Is my review of Smugmug accurate?

creativetechguy

I posted a review of Smugmug to my blog at:

http://www.tristantom.com/blog/2007/05/review-of-smugmug-and-comparing-it-to.html


and someone emailed me stating that the least I could do is be accurate, yet when I replied about what is not accurate about it, they did not respond.

I'm comparing it to a fairly new competitor of Smugmug called Zenfolio and also a bit to Flickr.

aktse

It seems fair to me.... I don't think there exist one photo hosting site that is pefect for everyone. And you point out that smumug has a lot to offer...

ebwest

The Smugmug part looked OK (to me), maybe something in the Zenfolio part was wrong.

rourkem

Your post looked accurate to me.

There are three reasons I'm considering ZenFolio right now:

* Appearance: the images seem to always fill my screen, regardless of what resolution I'm using when I visit a Zenfolio page. I also like the layout options better than the Smugmug-style layout.

* Access Control: even at a per-image level. This feature is hugely appealing to me, but useless until ZenFolio supports "groups" so you can give access to a list of people without having to retype the list every time.

* Everything works: when I upload images, the EXIF data, the captions, and the keywords all come through and displace properly. With smugmug this simply isn't true. There are bugs that have been in place for years now and the support folks just keep sending out the same workarounds.


The things keeping me from moving are:

* Amazing, responsive support at Smugmug.

* Ability for people to comment of photos.

* Ability to customize my site.


I do also like the "neat" features on Smugmug, like the communities and the popular images stuff. Those little things aren't enough to keep me, though.

creativetechguy

Yeah, I agree. I would switch to Zenfolio if they had pro print sales and comments right now, and if their Pro level service was cheaper than Smugmug. But these are all unknowns with Zenfolio at the moment and I'm not switching based upon things not yet known.

rourkem wrote:

Your post looked accurate to me.

There are three reasons I'm considering ZenFolio right now:

* Appearance: the images seem to always fill my screen, regardless of what resolution I'm using when I visit a Zenfolio page. I also like the layout options better than the Smugmug-style layout.

* Access Control: even at a per-image level. This feature is hugely appealing to me, but useless until ZenFolio supports "groups" so you can give access to a list of people without having to retype the list every time.

* Everything works: when I upload images, the EXIF data, the captions, and the keywords all come through and displace properly. With smugmug this simply isn't true. There are bugs that have been in place for years now and the support folks just keep sending out the same workarounds.


The things keeping me from moving are:

* Amazing, responsive support at Smugmug.

* Ability for people to comment of photos.

* Ability to customize my site.


I do also like the "neat" features on Smugmug, like the communities and the popular images stuff. Those little things aren't enough to keep me, though.

peestandingup

creativetechguy wrote:

Yeah, I agree. I would switch to Zenfolio if they had pro print sales and comments right now, and if their Pro level service was cheaper than Smugmug. But these are all unknowns with Zenfolio at the moment and I'm not switching based upon things not yet known.

Now, I cant speak for Zenfolio, but these features & a lot more (custom site without coding) are apparently in the final stages & will be featured in their new "premium" account. Dont know price, but im guessing just going by their current pricing structure that it'll be less than $100. Thats a wild guess though.

devbobo

rourkem wrote:

* Everything works: when I upload images, the EXIF data, the captions, and the keywords all come through and displace properly. With smugmug this simply isn't true. There are bugs that have been in place for years now and the support folks just keep sending out the same workarounds.

Hi Rourke,

Can you please elaborate on what is broken here ?

Thanks,

David

rourkem

David,

* When I upload files there are keywords added based on my filenames. There is no way to turn this off and it happens even if I've already encoded IPTC keywords.

* Some of my pictures show up with strange shutter speeds that are fractions badly in need of reduction.

* I can turn off the visible feed indicator, but not the rel="alternate" tags

* The photo timeline finally appeared on my site, but it took a year.

* There was something else in the way IPTC tags came over, but I can't remember at the moment.

Little things, all. And less important than the layout and the privacy capabilities.

Thanks,
Rourke

devbobo wrote:

Hi Rourke,

Can you please elaborate on what is broken here ?

Thanks,

David

Andy

rourkem wrote:

David,

* When I upload files there are keywords added based on my filenames. There is no way to turn this off and it happens even if I've already encoded IPTC keywords.

No, there isn't. Are you adding words to your file names?

* Some of my pictures show up with strange shutter speeds that are fractions badly in need of reduction.

Example, please? (Give me a couple links, thanks).

* I can turn off the visible feed indicator, but not the rel="alternate" tags

* The photo timeline finally appeared on my site, but it took a year.

Yep. And we're really sorry about that. But we did show all customers how to have timeline, in our help page, by appending /date to your homepage url.

rourkem

The way I name files there are words in the filenames. Yes, I could rename the files before uploading them. I'd rather not, though. I'd rather do everything required to the files OFFLINE and then just upload them and have it work.

Again, its not a major issue. I am still a Smugmug customer. But these little things add up a a bit. It's also frustrating to see that development time is going into features that are neat, but not important to me while these things remain unfixed.

Maps, for example. And stock photo suff. Even the popular photos piece, though I do find that feature particularly fun.

The core, boring stuff is ultimately more important to me.

I was the product manager for a commerical software prouct for a while. The developers always wanted to buid new, interesting feature. The customers -- over and over -- said the most important things they wanted to see in the next version were stability, speed, and lack of bugs.

So I understand. But the most important things I want to see in Smugmug are the boring things.

Andy wrote:

No, there isn't. Are you adding words to your file names?
Example, please? (Give me a couple links, thanks).

Andy

rourkem wrote:

The way I name files there are words in the filenames. Yes, I could rename the files before uploading them. I'd rather not, though. I'd rather do everything required to the files OFFLINE and then just upload them and have it work.

Again, its not a major issue. I am still a Smugmug customer. But these little things add up a a bit. It's also frustrating to see that development time is going into features that are neat, but not important to me while these things remain unfixed.

Maps, for example. And stock photo suff. Even the popular photos piece, though I do find that feature particularly fun.

The core, boring stuff is ultimately more important to me.

I was the product manager for a commerical software prouct for a while. The developers always wanted to buid new, interesting feature. The customers -- over and over -- said the most important things they wanted to see in the next version were stability, speed, and lack of bugs.

So I understand. But the most important things I want to see in Smugmug are the boring things.

Hi Rourke, we had some issues w/ Maps, Popular - they are fixed. I'm sorry that your filenames are coming up as keywords - but as you noted, that is how the feature is designed.

I loved your post here. Thanks for making it.

iamback

Andy wrote:

Hi Rourke, we had some issues w/ Maps, Popular - they are fixed. I'm sorry that your filenames are coming up as keywords - but as you noted, that is how the feature is designed.

I have no problem with that design. But it would be great if - as an extra feature for that design - it could be turned off: having to go through all just-uploaded photos to remove all those not-keywords again is rather counter productive.

rourkem

"Off" by default would be nice. "Off" when there are keywords present in the uploaded file is another possibility.

iamback

rourkem wrote:

"Off" by default would be nice. "Off" when there are keywords present in the uploaded file is another possibility.

I'd prefer off by default, but that may run counter to what most people need, so if I could set "my" default that would be fine. Not adding keywords from the file name when the file itself contains keywords would be even better and more logical (to me), but that might also break things for others.

As long as there is an option or mechanism that words from a file name are not added to the keywords I'd be happy. (Renaming files is not an option - my file names are what they are for a reason but they do not contain keywords, ever.)