Been a bad day at Smugmug

frankgraves · August 14, 2004

I think the site went down twice today, as I had one multi-file upload hang up. I restarted it an hour later and it went through okay.

Now I try and the site is down.

I also noted deteriorating speed over the last day -- I don't recall just when it started but in general slow response was noted in the last day at least.

I have found quite a few quirks with the software but I am not going to list them as I haven't read all the other posts and don't want to duplicate.

I just wish they would display EXIF information consistent and leave out the word Guess on my Canon S1 for the focal length. I don't know if it is related to this camera but it happens to be the one I'm using now. Older photos don't seem to have this issue.

Why don't they just print the native focal length and not try to guess??

Has anyone else noticed this.

ALSO

I upgraded to a "power user" on a spur of the moment thing. What did I get?
I can co-brand but not sell my photos at "my" price.

Am I missing something? Just what is the difference?

I don't think the differences are explained very well.

ALSO

I get frustrated with the category list. Why don't they just let you make your own categories in the beginning. I hate putting stuff under other all the time.

Sorry for the complaints but I'm in a bad mood that the site is down and I had a lot of photos to upload and get done this weekend.

I also hate excuses like Amazon and Microsoft etc also go down. I would leave that statement off. I don't care about Microsoft and Amazon right now I care about smugmug at the moment.

Okay I vented ... maybe the site is back up now ...

Incidentally I moved from pBase and they didn't go down even once that I remember.

Baldy · August 14, 2004

Hi Frank,

We went down this afternoon about 3:30ish and it was very painful because every employee of smugmug was add a wedding and we had to rush online to see what the problem was. We are so very sorry this happened and though we may not have felt is as severely as you, we felt plenty of pain.

There is one bug in the database software we use that the company who provides it is working on that occassionally takes the site down for a few minutes. Today, very unfortunately, it was longer.

Longtime PBase subscribers will remember the many outages they had due to an Oracle bug, which was fixed and we're very much hoping the same thing happens soon with us.

That guess issue with the EXIF is more aggravating than we thought it would be. The guess is based on the fact that the EXIF doesn't provide focal length, just chip diameter and you have to infer. But when cropping is involved, it becomes a guess.

For a long time we didn't have it there and because we received so many requests, we added it. We may have to make it configurable because so many people want it.

Here is information on the three levels of accounts:

http://www.smugmug.com/price/

And here's info on pros:

http://www.smugmug.com/pro/

Thanks,
Chris

pecheney · August 20, 2004

I have to agree. Please remove the verbiage about Amazon and whatnot alos going offline... My clients are emailing me right now because the site is down again. Seems like this has been happening a good bit lately. I have incorporated SMug into my site as transparently as possible. Last nioght was probablt the most important shoot I have done in a while and now I have 1000's of folks hitting my site and it goes from my site, to this ugly black holding page with that "Even sites like MSN and AMazon... " statement. A) it is not professional, b) I really don;t want my clients clicking on a link to "Discuss this outage." Frankly, I would pay even more to use SmugMug as it kicks a$$. BUT I don't want my clients going to digital grin to talk about anything. They just want to find their photos. It is affecting my business and it makes me look unprofessional.

ANd truthfully, all sites are not 100% uptime, but I see a GOOD bit of stuff via Amazon and have never seen it down but once and I hit teh site multiple times a day.

Any chance of removing this verbiage asi t just doesn't sound professional in my opinion:
Even giant sites like Amazon, eBay, and MSN have outages from time to time. We're not happy about it, of course, but we are prepared for it and expect there to be no data loss or any long-term reduction in service.

Sorry, I, too, am quite irked. Today is VERY important for my business. The x Uploader is corrupting, site is down, holding page is lame, and it ruins the flow of my site.

On apositive note, I stil haven;t found an app as quick and dynamic as SmugMug. When it is up and running I love it still! To the guy abopve;s comments, all I can see is keep playing with it. Much of it is so simple that you gloass right over the functionality. That is a good thing. It is designed to be userfreindly, light and easy. Hell, look at dotPhoto's interface. I can't even stand looking at it cause I can tell my clients would be confused as can be with too many options....

This brings me to one last issue. I have shot about 20,000 individuals the past 2-3 months. I KNOW for a fact that folks do NOT see the ORDER button. They do NOT see it. I have been shooting eventys in a relatively small town (500k) and shot many of the same folks multimple times. I get asked maybe 1-3 times PER shoot if folks can get a print that they saw on my site in the past. They have no clue the order button is hidden off their screen... No clue. Put yourself in a user's shoes. They are scrolling and scrolling and scrolling through the photos, then they find teh photo they are looking for. THeir mindset is fixated on the top of teh app, the "next" arrow, the thumbnails, whatever. They MOST likely are at 800x600 and just don;t ever see the Ordr button. It stinks cause the app rocks, super quick, but folks bug me a LOT for prints and I have to reel off the "look below the image" spiel By that time the sale is lost quite often as many folks just barley use net, and have dial up. The thought of starting over causes indifference and forgetfullnes.

And to bring it full circle, if the primary goal is sharing, then I think the sharing butyton should be on top of every single image right next to an order button. I hate convoluted user interfaces, but this is an obvious and extremly necessary thing to look into. I am aggressively looking for anothe rcompany to use and will be shooting probably an average of 10-15k of folks per month. I REALLY just need these few issues addressed and I will be happy. My sales dropped SO dramatically from dotPhoto to SmugMug that it is scary, but I get teh feeling that there are not many other event photographers using this app like me? Are you out there? Are you selling many photos via SmugMug? Same issues with you? I don;t want to leave SM, but I can't stay on this path if the UI is eschew.

Great app, just needs some tweaking... but that is the nature of ANY app. My issues are most likely trivial in SmugMug's grander scheme and I bet I am one of VERY few with issues like this...

I want my guest to buy prints, share the photyos with frioends SO that they, too, will BUY prints...and maybe mugs, pendants, buttons, etc etc.

BEEF up teh order visibilty.

SUPER BEEF up the Share functionality, PLEASE.,

ANyway to bill folks for digital downloads? For example: "Download this shot for $1" > Then they can use it on theie rmachine, print it if they want, email it, etc. Then I get a lil revenue, they get their eye candy, and everybody is happy.

Ahh.... didgital drin... I love it. I feel better getting my bad vibes out!

ginger_55 · August 20, 2004

I have a pro acct, have only sold two orders since I joined a few months ago. They were to internet savvy people who held on, they had more problems with me than they did with smugmug, so I would not blame my site. I love my site, but I am not really a pro. I just came on here to say that

I COULDN"T FIND THE ORDER BUTTON FOR AWHILE. And I am not an idiot. Don't remember how long it took me, maybe just a few minutes, maybe a couple of days.

But it is not obvious.

Also, I have learned that people want to buy when they are in the mood, there, then, everything is lined up with the stars, etc. If for any reason they can't buy then, it is "bye" "bye".

I have learned that because I am slow at getting pictures up, my fault, and I have lost every sale except two because of a matter of hours or a few days.

The two people who bought from me waited, really wanted the photos, probably could see the button easier than I could.

But that is a total of 35.00 profit in months. Don't think I could live on that. Am not trying. Just want enough to renew next year without paying, smile.

However, whoever posted re these issues is right on.

Clients are precious, and they are elusive.
They need to be catered to.

That button does need to be moved, and be made more prominent and whatever else the pros say it does.

I did not realize how elusive customers are. I would think their desire for the photos would be stronger, but I am learning. If I make them wait, I will probably lose them. And if they can't find the button, that is as bad as not finding the photos

ginger_55 · August 20, 2004

I don't like the category list either.

Not at all. Please let me name my own. My "Other" category is too full.

pecheney · August 20, 2004

Look, I may have soudned a tad harsh. SM is #1. Those are just my observances, suggestions, and professional UI critiques. It is all opinion. I am very curious to hear if anybody else is having similar issues, though.

Regarding the Categories the two above entries allude to, I am confused. You do not have to use SMugMug's default categories by any means. At least as a Pro User you don;t! Just click on Category in your admin panel, create a new categor by naming it. Then go to Create a New Gallery. The next page will ask what Category to place your new gallery in, use the drop down, and you will see teh Category you just named!

That is a nice feature. I like the Featured Photo function, too. Makes my galleries look...smug.

ginger_55 · August 20, 2004

pecheney wrote:

Look, I may have soudned a tad harsh. SM is #1. Those are just my observances, suggestions, and professional UI critiques. It is all opinion. I am very curious to hear if anybody else is having similar issues, though.

Regarding the Categories the two above entries allude to, I am confused. You do not have to use SMugMug's default categories by any means. At least as a Pro User you don;t! Just click on Category in your admin panel, create a new categor by naming it. Then go to Create a New Gallery. The next page will ask what Category to place your new gallery in, use the drop down, and you will see teh Category you just named!

That is a nice feature. I like the Featured Photo function, too. Makes my galleries look...smug.

I love smugmug, however you hit, and someone hit, on a couple of issues I have.

On what you just said about naming your own category, that is about as clear to me as finding the order button is to a client.

I will print out what you said and try to implement it, thanks (this is regarding the categories)

I like the featured photo function, also.

damonff · August 20, 2004

With a pro account, you can create your own categories and sub-categories.

Been a bad day at Smugmug

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