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Is the letter you wrote to your users [0] the first time they are hearing this, or is your customer base broadly aware already of the issues you're facing. I a

by jffry 13y ago

Is the letter you wrote to your users [0] the first time they are hearing this, or is your customer base broadly aware already of the issues you're facing. I ask because if this letter is the first time you are telling your customers their free accounts are going away, it could feel very much like you're holding them hostage. The letter only gives 14 days for customers to pony up some money or their pictures get hidden, and 30 days until they're deleted. I know it's not a huge amount of money that you're asking, but it is sudden and can rub customers the wrong way. If you don't have it, it might be useful for you to offer a "download all your images & data" option, as a sign of good faith with your customers. Maybe after 30 days you can archive the photos into cold storage (something cheap, maybe Amazon Glacier), offer a way for users to get their data back, and then permanently delete it further into the future. [0] http://picturepush.com/gopro http://picturepush.com/gopro

tluyben2 13y ago
We spent quite a bit of time implementing the features needed to make this step possible. We wanted to do this before the 1st of july and this is the first time they hear about it, but they have 15 days to actually get everything off and we have a button for that. So they are not hostages; they just cannot upload new images. I will try to word this more clearly.
- japhyr 13y ago
  I have never heard of picturepush, but I will share my reaction. Your letter is straightforward and to the point, and I would appreciate that as a user. My only issue would be the timeframe. Pictures are really important to people, and many people don't know what to do with all of their digital images. 15 and 30 days sounds like plenty of time to you, but that is no time at all to people who haven't been thinking about doing something different with their pictures. That is especially true when you think about the people who won't get this message right away. I second the idea of putting your data in cheap storage for as long as you can. A respectful timeframe, if you can make it happen, seems like about 6 months. Getting some revenue initially might make that more feasible. I wonder if you might offer an incentive for people to pay up quickly? For example, anyone who pays for 1 year of service before the 15 days are up gets a discount of x%? Anyways, I do appreciate the straightforward tone of your letter, and I hope the transition goes well for you and your users.
  - tluyben2 13y ago
    Thanks! We are not a big site, but we have loyal fans. Unfortunately the loyal fans are mostly not of the spontaneous paying kind which landed us in making losses for many months trying to find some other way to sustain the growth. Our marketing efforts were also focused on the EU mainly because that market is already large enough. Thank you both for the long term storage advice; we will probably use Glacier. We'll try to see if we can use a combi between Glacier, S3 and our local caching to keep the images downloadable for a few months. But not for live showing as that + hotlinking is where the cost comes from.
    - ldng 13y ago
      Also, especially in the EU, do not forget it's summer, hence a vacation period so some user could only find out after their vacations that their pictures are gone !
- jffry 13y ago
  Cool. It looks like you updated the letter to mention that your users can download all their data, that's a nice addition

by jffry 13y ago

tluyben2 13y ago

We spent quite a bit of time implementing the features needed to make this step possible. We wanted to do this before the 1st of july and this is the first time they hear about it, but they have 15 days to actually get everything off and we have a button for that. So they are not hostages; they just cannot upload new images. I will try to word this more clearly.

japhyr 13y ago
I have never heard of picturepush, but I will share my reaction. Your letter is straightforward and to the point, and I would appreciate that as a user. My only issue would be the timeframe. Pictures are really important to people, and many people don't know what to do with all of their digital images. 15 and 30 days sounds like plenty of time to you, but that is no time at all to people who haven't been thinking about doing something different with their pictures. That is especially true when you think about the people who won't get this message right away. I second the idea of putting your data in cheap storage for as long as you can. A respectful timeframe, if you can make it happen, seems like about 6 months. Getting some revenue initially might make that more feasible. I wonder if you might offer an incentive for people to pay up quickly? For example, anyone who pays for 1 year of service before the 15 days are up gets a discount of x%? Anyways, I do appreciate the straightforward tone of your letter, and I hope the transition goes well for you and your users.
- tluyben2 13y ago
  Thanks! We are not a big site, but we have loyal fans. Unfortunately the loyal fans are mostly not of the spontaneous paying kind which landed us in making losses for many months trying to find some other way to sustain the growth. Our marketing efforts were also focused on the EU mainly because that market is already large enough. Thank you both for the long term storage advice; we will probably use Glacier. We'll try to see if we can use a combi between Glacier, S3 and our local caching to keep the images downloadable for a few months. But not for live showing as that + hotlinking is where the cost comes from.
  - ldng 13y ago
    Also, especially in the EU, do not forget it's summer, hence a vacation period so some user could only find out after their vacations that their pictures are gone !
jffry 13y ago
Cool. It looks like you updated the letter to mention that your users can download all their data, that's a nice addition