Good question. When they resume, stats will be up-to-the-second. The other possibility is still something we're playing with, and won't be part of this release.
Rest assured that we'll get feedback from the community about the pros/cons of any scenario that might induce stats to to provide faster/better access to your photos.
That's not saying everyone will necessarily like the end result, you understand... just that there will be a time and a place for everyone's voices to be heard so we can make the right decision.
Don
By the way, I should also note that we weren't aware people used the stats nearly as much as it turns out they do.
So I'd love to see someone start a new thread here on dgrin to explain how they currently use our stats, and what might we be able to do to make them even better.
Note that I'm not proposing duplicating something like StatCounter or Google Analytics, where entire page views and paths are logged. I'm referring to the statistics we currently gather (photo views) and how they're consumed - if there are better ways for us to let you consume those stats, I'm all ears.
really *needs* another post, but I felt compelled to throw my two bones into it...
<---and the stuff in between here--->
Take care, and Godspeed on the repair\upgrade,
Mongrel
I'm not real pleased about the stat feature being off-line, either. I'm a big fan of you SmugMug guys and understand you're in a tight spot.
However, I can very easily imagine you having sent out a very different message than the one at the top of this post. It would have gone something like this:
Dear Mr Nadal
We are thrilled to have a big star like you as a customer at SmugMug, it's a real feather in our cap. However, I'm afraid we are going to have to temporarily remove your galleries from our website because the amount of traffic they've generated is causing a lot of inconvenience to our countless thousands of other valued customers, many of who view SmugMug as an important tool for their small business. I hope you understand.
Rest assured, Rafael, that we are working on a solution and hope to have it fixed very soon, at which time we will be thrilled to welcome you back as a customer. Thank you.
The best solution is the one that SM implemented. That is keep the photos flowing and disable stats.
I am VERY curious about a their DB design and site flow (this is a large part of what I do for work). I just can't imagine a design where logging creates such a large stress on the system.
January 2005
Hits: 92023 C. Ratio: ~168% Bytes: 6.06 GB
February
Hits: 50481 C. Ratio: ~251% Bytes: 3.19 GB
March
Hits: 71104 C. Ratio: ~162% Bytes: 2.46 GB
April
Hits: 203766 C. Ratio: ~105% Bytes: 7.73 GB
May
Hits: 178402 C. Ratio: ~108% Bytes: 4.01 GB
June
Hits: 158939 C. Ratio: ~100% Bytes: 4.81 GB
July
Hits: 287785 C. Ratio: ~63% Bytes: 9.22 GB
August
Hits: 143266 C. Ratio: ~26% Bytes: 4.76 GB
September
Hits: 166691 C. Ratio: ~33% Bytes: 9.26 GB
October
Hits: 293989 C. Ratio: ~35% Bytes: 19.53 GB
November
Hits: 100456 C. Ratio: ~22% Bytes: 2.06 GB
December
Hits: 98290 C. Ratio: ~20% Bytes: 1.87 GB
January 2006
Hits: 121089 C. Ratio: ~22% Bytes: 2.1 GB
February
Hits: 91477 C. Ratio: ~25% Bytes: 1.61 GB
March
Hits: 120237 C. Ratio: ~26% Bytes: 1.95 GB
April
Hits: 84312 C. Ratio: ~28% Bytes: 1.41 GB
May
Hits: 97998 C. Ratio: ~31% Bytes: 2.91 GB
June
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_______________________________________
Well you get it : I love my stats and it gives me a feel for who's going to my pictures and if anyone may be lifting them :uhoh
I'm not real pleased about the stat feature being off-line, either. I'm a big fan of you SmugMug guys and understand you're in a tight spot.
However, I can very easily imagine you having sent out a very different message than the one at the top of this post. It would have gone something like this:
Dear Mr Nadal
We are thrilled to have a big star like you as a customer at SmugMug, it's a real feather in our cap. However, I'm afraid we are going to have to temporarily remove your galleries from our website because the amount of traffic they've generated is causing a lot of inconvenience to our countless thousands of other valued customers, many of who view SmugMug as an important tool for their small business. I hope you understand.
Rest assured, Rafael, that we are working on a solution and hope to have it fixed very soon, at which time we will be thrilled to welcome you back as a customer. Thank you.
Sound fair to anyone else??
not really.
let's look at this from another point of view:
Dear Mr. Keaton,
We are thrilled that you are customizing your site, however due to the constant influx of questions regarding your customization, we are going to temporarily turn off the customization feature of your site. The level of help you seek is requiring a substantial effort on the part of the forum moderators and is degrading the level of service to other members.
We are working toward a solution blah blah blah.
now dont take it personal, i was just using that as an example but for SM to say "we're gonna turn you off" when you've paid for the service and are operating completely within the TOS is not an acceptible solution from the POV of the person who is being turned off.
So I'd love to see someone start a new thread here on dgrin to explain how they currently use our stats, and what might we be able to do to make them even better.
Being "just" a hobbyist, I rely on my galley stats to see if/when photos have been viewed by the people with whom I share the links. That said, I've been considering stepping up to a pro account so I have the option to make some money from the sale of prints from certain events.
One thing I'd like to know right now that would help with my decision to upgrade is this. I've let certain galleries be available for print purchases (obviously with no markup since I have a basic account), but I have no idea which images have been purchased or how many have been sold. I'd like to know which of my current images have generated sales of prints. If enough people are buying then I'll pay the $$ to upgrade the account and mark up some of my prints. On the other hand, if only 5 people have purchased prints it would not make sense right now.
Whoa now, that was kinda mean bwg. Logically though I just don't agree. The personalized website help is something you guys are (justifiably) proud of and tout as a feature of SmugMug accounts. See Andy's response to that guy who was 'selling' a different site in the forums...I forget the names and it isn't really the point.
Again, from my point of view. I check my site everyday and use it as a business tool. One thing I check everyday is the stats. It's a real benefit to me to be able to 'peek in' at my potential customers to see what shots are jumping off the thumbnail grid at them to the point that they want to take a closer look. It's just one more great thing about SmugMug over all the other sites out there.
So imagine how I felt when - after days of wondering why my stat counter had seemingly frozen - I finally discover the thread that explains what's up only to find that ONE customer was so popular that it was messing things up and that the good people of SmugMug, having to make a tough decision, chose to keep this one person happy and take away a valuable feature from everyone else. Albeit "temporarily". What can I say, it just didn't seem right to me and I was surprised because you guys always seem to be so supportive of your customers' needs and wants. It just seemed out of character I guess, and my little fake letter to Nadal seems like something I would have been less surprised to see you do.
You guys are still the best and all, but that's my .02 and I'm sticking to it.
Being "just" a hobbyist, I rely on my galley stats to see if/when photos have been viewed by the people with whom I share the links. That said, I've been considering stepping up to a pro account so I have the option to make some money from the sale of prints from certain events.
One thing I'd like to know right now that would help with my decision to upgrade is this. I've let certain galleries be available for print purchases (obviously with no markup since I have a basic account), but I have no idea which images have been purchased or how many have been sold. I'd like to know which of my current images have generated sales of prints. If enough people are buying then I'll pay the $$ to upgrade the account and mark up some of my prints. On the other hand, if only 5 people have purchased prints it would not make sense right now.
Hi Daddio, thanks for posting - wish we had that, but we don't unfortunately. I wish I had a better answer for you...
Whoa now, that was kinda mean bwg. Logically though I just don't agree. The personalized website help is something you guys are (justifiably) proud of and tout as a feature of SmugMug accounts.
Another great feature that I'm betting SM is proud of? Being able to actually display images. Why shouldn't a paying customer get that in return? It's easy to sit from the sidelines and ask SM to cut off a customer. But overall, my opinion is that they are taking the obviously correct track here. Sometimes projections get met with unexpected realities. They'll get over it as best they can without inconveniencing any one person all that much and before you know it you'll have nearly forgotten that your stats were offline at all. Next year you won't be chatting with your buddy talking about the great SmugMug stats outage of 2006. You'll just be sharing (and/or selling) your pics online just like you always have. Just like everyone else with a SM account including Nadal.
Again, from my point of view. I check my site everyday and use it as a business tool. One thing I check everyday is the stats. It's a real benefit to me to be able to 'peek in' at my potential customers to see what shots are jumping off the thumbnail grid at them to the point that they want to take a closer look. It's just one more great thing about SmugMug over all the other sites out there.
A real benefit that 1) you won't be without for all that long in the grand scheme of things and 2) is crucial to the overall outcome of your business during the downtime.
So imagine how I felt when - after days of wondering why my stat counter had seemingly frozen - I finally discover the thread that explains what's up only to find that ONE customer was so popular that it was messing things up and that the good people of SmugMug, having to make a tough decision, chose to keep this one person happy and take away a valuable feature from everyone else. Albeit "temporarily".
Temporarily is the keyword here IMHO.
What can I say, it just didn't seem right to me and I was surprised because you guys always seem to be so supportive of your customers' needs and wants.
I think SM is amazingly supportive of its customers' needs and wants. ALL of it's customers including Nadal. It's not like they're saying, "screw you guys, we can't do stats anymore 'cause it's too hard and we just don't care that much about what you do and don't want anyhow." It's more like, "whoa, our bad, we'll get it back up ASAP." They even offered that one crazy girl a free upgrade.
It just seemed out of character I guess, and my little fake letter to Nadal seems like something I would have been less surprised to see you do.
You guys are still the best and all, but that's my .02 and I'm sticking to it.
That fake letter of yours seems to be the very opposite of what smugmug would generally do IMHO. But we've all got opinions don't we?
Y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance.
I just have a quick question about the notification of this "Issue".....
I had thought that something was wrong with my customers or my site even when after completing 3 photo sessions and informing my clients that their photos were now online, that only 5 photos had been viewed within a weeks time......I was shocked!!
I ONLY know about the "Stat" issue because I come to this Support forum for another reason and "happend" upon this post that there WAS something going on.....but not with just me.
Is there any reason SM did not send out a general email to its respective customers notifying them of this problem? Some people still might not know what is going on.......or is it that the ones who REALLY do use the stats for important, crucial measurements already know all about the problems?
I just have a quick question about the notification of this "Issue".....
I had thought that something was wrong with my customers or my site even when after completing 3 photo sessions and informing my clients that their photos were now online, that only 5 photos had been viewed within a weeks time......I was shocked!!
I ONLY know about the "Stat" issue because I come to this Support forum for another reason and "happend" upon this post that there WAS something going on.....but not with just me.
Is there any reason SM did not send out a general email to its respective customers notifying them of this problem? Some people still might not know what is going on.......or is it that the ones who REALLY do use the stats for important, crucial measurements already know all about the problems?
Just curious
I am wondering if maybe things like this could show up in our "Message Center" or "Smugmug News" in our Control Panel? December 13th is the last message I have in mine. Might be a good place to let people that don't frequent the forums know what's going on. Just an idea
I am wondering if maybe things like this could show up in our "Message Center" or "Smugmug News" in our Control Panel? December 13th is the last message I have in mine. Might be a good place to let people that don't frequent the forums know what's going on. Just an idea
showing myself here for a minute.......I was always looking in my control panel for my stats and JUST realized that you CAN do it by gallery......I learn something new everyday.
Yeah, I have seen the notice on the stats page I'm not complaining. My StatCounter and Google Analytics are working just fine Just thought that maybe more places that it was seen would stop some of this constant "why aren't my stats working", which, quite frankly, is driving me nuts. I don't know how many times something can be explained and yet still discussed as though the more complaining that is done, the faster it will get fixed. Have you taken up drinking yet??
I just have a quick question about the notification of this "Issue".....
I had thought that something was wrong with my customers or my site even when after completing 3 photo sessions and informing my clients that their photos were now online, that only 5 photos had been viewed within a weeks time......I was shocked!!
I ONLY know about the "Stat" issue because I come to this Support forum for another reason and "happend" upon this post that there WAS something going on.....but not with just me.
Is there any reason SM did not send out a general email to its respective customers notifying them of this problem? Some people still might not know what is going on.......or is it that the ones who REALLY do use the stats for important, crucial measurements already know all about the problems?
Just curious
I certainly hope SM has learned a lot from this issue, including:
1) Clear and up to date communications are KEY to customer's feelings!
However, to date, I have still not received an email regarding this issue. I think the posting that Don made a few days ago would be a good start for an email to all users. In the future, users should be made aware of any problem which lasts more than several hours (or maybe more than 24). Email is the best way to do that. This should include the nature of the problem, possible cause, symptoms, proposed solutions (or workarounds), and predicted time to resolution. Individuals may have been able to take advantage of other services and avoided significant impact on their business had this been done early on.
2) Don't blame one user for a system problem!
It was NOT his fault that the system crashed. I think Don finally clarified that in his update but in the meantime there was (and still is) a lot of blame being put on this guy.
3) Do not underestimate the importance of any of the services you offer!
I doubt that anyone at SM fully understood the implications of the stat downtime when it became necessary to turn it off.
like i said in my post, it was not meant to be personal. trust me, if i had that capability, i wouldn't use it on you
the point was to put you in the position of the person getting their site shut down and show you that totally shutting the service down of one peerson due to an (admitted) error our our (SM's) part is not justified when the person did nothing to warrant being punished.
the good people of SmugMug, having to make a tough decision, chose to keep this one person happy and take away a valuable feature from everyone else.
i think you need to go back and re-read Don's post. he stated that sooner than later this was an issue that was going to effect everybody. so it's not so much that they chose to make one person happy at the cost of removing a feature of everyone else. They chose to temporarily sacrifice stats to continue to provide what they consider the most important feature...serving photos. And to that i cannot disagree.
We are thrilled to have a big star like you as a customer at SmugMug, it's a real feather in our cap. However, I'm afraid we are going to have to temporarily remove your galleries from our website because the amount of traffic they've generated is causing a lot of inconvenience to our countless thousands of other valued customers, many of who view SmugMug as an important tool for their small business. I hope you understand.
Rest assured, Rafael, that we are working on a solution and hope to have it fixed very soon, at which time we will be thrilled to welcome you back as a customer. Thank you.
- Rafael Nadal's popularity WAS NOT the cause of the problem. I should have been more clear. Nadal's traffic was the straw that broke the camel's back, but it was inevitable that it would happen sometime (hence the multi-month project ... it was on our radar, like a ticking bomb, we just hoped we'd have enough time to fix it before it went off). This is also why just shutting off Nadal's stats wouldn't fix the problem. (We can easily do this, contrary to speculation in this thread. It just doesn't solve the problem).
- Those who claim this shows we can't scale are partially right. I'm not going to sugar-coat it: this portion of our system reached the limits of it's scalability and that's the truth. However, I think you'll all realize that the rest of the site (stats are a tiny portion of the whole) continues to scale just fine. Last year, Nadal's traffic knocked us down on multiple levels, including image serving. This year, we didn't even notice when he won the French Open. Only stats has failed to scale, and we have a solution coming.
- I refuse to shut off a single customer just because they've gotten very popular. This is true of celebrities, pro photographers who run their businesses at SmugMug, and your average joe who may have been discovered on the blogosphere. We're committed to keeping all customers up and running, no matter how big or small, if it's at all possible.
- Contrary to some speculation around these parts, leaving stats on wouldn't have just made your photos slower. Your entire site would have been offline for the majority of two weeks. Given the choice of having your site, photos, and businesses offline for weeks, or having a tiny portion of the site become inaccessible, I chose the obvious solution.
1) Clear and up to date communications are KEY to customer's feelings!
However, to date, I have still not received an email regarding this issue. I think the posting that Don made a few days ago would be a good start for an email to all users. In the future, users should be made aware of any problem which lasts more than several hours (or maybe more than 24). Email is the best way to do that. This should include the nature of the problem, possible cause, symptoms, proposed solutions (or workarounds), and predicted time to resolution. Individuals may have been able to take advantage of other services and avoided significant impact on their business had this been done early on.
Agreed. I think SM should stop relying on these forums so much for stuff like this. Many people dont come here every single day of their lives, nor should they have to. Especially to find out about an outage like this.
Guys, I know you dont like to send out emails to members. But, maybe for stuff like this, you should. Thats not harassing by any means, thats showing concern & letting your people know the issue is being fixed.
The best solution is the one that SM implemented. That is keep the photos flowing and disable stats.
I am VERY curious about a their DB design and site flow (this is a large part of what I do for work). I just can't imagine a design where logging creates such a large stress on the system.
How about a bug in our core database software that causes performance to DECREASE as the number of CPUs in the system INCREASE?
And a bug that hasn't been fixed for months, despite lots of customers having said problem?
Yeah, that'll do it.
Needless to say, since it was a bug which hadn't been discovered yet when we designed our database infrastructure, we couldn't anticipate or plan for it. So we're adapting as rapidly as we can.
I certainly hope SM has learned a lot from this issue, including:
1) Clear and up to date communications are KEY to customer's feelings!
However, to date, I have still not received an email regarding this issue. I think the posting that Don made a few days ago would be a good start for an email to all users. In the future, users should be made aware of any problem which lasts more than several hours (or maybe more than 24). Email is the best way to do that. This should include the nature of the problem, possible cause, symptoms, proposed solutions (or workarounds), and predicted time to resolution. Individuals may have been able to take advantage of other services and avoided significant impact on their business had this been done early on.
We didn't do this for a very good reason: Less than 1% of our customers check stats *ever*, let alone on a regular basis. (Yes, we have stats on our stats
We're not going to send out an email to our customers, who paid us to NOT spam them, when there's a great way to get the info in the hands of those few who care about stats: A nice big message on the top of each stats page.
Patience is a virtue Thanks Don for the update. It is a comfort that you are there working on the problem. Better than abandonment, as some sites would do.
I hope others can wait this out, as in all storms, this shall pass.
The stats page is an ideal tool for pros to keep "check" on the goings-on of their site(s).
My best to your wife and her understanding and support to you and what you do for others on your site.
Here's an update, which I'm writing from one of our freezing cold aisles at one of our datacenters on a Sunday while my wife is taking care of my 5 month old twins alone. Sorry sweetie!
- We have been working on a real solution, not a band-aid, for the last two weeks. This is actually a continuation of a multi-month project to redo much of our database infrastructure.
- Rafael Nadal's popularity WAS NOT the cause of the problem. I should have been more clear. Nadal's traffic was the straw that broke the camel's back, but it was inevitable that it would happen sometime (hence the multi-month project ... it was on our radar, like a ticking bomb, we just hoped we'd have enough time to fix it before it went off). This is also why just shutting off Nadal's stats wouldn't fix the problem. (We can easily do this, contrary to speculation in this thread. It just doesn't solve the problem).
- We aren't a band-aid company. When we fix it, it'll be fixed properly and shouldn't cause any more problems for a long time to come.
- You may have seen your stats jump a few times over the last week as we briefly turned on portions of the solution. We'll likely turn on the real deal in a "test" phase for a few hours or days when it's ready, so we can load test it and make sure we thought of everything. I'll post here when we do that. I expect that even if we do have to turn it back off for tuning that those stats we gathered during the test phases will not be lost.
- Those who claim this shows we can't scale are partially right. I'm not going to sugar-coat it: this portion of our system reached the limits of it's scalability and that's the truth. However, I think you'll all realize that the rest of the site (stats are a tiny portion of the whole) continues to scale just fine. Last year, Nadal's traffic knocked us down on multiple levels, including image serving. This year, we didn't even notice when he won the French Open. Only stats has failed to scale, and we have a solution coming.
- I refuse to shut off a single customer just because they've gotten very popular. This is true of celebrities, pro photographers who run their businesses at SmugMug, and your average joe who may have been discovered on the blogosphere. We're committed to keeping all customers up and running, no matter how big or small, if it's at all possible.
- Contrary to some speculation around these parts, leaving stats on wouldn't have just made your photos slower. Your entire site would have been offline for the majority of two weeks. Given the choice of having your site, photos, and businesses offline for weeks, or having a tiny portion of the site become inaccessible, I chose the obvious solution.
- We realize stats are important to you. They're super important to us as a company, too, since they help us plot, chart, and plan for growth. I realize they're valuable for your businesses, for your sharing, and a key feature. We're working as hard as we can to get them back up and active.
I think it's important to have a sense of perspective here, though. We blew it, and blew it big time. We get that. But we have hundreds of thousands of customers, not to mention the millions of their friends and families viewing their photos, who are still using and loving the site even without statistics.
Name your favorite internet brand (eBay? Yahoo? MSN?) and they've *all* had major outages during their growth phases. I can remember times where their entire sites were down for days at a time (eBay and MSN especially come to mind here), and the thousands of merchants who's sole business is selling things on eBay were just out of business completely for those days.
Personally, I'm grateful that we knew about the problem in advance, were already working on it, and had this "release valve" that we could shut off and let the vast majority of our customers continue to share their photos and conduct their business. There's no excuse - but it could have been worse. Much worse.
Oh, and I highly recommend that when our excellent customer service offers you a hand and wants to do their best to make things right - you let them. They're trying as hard as they can to deal with a crappy situation and reduce your pain a little. Don't jump down their throats when all they want to do is help.
Comments
By the way, I should also note that we weren't aware people used the stats nearly as much as it turns out they do.
So I'd love to see someone start a new thread here on dgrin to explain how they currently use our stats, and what might we be able to do to make them even better.
Note that I'm not proposing duplicating something like StatCounter or Google Analytics, where entire page views and paths are logged. I'm referring to the statistics we currently gather (photo views) and how they're consumed - if there are better ways for us to let you consume those stats, I'm all ears.
Do start a new thread, though.
Don
Well said, and thanks for the expalnation to the issues Don. <img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/thumb.gif" border="0" alt="" >
However, I can very easily imagine you having sent out a very different message than the one at the top of this post. It would have gone something like this:
Dear Mr Nadal
We are thrilled to have a big star like you as a customer at SmugMug, it's a real feather in our cap. However, I'm afraid we are going to have to temporarily remove your galleries from our website because the amount of traffic they've generated is causing a lot of inconvenience to our countless thousands of other valued customers, many of who view SmugMug as an important tool for their small business. I hope you understand.
Rest assured, Rafael, that we are working on a solution and hope to have it fixed very soon, at which time we will be thrilled to welcome you back as a customer. Thank you.
Sound fair to anyone else??
http://www.robkeaton.com
Not me.
Dgrin FAQ | Me | Workshops
Nor I.
The best solution is the one that SM implemented. That is keep the photos flowing and disable stats.
I am VERY curious about a their DB design and site flow (this is a large part of what I do for work). I just can't imagine a design where logging creates such a large stress on the system.
smugmug nickname: mpmcleod
http://www.michaelmcleod.com/
How so David, feel free to explain.
http://www.robkeaton.com
Hits: 92023 C. Ratio: ~168% Bytes: 6.06 GB
February
Hits: 50481 C. Ratio: ~251% Bytes: 3.19 GB
March
Hits: 71104 C. Ratio: ~162% Bytes: 2.46 GB
April
Hits: 203766 C. Ratio: ~105% Bytes: 7.73 GB
May
Hits: 178402 C. Ratio: ~108% Bytes: 4.01 GB
June
Hits: 158939 C. Ratio: ~100% Bytes: 4.81 GB
July
Hits: 287785 C. Ratio: ~63% Bytes: 9.22 GB
August
Hits: 143266 C. Ratio: ~26% Bytes: 4.76 GB
September
Hits: 166691 C. Ratio: ~33% Bytes: 9.26 GB
October
Hits: 293989 C. Ratio: ~35% Bytes: 19.53 GB
November
Hits: 100456 C. Ratio: ~22% Bytes: 2.06 GB
December
Hits: 98290 C. Ratio: ~20% Bytes: 1.87 GB
January 2006
Hits: 121089 C. Ratio: ~22% Bytes: 2.1 GB
February
Hits: 91477 C. Ratio: ~25% Bytes: 1.61 GB
March
Hits: 120237 C. Ratio: ~26% Bytes: 1.95 GB
April
Hits: 84312 C. Ratio: ~28% Bytes: 1.41 GB
May
Hits: 97998 C. Ratio: ~31% Bytes: 2.91 GB
June
Hits:
_______________________________________
Well you get it
not really.
let's look at this from another point of view:
Dear Mr. Keaton,
We are thrilled that you are customizing your site, however due to the constant influx of questions regarding your customization, we are going to temporarily turn off the customization feature of your site. The level of help you seek is requiring a substantial effort on the part of the forum moderators and is degrading the level of service to other members.
We are working toward a solution blah blah blah.
now dont take it personal, i was just using that as an example but for SM to say "we're gonna turn you off" when you've paid for the service and are operating completely within the TOS is not an acceptible solution from the POV of the person who is being turned off.
Canon 5D Mk.2/Grip || Canon 7D Backup
17-40 f/4L || 70-200 f/2.8L IS || 100mm f/2.8L Macro || 24-70mm f/2.8L
Wedding Photographer
www.cwphotos.net
BWG said it best.
Dgrin FAQ | Me | Workshops
One thing I'd like to know right now that would help with my decision to upgrade is this. I've let certain galleries be available for print purchases (obviously with no markup since I have a basic account), but I have no idea which images have been purchased or how many have been sold. I'd like to know which of my current images have generated sales of prints. If enough people are buying then I'll pay the $$ to upgrade the account and mark up some of my prints. On the other hand, if only 5 people have purchased prints it would not make sense right now.
Again, from my point of view. I check my site everyday and use it as a business tool. One thing I check everyday is the stats. It's a real benefit to me to be able to 'peek in' at my potential customers to see what shots are jumping off the thumbnail grid at them to the point that they want to take a closer look. It's just one more great thing about SmugMug over all the other sites out there.
So imagine how I felt when - after days of wondering why my stat counter had seemingly frozen - I finally discover the thread that explains what's up only to find that ONE customer was so popular that it was messing things up and that the good people of SmugMug, having to make a tough decision, chose to keep this one person happy and take away a valuable feature from everyone else. Albeit "temporarily". What can I say, it just didn't seem right to me and I was surprised because you guys always seem to be so supportive of your customers' needs and wants. It just seemed out of character I guess, and my little fake letter to Nadal seems like something I would have been less surprised to see you do.
You guys are still the best and all, but that's my .02 and I'm sticking to it.
http://www.robkeaton.com
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Another great feature that I'm betting SM is proud of? Being able to actually display images. Why shouldn't a paying customer get that in return? It's easy to sit from the sidelines and ask SM to cut off a customer. But overall, my opinion is that they are taking the obviously correct track here. Sometimes projections get met with unexpected realities. They'll get over it as best they can without inconveniencing any one person all that much and before you know it you'll have nearly forgotten that your stats were offline at all. Next year you won't be chatting with your buddy talking about the great SmugMug stats outage of 2006. You'll just be sharing (and/or selling) your pics online just like you always have. Just like everyone else with a SM account including Nadal.
A real benefit that 1) you won't be without for all that long in the grand scheme of things and 2) is crucial to the overall outcome of your business during the downtime.
Temporarily is the keyword here IMHO.
I think SM is amazingly supportive of its customers' needs and wants. ALL of it's customers including Nadal. It's not like they're saying, "screw you guys, we can't do stats anymore 'cause it's too hard and we just don't care that much about what you do and don't want anyhow." It's more like, "whoa, our bad, we'll get it back up ASAP." They even offered that one crazy girl a free upgrade.
That fake letter of yours seems to be the very opposite of what smugmug would generally do IMHO. But we've all got opinions don't we?
http://photos.mikelanestudios.com/
I had thought that something was wrong with my customers or my site even when after completing 3 photo sessions and informing my clients that their photos were now online, that only 5 photos had been viewed within a weeks time......I was shocked!!
I ONLY know about the "Stat" issue because I come to this Support forum for another reason and "happend" upon this post that there WAS something going on.....but not with just me.
Is there any reason SM did not send out a general email to its respective customers notifying them of this problem? Some people still might not know what is going on.......or is it that the ones who REALLY do use the stats for important, crucial measurements already know all about the problems?
Just curious
I am wondering if maybe things like this could show up in our "Message Center" or "Smugmug News" in our Control Panel? December 13th is the last message I have in mine. Might be a good place to let people that don't frequent the forums know what's going on. Just an idea
Smug since 2006
SmugMug Help
PhotoscapeDesign
Big notice on top of the stats page, is that ok?
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100% totally agree with that!!
showing myself here for a minute.......I was always looking in my control panel for my stats and JUST realized that you CAN do it by gallery......I learn something new everyday.
Hi Andy
Yeah, I have seen the notice on the stats page
Smug since 2006
SmugMug Help
PhotoscapeDesign
1) Clear and up to date communications are KEY to customer's feelings!
However, to date, I have still not received an email regarding this issue. I think the posting that Don made a few days ago would be a good start for an email to all users. In the future, users should be made aware of any problem which lasts more than several hours (or maybe more than 24). Email is the best way to do that. This should include the nature of the problem, possible cause, symptoms, proposed solutions (or workarounds), and predicted time to resolution. Individuals may have been able to take advantage of other services and avoided significant impact on their business had this been done early on.
2) Don't blame one user for a system problem!
It was NOT his fault that the system crashed. I think Don finally clarified that in his update but in the meantime there was (and still is) a lot of blame being put on this guy.
3) Do not underestimate the importance of any of the services you offer!
I doubt that anyone at SM fully understood the implications of the stat downtime when it became necessary to turn it off.
smugmug nickname: mpmcleod
http://www.michaelmcleod.com/
the point was to put you in the position of the person getting their site shut down and show you that totally shutting the service down of one peerson due to an (admitted) error our our (SM's) part is not justified when the person did nothing to warrant being punished.
i think you need to go back and re-read Don's post. he stated that sooner than later this was an issue that was going to effect everybody. so it's not so much that they chose to make one person happy at the cost of removing a feature of everyone else. They chose to temporarily sacrifice stats to continue to provide what they consider the most important feature...serving photos. And to that i cannot disagree.
tshirt in the making?
http://photos.mikelanestudios.com/
Dna
Guys, I know you dont like to send out emails to members. But, maybe for stuff like this, you should. Thats not harassing by any means, thats showing concern & letting your people know the issue is being fixed.
How about a bug in our core database software that causes performance to DECREASE as the number of CPUs in the system INCREASE?
And a bug that hasn't been fixed for months, despite lots of customers having said problem?
Yeah, that'll do it.
Needless to say, since it was a bug which hadn't been discovered yet when we designed our database infrastructure, we couldn't anticipate or plan for it. So we're adapting as rapidly as we can.
Don
We didn't do this for a very good reason: Less than 1% of our customers check stats *ever*, let alone on a regular basis. (Yes, we have stats on our stats
We're not going to send out an email to our customers, who paid us to NOT spam them, when there's a great way to get the info in the hands of those few who care about stats: A nice big message on the top of each stats page.
So that's what we did.
Don
Umm, doesn't this mean this entire discussion is now finished? It does according to Godwin's Law.
Don
Thanks Don for the update. It is a comfort that you are there working on the problem. Better than abandonment, as some sites would do.
I hope others can wait this out, as in all storms, this shall pass.
The stats page is an ideal tool for pros to keep "check" on the goings-on of their site(s).
My best to your wife and her understanding and support to you and what you do for others on your site.