SmugMug gave me a preview of its new photosharing site that’ll turn on on Friday. They swore me to secrecy. But one thing they did to me is brand a new term into my head: mugnormous. You’ll see what that means when you hear about their new site, but wow. For my cameras they compared their site to a bunch of others and all I can think about is “I’m switching my images to Smugmug.”
Oh, and they have a little fun party on Friday at their headquarters to celebrate their fifth anniversary.
One last thing. This is a weird company. First of all, they are profitable. Second of all they don’t accept advertising. Third of all, they let dogs hang out. Fourth of all they’ve never taken (or needed) any investment. Fifth of all they are growing at a good clip (getting mugnormous, even). Sixth they charge their customers to use their service. Seventh, there’s a photo of one of the founders riding a motorcycle almost naked.
Who let this company survive in Silicon Valley? Heh! Certainly an antidote to that bubble video — here’s Smugmug’s co-founder Don MacAskill as he, and his team watch that video for the first time.
It’s always great meeting companies that break the rules and succeed. Mugnormous indeed.
Oh, and they have a little tool that lets you quickly move your images from other photo sharing sites onto SmugMug. What do they call it? Smugglr. This company has a mugnormous sense of humor, so refreshing to see.
Scobleizer 
I looked at their service when Yahoo Photos closed down and I had to choose a service to move my images to.
They do have one of the best services, but they charge more than Flickr for their services.
I ended up moving my images to Flickr because Yahoo offered me a 3 month (if I remember right!) free trial of the Flickr Pro account and after using it for a while, I now am a paid Flickr Pro user.
(BTW, I first heard about them on Omar Shahine’s blog.)
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Oh man, Scoble, are you capable of a single post that doesn’t seek to push some inane way of encapsulting an idea into a moronic little buzzword? Seriously, posts like this make me want to throw up – ‘mugnormous’? You’ve gotta be kidding.
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Oh man, Scoble, are you capable of a single post that doesn’t seek to push some inane way of encapsulting an idea into a moronic little buzzword? Seriously, posts like this make me want to throw up – ‘mugnormous’? You’ve gotta be kidding.
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I looked at their service when Yahoo Photos closed down and I had to choose a service to move my images to.
They do have one of the best services, but they charge more than Flickr for their services.
I ended up moving my images to Flickr because Yahoo offered me a 3 month (if I remember right!) free trial of the Flickr Pro account and after using it for a while, I now am a paid Flickr Pro user.
(BTW, I first heard about them on Omar Shahine’s blog.)
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As a professional in the photography industry I found their site to be the best for looking at and sharing photography.
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As a professional in the photography industry I found their site to be the best for looking at and sharing photography.
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I am looking quite forward to see that new photosharing site you’re so -wow- about.. So far I think everything ‘social’ and ‘sharing’ website I’ve seen always felt rather like a clumsy try of a re-invention of the web.. – ..than like a mugnormous online service/application one could actually use..
..well – looking forward..:] Greetz, t..
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I am looking quite forward to see that new photosharing site you’re so -wow- about.. So far I think everything ‘social’ and ‘sharing’ website I’ve seen always felt rather like a clumsy try of a re-invention of the web.. – ..than like a mugnormous online service/application one could actually use..
..well – looking forward..:] Greetz, t..
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I’ve been using Smugmug for 2+years and am almost 100% satisfied with them. If you use a Mac your best bet is to use one of the plugins somebody wrote (available on their site) and skip their tools.
Other than that they rock!! Wish they had the ability to post videos….
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I’ve been using Smugmug for 2+years and am almost 100% satisfied with them. If you use a Mac your best bet is to use one of the plugins somebody wrote (available on their site) and skip their tools.
Other than that they rock!! Wish they had the ability to post videos….
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this reeks like a paid endorsement. I mean absolutely reeks. If its as good as you say it is (what could be better than flickr?) then I’d give it a try. I’m a flickr pro member.
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this reeks like a paid endorsement. I mean absolutely reeks. If its as good as you say it is (what could be better than flickr?) then I’d give it a try. I’m a flickr pro member.
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also, I’ve met a few of those Smugmug folks and they are rather smug about their whole profitable, no investment, etc etc. They were around at a good time with a good product.
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also, I’ve met a few of those Smugmug folks and they are rather smug about their whole profitable, no investment, etc etc. They were around at a good time with a good product.
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I wrote a review that covered 7 major photo sharing websites, and the Smugmug guys all came over, commented, and emailed me about my issues. They are a class act, no doubt.
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I wrote a review that covered 7 major photo sharing websites, and the Smugmug guys all came over, commented, and emailed me about my issues. They are a class act, no doubt.
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I’ve been using Smug for more than three years (almost since they started), and have found them to be great… no price increases for long-time members, frequent & meaningful upgrades to the service, an active and communicative developer community which uses the publicly available APIs, etc etc. It’s a group of people who REALLY listen to their customers, it’s not just a lip-service slogan. We’ll see on Fri if mugnormous is ginormous.
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I’ve been using Smug for more than three years (almost since they started), and have found them to be great… no price increases for long-time members, frequent & meaningful upgrades to the service, an active and communicative developer community which uses the publicly available APIs, etc etc. It’s a group of people who REALLY listen to their customers, it’s not just a lip-service slogan. We’ll see on Fri if mugnormous is ginormous.
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andyfox1979: if I ever take money or other bribes I’ll disclose this. Smugmug has gotten TONS of positive attention from people I trust and the version they showed me today was simply impressive. I don’t need to get paid to be impressed and tease you all with that.
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andyfox1979: if I ever take money or other bribes I’ll disclose this. Smugmug has gotten TONS of positive attention from people I trust and the version they showed me today was simply impressive. I don’t need to get paid to be impressed and tease you all with that.
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8. They have a Comic Sans logo and they’re still in business
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8. They have a Comic Sans logo and they’re still in business
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this reeks like a paid endorsement. I mean absolutely reeks.
In a normal universe, yes. Only, in this parallel, it’s not, Scoble sucks up for free, all “content” to him. Pay him attention, throw in some ‘we love/adore bloggers’ smaltz, and attempt to focus him for more than 5 minutes, and it’s just as good as a niche-targeted paid infomercial endorsement, for a few news-cycle days at least.
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this reeks like a paid endorsement. I mean absolutely reeks.
In a normal universe, yes. Only, in this parallel, it’s not, Scoble sucks up for free, all “content” to him. Pay him attention, throw in some ‘we love/adore bloggers’ smaltz, and attempt to focus him for more than 5 minutes, and it’s just as good as a niche-targeted paid infomercial endorsement, for a few news-cycle days at least.
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Kyle: that’s a great point! Heheh.
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Kyle: that’s a great point! Heheh.
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“Your transformation to the dark side is now complete…”
In one post Robert you have become a part of the Silicon Valley hype machine. “They swore me to secrecy” sounds so bad and so PR. I don’t need a preview hype post as I only have time to read about 12 blogs that I can read completely each day. I put you on that 12 because I know you review a lot more technical blogs than I do.
But of the ones I do read, I read them in detail and if all you do is give me snipits of things to come, what’s the value there?
More posts with less quality information or less posts with more quality information?
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“Your transformation to the dark side is now complete…”
In one post Robert you have become a part of the Silicon Valley hype machine. “They swore me to secrecy” sounds so bad and so PR. I don’t need a preview hype post as I only have time to read about 12 blogs that I can read completely each day. I put you on that 12 because I know you review a lot more technical blogs than I do.
But of the ones I do read, I read them in detail and if all you do is give me snipits of things to come, what’s the value there?
More posts with less quality information or less posts with more quality information?
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Herschel: OK, so this one was low-vitamin content. But they really have done a kickass job and the thing coming out Friday blows away the other photo sharing sites.
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Herschel: OK, so this one was low-vitamin content. But they really have done a kickass job and the thing coming out Friday blows away the other photo sharing sites.
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So are we invited to the SmugMug party? Yeah, SmugMug is definitely unique. They’ve turned down offers to be acquired as well.
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So are we invited to the SmugMug party? Yeah, SmugMug is definitely unique. They’ve turned down offers to be acquired as well.
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Don is good people .. he is smart and I have a lot of respect for him after hanging out with him in Vegas for a weekend. Good to see SmugMug getting the attention it deserves
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Don is good people .. he is smart and I have a lot of respect for him after hanging out with him in Vegas for a weekend. Good to see SmugMug getting the attention it deserves
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