Time to move on

245678

Comments

  • RobertkRobertk Registered Users Posts: 165 Major grins
    edited August 24, 2012
    Im starting the transition now. I have been waiting way to long on Smugmug to implement all of these upgrades that we have been promised. I will be requesting a refund of my yearly fees and if not I will dispute this with cc company. I have copies of the comments promising improvements and upgrades for well over a year (probably 2). The front page of the website even shows a theme that is unavailable to customers. What a joke! They don't even have the nerve to post a comment in this thread.
  • onethumbonethumb Administrators Posts: 1,269 Major grins
    edited August 24, 2012
    mike_k wrote: »
    This. And the absence of SM comments in this thread is concerning.

    I'm sorry you feel that way. Let me see if I can give you a little insight. I apologize in advance that I can't reveal everything - I *really* wish I could, but what we're working on is so huge, and such a moving target, I really can't make any promises just yet.

    What I will say is that we've built our business over nearly 10 years by listening, very closely, to our customers. To you. We ignore our "competitors", many of which have come and gone over the last decade, in favor of doing what's right for you. We ignore "hot" industry trends on a regular basis because our customers aren't telling us they want them. You are our compass.

    We released a preview many months ago of a new gallery style that we were very excited about, and then carefully listened to your feedback.

    We heard it loud and clear. Some of it was painful, but we listened very closely. You loved it, but wanted more. Especially when it came to customization, you wanted *a lot* more.

    The entire company galvanized around that feedback and we went back to the drawing board. We've now built something truly groundbreaking the likes of which the world has never seen before. Photo sharing will evolve. And it's all thanks to you and your feedback.

    But this sort of huge engineering project takes an awful lot of time & energy to get right. We're rebuilding many of SmugMug's systems from the ground up. We're still many months away from being done. Tiny little bits and pieces have been leaking out around the edges - the gallery preview, the new search interface, Pricelists, and the new Account Settings. They're all tiny little echoes of a much bigger product shift.

    Every single engineer & designer at SmugMug is furiously working away to implement what you asked us to build. I ask for your patience as we build, perfect, and polish it. It will radically improve every account level, from Basic to Pro, and your ability to preserve, share & sell your priceless photos. There will be a public preview phase where we will, once again, listen very closely. I hope that comes soon, but again, we can't make any promises. Some Dgrinners have already gotten personal previews, and we've sharpened our pencils and carefully written down every word. It's already helped make the product even better.

    I think our track record of diligently serving only our customers speaks for itself, unlike any other Internet company you can think of, but I completely understand if you just can't wait. We'll miss you, and hope to earn your business again once you see what we're pouring our hearts & souls into. I'm confident you'll love it every bit as much as I do.

    Thanks for being a part of the journey, and especially, of the SmugMug family. We love you.
  • eoren1eoren1 Registered Users Posts: 2,391 Major grins
    edited August 24, 2012
    Thanks Onethumb. One well written post rekindled my admiration for Smugmug. Looking forward to the results.
  • denisegoldbergdenisegoldberg Administrators Posts: 14,220 moderator
    edited August 24, 2012
    Thanks for the update onethumb!

    I look forward to using the new smug. In the meantime, I'm still happy with my (existing) smugmug site.

    --- Denise
  • dbvetodbveto Registered Users Posts: 660 Major grins
    edited August 24, 2012
    To be honest onethumb we have heard that before. When there is a thread about people thinking about leaving someone from smug mug posts we have a lot of changes coming be patient. I have not yet decided if i am leaving or not. But it is hard when others have the features i want not smug mug.

    Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2
    Dennis
    http://www.realphotoman.com/
    Work in progress
    http://www.realphotoman.net/ Zenfolio 10% off Referral Code: 1KH-5HX-5HU
  • RobertkRobertk Registered Users Posts: 165 Major grins
    edited August 25, 2012
    Same story....different day. Where do I mail my camera strap back to? Seems like a fitting way to get the message across.
  • mishenkamishenka Banned Posts: 470 Major grins
    edited August 26, 2012
    How about the current customization - will your new changes be compatible with the existing CSS/JavaScript customization?
    onethumb wrote: »
    I'm sorry you feel that way. Let me see if I can give you a little insight. I apologize in advance that I can't reveal everything - I *really* wish I could, but what we're working on is so huge, and such a moving target, I really can't make any promises just yet.

    What I will say is that we've built our business over nearly 10 years by listening, very closely, to our customers. To you. We ignore our "competitors", many of which have come and gone over the last decade, in favor of doing what's right for you. We ignore "hot" industry trends on a regular basis because our customers aren't telling us they want them. You are our compass.

    We released a preview many months ago of a new gallery style that we were very excited about, and then carefully listened to your feedback.

    We heard it loud and clear. Some of it was painful, but we listened very closely. You loved it, but wanted more. Especially when it came to customization, you wanted *a lot* more.

    The entire company galvanized around that feedback and we went back to the drawing board. We've now built something truly groundbreaking the likes of which the world has never seen before. Photo sharing will evolve. And it's all thanks to you and your feedback.

    But this sort of huge engineering project takes an awful lot of time & energy to get right. We're rebuilding many of SmugMug's systems from the ground up. We're still many months away from being done. Tiny little bits and pieces have been leaking out around the edges - the gallery preview, the new search interface, Pricelists, and the new Account Settings. They're all tiny little echoes of a much bigger product shift.

    Every single engineer & designer at SmugMug is furiously working away to implement what you asked us to build. I ask for your patience as we build, perfect, and polish it. It will radically improve every account level, from Basic to Pro, and your ability to preserve, share & sell your priceless photos. There will be a public preview phase where we will, once again, listen very closely. I hope that comes soon, but again, we can't make any promises. Some Dgrinners have already gotten personal previews, and we've sharpened our pencils and carefully written down every word. It's already helped make the product even better.

    I think our track record of diligently serving only our customers speaks for itself, unlike any other Internet company you can think of, but I completely understand if you just can't wait. We'll miss you, and hope to earn your business again once you see what we're pouring our hearts & souls into. I'm confident you'll love it every bit as much as I do.

    Thanks for being a part of the journey, and especially, of the SmugMug family. We love you.
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited August 26, 2012
    mishenka wrote: »
    How about the current customization - will your new changes be compatible with the existing CSS/JavaScript customization?

    Check the FAQs and Links here near the top of this thread
    http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=198816
  • RobertkRobertk Registered Users Posts: 165 Major grins
    edited August 26, 2012
    You can use the coupon code Zinny for 15% off your Zenfolio subscription. Im in my trial now!
  • DesptachesGalleryDesptachesGallery Registered Users Posts: 278 Major grins
    edited August 27, 2012
    All due respect Andy, those posts are from 2011.
  • rainforest1155rainforest1155 Registered Users Posts: 4,566 Major grins
    edited August 27, 2012
    All due respect Andy, those posts are from 2011.
    That doesn't mean they're outdated and for now this is all the information available. As soon as there's something new available, I'm sure Don will update his posts.
    Thanks for your understanding.
    Sebastian
    SmugMug Support Hero
  • RobertkRobertk Registered Users Posts: 165 Major grins
    edited August 27, 2012
    Why dont you guys understand? That is a problem! We are almost at the end of 2012 and you want to refer people to a post from 2011 concerning future developments? That's a joke right?

    How do you not understand?

    Zenfolio has most everything you are pointing to in your future development. Yes it is not as customizable at this point but it has all the features people are asking for. Just check out their feature request page and compare it to smugs feature request page. You guys have dropped the ball and unfortunately it was a bowling ball to your toe.

    You solution is no longer the best. You should apologize, compensate your customers for your mistakes, and work furiously to start implementing useful changes.

    Lastly the prices you charge for digital downloads are a joke! Compare it to Zenfolios 12 or 8%.

    That doesn't mean they're outdated and for now this is all the information available. As soon as there's something new available, I'm sure Don will update his posts.
    Thanks for your understanding.
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited August 27, 2012
    All due respect Andy, those posts are from 2011.

    In fact they do apply - there's a ton of info there explaining what will happen to customizations with the new style. And that is why I referred the poster to that post. I'm sure SmugMug can reply again if they have more info.
  • RobertkRobertk Registered Users Posts: 165 Major grins
    edited August 27, 2012
    Andy wrote: »
    In fact they do apply - there's a ton of info there explaining what will happen to customizations with the new style. And that is why I referred the poster to that post. I'm sure SmugMug can reply again if they have more info.

    onethumb said

    "We heard it loud and clear. Some of it was painful, but we listened very closely. You loved it, but wanted more. Especially when it came to customization, you wanted *a lot* more.

    The entire company galvanized around that feedback and we went back to the drawing board. We've now built something truly groundbreaking the likes of which the world has never seen before. Photo sharing will evolve. And it's all thanks to you and your feedback."


    Why is that post even relevant if you went back to the drawing board?
  • mishenkamishenka Banned Posts: 470 Major grins
    edited August 27, 2012
    Guys, it's a free market:) I personally made a few posts spelling out that Zenfolio gives you more and better right out of the box. This is the fact that is hard to argue - I did very detailed comparison between the two (Smug and Zen) before committing to one.

    So, why argue? Zen is much better for the out-of-box solution for photographers who do not know how to design websites and who do not want to pay for customization. Don't like SmugMug anymore? - go to Zen and be done in 20 minutes with a beautiful site! it will look like 1000's of others perhaps... but beautiful indeed:)

    SmugMug on the other hand does have it's market at the moment - people like myself who do not really want to code and maintain the entire website on my own (on my own servers) and who want total unique look for the website. For me- SMugMug provides the nessesary engine that I build upon. If only they remove the smugPro log from MY shopping cart, as they advertise, that would be good!
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited August 27, 2012
    Robertk wrote: »
    Why is that post even relevant if you went back to the drawing board?

    I think you'd have to ask SmugMug :)
  • RobertkRobertk Registered Users Posts: 165 Major grins
    edited August 27, 2012
    Andy wrote: »
    I think you'd have to ask SmugMug :)

    Thanks Andy. I believe that's what we were doing but we seem to be running around in circles.

    I am just frustrated that I waited as long as I did.
  • JpgBirdingJpgBirding Registered Users Posts: 1 Beginner grinner
    edited August 29, 2012
    Do not why but I read this post from beginning to end…. Well, really I did. Most probably it was due to my concerns about whether I chose right or not. I just launched my new site one week ago. Only a flickr/500px’ user so far. And thought was time to set up my own site. So, last week, a little time devoted to ‘googling’ trying to find out best way in terms of time and cost to build up quickly my site. Some forums and some comparisons made my decision for Smugmug. Only 3 days required to set my site. Still thinking on what other functionality to be added in coming weeks. But basically it’s there.
    Very far from advanced and pro’s, with a basic knowledge about CSS/HTML, I can say the environment/interface is not so complicated to handle. On top of all this, this forum and FAQ’s from help pages, are the most useful tool for me. So thks a lot everybody for all your contributions.

    One of points I dislike so far from my low point of view –always low point of view to get best bird shots- is the ‘community’. I mean … trying to spread my site, I found not too many ways apart from ‘community’ which is maybe poor in terms of spreading your new pics. So coming from flickr where you can easily publish your images, I missed such a way here at SM community.

    Then, here you have a new happy user so far and convinced I made a good decision.
    JPG
  • rainforest1155rainforest1155 Registered Users Posts: 4,566 Major grins
    edited August 29, 2012
    JpgBirding wrote: »
    One of points I dislike so far from my low point of view –always low point of view to get best bird shots- is the ‘community’. I mean … trying to spread my site, I found not too many ways apart from ‘community’ which is maybe poor in terms of spreading your new pics. So coming from flickr where you can easily publish your images, I missed such a way here at SM community.

    Then, here you have a new happy user so far and convinced I made a good decision.
    JPG
    Hi JPG and welcome to Dgrin! wave.gif

    Thanks for the kind words and for weighing in here!

    In regards to your search / getting your photos out there question, I'd recommend that you add caption and keywords to your individual photos and also add a gallery description to your galleries. That should help with getting your photos indexed. For external search engines, it's also good in getting links from other pages, like blogs. Check the SEO page for more suggestions.

    With photos captioned and keyworded, they should also come up in global SmugMug search on www.smugmug.com .

    In addition, there's the SmugMug browse section. You can have your galleries show up in the browse categories as well. For that to work, you could assign a gallery to one of our default categories. For example for your Griffon Vulture gallery to appear in Animals whenever you update it, you would just need to assign the gallery to the Animals category.
    To be able to categorize galleries on your homepage even when using default categories, you could create a subcategory. For example, within Animals, you could create a subcategory named "Scavenger Birds" to group your Cinereous Vulture and Griffon Vulture galleries together.

    If you have further questions on organization or anything else, feel free to contact us at the HelpDesk.
    Sebastian
    SmugMug Support Hero
  • MalteMalte Registered Users Posts: 1,181 Major grins
    edited August 29, 2012
    Thank you Don for taking the time.
    onethumb wrote:
    I'm sorry you feel that way.

    First off, please don't apologise for me, for how I feel. You can't do that. If you want to apologise, apologise for something you can own, like something you have done or not done to cause me to feel a certain way. I'm not saying you owe me an apology, I'm saying that wasn't one and it was made to look like one.
    onethumb wrote:
    ...I can't reveal everything - I *really* wish I could...

    Your're the boss of a privately held company, you could reveal something. You could reveal anything you wanted to reveal. If you didn't want to reveal something, or anything, wou wouldn't have public alphas and betas of features. If you want to only reveal information when you need help from your customers, and never when they request it, you'll always have this type of dissatisfaction.
    onethumb wrote:
    We ignore our "competitors"...

    What does that mean, "competitors", in quotes? Are you being a bit arrogant? Are others' attempts at photo sharing services so inferior to yours, it can't be called competition?
    onethumb wrote:
    You are our compass.

    Out of the top ten suggestions on your feedback site, nine are from 2009, one from 2010. I assume 2009 was the year you implemented Uservoice for feedback, so some of the nine might have been migrated and alot older. Only three of the ten have any kind of status with you, be it considered, planned or started. You sure do listen alot, for along time at least.
    onethumb wrote:
    We're still many months away from being done.

    I've pushed Andy on this issue maybe every six months for the past couple of years, so I recocnise that statement. The question is, if it was many months two years ago, what is it now? I'm realising it's probably the closest thing to a real response we're going to get from you on this, and it's what's going to make me not renew this December.
    onethumb wrote:
    I think our track record of diligently serving only our customers speaks for itself...

    I take no issue with that other than it being irrelevant to this. I don't believe you're spending all this time working for anyone other than us. I think you're mismanaging your time, and our expectations. You've bitten of more than you can chew and you're stringing us along. I think alot of people are sick of that.

    Malte
  • timnosenzotimnosenzo Registered Users Posts: 405 Major grins
    edited August 31, 2012
    HA! So after feeling a little bummed that SM has been falling behind the 8 ball and getting a little outdated, I see the price for this service is now doubling:

    http://news.smugmug.com/2012/08/31/smugmugs-pro-pricing-change-what-why-and-how/

    Awesome. This won't be a hard decision to make after all.

    Guys, a little tip about marketing.. if you're raising your prices significantly, try to make your customers feel like there's some value in it. I have the same site I signed up for years ago, but now I get to pay twice as much for it. What's not to love?
  • ravenly98ravenly98 Registered Users Posts: 56 Big grins
    edited August 31, 2012
    They want you to hold on until they are able to send you the notice that I just received this evening about their $100+ price increase.
  • bike21bike21 Registered Users Posts: 836 Major grins
    edited August 31, 2012
    C'mon Smuggy...raising prices at this moment by such a dramatic amount? Don't see this as a good move. Since my renewal is good until next summer I'll wait around a bit longer, but I really really hope we're all wowed very soon. Otherwise peace out. :(
  • ParkermanParkerman Registered Users Posts: 73 Big grins
    edited August 31, 2012
    bike21 wrote: »
    C'mon Smuggy...raising prices at this moment by such a dramatic amount? Don't see this as a good move. Since my renewal is good until next summer I'll wait around a bit longer, but I really really hope we're all wowed very soon. Otherwise peace out. :(


    The way I took it was, come October, if you wanted to keep selling prints... it would cost you $100.
  • bike21bike21 Registered Users Posts: 836 Major grins
    edited August 31, 2012
    Parkerman wrote: »
    The way I took it was, come October, if you wanted to keep selling prints... it would cost you $100.

    Sure hope not, it would be pretty shady to force folks to do so before their anniversary date. I don't that is the intent here. Hope I'm right.

    Can anyone clarify?
  • ParkermanParkerman Registered Users Posts: 73 Big grins
    edited August 31, 2012
    bike21 wrote: »
    Sure hope not, it would be pretty shady to force folks to do so before their anniversary date. I don't that is the intent here. Hope I'm right.

    Can anyone clarify?


    If so, I moved to quickly then because I wanted to be sure that I wasn't going to get charged... Not going to be happy about that at all... Just renewed last week at pro...
  • ZBlackZBlack Registered Users Posts: 337 Major grins
    edited August 31, 2012
    If your renewal isn't until next year you are fine, you won't see any price increase until that date. At least that's my understanding of it.
  • onethumbonethumb Administrators Posts: 1,269 Major grins
    edited August 31, 2012
    Malte wrote: »
    First off, please don't apologise for me, for how I feel. You can't do that. If you want to apologise, apologise for something you can own, like something you have done or not done to cause me to feel a certain way. I'm not saying you owe me an apology, I'm saying that wasn't one and it was made to look like one.
    I'm not apologizing *for* you. I'm describing how I feel. I'm genuinely sorry. What's wrong with that?
    Malte wrote: »
    Out of the top ten suggestions on your feedback site, nine are from 2009, one from 2010. I assume 2009 was the year you implemented Uservoice for feedback, so some of the nine might have been migrated and alot older. Only three of the ten have any kind of status with you, be it considered, planned or started. You sure do listen alot, for along time at least.

    We've completed *421* feature requests on UserVoice, including many that would easily have been on the current Top 10 list you cite, and are hard at work on dozens more. I'm extremely proud of our track record on listening to our customers and solving their problems - and the UserVoice data you're looking at supports that. Just this year we've shipped some of our biggest and most-requested features. More are on their way, including many on that Top 10 list.
  • onethumbonethumb Administrators Posts: 1,269 Major grins
    edited August 31, 2012
    Parkerman wrote: »
    The way I took it was, come October, if you wanted to keep selling prints... it would cost you $100.

    No, your renewal fee will go up $100 whenever your renewal comes due.
  • jwwjww Registered Users Posts: 449 Major grins
    edited August 31, 2012
    I just got the note that my next year subscription will go up $100. While I love smugmug for everything it has done for me, I seriously have to consider my options. If it had raised $40 - $50, I could understand it a bit more. However $100 is quite a sticker shock.

    The funny thing is I seriously don't care there have been no huge updates for the past year or so. I just feel disheartened. I especially feel bad for those that join and have to pay $200 more.

    I love you guys, but wow... kicking a man when he is down is hard to take. I have had to rely on photography and web design for all my income since losing my job 3 years ago. Smugmug has always been there for me, but now I just feel like you are taking advantage.

    Maybe this is the heat of the moment talking, but it really is painful to take from such good people. :(
Sign In or Register to comment.