5 ms·

Anyone used SmugMug (http://www.smugmug.com/ http://www.smugmug.com/) - is it any good?

by dflock 16y ago

patrickdowell 16y ago
I have a friend who's been using SmugMug for a while. He likes it better than Flickr and seems to have had a very positive experience with the service overall. I was considering using it myself.
potatolicious 16y ago
SmugMug lacks the social angle is that is important to some photographers (including myself). Self-promotion via Flickr is incredibly easy - their metrics on each of your uploads is incredibly useful also (for gauging general public interest in your work). Flickr is less about your personal gallery - it's more about a universe of images, made easily discoverable, and easily shareable and discussable. SmugMug is definitely more of a "your hosted gallery" service, which is useful as a portfolio for photographers (and a sales point, via their tightly integrated print sales), but is really not comparable to Flickr as a social and promotional tool. I really enjoy exploring and looking at the work of superior photographers and learning from that - losing Flickr would be a huge blow to the photography community. SmugMug is not nearly so discoverable.
- georgieporgie 16y ago
  SmugMug's social aspects are largely external. Due to its very high adoption on sites like AdvRider, and its rudimentary community support (e.g. http://www.smugmug.com/community/ADVrider/popular/all http://www.smugmug.com/community/ADVrider/popular/all), it seems to be more than a typical gallery site. IMO Flickr will lose because they focused too much on the social angle. Meanwhile, it's a mediocre photo-management site, with lousy uploader apps, and people are just posting directly to Facebook.
  - potatolicious 16y ago
    "Lose" is relative I suppose - Flickr has a hard lock on much of the photographic community. FB Photos is still limited to vacation photos, wild nights out, etc. There's not a great deal of hard photography going on there - a photographer's social graph is inevitably a lot of non-photogs, and Flickr's ability to discover and participate across vast social graphs is powerful for photographers. FB's limitation of requiring social graph adjacency for most levels of participation is a liability for this use case. So sure, SmugMug and FB are destroying Flickr as a tool for Joe Average's image uploads, but as a photographic community I honestly don't think it's doing so badly. From a monetization standpoint it's not a bad bet - you would have a hard time selling a Flickr Pro account to the average FB user. But $20/yr. as a ticket price for a ludicrous number of amateur to professional photographers? No brainer.
    - georgieporgie 16y ago
      You're absolutely right about the hardcore photographer crowd. But as Facebook's image support improves, and Flickr remains static, I think you'll even see that shift. Even if Facebook's own image support doesn't improve to the level of Flickr Pro, don't you suppose that a service like SmugMug, plus social integration via Facebook (or similar), would match or beat Flickr for both quality of hosting and social connectivity? By the way, I'm a Flickr Pro member. I got tired of managing Gallery 2, but I'm pretty disappointed by the lousy uploader tool, the restrictive 'photo stream' concept, etc.
sp332 16y ago
They're profitable and have no interest in selling. So - they better be good :) http://www.smugmug.com/about/ http://www.smugmug.com/about/

Anyone used SmugMug (http://www.smugmug.com/ http://www.smugmug.com/) - is it any good?

by dflock 16y ago

Anyone used SmugMug (http://www.smugmug.com/ http://www.smugmug.com/) - is it any good?

I have a friend who's been using SmugMug for a while. He likes it better than Flickr and seems to have had a very positive experience with the service overall. I was considering using it myself.

potatolicious 16y ago

SmugMug lacks the social angle is that is important to some photographers (including myself). Self-promotion via Flickr is incredibly easy - their metrics on each of your uploads is incredibly useful also (for gauging general public interest in your work). Flickr is less about your personal gallery - it's more about a universe of images, made easily discoverable, and easily shareable and discussable. SmugMug is definitely more of a "your hosted gallery" service, which is useful as a portfolio for photographers (and a sales point, via their tightly integrated print sales), but is really not comparable to Flickr as a social and promotional tool. I really enjoy exploring and looking at the work of superior photographers and learning from that - losing Flickr would be a huge blow to the photography community. SmugMug is not nearly so discoverable.

georgieporgie 16y ago
SmugMug's social aspects are largely external. Due to its very high adoption on sites like AdvRider, and its rudimentary community support (e.g. http://www.smugmug.com/community/ADVrider/popular/all http://www.smugmug.com/community/ADVrider/popular/all), it seems to be more than a typical gallery site. IMO Flickr will lose because they focused too much on the social angle. Meanwhile, it's a mediocre photo-management site, with lousy uploader apps, and people are just posting directly to Facebook.
- potatolicious 16y ago
  "Lose" is relative I suppose - Flickr has a hard lock on much of the photographic community. FB Photos is still limited to vacation photos, wild nights out, etc. There's not a great deal of hard photography going on there - a photographer's social graph is inevitably a lot of non-photogs, and Flickr's ability to discover and participate across vast social graphs is powerful for photographers. FB's limitation of requiring social graph adjacency for most levels of participation is a liability for this use case. So sure, SmugMug and FB are destroying Flickr as a tool for Joe Average's image uploads, but as a photographic community I honestly don't think it's doing so badly. From a monetization standpoint it's not a bad bet - you would have a hard time selling a Flickr Pro account to the average FB user. But $20/yr. as a ticket price for a ludicrous number of amateur to professional photographers? No brainer.
  - georgieporgie 16y ago
    You're absolutely right about the hardcore photographer crowd. But as Facebook's image support improves, and Flickr remains static, I think you'll even see that shift. Even if Facebook's own image support doesn't improve to the level of Flickr Pro, don't you suppose that a service like SmugMug, plus social integration via Facebook (or similar), would match or beat Flickr for both quality of hosting and social connectivity? By the way, I'm a Flickr Pro member. I got tired of managing Gallery 2, but I'm pretty disappointed by the lousy uploader tool, the restrictive 'photo stream' concept, etc.

sp332 16y ago

They're profitable and have no interest in selling. So - they better be good :) http://www.smugmug.com/about/ http://www.smugmug.com/about/