SmugMug's Mission?
LeDude
Registered Users Posts: 501 Major grins
Last night I read the "About Us" portion of the Smugmug site. It's the story of Smugmug's beginnings, goals, etc. It was interesting and, honestly, admirable. As a once and future proprietor, I have a great deal of respect for Smugmug, what its accomplished and, by extension, the folks who've made it all possible.
From what I've read and experienced, Smugmug's commitment has been, and continues to be, making superior web-based picture hosting possible. Furthermore, Smugmug has committed itself to making the presentation of pictures not only aesthetically pleasing and customizable but simple for the average photographer to implement. Along these lines, I feel Smugmug is tremendously successful.
The question mark in the title to this thread stems from my curiosity as to how the comments made above apply to the professionals who use Smugmug. The "Pro" account option clearly indicates an acceptance of professional photographers into the Smugmug community (that I say community is even further indication of the tremendous accomplishment of Smugmug-to not just be another corporate entity commited to $ alone). And, it is clear that insofar as professionals benefit from aesthetically pleasing photographic display and simple customization, Smugmug is addressing the needs of professionals.
However-and this is not to belittle the options Smugmug offers such as customized pricing-it would appear that Smugmug's focus is on end-users as customers, and only by extension, committed to professionals. This is my best guess because I would not presume to know what Smugmug's actual position is, hence, I am asking: With regard to professional users, what is Smugmug's company mission?
I have referred to professionals and not professional photographers for a reason. The reason is that while many professional photographers undoubtedly use Smugmug, other professionals use Smugmug too. In fact, when signing up I believe I saw a Smugmug advert boasting of a Senator using Smugmug to document his campaign; it was, I believe, used in reference to the capacity for increased bandwidth for "Pro" users. Personally, I do not see myself becoming a professional photographer. I do, on the other hand, have professional aspirations wherein I could use Smugmug as a powerful tool for community building and advertising.
So why do I want to know?; why do I care what Smugmug's goals are with regard to professionals? Well, Smugmug is still young. And, in the next few years will likely grow tremendously. But, in that growth, Smugmug will likely face increased competition and an increased strain on resources. These forces will ultimately result in compromises, which will be reflected in the addition of certain features, etc. What those features, etc. address-end users, professionals, some combination thereof-will have a direct impact on how useful Smugmug remains for its panolpy of subscribers.
I do not wish for Smugmug to cease in its commitment to end-users (sorry, end-users meaning the average Joe who wants his family portraits and wedding photos displayed on the web). On the other hand, capitalization and competitors will ultimately, probably result in large entities dominating the end-user website-photo display market. The companies that serve professionals do not need to be so large. For such companies the focus is usually more on quality than quantity (more thorough but less customer service, for example) and overhead is often, at least with service-providers, significantly less.
I cite Nextel (yes, recently merged with Sprint) as an example. Nextel was the cell phone leader with regards to businesses. Or, at least, their main focus was on businesses, not end-users. And, while cell phone usage was growing and expanding (and service-providers were consolidating), and as Verizon became the consumer-service-provider market leader, Nextel stood alone as a profitable cell phone business.
Sorry, this last bit is more of an argument on behalf of the "focus on professionals" approach. Apologies. I am really interested in what Smugmug's stance is, not in pursuation. So, I repeat, what is Smugmug's mission with regard to professional users?
Thank you for the great service. Thank you for proving compassion and passion are successful approaches to business. Thank you for reading my thoughts and answering my question.
Best Regards,
Richard Bennett
From what I've read and experienced, Smugmug's commitment has been, and continues to be, making superior web-based picture hosting possible. Furthermore, Smugmug has committed itself to making the presentation of pictures not only aesthetically pleasing and customizable but simple for the average photographer to implement. Along these lines, I feel Smugmug is tremendously successful.
The question mark in the title to this thread stems from my curiosity as to how the comments made above apply to the professionals who use Smugmug. The "Pro" account option clearly indicates an acceptance of professional photographers into the Smugmug community (that I say community is even further indication of the tremendous accomplishment of Smugmug-to not just be another corporate entity commited to $ alone). And, it is clear that insofar as professionals benefit from aesthetically pleasing photographic display and simple customization, Smugmug is addressing the needs of professionals.
However-and this is not to belittle the options Smugmug offers such as customized pricing-it would appear that Smugmug's focus is on end-users as customers, and only by extension, committed to professionals. This is my best guess because I would not presume to know what Smugmug's actual position is, hence, I am asking: With regard to professional users, what is Smugmug's company mission?
I have referred to professionals and not professional photographers for a reason. The reason is that while many professional photographers undoubtedly use Smugmug, other professionals use Smugmug too. In fact, when signing up I believe I saw a Smugmug advert boasting of a Senator using Smugmug to document his campaign; it was, I believe, used in reference to the capacity for increased bandwidth for "Pro" users. Personally, I do not see myself becoming a professional photographer. I do, on the other hand, have professional aspirations wherein I could use Smugmug as a powerful tool for community building and advertising.
So why do I want to know?; why do I care what Smugmug's goals are with regard to professionals? Well, Smugmug is still young. And, in the next few years will likely grow tremendously. But, in that growth, Smugmug will likely face increased competition and an increased strain on resources. These forces will ultimately result in compromises, which will be reflected in the addition of certain features, etc. What those features, etc. address-end users, professionals, some combination thereof-will have a direct impact on how useful Smugmug remains for its panolpy of subscribers.
I do not wish for Smugmug to cease in its commitment to end-users (sorry, end-users meaning the average Joe who wants his family portraits and wedding photos displayed on the web). On the other hand, capitalization and competitors will ultimately, probably result in large entities dominating the end-user website-photo display market. The companies that serve professionals do not need to be so large. For such companies the focus is usually more on quality than quantity (more thorough but less customer service, for example) and overhead is often, at least with service-providers, significantly less.
I cite Nextel (yes, recently merged with Sprint) as an example. Nextel was the cell phone leader with regards to businesses. Or, at least, their main focus was on businesses, not end-users. And, while cell phone usage was growing and expanding (and service-providers were consolidating), and as Verizon became the consumer-service-provider market leader, Nextel stood alone as a profitable cell phone business.
Sorry, this last bit is more of an argument on behalf of the "focus on professionals" approach. Apologies. I am really interested in what Smugmug's stance is, not in pursuation. So, I repeat, what is Smugmug's mission with regard to professional users?
Thank you for the great service. Thank you for proving compassion and passion are successful approaches to business. Thank you for reading my thoughts and answering my question.
Best Regards,
Richard Bennett
We are the music-makers; and we are the dreamers of dreams.
... come along.
... come along.
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Comments
A very thoughtful post... Thank you.
Funny how the timing of these things work. I just re-wrote the about us page yesterday to focus more on our mission than on us. The new version hasn't gone live yet, but the inspiration was from the about us pages of popular sites like Digg and MySpace, who didn't deep end on the people behind the mission, but the mission itself.
(BTW, the CEO's card for MySpace reads, "I'm CEO, bitch."
We dream of being like Apple and Adobe when we grow up. They both offer a range of products from consumer to pro but essentially in one space. With Adobe, it's all imaging. With us, it's all photo sharing.
Maybe you use a huge Mac with a Cinema Display and Photoshop for work, but your life is made easier by traveling with a PowerBook and your kids using a Mini. Your wife uses Photoshop Elements to create the family Christmas card, and they all work together. When you outgrow Elements, there's an easy path to upgrade.
It has always been true that people expect huge companies to dominate consumer photo sharing. Microsoft, Adobe, Canon and Kodak were the 800-pound gorillas of photo sharing when we started and all the press said we had no chance against them.
But look who's profitable and independent, not having to sell to Yahoo.
Like Virgin, we aim to keep an underdog brand. They go to 9% market share in whatever business they enter and stop there because they want the freedom underdog status gives them to run provocative ads or whatever. Whenever the world consolidates around huge brands like General Motors, Microsoft, Intel, Bank of America, CBS...it gets dull and world wants something more interesting, so a bunch of interesting underdogs with attitude like Apple, BMW and HBO come along to fill the void.
You'll see Adobe pay a lot of attention to Photoshop and Elements, and you'll see us paying a lot of attention to pros and consumers.
I hope this helps.
Thanks,
Baldy
It's more a consumer engine that has some applications for professionals as well. For working pros, there are options with support for FTP, and much better control over the images and who gets to see them.
Smugmug is a happy middle ground for me though. At my paper, we have a private system for uploading photos, so I don't need the (much more expensive) services of such a service, and much prefer the ease of use, power, and price of Smugmug
Hi baldy, just a suggestion (well, maybe a request),
Add all the additional smugmug mission content on the about page you want. But, don't take out the story of those of you "behind the mug." Putting a human face on the smugmug brand, especially as it grows, is hugely attractive. If you let it become just a brand, I worry you'll loose some of your appeal to those of us scared off by the 800 pound gorillas.
Regards,
Ben
www.ackersphotography.com
http://www.smugmug.com/aboutus/about.mg
But as per your suggestion, I put a link at the bottom to the older page and I polished both pages to give them a better look.
Thanks,
Baldy
Very nice. I especially like the "Details, details." section of the new default page. Thanks for leaving in the link to your story.
Ben
www.ackersphotography.com
Great post! I've been wondering the same myself, but never would I have been able to put it so eloquently.
Glad to see the Adobe analogy as a response by Baldy. It's a strategy that I'm sure will be challenging to implement for a small company, but we at least know where their heart and intents are focused. I think some of the pro-type features that have been requested and slow to come, reflect this fact.
Regards,
Pat