Well this for sure solved the counter problem and now you can add "no partial bad language also to the rules" regardless of not hearing the real frustration of the "what we pay for" as out at over 336 hours.
Thanks for putting me in a position to not just paying my yearly and uploading pictures to being p off.
I'm certain if the scheduled counter turn-off was not executed we would be ruined with unusually heavy slow downs that would have awaken the sleeping giant in the entire smugmug community and guest to the sight.
This was the best decision in this case and thanks for doing that.
I think in laymen terms the issue at hand from an engineer working on the solution would greatly help us all to sit back with more patients knowing a little more to the challenges at hand.
I'll assume your networking with other engineers that have faced these very problems and how it was solved for them in equipment needed, software architecture and delivery.
So if I missed the meeting : it would be great to hear from one working on the issues first hand in lawman terms what's up?
A little tech talk would be nice about now. Lord knows we do not have any stats to look at! If it wasn't for real people like Andy (and the helpful others at SM) my patience might have run out by now - if only as a matter of principal. What is really going on?
my stats changed yesterday but i know they are still not right.
my one picture that has gotten the most comments still shows only thumbnail views as shown in the stats. i know for a fact that some people viewed it large, including myself from 2 other pc's at friends houses - and i assume the fellow smugmuggers that saw the pic did look at it bigger than a thumbnail to comment on it.
I'm just glad to know it's not me. I was starting to take it personally . . . or think it was some sort of digital curse. Is the French Open over yet?
-A.
:bash
Hi everyone, I know we've posted a few times and answered plenty of emails about this, but here's a single spot to find the answer:
- Yes, statistics are currently shut off. One of our customers, Rafael Nadal, is currently winning matches left and right at the French Open. Every time he does, he gets a crippling amount of traffic to his photos and it was causing our statistics stuff to cause outages for other customers.
- Yes, we know you like your statistics. We do too, and we're working hard to try to bring them back.
- The honest answer is we weren't prepared to have a worldwide celebrity hitting our system quite so hard, and we thought it was more important that your photos be available without statistics than not available with them.
- We're also working on a way to serve photos from more than one geographic location, so that those on the East Coast and Europe don't have to get photos from the West Coast each time. These issues are related because they make statistics tracking much more difficult.
- As a result, there's a high likelihood of statistics being a less up-to-the-second than they used to be. It's likely that they'll be delayed a few days at any given time as we import logging data from other locations, rather than log the traffic in realtime as we've been doing.
- The silver lining in this cloud is that while statistics are off, every SmugMug customer has unlimited bandwidth. Enjoy.
We don't have an ETA on a fix just yet, but I wanted everyone to know that we are working hard on the problem and know that it's a big priority. Our #1 priority, though, is to keep your photos online and viewable so your friends, family, and customers can get access to them.
Thanks,
Don
I've been following this thread for days and It's not that we don't appeciate the "updates" BUT this is our business. A few hours or maybe even a day or two may have been acceptable (but it's doubtful) but this is unacceptable. Our Smugmug subscription ends in November and we are already looking for a replacement. I don't think it's necessary to post insults or as much as I love smilie faces...this isn't the time or place to use them....'cause this isn't anything to smile about.
We will show our displeasure (as I'm sure many others will) with our pocketbooks.
Bette
TeamPro Photos
I really don't know what else you all want to know. Yes, we're sorry about statistics being off, but I think some of you are blowing the whole thing a little out of proportion. Your sites are getting hits, business is not being lost, and we're in the process of creating a much more stable and efficient database.
Turning off Nadal's site entirely is not an option for us. He's a customer just like you are. If one of you became famous overnight, we wouldn't turn off your site simply because you were getting a lot of hits.
Our statistical reporting is an important feature of our site and we know it. We're doing everything possible to fix the problem. But the fix involves a major overhaul of how we serve up and store your photos, so we're going to be cautious and get it right.
Well, I see that ALL the members are suffering because of one person. (correct me if I'm wrong here...) But, this is not right. And, it's been over 10 days without a resolution. I'd suggest that a simple fix be made for now... then concentrate on the big picture so this doesn't happen again. Or if it does, you have a idea of where you'll go for a fix. But again... 10+ days is far to long without vital stats, IMPO.
I think some of you are blowing the whole thing a little out of proportion.
Well, I don't know about that. Perhaps, you don't understand the frustration. Stats are not important to me personally, but for a lot of folks here, they obviously are.
I've been reading this thread - lots of drama - but one thing comes back to me. It's a perception that smugmug was not ready for what happened.
I like the interface, I enjoy reading dgrin, there are some great folks here, but it's something like this that makes one wonder about renewing their account.
Well, I see that ALL the members are suffering because of one person. (correct me if I'm wrong here...) But, this is not right. And, it's been over 10 days without a resolution. I'd suggest that a simple fix be made for now... then concentrate on the big picture so this doesn't happen again. Or if it does, you have a idea of where you'll go for a fix. But again... 10+ days is far to long without vital stats, IMPO.
I'm not the guy in charge of the database, but as far as I know, that's not exactly true. If we hadn't encountered this database problem now during the French Open, we probably would have encountered it sometime in the not-too-distant future. Yes, it was traffic through his site that pushed us over the top, but it's not the cause of the problem. Our database needed to be upgraded, which we were in the process of looking at. We just didn't expect there to be an urgent need of the upgrade for quite a while. We fully accept the blame. It's our fault for not being prepared for Nadal to go on an incredible win streak, break a World Record, and win the French Open. We're incredibly sorry and we know how much you love your statistics (trust me, I'm a statistician). But believe me when I say that the best option for everyone involved is to keep statistics offline for a while until we get a new system in place that won't die so easily.
If one of you became famous overnight, we wouldn't turn off your site simply because you were getting a lot of hits.
Hoo boy am I going to hold you to that
:uhoh
I really don't understand the uproar either to be honest with you. The smugmug stats are nice, but there is a lot of data that they don't show that other stats like statcounter or google analytics do show. Presumably if you as a site owner are crazy concerned about stats the smugmug gallery stats will only be one piece of the pie.
Just to satisfy my own curiosity (and don't forget I'm a smugmug customer not a smugmug employee), what is it about the smugmug stats that some of you guys can't go without until the new database is finished? I mean, is there something I'm missing about the smugmug stats that is a life and death, can't make my business run without it kind of thing? It is nice to have and fun to watch, and it is handy to be able to identify if my images are being linked without my consent, but I hardly find it a necessity. But maybe I just am un-informed Anyone care to set me straight?
Y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance.
It's a perception that smugmug was not ready for what happened.
I like the interface, I enjoy reading dgrin, there are some great folks here, but it's something like this that makes one wonder about renewing their account.
Windows XP. Windows 98. Windows 3.1. Windows. USS Iowa gun turret. Challenger. Apollo. Andrea Doria. Hindenberg. Empress of Ireland. (more people lost than Titanic :PPPP ).
Edison wanted to go with DC. He used to electrocute stray dogs to show people the dangers of AC. Tesla was robbed!
Someone shoot me now I'm afraid my EZ Pass won't work tommorow.
Hi everyone, I know we've posted a few times and answered plenty of emails about this, but here's a single spot to find the answer:
- Yes, statistics are currently shut off. One of our customers, Rafael Nadal, is currently winning matches left and right at the French Open. Every time he does, he gets a crippling amount of traffic to his photos and it was causing our statistics stuff to cause outages for other customers.
- Yes, we know you like your statistics. We do too, and we're working hard to try to bring them back.
- The honest answer is we weren't prepared to have a worldwide celebrity hitting our system quite so hard, and we thought it was more important that your photos be available without statistics than not available with them.
- We're also working on a way to serve photos from more than one geographic location, so that those on the East Coast and Europe don't have to get photos from the West Coast each time. These issues are related because they make statistics tracking much more difficult.
- As a result, there's a high likelihood of statistics being a less up-to-the-second than they used to be. It's likely that they'll be delayed a few days at any given time as we import logging data from other locations, rather than log the traffic in realtime as we've been doing.
- The silver lining in this cloud is that while statistics are off, every SmugMug customer has unlimited bandwidth. Enjoy.
We don't have an ETA on a fix just yet, but I wanted everyone to know that we are working hard on the problem and know that it's a big priority. Our #1 priority, though, is to keep your photos online and viewable so your friends, family, and customers can get access to them.
Thanks,
Don
Here's an update, which I'm writing from one of our freezing cold aisles at one of our datacenters on a Sunday while my wife is taking care of my 5 month old twins alone. Sorry sweetie!
- We have been working on a real solution, not a band-aid, for the last two weeks. This is actually a continuation of a multi-month project to redo much of our database infrastructure.
- Rafael Nadal's popularity WAS NOT the cause of the problem. I should have been more clear. Nadal's traffic was the straw that broke the camel's back, but it was inevitable that it would happen sometime (hence the multi-month project ... it was on our radar, like a ticking bomb, we just hoped we'd have enough time to fix it before it went off). This is also why just shutting off Nadal's stats wouldn't fix the problem. (We can easily do this, contrary to speculation in this thread. It just doesn't solve the problem).
- We aren't a band-aid company. When we fix it, it'll be fixed properly and shouldn't cause any more problems for a long time to come.
- You may have seen your stats jump a few times over the last week as we briefly turned on portions of the solution. We'll likely turn on the real deal in a "test" phase for a few hours or days when it's ready, so we can load test it and make sure we thought of everything. I'll post here when we do that. I expect that even if we do have to turn it back off for tuning that those stats we gathered during the test phases will not be lost.
- Those who claim this shows we can't scale are partially right. I'm not going to sugar-coat it: this portion of our system reached the limits of it's scalability and that's the truth. However, I think you'll all realize that the rest of the site (stats are a tiny portion of the whole) continues to scale just fine. Last year, Nadal's traffic knocked us down on multiple levels, including image serving. This year, we didn't even notice when he won the French Open. Only stats has failed to scale, and we have a solution coming.
- I refuse to shut off a single customer just because they've gotten very popular. This is true of celebrities, pro photographers who run their businesses at SmugMug, and your average joe who may have been discovered on the blogosphere. We're committed to keeping all customers up and running, no matter how big or small, if it's at all possible.
- Contrary to some speculation around these parts, leaving stats on wouldn't have just made your photos slower. Your entire site would have been offline for the majority of two weeks. Given the choice of having your site, photos, and businesses offline for weeks, or having a tiny portion of the site become inaccessible, I chose the obvious solution.
- We realize stats are important to you. They're super important to us as a company, too, since they help us plot, chart, and plan for growth. I realize they're valuable for your businesses, for your sharing, and a key feature. We're working as hard as we can to get them back up and active.
I think it's important to have a sense of perspective here, though. We blew it, and blew it big time. We get that. But we have hundreds of thousands of customers, not to mention the millions of their friends and families viewing their photos, who are still using and loving the site even without statistics.
Name your favorite internet brand (eBay? Yahoo? MSN?) and they've *all* had major outages during their growth phases. I can remember times where their entire sites were down for days at a time (eBay and MSN especially come to mind here), and the thousands of merchants who's sole business is selling things on eBay were just out of business completely for those days.
Personally, I'm grateful that we knew about the problem in advance, were already working on it, and had this "release valve" that we could shut off and let the vast majority of our customers continue to share their photos and conduct their business. There's no excuse - but it could have been worse. Much worse.
Oh, and I highly recommend that when our excellent customer service offers you a hand and wants to do their best to make things right - you let them. They're trying as hard as they can to deal with a crappy situation and reduce your pain a little. Don't jump down their throats when all they want to do is help.
We're incredibly sorry and we know how much you love your statistics (trust me, I'm a statistician). But believe me when I say that the best option for everyone involved is to keep statistics offline for a while until we get a new system in place that won't die so easily.
Well, I've heard "we're sorry" from many staffers, and I appreciate this... but doesn't change the perception "WE" (collectively) see in the Smugmug operation. You've explained the problem, and the reason for the problem... but, what about the fix or the long-term affects on Smugmug? It may not be much of a concern to the management, now... but I've seen other sites suffer, a year later or more, because of the backlash of WEB talk about them and the situation that caused the talk. BTW, this will be talked about for quite some time in the future. It will not be forgotten.
"Multi-month project" - is that indicative of how long the stats will continue to be down? Love S/M and its support team, but still frustrated! Greg.
No, sorry, that's indicative of the amount of effort spent to date. We're a "when it's done" company, so I can't give you a firm date for resolution, but my best guess is we're talking days, not weeks. It's a sticky problem, though, and if something unforseen crops up, I'll post again.
Thanks for your detailed post and your even temper. One thing you did not touch on is the replication issue. You had said earlier that the new solution might yield statistics that were several days behind, because of the need for coordination of stats between your distributed sites. I've heard this called replication, and I recall that even ten or fifteen years ago it was being done with products like Lotus Notes. But some in this thread -- and I -- believe that this can be done much more regularly.
The prospect of statistics that are so stale is something that many in this thread are upset about. Can your plan include keeping stats much closer to realtime? If not, why not?
I have been reading this thread for several days and I am a little embarassed about the rude behavior of some of the posters.
I love smugmug. It is run by great people, many of whom I have met. They are very nice in person and very patient here. They will fix the problem as quickly as they can, and I trust that.
That being said....
To be honest, I dont get it. I have spent a little time looking at my stats in the past, but not a lot. Why... bacause they dont tell me much. They tell me which galleries are getting attention. They tell me when I leave originals on by mistake. Beyond that... not much.
If I was worried about stats, I would implement a more powerful solution that gave me data that matters. Which individual photos are getting click throughs, Where is the traffic comming from. How many of the hits are spiders. How many of the hits are not page loads, but linked photos. Where are those links. What browsers are my visitors using, how many pages do they look at before they leave. What time of day are they looking. What days bring the most traffic.
These are things I think would matter and smugmug's stats tell you none of this.
What info are you getting from smugmug stats that are so critically important for all of these businesses.
No, sorry, that's indicative of the amount of effort spent to date. We're a "when it's done" company, so I can't give you a firm date for resolution, but my best guess is we're talking days, not weeks. It's a sticky problem, though, and if something unforseen crops up, I'll post again.
Don
Hello Don. Thank you for the note - So the CEO gets online and responds to my daily rant on this issue! [I hope that I am not on the rude list - just frustrated] You and your S/M crew are really making it difficult for me to stay/be upset! Good luck (and please get it fixed soon)! Greg.
Not that this thread...
really *needs* another post, but I felt compelled to throw my two bones into it...
A little preface:
I am a Pro Account user (though admittedly a small-timer)...
Currently I use statistics to measure my traffic almost daily, epecially when I've added significant new galleries like I have recently...
I wasn't aware of alternative stat-counters, I'm too lazy (or inept...) to bother loading more *junk* on my machine, and there is no way I'm going to pay for software that does it at this point in time...
The bottom line for me:
The problem has been sufficiently explained.
The solution is being worked on, and has been given top priority.
The entire SmugMug 'support team' from the CEO on down has *personally* spoken on the issue and gone out of their way to do so (this alone in todays world is worth it's weight in gold)...
Now, I don't know about anyone else, but I still feel that I'm getting the best service possible for my needs-stats or no stats-and money.
To pack up my bags now and move on would not only consume time but resources. Just the thought of it puts a knot in my gut.
If anyone feels or thinks they can do better than SmugMug, then I say move on along.
But as for me and my house, we will be staying.
Lastly, my heartfelt and humblest thanks to ALL of the SmugMug team. You guys continue to give me something so rare today (almost unheard of actually) and that is COMFORT. I KNOW that you are and will continue to give me your best, and like Gen. George Patton once said-"What more can you ask of a man than his best?"
Take care, and Godspeed on the repair\upgrade,
Mongrel
If every keystroke was a shutter press I'd be a pro by now...
Thanks for your detailed post and your even temper. One thing you did not touch on is the replication issue. You had said earlier that the new solution might yield statistics that were several days behind, because of the need for coordination of stats between your distributed sites. I've heard this called replication, and I recall that even ten or fifteen years ago it was being done with products like Lotus Notes. But some in this thread -- and I -- believe that this can be done much more regularly.
The prospect of statistics that are so stale is something that many in this thread are upset about. Can your plan include keeping stats much closer to realtime? If not, why not?
Thanks -- Mitch
Good question. When they resume, stats will be up-to-the-second. The other possibility is still something we're playing with, and won't be part of this release.
Rest assured that we'll get feedback from the community about the pros/cons of any scenario that might induce stats to to provide faster/better access to your photos.
That's not saying everyone will necessarily like the end result, you understand... just that there will be a time and a place for everyone's voices to be heard so we can make the right decision.
Comments
I'm really sorry about that.
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
This was the best decision in this case and thanks for doing that.
I think in laymen terms the issue at hand from an engineer working on the solution would greatly help us all to sit back with more patients knowing a little more to the challenges at hand.
I'll assume your networking with other engineers that have faced these very problems and how it was solved for them in equipment needed, software architecture and delivery.
So if I missed the meeting
my one picture that has gotten the most comments still shows only thumbnail views as shown in the stats. i know for a fact that some people viewed it large, including myself from 2 other pc's at friends houses - and i assume the fellow smugmuggers that saw the pic did look at it bigger than a thumbnail to comment on it.
i wouldnt trust the stats still.
Gear
*Canon 40D: 17-55IS - 70-300IS - 100mm Macro - Sigma 10-20EX
*Imagination
-A.
:bash
sounds like a catch 22 if'n you ask me.
jerk on the net doesn't want jerks on the net to see pictures a jerk on the net doesn't want jerks on the net to see.
long walk. short pier. big freaking splash you blowhard.
I've been following this thread for days and It's not that we don't appeciate the "updates" BUT this is our business. A few hours or maybe even a day or two may have been acceptable (but it's doubtful) but this is unacceptable. Our Smugmug subscription ends in November and we are already looking for a replacement. I don't think it's necessary to post insults or as much as I love smilie faces...this isn't the time or place to use them....'cause this isn't anything to smile about.
We will show our displeasure (as I'm sure many others will) with our pocketbooks.
Bette
TeamPro Photos
Gear
*Canon 40D: 17-55IS - 70-300IS - 100mm Macro - Sigma 10-20EX
*Imagination
maybe our stats will start working again soon ??????
And, let's hope smugmug finds a solution so this doesn't happen again.
http://lrichters.smugmug.com
Turning off Nadal's site entirely is not an option for us. He's a customer just like you are. If one of you became famous overnight, we wouldn't turn off your site simply because you were getting a lot of hits.
Our statistical reporting is an important feature of our site and we know it. We're doing everything possible to fix the problem. But the fix involves a major overhaul of how we serve up and store your photos, so we're going to be cautious and get it right.
Well, I don't know about that. Perhaps, you don't understand the frustration. Stats are not important to me personally, but for a lot of folks here, they obviously are.
I've been reading this thread - lots of drama - but one thing comes back to me. It's a perception that smugmug was not ready for what happened.
I like the interface, I enjoy reading dgrin, there are some great folks here, but it's something like this that makes one wonder about renewing their account.
http://d200shootr.smugmug.com/
Hoo boy am I going to hold you to that
:uhoh
I really don't understand the uproar either to be honest with you. The smugmug stats are nice, but there is a lot of data that they don't show that other stats like statcounter or google analytics do show. Presumably if you as a site owner are crazy concerned about stats the smugmug gallery stats will only be one piece of the pie.
Just to satisfy my own curiosity (and don't forget I'm a smugmug customer not a smugmug employee), what is it about the smugmug stats that some of you guys can't go without until the new database is finished? I mean, is there something I'm missing about the smugmug stats that is a life and death, can't make my business run without it kind of thing? It is nice to have and fun to watch, and it is handy to be able to identify if my images are being linked without my consent, but I hardly find it a necessity. But maybe I just am un-informed
http://photos.mikelanestudios.com/
Windows XP. Windows 98. Windows 3.1. Windows. USS Iowa gun turret. Challenger. Apollo. Andrea Doria. Hindenberg. Empress of Ireland. (more people lost than Titanic :PPPP ).
Edison wanted to go with DC. He used to electrocute stray dogs to show people the dangers of AC. Tesla was robbed!
Someone shoot me now I'm afraid my EZ Pass won't work tommorow.
:deadhorse :deadhorse :deadhorse :deadhorse :deadhorse
Here's an update, which I'm writing from one of our freezing cold aisles at one of our datacenters on a Sunday while my wife is taking care of my 5 month old twins alone. Sorry sweetie!
- We have been working on a real solution, not a band-aid, for the last two weeks. This is actually a continuation of a multi-month project to redo much of our database infrastructure.
- Rafael Nadal's popularity WAS NOT the cause of the problem. I should have been more clear. Nadal's traffic was the straw that broke the camel's back, but it was inevitable that it would happen sometime (hence the multi-month project ... it was on our radar, like a ticking bomb, we just hoped we'd have enough time to fix it before it went off). This is also why just shutting off Nadal's stats wouldn't fix the problem. (We can easily do this, contrary to speculation in this thread. It just doesn't solve the problem).
- We aren't a band-aid company. When we fix it, it'll be fixed properly and shouldn't cause any more problems for a long time to come.
- You may have seen your stats jump a few times over the last week as we briefly turned on portions of the solution. We'll likely turn on the real deal in a "test" phase for a few hours or days when it's ready, so we can load test it and make sure we thought of everything. I'll post here when we do that. I expect that even if we do have to turn it back off for tuning that those stats we gathered during the test phases will not be lost.
- Those who claim this shows we can't scale are partially right. I'm not going to sugar-coat it: this portion of our system reached the limits of it's scalability and that's the truth. However, I think you'll all realize that the rest of the site (stats are a tiny portion of the whole) continues to scale just fine. Last year, Nadal's traffic knocked us down on multiple levels, including image serving. This year, we didn't even notice when he won the French Open. Only stats has failed to scale, and we have a solution coming.
- I refuse to shut off a single customer just because they've gotten very popular. This is true of celebrities, pro photographers who run their businesses at SmugMug, and your average joe who may have been discovered on the blogosphere. We're committed to keeping all customers up and running, no matter how big or small, if it's at all possible.
- Contrary to some speculation around these parts, leaving stats on wouldn't have just made your photos slower. Your entire site would have been offline for the majority of two weeks. Given the choice of having your site, photos, and businesses offline for weeks, or having a tiny portion of the site become inaccessible, I chose the obvious solution.
- We realize stats are important to you. They're super important to us as a company, too, since they help us plot, chart, and plan for growth. I realize they're valuable for your businesses, for your sharing, and a key feature. We're working as hard as we can to get them back up and active.
I think it's important to have a sense of perspective here, though. We blew it, and blew it big time. We get that. But we have hundreds of thousands of customers, not to mention the millions of their friends and families viewing their photos, who are still using and loving the site even without statistics.
Name your favorite internet brand (eBay? Yahoo? MSN?) and they've *all* had major outages during their growth phases. I can remember times where their entire sites were down for days at a time (eBay and MSN especially come to mind here), and the thousands of merchants who's sole business is selling things on eBay were just out of business completely for those days.
Personally, I'm grateful that we knew about the problem in advance, were already working on it, and had this "release valve" that we could shut off and let the vast majority of our customers continue to share their photos and conduct their business. There's no excuse - but it could have been worse. Much worse.
Oh, and I highly recommend that when our excellent customer service offers you a hand and wants to do their best to make things right - you let them. They're trying as hard as they can to deal with a crappy situation and reduce your pain a little. Don't jump down their throats when all they want to do is help.
Don
:soapbox
No, sorry, that's indicative of the amount of effort spent to date. We're a "when it's done" company, so I can't give you a firm date for resolution, but my best guess is we're talking days, not weeks. It's a sticky problem, though, and if something unforseen crops up, I'll post again.
Don
Thanks for your detailed post and your even temper. One thing you did not touch on is the replication issue. You had said earlier that the new solution might yield statistics that were several days behind, because of the need for coordination of stats between your distributed sites. I've heard this called replication, and I recall that even ten or fifteen years ago it was being done with products like Lotus Notes. But some in this thread -- and I -- believe that this can be done much more regularly.
The prospect of statistics that are so stale is something that many in this thread are upset about. Can your plan include keeping stats much closer to realtime? If not, why not?
Thanks -- Mitch
I love smugmug. It is run by great people, many of whom I have met. They are very nice in person and very patient here. They will fix the problem as quickly as they can, and I trust that.
That being said....
To be honest, I dont get it. I have spent a little time looking at my stats in the past, but not a lot. Why... bacause they dont tell me much. They tell me which galleries are getting attention. They tell me when I leave originals on by mistake. Beyond that... not much.
If I was worried about stats, I would implement a more powerful solution that gave me data that matters. Which individual photos are getting click throughs, Where is the traffic comming from. How many of the hits are spiders. How many of the hits are not page loads, but linked photos. Where are those links. What browsers are my visitors using, how many pages do they look at before they leave. What time of day are they looking. What days bring the most traffic.
These are things I think would matter and smugmug's stats tell you none of this.
What info are you getting from smugmug stats that are so critically important for all of these businesses.
yeah but your prediction remains to be seen. hitlers was proven wrong.
really *needs* another post, but I felt compelled to throw my two bones into it...
A little preface:
I am a Pro Account user (though admittedly a small-timer)...
Currently I use statistics to measure my traffic almost daily, epecially when I've added significant new galleries like I have recently...
I wasn't aware of alternative stat-counters, I'm too lazy (or inept...) to bother loading more *junk* on my machine, and there is no way I'm going to pay for software that does it at this point in time...
The bottom line for me:
The problem has been sufficiently explained.
The solution is being worked on, and has been given top priority.
The entire SmugMug 'support team' from the CEO on down has *personally* spoken on the issue and gone out of their way to do so (this alone in todays world is worth it's weight in gold)...
Now, I don't know about anyone else, but I still feel that I'm getting the best service possible for my needs-stats or no stats-and money.
To pack up my bags now and move on would not only consume time but resources. Just the thought of it puts a knot in my gut.
If anyone feels or thinks they can do better than SmugMug, then I say move on along.
But as for me and my house, we will be staying.
Lastly, my heartfelt and humblest thanks to ALL of the SmugMug team. You guys continue to give me something so rare today (almost unheard of actually) and that is COMFORT. I KNOW that you are and will continue to give me your best, and like Gen. George Patton once said-"What more can you ask of a man than his best?"
Take care, and Godspeed on the repair\upgrade,
Mongrel
Good question. When they resume, stats will be up-to-the-second. The other possibility is still something we're playing with, and won't be part of this release.
Rest assured that we'll get feedback from the community about the pros/cons of any scenario that might induce stats to to provide faster/better access to your photos.
That's not saying everyone will necessarily like the end result, you understand... just that there will be a time and a place for everyone's voices to be heard so we can make the right decision.
Don