Bad Smugmug Review

DJ-S1

Saw this review here that didn't turn out too well for Smugmug. My thoughts on this are two-fold.

First, it's rare that I come across a review that doesn't reach the same conclusions I have reached - namely that Smugmug is a great service and well worth the money.

Second, the reviewer has a point. I mentioned it a few years back and it hasn't really changed since then - organizing or re-organizing existing photos and galleries can be a pain and it should be easier than it is IMO.

Personally I would love to see SmugBrowser developed to the point where it is an offline (local app) drag-n-drop kick-ass front end for the online site. Fiddle to your hearts content without 'net delays slowing you down, then hit the "commit" button and the changes automagically get synched to your online site.

But that's just me!

kygarden

I love Smugmug but my only complaints are (since we're on the subject...)...

- arranging photos in galleries - too hard and takes too long (mainly for large galleries).
- deleting photos, either one at a time or bulk - takes too long even to delete 1 photo.
- updating or adding keywords - takes forever sometimes. "saving keywords" on the screen for like 30 seconds or more. Just seems like that should be a fairly simple thing to do and not take so long.

So I guess for me it comes down to the convenience issues. Just little nickel and dime petty stuff that over time aggravates the poo out of you. I've been reworking my galleries the last few days and teh arranging photos, deleting photos and keyword issues are the things that I keep coming back to as minor points of aggravation.

One more thing - feature request maybe. I'd like to be able to align galleries horizontally across the screen like you can categories and subcategories. the way it is now, the galleries just stack vertically and I'd like to avoid that - less scrolling.

OVERALL though, great service. Always room for imrpovement though

colourbox

It wasn't that bad of a review, but SmugMug could do some catching up in the direct manipulation area. I have not used the Flickr Organizr, but I have seen Twango.com and you can do things like drag-select a range of images right on the page. Technically, it isn't a competitor to SmugMug yet, and may never be a direct competitor, but they are doing a lot of things right on that site.

darryl

DJ-S1 wrote:

Second, the reviewer has a point. I mentioned it a few years back and it hasn't really changed since then - organizing or re-organizing existing photos and galleries can be a pain and it should be easier than it is IMO.

Personally I would love to see SmugBrowser developed to the point where it is an offline (local app) drag-n-drop kick-ass front end for the online site. Fiddle to your hearts content without 'net delays slowing you down, then hit the "commit" button and the changes automagically get synched to your online site.

But that's just me!

No, it's not just you. If you've tried Phanfare, you'll see they have an drag-n-drop app (works on-line or off) that is just *great* to use. Organize, caption, hide, delete -- it works *soooo* much better than the web tools on SmugMug.

I think SmugBrowser would be a great way to go. It's great that it's cross-platform, too. Heck, I'd be happy if it did all that stuff while on-line.

Baldy

I hid a little Easter egg on the site for users taking the free trial, with an offer: if they let me call them and ask how it's going with their trial, I give them a $25 Amazon gift certificate. So far I've made about 30 calls.

No offense to you who have used the system for awhile and are willing to speak up, but you tend to be more advanced. I was trying to get inside the head of less advanced people who won't talk to us because they get stuck and we make them feel dumb (even though we're the dummies if we're confusing them).

Anyway, what's coming through loud and clear they love the quality of the display, the way photos fill the screen, themes, the variety of uploaders, etc., but we're foiling them by hiding the photo tools and control panel, and not being clear about which does what.

So I'm afraid we're guilty as charged for this review.

It has our complete attention, however, and we're working on it. But it's a big job and we have things to finish that we're working on now, so we're not going to be able to rush out a quick fix.

DJ-S1

Baldy wrote:

It has our complete attention, however, and we're working on it.

Knowing how you folks operate that's good enough for me. Can't wait to see what the wizards come up with.

DJKennedy

My biggest complaint is the adding of catagories, sub-cats, galleries. Maybe its just me but sometimes adding a new gallery is a little harder than it should be.

Placing of sub cats, placing of galleries in sub cats, then theres the catagories...arg!!!

I have several catagories that I dont really need but created by mistake trying to figure things out (again, since its been a while I did that step).

Couldn't it be a wee more simpler, for us simpler folk?

Other than that - LOVE Smugmug.

Derek

kygarden

Hey did someone do something? The delete and keyword addition features seem to be running faster for me for some reason now

DJKennedy

kygarden wrote:

Hey did someone do something? The delete and keyword addition features seem to be running faster for me for some reason now

I think you're right, I notice my new slideshow loads *much* faster.

digitalpins

I watched the video on that link, I liked the video, it looks like a pretty cool place to work...lol I love the smugbunker

twincitiesphoto

I'll have to watch the video in more detail when I get home tonight.

I have to agree with the above comment about the gallery strucure - it took me forever to get my little head around that concept for some reason - not sure why.

I'm a pro user and love smugmug - always anxious for the next, fix,update, enhancement to happen - which it does regularly which is awesome. Its not perfect of course, while it is very customizeable, sometimes I wish that 'hacks' were built into the system so I wouldn't have to risk messing it up - for example, the journal style - I wish you could set it to have a larger photo size show in the set up without having to put your own customization in.

Overall, still very very happy with smugmug - it's not perfect, but it is pretty amazing for sure.

Luc De Jaeger

Take your time Smugmug Team so that all the bugs are ironed out if you ever plan to change the user interface. Imho there is no rush at all. Once you know the drill how the interface works, it's just fine, though not always convenient, but still fine.

And all the features that already exist and the unknown additions and things that you are working on will keep me with smugmug for as long as I can. While Flickr has some more convenient options (drag and drop is the way to go) I can not imagine living without smugmug. Flickr is good at photo sharing, but smugmug still has -- by far -- the edge in photo hosting and presenting images.

Luc

3n-out

If there was one thing I would work on would be this. Make it more familiar with what people already know with a structure similar to windows.

DJKennedy wrote:

My biggest complaint is the adding of catagories, sub-cats, galleries. Maybe its just me but sometimes adding a new gallery is a little harder than it should be.

Placing of sub cats, placing of galleries in sub cats, then theres the catagories...arg!!!

I have several catagories that I dont really need but created by mistake trying to figure things out (again, since its been a while I did that step).

Couldn't it be a wee more simpler, for us simpler folk?

Other than that - LOVE Smugmug.

Derek

DJKennedy

3n-out wrote:

If there was one thing I would work on would be this. Make it more familiar with what people already know with a structure similar to windows.

I would have to agree (except for maybe when your talking about those 'other' guys on Macs!).

com3

everything has it's nuances... nothing will ever make EVERYONE happy...

overall, i think smugmug totally rocks.

what i would like to see, baldy, since you mentioned it, is perhaps a choice of interfaces... beginner and advanced... that way you won't make people feel dumb and you won't be dumbed down either for the more advanced users.

PS - i still would like to see original's available to me when i'm logged in, no matter what i have the gallery max size set to.

PPS - i had a flickr account before...i let it whither away and die, as i found it to be the suck.

3n-out

Oh Smugmug Rocks! I'm a pro user and I love my Smugmug. But nothing says it can't be better! One of the reasons I went with Smugmug is because they always listen to their users community and that is one great thing about Smugmug thats for darn sure.

jchin

I have both. A SmugMug account (obviously) for my semi-pro work and love it. My Flickr account is pretty much for total strangers, friends and family to comment on my day-to-day or family photos. There is more random traffic on Flickr than SmugMug, IMO.

If SmugMug would give out free accounts like Flickr (very restricted account), then many more people might use SmugMug instead of Flickr. On Flickr, family members and friends can create a free account, I associate them as "family" or "friends" and they can then see my private photos. Maybe SM can implement something like that. Then I'd have everything in one place, SmugMug.

Baldy

Thanks, everyone. This is definitely turning out to be a mind-bending challenge. But we're trying not to get too distracted by it until we get the bugs out of a Flash player for video we're trying to ship, and revamping the current built-in slideshow with Flash.

We're hearing that the Flickr tools work great for small to moderate-sized accounts but when the number of photos gets high, they bog.

We have some interesting concepts we're working on but it's early.

DrDavid

Baldy wrote:

Thanks, everyone. This is definitely turning out to be a mind-bending challenge. But we're trying not to get too distracted by it until we get the bugs out of a Flash player for video we're trying to ship, and revamping the current built-in slideshow with Flash.

We're hearing that the Flickr tools work great for small to moderate-sized accounts but when the number of photos gets high, they bog.

We have some interesting concepts we're working on but it's early.

I can tell you that when I tried to work with thousands of images on Flickr, it would work; but, take a LOOOOOONG time to do it. On smug, I can only have about 3000-4000 images MAX in a gallery before it just won't work anymore (deleting images, rearranging, etc..) So, now I have like 300 galleries to store my archive. I'd prefer to just have a few--like one per month or year.. On flickr, I could do it, no problems.

BUT, smug is WAY nicer to work with, the community is WAY better, and the API and apps are WAY better too!

The two things I miss most about Flickr are:

1) One image can be in multiple 'galleries'. Want to move a Collection to a set? no problems--drag and drop. Reorganizing is way easier.
2) Guest passes. I can hand out URL's to a photo/gallery, etc.. and, 'expire' the link. Similar to Smugmug, I can let people see galleries that they normally wouldn't have the permission to see. And, I can delete the 'pass' at any time, and it blocks their access.. Want to turn a public gallery into a private one (not passworded, just private)? Change the permissions. I can even make one photo in a gallery viewable by friends only (and not family) or vice-versa.

I've posted about this before. Smug should let *everyone* create user accounts--even if they are just to tag people as 'friends' or 'family'. i.e. No photo sharing.. OR, make it REALLY basic like 10MB and one gallery, or 100 photos and 3 galleries, etc.. It would increase the community feel on smug, and really open the door to a ton of possibilities in regards to permissions, private galleries, photos, etc..

Overall, I love smug.. I actually have a (apparently?) free lifetime Flickr Pro account (don't ask... I couldn't repeat it if I wanted to!), yet I still paid for Smug and put all my stuff here. So, in my mind, smug was worth the money (still is).

Now, do I wish smug would have the really cool flickr management tools? Flickr permission system? Flickr "photo notes" (draw a box on an image, hover your mouse and you can see a comment about THAT AREA of the photo.. super cool!)? Absolutely! But, would I ditch smug and only use Flickr? Nope.

David

colourbox

Baldy wrote:

We're hearing that the Flickr tools work great for small to moderate-sized accounts but when the number of photos gets high, they bog.

While it's on my mind...speaking of bogging down, one thing SmugMug needs is a spreadsheet view of the settings in every gallery in an account. As the settings multiply, it becomes harder to view and change them in bulk, especially for older galleries.

For example, SmugMug added the "Hello World!" setting. Great setting, and one I'm like to apply to all my old galleries. But wait, I have to go through each gallery one by one, check the settings, and apply new ones. I wish I could list every gallery in a big table, look down the column for "Hello World!", and see in an instant exactly which galleries have that feature on or off. Or tick every box in every gallery right down the column in less than one second.

devbobo

colourbox wrote:

While it's on my mind...speaking of bogging down, one thing SmugMug needs is a spreadsheet view of the settings in every gallery in an account. As the settings multiply, it becomes harder to view and change them in bulk, especially for older galleries.

For example, SmugMug added the "Hello World!" setting. Great setting, and one I'm like to apply to all my old galleries. But wait, I have to go through each gallery one by one, check the settings, and apply new ones. I wish I could list every gallery in a big table, look down the column for "Hello World!", and see in an instant exactly which galleries have that feature on or off. Or tick every box in every gallery right down the column in less than one second.

check out SmugBrowser, you can do exactly this, without having to select the options for each gallery. You can set one or many options for every album in your account, a category or subcategory

DJ-S1

Dev, SmugBrowser is really good and it's all I ever use for uploading. BUT - I can see so much more potential for it! I hope you will get a chance to free up some time and really polish it at some point.

Pupator

DJ-S1 wrote:

Personally I would love to see SmugBrowser developed to the point where it is an offline (local app) drag-n-drop kick-ass front end for the online site. Fiddle to your hearts content without 'net delays slowing you down, then hit the "commit" button and the changes automagically get synched to your online site.

But that's just me!

Actually I think this is a good idea, and I know just the guy to do it. It would be a photo-centric version of this:

http://letterblock.com/

devbobo

DJ-S1 wrote:

Dev, SmugBrowser is really good and it's all I ever use for uploading. BUT - I can see so much more potential for it! I hope you will get a chance to free up some time and really polish it at some point.

yeah, hehe.... tell me about it

there are many many features that I have dreamed up since day one, many of which couldn't be implemented until i expanded the api on version 1.2.1.

more recently, I have been prototyping some stuff in straight html/javascript, for two reasons, one to open SmugBrowser access up to non Mozilla browsers and two while firefox extensions are great, developing great UIs is difficult.

I may even look into flash and cut my teeth on that

guy

colourbox wrote:

While it's on my mind...speaking of bogging down, one thing SmugMug needs is a spreadsheet view of the settings in every gallery in an account. As the settings multiply, it becomes harder to view and change them in bulk, especially for older galleries.

For example, SmugMug added the "Hello World!" setting. Great setting, and one I'm like to apply to all my old galleries. But wait, I have to go through each gallery one by one, check the settings, and apply new ones. I wish I could list every gallery in a big table, look down the column for "Hello World!", and see in an instant exactly which galleries have that feature on or off. Or tick every box in every gallery right down the column in less than one second.

This would be a great addition! Its easy to miss some of those radio buttons!!

BigAl

devbobo wrote:

I may even look into flash and cut my teeth on that

Please noooo. Some of us hate flash :puke I like SmugBrowser as it is

WilliamClark77

Baldy wrote:

I hid a little Easter egg on the site for users taking the free trial, with an offer: if they let me call them and ask how it's going with their trial, I give them a $25 Amazon gift certificate. So far I've made about 30 calls.

No offense to you who have used the system for awhile and are willing to speak up, but you tend to be more advanced. I was trying to get inside the head of less advanced people who won't talk to us because they get stuck and we make them feel dumb (even though we're the dummies if we're confusing them).

Anyway, what's coming through loud and clear they love the quality of the display, the way photos fill the screen, themes, the variety of uploaders, etc., but we're foiling them by hiding the photo tools and control panel, and not being clear about which does what.

So I'm afraid we're guilty as charged for this review.

It has our complete attention, however, and we're working on it. But it's a big job and we have things to finish that we're working on now, so we're not going to be able to rush out a quick fix.

I have a feeling I'm being referenced to here.

As you can tell by my post count at 1 (I'm sure I'll screw something up on my first post), I just joined Dgrin and fired off my free trial of Smugmug day before yesterday; and gave the ok to call me.

The only problems I've had so far is organizing the galleries. Some of the options for how they are displayed in the categories are hard to find, or how to rearrange the gallery displays once uploaded....

I would type more but I really need to go. I'm enjoying Smugmug so far and the family type atmosphere Dgrin exudes is really nice (I've been a lurker for a month).

DJKennedy

WilliamClark77 wrote:

I have a feeling I'm being referenced to here.

As you can tell by my post count at 1 (I'm sure I'll screw something up on my first post), I just joined Dgrin and fired off my free trial of Smugmug day before yesterday; and gave the ok to call me.

The only problems I've had so far is organizing the galleries. Some of the options for how they are displayed in the categories are hard to find, or how to rearrange the gallery displays once uploaded....

I would type more but I really need to go. I'm enjoying Smugmug so far and the family type atmosphere Dgrin exudes is really nice (I've been a lurker for a month).

Welcome to Smugmug/Dgrin !!

com3

devbobo wrote:

I may even look into flash and cut my teeth on that

nnnnnooooooooooooooooooooo!!! *cries*

DJ-S1

jlw wrote:

Ooh, wow, a review on a blog! You're not allowed to have a blog unless you're really, really smart. So I guess this review must be right!

I love sarcasm, use it all the time. I don't think it's called for in this case.

I never claimed it was from the NYT. The fact is that any review, be it from a random blog or not, can have valid points. I wanted to mention the negative comments that were made in the review because the folks who run Smugmug crave input so they can make their product better. Even a devout Smug-Hugger like myself can see that some of the reviewer's points have some merit.

Open discussion is what continues to make Smugmug the best photo site there is. They are not perfect, they know it, and they strive to do better every day.

Ric Grupe

DJ-S1 wrote:

I love sarcasm, use it all the time. I don't think it's called for in this case.

I never claimed it was from the NYT. The fact is that any review, be it from a random blog or not, can have valid points.

Well...the blogger did choose FLICKR!!! :puke

I wish she had said that at the beginning of the post...so I could have skipped reading the rest.