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Death and Smugmug
LateSky
Registered Users Posts: 109 Major grins
Hello,
Many of the dgrinners that I've become associated with through this forum seem very passionate about their photographs and their Smugmug websites, especially if they're like me and have spent countless hours trying to get it all "just so." I would even go so far as to consider my Smugmug site as part of my long-term legacy after I'm dead, given what I believe is the site's meaningful content and undoubted persistence of the Internet.
In this regard, I contacted Smugmug to inquire if they have a mortality option whereby an existing customer could set aside in their will, X-amount of dollars to be paid to Smugmug on the event of their death in lieu of the regular annual renewal fee to guarantee that their Smugmug site remain active on the Internet for as long as the framework Smugmug technology remains viable and publicly available.
A good business practice even, I thought, since here is a potential revenue stream that only few companies with such a strong customer-loyalty base as Smugmug would be able to cultivate. Domain-name renewal fees are a likewise concern, so perhaps Smugmug could collaborate with sibling Smugmugdomains.com to offer a durable website/domain-name renewal package for their amalgamated patrons.
The good fellow from help@smugmug.com who responded to my request stated that no, Smugmug did not have a mortality option as such, and suggested that in my will I could ask someone to use their credit card each year to pay the renewal fee on my behalf.
I replied that this was exactly the scenario that I wished to avoid and to please forward my inquiry to the "powers-that-be" at Smugmug for their consideration.
It's been several days now and have not heard back from Smugmug on the matter, so I've decided to voice my thoughts on this forum and to see if there are others in the dgrin-o-sphere with similar concerns.
So please, if you are a Smugmug customer and have an opinion on this matter, take a moment to express it here. Perhaps if enough favorable sentiment is expressed, Smugmug would be encouraged to adopt an official (ie, written) mortality policy for their loyal and concerned customers.
Thanks.
Many of the dgrinners that I've become associated with through this forum seem very passionate about their photographs and their Smugmug websites, especially if they're like me and have spent countless hours trying to get it all "just so." I would even go so far as to consider my Smugmug site as part of my long-term legacy after I'm dead, given what I believe is the site's meaningful content and undoubted persistence of the Internet.
In this regard, I contacted Smugmug to inquire if they have a mortality option whereby an existing customer could set aside in their will, X-amount of dollars to be paid to Smugmug on the event of their death in lieu of the regular annual renewal fee to guarantee that their Smugmug site remain active on the Internet for as long as the framework Smugmug technology remains viable and publicly available.
A good business practice even, I thought, since here is a potential revenue stream that only few companies with such a strong customer-loyalty base as Smugmug would be able to cultivate. Domain-name renewal fees are a likewise concern, so perhaps Smugmug could collaborate with sibling Smugmugdomains.com to offer a durable website/domain-name renewal package for their amalgamated patrons.
The good fellow from help@smugmug.com who responded to my request stated that no, Smugmug did not have a mortality option as such, and suggested that in my will I could ask someone to use their credit card each year to pay the renewal fee on my behalf.
I replied that this was exactly the scenario that I wished to avoid and to please forward my inquiry to the "powers-that-be" at Smugmug for their consideration.
It's been several days now and have not heard back from Smugmug on the matter, so I've decided to voice my thoughts on this forum and to see if there are others in the dgrin-o-sphere with similar concerns.
So please, if you are a Smugmug customer and have an opinion on this matter, take a moment to express it here. Perhaps if enough favorable sentiment is expressed, Smugmug would be encouraged to adopt an official (ie, written) mortality policy for their loyal and concerned customers.
Thanks.
0
Comments
We'd love to have this feature, and I do expect we will one day.
Thanks!
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My @latesky.com email address is hosted by GoDaddy; so you never know, maybe it wound up on one of their support servers in India or the Philippines or something (re: http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=143906)
-- sc
Steve
www.LateSky.com
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I'm just kidding (sort of) about the GoDaddy thing. They're a pretty solid company all-and-all from what I see...
-- sc
Steve
www.LateSky.com
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Say I died tomorrow, leaving my relatives with nothing more than a smugmug website address, no password, no related email address...... would they be able (at a minimum) to download all the content off the site?
What if I've just signed up for another year's Pro account, have customers placing orders and having them being processed, income coming in....
I'm guessing it must have come up in the years you've been trading - is there a procedure in place? Anything I should or could do to make it easier?
Thanks.
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good enough for me