Comments on: Reinventing Phanfare

By: Maiden Name

Maiden Name — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:59:56 +0000

Although you guys have reinvented Phanfare, it's great to know that you guys retained the name. Keep it up!

By: jasonwillam

jasonwillam — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 09:18:03 +0000

Phanfare is really the true result of reinvesting and rethinking, and implementing those new thoughts for better quality and service. The 11,000 paying subscribers really tell about a great experience just by its number. Still they’ve kept monitoring and adding new features to remain competitive in the market.

By: Lovemaking Tips

Lovemaking Tips — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 05:49:33 +0000

How has the reinvention worked out?

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By: Todd Melet

Todd Melet — Mon, 19 May 2008 20:50:22 +0000

I am with those above. The upgrade is a downgrade, and being able to share photos without users needing accounts was a KEY feature that set Phanfare above the rest. Now I am shopping alternatives.

By: Brian

Brian — Sat, 03 May 2008 08:31:20 +0000

Chalk me up to the list of those sorely disappointed with Phanfare’s new direction. Although 2.0 offers many nice features that were missing in 1.0, the fact that users must register is unacceptable. I’m on the fence whether I’ll leave Phanfare and go elsewhere because, frankly, no one else offers the same excellent integration of photos and videos into albums and slideshows. Smugmug is close, but it’s more for people who want to spend a lot of time tweaking their site. Other options like Zenfolio and Sharpcast are as good or even better than Phanfare for photos but lag way behind in videos and slideshows. Rather than Phanfare develop it’s own social network (akin to Flickr’s, which I dislike), I’d rather have seen Phanfare integrate into existing networks like Facebook and MySpace, just as Smugmug, Picasa, Flickr, Photobucket, and others already do pretty well. If I stay with Phanfare, I’m sure my close family and friends will register, but some will not like it. My more casual friends really lose out because I can’t just give them my website URL and say go look at it. They have to register. I’ll probably set up my own hosted website elsewhere and make heavy use of Phanfare’s direct link to galleries, to partially alleviate that concern.

By: Geraldine

Geraldine — Fri, 02 May 2008 06:01:19 +0000

I’m awfully disappointed that viewers now have to sign up to view my albums. No ads and hassle-free viewing worked for me. I really had a great experience with Phanfare but unfortunately, it was not to last. I found a diamond in the rough but now, Phanfare’s just like any other social networking sites. Seriously, do we need any more of these? Thank you for the excellent service and superb customer support. Phanfare was the only online service that I was truly satisfied with. I hope Phanfare will bring back the old features eventually, but I guess you win some and lose some.

By: David K.

David K. — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:56:57 +0000

I agree completely: this exercise shows how to take a good experience and completely ruin it. I’ll be looking for another service to host my pictures.

By: LaRell

LaRell — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 05:43:16 +0000

I was horrified to realize today that my phanfare had been updated and that viewers of my albums will have to register. NO WAY!! Phanfare has been so awesome up to this point, what a huge disappointment!!! I will have to move all my albums for sure. I hate to register on sites and I know my friends and clients feel the same. Who can direct me to something similar where friends and clients don’t have to register to view photos. Two thumbs down for the new Phanfare. Wouldn’t it have been nice to keep the 1.0 with happily paying customers and add the 2.0 for those looking for the free ride?

By: David

David — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:15:16 +0000

I really liked Phanfare 1.0 for all the reasons everyone else mentions. Now I’m looking around for an alternative. I will likely go with a service that doesn’t require sign up, but since I’m back to the drawing board, I’m looking at Flickr too. So, what does Phanfare 2.0 offer that is better than Flickr? Seems like if I have to go with the social networking model, I might as well go to where everyone already is.

How does Phanfare differentiate itself from Flickr?

By: Libby

Libby — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 03:49:04 +0000

I also have been very saddened by the changs in the way others can view the site. I am a lifetime member, upgraded to 2.0 and then downgraded to 1.0 again while I evaluated the options. Phanfare remains the most user friendly site with the greatest features. I am online on another site at this time, but we all like the Phanfare viewing best. I guess I will maintain 2 sites, one for general access and one for registed viewers. I don’t like the limitations it places on all of us that are paying for the service and am hopeful that some forwarding options may be added in the future. The “Privacy” issue is rather lame, as we always had the options of password protection on any or all albums. But I will stay with Phanfare, changes can always be re-evaluated and I hope for some future compromise.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:34:42 +0000

Hi,

It’s me again! Adding to the disappointment, if we wanted to have our friends and family log in, we all could have join Flicr or Snapfish or Kodak, even Facebook. Most people already has all the login for those sites, why would they want to sign up for another one. Phanfare was a very nice way to share photo without the hassle. Now, you’re just the same as everyone else.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:19:47 +0000

I’m very disappointed with the change to 2.0 with 1.0. I was thinking to became a lifetime member, but now I’m actually looking for a different service like smugmug. I have my own domain name and would like my friends and family just to view the site without the hassle of logging in. I would prefer it like it was. From all the comments above, I think you have a LOT of unhappy customers.

Thanks

By: Barb Lord

Barb Lord — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 13:58:14 +0000

As an individual who has been paying to host my photos that are shared with a large public group, I will not be renewing in the future. The new direction of phanfare defeats my purpose and is not longer useful for me. I will be looking for a new photo sharing service. Thank you for the past years of service.

By: Andrew Erlichson

Andrew Erlichson — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 00:54:57 +0000

We are providing pro-rated refunds for those who are not happy. I know you miss having the simplicity of web hosting. But for families that care about privacy, Phanfare 2.0 is significantly better. What’s more, once you go to the trouble of having your close friends and family signup, you can get a unified view of what is going on in their lives across all the phanfare accounts. Yes, the product is different, but for family photos and videos sharing it is better.

We do not plan on keeping the 1.0 system running past June. I am aware that many of our users would have paid more for 1.0. But it stands to reason that at 2x the price, the market for the product would be even smaller than it was before.

Before condemning the new orientation, I urge you to try it. It has the best aspects of social networking with killer photos and video sharing (phanfare style) and no zombie armies or superpoke.

Phanfare 2.0 is free to use under 1GB, so having friends sign up for it is not a big imposition. We don’t send any marketing email. Phanfare is just a collaborative system for sharing photos and videos with people you care about.

By: David

David — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 18:59:19 +0000

I’m an international user. My family hardly understand English-
and now they everyone have to go through the registration to keep it working. Before, it was simple for them to use phanfare. Now – no good.
I’d happily double the price I’m paying to keep it simple.

do you refund unhappy customers?

By: J.

J. — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 23:32:01 +0000

Hello Andrew and Mark,

I love the vision that you have and the work that has been put into the company. I have brought you about 55 paying accounts. I am glad that you are continually striving to innovate, but many people are willing to pay more to have the simplicity and ease of use of not requiring people to login. You will have to make the decision and so will we. Right now it doesn’t look like we and 55 accounts will be with you in a year. You have to try to run the best service and we will choose the best service for our needs.

REALLY, What would it REALLY take for you change some / all of the current 2.0 plans ?

Respectfully.

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 23:48:18 +0000

I too have to echo everyone else’s comments. I LOVED phanfare 1.0 and am extremely disappointed with 2.0. I can also say that I talked to several friends that I referred to Phanfare who fall into the group of people who are not very computer savy and who just want to share pictures with friends and family. They too do not like the new version. All it would take to make us happy is to add the ability to make our sites ‘unsecure’ where anyone could browse all of our albums. We have invested a significant amount of time uploading gigs of pictures and the thought of changing sites is pretty sad.

By: Keith Flynn

Keith Flynn — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 10:24:06 +0000

Im also unhappy I joined to share photos with friends not to have them fill in form and register
What a shame as it was soooo nice to use and I had 3 friends join because I sang its praises.
Moving over to smugmug, does not look quite as good but what can ya do – I want that unique URL and the freedome to share without form filling

By: Josh Gibson

Josh Gibson — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 05:46:38 +0000

I am also dissapointed with the change to 2.0 With 1.0 I could have someone with little computer knowledge upload new photos to the galleries and ANYONE could view them. None of the other I have found come close to the same type of features.

On another note. The number of “new users” “48,000″ are mostly people who are signing up for accounts to see photos that were already on the site.