Announcing PhotoRank

Baldy · April 4, 2006

Finally!

We've been working on several features for a long time, including a Big One that we hope will be very popular among some of our members.

It's called PhotoRank and the idea is to answer two questions we've been hearing for a very long time:

1. How do I find the most popular photos of Rome?

2. I want my great photos to float to the top somehow and get noticed. How do I do that?

Amazingly, we get a million people a day visiting our browse page and it's terrible. Once these new features are live, hopefully you'll say it rocks.

Stay tuned, we're working on it now and if you're around when it goes live you'll get to be the first to try it. The success of it will depend on how many people use it.

Thanks and sorry for the downtime it will take to bring this up. We wanted to do it in our normal maintenance window but couldn't pull that off this time.

More when we're live!

Here are the release notes explaining more:

http://blogs.smugmug.com/release-notes/

Chris MacAskill

Wireless · April 4, 2006

Site has been brought down for push, stay tuned!

quagmire321 · April 4, 2006

Hope you guys finish this quick. Just sent out emails to 50 potential customers and my site is down. :cry

Please get this done fast... please.

Wireless · April 4, 2006

We're back online, thanks for your patience!

bwg · April 4, 2006

wow, the browse page is WAAAY better than the old version. I had never even been to the old one until I heard it was gettting redone...but now, i see myself going there quite frequently.

I think there should be more popular photos right on the homepage though...

great stuff!

Baldy · April 4, 2006

Okay, seems to be working smoothly far as I can tell. Onethumb will write up a blog post when he gets a chance but for those who wanna know, here's how PhotoRank works:

http://www.smugmug.com/help/search-online-photo-album

The early users seem to be getting a huge kick out of it, even for family sites because the friends and family get high entertainment out of finding their fav photos, ranking them and getting them to show up on home pages -- even the main browse page.

One important thing: we made a decision to have most popular photos displayed by default on home pages that were not customized. We believe most people who own those pages will like the feature and won't notice it for a long time if it's off. The more people who notice the better the statistics we get and the better browse and search become.

But we made it so they can keep them from displaying with a single click.

Anyone who has customized their page should have it off by default. Many of them will want it on but probably not event photographers. But they come back often and think they'll find out more quickly about the feature. They just need to go to the control panel and move it to their home page.

It's taking time for all the photos to process the many comments they have. Hopefully by morning the statistics will be getting better and better.

More later. It's been an amazingly long week! And right now it's almost 4 a.m.

Baldy

Andy · April 4, 2006

http://blogs.smugmug.com/release-notes/

Andy · April 4, 2006

PhotoRank FAQ
*What is this?*

Looks like you found our latest addition to the site. PhotoRank is a feature that allows visitors to your site to rate the photos in your galleries. We hope you like this new feature that will help your visitors find your most popular photos easily. We also hope that you will take a few minutes and rate photos on other SmugMug sites. For more detailed information about PhotoRank, please read over this page from our help section:

www.smugmug.com/help/search-online-photo-album

*Get rid of this!*

No problem, you can easily remove this feature from your SmugMug site by going to your homepage and clicking on the 'Remove PhotoRank' button. Changing this setting will remove your popular photos from being displayed on your home page. If you have not done so already, please read over this page from our help section for more detailed information on this new feature:

www.smugmug.com/help/search-online-photo-album

*Turn it OFF! (Power & Pro)*

Since you customized your site, we kept it off your homepage for you to start with. You can quickly and easily disable PhotoRank on your site by going to Control Panel > Customization > Javascript and add the following code to the box:

displaySmugPopular = false;

At the bottom of your screen, click "update customization" and you will be all set!

For more detailed information on this new feature, please read over this page from our help section:

www.smugmug.com/help/search-online-photo-album

*I want it on my homepage!*

Since you customized your site, we kept it off your homepage for you to start with. You can enable it on your homepage if you wish, by going to your Control Panel and selecting "Display on Homepage" for the popular photos box.

For more detailed information on this new feature, please read over this page from our help section:

www.smugmug.com/help/search-online-photo-album

*I Don't Want My Photos Ranked!*

No worries! You can disable the PhotoRank feature on a per-gallery basis by going to Gallery Tools > Customize Gallery > PhotoRank > No. Setting the option to "No" will disable visitors to your site from ranking your photos in that gallery.

Power and Pro customers can disable this feature on a gallery by gallery basis, as just explained, or for your whole SmugMug site, by adding the following code to their Javascript customization:

displaySmugPopular = false;

For more detailed information on this new feature, please read over this page from our help section:

www.smugmug.com/help/search-online-photo-album

*I want to be popular too! How does this really work?*

A photo's popularity is based on the number of positive ratings as well as the photo's timeliness. Photos from events past will usually be less popular than recent ones. You can increase a photo's rank by moving your mouse over it and clicking the thumbs-up symbol that appears. You can cast one thumbs-up vote per photo. For more information about this new feature, please read over our help section:

www.smugmug.com/help/search-online-photo-album

ankit · April 4, 2006

Very interesting stuff. I've been hoping for something like this for a long time now. Couple of questions:

- Can we undo a thumbs up/down if we realize we clicked on the wrong button?

- Is there a way of viewing the tu/td statistics of a picture? Can I reset them for a picture or a gallery?

- Do pictures from private and password protected galleries appear on the front page if marked with a thumbs up? (a quick test revealed it isnt so, but just wanted to be sure).

- One more request to enable page type selection (critique, journal etc) for standard account users (so that the galleries appear in smugmug.com.browse)

- It would be really nice to pick the pictures on the sugmug front page randomly from the pool of today's popular pictures.

thanks,
ankit

docwalker · April 4, 2006

I think it would be cool if the popular photos were automatically included in your banner. I like the idea of fresh photos popping in.

Anyone got ideas on how to do that? :-)

Andy · April 4, 2006

ankit wrote:

Very interesting stuff. I've been hoping for something like this for a long time now. Couple of questions:

- Can we undo a thumbs up/down if we realize we clicked on the wrong button?

No, sorry - careful

ankit wrote:

- Is there a way of viewing the tu/td statistics of a picture? Can I reset them for a picture or a gallery?

No, sorry. You can see what's popular today, and all-time, on the browse page www.smugmug.com/browse

ankit wrote:

- Do pictures from private and password protected galleries appear on the front page if marked with a thumbs up? (a quick test revealed it isnt so, but just wanted to be sure).

No, they will not show up on the front page.

ankit wrote:

- One more request to enable page type selection (critique, journal etc) for standard account users (so that the galleries appear in smugmug.com/browse)

I'm not sure I understand this one - view type has nothing to do with popular photos -

ankit wrote:

- It would be really nice to pick the pictures on the sugmug front page randomly from the pool of today's popular pictures.

thanks,
ankit

Thanks for the great feedback!

bwg · April 4, 2006

docwalker wrote:

I think it would be cool if the popular photos were automatically included in your banner. I like the idea of fresh photos popping in.

Anyone got ideas on how to do that? :-)

like this?

bigwebguy.smugmug.com

DodgeV83 · April 4, 2006

I have a Pro site. It seems the only way I can get the thumbs to appear is by setting Appearance to Smugmug instead of Custom...is this the intended behavior?

frelow.smugmug.com

Andy · April 4, 2006

bigwebguy wrote:

like this?

bigwebguy.smugmug.com

Gorgeous, Lee - love it!

Andy · April 4, 2006

DodgeV83 wrote:

I have a Pro site. It seems the only way I can get the thumbs to appear is by setting Appearance to Smugmug instead of Custom...is this the intended behavior?

frelow.smugmug.com

Do you have photorank turned off in you javascript for your site?

rutt · April 4, 2006

Well, this is a really nice feature! Good going, guys.

Now, of course, I really want to be able to see the underlying stats, at least for my own shots. Did they get one vote? No votes? Are you just breaking ties among photos with no votes? How much more popular would my most popular shot have to be to compete with Gus' bridge? Or even make it onto the most popular list? Wouldn't everyone like to know these things? Why not shot them to the owner of the site?

Scala · April 4, 2006

Thanks for a nice new feature!

Now, how about being able to customize the ugly red and green thumbs?

Andy · April 4, 2006

rutt wrote:

Well, this is a really nice feature! Good going, guys.

Now, of course, I really want to be able to see the underlying stats, at least for my own shots. Did they get one vote? No votes? Are you just breaking ties among photos with no votes? How much more popular would my most popular shot have to be to compete with Gus' bridge? Or even make it onto the most popular list? Wouldn't everyone like to know these things? Why not shot them to the owner of the site?

Hi John

Thanks for the kind words!

A photo's popularity is based on the number of positive ratings as well as the photo's timeliness. Photos from events past will usually be less popular than recent ones. You can increase a photo's rank by moving your mouse over it and clicking the thumbs-up symbol that appears. You can cast one thumbs-up vote per photo. For more information about this new feature, please read over our help section:

docwalker · April 4, 2006

bigwebguy wrote:

like this?

bigwebguy.smugmug.com

Kinda... I voted on a couple of your photos but none have popped up at the top. Is this a demo or functional. I looked at the HTML and I can see where the pictures are called but I cannot tell if it was generated by the javascript and calling the photos from the popular photos.
If this is what you are doing, I would be interested in seeing how it is done.

I want to create one static image on the left to use as my logo and then let the other 3 or so rotate.

DodgeV83 · April 4, 2006

Andy wrote:

Do you have photorank turned off in you javascript for your site?

No. I have not touched my javascript or anything in my customization. I tried turning it off then on for the specific gallery, still didn't work. I even checked my javascript to see if you guys put it in there by default, nope. Then I thought maybe it'd only work if its enabled on the homepage, still wouldn't let me do it.

jerryr · April 4, 2006

Great Idea on the photo ranking...

Ok, can you get the 'most popular photos' to appear somewhere else
on your site instead of the homepage ????

- keep up the good work !

jerry
(and start voting - yeah !!!

www.jrphotos.smugmug.com

bwg · April 4, 2006

docwalker wrote:

Kinda... I voted on a couple of your photos but none have popped up at the top. Is this a demo or functional. I looked at the HTML and I can see where the pictures are called but I cannot tell if it was generated by the javascript and calling the photos from the popular photos.
If this is what you are doing, I would be interested in seeing how it is done.

I want to create one static image on the left to use as my logo and then let the other 3 or so rotate.

ok, i see what you want. it's different than what i have and will require javascript.

my solution requires only css...i simply move the popularPhoto box up to the top of the screen

Mike Lane · April 4, 2006

Really makes a person want to get the word out about his galleries! Excellent feature, excellently implemented. Already I've got a list of my most popular photos... Here's the fun thing, they're not the pictures that I thought were the most popular ones

This rules man!

rutt · April 4, 2006

Andy wrote:

Hi John

Thanks for the kind words!

A photo's popularity is based on the number of positive ratings as well as the photo's timeliness. Photos from events past will usually be less popular than recent ones. You can increase a photo's rank by moving your mouse over it and clicking the thumbs-up symbol that appears. You can cast one thumbs-up vote per photo. For more information about this new feature, please read over our help section:

Thanks, Andy. I think I'd figured all that out already. But

I'm confused about how it actually works. Only yesterday I added statcounter to my site. It's not showing page visits which could explain the rankings of my photos. However my top shots all do have comments and some have five stars (based on just a few comments.) Did you guys break ties with comments and stars just to get things going?
It would still be great to be able to see the underlying statistics, even it it was just the totals. I know that's not how it works now. Please take it as a feature request. Thanks.

docwalker · April 4, 2006

bigwebguy,

I might be able to work with the CSS idea. What did you use?

The javascript would take some time and it is not something that I can do.

Andy · April 4, 2006

docwalker wrote:

Kinda... I voted on a couple of your photos but none have popped up at the top. Is this a demo or functional. I looked at the HTML and I can see where the pictures are called but I cannot tell if it was generated by the javascript and calling the photos from the popular photos.
If this is what you are doing, I would be interested in seeing how it is done.

I want to create one static image on the left to use as my logo and then let the other 3 or so rotate.

It's fully functional. On BWG's site, he's only showing 6 at the top. So, if you voted, and it didn't supplant number 6, it won't change.

Standard users can determine how many rows of 6 photos appear on their homepage, by adjusting the number of photos to display in the popular photos box.

Power and pro users can style to their heart's content - BWG made 6. How many will you make

Andy · April 4, 2006

rutt wrote:

Thanks, Andy. I think I'd figured all that out already. But
I'm confused about how it actually works. Only yesterday I added statcounter to my site. It's not showing page visits which could explain the rankings of my photos. However my top shots all do have comments and some have five stars (based on just a few comments.) Did you guys break ties with comments and stars just to get things going?

It would still be great to be able to see the underlying statistics, even it it was just the totals. I know that's not how it works now. Please take it as a feature request. Thanks.

Hi John,

A photo's popularity is based on the number of positive ratings as well as the photo's timeliness. Photos from events past will usually be less popular than recent ones. You can increase a photo's rank by moving your mouse over it and clicking the thumbs-up symbol that appears. You can cast one thumbs-up vote per photo.

flyingdutchie · April 4, 2006

First impression:
The browse-page is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much better than it was before. It is a 10000% improvement.

Many thumbs up!

rutt · April 4, 2006

OK, now I actually read the help section. It seems that right now most pictures won't actually have many (or any) votes via the thumbs feature. So I'm pretty sure that comments and starts are driving much of what we see today. So here is a very specific question. Do comments without stars impact a picture's ranking?

Is this formula a secret? If so, I can understand and I'll stop asking. Just say so. But if not, I'd like to know just a little more.

Andy · April 4, 2006

flyingdutchie wrote:

The browse-page is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much better than it was before. It is a 10000% improvement.

Many thumbs up!

And, Dutchie - look at your page - no b0rky no breaky!

flyingdutchie · April 4, 2006

rutt wrote:

OK, now I actually read the help section. It seems that right now most pictures won't actually have many (or any) votes via the thumbs feature. So I'm pretty sure that comments and starts are driving much of what we see today. So here is a very specific question. Do comments without stars impact a picture's ranking?

Is this formula a secret? If so, I can understand and I'll stop asking. Just say so. But if not, I'd like to know just a little more.

I think that the download stats of the pic are (currently) a major part of its popularity value. I have one pic that contains only a few comments (most of them without rating), but is on today's most popular list. However, the download stats of this pic is (and has been) quite large (sometimes this one pic took up a quarter of my monthly bandwidth): http://www.smugmug.com/popular/today/1/49089484

Announcing PhotoRank

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