Open public albums are back!
By popular demand, we have put open public albums back into the Phanfare service in a release that went out today. This means that you can publish your albums for all to see at a URL that you can send via email or put on a web page.
We did this as a result of overwhelming feedback from our customers that they want to share without requiring people to register to view.
We are also enabling email invites to view that to go unregistered users. Collectively, these two changes will make the social networking features in Phanfare optional. Use them if you want them.
For those keeping track, we made a set of changes to Phanfare in December, collectively known as Phanfare 2.0, that traded the old website hosting model for one that layered social networking on top of Phanfare. We did this out of a belief that social networks, like facebook, are a fun and collaborative way to share photos and videos.
What our customers told us though was that they valued Phanfare because it was not a walled garden and that the strict social networking permission model was too constrained for them. We took a hard look at what makes the Phanfare service special and decided that being an open platform for storing your photos and videos in the cloud was our core. The social networking within Phanfare remains for those who want to use it. At the same time, we have enabled our customers to display their photos and videos on other social networks if they please.
To that end, we recently released the Phanfare facebook app that will allow you to pick and choose which albums you display to your Facebook friends.
Personally, I actually like the social networking features of Phanfare 2.0 and use them with close friends and family. But I also publish a subset of my albums from Phanfare to my facebook profile. And I enjoy my Phanfare photos on my living room TV via our media server that integrates with the Playstation III and Xbox 360. And I have my screensavers set to show content from friend and family albums.
Aside from open public albums, we also released another user-facing feature today: Editing of photos in Picnik.
We have always had fairly full featured editing in our downloadable applications, and now with the Picnik integration, you can edit photos on the web too. Tell us what you think of it.
YEAH!!!!! Welcome back Phanfare. I’m really glad to see the old model has returned. I was sure that I would have renewed my subscription, but now I will.
… and now my photos are public once more … http://albums.phanfare.com/haber
For 1.0 user, we redirect from the old usernames, so http://haber.phanfare.com works too
AWESOME! I’m so happy! I also was thinking of moving my pictures elsewhere and now I don’t have to. One thing I love about Phanfare is that they actually listen to the customers and respond to our requests quickly. And I love the surveys always asking for what we want. Thanks, Andrew.
WOW! This is great news! Thank you so much. I love the Phanfare 2.0 features, but I hated having to choose between them and the 1.0 features. This is the best of both worlds! Thank you Andrew!!!!!!!!
This is great news! I’ve been looking for a new place to take my photos, but with this news I’m sticking around!
I was so pleased to receive an email to this effect and agree whole-heartedly w/ Seema that this is an amazing example of a flexible web 2.0 company responding to customer feedback in “real time.” As one to quickly respond negatively to the news that you would be retiring the ability to publish to unique, public urls I want to be one of the first to do the same on the positive front with regard to this new development. I LOVE IT. Kudos to Phanfare!
Thanks a lot, especially to those of you who took the time to alert Phanfare that public albums should remain.
I love Phanfare, and for us it would have been a pain to move.
Hope you’ll also give the ability to remove the heading, for an extra fee if need be. So many people these days are allergic to the words “sign up” or “sign in”. You can leave a discrete link to Phanfare, no problem with that.
AWESOME! You all are the best. I’ve have been holding off on making my decision whether or not to leave Phanfare and I’m so glad I stuck around. The way you have listened to your customers is something you should be proud of. I will continue on as a Phanfare customer and I’m so pleased to hear about your decision. Thank you!!!!
Yup, I’m another one who was thinking of switching to another service, but now that public albums are back, I’m staying.
This is great news… sort of. We already went through the trauma of migrating ALL our family photos to another website and have been training family members/friends to go to the new site. But I’m still glad this change was made - now we just need to focus on which service we will use. Thank you!
That’s great!!! Thank you.
I tried viewing my albums publicly, but I still get prompted to sign in. For Phanfare 2.0 users, the address is as follows, right?
http://albums.phanfare.com/myusername
Sanja, yes, that should be your URL. and you change it to. contact support if you have questions about it.
Technophobe: if you paid for another service in the interim we would be happy to credit you with a year of service as a small token of our appreciation. please contact support.
I was so excited to get that email announcement! I too was fustrated with the changes and am really impressed with the way your company has listened to your customers! Customer Service is Key!!! I’m up for renewal in 10 days. You can guarantee I’m sticking around. I wouldn’t want my photos anywhere else. Thank you!
“Please don’t tell me you want it to be simple web hosting for photos and videos though, because we have already made that choice and closed that door. “– Andrew Erlichson, CEO of Phanfare, 2/28/2000″
Interesting. I suppose closed doors can suddenly be opened again three months later? For instance, when you find out that *maybe* ignoring the will and needs of most of your loyal users to jump on the “social networking” band wagon was perhaps not the best decision? I was a very loyal and happy Phanfare user prior to 2.0, and I spent a great deal of time and effort moving years worth of photos to–dare I say it– Smugmug in the wake of the change. No, their backgrounds (although customizable with some CSS know-how) are not as eye-pleasing as Phanfare’s, and it is a little more involved to use and navigate client-side, but I find that this announcement is too little too late, I’m afraid. I already moved my photos, paid, and I intend to stay there, even if just on principle. You can’t treat your customers this way– tell them you are instituting a change in very nature and structure of the service you provided, and then when either you got enough push-back, or you saw things weren’t working out *quite* as planned, you say, “oh, whoops! We can just put this back the way it was before. No problem!” This former customer doesn’t appreciate being treated that way.
I know I sound disgruntled and unpleasant in the face of all the cheering in the comments above, but you must understand that my anger is directly proportional to how much I loved Phanfare before. But in my case, the damage has been done.
Credit is due to Andrew and his staff for adapting to their customers needs. The most important thing is that they are working to get it right and making their photo service better for everyone.
About time. Good on you guys for realizing (finally) that you really screwed the pooch on this stupid networking. All the “new members” I bet hardly use the service. Sure it was fine to have free account, but I myself had 8 accounts that I didn’t use. One was my wife. For her to look at our pictures she had to have her own account. How stupid was that? My kids, parents, etc. all had to have an account. Finally this nightmare may be over!!!!!!!:);)
Now I guess I can get back to enjoying Phanfare like it was meant to be enjoyed. Next time you guys have a wild haired idea, toss it out and get some feedback, and listen to that feedback. I’m sure you guys just learned a costly and brutal lesson.
I am feeling the same about your changing the access as my daughter Lori who has posted previously .The change was going to bring problems to some of the people enjoying my pictures so I had to change.I am glad to see that the realization came to you that you cannot do this to your loyal and longtime customers
I had to go to SMUGMUG because they afforded me the access that you and your staff decided to take away without any input from your loyal customers. I like your backgrounds and music applications better but I just could not live with the changes that you so recklessly pushed on us.
I can only hope that a lesson about how to treat loyalty has been learned
Bravo to Andrew and your Phanfare Team for listening to your customers!
Phanfare 2 is now much better with the best of the new and older features!
I see even greater success for Phanfare in the future!
Alan
Hi Andrew:
I am yet one more Phanfare user who was contemplating jumping ship with the change in services. With this update you have suceeded in keeping me on board.
Zach
This is awesome! As someone mentioned before, now Phanfare has the best best of both worlds: open public albums, as well as the networking option. Thanks!!!
Good job Andrew,
I love your desire to keep improving the product and I am sure that you will. Forcing customers gained during the 1.0 phase to move to a mandatory social networking model was not smart. Don’t make that mistake again (I know you won’t). Keep CNAME’s. Keep open access. Make the products better, both client and server. Do more with video and other new areas - TV’s and phones. We will be happy to recommend Phanfare once again and yes we will be keeping our accounts with you. We were looking to move.
Thanks,
J.
I’m glad public sharing is back. When my account was downgraded to 2.0, I decided I would rather lose my photos than to pay for a service I was not going to use. I did not find an alternative as flickr and smugsmug did not fit the bill. I gave up my search and got caught up with other things, and luckily during this process, Phanfare has changed their mind. After I signed up for service again, all the photos that they kept telling me that it would be deleted came back with a few minutes. Still bitter about the whole ordeal but the end result is that they may have gained more paying customers in the process. And more paying customers mean more chance that Phanfare will be around as long as I need it.
Lori and Mike Glickman,
I think that even with the return of open public albums and easy sharing with unregistered folks, that phanfare 2.0 is much more than simple web hosting of photos and videos.
some of our coolest features like the screensaver and display of photos and videos on your xbox and playstation do leverage the network you setup in 2.0. but with the hybrid approach that we have now, people can ease into that. they can share without asking anyone to register. but if you already know a person with a phanfare acct, the new networking stuff works really well.
I hear you that you feel we did not listen adequately to customers before we made the switch. in retrospect, you are right. but at the time, we really did feel like we were doing the best thing for the company (and hence its customers) long term.
Anyway, I am sorry to see you guys go, but honestly, smugmug is a great company too so I am sure you will be taken care of there.
also, feel free to email me personally if you want to talk about it further. my email is on the about pages of the site.
Andrew;
First off, I highly commend you for the way you interact with your clients. I knew the company was unique when I submitted an email request 2 years ago at 10 PM on a Sunday and I had a reply 30 minutes later! Your efforts in this situation (1.0 to 2.0) are exceptional and - unfortunately - an all too rare occurrence in today’s culture. In particular, you have shown exceptional grace to those who have so rudely expressed their displeasure at how you run your company. I don’t understand how people can be so angry at how someone else runs their company. You guys have taken a beating the last few months but are still the best.
I understood your reasoning for Phanfare turning to the networking model via 2.0. I was disappointed but I realized that Phanfare’s demise (due to lack of growth) would also eliminate the product I preferred (1.0). So, I was going to give 2.0 a shot and see what reality looked like then.
I remember, however, one of your comments offered in defense of the switch. On Feb 13th, you wrote: “We don’t have the resources to support 1.0 and 2.0 and we don’t think it is a good idea to try. We are firmly committed to moving forward with this new strategy.” So, my question is, does Phanfare now have the resources to support 1.0 and 2.0? Will rates increase significantly? Will the lifetime offer be renewed?
Thanks, Andrew.
PS. Do you know that the spellchecker for your blog does not recognize Phanfare ?
One thing I should clarify is that Phanfare 2.0 is both a new platform as well as the features and positioning we introduced in January. While we are adding back in the open public albums and viewing for non-registered users, we are adding these features to the 2.0 platform. The 1.0 platform will be turned off pretty much on schedule in late June or early July.
When we said we could not run 1.0 and 2.0 in parallel, we really meant the platform.
Certainly, consumers find open public albums and non-registered sharing to be useful, so they need to be in the 2.0 product. Adding these features to 2.0 was not that difficult.
The larger strategic question is whether or not it is a good use of company resources to build a pro-pack that includes more business oriented features.
Andrew, you just said it ¨The larger strategic question is whether or not it is a good use of company resources to build a pro-pack that includes more business oriented features.¨ - These are the guys that pay, and since now its only branches to the 2.0 platform i think you should go for it.
Well, we estimate that about 20% of our customers are business users. We plan to poll our customers in a few weeks to figure out what a prod product would look like if we were to do it.
This is good news but how do I share all my albums (that I created in 1.0). Should I go to each of them?
Thanks!
Login at http://www.phanfare.com
click on My photos and videos->edit albums
click on album sharing on top right
choose ‘public’ at the top to make all the albums public.
Answers from the CEO in 20 minutes, this is what I call support!
Andrew,
Thank you for making this most recent change, I look forward to continuing the use of this service. Regarding email invitations to unregistered users, when and how might this be accomplished? An update to the mac/pc client?
Thank you again!
You can email unregistered users today using wit an isolated link. Some time in June, we will release a new version of Phanfare that will allow you to email isolated links from the web client. The PC and Mac clients bring up the appropriate web page in the web client.
Phanfare still hasnt won me back. For one, I now don’t feel comfortable building up a huge base of photos and work on a system that apparently can and will change all its good features in a heartbeat without asking anyone.
2) The new app/admin sucks. First thing I noticed is its bloaty, slow and the text is fuzzy. The old one was lean and mean- this is horrible.
3) Yeah you can make your albums public now.. 100% public that is. Where’s the password option? Thats the main reason I paid you guys $70. I wanted publicly accessable galleries I could password protect. Now I’ve got pedos coming off of googles looking at my kids. Great- thanks.
4) Just because you’re giving me back a half-assed version of what I paid for doesn’t square things up with me. I’m going to ask for a full refund.. if I don’t get it, the charge will be disputed. Then I will watch over time- as I remain a smugmug user (theyve got their problems- no userside app for one.. try rotating a photo sometime.) until I see that everything has been fixed. Then.. IF smugmug hasn’t added all the features I needed by that time, I might switch back- but that of course, depends on how you handle my refund.
Bring back the password protection option in the next 3 days and I may reconsider- but we all know thats not going to happen.. seems it takes 3 months and a near riot to get these things done.
Mr not-impressed,
The windows client uses a new style that Microsoft has encouraged. We appreciate the feedback on you feeling it is fuzzy. The web client has taken a huge step forward in this release. Try that too.
As for offering simple password protected albums, we may bring this back. But you do get more control and the viewer gets more convenience if privileges to locked down albums are based on registered users accounts. For one thing, if you track multiple phanfare users, you can see all the albums with just one password, a password which you can reset if you forget it, since it is associated with your account.
In terms of a refund, Phanfare offers pro-rated refunds and we will be happy to provide you one. We have only had 2 chargebacks since we started business in 2004. We don’t charge people money who are unhappy.
Explain your need for password protected albums. Maybe there is a workaround that we can suggest.
Hi Andrew, can I try to give another quick poke to support the flattening of connections thing?
You said, “But you do get more control and the viewer gets more convenience if privileges to locked down albums are based on registered users accounts. For one thing, if you track multiple phanfare users, you can see all the albums with just one password, a password which you can reset if you forget it, since it is associated with your account.”
I totally agree and that’s why I’m not clamoring for passwords. But I am clamoring for the flattening of connections because of both the
(1) benefits of the registration (like you said, a lot more convenience: just one password rather than a dozen different site passwords–not to mention per-album passwords).
and
(2) the current system’s limitation. There is no way to share an album with just one or just a handful of people from within the Phanfare network. Yes, you could email isolated album invites but this requires the invitee to keep track of the email messages which contain their album invitation links. Or perhaps they could bookmark them in their browser. Either way, it’s not very convenient. If registered user A has shared ANY albums with registered user B, then B should see ALL of the albums that A has shared with him just by logging in with his one password. This is why you have had so many confused users who were trying to use Groups as a way of sharing albums with a specific subset of their connections (remember things like “Jack’s college friends”?). The strict, uncustomizable, Friends & Family model has led to this. When one wants to share some albums (not necessarily related, or otherwise not suitable for a Group) with just a few people, the registration system is no better than the password system–the one that you know is clunky and inconvenient. Keeping track of passwords or keeping track of email invites… it’s like six in one hand, half a dozen in the other.
Here’s my 2 cents for Passwords coming back. I use my phanfare account for storing, organizing , and sharing my family photos….with family. Now, I have plenty of family that are young and tech savvy who have no problem registering with phanfare and being a part of the “social networking” thing. However, there are many people in my family who (forgive the generalizations here) old and not very computer literate. They don’t now how to do much except check emails and simple browsing. They aren’t comfortable registering and using a system as interactive as a social networking platform. I liked how before I could just send them a link to go to with a simple password. I am weary of making my albums ‘public’ with no password protection (I don’t need/want just anyone viewing them). My ‘old’ family member can handle a simple password. Anyway…it would be nice to bring them back….the more options the better; not all Phanfare users are created equal.
Andrew:
I can’t help but ask, “What happened to Teddy Roosevelt?”
I was a fierce, angry critic of your elimination of public albums. So, let me say thank you for listening to your customers.
We had begun the process of transitioning to SmugMug. But, my wife and I will now remaing paying customers of Phanfare.
I hope that the move to restore public albums presages a different customer-facing posture for Phanfare moving forward — that when making or contemplating changes to Phanfare that fundamentally alter the manner in which users interact with its services, you reach out to customers BEFORE deciding to embark on that change.
Your mention above of polling customers re: the pro pack hints at just that sort of change.
Let me ask this — in your response to my original, angry posts about the death of Phanfare 1.0, you wrote that the business “was losing money and not growing fast enough”. Now that you’ve restored the public album functionality, what are your plans to address this problem? Is it that you hope a large percentage of the 125,000 people who were exposed to Phanfare by being forced to create accounts will now become paying customers? Is it changing the pricing structure to get fees from “low storage” users, with a graduated fee schedule for “moderate” and “high” storage users? A mix of the two? Something else?
Those of us who pay for your service want it to succeed — if for no other reason than we’ve invested time and energy in developing online photo albums that can be shared with loved ones, and we’d prefer not to have to duplicate our efforts by transitioning to another provider.
So, let me also offer this — I think that many of us who pay for your service — because we find it valuable and easy to use — would pay more for it if such were necessary to secure Phanfare’s financial viability.
Currently, we pay $54.95/yr for your service (unlimited storage). That’s what — $4.58/month? I pay more than 3 times that monthly for Netflix, and I don’t get nearly as much enjoyment out of Netflix as I do out of Phanfare.
Also, you write in one of your blog posts of no mainstream business cracking “…the code of creating a mainstream service that preserves fullsize original media for the consumer and is free for all to use.”
I think the assumption you make about the service needing to be “…free for all to use” doesn’t apply to YOUR customer base. Those of us who put albums up are a special, niche customer base — We’re not teenage FLICKR customers throwing some random, small number of cell-phone photos up on the web for the hell of it.
We’re families who are using Phanfare as an alternative to the age-old practice of pasting photos into large album binders to be shared with family members during holidays and other gatherings. Or we’re professionals seeking a home for galleries that can easily be perused by potential customers. We’re interested in something robust, easy to use, easy to access, but more permanent, too — and not necessarily free. I think we’re willing to pay for permance and ease of access for our viewers — and I think we’d be willing to pay more. Just something to consider….
…that was supposed to be “…permanence….”
Will,
flattening friends/family and turning it into full access control lists is not off the table. we just need to balance that request with other things people want us to do.
Stephen,
I hear you that it is easier for grandma to just type in a password. the integrated emailing of invites with isolated links should help a little bit. we are considering a pro version that might include passwords (and not include the social networking features). let us turn off 1.0 before we settle this. also, consider putting one of the screensavers on grandma’s computer.
Brian,
Teddy Roosevelt was right. And 2.0 was a good swipe at attempting to make phanfare a media play - and I think the more network-oriented features we created will be an important differentiation and barrier to entry for competitors in the long run. But phanfare is no media play right now and we are going to return to our normally scheduled programming of focusing on people who will pay to keep their photos and videos in the cloud and expect/want better service and more control.
we are considering creating a pro version of phanfare and it would cost more - helping us and giving us a separate revenue stream against which to evaluate more pro-like requests (not just businesses, but people who buy the pro version of products, like me!)
the basic answer to ‘how are you going to make money’ is the old fashioned way, by increasing revenue and cutting costs. we already have margin on every account sold. we just need to sell more accounts. and one good way of doing that is by delighting customers, versus pissing them off by removing features they liked. so lesson learned there.
Phanfare is a bit of a collective. We DO have the best tools on the planet, period. and we all have our photos and videos here. we will do the hard work of getting the company profitable so Phanfare does not go away. We have lots of dry powder and amazing people. It is fully possible.
Are albums marked as Public indexed by google in .2x?
Will, you have raised a very good question. Andrew, when you have a moment, can you please address the Google index question he raised. Thanks so much.
Right now, your content will not be indexed by google even if left public because we have a directive in the pages to not index our public pages.
For people using open URLs because they are easier to navigate for grandma, and are hoping for security through obscurity, our current setup is probably best.
For people who are hoping to get a large amount of traffic from anonymous people, not allowing google is not good.
In 1.0, we had it as a setting.
Hi Andrew,
Thank god! I actually switched everything over to zenfolio, but after reading this, I am back in action. Your site is far more superior, and now with open albums, I am your customer once again.
Thanks!
Janet
I would also like to see password protected albums return. I’m a Phanfare lifetime member and am glad to see the return of public albums but I also like some of the social networking features.
I manage the website for a swim club and the members would like have a place to view photos. I would like to recommend Phanfare, but albums would need to be password protected. I don’t want to ask over 200 families to create Phanfare accounts or manage that many email addresses. Without this feature I would have to go with SmugMug or Zenfolio which I don’t want to do. Is there any way to still sign up for a 1.0 account until this feature returns or the pro account is available?
Thanks,
Marc
I would also like to see password protected albums return.
I have tried contact Phanfare with many emails and no respond! I guess they don’t want me as a customer for some reason. At least they could answer and say that or perhaps why.
Hi Bo, I’ve had very responsive service from Phanfare support (Support@phanfare.com). I was initially leary about email-only support (having experienced very good live phone help from Phanfare at one point), but I’ve had 24-hour (over weekends) or same-day responses over email, and really no complaints. I hope Andrew or others see your post and can address your questions soon.
We just had our account converted to 2.0 (without notice…the site just went into maintenance mode). The result is not pretty.
I’m a .NET developer and understand wanting to move to a WPF application (the framework the new desktop client is written in), but comparing it to the 1.X client is embarrassing. There is fuzziness on nearly all text, the images are slow to load, and most importantly from a usability aspect there are buttons all over the place, non-standard menus, etc.
Desktop client aside it appears that images that are web-linked are served up at a lower quality than in the past. The images on our blogs (which we will have to update all the links to) are not as sharp and vibrant as they once were.
We left Phanfare once due to the looming 2.0 changes and moved to SmugMug. I enjoyed the ability to highly customize the albums, etc, but it lacked the central, well-designed client application that Phanfare 1.x had.
Once you guys relented on some of the more ‘aggressive’ changes to 2.0 we moved back. Now I’m looking for another good home because while I can live with a work in progress, I don’t get the feeling you guys have the same goal as I do. A simple, clean, unobtrusive way for me to archive and link to my pictures.
Love Phanfare 2.0!!!!!!!! With all the functionality AND open albums back in the picture, it’s *great*!!!!
Would love the see the Password Protected option come back. I’m so happy with Andrew and the team and that would definitely be the cherry on top. Getting that option back is a huge plus for me.