Shutterfly Collections Competing With Smugmug?

[peestandingup]

Hey, guys. Im honestly not trying to start anything here. But, my brother has a Shutterfly account and I was writing him an email on the reasons to switch to Smugmug. One of the reasons was that Smugmug was the only service that gives its members their own personal wed address for all to view. Well, thats not the case now. I learned that Shutterfly just came out with something called Shutterfly Collections (http://www.shutterfly.com/learn/collections.jsp) which does the same thing. I also learned that on Shutterfly its now pretty easy for others to add their own photos to your collection, which I think Smugmug was also the only one who could do that until now. Also, here is the PC Mag Review of Shutterfly Collections (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1845310,00.asp)

So am I missing something here? It seems now that the only real advantage Smugmug has over Shutterfly (for the basic user anyway) is for others to download your photos at their original size along with a couple small features here & there.

And also, Smugmug REALLY needs to let ALL its users be able to set up Guest Passwords, not just Professional Users. We would all like that feature & it seems like if SM wants to stay competitive, they should do that pronto. I am a Power User & when I signed up, I had this feature. Now, they took it away unless you are a Professional User, which is total BS I might add.

So, let me end with saying that I LOVE Smugmug & would never leave you guys for Shutterfly, even though its free compared to the $50 I am paying now. But, please tell me why I should now recommend to my friends & family to join Smugmug when they could just join Shutterfly & get almost the same benefits for free? Thanks.

[Andy]

So am I missing something here? It seems now that the only real advantage Smugmug has over Shutterfly (for the basic user anyway) is for others to download your photos at their original size along with a couple small features here & there.

if i were choosing now, here's what i'd look for

* can you email photos to your account?
* can you have varying degrees of security?
* can you password protect galleries?
* can you allow guest access?
* can you easily manage gallery comments?
* can you easily share small, med, large versions of your photos?
* can you store unlimited amounts of high-res beefy photo files there?
* does the service support all browsers, multiple uploaders, bulk uploading?
* are there hacks (http://www.smugmug.com/hack/) that enhance the value of the service?
* is there a support blog? (http://blogs.smugmug.com/)
* how about a user community? (http://www.dgrin.com)
* does the service offerm multiple ways to join up? (standard, pro, etc)
* can you customize the way folks have with smugmug? seriously, take a look at the different pro accounts folks list in the cobranding thread (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=959)

and i'm sure more.

good luck in your decision, peestanding up :wave

[DavidTO]

I looked around and couldn't see if they offered un-timed storage. A lot of sites will only allow storage for a set time, or will deactivate your account if you don't use it. How long can you keep your images there?

[Andy]

I looked around and couldn't see if they offered un-timed storage. A lot of sites will only allow storage for a set time, or will deactivate your account if you don't use it. How long can you keep your images there?

always read the terms of service (http://www.shutterfly.com/help/terms.jsp)

"Your account with Shutterfly is available for your personal, non-commercial use."

"Linking directly to images on Shutterfly’s servers from external sites is expressly prohibited."

and the most important of all:

"Shutterfly reserves the right to cancel the Service or to discontinue accounts that have been inactive. "

that's what sony and ofoto both did, and alienated a whole bunch of users that didn't order prints for a while...

[peestandingup]

if i were choosing now, here's what i'd look for

* can you email photos to your account?
* can you have varying degrees of security?
* can you password protect galleries?
* can you allow guest access?
* can you easily manage gallery comments?
* can you easily share small, med, large versions of your photos?
* can you store unlimited amounts of high-res beefy photo files there?
* does the service support all browsers, multiple uploaders, bulk uploading?
* are there hacks (http://www.smugmug.com/hack/) that enhance the value of the service?
* is there a support blog? (http://blogs.smugmug.com/)
* how about a user community? (http://www.dgrin.com)
* does the service offerm multiple ways to join up? (standard, pro, etc)
* can you customize the way folks have with smugmug? seriously, take a look at the different pro accounts folks list in the cobranding thread (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=959)

and i'm sure more.

good luck in your decision, peestanding up :wave
Im pretty sure they have security & you can password protect your photos. Yes, you can allow guest access & they can also add their own photos to your galleries, which is something SM really needs to do for EVERY member. Yes they have unlimited storage but others cant download the pics at max res. And yes, they have bulk uploading tools for Windows & Mac OS. Everything else isnt that important to most people who just wanna share their photos with others.

I am really only comparing Smugmugs basic account ($30) with Shutterfly's account (Free) and the only REAL differences I see is that Shutterfly wont let others download photos at their max original resolution. And yes, I know it costs $$ to store those big files on a server & thats why SM charges. But, I dunno, it seems to the average user, its gonna be hard to convince people to pay for SM when Shutterfly is almost as good & free.

BTW, its not me thats making the decision. I will ALWAYS be with SM because I have higher standards & they do deliver the goods when it comes to interface & overall value/quality. I was trying to convince my brother to switch from Shutterfly to Smugmug, but now its getting harder.

[Maki]

I would still like to see tiered passwords though. As I share more and more galleries for different intended audiences, it becomes a hassle when there are common users.

Example...

Master Passwords
Lvl 5 Dog (Admin status)
Lvl 4 cat (Guest Login)
Lvl 3 bird (Misc)
Lvl 2 fish (Misc)
Lvl 1 worm (Misc)

(the selection of organisms above is not my attempt to belittle what may be your favorite organism. Nuthin' wrong with worms... just personal ratings may vary...)

There should be a set of five (more/less) master passwords that can be set up in the control panel. Each password grants users to all galleries with the same level and below. Each master password can be changed in the control panel if needed.

What this would do...: It would allow for sharing sites to your trusted friends/families without having to worry about a password. I currently do this using the Guest login, but I would not care for them to have editing features...

Along with Master passwords, there should be gallery specific password levels. Example:

Birds Gallery
Password: GBH
Lvl: 3

What this would do...: The current password will only apply to that gallery, and would avoid having to hand out a Master password. There should be a gallery specific customization feature flagging the gallery at what level authorization is needed to view this gallery. Perhaps, even in the control panel, there may be some assignable default level for new galleries.

So, to sum it up, those with passwords Cat, Dog, Bird, and GBH will have access to this gallery.

Does this seem like a waste of time? I think this would make sharing much less of a problem for those who password protect their galleries.

[Andy]

Im pretty sure they have security & you can password protect your photos. Yes, you can allow guest access & they can also add their own photos to your galleries, which is something SM really needs to do for EVERY member. Yes they have unlimited storage but others cant download the pics at max res. And yes, they have bulk uploading tools for Windows & Mac OS. Everything else isnt that important to most people who just wanna share their photos with others.

I am really only comparing Smugmugs basic account ($30) with Shutterfly's account (Free) and the only REAL differences I see is that Shutterfly wont let others download photos at their max original resolution. And yes, I know it costs $$ to store those big files on a server & thats why SM charges. But, I dunno, it seems to the average user, its gonna be hard to convince people to pay for SM when Shutterfly is almost as good & free.

BTW, its not me thats making the decision. I will ALWAYS be with SM because I have higher standards & they do deliver the goods when it comes to interface & overall value/quality. I was trying to convince my brother to switch from Shutterfly to Smugmug, but now its getting harder.

isn't choice great?
advise your friends that they should always read the terms of service. lots of people were pretty upset that their photos were deleted from other services (ofoto, sony and more) due to inactivity.

cheers!

[Mike Lane]

Im pretty sure they have security & you can password protect your photos. Yes, you can allow guest access & they can also add their own photos to your galleries, which is something SM really needs to do for EVERY member. Yes they have unlimited storage but others cant download the pics at max res. And yes, they have bulk uploading tools for Windows & Mac OS. Everything else isnt that important to most people who just wanna share their photos with others.

I am really only comparing Smugmugs basic account ($30) with Shutterfly's account (Free) and the only REAL differences I see is that Shutterfly wont let others download photos at their max original resolution. And yes, I know it costs $$ to store those big files on a server & thats why SM charges. But, I dunno, it seems to the average user, its gonna be hard to convince people to pay for SM when Shutterfly is almost as good & free.

BTW, its not me thats making the decision. I will ALWAYS be with SM because I have higher standards & they do deliver the goods when it comes to interface & overall value/quality. I was trying to convince my brother to switch from Shutterfly to Smugmug, but now its getting harder.
I'm certain the smugmug team is well aware of the competition and are currently and will be spending many long days ensuring that they don't lose the features game.

[colourbox]

Does shutterfly let your visitors show up without forcing them to log in or create a username and password by giving up their e-mail address? That was one thing I hated when friends sent me links to their galleries elsewhere, and one reason I went with smugmug - you see the pics right away without privacy intrusion.

[Andy]

I would still like to see tiered passwords though. As I share more and more galleries for different intended audiences, it becomes a hassle when there are common users.

Example...

Master Passwords
Lvl 5 Dog (Admin status)
Lvl 4 cat (Guest Login)
Lvl 3 bird (Misc)
Lvl 2 fish (Misc)
Lvl 1 worm (Misc)

(the selection of organisms above is not my attempt to belittle what may be your favorite organism. Nuthin' wrong with worms... just personal ratings may vary...)

There should be a set of five (more/less) master passwords that can be set up in the control panel. Each password grants users to all galleries with the same level and below. Each master password can be changed in the control panel if needed.

What this would do...: It would allow for sharing sites to your trusted friends/families without having to worry about a password. I currently do this using the Guest login, but I would not care for them to have editing features...

Along with Master passwords, there should be gallery specific password levels. Example:

Birds Gallery
Password: GBH
Lvl: 3

What this would do...: The current password will only apply to that gallery, and would avoid having to hand out a Master password. There should be a gallery specific customization feature flagging the gallery at what level authorization is needed to view this gallery. Perhaps, even in the control panel, there may be some assignable default level for new galleries.

So, to sum it up, those with passwords Cat, Dog, Bird, and GBH will have access to this gallery.

Does this seem like a waste of time? I think this would make sharing much less of a problem for those who password protect their galleries.

maki, please put this in the feature requests thread, and also email it to help@smugmug.com

thanks

[Maki]

maki, please put this in the feature requests thread, and also email it to help@smugmug.com

thanks
Youbetcha... http://www.digitalgrin.com/images/smilies/icon10.gif

[Andy]

http://williams.smugmug.com/photos/33409813-L.jpg

i cannot stand ads!

[peestandingup]

i cannot stand ads!
Yeah, the ads do indeed suck. Some people dont mind them, but many hate them. Thats a very good point.

To answer a question from earlier, im pretty sure that Shutterfly lets anyone view your photos without becoming a member or anything like that. People have sent me links to their albums on there before and I never had to join to see them.

Maki, the gallery specific password feature would be great. I cant tell you how many times I have wanted something like this. And you should be able to control exactly what the guest with the password can do. If I just want my friend to be able to upload his pics to my gallery & thats it, I should have that option. I dont feel comfortable giving someone access to my entire site & allowing them to change my captions & stuff like that. I just want an easier way for my friends & family to upload multiple photos at max res to my SM site.

Well, since they took away that feature for everyone who isnt a Pro user, I would just like that option period. :dunno

[jfriend]

If I just want my friend to be able to upload his pics to my gallery & thats it, I should have that option. I dont feel comfortable giving someone access to my entire site & allowing them to change my captions & stuff like that. I just want an easier way for my friends & family to upload multiple photos at max res to my SM site.

Well, since they took away that feature for everyone who isnt a Pro user, I would just like that option period. :dunno
I don't work for smugmug and don't have any inside information on this topic, but I can see that the features you are asking for effectively let multiple people all share one site (with only one annual fee), with one user acting as a master administrator.

That sounds like a nice feature for something that costs multiple hundreds of dollars per year, but I doubt it's a good business decision to give someone unlimited storage and unlimited sub-users for $29.95/yr at the std level or even $49.95 at the power user level. That's almost the equivalent of multiple accounts for very little money. Because I want smugmug to be around for a long time and be able to spend money developing new features and making the site run smoothly for a long time, I want them to be profitable. I think they are making wise choices to avoid giving away this functionality at the wrong price point.

What might be a really cool compromise would be for smugmug to support a new feature called "sub-accounts" where each sub-account costs $29.95/yr and you can buy how many you want. Each one could add 4GB to your monthly bandwidth allowance and give you a new password. You could then check off which administrative features they were allowed to do (e.g. uploads, create galleries, etc...) and which ones they weren't. It would be different than just giving them a separate account because it would be part of your main account and you'd have super-user privileges over everything. Might be really nice for the techno-lead in a family who's trying to adminster things for other family members, yet wants them to be able to do some activities themselves (like upload galleries).

--John

[Baldy]

I actually took a pretty close look at Shutterfly Collections when they came out. I placed a test gallery there at http://baldy.shutterfly.com that you can check out.

We know Shutterfly well because they were our print partner for our first year. On the plus side, they really make it dead simple to order prints and do basic sharing. I think they're better than Ofoto/Kodak at that. And they have things we don't, like Christmas cards and photo books.

On the minus side, their entire revenue model is to get you and your visitors to buy prints. That means ads, spam, and keeping sharing costs at bay. No large images, no full-screen slideshow, no embedding photos in forums and blogs, no advanced sharing options like keywords, rss feeds, maps, communities, very little customization, other gallery styles, etc. They'd love to lose you if you don't buy prints. They'd love to get your visitors to register so they can get spam. For example, to leave a comment on a photo you have to register to Shutterfly.

[peestandingup]

I don't work for smugmug and don't have any inside information on this topic, but I can see that the features you are asking for effectively let multiple people all share one site (with only one annual fee), with one user acting as a master administrator.

That sounds like a nice feature for something that costs multiple hundreds of dollars per year, but I doubt it's a good business decision to give someone unlimited storage and unlimited sub-users for $29.95/yr at the std level or even $49.95 at the power user level. That's almost the equivalent of multiple accounts for very little money. Because I want smugmug to be around for a long time and be able to spend money developing new features and making the site run smoothly for a long time, I want them to be profitable. I think they are making wise choices to avoid giving away this functionality at the wrong price point.

What might be a really cool compromise would be for smugmug to support a new feature called "sub-accounts" where each sub-account costs $29.95/yr and you can buy how many you want. Each one could add 4GB to your monthly bandwidth allowance and give you a new password. You could then check off which administrative features they were allowed to do (e.g. uploads, create galleries, etc...) and which ones they weren't. It would be different than just giving them a separate account because it would be part of your main account and you'd have super-user privileges over everything. Might be really nice for the techno-lead in a family who's trying to adminster things for other family members, yet wants them to be able to do some activities themselves (like upload galleries).

--John
Yeah, I see what you are saying. I guess it would be easy for one account to turn into multiple ones, but then again, whats keeping people from doing that now? One person could just give out his main password to his entire family & they could just all share the same account.

There has to be a way that SM could regulate the guest passwords thing. Seems it would be easy enough to do. Maybe SM could set some kind of limit on guest passwords, like a time limit or something like that.

[Richard]

I actually took a pretty close look at Shutterfly Collections when they came out. I placed a test gallery there at http://baldy.shutterfly.com that you can check out.

One of the things that first attracted me to Smugmug was the ability to control whether prints are sold or not. As a newbie photographer, I wanted my friends and family to be able to look at what I was shooting without feeling that they were being hustled to buy anything. Maybe someday when I have better stuff to offer I'll switch print sales on. For now, I am glad that I can offer the originals for download to anyone who is interested in printing instead of making them pay.

Of course, there are many other features of Smugmug that I appreciate. While free is a fairly compelling price point, I don't mind paying a small amount for the features and support that I am getting. I am a happy camper.

Cheers,

[Red Baron]

The absence of advertising alone is enough to keep me here. Add in the friendly, helpful forums along with everything else and I feel I'm getting great value for the $ I've spent.

[pat.kane]

[...] On the minus side, their entire revenue model is to get you and your visitors to buy prints. [...]
I'm currently looking at various hosting sites and smugmug has my interest for many of the reasons you list; however, one of the big negatives I see with smugmug is that your revenue model _appears_ to be based BOTH on subscriptions AND a significant profit on the prints as well.

Smugmug is $0.29 for a 4x6 when many other sites are significantly less (e.g., Snapfish $0.12, fotki $0.15, Costco $0.17, Shutterfly $0.19-0.24, etc.).

I'm willing to invest my own time and money creating a cobranded page to get the look and feel I'm after; however, in the end many of my family and friends just want the 4x6 print and I don't see a reason for them to pay twice as much for it.

Regards,
Pat

[peestandingup]

I'm currently looking at various hosting sites and smugmug has my interest for many of the reasons you list; however, one of the big negatives I see with smugmug is that your revenue model _appears_ to be based BOTH on subscriptions AND a significant profit on the prints as well.

Smugmug is $0.29 for a 4x6 when many other sites are significantly less (e.g., Snapfish $0.12, fotki $0.15, Costco $0.17, Shutterfly $0.19-0.24, etc.).

I'm willing to invest my own time and money creating a cobranded page to get the look and feel I'm after; however, in the end many of my family and friends just want the 4x6 print and I don't see a reason for them to pay twice as much for it.

Regards,
Pat
Pat, I see what you are saying. Although those sites you mentioned do have cheaper prices for 4x6 prints, you do get what you pay for. Here is a really good comparison of prints (and overall site quality). You will see that most didnt fare well in the print dept. http://www.smugmug.com/img/aboutus/maximumpc.pdf

You must also realize that your family/friends can do something with Smugmug that they cant with those others, and thats download your original full sized photos to their own computer. They can make a CD, flashdrive (or whatever) with the pics they want & just take it to their local photo shop & get prints that way.

[Ben]

And also, Smugmug REALLY needs to let ALL its users be able to set up Guest Passwords, not just Professional Users. We would all like that feature & it seems like if SM wants to stay competitive, they should do that pronto. I am a Power User & when I signed up, I had this feature. Now, they took it away unless you are a Professional User, which is total BS I might add.
Actually, this feature has never been anything but a Pro account feature. It was added initially as a pro feature, and has remained there. I will make sure the rest of the team hears the suggestion, but I did want to clear that up. As far as I am aware... we have never taken a feature away from any account levels. The only changes we have made is occasionally giving lower account levels some of the exclusive features like custom categories and clean gallery styles. I hope that clears up the misunderstanding!

[peestandingup]

Actually, this feature has never been anything but a Pro account feature. It was added initially as a pro feature, and has remained there. I will make sure the rest of the team hears the suggestion, but I did want to clear that up. As far as I am aware... we have never taken a feature away from any account levels. The only changes we have made is occasionally giving lower account levels some of the exclusive features like custom categories and clean gallery styles. I hope that clears up the misunderstanding!
Really? My bad. I could have sworn that the guest passwords were available to power & pro users. Sorry for the confusion.

Thanks for passing on the suggestion to the SM people.

[pat.kane]

Kerry, thanks for the pointer to the article. I'm always suspect of these type of write-ups though. How big was the print sample? It's difficult to separate whether it is the overall service, the operator, time of day, time of week, beginning/end of chemical life, etc.

My only experience with Snapfish was much more positive than that of the article's author. My brother, who used to run one of the largest mini-labs in Texas, had our family reunion pictures printed via their service. He was quite pleased with the prints. Yes, he could have done a better job if he was running the machine and reviewing/adjusting each picture, but for the price paid, it met his expectations.

Personally, I only print locally. I get a great price and I'm satisfied with the quality--$0.17/ea at Costco (Oxnard CA) and if there are any prints I don't like, they'll reprint for free.

Smugmug isn't the only service that provides access to the full-sized image. Fotki (with print solution) and Flickr (no print tie-in, yet) also provide this feature. I hope SM is really paying attention to Flickr as they've implemented some truly useful features (e.g., reading all of the IPTC data that's embedded in the image). We'll have to wait and see how Yahoo impacts the service.

Regardless, I don't consider having to download and print locally an attractive alternative. The integrated solution (e.g., SM, Fotki, the dedicated print services, etc.) is really what I'm after.

Thanks,
Pat

[onethumb]

Hey Pat,

Kerry, thanks for the pointer to the article. I'm always suspect of these type of write-ups though. How big was the print sample? It's difficult to separate whether it is the overall service, the operator, time of day, time of week, beginning/end of chemical life, etc.

In case you're curious, smugmug did a blind taste test of various printers prior to selecting EZ Prints. We have a full write-up (http://www.smugmug.com/prints/digital-prints.mg) on how we did it, what our results were, etc. In fact, Flickr used our write-up to select EZ Prints themselves. Since then, Consumer Reports, Maximum PC, and PC Magazine verified our findings and selected them as the best online printer as well.

I hope SM is really paying attention to Flickr as they've implemented some truly useful features (e.g., reading all of the IPTC data that's embedded in the image). We'll have to wait and see how Yahoo impacts the service.

Flickr supporting IPTC data is news to me - must be a new feature there. You can see lots of threads @ Flickr asking for that very feature (examples:
thread 1 (http://flickr.com/forums/ideas/2638/) and thread 2 (http://flickr.com/forums/ideas/1553/)) if you search on Google or something. Sweet that they finally added it.

smugmug, however, has had support for IPTC for close to three years. It's in various places in our help section, such as gallery customization (http://www.smugmug.com/help/picture-storage) and keyword tags (http://www.smugmug.com/help/keywords-tags).

We're well aware of Flickr (in fact, we know the co-founders quite well and enjoy playing games together :) ), but feel we have a more than competitive offering.

Don

[Andy]

i signed up for a shutterfly account when the orig poster started this thread a week or so ago, and i've received 8 spam emails from shutterfly already.

ugh.

[pat.kane]

First. Thanks for taking the time to respond. Here's more info and feedback.

In case you're curious, smugmug did a blind taste test of various printers prior to selecting EZ Prints. We have a full write-up (http://www.smugmug.com/prints/digital-prints.mg) on how we did it [...] Now that is what I'm talking about for a more thorough review, which makes one of the points I was trying to make. I'm sure the magazine article quoted earlier didn't go through this level of testing. Great job on the comparison. Hopefully this is something that you will do on a recurring basis as service quality changes over time.

I thought I had done a pretty good job of reading all the information available on your web site; however, this article isn't one I had run across.

Flickr supporting IPTC data is news to me - must be a new feature there. [...] Sweet that they finally added it.Yes, sweet indeed. I've previously read through the threads (even posted to one) and had uploaded sample images to test this capability. Here's an example where I insert "IPTC _____" into each of the relevant IPTC fields.

http://flickr.com/photos/80499275@N00/29174651/

Look for the "more properties" link under Additional Information
http://flickr.com/photo_exif.gne?id=29174651

and you'll see the IPTC data in the list below the EXIF data. They're displaying _all_ of the EXIF and IPTC fields on this screen (real-time extract?).

smugmug, however, has had support for IPTC for close to three years. It's in various places in our help section, such as gallery customization (http://www.smugmug.com/help/picture-storage) and keyword tags (http://www.smugmug.com/help/keywords-tags).I wouldn't even be here discussing this if you didn't! :):

To me, it is an essential aspect of an on-line hosting service. I'm just hoping that you move beyond Keywords and Caption and capture some of the other fields (eventually enabling fielded searches as well),e g.., By-Line (Author), Sub-Location, City, Province/State, Country (Code and Name), Headline, Copyright Notice, Contact, Category, Supplemental Category, Instructions, etc.

On the flickr page shown earlier, you'll see that they're creating tags from IPTC City, State, Country in addition to capturing Object Name (or Headline) and Caption.

[we] feel we have a more than competitive offering. Never said you didn't and based on my review of many of the services, I agree with you hands down on image hosting and customizing the look and feel of a page. It is obvious that a significant investment in time, thought and resources has gone into this.

It is in the pricing for prints that I'm wanting to take you to task over. Maybe there isn't any room in the profit model and/or your contract with the vendor for lower cost prints. I can accept that; however, you just need to be poked, prodded and reminded--I'm sure you already know--where your prices are in regards to the competition.

If I didn't say it earlier, I will now. You have what appears to be a great hosting service with fairly detailed documentation online on how to use it, all surrounded by a user community that is willing to step in and help. As the person using the service, I'm glad to pay for it.

These advantages unfortunately are mostly transparent (except the user interface) to the family and friends that just want to buy prints. Paying 2x the going rate might be difficult for them to understand. Who knows though. Maybe they won't care and I'm just making a mountain out of a mole hill. I guess I can give the service a try for a while and see how they respond. Besides, it's not like I'm paying for their prints :dunno

Thanks again and regards,
Pat

[Andy]

(snip)

It is in the pricing for prints that I'm wanting to take you to task over. Maybe there isn't any room in the profit model and/or your contract with the vendor for lower cost prints. I can accept that; however, you just need to be poked, prodded and reminded--I'm sure you already know--where your prices are in regards to the competition.

If I didn't say it earlier, I will now. You have what appears to be a great hosting service with fairly detailed documentation online on how to use it, all surrounded by a user community that is willing to step in and help. As the person using the service, I'm glad to pay for it.

These advantages unfortunately are mostly transparent (except the user interface) to the family and friends that just want to buy prints. Paying 2x the going rate might be difficult for them to understand. Who knows though. Maybe they won't care and I'm just making a mountain out of a mole hill. I guess I can give the service a try for a while and see how they respond. Besides, it's not like I'm paying for their prints :dunno

Thanks again and regards,
Pat

so i'm curious about this - seriously - i've seen lower priced printers - there are lots of options - but the big drawback there is either a) i have to do the fulfilment myself or b) i have to re-upload to another site. it's worth it to me, to pay a little more per print, to not have to do those things.

i have a huge family - and the first thing i did with smugmug was to put over 100years of photographs online as part of a family archives project - some of my siblings could rub the beard off of lincoln on their first penny - no one's objected yet, nor asked me, "how come your site is 29cents and down the street at joe's it's only 23cents? or 20cents, or whatever..."

anyhow, interested in your feedback on this :ear

[DavidTO]

Pat,

As far as I'm concerned, the premium on price is worth it, since the prints are better. Smugmug uses ezprints, which has the best print quality.

Search around, you'll find that smugmug did a comparison. They used to use another service, but switched to ezprints because of the quality of the prints.

You're right, a bunch of your friends could care less about quality and just want the cheapest prints. In that case, this may not be the best option for them.

[Shane Canfield]

Smugmug does a couple of things at the same time the others do not. It is more difficult to get customized, but the price, it is a very good deal. The things I really like are the easy custom pricing, the high quality web presentation, and the ablity to let people download full file copies if you wish. There are some issues too, but this thread is about shutteryfly, kodak, and the other mainstream sites...SM is tops here. Now it is not as good in certain areas as other sites, for one example of this, FM and Nikonians (back from my Nikon days) have really nice high quality presentations, but they don't have any of the commercial site features. After trying many, SM was the best combination of price, presentation, selling features, and as you can tell, customer service. Prefect, no, always working on it, yes...and in a world of call waiting, automated attendants, voice mail, and the like, some good old fashioned customer service is hard to find, best, Shane

[pat.kane]

Andy, been there and done that with regards to re-uploading to a low-cost print site. I'm done with it as it is a hassle and I'm not getting my prints done over the internet anyway (just saves the family a little money).

I want to find the perfect combination of hosting with a controlled layout and seamless printing. Nothing meets my ideal system requirements; however, smugmug appears to be closest. Fotki is a distant second (also allows co-branding but it is poorly documented and not as well executed) and flickr even further behind (no print capability yet, but it has wonderful tagging via IPTC, and a clean, simple layout (though not user controlled)).

[...] some of my siblings could rub the beard off of lincoln on their first penny - no one's objected yet, nor asked me, "how come your site is 29cents and down the street at joe's it's only 23cents? or 20cents, or whatever..." :roflLike I said, maybe I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill. I appreciate you sharing your own experience on this.

David, I've not printed anything via SM yet. I'm going to be on the road for a week. When I get back, I'll sign up for a trial account and give it a try.

Shane, you've pointed out many of the features and reasons I'm leaning toward SM. Next weekend I'll probably sign up and give it a go.

Regards,
Pat

[arthill]

Hey Pat,



In case you're curious, smugmug did a blind taste test of various printers prior to selecting EZ Prints. We have a full write-up (http://www.smugmug.com/prints/digital-prints.mg) on how we did it, what our results were, etc. In fact, Flickr used our write-up to select EZ Prints themselves. Since then, Consumer Reports, Maximum PC, and PC Magazine verified our findings and selected them as the best online printer as well.



Flickr supporting IPTC data is news to me - must be a new feature there. You can see lots of threads @ Flickr asking for that very feature (examples:
thread 1 (http://flickr.com/forums/ideas/2638/) and thread 2 (http://flickr.com/forums/ideas/1553/)) if you search on Google or something. Sweet that they finally added it.

smugmug, however, has had support for IPTC for close to three years. It's in various places in our help section, such as gallery customization (http://www.smugmug.com/help/picture-storage) and keyword tags (http://www.smugmug.com/help/keywords-tags).

We're well aware of Flickr (in fact, we know the co-founders quite well and enjoy playing games together :) ), but feel we have a more than competitive offering.

DonI recommend Smugmug to everyone and am delighted with the service myself. Recently though other people have been recommending Flickr citing advantages such as

Adding multiple tags per photo
Allowing a viewer to add notes to a picture
Reading metadata tags already associated with your files
No limit on download bandwidth
Availability of Java and .Net libraries for download
Use of Flash for slide shows
I have no interest in try Flickr but would love to be able to respond to Flickr advocates with a list of reasons why Smugmug might be better.

Also, I used Shutterfly for a while, pre smugmug and found that their upload often choked on a large batch of files. A friend of mine still uses them and he had that same problem a week ago. He switched to Kodak.

[Andy]

I recommend Smugmug to everyone and am delighted with the service myself. Recently though other people have been recommending Flickr citing advantages such as

Adding multiple tags per photo
Allowing a viewer to add notes to a picture
Reading metadata tags already associated with your files
No limit on download bandwidth
Availability of Java and .Net libraries for download
Use of Flash for slide shows
I have no interest in try Flickr but would love to be able to respond to Flickr advocates with a list of reasons why Smugmug might be better.

Also, I used Shutterfly for a while, pre smugmug and found that their upload often choked on a large batch of files. A friend of mine still uses them and he had that same problem a week ago. He switched to Kodak.

thanks art - this is great info and we really appreciate it :D

[onethumb]

Every photo sharing service is different, and Flickr certainly does have things we don't have. They're a great service, you'll never hear me say otherwise. As far as I'm concerned, they're the 2nd best photo sharing site around. I worry about their Yahoo! acquisition, since things have a history of getting lame quickly over at Y!, but Flickr's founders assure me that's not going to happen. I hope not.

I happen to think the most useful thing they offer (that we don't) is their "blog this" interface, and we're clearly behind there, for example.

See comments below:

I recommend Smugmug to everyone and am delighted with the service myself. Recently though other people have been recommending Flickr citing advantages such as

- Adding multiple tags per photo

We have this, and we hear from customers all the time that our keyword tools are much easier to use, especially for large batches.

- Allowing a viewer to add notes to a picture

We don't have this, and I can't recall ever hearing it as a feature request. We do allow (optionally) your friends and family to add/edit your captions and add/edit your keywords, but that's not the same thing.

- Reading metadata tags already associated with your files

We do this and have done it for longer than Flickr has. EXIF and IPTC.

- No limit on download bandwidth

Yep, this is something they have - but our download bandwidth limits are incredibly generous. We can't offer unlimited bandwidth or we'll start losing money. (They we'd have to sell out to Yahoo!, too. :) )

I think, and our customers seem to agree with us, that an unlimited upload limit, combined with a generous download limit that almost no-one every hits, is much better than a small upload limit and unlimited download limit. But hey, capitalism rocks. If you like having limited uploads, Flickr's your place.

- Availability of Java and .Net libraries for download

I know people are working on libraries for smugmug for various languages, but I don't think either of these two are out yet. Someone can prove me wrong.

Neither Flickr nor smugmug build their own libraries - they're entirely user-created and user-supported. We'll get there.

- Use of Flash for slide shows

I happen to think that's a big negative. Lots of people don't have Flash installed, or have older versions, or whatever. Go try Flickr's slideshow and then try ours. I think ours handily wins - the photos fill your entire screen and look gorgeous. It works in all browsers, no Flash required.

I think there are a ton of things we have, though, that they don't. For example:

- No customization at all.
- No styles.
- No mapping.
- Unlimited uploads (in a single batch, too!)
- No bulk tools.
- No prints.
- No gifts.
- No Pro pricing.
- No personalized URL.
- No Domain name support.
- No CD/DVD backups.
- No video.
- Multiple password levels in addition to privacy controls.
- 8MB/16MB photos.
- Never asks for a login, including seeing larger photos.
- Hierarchical gallery organization.
- Best customer service on the web. (Flickr's is helpful and friendly, but usually has responses in days, rather than minutes like smugmug).


Hope that helps!

Don

[Baldy]

I recommend Smugmug to everyone and am delighted with the service myself. Recently though other people have been recommending Flickr citing advantages such as



Adding multiple tags per photo
Allowing a viewer to add notes to a picture
Reading metadata tags already associated with your files
No limit on download bandwidth
Availability of Java and .Net libraries for download
Use of Flash for slide shows
I have no interest in try Flickr but would love to be able to respond to Flickr advocates with a list of reasons why Smugmug might be better.

Also, I used Shutterfly for a while, pre smugmug and found that their upload often choked on a large batch of files. A friend of mine still uses them and he had that same problem a week ago. He switched to Kodak.Hi Art,


Far as I know, the tags on Smugmug are quite a bit more robust than Flickr's. You can add multiple tags per photo, tags can have two words separated by spaces (surrounded by quotes) so you can read them better, they nest, we have bulk tools to enter/edit them, etc.


Flash for slideshows is actually a big drawback for quite a number of reasons. You quickly find that many people that you want to share with, expecially aging parents, don't have it installed and have no idea how to. Or they have an old version. And Flash doesn't do progressive JPEGs, so if your connection is slow you have to wait for the whole photo before you get the idea.


We have a full-screen slideshow Flickr doesn't have that's wildly popular. We sense the screen resolution you have and make JPEGs on the fly that fit it. We don't depend on the browser or Flash to resize the photo, which do poor jobs, and Flickr doesn't have a full-screen slide show.


They do have unlimited download bandwidth, which appeals to a certain type of user. Unfortunately, we had experience with this early on because we became briefly popular for Fark Photoshop Contest competitors, where one image can get an insane number of views and break us. My guess is that was a big contributor to Flickr running out of money and having to sell to Yahoo. Yahoo already seems to be taking steps to limit bandwidth. For example, you now have to log onto Flickr or register to see large-sized images. You can imagine the revolt if we made our visitors register (even for free) after they click the large link on a photo.


Very few of our customers need unlimited download bandwidth and if they do, we're happy to send them to Flickr. But many need unlimited upload bandwidth to set their accounts up or after a big shoot. Flickr restricts that.


I think the bottom line is Flickr has social networking as the center of its design. It's the Friendster for photos, and that's very appealing to some people. We have photos at the center of our design, and that's very appealing to others. Choice is awesome.


Thanks,
Chris

[onethumb]

Hi Art,

ROFL. We must have been writing at the same time. Haha.

Don

[arthill]

ROFL. We must have been writing at the same time. Haha.

DonThanks guys, that helps a lot. And makes me even more pleased that I went the smugmug route. I agree with your cut on Flash - not a good thing. Smugmug slide show is great.
I think the only thing you listed as an advantage that's not exactly right is the personalized URL. Flickr does offer a personalized URL. It's not a good one - http://www.flickr.com/photos/yourname/ but they do have it.

Anyway thanks a lot for arming me with these facts. It's exactly what I was looking for.
Art

[onethumb]

Thanks guys, that helps a lot. And makes me even more pleased that I went the smugmug route. I agree with your cut on Flash - not a good thing. Smugmug slide show is great.
I think the only thing you listed as an advantage that's not exactly right is the personalized URL. Flickr does offer a personalized URL. It's not a good one - http://www.flickr.com/photos/yourname/ but they do have it.

Anyway thanks a lot for arming me with these facts. It's exactly what I was looking for.
Art

Sorry, I meant to say "personalized hostname," not URL. I suppose every site on the net has a personalized URL for you, somehow, so that was lame of me.

:)

Don

[luke_church]

I know people are working on libraries for smugmug for various languages, but I don't think either of these two are out yet. Someone can prove me wrong.
Omar has produced 'Send to Smugmug' which includes a SmugMugApi DLL, which encapsulates the key 5-10%. It's under, I think, MIT licence, so even more liberal than GPL.

http://wiki.shahine.com/default.aspx/MyWiki.SendToSmugMug

It has a fair few issues, and only targets a small section of API 1.0, but it's great place to start.

Neither Flickr nor smugmug build their own libraries - they're entirely user-created and user-supported. We'll get there.
Indeed :): Expect SmugTools.NET (hint as to the platform ;)) out fairly soon. I've got a bit of bug-beating to do, some rather more hard-core testing, a bit of documentation and then it'll be out there...

Luke