How come you guys weren't part of one of the media sharing companies that are partnered with Twitter & their new website layout? Were you guys even aware of it?? Flickr was (you can even embed entire photo sets/albums with them).

If you're wondering what it is, it basically lets people view your linked media "inline" right from Twitter's website (instead of having to click through & land on the actual linked website). If you've seen the iPad/iPhone version of Twitter's app, thats basically it (its just they've revamped their website to behave in the same fashion).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIpD7hfffQo

Why aren't you guys doing more socially integrated things like this? Because all the great media sharing companies are there.

We know all about newtwitter.

1. http://twitter.com/DonMacAskill/status/24520730435

2. http://twitter.com/ev/status/24524328695

Stay tuned.

Yawn. Oh, I'm sorry, that was 3 billion people worldwide that could care less about Twitter. :-)

Originally Posted by darryl Yawn. Oh, I'm sorry, that was 3 billion people worldwide that could care less about Twitter. :-)

Well that's the same 3 billion that couldn't care less about SmugMug, so what's your point?

Malte

Originally Posted by darryl Yawn. Oh, I'm sorry, that was 3 billion people worldwide that could care less about Twitter. :-)

Then thats 3 billion who arent being forced to use it. Choice. Whatta concept!

Hee. My point, which was obscured by my crankiness, was that with SmugMug's already limited resources, I'd prefer if they put a higher priority on things like: making Facebook Sharing easier (2 clicks instead of 4. Actual wall posts w/ images instead of text-only "Likes") or offering a "Recent Galleries" widget for the home page.

Twitter integration helps such a small percentage of users, and from a pro's standpoint (although I'm not one), provides far less value from a marketing standpoint.

Twitter is over-hyped and over-valued, and while it's hip and cool for SmugMug's CEO to get Twitter's CEO to commit to working together on this new integration (and it's probably technically easier than the other two issues - low-hanging fruit, I know), it doesn't provide much real value to the majority of SmugMug customers.

Originally Posted by darryl Hee. My point, which was obscured by my crankiness, was that with SmugMug's already limited resources, I'd prefer if they put a higher priority on things like: making Facebook Sharing easier (2 clicks instead of 4. Actual wall posts w/ images instead of text-only "Likes") or offering a "Recent Galleries" widget for the home page. Twitter integration helps such a small percentage of users, and from a pro's standpoint (although I'm not one), provides far less value from a marketing standpoint. Twitter is over-hyped and over-valued, and while it's hip and cool for SmugMug's CEO to get Twitter's CEO to commit to working together on this new integration (and it's probably technically easier than the other two issues - low-hanging fruit, I know), it doesn't provide much real value to the majority of SmugMug customers.

But neither you nor I are in a position to determine what's "valuable" to the majority of SM users, because there are all kinds. But I do know, no matter what you or I think of Twitter, is that its a key way many companies (and just individuals in general) are now communicating & staying up to date with their customers/followers.

I agree that SM needs to try harder with social media integrations. People dont consume media the same way like they did a few years ago, so just putting some "like" & "tweet this" buttons below our photos isnt really doing much of anything (people can just do the same thing with bookmarklets or just pasting links into their Tweets that get automatically shortened anyway). Its HOW you play with these services that matter, not that you CAN do it. I think thats what they don't quite get. There's ways to do this without having ugly buttons looking us in the face & being obtrusive (which IMO those buttons are).

Like I said in my OP, putting these links so they show up inline is a good step towards that. But then, there's really a larger issue here with actually getting that link in the first place. God help you if you're doing it from a mobile phone & trying to share out that way from your non-mobile SM site (which is the only way since the mobile version doesnt let you do any of this, even their links are different/inaccessible). So I think there's bigger fish to fry first, namely just with the general interface & the entire "flow" of things. Cause that flow as of now is really broken IMHO & doesnt need anymore stuff tacked onto it cause it just makes it worse.

Maybe while SM works on those things, they could implement a simple "auto post" feature that you can enable from control panel that would let users connect their Facebook & Twitter accounts to their SM account. That way, whenever you post new content, it auto-posts out to those other services & you dont have to do anything, its all automatic. Inline for Twitter, and a nice thumbnail view for Facebook. That would certainly be a lot easier than having us go through that God awful sharing interface on our SM websites. Im actually kind of amazed that SM doesnt have this yet (when so many other similar media hosting sites have for a while now).

Originally Posted by peestandingup Maybe while SM works on those things, they could implement a simple "auto post"

Patience..... thanks.

Originally Posted by peestandingup maybe while sm works on those things, they could implement a simple "auto post" feature that you can enable from control panel that would let users connect their facebook & twitter accounts to their sm account. That way, whenever you post new content, it auto-posts out to those other services & you dont have to do anything, its all automatic. Inline for twitter, and a nice thumbnail view for facebook. That would certainly be a lot easier than having us go through that god awful sharing interface on our sm websites. Im actually kind of amazed that sm doesnt have this yet (when so many other similar media hosting sites have for a while now).

+1

Originally Posted by peestandingup But neither you nor I are in a position to determine what's "valuable" to the majority of SM users, because there are all kinds. But I do know, no matter what you or I think of Twitter, is that its a key way many companies (and just individuals in general) are now communicating & staying up to date with their customers/followers.

Well, yes. But we can compare userbases: Facebook = 500 million users (as of July). Twitter = 145 million (as of September).

But we both agree that the Like/Tweet buttons are kind of ugly, and that the "Be Social" stuff is pretty awful too. Auto-post would work for some people (a la Flickr, I presume you mean), but not everyone wants every single gallery they upload on SmugMug posted to Facebook/Twitter. So a manual share would still be necessary. Maybe just one that didn't take so many clicks.

And because there seems to be so much anti-social-networking sentiment around here, you'd also have to be sure to make it an opt-in feature for old galleries, and easy to opt-out for new ones.

Originally Posted by darryl But we both agree that the Like/Tweet buttons are kind of ugly, and that the "Be Social" stuff is pretty awful too. Auto-post would work for some people (a la Flickr, I presume you mean), but not everyone wants every single gallery they upload on SmugMug posted to Facebook/Twitter. So a manual share would still be necessary. Maybe just one that didn't take so many clicks.

Thats why you build the option to "auto-post this?" into the uploaders & mobile apps (which is unchecked by default). Same as what Flickr does. It works, is simple, effective & unobtrusive. Thats a non-issue & is easy to implement.

But I do agree that there should also be a manual auto-post option as well (for those times you may wanna post old content, or for some reason the auto-post on upload feature didnt work). Again, Flickr does the same exact thing & it works.

And of course it would be an "opt in" service since you'd have to manually add your Twitter/Facebook accounts & give them access. Like I said, leave the "post this?" option off by default on the uploaders.