Can someone subscribe to my smugmug site?

Cammo

Is there a way that I can offer a feature where someone can 'subscribe' to my site by simply entering their email address? I know about the rss feeds (although I still don't understand their usage 100%) but for a lot of people that is just too tricky. An email address is HEAPS easier.

Any ideas?

Cammo

bwg

Cammo wrote:

Is there a way that I can offer a feature where someone can 'subscribe' to my site by simply entering their email address? I know about the rss feeds (although I still don't understand their usage 100%) but for a lot of people that is just too tricky. An email address is HEAPS easier.

Any ideas?

Cammo

so out of curiosity...what do you expect to happen after they enter their email address?

Cammo

bigwebguy wrote:

so out of curiosity...what do you expect to happen after they enter their email address?

Well, I was hoping that maybe they could have options like subscribing to a particular gallery and getting an auto email when the gallery is updated. Or subscribing to a whole portfolio so when there is any update on the site the subscriber is emailed. Something along those lines - I am sure other could think of more uses but quite a few people who I photograph a lot are always asking me if there are new photos - would be nice if they could just subscribe and then they would know automatically. I have just though of another GREAT use for subscribers - it would be cool if they could enter search or keyword terms with their subscription and then they would be emailed if images matching those terms were added to the site - now that would be fantastic!

This could also be handy as a marketing tool for pro users.

Andy

There a many ways to have folks enter email addy on your site if you wish that. ATM, the best way for them to receive updates is via a RSS feed.

Search here on the forum for a post Mike Lane made recently re: email contact form. And there are others in my FAQ, sticky on the customization forum.

docwalker

I have this set up on my site using Feedblitz to monitor the RSS feed for changes. Sadly it does not work very well as SM does not change the Pubdate when the page is updated. So, the only time a notice goes out is when Feedblitz crawls the site and finds new content on its own (about every 30 days).

If we could get the Pubdate to update when new content is added the Feedblitz subscription would work. I have looked through the RSS standards and Pubdate is the key. LastBuildDate which SM does update is ignored by RSS readers as it is an optional field. I have brought this up a few times in the past, hopefully one day it will work.

I have also set up a MyYahoo and Yahoo Alert link. They only work if the person has a Yahoo account.

docwalker

Something else that I have run into while testing this out this morning using the RSS feed subscription. You must have the outside linking turned on in the gallery for the feed to pull images into the emails.

This is not a SM problem. I made the choice to turn off linking to protect my images. Now that has broken the notification emails. You get the dreaded red X. fix one problem and it creates another...

I am thinking of removing the subscription feature for now as it is not giving all that I want. There has to be an easy AUTOMATED solution.

Cammo

bigwebguy wrote:

so out of curiosity...what do you expect to happen after they enter their email address?

Any more thoughts on this bwg? I am not sure if anyone else thinks this but I am sure it would be an amazingly useful feature. It could even be sitewide if an end user wanted that.

Imagine someone was a bird watching nut and they entered a particular term like "bald eagle" and subscribed. They could receive a daily digest email when anyone uploaded a photo matching their search terms. NFL footballers could get an email when someone had uploaded a photo that they were in. It would be SENSATIONAL! And of course it would increase sales as more people found more photos that they wanted.

Looking forward to your reply.

Cameron

bwg

the way to do it would be to use feedblitz as doc explained above, but for reasons that doc also explained, it's currently b0rked.

docwalker

I have revisited this over and over. So far feedblitz is not going to work the way we want.

I agree that a subscription service is a very useful tool. I know that my customers want to know when new photos that they are interested in are posted.

Andy has suggested RSS feeds. Sadly this is not a viable option for me as most people do not know how to use feed readers. People do know how to read an email. They do that on a daily basis. And click happy as people are, if they get an email with a link to photos it will get opened.

I will continue to research this as I need it for a project at work as well.

bwg

docwalker wrote:

I have revisited this over and over. So far feedblitz is not going to work the way we want.

I agree that a subscription service is a very useful tool. I know that my customers want to know when new photos that they are interested in are posted.

Andy has suggested RSS feeds. Sadly this is not a viable option for me as most people do not know how to use feed readers. People do know how to read an email. They do that on a daily basis. And click happy as people are, if they get an email with a link to photos it will get opened.

I will continue to research this as I need it for a project at work as well.

but if the pubdate was updated then feedblitz would work yes?

docwalker

Apparently so. That is one thing that almost all of the RSS Specification Sites I looked at talked about. LastBuildDate is ignored.

I am testing something right now. I set up an account with Feedburner. They have now updated so that SMs feeds are autodiscovered. Then there is an option for a feedburner email subscription. It looks like a viable option. If you want to help me test there is a link at the bottom of my site.

I will let you know if this works and if it is a viable option.

FeedBlitz vapor locked on the pubdate. I am using an Atom feed of my recent galleries to feed the Feedburner account. The subscription method is slicker on this new system as well. The customer does not have to create an account. They simply click a link, answer the verification code, and then click the link in the email... So much easier.

The user gets a daily email when new galleries are created. If this works, it will be a godsend.

I forgot to mention that I have tested Squeet and a few others. It appears that the way SM serves up the RSS feed address is causing the others heartburn. It is not SMs fault. It appears that the others do not like the & and other symbols that SM uses to find your feed.

Update: I have also added a subscription link to Yutter. It appears to be a similar type service. I am testing it now.

technocraft

I have feedblitz setup on my site. Sadly, as described above, notification emails are infrequent and it's just about useless.

Cammo

docwalker wrote:

I have revisited this over and over. So far feedblitz is not going to work the way we want.

I agree that a subscription service is a very useful tool. I know that my customers want to know when new photos that they are interested in are posted.

Andy has suggested RSS feeds. Sadly this is not a viable option for me as most people do not know how to use feed readers. People do know how to read an email. They do that on a daily basis. And click happy as people are, if they get an email with a link to photos it will get opened.

I will continue to research this as I need it for a project at work as well.

Doc, thanks for your posts on this subject. Do you still have the feedblitz service on your site? Can on of your viewers go to your site and add their email address to be updated when new images are posted?

I use an Australian TV site call www.yourtv.com.au where you can subscribe, enter your favourite shows AND keywords. When one of your shows will be on that day you get an email but the best feature is that when anything that has any match with one of your keywords will be on you get an email. Recently I got an email that a non-commercial television station would be screening the James Nachtwey documentary 'War Photographer' at 3.30am. I would have NEVER known about it but the fact that I had "photographer" and "photography" as two of my keywords I got an email alerting me.

Now, this is getting way off track but I am sure you can see where I am heading. Viewers of SmugMug sites would love to enter their names, favourite topics etc and get a digest or details or image email telling them that new photos matching their keywords have been added to the SmugMug servers.

I really think that this should be implemented or at least seriously considered as part of the smugmug 'PRO' build. Something that works in tightly with the SmugMug build would be so handy for everyone, especially 'Pro' users as a way of increasing sales - might even drag more member up to 'Pro' user subscriptions.

One Thumb / any SmugMug chiefs - any thoughts?

docwalker

I took Feedblitz off as it is worthless in the current setup.

I am testing FeedBurner and Yutter right now. I will let you know as soon as I find out if they work. You are welcome to help me test by signing up for the 2 on my site.

Cammo

docwalker wrote:

I took Feedblitz off as it is worthless in the current setup.

I am testing FeedBurner and Yutter right now. I will let you know as soon as I find out if they work. You are welcome to help me test by signing up for the 2 on my site.

Signed up for both, let's see how it works..

Cameron

docwalker

You wont believe this.

I spent lunch screwing around with this. I took FeedBlitz off after swapping the RSS and Atom feeds to see if one would work better than the other.


I added Feeburner and then Yutter. This morning I have gotten no emails from the 2 added. But, what do I have? I an email from FeedBlitz with the test gallery that I added yesterday.

I am going to go look at the current settings in Feedblitz to see what I chaged to get it working. We will need to test this but I may have found a solution.

Update: After relooking at it this morning it appears that Feedblitz likes the SM Atom Recent Galleries feed. I have removed the Feedburner and Yutter test forms and put the FeedBlitz back on. If you want to help test it sign up now. I will add a new gallery this morning. It will be Saturday before the next email will go out. I am curious now as to why Feedburner and Yutter did nothing. I used the recent gallery feed for both of them. I need to check to see if I used the RSS or Atom. That RSS date thing may still be biting me in the butt.

docwalker

Ok, I figured out that Yutter eats the RSS feed automatically when setting up the feed. With the date problem it will not work. There is no option to set up an Atom feed for Yutter. So it is a bust.

On to looking at Feed Burner.

Update: FeedBurner is eating the Atom feed. It just did not generate any emails. I am not sure why. I will post that gallery in a bit to test and we should see some results pretty quickly. Feedburner checks for new content on a 30 minute cycle if you set it to.

docwalker

I just got an email from Yutter. All it said was that there was 15 new posts on my site... That is all. I only added one photo yesterday and one today so it is a bit out of wack. I really do not like the style of the email.

I will wait until tomorrow for the Feedblitz email tomorrow and report back.

Cammo

docwalker wrote:

I just got an email from Yutter. All it said was that there was 15 new posts on my site... That is all. I only added one photo yesterday and one today so it is a bit out of wack. I really do not like the style of the email.

I will wait until tomorrow for the Feedblitz email tomorrow and report back.

Same here, got the email too. Looks pretty crappy too - especially the banner ad. I agree, forget Yutter!

Hopefully feedburner will be a better option, though not as good as a built in SmugMug option!

StevenV

possible options?

http://rss2email.infogami.com/

http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006/05/23/rss_to_email_how_to.htm

docwalker

Steven,


I took a look at just about all of them on the market including RSS2Email. My immediate impression was that this is a download that runs on your PC. I am frequently moving between computers so this was not an option for me. I wanted a hosted service that is always on. I cannot depend on the computers I have access to to be on all the time due to various factors. If you want to try it out and report back, please do. I am getting married in 13 days and my testing of this is limited. I am posting right now before heading out to do some errands

Once things settle down I will be happy to test it. I am waiting on todays feedblitz email to decide if it is aviable option now.

Doc

StevenV

Doc, I think you're right about the first one being something you'd need to host, but the second URL is a listing of a bunch of programs and services including services like FeedBurner that do it for you. I'm going to look into a couple; I've got a few folks (like my wife) we aren't "into" the whole RSS/Atom/feedreader game yet but who'd I'd like to subscribe to my pictures and blog. I'll post back here if I fine one that works well for me.

now get away from the computer and go get married! Congratulations

docwalker

Yep, I tested all of those. Yutter, Squeet, Feedblitz, Feedburner... All of them look promising but with the current config I am back to Feedblitz using the Atom feed. Please feel free to test them as well. I may have made a mistake or you might find an option to make them work.

docwalker

Feedblitz is working, if you use the SM Recent Galeries Atom Feed. I am busy today but I might be able to put together a step-by-step guide if you are interested.

I got an email this morning with just the gallery I posted last night. Very clean and acceptable. I might pay for the pro level Feedblitz to get the cutomized output.

docwalker

Setting this up is really simple. (even with it taking me several months to figure it out and get it working)

1. register with Feedblitz
2. click create new feed
3. go to your SM site and copy the Atom Recent Galleries feed URL
4. paste this URL into the new feed dialog on Feedblitz (do not set an id or password)
5. once the feed is created you need to get the subscription dialog on your page. Click the <> button to view the source code.
6. Copy the source code.
7. Go to your SM customization page.
8. Paste the Feedblitz code into an HTML section of your page. I put it in my footer. It could easily be placed in your Bio, the header, or even a seperate album discription if you want it on another page.
9. I also copied the code for the chiklet showing the number of people subscribed to your feed.
10. Subscribe yourself to the feed.
11. give things a day to stabilize and for feedblitz to get a baseline of your feed.
12. add a gallery and new photos.
13. wait 24 hours to see if the feed is working. You should get an email showing just the new gallery.

This could possibly be used for new photos feed and the popular photos feeds. I saw 2 problems with this. I add a lot of new photos and this could get overwhelming to some. The popular photos are cool but there would be repeats.
Bingo... now you have an AUTOMATED subscription service on your SM page.

I have 8 people watching my site now and I am seeing an increase in traffic from it. Some of them signed up months ago when the feed was not working. Now they are coming back after getting the emails.

Thanks to those of you that halped with testing. I am going to do destroy the other accounts at squeet, feedburner, yutter and such as they are not needed now.

Cammo

docwalker wrote:

Setting this up is really simple. (even with it taking me several months to figure it out and get it working)

1. register with Feedblitz
2. click create new feed
3. go to your SM site and copy the Atom Recent Galleries feed URL
4. paste this URL into the new feed dialog on Feedblitz (do not set an id or password)
5. once the feed is created you need to get the subscription dialog on your page. Click the <> button to view the source code.
6. Copy the source code.
7. Go to your SM customization page.
8. Paste the Feedblitz code into an HTML section of your page. I put it in my footer. It could easily be placed in your Bio, the header, or even a seperate album discription if you want it on another page.
9. I also copied the code for the chiklet showing the number of people subscribed to your feed.
10. Subscribe yourself to the feed.
11. give things a day to stabilize and for feedblitz to get a baseline of your feed.
12. add a gallery and new photos.
13. wait 24 hours to see if the feed is working. You should get an email showing just the new gallery.

This could possibly be used for new photos feed and the popular photos feeds. I saw 2 problems with this. I add a lot of new photos and this could get overwhelming to some. The popular photos are cool but there would be repeats.
Bingo... now you have an AUTOMATED subscription service on your SM page. <img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/clap.gif&quot; border="0" alt="" >

I have 8 people watching my site now and I am seeing an increase in traffic from it. Some of them signed up months ago when the feed was not working. Now they are coming back after getting the emails.

Thanks to those of you that halped with testing. I am going to do destroy the other accounts at squeet, feedburner, yutter and such as they are not needed now.

Well done Doc!!

Will give it a shot - tell me, does it alert subscribers when a gallery is updated or only when a new gallery is added? Also, can someone just subscribe to one gallery?

Thanks!

Cammo

docwalker

I have not tested the update part as that was not my focus. I was trying to get it working

It should be fairly easy to test. I will take a few shots and upload them to one of the existing galleries and see.

As for subscribing to an individual gallery, yes. You will have to create a seperate feed in feedblitz. Copy the atom feed for the gallery and paste it in the same way. Then copy the code for the feed and paste it into the gallery discription or into one of the photo comments. That should get you a gallery level subscription.....

:jose

docwalker

I tested the updating of a gallery last night and yes it works. I got the email this morning with Gallery XXXX updated.

Cammo

docwalker wrote:

I tested the updating of a gallery last night and yes it works. I got the email this morning with Gallery XXXX updated.

Well, I wonder if there is any way of incorporating this? Search results bring an rss feed option - i.e http://camlaird.smugmug.com/hack/feed.mg?Type=usersearch&NickName=camlaird&Data=matt bowen&format=atom03

Anyway this could be incorporated so a user would know if someone had added a pic that fitted those terms (etc. matt bowen)?

Cam

P.S This is starting to work pretty well!

docwalker

Yes there is a way to do it. But, you have to set up one for each search item ahead of time.

Take the feed and create a new feedblitz syndication as before. This time look in the code creation section for the alternative link:

(When forms are inappropriate, such as in an email, you can use the link below to link to a subscription form hosted at FeedBlitz (it is used as the link in the chicklet above): http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=17946)

That is a link to my subscription page. But you get the idea.

Take that link and paste it into a blank gallery. If you take photos of the same subject over and over you can have a link to sub to each one.

Your right, this really has potential.

The alternative is that users can create their own feeds on their own accounts. But teaching them to do that is not going to be easy and actually defeats why I spent so much time working on this.

docwalker

Try this link: http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=82750

It should give you a form to subscribe to my flower photos based off of a search.