smugmug competition

[DavidTO]

Well, it breaks my heart to say that there might be a service that surpasses smugmug, but I think the smug folks should take a close look at it.

It's flickr (http://www.flickr.com).

At present they don't offer prints, but are going to be in early '05, and word on the street is that they will be offering ezprints.

There are a couple of things that are improvements over smugmug's interface.

One is that you don't load images to a gallery, but just upload them. From there you can organize them into sets. The organizr (yes, they have a thing against e's) is awesome, with a timeline of when you uploaded the images, or if you prefer, when you shot them.

They aslo have a cool link you can use called Zeitgeist which builds a button of your images for posting on your website.

There's more, but I just wanted to know if anyone's seen it and what you all think.

[Andy]

i see that they have ads. ok you can pay $50 a year and have no ads. they're having a go at it like many other outfits. hey, competition is a good thing, it'll keep onethumb, baldy, jt, ben, and toni on their toes :D

personally, i don't see how it holds a candle to smugmug in terms of feature set....

[Dee]

Looks like fun, but the "free" account is quite limited and the "pay" account is more than I want to pay.

[Nikolai]

I just realized that we're practically neighbours:-)

Thank you for the link! I went ahead and tried it, just to get a feeling.
It's not as sleek as smugmug, but they do have some nice features, some of which I was begging smugmug for almost since the moment of the signup:

TIMELINE - photos/galleries/sets can be viewed from the time stand point
WAREHOUSE model - all photos are uploaded once and then shared between different sets/albums. A single picture, once uploaded, can be presented in Portraits, Portfoloi, Challenge #31, family, Dec 2004, etc..
Uploaders and Shell extensions - well, shell wise they beat me to it. Im still at leat two weeks from that. I must say, though, that smugmug (and smugmug explorer:-) are WAY faster, let alone there is no montly upload limit:-)
Blogs and other bells and whistles
I like their Organizr and Sets a lot
Their API (http://www.flickr.com/services/api/) looks superb! REST, XML-RPC, SOAP... Don, with all due respect - they seemed to plan it from the start and they got it. Having SOAP (and .NET kit they provide), writing something in .NET would be a "hello world"-type of project. There is a showstopper, however: they only allow it for the non-commercial usage, at least for now...
Having said all that I do hope that smugmug owners would consider introducing some of these (or similar) nice features, which would keep smugmug's #1 position as the best photo server.

Cheers!:1drink

[DavidTO]

i see that they have ads. ok you can pay $50 a year and have no ads. they're having a go at it like many other outfits. hey, competition is a good thing, it'll keep onethumb, baldy, jt, ben, and toni on their toes :D

personally, i don't see how it holds a candle to smugmug in terms of feature set....

For pros, no, not nearly. Not offering prints being the biggest ;)

Once they offer prints, we'll see what else they add, feature-wise.

[DavidTO]

I just realized that we're practically neighbours:-)

yep! I was wondering what 40 miles west of LA really meant...


Thank you for the link! I went ahead and tried it, just to get a feeling.
It's not as sleek as smugmug, but they do have some nice features, some of which I was begging smugmug for almost since the moment of the signup:

TIMELINE - photos/galleries/sets can be viewed from the time stand point
WAREHOUSE model - all photos are uploaded once and then shared between different sets/albums. A single picture, once uploaded, can be presented in Portraits, Portfoloi, Challenge #31, family, Dec 2004, etc..
Uploaders and Shell extensions - well, shell wise they beat me to it. Im still at leat two weeks from that. I must say, though, that smugmug (and smugmug explorer:-) are WAY faster, let alone there is no montly upload limit:-)
Blogs and other bells and whistles
I like their Organizr and Sets a lot
Their API (http://www.flickr.com/services/api/) looks superb! REST, XML-RPC, SOAP... Don, with all due respect - they seemed to plan it from the start and they got it. Having SOAP (and .NET kit they provide), writing something in .NET would be a "hello world"-type of project. There is a showstopper, however: they only allow it for the non-commercial usage, at least for now...
Having said all that I do hope that smugmug owners would consider introducing some of these (or similar) nice features, which would keep smugmug's #1 position as the best photo server.

Cheers!:1drink

I agree. Oranizr is amazing. Love the timeline. And I really love the warehouse model. Creating sets is cool.

You missed the ability to tag files, and then search by tags. Very nice.

The uploader is nice in that it gives more feedback about which file it's currently uploading, and which ones are in the cue.

Like smugmug, they have great Mac support.

[Nikolai]

I agree. Oranizr is amazing. Love the timeline. And I really love the warehouse model. Creating sets is cool.You don't say.. Their rearranger is really sleek I like this little animation they do..

You missed the ability to tag files, and then search by tags. Very nice.I think smugmug's keywords are supposed to be something like that, but they do it in a so much more convenient way..
BTW, they also support a much wider variety of still files, not only jpegs and gifs (however I missed movies feature, do they have them?). Which kinda gives me an idea of autoconverting all such files into smugmug/accepted ones.. I also liked rotation feature for uploading queue...

The uploader is nice in that it gives more feedback about which file it's currently uploading, and which ones are in the cue.
Like smugmug, they have great Mac support.
Well, I will most likely do something like that.. There is a difference, though.. On a free account, for instance, they allow only 10Mb per month. For me it would mean like less than 10 shots. And even if you deal with cellphone pictures, it's still not a lot. So their queues by definition cannot be huge. I currently allow uploading thousands of files to uplod, holding images (even thumbnails) for all of them would eat up all your computer's resources in a heartbit... Anyway, I definitely can use some of those ideas/

However, your mentiong Mac probably excludes your from my app's userbase;-)

Cheers!:1drink

[marlinspike]

Personally, I rather upload to gallery than upload then organize.
Richard

[Nikolai]

Personally, I rather upload to gallery than upload then organize.
RichardIt can be a very simple uploader/configuration option - upload straight to gallery or to a "warehouse". The beauty of having the warehouse, however, lies in the fact that you only have to upload ONCE. And once you did, you can SHARE it amongst multiple galleries. This way we (sometimes substantiallly) decrease the storage requirements (image only stored once, galleries only hold the links) and increase the flexibilty (galleries can share the same links and you don't have to reupload), leading to a CSI jumping through the roof:-):clap

[lynnesite]

It can be a very simple uploader/configuration option - upload straight to gallery or to a "warehouse". The beauty of having the warehouse, however, lies in the fact that you only have to upload ONCE. And once you did, you can SHARE it amongst multiple galleries. This way we (sometimes substantiallly) decrease the storage requirements (image only stored once, galleries only hold the links) and increase the flexibilty (galleries can share the same links and you don't have to reupload), leading to a CSI jumping through the roof

I would like to be able to repurpose upon upload to sometimes multiple galleries yes indeed. Like proof galleries that have a few edited ones so that people can see what they're like, and be able to have those edited one in that event's "print prepped" gallery without re-uploading. Another vote for Smugmug (in general), and one for MACINTOSH.

Lynne :wink

[Baldy]

We actually know the Flickr guys pretty well, and, like the PBase guys, we have a lot of respect for them. It does us good to hear what you like about them.

Seems like each service finds it's customers and so far theirs seem to be the blogger and social networking crowd. So far both companies have learned a lot from each other and hopefully that will make sharing better and draw more people into it.

[Nikolai]

I would like to be able to repurpose upon upload to sometimes multiple galleries yes indeed. Like proof galleries that have a few edited ones so that people can see what they're like, and be able to have those edited one in that event's "print prepped" gallery without re-uploading. Another vote for Smugmug (in general), and one for MACINTOSH.

Lynne :wink.. but I honestly didn't get your MAC reference.. ;-)
Where in this discussion (or in Flickr vs Smugmug comparison) did this platform "score a point"? Did I miss something?:scratch
Cheers!:1drink

[DavidTO]

.. but I honestly didn't get your MAC reference.. ;-)
Where in this discussion (or in Flickr vs Smugmug comparison) did this platform "score a point"? Did I miss something?:scratch
Cheers!:1drink

Support for the Mac scores a point.

[fish]

Support for the Mac scores 1000 points.

fixed it for ya, DTO. :thumb

[DavidTO]

fixed it for ya, DTO. :thumb

Ya know, I thought about adding more points, but I didn't want to seem overzealous.

[Nikolai]

Support for the Mac scores a point.Tough life you guys have, scoring that..:-):D
Cheers!:1drink

[lynnesite]

.. but I honestly didn't get your MAC reference.. ;-)
Where in this discussion (or in Flickr vs Smugmug comparison) did this platform "score a point"? Did I miss something?:scratch
Cheers!:1drink

Ah, I wasn't in a holy war mood either. You said that the applet you're developing for gallery fun and games would not run on a Mac.
:dunno And it sounded like something I could use, 's all.

[fish]

Tough life you guys have, scoring that..:-):D
Cheers!:1drink
We mac-users have so much free time because we're not dicking around with viruses and network issues like the PC guys. So, we spend time scoring points. :1drink

[Nikolai]

Ah, I wasn't in a holy war mood either. You said that the applet you're developing for gallery fun and games would not run on a Mac.
:dunno And it sounded like something I could use, 's all.
It's just not in the stars... Too big of a gap.. I wouldn't know how to write a "Hello, World!" in applish:-)

Cheers!:1drink

[mercphoto]

It's just not in the stars... Too big of a gap.. I wouldn't know how to write a "Hello, World!" in applish:-)

Cheers!:1drink

I've always wondered how certain cross-platform development tools work in the real world. Metrowerks C/C++ and Java compilers, or Real Basic, for example. Is it really possible to write once, compile multiple, and have it work?

[Nikolai]

I've always wondered how certain cross-platform development tools work in the real world. Metrowerks C/C++ and Java compilers, or Real Basic, for example. Is it really possible to write once, compile multiple, and have it work?While there is a certain advantage in a cross-platform approach (especialy in a web-related areas), my personal experience kinda pushed me away from it. Each platform offers some unique capabilities, and if you want to use them, you either have to wait untile the maker of the cross-platform runtime would be up to it (whcih may and usualy does take a VERY long time), or write that runtime yourself (duh:-) or simply forget about those unique features. Meaning - your app would lose on that platform to a platform specific one.

This limitation usually comes along with a UI-rich environment. You can see that rutt's python script does not have a problem of being cross-platform solution. But once you start dealing with UI - here it comes..

As I mentioned before, for the work I normally do, switching to a cross-platform tools like Java is simply not cost effective. I would have spend enourmous amount of time learning "the new tricks" (you can tell now that I am "an old dog":-) only to get 10% more or so of potential customers.

I really do wish the situation was different from the very beginning and every app would run freely on every platform - I would not mind getiing those extra 10% for free. But, again, it's simply not in the stars..:-(

PS
However, .NET eventually may fill that gap for me..:-)

Cheers! :1drink
Merry Christmas