentation, commerce, video all superior.

Wow I looked at their features.

http://www.zenfolio.com/zf/all-features.aspx
I myself may have to seriously look at moving

Bob_A

I noticed that there is a free service called Upload Junction that could be used to move photos from Smugmug to Zenfolio. Has anyone tried it? I'm curious if it somehow preserves/creates galleries and if the transferred images suffer any loss in quality.

DesptachesGallery

[QUOTE=smurfy;1807645... way better at your chief competitor due to being so much more user friendly for clients. [/QUOTE]

Hey Smurfy - which site?

Dan7312

It copies the full res images and then build a folder hierarchy that corresponds to your category /gallery names. Things like captions/title that are in the image are used as titles. It works with a trial sub if you want to just try it.

Bob_A wrote: »

I noticed that there is a free service called Upload Junction that could be used to move photos from Smugmug to Zenfolio. Has anyone tried it? I'm curious if it somehow preserves/creates galleries and if the transferred images suffer any loss in quality.

Dan7312

The top level subscription uses MpixPro which offers color corrections by a human and other pro stuff, but that subscription is more costly than SmugMug pro.

eoren1 wrote: »

Zenfolio - only limitation is the pro labs aligned with Smugmug (Bay and WHCC) are far superior to Mpix/Millers in my opinion.
Presentation, commerce, video all superior.

Andy

eoren1 wrote: »

I recently checke and, for some reason, I can't downgrade from my Power to a Basic account.

Sure you can. Email the Support Heroes if you can't do it via your control panel.

Souwalker

bryanbrazil wrote: »

I hope SM realizes that a lot of us that maybe aren't as vocal are following this thread and others very closely. I would imagine there are quite a few folks on the fence about switching services.

+1 but the thought of having to start from scratch is not what I want to do. I already have a custom domain name and my website is customised. I really do not know how to move my current web design across so I just work with what SM provides. I am just an enthusist.

Rgds