Multiple Accounts

Zanotti

I am really enjoying Sumgmug and the sharing aspects. I have built quite an inventory in my account, but have it password protected. I want to share more photos, to things like the school football team, but dont want them to have access to all my personal photos. Multile layers of passwords are combersome.

So, I have come to the conclusion that the easiest way is to have multiple smugmug accounts. My personal one, that is a Power account, and a public one that I can effectively change the name to suit the occaision.

How is the best way to create a second account? Can I give myself a coupon and discount the transaction? (No wise guys sending me their coupons, I wont fall for it!)

Does this make sense, effectively a master stable account and a second floater to suit special occaisions - its relatively cheap and does seperate the accounts well.

Ideas?

Andy

Zanotti wrote:

I am really enjoying Sumgmug and the sharing aspects. I have built quite an inventory in my account, but have it password protected. I want to share more photos, to things like the school football team, but dont want them to have access to all my personal photos. Multile layers of passwords are combersome.

So, I have come to the conclusion that the easiest way is to have multiple smugmug accounts. My personal one, that is a Pro account, and a public one that I can effectively change the name to suit the occaision.

How is the best way to create a second account? Can I give myself a coupon and discount the transaction? (No wise guys sending me their coupons, I wont fall for it!)

Does this make sense, effectively a master stable account and a second floater to suit special occaisions - its relatively cheap and does seperate the accounts well.

Ideas?

Yes, use "Give the Gift of SmugMug" to give yourself the 2nd account, you'll save $$

jfriend

Two accounts here

Zanotti wrote:

I am really enjoying Sumgmug and the sharing aspects. I have built quite an inventory in my account, but have it password protected. I want to share more photos, to things like the school football team, but dont want them to have access to all my personal photos. Multile layers of passwords are combersome.

So, I have come to the conclusion that the easiest way is to have multiple smugmug accounts. My personal one, that is a Power account, and a public one that I can effectively change the name to suit the occaision.

How is the best way to create a second account? Can I give myself a coupon and discount the transaction? (No wise guys sending me their coupons, I wont fall for it!)

Does this make sense, effectively a master stable account and a second floater to suit special occaisions - its relatively cheap and does seperate the accounts well.

Ideas?

As Andy said, if you have enough referrals to pay for the whole first year of the 2nd account, you can gift the whole account to yourself and pay nothing for the first year (and get a referral credit on your first account). I did this very thing to set up my 2nd account.

I have two accounts for similar reasons. I use one for family stuff and the other for event photography sharing. I don't change the second account to suit the event. I just put all the event's photos in the 2nd account in separate galleries. The events I shoot are usually kid-related functions (school events, talent shows, boy scout trips, soccer seasons, etc...).

I find it useful to then use two separate browsers to manage the two accounts. I have Firefox always logged in to one and IE always logged into the other. I use StarExplorer as my uploader and Nikolai now has an advanced version that can support more than one Smugmug account.

georges

Multiple account administration

Andy wrote:

Yes, use "Give the Gift of SmugMug" to give yourself the 2nd account, you'll save $$

Andy -

There will soon be a point when I want additional sites, but I'd like to administer them from a common account. A while ago this was not possible.

Is there any development activity in this direction?

Andy

georges wrote:

Andy -

There will soon be a point when I want additional sites, but I'd like to administer them from a common account. A while ago this was not possible.

Is there any development activity in this direction?

No, there isn't. But we'll discuss it! Thanks for letting us know it's important to you

Elysium

I'm just curious here, why would a pro user have to pay for a second account? I mean, they already get UNLIMITED storage and UNLIMITED bandwidth, and infinite * infinite = infinite, so they have to pay a whole account fee just to get a secondary front page/domain?

Andy

Elysium wrote:

I'm just curious here, why would a pro user have to pay for a second account? I mean, they already get UNLIMITED storage and UNLIMITED bandwidth, and infinite * infinite = infinite, so they have to pay a whole account fee just to get a secondary front page/domain?

Yes, it's one account per subscription fee.

Elysium

Andy wrote:

Yes, it's one account per subscription fee.

Yes, and my question was why.

jfriend

My reasons

Elysium wrote:

Yes, and my question was why.

If you want two completely separate web sites where nobody from the first site is likely to wander into the web site or see it and think it's connected to the other one.

In my case, I want one web site for personal sharing with family and friends. And, I want another web site for events I shoot (soccer, scouts, school, etc...). I don't want the large audience for the events to see my family pics associated with the events at all.

Yes, it's possible to use passwords, private galleries, sharegroups, etc... to keep one audience away from the other audience's photos, but it's a lot cleaner to just put them in different web site with different URLs etc... Not required, but easier and more professional looking for my event viewers.

FYI, I gifted my second pro-site to myself using referral credits and I generate enough referral credits to keep me from ever having to pay a renewal so my second account is kind of a freebie.

Andy

Elysium wrote:

Yes, and my question was why.

OK I'm not sure I quite understand

We don't allow multiple nicknames per account. So if a customer wishes to have totally separate accounts, they have to get a second account, in the manner that Jfriend is suggesting.

I hope this helps, if it doesn't let me know and I'll try to help further

Elysium

Andy wrote:

OK I'm not sure I quite understand

We don't allow multiple nicknames per account. So if a customer wishes to have totally separate accounts, they have to get a second account, in the manner that Jfriend is suggesting.

I hope this helps, if it doesn't let me know and I'll try to help further

My point is just that, everything you are actually paying for, gigs of bandwith usage, gigs of storage taking up space somewhere, is unlimited. You can't get more unlimited then unlimited, and all the code for giving a person a front page (i.e. signing up) is already in place, so there is no extra work to be done on smugmug's end, so you are paying twice for one feature, which seems like it should be free since there is nothing extra to do. For example, if you only allowed pro users say, 10 gigs of bandwidth, and they got another free account, that would then be 20 gigs of bandwidth, when they are paying for 10. However pro users get unlimited bandwidth, and like I said, infinite * infinite is still only infinite.

I will answer my own question though, in that you can't offer double accounts because there would be nothing to stop a pro user from just giving the account to a friend.

It would certainly be a nice feature, though, to have two different front pages based off a common control panel.

Matthew Saville

Andy wrote:

OK I'm not sure I quite understand

We don't allow multiple nicknames per account. So if a customer wishes to have totally separate accounts, they have to get a second account, in the manner that Jfriend is suggesting.

I hope this helps, if it doesn't let me know and I'll try to help further

Andy, I think what is meant is "why does the 2nd account COST MONEY to the pro who already has unlimited storage and bandwidth?"

The answer is of course, If I as a pro account holder had this power, I could simply sign up for other "free" accounts and re-sell them to the public! Think about it. I could charge people a flat fee, paid via paypal, and I would simply give them the password to my "spare" account and they would use it instead of me.

Of course I would never do something THAT low, but in truth I do indeed "offer" image hosting service to friends by creating a private, invisible gallery for them and giving them the link. For example if you visit my public gallery you will NEVER see THIS gallery:

http://matthewsaville.smugmug.com/gallery/883514

BUT of course, I have to upload their photos for them, and make all changes to their galleries, and so on and so forth. And these are of course all personal friends of mine, hosting images directly related to myself and my hobbies.

I would want to re-read whatever rules and terms I agreed to when I signed up for Smugmug before attempting to re-sell Smugmug web space, and I get the feeling that such a bootleg business venture would be highly frowned upon if not punishable.

Take care,
-Matt-

scwalter

Matthew Saville wrote:

...I could simply sign up for other "free" accounts and re-sell them to the public! Think about it. I could charge people a flat fee, paid via paypal, and I would simply give them the password to my "spare" account and they would use it instead of me.

I think the original requestor is suggesting that it would all managed from a common login, same password, perhaps with the control panel having a tab for each account. This would preclude sharing the additional accounts.

I've wanted this too, FWIW.

DavidTO

What about using a sharegroup for your personal photos?

Zanotti wrote:

I am really enjoying Sumgmug and the sharing aspects. I have built quite an inventory in my account, but have it password protected. I want to share more photos, to things like the school football team, but dont want them to have access to all my personal photos. Multile layers of passwords are combersome.

So, I have come to the conclusion that the easiest way is to have multiple smugmug accounts. My personal one, that is a Power account, and a public one that I can effectively change the name to suit the occaision.

How is the best way to create a second account? Can I give myself a coupon and discount the transaction? (No wise guys sending me their coupons, I wont fall for it!)

Does this make sense, effectively a master stable account and a second floater to suit special occaisions - its relatively cheap and does seperate the accounts well.

Ideas?

Zanotti

Zanotti wrote:

I am really enjoying Sumgmug and the sharing aspects. I have built quite an inventory in my account, but have it password protected. I want to share more photos, to things like the school football team, but dont want them to have access to all my personal photos. Multile layers of passwords are combersome.

So, I have come to the conclusion that the easiest way is to have multiple smugmug accounts. My personal one, that is a Power account, and a public one that I can effectively change the name to suit the occaision.

How is the best way to create a second account? Can I give myself a coupon and discount the transaction? (No wise guys sending me their coupons, I wont fall for it!)

Does this make sense, effectively a master stable account and a second floater to suit special occaisions - its relatively cheap and does seperate the accounts well.

Ideas?

OK, I know its bad internet form to quote yourself! But, since I started the thread, I hope its OK....

One of the other features I wanted in my second account was the ability to change the url name as many times as I wanted without changing my main account.

For instance, my main account is always the same and my friends and family always know where to look. The second account could be as easy as "Lancersfootball.smugmug.com" for football season, then migrate to "lancersbaseball.smugmug.com" for the spring.

This way, my son and his football buddies could see their photos after each game, and it would be up there for a while, but come spring, they will see their baseball photos.

I wouldnt have to mess with "my" account, but could offer for these guys to see the photos I take for them.

Ths leads to another question - is there a delete all feature to clear the account and start over? My main account would have stability, but the second account would be a bit temporary.

BTW, I am not looking to sell anything, just give access without compromising my own private files.

Make sense? Its really not that much money for the service and I have a vested interest in smugmug being successful forever - they are my primary storage method.

Thanks,

Z

BTW: I appreciate the discussion. I find it interesting to hear others views on this as well.

DavidTO

Can't you change your custom name, but leave your smugmug nickname the same? Direct family to the smuggy nick, and the football/baseball folks to your cname?

Zanotti wrote:

OK, I know its bad internet form to quote yourself! But, since I started the thread, I hope its OK....

One of the other features I wanted in my second account was the ability to change the url name as many times as I wanted without changing my main account.

For instance, my main account is always the same and my friends and family always know where to look. The second account could be as easy as "Lancersfootball.smugmug.com" for football season, then migrate to "lancersbaseball.smugmug.com" for the spring.

This way, my son and his football buddies could see their photos after each game, and it would be up there for a while, but come spring, they will see their baseball photos.

I wouldnt have to mess with "my" account, but could offer for these guys to see the photos I take for them.

Ths leads to another question - is there a delete all feature to clear the account and start over? My main account would have stability, but the second account would be a bit temporary.

BTW, I am not looking to sell anything, just give access without compromising my own private files.

Make sense? Its really not that much money for the service and I have a vested interest in smugmug being successful forever - they are my primary storage method.

Thanks,

Z