This thread is 15 pages long...
It is over 2 years old...
Another observation...
I just reset the "search-posts" criteria to look back over the last 45 days of Support posts...there is only ONE other thread that has more cummulative "reads" (the Zenfolio vs. Smugmug thread at 14,000+) than this one (at 10,000+).
Yet it's been reported more than once by the support team that this topic was "WAY DOWN" the list in terms of subscriber interest as expressed in SmugMug "survey" results. Perhaps it's a case of asking the wrong question, or asking it incorrectly??
The silent majority may not be posting, but they're clearly "reading"...but I think there's more interest in an outcome than simply reading about it in an unresolved dialogue.
Another observation...
I just reset the "search-posts" criteria to look back over the last 45 days of Support posts...there is only ONE other thread that has more cummulative "reads" (the Zenfolio vs. Smugmug thread at 14,000+) than this one (at 10,000+).
Yet it's been reported more than once by the support team that this topic was "WAY DOWN" the list in terms of subscriber interest as expressed in SmugMug "survey" results. Perhaps it's a case of asking the wrong question, or asking it incorrectly??
The silent majority may not be posting, but they're clearly "reading"...but I think there's more interest in an outcome than simply reading about it in an unresolved dialogue.
Thank you for posting again and pointing this out.
If we provide a switch that lets you tell the search engines not to index your site even if your galleries are public
but
we still let people find you through SmugMug's search, is it worth doing?
Depends on your goals for SM, Baldy. If you want SM to replace Google as the go-to-site for pervs looking for pics of kids in the bath, in swimsuits, and perhaps even looking for the home address for kids, then allowing strangers to use SM's search while blocking Google's search will hit the mark.
Please be careful of doing something quick-and-easy rather than careful-and-right. Providing false security won't be helpful.
I'm glad to see your high-level attention addressing this issue....but I note DMC's observation that high-level attention has been around long ago.
If we provide a switch that lets you tell the search engines not to index your site even if your galleries are public
but
we still let people find you through SmugMug's search, is it worth doing? In terms of importance, does it solve 80% of the problem or 20%?
If I'm understanding papajay's and dmc's responses, it's maybe 20%, solving a token amount of the problem.
Baldy, it's tough to put a number on it, I know...but, for what it's worth, I think your statement above is reasonable.
My initial gut reaction, though, is YES, that a 20% solution is better than 0% (as long as there's a continuing priority placed on the remaining 80%). TheDuck's admonition that the 20% solution might actually encourage Perv-Shift from Google to Smugmug as an unintended consequence is worth noting (even though I don't feel qualified to take a stand one way or the other...so I would leave that to to you and others to debate).
If this is becomming as exhausting to you, Baldy (Andy, etc) as it is to dmc, me, and others to keep "discussing", it's probably a good thing because the discussion will stop sooner or later. My hope is that it will stop as the result of a satisfactory solution rather than as the result of seeing a competitive photo-sharing site address it first. I like SmugMug a lot, for a lot of reasons, but loyalty has it's limits (not a threat...just a business reality...I dread the thought of relocating my growing photo library, but would do it if I felt there was a clearly better option than Smugmug out there...today, there just isn't.).
....I like SmugMug a lot, for a lot of reasons, but loyalty has it's limits (not a threat...just a business reality...I dread the thought of relocating my growing photo library, but would do it if I felt there was a clearly better option than Smugmug out there...today, there just isn't.).
Depends on your goals for SM, Baldy. If you want SM to replace Google as the go-to-site for pervs looking for pics of kids in the bath, in swimsuits, and perhaps even looking for the home address for kids, then allowing strangers to use SM's search while blocking Google's search will hit the mark.
Please be careful of doing something quick-and-easy rather than careful-and-right. Providing false security won't be helpful.
I'm glad to see your high-level attention addressing this issue....but I note DMC's observation that high-level attention has been around long ago.
Be seeing you,
The Duck
So I think I'm hearing that providing the switch to turn off Google indexing is not very interesting / minimally helpful / possibly harmful if not coupled with the other changes.
The reason I stepped into this debate again was in hopes that we could move the ball forward with something simple enough to get done reasonably quickly, but if that's a no-go we're back to the much bigger project that's encumbered by the patent trolls.
We had another conference call with the law firm this afternoon about the patents and got somewhat closer to understanding the claims, but unfortunately I have no idea when we'll know enough to implement more privacy features, or, if some sort of license has to be taken to implement them, when we could have that in place.
If someone has feedback on these patents, I'd love it if you could email or call me.
A good question is, if the patents weren't in the picture, would this project displace the current projects you know about such as larger image sizes (the Zenfolio and XL image size threads), and the requests we have for slideshow improvements, better shopping cart, more printed products, etc.?
I wouldn't blame you for thinking the answer is probably no after this thread has been going for two years. My inclination is to think probably yes, if I can identify a meaningful chunk that's doable in a reasonable amount of time.
I have to focus on the patents now but I give my word that I'll circle back once I know something more about these patents. Devbobo called with a brilliant idea today but it quickly suffered death by patent.
So I think I'm hearing that providing the switch to turn off Google indexing is not very interesting / minimally helpful / possibly harmful if not coupled with the other changes.
Enabling that switch wether by meta tags, robots.txt, .htaccess, etc, etc would at least leave the decision up to the individual user to weigh. It doesn't have to be all or nothing.
The reason I stepped into this debate again was in hopes that we could move the ball forward with something simple enough to get done reasonably quickly, but if that's a no-go we're back to the much bigger project that's encumbered by the patent trolls.
The number of people conducting a Google search as compared to a smugmug search is probably at a million to one ratio. Cutting Google out of the picture will be a big improvement for a lot of people. I know that I would welcome it for my family's site.
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BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
The number of people conducting a Google search as compared to a smugmug search is probably at a million to one ratio. Cutting Google out of the picture will be a big improvement for a lot of people. I know that I would welcome it for my family's site.
So I think I'm hearing that providing the switch to turn off Google indexing is not very interesting / minimally helpful / possibly harmful if not coupled with the other changes.
The reason I stepped into this debate again was in hopes that we could move the ball forward with something simple enough to get done reasonably quickly, but if that's a no-go we're back to the much bigger project that's encumbered by the patent trolls.
We had another conference call with the law firm this afternoon about the patents and got somewhat closer to understanding the claims, but unfortunately I have no idea when we'll know enough to implement more privacy features, or, if some sort of license has to be taken to implement them, when we could have that in place.
If someone has feedback on these patents, I'd love it if you could email or call me.
A good question is, if the patents weren't in the picture, would this project displace the current projects you know about such as larger image sizes (the Zenfolio and XL image size threads), and the requests we have for slideshow improvements, better shopping cart, more printed products, etc.?
I wouldn't blame you for thinking the answer is probably no after this thread has been going for two years. My inclination is to think probably yes, if I can identify a meaningful chunk that's doable in a reasonable amount of time.
I have to focus on the patents now but I give my word that I'll circle back once I know something more about these patents. Devbobo called with a brilliant idea today but it quickly suffered death by patent.
I'm sorry I don't have a better answer for you.
I for one would happily take this in pieces. If the first piece that can be delivered is to change the metadata and robots info so well-behaved search engines will not index me, I'll take that first while you work on other options for the longer term.
If the second piece that can be delivered is to let me opt-out of the Smugmug browse interface, I'll happily take that. I really don't want my Family galleries advertised to all everytime I upload some new photos in the Smugmug Family area.
As for the third and fourth steps, I'll take the first two and wait until you get to the other steps. I don't understand why eliminating our public galleries from global Smugmug searches should have anything to do with the patent, but I haven't studied it. By your description, I thought the patent had to do with finding things in private galleries. These would still be public galleries (e.g. accessible to all from my homepage), just not indexed by Google or Smugmug global searches.
I for one would happily take this in pieces. If the first piece that can be delivered is to change the metadata and robots info so well-behaved search engines will not index me, I'll take that first while you work on other options for the longer term.
If the second piece that can be delivered is to let me opt-out of the Smugmug browse interface, I'll happily take that. I really don't want my Family galleries advertised to all everytime I upload some new photos in the Smugmug Family area.
As for the third and fourth steps, I'll take the first two and wait until you get to the other steps. I don't understand why eliminating our public galleries from global Smugmug searches should have anything to do with the patent, but I haven't studied it. By your description, I thought the patent had to do with finding things in private galleries. These would still be public galleries (e.g. accessible to all from my homepage), just not indexed by Google or Smugmug global searches.
You have a way of bringing the the simplest clarity to most things...
If the ability to opt-out of SmugMug search and browse—and indexing from the search engines—eliminated most people's desire password-protect their sites and kept us from having to face the patent trolls, that would be big.
One question is what to do about how people find you on SmugMug. Maybe 10 of 100 people can remember their family member's nickname and form an URL where they have to substitute the nickname they can't remember for the www, which they don't understand how to do.
It seems like an assault on papajay's first principle to take away the option that 90% of people use—searching for a name and then clicking on one of the results.
Could opting out mean opting out of gallery, photo and keywords but not site owner's name? Otherwise the new way to find you will be to email our help desk, who won't know how to respond because we won't know if you want to be found.
...One question is what to do about how people find you on SmugMug. Maybe 10 of 100 people can remember their family member's nickname and form an URL where they have to substitute the nickname they can't remember for the www, which they don't understand how to do.
It seems like an assault on papajay's first principle to take away the option that 90% of people use—searching for a name and then clicking on one of the results.
Could opting out mean opting out of gallery, photo and keywords but not site owner's name?
I only expect visitors to my site to come from a link that I had sent to them... I'm not interested in anyone being able to "find" me....
I only expect visitors to my site to come from a link that I had sent to them... I'm not interested in anyone being able to "find" me....
Ditto.
That's what bookmarks are for (to save links). If a family member needs to know what my site is, they'll email or call me for the link. No one I know even knows what an RSS feed is so I send emails out when I've made an update (with a link).
It seems like an assault on papajay's first principle to take away the option that 90% of people use—searching for a name and then clicking on one of the results.
Make it an option for users to decide for themselves. It doesn't have to be all or nothing.
Could opting out mean opting out of gallery, photo and keywords but not site owner's name? Otherwise the new way to find you will be to email our help desk, who won't know how to respond because we won't know if you want to be found.
If my mom needed to know what my url was she'd email me first before she'd email your help desk.
You have a way of bringing the the simplest clarity to most things...
If the ability to opt-out of SmugMug search and browse—and indexing from the search engines—eliminated most people's desire password-protect their sites and kept us from having to face the patent trolls, that would be big.
One question is what to do about how people find you on SmugMug. Maybe 10 of 100 people can remember their family member's nickname and form an URL where they have to substitute the nickname they can't remember for the www, which they don't understand how to do.
It seems like an assault on papajay's first principle to take away the option that 90% of people use—searching for a name and then clicking on one of the results.
Could opting out mean opting out of gallery, photo and keywords but not site owner's name? Otherwise the new way to find you will be to email our help desk, who won't know how to respond because we won't know if you want to be found.
I think I agree here with dmc. For the people that I want to find my site, the first thing they will do is email me and ask me. The second thing is they might search their own email if they are savvy enough to know how to do that (an email from me is how they mostl likely would have originally known about my site).
If they can't do either one of those things, then I probably don't want to help them find my site. They should know me well enough that I've either given them the URL or they know how to ask me for the URL. BTW, this happens to me all the time. Family members can't remember where my site is so they email me to ask me. Even my mom forgets sometime or doesn't want to take the time to find a specific gallery. It never occurs to her to use search.
I'm not trying to sell stuff to people I don't know so I'm really not interested in helping strangers to find my site. I understand that there are other customers who want strangers to find their site. I'm not asking to shut down what they have for that now. I'm just asking to be able to opt-out of browse, global Smugmug search and well-behaved search engines.
I honestly can't imagine that viewers would email smugmug to ask you where my site is. If they do, I'm don't think you should give it to them anyway.
As to your question about user name search, I don't have a strong opinion on whether searching at Smugmug for my name should point to my gallery. It's not something I want, but it's also not something that bothers me tremendously (so it's just a mild negative for me). It appears from elsewhere in this thread that some people don't want that at all.
It happens all day every day. And they frequently add, "don't make me ask my son; he already thinks I'm a computer idiot."
I'm not saying we won't do it or it's the wrong thing to do, but we're going to see a lot of exploding heads on the help desk over this.
If it's a significant cost driver for you, then you should make a "Find the site you are looking for" link very prominent on your home page and then take them to a page where you make it a lot more obvious that they can search for either a user name or gallery title. Right now, a user has to guess that a generic "search" edit box would solve their problem when quite frankly it looks like a "help" search box the way the screen is laid out.
I guess, they are more likely to find the "contact Smugmug" line in the footer of the homepage than they are to realize they could use search. That you could probably improve a lot.
Regardless, I think your customers should be able to opt-in or opt-out of this. It doesn't bother me personally, but apparently it does bother some.
I'm probably over stepping my bounds here and drifting off-topic, but I've long thought the home page http://www.smugmug.com/ needed some work. You've gone for a simple, clean look, but at a sacrifice to other things it needs to do. The challenge is that it needs to serve a whole bunch of purposes. Among those things it needs to do are:
Promote the service to new and prospective new users
Help people find someone's site on Smugmug
Help viewers get self-help on using Smugmug
Help viewers get email help from Smugmug
Serve as a portal to browse public galleries on Smugmug
Lead people to all the other parts of Smugmug (dgrin, blogs, wikis, etc...)
Communicate legal stuff
Right now, it's only optimized for one of these (item #1) and it's pretty bad at promoting or inviting any of the others because they are really only listed as one word items in either the header or footer, with no space in the main part of the page dedicated to them.
I often wonder if you'd be much better off with a home page that served these needs more equally. Imagine a page that, when you arrive on it, it says to you (not in these words, but communicates these more clearly):
"Welcome to Smugmug. What would you like to do today?
Learn more about the Smugmug service including features, price, different service levels and how to sign up for free trial.
Find a particular person's site on Smugmug
Search for galleries on a particular topic
Get some help on using Smugmug (help topics, search the help)
Browse interesting galleries by topic
Browse the most popular photos on Smugmug
Talk with others about Smugmug (dgrin, wikis, apis)
Contact someone at Smugmug to help (orders, subscribers, etc...)
If you look at flickr's home page, it makes it a lot more obvious how one would find a photo, explore tags or browse while still promoting sign-ups.
Fotki's home page is ugly, but makes it's really easy to know how to search for photos or members along with a lot of other things.
The Webshots home page likewise exposes a lot more of the items above in the page.
You have a way of bringing the the simplest clarity to most things...
It seems like an assault on papajay's first principle to take away the option that 90% of people use—searching for a name and then clicking on one of the results.
.
Baldy..While I appreciate rising to the ranks (however temporary) of a "priniciple-setter" , I must have given a wrong impression somewhere along the line.
I agree with dmc in this regard. I will send a link to people I want to see my SmugMug site. I do not, under any circumstances I can think of, want people to "find" me on SmugMug via search or inquiry.
I see there has been a lot more discussion in this thread over the past few hours which I will have to digest. Maybe we're getting somewhere.
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BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
edited February 27, 2007
This topic was the talk of SmugMug at lunch today. Not exposing stuff to browse and search is doable with reasonable effort, but an unfortunate catch 22 is not exposing keywords is a major engineering job. It's just the way our keyword architecture is. :cry
It's often a big adjustment for people we hire from dgrin to work the help desk and see how people actually use the system. It would only take an hour on the help desk to see how people lose the share email, can't remember their own nickname, have no idea how they ever got to their family's site but want to go back. En masse they go to the home page, search for a name (they have no problem spotting the search box), and click. It becomes the way they find their family's site forever.
Here are the top 8 search terms on Google:
myspace
myspace.com
ebay
yahoo
mapquest www.myspace.com
yahoo.com
my space
Most people wouldn't imagine you would go to Google to get to Yahoo, until they work at Google. Then they Yahoo users go to Google many times a day, enter Yahoo as a search term, click on the first result. For years.
I'm not saying we won't provide the option to remove searching for your name, but we'll need to figure how to tell thousands of people we've taken that away and can no longer tell them how to see their grandkids.
I'm not saying we won't provide the option to remove searching for your name, but we'll need to figure how to tell thousands of people we've taken that away and can no longer tell them how to see their grandkids.
Let users opt-in to the new feature, it doesn't have to be all or nothing.
Please let me add my voice to this. I have also been vocal about security and privacy on a few other dgrin threads but they, too, have resulted in no particular solution or declaration of intent to modify SM to date.
Quoting a 2005 poll does not cancel the growing concern over increased privacy coupled with the desire for features to not be disabled. Flickr, at least, enables keywords once you are logged in and removes them on protected photos and sets when you're not, so it's not as though we're asking you to blaze a trail. I appreciate making this happen is complicated based on how SM is set up, but it is not impossible to do. I don't understand this claim that the existence of password protection and private galleries defeats the purpose of (or obviates the need for) searching. Nonsense. Searching should still be available to those who have permission to view the content in question—full stop. What we need is a set of permissions that are easy enough to manage.
Subscriber "retention" as it relates to this topic.
In the FYI, or FWIW ("For What It's Worth") category concerning this two year old thread...
It appears likely to me that 50% of the original 10 non-smugmug-employee posters to this thread are no longer Smugmug subscribers (purely based on the lack of any recent Dgrin posts from them).
Yahootintin (who started the thread in the first place last posted on Dgrin in Oct. 2005).
4Thinker, Victor, Byam all appeared to fall off in 2005 also.
JBerd126 dropped off the Dgrin landscape in 2006.
jfriend, gblotter, glr2e3g...still here...still posting.,,(and jfriend is still an active poster on this thread).
I'm certain subscriber retention is important to SmugMug management. I don't know how these results...the 50% number... compare with overall SmugMug retention numbers (perhaps they are still subscribers, but just don't post on Dgrin any longer). My guess is a 50% number would be concerning, if accurate.
Point is....it's a hot-button topic for some (myself included), and the topic won't likely "go away" until there's a "solution" that meets subscriber needs. I, for one, hope it's a SmugMug solution, rather than "switch host" solution., just in case you're wondering.
It appears likely to me that 50% of the original 10 non-smugmug-employee posters to this thread are no longer Smugmug subscribers (purely based on the lack of any recent Dgrin posts from them).
Hi Papa, thanks as always, for posting.
But to clarify: There are 41 non-SmugMug employees posting in this thread.
37 of them have current SmugMug accounts.
2 no longer have them.
2 I cannot determine, based on Dgrin name.
This does NOT mean we aren't taking all this seriously and listening to you.
But to clarify: There are 41 non-SmugMug employees posting in this thread.
37 of them have current SmugMug accounts.
2 no longer have them.
2 I cannot determine, based on Dgrin name.
This does NOT mean we aren't taking all this seriously and listening to you.
I just needed to clarify things.
True enough Andy. But how many have opened accounts elsewhere and have stopped adding photos to their SmugMug site? I know of at least one.... of course, maybe there is only one.
True enough Andy. But how many have opened accounts elsewhere and have stopped adding photos to their SmugMug site? I know of at least one.... of course, maybe there is only one.
You are in a much better position to validate account holders' status than me.
I made no attempt to "lie" with numbers simply to make a point. I specifically referred to the FIRST 10 POSTERS who were not (or are not now SmugMug employees/support heroes, etc, from what I could tell). I specifically said, "it appears...", and I specifically noted when they last posted on Dgrin as my reason for assuming they may no longer be subscribers. And I specifically said, "if true" (since, once again, I do not have access to the information you do).
The "this is just untrue" may be accurate from your perspective, Andy, but taken out of context, the statement suggests I told a whopper without any justification (which, by the way, "is just untrue".) I simply performed what I considered to be a reasonable thumb-sketch analysis that frankly, I would have hoped SmugMug would have performed a year or so ago since this topic seems to have a life of its own...and I continue to wonder why.
You are in a much better position to validate account holders' status than me.
I made no attempt to "lie" with numbers simply to make a point. I specifically referred to the FIRST 10 POSTERS who were not (or are not now SmugMug employees/support heroes, etc, from what I could tell). I specifically said, "it appears...", and I specifically noted when they last posted on Dgrin as my reason for assuming they may no longer be subscribers. And I specifically said, "if true" (since, once again, I do not have access to the information you do).
The "this is just untrue" may be accurate from your perspective, Andy, but taken out of context, the statement suggests I told a whopper without any justification (which, by the way, "is just untrue".) I simply performed what I considered to be a reasonable thumb-sketch analysis that frankly, I would have hoped SmugMug would have performed a year or so ago since this topic seems to have a life of its own...and I continue to wonder why.
No no I don't think you told a whopper at all. I'm sorry for the misunderstanding. It's all good papajay, and I do mean that. Keep brining the topic to the fore, it's how stuff gets done. I have always said that and will continue to do so - we have a history of listening, and acting on - to what our customers tell us. And we'll continue to do so.
I hope we can get to a resolution on this issue at some point soon.
No no It's all good papajay, and I do mean that. Keep brining the topic to the fore, it's how stuff gets done. ...
I know I'm not driving the bus on this...just as I'm sure there are some who would prefer to see this old f..t fade into the sunset. I am, in fact, getting older and would have just given up had it not been for the renewed interest Baldy showed.
Words like indexing, meta-tags, robot.whatever , etc. just make my head spin. I approach the topic purely as a concerned/interested user of technology beyond my grasp to fully understand.
I don't think there's anything new I can contribute to the discussion (dna would probably agree). So I think I'll sit back now and watch it unfold, and hopefully not unravel.
I know I'm not driving the bus on this...just as I'm sure there are some who would prefer to see this old f..t fade into the sunset.
Don't you stop posting, Papa! We wouldn't be the company we are today without passionate customers who aren't shy about telling us what-for. We thrive on it, it's like gold to us.
Comments
That would be a good first step. That would at least take care of search engines that play nice with meta tags and robots.txt
Ideally, a separate server that would just outright ban all search engines (behaving and misbehaving) would be good.
Another observation...
I just reset the "search-posts" criteria to look back over the last 45 days of Support posts...there is only ONE other thread that has more cummulative "reads" (the Zenfolio vs. Smugmug thread at 14,000+) than this one (at 10,000+).
Yet it's been reported more than once by the support team that this topic was "WAY DOWN" the list in terms of subscriber interest as expressed in SmugMug "survey" results. Perhaps it's a case of asking the wrong question, or asking it incorrectly??
The silent majority may not be posting, but they're clearly "reading"...but I think there's more interest in an outcome than simply reading about it in an unresolved dialogue.
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Depends on your goals for SM, Baldy. If you want SM to replace Google as the go-to-site for pervs looking for pics of kids in the bath, in swimsuits, and perhaps even looking for the home address for kids, then allowing strangers to use SM's search while blocking Google's search will hit the mark.
Please be careful of doing something quick-and-easy rather than careful-and-right. Providing false security won't be helpful.
I'm glad to see your high-level attention addressing this issue....but I note DMC's observation that high-level attention has been around long ago.
Be seeing you,
The Duck
Baldy, it's tough to put a number on it, I know...but, for what it's worth, I think your statement above is reasonable.
My initial gut reaction, though, is YES, that a 20% solution is better than 0% (as long as there's a continuing priority placed on the remaining 80%). TheDuck's admonition that the 20% solution might actually encourage Perv-Shift from Google to Smugmug as an unintended consequence is worth noting (even though I don't feel qualified to take a stand one way or the other...so I would leave that to to you and others to debate).
If this is becomming as exhausting to you, Baldy (Andy, etc) as it is to dmc, me, and others to keep "discussing", it's probably a good thing because the discussion will stop sooner or later. My hope is that it will stop as the result of a satisfactory solution rather than as the result of seeing a competitive photo-sharing site address it first. I like SmugMug a lot, for a lot of reasons, but loyalty has it's limits (not a threat...just a business reality...I dread the thought of relocating my growing photo library, but would do it if I felt there was a clearly better option than Smugmug out there...today, there just isn't.).
The reason I stepped into this debate again was in hopes that we could move the ball forward with something simple enough to get done reasonably quickly, but if that's a no-go we're back to the much bigger project that's encumbered by the patent trolls.
We had another conference call with the law firm this afternoon about the patents and got somewhat closer to understanding the claims, but unfortunately I have no idea when we'll know enough to implement more privacy features, or, if some sort of license has to be taken to implement them, when we could have that in place.
If someone has feedback on these patents, I'd love it if you could email or call me.
A good question is, if the patents weren't in the picture, would this project displace the current projects you know about such as larger image sizes (the Zenfolio and XL image size threads), and the requests we have for slideshow improvements, better shopping cart, more printed products, etc.?
I wouldn't blame you for thinking the answer is probably no after this thread has been going for two years. My inclination is to think probably yes, if I can identify a meaningful chunk that's doable in a reasonable amount of time.
I have to focus on the patents now but I give my word that I'll circle back once I know something more about these patents. Devbobo called with a brilliant idea today but it quickly suffered death by patent.
I'm sorry I don't have a better answer for you.
Enabling that switch wether by meta tags, robots.txt, .htaccess, etc, etc would at least leave the decision up to the individual user to weigh. It doesn't have to be all or nothing.
The number of people conducting a Google search as compared to a smugmug search is probably at a million to one ratio. Cutting Google out of the picture will be a big improvement for a lot of people. I know that I would welcome it for my family's site.
I for one would happily take this in pieces. If the first piece that can be delivered is to change the metadata and robots info so well-behaved search engines will not index me, I'll take that first while you work on other options for the longer term.
If the second piece that can be delivered is to let me opt-out of the Smugmug browse interface, I'll happily take that. I really don't want my Family galleries advertised to all everytime I upload some new photos in the Smugmug Family area.
As for the third and fourth steps, I'll take the first two and wait until you get to the other steps. I don't understand why eliminating our public galleries from global Smugmug searches should have anything to do with the patent, but I haven't studied it. By your description, I thought the patent had to do with finding things in private galleries. These would still be public galleries (e.g. accessible to all from my homepage), just not indexed by Google or Smugmug global searches.
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If the ability to opt-out of SmugMug search and browse—and indexing from the search engines—eliminated most people's desire password-protect their sites and kept us from having to face the patent trolls, that would be big.
One question is what to do about how people find you on SmugMug. Maybe 10 of 100 people can remember their family member's nickname and form an URL where they have to substitute the nickname they can't remember for the www, which they don't understand how to do.
It seems like an assault on papajay's first principle to take away the option that 90% of people use—searching for a name and then clicking on one of the results.
Could opting out mean opting out of gallery, photo and keywords but not site owner's name? Otherwise the new way to find you will be to email our help desk, who won't know how to respond because we won't know if you want to be found.
I only expect visitors to my site to come from a link that I had sent to them... I'm not interested in anyone being able to "find" me....
That's what bookmarks are for (to save links). If a family member needs to know what my site is, they'll email or call me for the link. No one I know even knows what an RSS feed is so I send emails out when I've made an update (with a link).
If my mom needed to know what my url was she'd email me first before she'd email your help desk.
I think I agree here with dmc. For the people that I want to find my site, the first thing they will do is email me and ask me. The second thing is they might search their own email if they are savvy enough to know how to do that (an email from me is how they mostl likely would have originally known about my site).
If they can't do either one of those things, then I probably don't want to help them find my site. They should know me well enough that I've either given them the URL or they know how to ask me for the URL. BTW, this happens to me all the time. Family members can't remember where my site is so they email me to ask me. Even my mom forgets sometime or doesn't want to take the time to find a specific gallery. It never occurs to her to use search.
I'm not trying to sell stuff to people I don't know so I'm really not interested in helping strangers to find my site. I understand that there are other customers who want strangers to find their site. I'm not asking to shut down what they have for that now. I'm just asking to be able to opt-out of browse, global Smugmug search and well-behaved search engines.
I honestly can't imagine that viewers would email smugmug to ask you where my site is. If they do, I'm don't think you should give it to them anyway.
As to your question about user name search, I don't have a strong opinion on whether searching at Smugmug for my name should point to my gallery. It's not something I want, but it's also not something that bothers me tremendously (so it's just a mild negative for me). It appears from elsewhere in this thread that some people don't want that at all.
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I'm not saying we won't do it or it's the wrong thing to do, but we're going to see a lot of exploding heads on the help desk over this.
If it's a significant cost driver for you, then you should make a "Find the site you are looking for" link very prominent on your home page and then take them to a page where you make it a lot more obvious that they can search for either a user name or gallery title. Right now, a user has to guess that a generic "search" edit box would solve their problem when quite frankly it looks like a "help" search box the way the screen is laid out.
I guess, they are more likely to find the "contact Smugmug" line in the footer of the homepage than they are to realize they could use search. That you could probably improve a lot.
Regardless, I think your customers should be able to opt-in or opt-out of this. It doesn't bother me personally, but apparently it does bother some.
I'm probably over stepping my bounds here and drifting off-topic, but I've long thought the home page http://www.smugmug.com/ needed some work. You've gone for a simple, clean look, but at a sacrifice to other things it needs to do. The challenge is that it needs to serve a whole bunch of purposes. Among those things it needs to do are:
- Promote the service to new and prospective new users
- Help people find someone's site on Smugmug
- Help viewers get self-help on using Smugmug
- Help viewers get email help from Smugmug
- Serve as a portal to browse public galleries on Smugmug
- Lead people to all the other parts of Smugmug (dgrin, blogs, wikis, etc...)
- Communicate legal stuff
Right now, it's only optimized for one of these (item #1) and it's pretty bad at promoting or inviting any of the others because they are really only listed as one word items in either the header or footer, with no space in the main part of the page dedicated to them.I often wonder if you'd be much better off with a home page that served these needs more equally. Imagine a page that, when you arrive on it, it says to you (not in these words, but communicates these more clearly):
"Welcome to Smugmug. What would you like to do today?
- Learn more about the Smugmug service including features, price, different service levels and how to sign up for free trial.
- Find a particular person's site on Smugmug
- Search for galleries on a particular topic
- Get some help on using Smugmug (help topics, search the help)
- Browse interesting galleries by topic
- Browse the most popular photos on Smugmug
- Talk with others about Smugmug (dgrin, wikis, apis)
- Contact someone at Smugmug to help (orders, subscribers, etc...)
If you look at flickr's home page, it makes it a lot more obvious how one would find a photo, explore tags or browse while still promoting sign-ups.Fotki's home page is ugly, but makes it's really easy to know how to search for photos or members along with a lot of other things.
The Webshots home page likewise exposes a lot more of the items above in the page.
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Baldy..While I appreciate rising to the ranks (however temporary) of a "priniciple-setter"
I agree with dmc in this regard. I will send a link to people I want to see my SmugMug site. I do not, under any circumstances I can think of, want people to "find" me on SmugMug via search or inquiry.
I see there has been a lot more discussion in this thread over the past few hours which I will have to digest. Maybe we're getting somewhere.
It's often a big adjustment for people we hire from dgrin to work the help desk and see how people actually use the system. It would only take an hour on the help desk to see how people lose the share email, can't remember their own nickname, have no idea how they ever got to their family's site but want to go back. En masse they go to the home page, search for a name (they have no problem spotting the search box), and click. It becomes the way they find their family's site forever.
Here are the top 8 search terms on Google:
myspace
myspace.com
ebay
yahoo
mapquest
www.myspace.com
yahoo.com
my space
Most people wouldn't imagine you would go to Google to get to Yahoo, until they work at Google. Then they Yahoo users go to Google many times a day, enter Yahoo as a search term, click on the first result. For years.
I'm not saying we won't provide the option to remove searching for your name, but we'll need to figure how to tell thousands of people we've taken that away and can no longer tell them how to see their grandkids.
Quoting a 2005 poll does not cancel the growing concern over increased privacy coupled with the desire for features to not be disabled. Flickr, at least, enables keywords once you are logged in and removes them on protected photos and sets when you're not, so it's not as though we're asking you to blaze a trail. I appreciate making this happen is complicated based on how SM is set up, but it is not impossible to do. I don't understand this claim that the existence of password protection and private galleries defeats the purpose of (or obviates the need for) searching. Nonsense. Searching should still be available to those who have permission to view the content in question—full stop. What we need is a set of permissions that are easy enough to manage.
In the FYI, or FWIW ("For What It's Worth") category concerning this two year old thread...
It appears likely to me that 50% of the original 10 non-smugmug-employee posters to this thread are no longer Smugmug subscribers (purely based on the lack of any recent Dgrin posts from them).
Yahootintin (who started the thread in the first place last posted on Dgrin in Oct. 2005).
4Thinker, Victor, Byam all appeared to fall off in 2005 also.
JBerd126 dropped off the Dgrin landscape in 2006.
jfriend, gblotter, glr2e3g...still here...still posting.,,(and jfriend is still an active poster on this thread).
I'm certain subscriber retention is important to SmugMug management. I don't know how these results...the 50% number... compare with overall SmugMug retention numbers (perhaps they are still subscribers, but just don't post on Dgrin any longer). My guess is a 50% number would be concerning, if accurate.
Point is....it's a hot-button topic for some (myself included), and the topic won't likely "go away" until there's a "solution" that meets subscriber needs. I, for one, hope it's a SmugMug solution, rather than "switch host" solution., just in case you're wondering.
Hi Papa, thanks as always, for posting.
But to clarify: There are 41 non-SmugMug employees posting in this thread.
37 of them have current SmugMug accounts.
2 no longer have them.
2 I cannot determine, based on Dgrin name.
This does NOT mean we aren't taking all this seriously and listening to you.
I just needed to clarify things.
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True enough Andy. But how many have opened accounts elsewhere and have stopped adding photos to their SmugMug site? I know of at least one.... of course, maybe there is only one.
http://mkress65.zenfolio.com
http://mkress65.smugmug.com
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Don't you stop posting, Papa! We wouldn't be the company we are today without passionate customers who aren't shy about telling us what-for. We thrive on it, it's like gold to us.
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