Comments on: Vendor lock-in sucks: Making it easy to leave smugmug

By: SmugBlog: Don MacAskill » Blog Archive » SmugMug & DataPortability.org

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 19:11:40 +0000

[...] has believed since the beginning that your photos and metatdata are yours to do with what you will. We view them as being on loan to us for safekeeping, and we take that [...]

By: GramBorder

GramBorder — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 02:26:38 +0000

I want to all of you know, World is mine, and yoursite good

Bye

By: Andy

Andy — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 13:05:19 +0000

We’ve all heard the horror stories of people trying to cancel AOL. Well, I wanted to test and verify our latest SmugMug release on AOL, so I signed up for a trial account about two weeks ago. Having finished testing (it works fine!), I decided to cancel my free trial. First stop, the AOL website. Search, look, pore through, finally find a way to chat with an online rep. “no, sorry, to cancel you have to call this toll free number…” OK now on the phone. 15 minutes of extremely annoying automated menus, that would NOT accept my screen name or other IDs, I’m then on hold for another 10 minutes waiting for a representative. Five more minutes with that person, then finally another automated answer with a cancellation confirmation number. A half-hour of my time wasted.

Want to cancel your SmugMug account? 30 seconds in your control panel, or, if you prefer, one minute emailing our Support Heroes and it’s done, no questions asked.

AOL? Bleh.

We are not evil.

By: SmugBlog: Don MacAskill » Blog Archive » Flickr far superior to SmugMug?

Sun, 19 Nov 2006 19:53:29 +0000

[...] We don’t make it as easy to get your photos AND metadata back out of SmugMug. This one hit close to home because I’m very passionate about treating your photos as if they’re yours - not ours. We try very hard to not be the photo-sharing equivalent of the roach motel - photos don’t check in and never check out. We make it very easy to get your photos back out of SmugMug (they are you photos, afterall, so you should be able to do whatever you want with them), but we don’t make it nearly as easy to get your metadata, like keywords and captions, back out too. Andy’s right on the money here, and I need to do a better job at this. You can use the API, of course, but we should make it easier than that. [...]

By: SmugBlog: Don MacAskill » Blog Archive » Web 2.0 Summit: Eric Schmidt

SmugBlog: Don MacAskill » Blog Archive » Web 2.0 Summit: Eric Schmidt — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 01:00:11 +0000

[...] As long as people feel like they can easily switch from Google, that keeps Google honest and keeps them focused on their customer. Does that sound like anyone else we know? [...]

By: smugblog: Don MacAskill » Blog Archive » Have an API Key, Zooomr

smugblog: Don MacAskill » Blog Archive » Have an API Key, Zooomr — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 06:15:10 +0000

[...] There’s some hooplah over Flickr not letting Zooomr have an API key. Just to be clear, as if my earlier post on the ‘lock-in’ subject weren’t already clear enough, we’re happy to play nice with our competitors. Grab a SmugMug API Key, make it easy to migrate your photos - we’re thrilled. [...]

By: Bill Sutherland

Bill Sutherland — Sat, 23 Jul 2005 21:18:26 +0000

When I found out about Smugmug, I heard iabout them from my nephew who like myself was looking for an economical way of posting photographs. When I started posting pictures while stationed in Iraq I was getting only minimal traffic per day until the story hit the headlines that some of my brigade´s lower units doing stupid stuff at Abu Ghuraib, and I had pictures posted there. I wish I had a nickle for everyone visiting but I don´t.

In May of 2004, I think I had in one day over 750,000 hits, which made us have to shut it down for that reason and others. Point being, I´ve never met that kind of customer service and dedication anywhere else.
Thanks Smugmug, you and yours made things easier for me.

Bill Sutherland