Comments on: Smugmug vs. Flickr

By: Scott K

Scott K — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 02:28:24 +0000

@Stéphane,

Thanks for the comment! I’ll get around sometime soon to updating my review because there have been so many enhancements to Smugmug over the last few years. In regards to your first question, I would check out the excellent discussion forum at http://www.dgrin.com. They have sections devoted to Pro-related sales questions and is run by the people that run Smugmug. You’re right, though, that there really are so many high quality photos on the Internet (and easy access to DSLRs) and it is getting tougher and tougher to stand out. However, Smugmug gives you excellent tools to keyword and advertise your photos and get found in search engines like Google. Also, it is quite easy to customize your site to initially entice people to stay on your site and check out the photos. I was contacted a couple of years ago because someone wanted to use one of my US Open tennis pictures in a small trade journal ad. I was so excited that I let them use it for free in exchange for a copy of the finished ad!

I’d recommend asking your questions about sales and an international audience on the dgrin forum. Hope this helps!

Good luck,
Scott

By: Stéphane

Stéphane — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 13:40:27 +0000

Hello.

Thank you very much for this text, very interesting and useful. I had a preference for Smugmug, and it consolidates it !

Anyway I have in mind the same questions than.. another Stephan. ) Here it is :

“Excellent post – I really found a lot of use from it as I am looking at both Flickr and Smugmug. I like the dynamic and customizable behaviour of Smugmug and will register with them. I would like the idea to sell photos with a pro account but I don’t know if you could expect any sales really… there are so many free pictures available out there. Does anyone have success stories with smugmug and picture prints/sales?”

-> So, are there any feedbacks about the international audience of SMugmug ? I know a few photographers that were contacted from different parts of the world, and could sell a few pictures, from the Flickr galleries.

Could it be the same with Smugmug ? Have they got the same public audience ? I fear not… (perhaps a “double account” is better then ?)

Thank you, Stephane

By: gtdmouse

gtdmouse — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:09:07 +0000

I think you may have posted this before the feature was available, but flickr does now have collections, which I think would give you the hierarchy that you found lacking.

By: Scott K

Scott K — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 20:28:56 +0000

Hey John,

Thanks for the clarification. Yes, you are correct that each Smugmug hosted page requires the “mini-footer.” The mini-footer will display, at the minimum, “Powered by SmugMug Portions © 2008 SmugMug, Inc.” All Smugmug branding besides this can be removed.

I’ll update my review when I get the chance.

By: John

John — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 19:38:29 +0000

Umm, You say you can remove all references to smugmug from your site… However you can not. It is against the policy and you MUST leave smugmug in the footer.

I am a pro user and the reason I chose smugmug is because of the selling, printing, and control it offers.

By: Nimo

Nimo — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 19:51:39 +0000

Hey,
This is a great comparison, thanks a lot!
Just signed up with smugmug using your code,

Thanks!

By: Stefan

Stefan — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 16:16:15 +0000

Excellent post – I really found a lot of use from it as I am looking at both Flickr and Smugmug. I like the dynamic and customizable behaviour of Smugmug and will register with them. I would like the idea to sell photos with a pro account but I don’t know if you could expect any sales really… there are so many free pictures available out there. Does anyone have success stories with smugmug and picture prints/sales?

Stefan
http://www.imphenzia.com

By: Scott K

Scott K — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 05:33:44 +0000

Hey Maxwell,

I’m not really sure about Flickr and the issue with linking back to their site. I do know that Smugmug does not require a link back to its site. I haven’t had to edit PHP by hand in Wordpress for a long time and Permanlinks allow for nice looking URLs. And, upgrading is super simple with the Automatic Upgrade plugin.

By: Maxwell

Maxwell — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 07:39:25 +0000

Aah, thanks for the quick reply Scott! I see where you’re coming from.
What I’m thinking of doing is having a blog with static pages too.
So I’d have these links: HOME, ABOUT, SHOP, GALLERY, CONTACT and some other static links. I’m also concerned about nice looking URLs…no id=123 entries.

When the user clicks SHOP, it’ll go to my CubeCart install. When they click GALLERY, I’d like it to go to SmugMug (or Flickr) so that I don’t have to reinvent the wheel so to speak. What’s this issue with Flickr that I have to provide a link back to their site? Is that a link on each page or for each photo they’re hosting?

I guess I’ll have to dip my feet in WP 2.6. I just don’t want to have to mess around too much with PHP pages whenever I’m trying to do anything that’s not too complicated – even though I’m a coder. I want my client to be able to handle her content without too much fuss. Perhaps things have changed in 2.6 because I’ve heard horror stories about earlier versions.

Thanks again for the quick reply!

- MaxTheITpro

By: Scott K

Scott K — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 17:03:13 +0000

Greetings from Wisconsin, USA. I would recommend Smugmug at the Professional level (http://www.smugmug.com/help/pro-faq). It costs money but allows you to use your own domain name as well as completely remove all Smugmug branding, if so desired. Also, you can customize the layout so that it fits into the style of the blog. Furthermore, it lets you set prices for all the photos. Smugmug handles the printing and credit card processing and you get to keep any profit above the standard cost of printing. Both Smugmug and Flickr would be great for linking to blog posts, but only Smugmug allows you to sell photos and photo accessories. It would be straightforward to display photos on the blog and then link to Smugmug to handle processing.

After re-reading your comment, I just realized that I’m looking at this from the perspective of selling the photos rather than selling the products that are showcased in the photos. In that case, I would still go with Smugmug but would probably use just the Power user account which is pretty much the same as the Pro user account except you can’t sell the photos through Smugmug. It still allows a custom domain name and the ability to customize the look of the site to match the blog.

There are a number of new features in Wordpress 2.6. Here’s a video that talks about some of these: http://wordpress.org/development/2008/07/wordpress-26-tyner/ Wordpress has a huge development network and a ton of terrific plugins, including integration with Smugmug and Flickr are available.

Best of luck with the websites!