1. Flickr is awesome, but as for the non-unique name - why not just register his own domain and forward it to his flickr page? 4GB bandwidth is very tempting though...

Posted at 6:27AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Indie Music

2. Smugmug is fantastic. I first started with Smugmug about a year ago and have no complaints. I tried Fotki and others but wasn't satisfied. I started as a standard and recently upgraded to a professional user because you have more flexibility of your galleries such as, setting watermarks and custom pricing of your pictures. Hope you are as satisfied as I.

Posted at 6:27AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Chris Esponge

3. A few months back I compared a bunch of sites and liked Smugmug the best, by far. Galleries look fantastic wiht the default settings, for the more technically inclined, there are dozens of ways to tailor the pages to your individual liking.

Also, it does the three most important things I wanted:

- branding the site as my own
- I can set the prices for images people buy from me
- once a person buys, Smugmug handles all of the payment and fulfillment issues.

My only wish is that they also supported the sale framed prints, as on Shutterfly.

To see my customized site, please visit http://www.berley.com

Posted at 6:27AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Steve Berley

4. A few months back I compared a bunch of sites and liked Smugmug the best, by far. Galleries look fantastic wiht the default settings, for the more technically inclined, there are dozens of ways to tailor the pages to your individual liking.

Also, it does the three most important things I wanted:

- branding the site as my own
- I can set the prices for images people buy from me
- once a person buys, Smugmug handles all of the payment and fulfillment issues.

My only wish is that they also supported the sale framed prints, as on Shutterfly.

To see my customized site, please visit http://www.berley.com

Posted at 6:27AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Steve Berley

5. I have tried all three services. I agree with your comments. I use Phanfare. They offer double the bandwidth of smugmug. But more interestingly, I found their workflow to be significantly better. They give you a desktop organizer that uploads your images in the background and they support video without having to convert to mpeg (smugmug requires that). Phanfare is not really for pros (no ability to sell) and lacks the community aspects of flickr, but if you are looking for a walled garden of personal photos, is superior IMHO.

Posted at 6:27AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Spencer Harris

6. I had 2 criteria when i was looking to move from ofoto.

1) i wanted to see my pictures BIG
2) Don't make my family and friends log in to see my pictures.

Smugmug hit these points and then some. Their support is first rate and they are constantly adding new features and customization capabilities (their theme capability rocks). As far as i'm concerned there is no competition.

Posted at 6:27AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Lee Shepherd

7. I like flikr's look but I had already invested months of uploading to SmugMug. Waiting for nearly a year, they opened up their API and StarExplorer was born (originally SmugExplorer) and it is the best thing out there. SmugMug's customization is awesome as you can see for yourself on my page, http://roxfamily.smugmug.com. I have to reset all the pages to "small" to fit my width, but overall, the custom look fits my site percisely. That said, I love the password protection that only requires a password and no user registration. I can protect my kids identity and make it easy for friends and family. SmugMug has been awesome for me for my near 2 years.

Posted at 6:27AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Sven Rafferty

8. I'll throw my comment into the mix here since I am an avid user of both Smugmug and Flickr. Each one has strengths and weaknesses.

I have been using Smugmug for years, and it was the first online photo storage site that I found that let me view full-size images. That made it well worth the price. Since then I upgraded to the version that lets me control the look and feel. You can see what's been done with that at http://www.triphasephotos.com. I manage the entire look and feel with CSS, although making changes to this is not exactly easy.

Smugmug works great for the previous site, but when I first joined there was no capacity to tag photos, a feature that Flickr had from the start. Flickr became my online repository for personal photos so that I could tag them and share them with friends and family. The ability to merge photos instantly into a web log is also fantastic, and I use it all the time to add a photo in-line with a BLOG post.

I think that both services are great, they just have different strengths: if you want to customize look and feel, go with Smugmug. If you want to tag every photo you've ever taken to find it again quickly, share tons of photos with friends and easily post to weblogs and photoblogs, then Flickr is the way to go.

Posted at 6:27AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Chris Roberts

9. I also give my vote to smugmug. When you want to do your own customization you have to go with the power account which also doubles the bandwith to 8GB, which I'm far away from using.

The build-in themes are availiable to everyone though. I did some minor customizations to my site (header+footer) and the rest is currently done by a theme. Also I did include some bilingual content where you can switch between English and German captions when viewing my pictures.

Like Lee already said - you can display your pictures as big as you want them by allowing originals. This way I can upload my panoramas at the size I want them and people can view them in the size they want to.

I also upload all my pictures with GPS-data if I manage to bring my GPS to where I shoot my pictures. This way they're automaticly mapped using smugmug's integration of google maps. I just hope google will soon get more detailed satellite pictures of Europe online.

my smugmug page: http://rainforest1155.smugmug.com

Posted at 6:27AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Sebastian Hosche

10. The biggest difference between Flickr and Smugmug is that Flickr is mainly a photo sharing site with social networking functions. Chances are, the viewers of your photos are those who you already know, or those in your network. Smugmug is more like a photography web site service where you can build a web site easily, and the target audience are not your social network (but strangers or clients or prospects).

Posted at 6:27AM on Dec 19th 2005 by seattle photography hobbist

11. Hey, just stumbled across your blog entry. I think you're definitely making the right choice with smugmug. I've made kind of a name for myself customizing sites on smugmug. I've done a bunch of them and I have to say that the customization options are top notch. You can see my site at http://photos.mikelanestudios.com/ and you can get to the sites I've done from there.

Posted at 6:27AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Mike Lane

12. I am a college student and well I tried Flickr, it was much more for social networking. On smugmug, my photos look great and it's all about the photography and sharing my photos. The site is easy to use, super fast, and I love the unlimited storage. And the price is right for a college student: $30 a year.

Posted at 6:27AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Jason Goldstein

13. I've also started posting about my smugmug customizations at my blog... http://blog.mikelanestudios.com/

Posted at 6:27AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Mike Lane

14. Well thanks for all your comments people - it would seem that smugmug certainly has its fans. Some cool designs too, and some great photos... not sure if it is for me though as I do love the interations of flickr and the overall design of the flcikr site.

Posted at 6:27AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Andrew

15. Smugmug is great. You get what you pay for, whether a basic or pro account.

http://prints.thefotostore.com

-romain
in austin,tx

Posted at 6:27AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Romain

16. I like Flickr and Smugmug, but to me Fotki.com does better job. They have all the features of Flickr and Smugmug combined - storage of originals, slideshow, RSS, maps, great photo contests and dosens of others... 15 ways to upload you photos, by the way... and I've heard they are lowering the price for prints to something like 8 cents a print soon.

Posted at 6:27AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Alice White

17. Smugmug is my site of choice. after an extensive search of sites, smugmug had what I wanted and more. what did I want? Well a foolproof backup of my images and a way to share those with family and friends where they didn't have to sign up to see them or see a bunch of adverts, see by paying a nominal fee for the service, they have a garunteed revenue stream of users, which garuntees their stability for a long time.. flikr doesn't have that, and could theoretically go pay one day anyway. Smugmug has few size issues which I like, cause i want the highest quality photos I can stick up there. I persoanlly I like that people can link to my images especially for use in blogs and forums. And customer servies is a n absolute dream with smugmug, I've never had such a response with any e-mail customer service. Plus the help section is bar none the most extenisive of any website I've seen. You can view my photos at www.chrishollomon.com or hollomon.smugmug.com and You can save 5 bucks on the fee if you use my code, J3082aSPsepts enjoy and I think the columnist is correct in saying smugmug is the best of the lot.

Posted at 6:27AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Chris H

18. I like your comparison of the 3 photo sharing sites. There are so many out there, so it's definitely a good resource to try and narrow it down. One site I just stumbled upon might be of good use to you (or at least worth a try).
http://www.onetruemedia.com/index.html?utm_id=1001

You can upload photos, store them, create slideshows set to music, make DVDs and Photo Books, etc.

It's small and independent. Just the kind of service I like to support. They have a free trial so you can try it out and see if it's worth it. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Posted at 6:27AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Michelle

19. Fotki and Pbase

Come on, guys. The best sites are Fotki and Pbase - they just have less money to do PR campaigning and marketing brainwashing. :)

Name me 3 features that Smugmug has that Fotki doesn't? Also, just compare the prints pricing on Smugmug and on Fotki - come on, BE HONEST :)

Posted at 6:27AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Ixter