Smugmug Acquires Flickr • Hacker News Board

Re: Smugmug Acquires Flickr

#221

Post by wccrawford » Sun, Apr 22, 2018, 12:09 PM UTC

mygo wrote: post #216

wccrawford wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit has a tendency to gain so much momentum that companies can't ignore people that are having problems like this. In that case, you often see a rep from the company log in and start triageing the situation. Don here is clearly much more on top of the situation than that, but my point is that any big social site ends up seeing this with enough outrage.

I don’t think that facebook facilitates this well. Since you have to go out of your way to find a discussion there. And there is no “right now” feeling if you do find a relevant discussion. But here I just visited the home page of what I consider a general newsfeed and we’re talking to their new owners.

If you join a Facebook group about a particular thing, you'll find plenty of discussion about that thing.

And when something is big enough news, it makes it to the top-10 news thing on the right-hand side of Facebook.

Re: Smugmug Acquires Flickr

#222

Post by dexterdog » Sun, Apr 22, 2018, 2:41 PM UTC

fencepost wrote: post #203

dexterdog wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this day and age using your own domain adds no cost aside from the domain itself.

I suspect that using your own domain for large volumes of photos still adds significant indirect time and energy cost of fiddling around with separate front end and mass storage backend. A bunch of time spent tweaking to keep full images and smaller versions organized and quick while not paying a premium for storage is a cost, and those hours have value.

I didn't mean hosting them yourself (which there are plenty of packages for) I mean using your own domain via CNAME on a service like smugmug.

Re: Smugmug Acquires Flickr

#223

Post by dloprinzi » Sun, Apr 22, 2018, 4:01 PM UTC

Hi Don - I'm a long time Flickr user & fan - a "power user" as we're sometimes called. I also bought a SmugMug Business account about 6 months ago (switched from Zenfolio), and I must say - I love your service. Your customer service team is top tier!

I understand you're going to listen to your customers for a while to learn what they want. So where will you be doing this? Is there a forum you have lined up where we can discuss? I'd love to join in the conversation!

By the way, you'd be a welcome voice in the Flickr Help Forum if you're so inclined :-) https://www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/72157692729336502/

Thanks for answering our questions - this is going to be really great - very happy to be along for the ride!

-Darren

Re: Smugmug Acquires Flickr

#224

Post by dloprinzi » Sun, Apr 22, 2018, 6:02 PM UTC

scottybowl wrote: post #193

As stupid as it sounds, I stopped using Flickr because I was forced to use a Yahoo account. I just wanted to login, not have another useless email account.

Actually I don't think you're alone. Seems to have been a nagging issue for quite some tome, but the good news is the Yahoo login mechanism will soon be gone.

Re: Smugmug Acquires Flickr

#225

Post by ntompson » Sun, Apr 22, 2018, 10:24 PM UTC

Great to see that Flickr is finally getting some love. I’ve hung in there until now with my pro account - but only just... I’d love to see Explore fixed. It’s a great concept for enthusiastic amateurs to get noticed, but these days the bots fill it with garbage by some inscrutable algorithm that makes the whole thing pointless. Would love to see it fixed.

Re: Smugmug Acquires Flickr

#226

Post by thefifthsetpin » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 3:16 AM UTC

That page is crazy. Are they trying to emulate fixed positioning with js updates of some other positioning?

Re: Smugmug Acquires Flickr

#227

Post by promeus » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 6:09 AM UTC

1.Force users out of Yahoo mail accounts. Its a hellish experience. 2.Dont touch anything related to user groups. 3.Optimize Flickr design with slow accurate steps. 4.Dont unify design of two services quick. Test hard before trying to mix features. 5.If you this right, you will be the only place for professionals and amateurs. The potential is huge, but the risks are there and in the process if you make really wrong decision.... 6.Focus of this service must be professional only. And don't touch free service, because flickr is actually free first pay for more features second. Wish you luck.

Re: Smugmug Acquires Flickr

#228

Post by wowtip » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 1:41 PM UTC

foobaw wrote: post #106

ayushgta wrote: post #103

Sometime in early 2000s, I had a meeting with Chris. It was early days for them and they were running out of their home. This was the time when Flickr was a darling of the valley (and wasn't acquired by Yahoo yet). Chris and I were talking, sitting around a dining table with a bench and some chairs. I remember there was a lot of light and windows all around. Don (his son) was going in and out of the house taking deli…

It's good to hear how much audacity it takes to succeed. I love stories where hard work really pays off. I'm a relatively late adopter (2009) but I really loved Smugmug from the start. As someone into both technology and photography, Smugmug was the perfect product! I remember really wanting to work for them as a college student - everything about the company was extremely motivating. It still is.

Heh I reported a problem to Smugmug with their payment service for my credit card company which prevented me from purchasing a subscription.

Their response? "Yeah, we know, it doesn't work with Credit Card Company AAAA yet, but thanks for telling us. Here, have a lifetime free pro account"

Re: Smugmug Acquires Flickr

#229

Post by inferiorhuman » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 5:46 PM UTC

Mononokay wrote: post #211

inferiorhuman wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I'm stuck in Yahoo purgatory too. I have a Flickr account pointing at a valid email address, and an existing desktop and mobile session for that Flickr account. However, I can't actually create a new session by logging in because Yahoo wants to do its 2FA thing with a defunct email address. I can't add a valid email address to the Yahoo account because I need to create a new session to do this. The defunct addre…

Apparently you should see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16889578

Perhaps. Uploads are timing out for me, it may just be time to abandon Flickr for good.

Re: Smugmug Acquires Flickr

#230

Post by et-al » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 10:05 PM UTC

onethumb wrote: post #127

et-al wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Don, Since you're here, may I voice a thing I really enjoyed about Flickr? Community and actual human communication. Perhaps in the mobile era this isn't possible anymore since everyone is attention starved and tiny screens and keyboards aren't conducive to longform communication, but this was Flickr's strength. You'd find a group where your photos were relevant and start conversations with strangers halfway aroun…

The community _is_ the thing with Flickr. It's what we're most excited about. We'll work hard to play to those strengths.

Awesome. In retrospect, apologies if my initial post was glaringly obvious. I think many of us here are nostalgic for a revival of Flickr and a community outside Facebook & Reddit.