"Discarded" is an interesting term to propose. It's probably more appropriate to say "abandoned" or "left out".
What I've realized is that the kind of photo site I want isn't what Smugmug cares about the most any more and thus they launched a massive new version that they knew would not meet my needs. I don't think they intended it to go quite the way it did from the beginning, but when push came to shove and they had to decide what to really focus on, some of the things I want/need and rely on in old SM didn't get put into this new release. Given my long association and the personal investment I've made not only in my own site, but in creating stuff for others, that's a major bummer for me.
They made their choices for their own business reasons and they have the right to do that, but that doesn't really help with my own personal feelings about where it stands now and for the first time in a very long time, I'm wondering what my other options are.
So ... we will just have to see what the future holds. Since my galleries are currently stuck in legacy limbo and never to see a new feature again (or perhaps even a bug fix), I obviously can't stay that way forever. Baldy has actually taken the time to speak with me individually, but I honestly don't know if a future release of the new SM will meet my needs or not. I think I will only know that when/if such a release actually exists and I've confirmed it works for me.
Also, I wouldn't say I'm "disgruntled". It's more "disappointed". This is because the rollout of the new SM just wasn't planned properly such that, even for legacy sites, the site isn't working properly now (creating new virtual galleries is pretty much busted with such long delays on proper keyword indexing and that cost me more than 8 hours of my own time this week) and I'm also obviously disappointed that some of my needs/desires aren't part of the current direction of SM.
Fabulous photos John, must have been an amazing trip, thank you for sharing:)
Sorry to both you and Allen for misinterpreting your feelings about this and thanks for elaborating. What ever the future holds for you and your site i hope it eventually works out and that we'll continue to see you here and benefit from your knowledge.
Fabulous photos John, must have been an amazing trip, thank you for sharing:)
Sorry to both you and Allen for misinterpreting your feelings about this and thanks for elaborating. What ever the future holds for you and your site i hope it eventually works out and that we'll continue to see you here and benefit from your knowledge.
Caroline
Thx. It was an amazing trip. It was the hardest physical challenge I've ever faced, but very rewarding. And, wow what a great place to take photos! My only regret is that the last few days I was so focused on getting through the hardest parts of the trail that I didn't stop to take as many photos as I would have liked.
No worries on your comments about me. Your post inspired me to post how I was actually feeling.
What I've realized is that the kind of photo site I want isn't what Smugmug cares about the most any more and thus they launched a massive new version that they knew would not meet my needs. I don't think they intended it to go quite the way it did from the beginning, but when push came to shove and they had to decide what to really focus on, some of the things I want/need and rely on in old SM didn't get put into this new release...
They made their choices for their own business reasons and they have the right to do that, but that doesn't really help with my own personal feelings about where it stands now and for the first time in a very long time, I'm wondering what my other options are.
I feel the same way, but I'm curious about what particular features are the ones you're missing the most, and how you use them. Yeah, there's a long list of bugs and missing features, but one thing that seems to be Smugmug's directional choice is the "de-emphasis" of captions...which I use heavily to narrate my travel adventures. With captions almost useless in Lightbox and missing in the gallery slideshow view, and "below the fold" in Smugmug Gallery style, Smugmug seems to have chosen to leave out those of us who think our captions are nearly as important as the photos. Everything else I could live with or adapt to...
I've been very frustrated with the changes (and been flabbergasted at the folks who are pleased). I've come to a bit of a greater understanding looking at jfriend's site, on why some of us are enormously frustrated while others are pleased.
My site (without all the customization jfriend has) follows the same principal as jfriends. I have galleries and my main choice for viewing those galleries is the thumbnail/preview mode. I have lots of galleries and lots of pictures in those galleries (usually 100-300). The legacy mode works well for viewing galleries like that and for my purpose of using those galleries to organize my photos (basically it works like the folder viewing window on my own computer -- I can easily scan through my gallery).
This mode for viewing galleries doesn't work in the new smugmug. The thumbnails do not update properly on resizing the window; the thumbnails do not reorganize when the window is re-sized; space is wasted; information on the page does not appear unless the window is re-sized to the "right" size", which one has to find by experimentation; there's no way to scroll through the individual preview pictures (one has to click the thumbnails). The list is probably longer than that, but that's my current litany.
On the other hand, folks who have smallish number of pictures (say 20+) and want to display them as a collage seem reasonably pleased with the new design. These sites look to me like movie trailers -- they display the photographers best work to draw in the viewer. But, how will they work if the goal is to allow a client to browse a gallery for the pictures they wish to purchase (after a photo shoot, for example)?
I am a long time user and have two smugmug sites and routine recommended it to everyone I know who wanted to share photos with friends (especially those who, like me, were concerned about privacy). I haven't contributed to the community or done the level of cross indexing and customization that jfriend seems to have, but I think it's those of us whose smugmug sites are our picture databases are the ones who are suffering the most.
"Discarded" is an interesting term to propose. It's probably more appropriate to say "abandoned" or "left out".
What I've realized is that the kind of photo site I want isn't what Smugmug cares about the most any more and thus they launched a massive new version that they knew would not meet my needs. I don't think they intended it to go quite the way it did from the beginning, but when push came to shove and they had to decide what to really focus on, some of the things I want/need and rely on in old SM didn't get put into this new release. Given my long association and the personal investment I've made not only in my own site, but in creating stuff for others, that's a major bummer for me.[. . .'
Anyway, since we're here to share photos, here are my galleries from the 18-day, 220 mile John Muir hike I completed a few weeks ago: http://jfriend.smugmug.com/Family/John-Muir-Trail.
PS: Also, I have to say I am humbled by the level of photography at the sites folks are linking to. My own pictures are (often) a document rather than art, and I'm in awe of some of the pictures everyone has linked.
yeah, there's a long list of bugs and missing features, but one thing that seems to be smugmug's directional choice is the "de-emphasis" of captions...which i use heavily to narrate my travel adventures. With captions almost useless in lightbox and missing in the gallery slideshow view, and "below the fold" in smugmug gallery style, smugmug seems to have chosen to leave out those of us who think our captions are nearly as important as the photos. Everything else i could live with or adapt to...
+100
SmugMug site => The Bakker Chautauqua
"The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits." (Einstein)
It's pretty appalling that a few selected website design businesses are given access to add Javascript on smugmug sites, but jfriend, who has freely given his time over many years helping hundreds of SmugMug users customise their sites, is not given the same privilege.
It's pretty appalling that a few selected website design businesses are given access to add Javascript on smugmug sites, but jfriend, who has freely given his time over many years helping hundreds of SmugMug users customise their sites, is not given the same privilege.
I can't keep track of all the posts on all the boards here, but is this an official policy or an interpretation of some comments made by Smugmug?
Not sure about official policy but it has been confirmed "selected partners" (or some such term) have the ability to add custom JavaScript on new SmugMug
Not sure about official policy but it has been confirmed "selected partners" (or some such term) have the ability to add custom JavaScript on new SmugMug
I'm a bigger advocate than most of getting JS back, but unless there's a written confirmation from Smugmug somewhere then all this is, is a rumour.
As for JavaScript, this message keeps getting buried with all the traffic, so feel free to refer to it when people ask in various threads: we planned to include it in this release and like you we were disappointed when we couldn't pull it off. But we have to do it responsibly and that's a very big challenge, hence the reason it's so hard to come by on photo hosting sites.
I think what you'll see is trusted customizers using JavaScript first, not because we have some financial relationship with them, but because the deployment is difficult and we want to get our feet wet with them first.
Baldy said "I think what you'll see is trusted customizers using JavaScript first, not because we have some financial relationship with them, but because the deployment is difficult and we want to get our feet wet with themfirst."
Yep, I've seen that. I added the emphasis above that I read into it. If in fact it goes that way I'd be pretty happy since it will prove that there's no show stopper to rolling JS out to more than just the official customisers
I agree it would be great if its just a stepping stone onto opening it more widely,but (and this bit is reading between the lines) there's so much emphasis on offering alternatives to letting users have a custom javascript box that I'm not confident of it happening soon.
Now _THAT_ is interesting. I hadn't seen a confirmed example of that before.
Baldy - can you confirm that this won't remain the exclusive domain of the paid for customisers?
Cheers - N
Now, this is pushing all the limits. This is the main thing why I am begging for the freaking javascript- so I do not have to expose the names of the private galleries and have people just type the name and be redirected (with javascript). And here it is: a paid customizer firm is have access to this facility and I - a paid customer - do not?! Well, I do.. in my legacy site, under current term. But it means that the new SmugMug is useless to me. It also means that "100% Customizable" slogan on your webpage - is lie and fraud if not to use even stronger words. Hey, it's your business, you rules, I am just another customer. But remember... you business consist of customers.
Now, this is pushing all the limits. This is the main thing why I am begging for the freaking javascript- so I do not have to expose the names of the private galleries and have people just type the name and be redirected (with javascript). And here it is: a paid customizer firm is have access to this facility and I - a paid customer - do not?! Well, I do.. in my legacy site, under current term. But it means that the new SmugMug is useless to me. It also means that "100% Customizable" slogan on your webpage - is lie and fraud if not to use even stronger words. Hey, it's your business, you rules, I am just another customer. But remember... you business consist of customers.
I understand what you're saying considering I already paid fastline for customization. To pay them again for my same content to "migrate" (for $149 at that)? This feels like getting robbed of my shoes and the robber trying to sell me back the shoes he stole. I got to study the fullscreen implementations that people been posting in the customization more closely.
I understand what you're saying considering I already paid fastline for customization. To pay them again for my same content to "migrate" (for $149 at that)? This feels like getting robbed of my shoes and the robber trying to sell me back the shoes he stole. I got to study the fullscreen implementations that people been posting in the customization more closely.
Interesting you just posted this now. Just a few minutes ago, I was thinking about how SmugMug should really consider itself fortunate at the moment that a huge lot of its paying (already paid) customers aren't even more up in arms than they are. So many paid their fees and also paid large customization fees, based on what they thought was a trusting agreement between themselves and SmugMug, who they did trust deeply for a very long time. They were not told ahead of time that these "deep customizations" that they thought they'd be allowed for the length of their contract (if not forever) would suddenly just disappear!! I paid my fees w/o complaint this past time, trusting that this would continue to be the unique and creative space that I'd come to trust, and that bug fixing would improve by leaps & bounds.
You're absolutely correct-- for some, it is exactly like getting robbed of your shoes. I should consider myself fortunate in a way, because I haven't paid anyone to customize. But I've paid dearly in my own use of time to do this, and much of that will just go down the drain when I have to migrate. And all of those folks like JFriend, Allen, Denise, DrDavid & others who gave thousands of hours more than I did, & whose fantastic creativity, design, support & help got me to where I am without cost to the rest of us SmugMuggers.... well, I hardly know what to say about that... just that they gave so generously, and the atmosphere surrounding all that they gave just seems so sad now. It feels like a whole niche that SmugMug occupied almost solely is simply empty. It's very sad. But it could be seen as way beyond simply "sad", and I worry that SmugMug isn't fully aware of how many people are only just beginning to figure out what they've lost in their ability to have a unique site.
Interesting you just posted this now. Just a few minutes ago, I was thinking about how SmugMug should really consider itself fortunate at the moment that a huge lot of its paying (already paid) customers aren't even more up in arms than they are. So many paid their fees and also paid large customization fees, based on what they thought was a trusting agreement between themselves and SmugMug, who they did trust deeply for a very long time. They were not told ahead of time that these "deep customizations" that they thought they'd be allowed for the length of their contract (if not forever) would suddenly just disappear!! I paid my fees w/o complaint this past time, trusting that this would continue to be the unique and creative space that I'd come to trust, and that bug fixing would improve by leaps & bounds.
You're absolutely correct-- for some, it is exactly like getting robbed of your shoes. I should consider myself fortunate in a way, because I haven't paid anyone to customize. But I've paid dearly in my own use of time to do this, and much of that will just go down the drain when I have to migrate. And all of those folks like JFriend, Allen, Denise, DrDavid & others who gave thousands of hours more than I did, & whose fantastic creativity, design, support & help got me to where I am without cost to the rest of us SmugMuggers.... well, I hardly know what to say about that... just that they gave so generously, and the atmosphere surrounding all that they gave just seems so sad now. It feels like a whole niche that SmugMug occupied almost solely is simply empty. It's very sad. But it could be seen as way beyond simply "sad", and I worry that SmugMug isn't fully aware of how many people are only just beginning to figure out what they've lost in their ability to have a unique site.
I believe, in a reality, there are MUCH less people like you mentioned ( JFriend, Allen, Denise, DrDavid etc.) compared to the rest of the customers. I am wiling to make a prediction that at the moment there are about under 7% of customers who will (and are) suffer a lot due to javascript removal. The rest of the current customers will, in fact, like and love and adore new, dynamic template-driven SmugMug business model. Remember -this model is still VERY MUCH customizable and even better than many other competitors. But nevertheless - it is still a template driven model. it is not what legacy SmugMug is (or was?)
Now, the potential problem for SmugMug is NOT the loss of these about 7% of customers. It is not. it's only 7%. Really not that big of a deal for a business with a competitive template-driven product. The real problem will arise for SmugMug when these 7% (or slightly less:) ) customers will file a class-action lawsuit for false advertisement and demanding removal of the "100% Customizable" slogan on the SM front page. That would hurt.
I believe, in a reality, there are MUCH less people like you mentioned ( JFriend, Allen, Denise, DrDavid etc.) compared to the rest of the customers. I am wiling to make a prediction that at the moment there are about under 7% of customers who will (and are) suffer a lot due to javascript removal. The rest of the current customers will, in fact, like and love and adore new, dynamic template-driven SmugMug business model. Remember -this model is still VERY MUCH customizable and even better than many other competitors. But nevertheless - it is still a template driven model. it is not what legacy SmugMug is (or was?)
Now, the potential problem for SmugMug is NOT the loss of these about 7% of customers. It is not. it's only 7%. Really not that big of a deal for a business with a competitive template-driven product. The real problem will arise for SmugMug when these 7% (or slightly less:) ) customers will file a class-action lawsuit for false advertisement and demanding removal of the "100% Customizable" slogan on the SM front page. That would hurt.
Who's going to file that lawsuit? There's nothing to gain. Though their promotion may be misleading (they had a screen shot from new SM in their web site advertising for two years before they shipped it), there's rarely an economic reason to sue them over it.
A more interesting challenge to losing javscript customization and losing the customers who use it are the following:
1) Smugmug's customization reputation will change from "pretty much anything you can dream up and have the expertise to build" to "anything that they've enabled through their templates and editing". Those two are not even close to the same thing. Smugmug will enable more people to do simpler things, but enable nobody to do things that they haven't yet contemplated.
2) And, what happens when someone who is happy to start out doing something simple in the current customization engine runs into a showstopper issue that SM hasn't built in support for? Do these customers stay with SM as long as they would have when they could find or pay for work-arounds using JS customizations? I think not. I think customers are more likely to "limit out" on SM when they run into a missing feature that is really important to them. Remember, this only has to happen once to cause the customer to think about other solutions or become a much less fervent supporter.
3) Many of those people who dreamt up their own JS customizations and championed SM because the JS customization put "no limits" on what could be done are big evangelists (I personally got credit for more than 300 customer referrals). SM would lose many of those evangelists so while none of them by themselves important enough to make a business difference to SM, their effect on the larger community may have more of an impact.
4) If you run a business on the SM site, are you happy with a "limited" system where you don't have the freedom to fix many types of problems in your site or implement things that are important to you that Smugmug has not built in support for? What if you now decide it's really important to take direct payment online (via PayPal for example) for some services that you fulfill directly (sitting sessions, booking fees, certain types of framed prints, special post processing, etc...), but the only thing SM lets you do is link to another site. You can't integrate PayPal payment and selection of goods and services into your site.
5) What if you get hired for a super large event and you're getting paid based on how many prints are ordered and you realize that you HAVE to make it really easy for viewers to find specific prints of themselves and the only way you know of to do that is using some javascript to implement a custom search interface?
When your service goes from being "nearly unlimited" in what types of customization problems could be solved to "limited to only what has been contemplated in HTML/CSS", a LOT of things change. This is NOT just about the xx% of users who may leave SM now if they don't support JS customization. This has much more of an impact than that in the long run. It changes the type of service SM is and it removes the ability for customers to solve their own problems (or hire someone to solve them) in the future when they find an important need that SM doesn't support.
Who's going to file that lawsuit? There's nothing to gain. Though their promotion may be misleading (they had a screen shot from new SM in their web site advertising for two years before they shipped it), there's rarely an economic reason to sue them over it.
A more interesting challenge to losing javscript customization and losing the customers who use it are the following:
1) Smugmug's customization reputation will change from "pretty much anything you can dream up and have the expertise to build" to "anything that they've enabled through their templates and editing". Those two are not even close to the same thing. Smugmug will enable more people to do simpler things, but enable nobody to do things that they haven't yet contemplated.
2) And, what happens when someone who is happy to start out doing something simple in the current customization engine runs into a showstopper issue that SM hasn't built in support for? Do these customers stay with SM as long as they would have when they could find or pay for work-arounds using JS customizations? I think not. I think customers are more likely to "limit out" on SM when they run into a missing feature that is really important to them. Remember, this only has to happen once to cause the customer to think about other solutions or become a much less fervent supporter.
3) Many of those people who dreamt up their own JS customizations and championed SM because the JS customization put "no limits" on what could be done are big evangelists (I personally got credit for more than 300 customer referrals). SM would lose many of those evangelists so while none of them by themselves important enough to make a business difference to SM, their effect on the larger community may have more of an impact.
4) If you run a business on the SM site, are you happy with a "limited" system where you don't have the freedom to fix many types of problems in your site or implement things that are important to you that Smugmug has not built in support for? What if you now decide it's really important to take direct payment online (via PayPal for example) for some services that you fulfill directly (sitting sessions, booking fees, certain types of framed prints, special post processing, etc...), but the only thing SM lets you do is link to another site. You can't integrate PayPal payment and selection of goods and services into your site.
5) What if you get hired for a super large event and you're getting paid based on how many prints are ordered and you realize that you HAVE to make it really easy for viewers to find specific prints of themselves and the only way you know of to do that is using some javascript to implement a custom search interface?
When your service goes from being "nearly unlimited" in what types of customization problems could be solved to "limited to only what has been contemplated in HTML/CSS", a LOT of things change. This is NOT just about the xx% of users who may leave SM now if they don't support JS customization. This has much more of an impact than that in the long run. It changes the type of service SM is and it removes the ability for customers to solve their own problems (or hire someone to solve them) in the future when they find an important need that SM doesn't support.
John,
Whether or not there is any financial gain to sue SM - there are people who can and will do:) Financial gain is not the only driving force in this case. But even in terms of financial gain/goal - there is. I cannot go into more details at this point. But SM may be in a big lengthy litigation due to these business practices. They can ban me from this forum at this point if they have guts to do it But facts are facts. There is no way to avoid them. There are legal precedents. False advertisement is not a baseless term.
What you are saying is also true. In addition to what you are saying - there is a reputation. I, for one, will make sure that facts are known to the community (that is being Internet community); and this is now-days how companies gain and lose their reputation. I would not have been so strict about it if they stop advertising "100% Customizable" slogan. I am sad that SM changed their business model, but my contract with them is still in full force and things are provided to my so far. No one promised me New SM with all the features I have now. So, it's up to me to take it or leave it. It's up to you as well. Many people will leave. But legal aspects of Smugmug's current actions and blogging about their actions - these are the things that will influence the future of SmugMug.
I believe, in a reality, there are MUCH less people like you mentioned ( JFriend, Allen, Denise, DrDavid etc.) compared to the rest of the customers. I am wiling to make a prediction that at the moment there are about under 7% of customers who will (and are) suffer a lot due to javascript removal. The rest of the current customers.....about 7% of customers. It is not. it's only 7%. Really not that big of a deal for a business with a competitive template-driven product. The real problem will arise for SmugMug when these 7% (or slightly less:) ) customers will file a class-action lawsuit for false advertisement and demanding removal of the "100% Customizable" slogan on the SM front page. That would hurt.
Yes. (what you said & referring to JFriend's recent posts as well) I was certainly not only speaking of people leaving. That's perhaps not such a big deal to Smug, and for most of us, our terms aren't "up" anytime soon. We've already paid. I'm talking about much larger ripple effects and etc. etc. that I'm not going to spell out. And I don't want them to happen! I'd much rather that SmugMug simply "do the right thing" as Andy always said they do ( !! ) than see the site suffer what it's already suffering, which is an awful lot of dissent, frustration, loss, unsure-footing, and indignation from its longer-term customer base. Also, I was not lumping the specific folks I mentioned in with the rest of us Javascript users...at all! Those generous & creative folks are a very tiny percentage. They are not some 7%, They're the 1-in10,000. SmugMug losing them or losing all that they created for SmugMug is an entirely different (and more humoungous) loss than what you deem to be the "7%" who may leave. As I said, people leaving is much less of a concern (especially if they've supposedly gotten a huge influx of newbies) than a whole host of other concerns / problems. Like John has been expressing, the huge concern a lot of us (and especially these 1-in-10,000 creative forces) have is for the unique future of this site.... or... what could be the unique futureif they do the right thing!
Now _THAT_ is interesting. I hadn't seen a confirmed example of that before.
Baldy - can you confirm that this won't remain the exclusive domain of the paid for customisers?
Cheers - N
My view is it's a very good sign that Fastline has JavaScript and everyone should be encouraged that it means what I said: we're going to work out the kinks with a few understanding customizers first. If you didn't see them with JavaScript and I were in your shoes, I'd take that as a bad sign that things aren't progressing.
Our goal is to make it available beyond the customizers, but we have to do it responsibly. Fastline is helping us work out a reasonable approach but there are many things we haven't solved, such whether we can deploy it for users without their own custom domains. We probably can't.
As for abandoning John, we know all the incredible good John has done over the years with JavaScript and that's why we involved him in the new SmugMug more than a year ago. We simply picked Fastline to work out the kinks with JavaScript for reasons such as John was hiking during the crunch weeks leading up to shipping and Fastline was there for the late nights.
Fastline is helping us work out a reasonable approach but there are many things we haven't solved, such whether we can deploy it for users without their own custom domains. We probably can't.
Why?
I've been happily using a handful of JS "hacks" on my site and never felt the need to register a custom domain.
Another excuse to limit functionality...
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BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
I believe, in a reality, there are MUCH less people like you mentioned ( JFriend, Allen, Denise, DrDavid etc.) compared to the rest of the customers. I am wiling to make a prediction that at the moment there are about under 7% of customers who will (and are) suffer a lot due to javascript removal. The rest of the current customers will, in fact, like and love and adore new, dynamic template-driven SmugMug business model. Remember -this model is still VERY MUCH customizable and even better than many other competitors. But nevertheless - it is still a template driven model. it is not what legacy SmugMug is (or was?)
Hey Mishenka,
This is good insight but I think about it in a different way, fwiw. This is probably an unimportant detail, but I think the number of customers who are willing & able to use JavaScript in the way we've historically enabled it is closer to 1%, if that high.
But whether 7% or 1%, it's in our interest to enable it if we can because some greater number of customers benefit from the work people like Fastline and jfriend can do. And some of those customers are very high volume in terms of sales.
And whatever the numbers are, a majority of the 93% you mention believe SmugMug is much more customizable than it ever was before because it's accessible to them and they can get layouts they never could achieve before no matter how much JavaScript they deployed.
If you read what has always been said of SmugMug, it's that you could customize deeply but it was hard, beyond the reach of ordinary people. Now what we're hearing is everyone can have a beautiful site. This is a move we had to make.
But making this move is not related to deploying JavaScript. We simply had to improve our security model, as all sites and software have to do.
Fastline is helping us work out a reasonable approach but there are many things we haven't solved, such whether we can deploy it for users without their own custom domains. We probably can't.
I'm just digesting being forced to move to a custom domain. I don't use a custom domain now, so all the links I've shared with people and posted on the web are all http//xxx.smugmug.com style links. So, none of those links which are shared with people over the last 8 years would show my site as I would intend with javascript? Or, would you automatically redirect the xxx.smugmug.com links to the custom domain so at least viewers who had a previous link could get to the working site? If you don't auto-redirect, then you're completely starting over with an entirely new site and URL and SEO because all past references to your original site would be broken so I think this would be a requirement to auto-redirect.
Here's an ironic note. We couldn't implement auto-redirect ourselves because we wouldn't be allowed JS in the non-custom domain.
Or, would you automatically redirect the xxx.smugmug.com links to the custom domain so at least viewers who had a previous link could get to the working site?
Your domain registrar does that for you if you set up a CNAME record.
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Fabulous photos John, must have been an amazing trip, thank you for sharing:)
Sorry to both you and Allen for misinterpreting your feelings about this and thanks for elaborating. What ever the future holds for you and your site i hope it eventually works out and that we'll continue to see you here and benefit from your knowledge.
Caroline
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No worries on your comments about me. Your post inspired me to post how I was actually feeling.
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I feel the same way, but I'm curious about what particular features are the ones you're missing the most, and how you use them. Yeah, there's a long list of bugs and missing features, but one thing that seems to be Smugmug's directional choice is the "de-emphasis" of captions...which I use heavily to narrate my travel adventures. With captions almost useless in Lightbox and missing in the gallery slideshow view, and "below the fold" in Smugmug Gallery style, Smugmug seems to have chosen to leave out those of us who think our captions are nearly as important as the photos. Everything else I could live with or adapt to...
My site (without all the customization jfriend has) follows the same principal as jfriends. I have galleries and my main choice for viewing those galleries is the thumbnail/preview mode. I have lots of galleries and lots of pictures in those galleries (usually 100-300). The legacy mode works well for viewing galleries like that and for my purpose of using those galleries to organize my photos (basically it works like the folder viewing window on my own computer -- I can easily scan through my gallery).
This mode for viewing galleries doesn't work in the new smugmug. The thumbnails do not update properly on resizing the window; the thumbnails do not reorganize when the window is re-sized; space is wasted; information on the page does not appear unless the window is re-sized to the "right" size", which one has to find by experimentation; there's no way to scroll through the individual preview pictures (one has to click the thumbnails). The list is probably longer than that, but that's my current litany.
On the other hand, folks who have smallish number of pictures (say 20+) and want to display them as a collage seem reasonably pleased with the new design. These sites look to me like movie trailers -- they display the photographers best work to draw in the viewer. But, how will they work if the goal is to allow a client to browse a gallery for the pictures they wish to purchase (after a photo shoot, for example)?
I am a long time user and have two smugmug sites and routine recommended it to everyone I know who wanted to share photos with friends (especially those who, like me, were concerned about privacy). I haven't contributed to the community or done the level of cross indexing and customization that jfriend seems to have, but I think it's those of us whose smugmug sites are our picture databases are the ones who are suffering the most.
http://sunflowerstudio.smugmug.com/Everyone (the public photos on my site --
"The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits." (Einstein)
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I can't keep track of all the posts on all the boards here, but is this an official policy or an interpretation of some comments made by Smugmug?
Cheers - N
http://www.nzsnaps.com (talkiet.smugmug.com)
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I'm a bigger advocate than most of getting JS back, but unless there's a written confirmation from Smugmug somewhere then all this is, is a rumour.
Cheers - N
http://www.nzsnaps.com (talkiet.smugmug.com)
from here:
Yep, I've seen that. I added the emphasis above that I read into it. If in fact it goes that way I'd be pretty happy since it will prove that there's no show stopper to rolling JS out to more than just the official customisers
Cheers - N
http://www.nzsnaps.com (talkiet.smugmug.com)
http://fastlinemedia.smugmug.com/?template=Dreamer&skin=light
I agree it would be great if its just a stepping stone onto opening it more widely,but (and this bit is reading between the lines) there's so much emphasis on offering alternatives to letting users have a custom javascript box that I'm not confident of it happening soon.
Now _THAT_ is interesting. I hadn't seen a confirmed example of that before.
Baldy - can you confirm that this won't remain the exclusive domain of the paid for customisers?
Cheers - N
http://www.nzsnaps.com (talkiet.smugmug.com)
Now, this is pushing all the limits. This is the main thing why I am begging for the freaking javascript- so I do not have to expose the names of the private galleries and have people just type the name and be redirected (with javascript). And here it is: a paid customizer firm is have access to this facility and I - a paid customer - do not?! Well, I do.. in my legacy site, under current term. But it means that the new SmugMug is useless to me. It also means that "100% Customizable" slogan on your webpage - is lie and fraud if not to use even stronger words. Hey, it's your business, you rules, I am just another customer. But remember... you business consist of customers.
I understand what you're saying considering I already paid fastline for customization. To pay them again for my same content to "migrate" (for $149 at that)? This feels like getting robbed of my shoes and the robber trying to sell me back the shoes he stole. I got to study the fullscreen implementations that people been posting in the customization more closely.
You're absolutely correct-- for some, it is exactly like getting robbed of your shoes. I should consider myself fortunate in a way, because I haven't paid anyone to customize. But I've paid dearly in my own use of time to do this, and much of that will just go down the drain when I have to migrate. And all of those folks like JFriend, Allen, Denise, DrDavid & others who gave thousands of hours more than I did, & whose fantastic creativity, design, support & help got me to where I am without cost to the rest of us SmugMuggers.... well, I hardly know what to say about that... just that they gave so generously, and the atmosphere surrounding all that they gave just seems so sad now. It feels like a whole niche that SmugMug occupied almost solely is simply empty. It's very sad. But it could be seen as way beyond simply "sad", and I worry that SmugMug isn't fully aware of how many people are only just beginning to figure out what they've lost in their ability to have a unique site.
DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com
I believe, in a reality, there are MUCH less people like you mentioned ( JFriend, Allen, Denise, DrDavid etc.) compared to the rest of the customers. I am wiling to make a prediction that at the moment there are about under 7% of customers who will (and are) suffer a lot due to javascript removal. The rest of the current customers will, in fact, like and love and adore new, dynamic template-driven SmugMug business model. Remember -this model is still VERY MUCH customizable and even better than many other competitors. But nevertheless - it is still a template driven model. it is not what legacy SmugMug is (or was?)
Now, the potential problem for SmugMug is NOT the loss of these about 7% of customers. It is not. it's only 7%. Really not that big of a deal for a business with a competitive template-driven product. The real problem will arise for SmugMug when these 7% (or slightly less:) ) customers will file a class-action lawsuit for false advertisement and demanding removal of the "100% Customizable" slogan on the SM front page. That would hurt.
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=239186
A more interesting challenge to losing javscript customization and losing the customers who use it are the following:
1) Smugmug's customization reputation will change from "pretty much anything you can dream up and have the expertise to build" to "anything that they've enabled through their templates and editing". Those two are not even close to the same thing. Smugmug will enable more people to do simpler things, but enable nobody to do things that they haven't yet contemplated.
2) And, what happens when someone who is happy to start out doing something simple in the current customization engine runs into a showstopper issue that SM hasn't built in support for? Do these customers stay with SM as long as they would have when they could find or pay for work-arounds using JS customizations? I think not. I think customers are more likely to "limit out" on SM when they run into a missing feature that is really important to them. Remember, this only has to happen once to cause the customer to think about other solutions or become a much less fervent supporter.
3) Many of those people who dreamt up their own JS customizations and championed SM because the JS customization put "no limits" on what could be done are big evangelists (I personally got credit for more than 300 customer referrals). SM would lose many of those evangelists so while none of them by themselves important enough to make a business difference to SM, their effect on the larger community may have more of an impact.
4) If you run a business on the SM site, are you happy with a "limited" system where you don't have the freedom to fix many types of problems in your site or implement things that are important to you that Smugmug has not built in support for? What if you now decide it's really important to take direct payment online (via PayPal for example) for some services that you fulfill directly (sitting sessions, booking fees, certain types of framed prints, special post processing, etc...), but the only thing SM lets you do is link to another site. You can't integrate PayPal payment and selection of goods and services into your site.
5) What if you get hired for a super large event and you're getting paid based on how many prints are ordered and you realize that you HAVE to make it really easy for viewers to find specific prints of themselves and the only way you know of to do that is using some javascript to implement a custom search interface?
When your service goes from being "nearly unlimited" in what types of customization problems could be solved to "limited to only what has been contemplated in HTML/CSS", a LOT of things change. This is NOT just about the xx% of users who may leave SM now if they don't support JS customization. This has much more of an impact than that in the long run. It changes the type of service SM is and it removes the ability for customers to solve their own problems (or hire someone to solve them) in the future when they find an important need that SM doesn't support.
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John,
Whether or not there is any financial gain to sue SM - there are people who can and will do:) Financial gain is not the only driving force in this case. But even in terms of financial gain/goal - there is. I cannot go into more details at this point. But SM may be in a big lengthy litigation due to these business practices. They can ban me from this forum at this point if they have guts to do it
What you are saying is also true. In addition to what you are saying - there is a reputation. I, for one, will make sure that facts are known to the community (that is being Internet community); and this is now-days how companies gain and lose their reputation. I would not have been so strict about it if they stop advertising "100% Customizable" slogan. I am sad that SM changed their business model, but my contract with them is still in full force and things are provided to my so far. No one promised me New SM with all the features I have now. So, it's up to me to take it or leave it. It's up to you as well. Many people will leave. But legal aspects of Smugmug's current actions and blogging about their actions - these are the things that will influence the future of SmugMug.
DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com
Our goal is to make it available beyond the customizers, but we have to do it responsibly. Fastline is helping us work out a reasonable approach but there are many things we haven't solved, such whether we can deploy it for users without their own custom domains. We probably can't.
As for abandoning John, we know all the incredible good John has done over the years with JavaScript and that's why we involved him in the new SmugMug more than a year ago. We simply picked Fastline to work out the kinks with JavaScript for reasons such as John was hiking during the crunch weeks leading up to shipping and Fastline was there for the late nights.
Why?
I've been happily using a handful of JS "hacks" on my site and never felt the need to register a custom domain.
Another excuse to limit functionality...
This is good insight but I think about it in a different way, fwiw. This is probably an unimportant detail, but I think the number of customers who are willing & able to use JavaScript in the way we've historically enabled it is closer to 1%, if that high.
But whether 7% or 1%, it's in our interest to enable it if we can because some greater number of customers benefit from the work people like Fastline and jfriend can do. And some of those customers are very high volume in terms of sales.
And whatever the numbers are, a majority of the 93% you mention believe SmugMug is much more customizable than it ever was before because it's accessible to them and they can get layouts they never could achieve before no matter how much JavaScript they deployed.
If you read what has always been said of SmugMug, it's that you could customize deeply but it was hard, beyond the reach of ordinary people. Now what we're hearing is everyone can have a beautiful site. This is a move we had to make.
But making this move is not related to deploying JavaScript. We simply had to improve our security model, as all sites and software have to do.
Here's an ironic note. We couldn't implement auto-redirect ourselves because we wouldn't be allowed JS in the non-custom domain.
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http://en.support.wordpress.com/code/
I'm not sure that page addresses why different rules can be applied for custom domains vs non custom domains.....