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Regards.
I love Phanfare and have been using it to back up a lot of my photo library. Looking forward to getting to use the networking features.
That said, you have always seemed to exhibit a tendency towards the philosophy of "it's my way or the highway." Last year you instituted changes across the board that you could have given people the abilitly to opt in on if they chose. You didn't have that much confidence to do that. Choice was not an option and for me it created much work changing nearly 200 albums.
This time, you have again made changes that you could have let people opt in on. You say you want to take your business in another direction and are not interested in people who's needs don't match your vision. Great. I wish you much luck with the new Phanfare.
What you have to be careful of is that you don't get a reputation of being a "my way or the highway" kind of business. People who still use Phanfare or are considering using the service have to be asking themselves "what if I'm the guy they don't want for their next incarnation."
And another good thing was being able to just show anyone a group of photos or even a video. I will be no longer be able to shoot a quick e-mail with a link to the photo album.
There were so many conveniences that were lost with the change from 1.0.
Please consider adding back part of the 1.0 features so that users have an option of using these. The family/friends feature is great but only if it will be used.
Like others posting here, the notion that my friends and family now have to sign in, or dig for a lost password, or dig for that old e-mail I used to originally invite them, removes the number one value I found in Phanfare. The fact that my Dad could forward my URL on to his 30 family members, without me having to invite each one, is lost. Or my 96-year-old grandma, who simply wants to click around, and is never going to archive an e-mail or request a lost password.
In addition, I really liked controlling the user experience at the top level, assigning which images my invitees see. Unfortunately, now that they each have their own dashboards which are populated with images randomly pulled from my albums, that control is lost.
Finally, what happened to my friendly, personable phanfare URL. It's gone. Very, very sad. I liked it, and no other photo sharing site offered that personalization.
So these are three key items that were major differentiators from all the other services out there, and now that they're gone, you have ask yourself why pay at all? The service went from being a very open platform for the user to define the experience to a Phanfare-directed experience.
I am not ready to give up on Phanfare yet, and again I understand the need to grow the business. But I wonder whether Phanfare 2.0 really ever understood what made Phanfare 1.0 so attractive in the first place, and whether the value for the money (vs. free) is still there.
I think there is still a window of opportunity in the 2.0 launch to resurrect some of the 1.0 value; I hope you do.
I pay monthly for Phanfare but just gave a year subscription as a gift to Phanfare to a family member. I am embarrassed that she will now be subject to the same intrusive marketing techniques that I was trying to avoid in the first place. I will be shopping the marketplace for an alternative.
Thank you for hearing my issues. I hope you will consider a way to address these issues and others raised in this blog in the near future. Perhaps members who want to make their viewers sign up could pay a lower monthly fee and those who want to protect the privacy of their viewers could pay a small premium, so to speak. I would gladly pay $1 or $2 more a month for that option. Just an idea.
One day I was sitting at my computer and received an eamil from a friend regarding a friend of hers whom I had met a few times. The exciting news - WOW - a new baby - take a look! I was instantly sent to a great personal site full ofpictures of the happy new family. My next thought was - Awesome site! I immediately signed up and sent my unique URL to family and friends. Family and friends then sent it on to more family and friends. During which, several people signed up as members becasue they too loved the ease in which they could view my pictures when they wanted.
The thought of now having to send out new emails, ensure everyone keeps their email and password and knowing that it cannot be forwarded on to others is lack of judgement and business sense on your part. Had the site been this way before, I never would have been able to see the new baby in the family nor would I have been exposed to Phanfare. I believe this change - which you boast as a good change - will not allow for you to grow the base as you suspect. Forcing people to have a membership and not allowing users to forward links to sites will slow the circulation.
I'm disappointed but since I have several free years left (based on referrals from people who joined after being FORWARDED a link to my site) I'll stick around for that. In the meantime, I'd be interested in learning why you think you're now any different from shutterfly or Kodak Gallery. Aside from the banner ads that are not that big of a deal - the negative was always having to log in.
New slogan - "Sharing just got harder on Phanfare"
The only reason I chose Phanfare was for its simplicity - so people can see our pics around the world w/o having to signup
Please give people an option to have a network as well as just host pictures!
1. the unique url which was perfect for my business need
2. No need to ask people to sign up to view my album
3. Ability to order picture from a number of sources
I too would rather pay a little more for the 1.0 version than switch to 2.0. I am extremely dissappointed. You just switched what was unique about your brand and made it one of many offering a similar product. Perhaps the business was not growing as fast not because the product was no good, I think your product was excellent, but because people did not know it was available. Maybe to grow the "1.0" business, you could partner with applications that offer web sites for business that would benefit mutually from bundling your product.
Please reconsider - I think you are making a mistake.
1. Did you ever poll your users to see what % of your users use the 1.0 version for business or personal, 2) did you ask why they joined phanfare vs. another service?, 3. What features do they like best. Maybe you already did this, maybe you will find that your changes are not in line with what your customers want. Polling is cheap (you have all our e-mail addresses) and can give you tremendous feedback!
2. Perhaps you discovered a niche with small business. As you know, this is the fastest growth segment in our economy. Perhaps this is your differentiation factor. Perhaps you need to target business associations, club owners, golf course owners, photographers, etc. - to tout the benefits of your product. Perhaps, Microsoft Business would offer to bundle or buy your services for their web software application. I don't belive they offer the capability.
3. In an area with so many players, maybe you have the "Splenda" of the photo sharing services. Find an unique niche in a crowded field - for Splenda it was sweetners.
I would suggest keeping the business owners on 1.0 until June, maybe you will find a solution by then. Maybe there should be a Phanfare Business Service - open to anyone who likes the current format - I am sure you could come up with a better name.
thanks for listening.
I barely used my phanfare account while I was making sure that it delivered what I liked. Easy access. No attractive and easy path to pornography, violence, revolution, singles site, gambling sites, mortal kombat video experience, etc.
From the drift of the other business owners I see what is coming. I need to pay a programmer to do what phanfare was doing for me. Come see my reasonable high quality video. Come see my photots. Come listen to my music. Rest assured that I will not offend the senses, ethics or morals of your family. Neither will my partners (the folks at Phanfare.)
Smugmug would seem to be your nearest equivalent and biggest competitor. It would seem that this move will differentiate you from them, but at the cost of making you more like all the other services.
No one trusts anyone not to eventually spam those they can for the same reason the founding fathers expected people to abuse power if they could. They opted for a system of checks and balances that made abuse of power unprofitable. Perhaps you can dream up some easily understandable system that assures people that viewing a set of pictures is worth the trouble and risk of signing up.
In today's world, ethical people value other people's time. I don't want to submit my friends to spam or to unwanted notifications about albums they might not be interested in seeing.
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.
Overall, Phanfare 2.0 has been received very well. In the first four weeks, we have more registerted users on 2.0 than we had on 1.0 in 4 years. Families like the collaboration and the privacy and don't much care about anonymous viewers or registration requirements.
We make this change from a position of relative strength. We are providing free DVDs of content to those who want to leave, keeping the 1.0 system up until june, and provided prorated refunds in June.
If you want anonymous feedback, flickr is a better choice. If you want to run a white labeled site undery our own domain, try smugmug. But for your more private and personal photosharing and videosharing, try Phanfare 2.0. We think it is pretty good.
Wrong move.
I must say again that I like Phanfare a lot and plan to use it as my only web album, but I as long as I can not share my work with non-members I will be looking for another solution. PLEASE make it possiblefor peaple to log in as guests. I am sure that you will get more memebers when all these people see your site.
Thanks
Giora Schwarz
- It is NOT at all clear what 2.0 will require and provide, and not provide - I learned the most by reading blog comments.
- Forcing a signin is just silly - that makes you guys like everyone else. Why not charge MORE for someone who just wants to use it like 1.0 is now? I can tell you, I would be willing to pay more - no question.
- There seems to be this issue (can not tell from your email) that everyone gets notified about every album change? I load a lot of photos up and do not want everyone to get emails 3 times a day... or even once a day or week!
You should allow us to control that portion at least OR just post the changes to thier "home page" like Plaxo, without an email.
- Kodak, HP and the rest of the bunch are all trying to do what you are and have all failed. I do not even LOOK at the photos my mom posts on York, because it is too much of a pain to find the damn passwords... My brother uses another site... what a pain...
- If you are going to really win this game, or even stay in it, then you are going to need to win new customers- since clearly you will loose many like me (at this point - still hopeful) - I purchased BECAUSE you did not require a sign in. That was my NUMBER ONE reason for purchasing. Ease of use being #2. When you remove both of those, I have no compelling reason to continue with the service.
Let me add that Plaxo and other existing programs already allow photo sharing that is "not that customizable". I am under no illusions as to who owns Plaxo or what "could happen" with them. However of the contacts I have in my contacts database, 2/3 are ALREADY in Plaxo!! So why would I not just use them instead of your system? They allow me to at least separate things into friends and business. I do think your system is simpler to use, but if no one views it, then it is not that useful!
- An additional question is about searching the site. From a safety, security, and privacy standpoint, I would hope that my content is still not being googled, and that there is an option to hide that.
Summarizing:
- Consider charging more for folks who do not want to use the network - will this account for some of your losses
- Consider adding a program that combines people's network and referrals with the higher cost (Charge $100 a year or $150, but small discount that IF I have a few network referrals- so you still incent people like me to add a few people)
- Consider integrating at least with someone else like google or plaxo to allow people to not need to create yet ANOTHER sign in... IF you decide to force this
- You are going to have to add control on albums and emails... you can not just blast everything to everyone... that is silly...
- Ask yourself "what if all my customers left, what would I do then?"
*pardon any typos/grammar, I typed this quickly*
Thanks,
- Jake
This entire process is just bizarre, and I have to say that I echo the sentiments of the majority of responses.
After my child was born, my wife wanted me to find a simple, secure site that could host the great memories of our little one. Something we could share with family and friends in a simple way, like our own personal web address.
I did the research, I spent time searching for the perfect site. Not the kind of time I spent searching for the car seat, but something that felt familial, and that's what I really wanted too.
Come to find out, there was this nice little company called Phanfare that could do all that my wife wanted. I was money, I was the man, I found the perfect place to host our memories.
I like the others have family who have friends they want to share these photos with. It's always been so simple. Here's the address, enter this password and you can see my pictures. Again, like others have stated, I loved the fact that you DIDN'T have to sign up for anything. In this day and age where everything is so obtrusive, Phanfare actually felt like it was your friend and it wouldn't let you down. It wouldn't bug you unless they had something important to tell you or wanted your feedback. They cared about you and wanted to take good care of you.
Now this... I just received the e-mail signifying "big changes" two days ago. Evidently I'm down the list of those being notified of the change. At first I was excited... "oh cool, they are doing an upgrade" ... then I read more. "They what?" And, "you have to do what to view my photos?"
I'm not sure what to do. I want to support the friend that treated me so well, but it feels like he simply sold out to make the BIG BUCKS. Part of me understands, I want the BIG BUCKS too... but it doesn't seem right that the mom and pop shop that you loved to support is becoming, or appears to be trying to become, the Home Depot.
The biggest concern is the virality of this whole process. My parents call me all the time (and I really don't mind) asking computer questions. This was something they never had to call about. Click, view and smile and then they would send an e-mail saying how much they loved the new "moments."
The process will now seem to involve much more instruction, much more time that many people don't want to give, especially if they have to give another dang e-mail address to someone they aren't sure of, no matter how cool I tell them they are.
By now, it seems like the change is imminent. Somehow I hope the crusade for simplicity continues. It's up for debate whether I will continue.
Best of luck.
Now she had to set up 2 accounts with my brother's help, I had send twice as many invites, and still she is not confident she can do it by herself. Phanfare 1.0 was awsome, but 2.0 is horrible for the older generation. How could you do something like that?
I'm moving out. Unfortunately.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08...
there are other services out there, but most/all seem to require visitor sign-in/registration. others don't support video (yet...). if readers know of other services that are comparable to the old phanfare, please chime in.
I was using Phanfare for both business and family. The new features work for neither. I will have to take my photos and business elsewhere.
Thanks for the last 3 years. They were fun.
The deal breaker is making people sign up to view my photos. I could sell them AMWAY better than making someone signup here.
When you go out of business, maybe you might realize that cutting off memberships from paying customers might have been a bad idea. If I was a stock owner, I would sell the stocks out of the sheer stupidity and disgust of the decisions made.
If I wanted a stupid social networking site, I would have paid for one. I want my money back so I can go buy a year membership to smugmug.com
you ripped me off, and stole my TIME
"web 2.0" what are you? Dundler Mifflin?
If I wanted my family and friends to connect in a social network I would invite them to join facebook or myspace.
If you're smart business people, you will listen to what your customers are all saying and allow US YOUR PAYING CUSTOMERS to return to the old system.
You guys let a lot of people down with this one.
Jeremy Enke