SmugMug Acquires flicka.

[Mary Anne]

https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/20/smugmug-acquires-flickr

[Tannin]

Perhaps someone would be kind enough to refresh my memory. I am vaguely aware of those two as file hosting sites but don't remember anything about them, good or bad. I know that some picture-hosting sites are well-regarded and some are terrible: which category do these two fall into?

(Asking purely out of idle curiosity; I've never used a picture-sharing site as I've had my own hosting for more than 20 years.)

[Mary Anne]

Perhaps someone would be kind enough to refresh my memory. I am vaguely aware of those two as file hosting sites but don't remember anything about them, good or bad. I know that some picture-hosting sites are well-regarded and some are terrible: which category do these two fall into?

(Asking purely out of idle curiosity; I've never used a picture-sharing site as I've had my own hosting for more than 20 years.)

I have accounts with both, one you pay for and get help with in minutes of asking for support that SmugMug

Then there is the freebie flicka, they used to have a payed for Account also not sure if it's still available.
flicka gets the thumbs down from me, I have hundreds of smaller sized photos in my first Account opened in 2006 they have locked me out of it.
Its still there though.

[ameerat42]

Ta for this sad news, M A.

[Bear Dale]

This reads pretty positive, I hope it is!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16888876

[Mary Anne]

I have now received a email from flickr That flickr has agreed to be acquired by SmugMug and about your choice of what you want to do.

[Glenda]

That's interesting news. One day all businesses will be owned by just a few large conglomerates - actually that's probably almost the case already.

I have a Flickr account but really don't post a huge amount on them nowadays. I did look at Smug Mug just a couple of months ago as a photographer friend of my son uses it. I haven't received an email from Flickr yet.

[JoPho]

I am a bit surprised by how underwhelmed everyone is about this 'sale'.

Now Flickr has been bought out, the options are to delete your Flickr account or have it all shifted to SmugMug.
SmugMug is not a free service. Basic is $5 a month, whereas Flickr was free. It does give premium service according to reviews.

I have over a thousand photos on Flickr that I will have to download or lose all my photos. (My storage device crashed and they are all that's left from 2014 - 1017). So I am very grateful for Flickr for that reason alone.

My Flickr account is a record of the images I have shared in forums like this one. One image a week for most weeks. (most of them were taken for the weekly challenges).
There will be a great voids left in Ausphotography when people don't pay there SmugMug accounts.

Anyway I would like to hear what services people prefer?
https://beebom.com/flickr-alternatives/

[Bear Dale]

There's a lot of FUD being sprouted all over internet with the Flickr buyout by Smugmug, I think its great news!
Flickr accounts will stay the same for the foreseeable future, nothing bad is going to happen to Flickr by the new owners. They didn't buy it to trash it.

Yahoo has let it languish for years, its exciting that Smugmug has bought it, I couldn't think of a better company to take it over!

[Mary Anne]

I am a bit surprised by how underwhelmed everyone is about this 'sale'.

Now Flickr has been bought out, the options are to delete your Flickr account or have it all shifted to SmugMug.
SmugMug is not a free service. Basic is $5 a month, whereas Flickr was free. It does give premium service according to reviews.

I have over a thousand photos on Flickr that I will have to download or lose all my photos. (My storage device crashed and they are all that's left from 2014 - 1017). So I am very grateful for Flickr for that reason alone.

My Flickr account is a record of the images I have shared in forums like this one. One image a week for most weeks. (most of them were taken for the weekly challenges).
There will be a great voids left in Ausphotography when people don't pay there SmugMug accounts.

Anyway I would like to hear what services people prefer?
https://beebom.com/flickr-alternatives/


I reckon you have read that wrong Jo.

Please read ALL the FAQ on this link https://www.smugmug.com/together/faq

[JoPho]

MaryAnne,
Thank you for that useful link.
I looked up SmugMug's pricing and it's not free, so I am surprised that a service that has taken over Flickr, charges all its customers but will not charge Flickr users???
If I were a Smug Mug user I'd be wondering why FLickr folks get the service for free.

The FAQ quote
Will Flickr continue to offer a free version? Will Flickr’s price change?
Absolutely. Flickr’s free accounts are foundational to its community of influential and engaged photographers. We are not making any changes to Flickr plans or rates at this time. We’ll let Flickr Pro customers know if that changes.

[Mary Anne]

I have a SmugMug Account and don't mind paying for something better and its also Unlimited plus the more expensive plans you can sell your images.

flickr free accounts only give you 1TB and that OK for some..

I also have a free flicka account which I find useful at times like for the weekly challenge and when showing Members screen shots of how to do things.

[Bear Dale]

MaryAnne,
Thank you for that useful link.
I looked up SmugMug's pricing and it's not free, so I am surprised that a service that has taken over Flickr, charges all its customers but will not charge Flickr users???
If I were a Smug Mug user I'd be wondering why FLickr folks get the service for free.

The FAQ quote
Will Flickr continue to offer a free version? Will Flickr’s price change?
Absolutely. Flickr’s free accounts are foundational to its community of influential and engaged photographers. We are not making any changes to Flickr plans or rates at this time. We’ll let Flickr Pro customers know if that changes.






Honestly, what we pay for camera bodies and lenses. What does $40 or whatever dollars a year really matter to host a 1TB of photos in the clouds?

The Smugmug team are great people, I had an account for 6 years. I've been with Flickr for nearly 10 and had a Pro account for 4. Honestly, as I said above I am over the moon that a 'photography' company of the magnitude of Smugmug has bought it off Yahoo who just didn't have any ideas in the whole time they owned Flickr to improve it.

[JoPho]

Glad to read you are happy.
I am going to check out Google images... lower quality but all I am interested in is sharing a 1200 x whatever image once a week.

[Bear Dale]

Here's a good read of Smugmugs FAQ -

https://www.smugmug.com/together/faq

[ameerat42]

I read about the first 10 "HAQs" and found that they said "nothing much",
and guessed the rest had "NTA".

[ameerat42]

Spin doctors with gyrating hips:rolleyes::rolleyes:

[Nick Cliff]

I have been denied access to my original Flickr page today. Shame as there was a lot of albums re-searching lenses over the years so I will not be able to recover that information now though I notice my photos on Ausphotography forum still show from this page. Fortunately I had a second page set up for such an eventuality as I guess with complex systems things can and will go wrong.
If you have photos you want to save or access I would think about recovering them now on Flickr I had thought I had to the 25th of May.

[Mary Anne]

I have been denied access to my original Flickr page today. Shame as there was a lot of albums re-searching lenses over the years so I will not be able to recover that information now though I notice my photos on Ausphotography forum still show from this page. Fortunately I had a second page set up for such an eventuality as I guess with complex systems things can and will go wrong.
If you have photos you want to save or access I would think about recovering them now on Flickr I had thought I had to the 25th of May.

Sorry to read that Nick, have you tried clicking on one of your photos here on AP and on the Page Not Found where it states if you think there is a problem with flickr let us know, click on that link and let them know.

[Bear Dale]

I have been denied access to my original Flickr page today. Shame as there was a lot of albums re-searching lenses over the years so I will not be able to recover that information now though I notice my photos on Ausphotography forum still show from this page. Fortunately I had a second page set up for such an eventuality as I guess with complex systems things can and will go wrong.
If you have photos you want to save or access I would think about recovering them now on Flickr I had thought I had to the 25th of May.

You haven't lost them, they are just having some server trouble today.

[Mary Anne]

You haven't lost them, they are just having some server trouble today.

Strange that as I have had no problems with my flickr account.

[Bear Dale]

Strange that as I have had no problems with my flickr account.



Its still going on, 1000's of people have temporarily 'lost' their photos and the help pages are melting -

https://www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/72157696686588785/

[Mary Anne]

Its still going on, 1000's of people have temporarily 'lost' their photos and the help pages are melting -

https://www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/72157696686588785/

Guess I am one of the Lucky Ones *For a Change* :2smile:

[Nick Cliff]

Mary Anne I have been able to access my Flickr page today and it is almost back to normal I guess with the handover a few problems are bound to surface.

Having two Flickr pages the aim is to have the high quality Flickr page in Smug Mug eventually and one general quality page for Flickr groups in Flickr re sharing the photos bit.



cheers Nick

- - - Updated - - -

Thanks for the confirmation Bear, not going mad just yet:)
May be of interest re Flickr
www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/72157668144275058/ (https://www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/72157668144275058/)



cheers Nick

[Mary Anne]

Mary Anne I have been able to access my Flickr page today and it is almost back to normal I guess with the handover a few problems are bound to surface.

Having two Flickr pages the aim is to have the high quality Flickr page in Smug Mug eventually and one general quality page for Flickr groups in Flickr re sharing the photos bit.



cheers Nick



Thanks for getting back to me Nick, good to know you now have access to your flicka account.

[Mark L]

Having two Flickr pages the aim is to have the high quality Flickr page in Smug Mug eventually and one general quality page for Flickr groups in Flickr re sharing the photos bit.

So why the high quality Flickr page in Smug Mug and not Flickr, mmm I'm getting confused ??

[Geoff79]

Glad to read you are happy.
I am going to check out Google images... lower quality but all I am interested in is sharing a 1200 x whatever image once a week.

Hey Jo, is the weekly image you want to share just here, or elsewhere on the web? I just ask because I barely use any of these flikr, smug or google photos at all. I think I have/had a flikr account but as it was linked to my wife’s email address I never used it. And I do have a google one, purely to share photos of my kids with my family. But for posting here, I’ve only ever just done the direct upload to the site, which seems to work well. If that’s what you mean, you may not need an online gallery thing?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[JoPho]

Hey Jo, is the weekly image you want to share just here, or elsewhere on the web? I just ask because I barely use any of these flikr, smug or google photos at all. I think I have/had a flikr account but as it was linked to my wife’s email address I never used it. And I do have a google one, purely to share photos of my kids with my family. But for posting here, I’ve only ever just done the direct upload to the site, which seems to work well. If that’s what you mean, you may not need an online gallery thing?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Hi Geoff,
I've only ever housed images on Flickr to share here (and sometimes photobucket) as the quality is high and it saves the forum the bandwidth for having to store photos.
I had a crack at using the google one.. but can't figure out how to link the images here. Must admit got a bit distracted by some other things on the way to finding a free flickr alternative...

- - - Updated - - -

QUOTE=Geoff79;1452878]Hey Jo, is the weekly image you want to share just here, or elsewhere on the web? I just ask because I barely use any of these flikr, smug or google photos at all. I think I have/had a flikr account but as it was linked to my wife’s email address I never used it. And I do have a google one, purely to share photos of my kids with my family. But for posting here, I’ve only ever just done the direct upload to the site, which seems to work well. If that’s what you mean, you may not need an online gallery thing?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk[/QUOTE]
Hi Geoff,
I've only ever housed images on Flickr to share here (and sometimes photobucket) as the quality is high and it saves the forum the bandwidth for having to store photos.
I had a crack at using the google one.. but can't figure out how to link the images here. Must admit got a bit distracted by some other things on the way to finding a free flickr alternative...

[landyvlad]

I think the one thing we can be confident in, is the fact that they'll have learned a lot from the photoshop debacle.

As far as flickr - I suspect they'll 'grandfather' it with accounts staying as is so hopefully not breaking links to forums - which is what pusbucket screwed up.

I've no direct experience but have only heard good things about smugmug... so far.


I have my own piwigo gallery hosted on server space I pay for (also used for my other websites and a forum I run) so I have more control - but that's certainly not they best solution for everyone.

[landyvlad]

This is my blog post where I explain what I did as far as self-hosting is concerned.
http://landyvlad.net/wp/photobucket-can-kiss-my-arse/

But like I said, it's not for everyone. SmugMug's pricing appears very good from what I can tell.

The fact is that all these 'FREE' hosting sites are being paid for by someone. Businesses can't, and don't, run such sites as non-profits. With no income they would in fact be loss-making.

So the money can be recouped by
1. Users paying a fee periodically and/or
2. Advertising revenue. (and we all so how horrible and near-unusable photobucket became with all those ads! )


Like everything it's a matter of priorities.

I can't handle too many monthly 'subscriptions' which is why. for example, I use a stand-alone version of photoshop elements, rather than subscribing to Adobe online.

[Nick Cliff]

Mark I am thinking that it would be wise to have my best photos stored on Smug Mug and or for sale in the future.
Many photos on my larger main page on Flickr are experimental with legacy glass that interest me however they are not always going to appeal to a broader audience so there is a need to sort out the more appealing photos for a Smug Mug page.


cheers Nick

[Jorge Arguello]

Well, it looks that the change will not affect to the majority. I don't have any issues so far, and I hope it remains without them.

[cupic]

So long as the subscription doesn't go through the roof

cheers