"Imagepro" is gone

<p>Does anyone care?</p>

<p>Not here. I tried it when I first joined PNet, but never really got into it...</p>

<p>Well it was a premium offering for those that had a paid subscription. What will they offer now as a replacement other than offering to refund my subscription cost? </p>

<p>I've seen a few people put in quite a bit of effort into their ImagePro site, and it shows. I'm sure they'll care. </p>

 

<p>I set my ImagePro site up when I first got it, but I never really used it. I needed to get my own website. As for the subscription cost, I see it more as a way to support this site...to which I admittedly have a sentimental attachment.</p>

<p>This came as much a surprise to you as it did for me. <br>

I know this doesn't help you Sanford....however this doesn't impact all subscribers, meaning - less than 20% of those that subscribe had an imagePro website, less than half of those even used them or referred to them in the last 2 years. Truth is, it was an outdated platform and UI, one that I knew NameMedia was not going to invest in. Knowing this - last year I removed it from subscription benefit last August. That said, I most definitely thought I would have had more warning before the plug was pulled the product. Fact - no one lost any photos, as all photos in imagePro linked to a photo.net portfolio. I have offered a subscription refund to all that had an imagePro website. Fact is photography.com as a domain was sold and transferred by NameMedia this service was a casualty of that happening. </p>

 

<p>Wouldn't ever miss it, though that was a little clumsy, customer-relations-wise. Hope the proceeds from the domain sale can be rolled into the Photo.net v2 dev project with gusto.</p>

<p>I couldn't agree more Matt - I am more than likely among the most displeased by this. </p>

<p>Glenn, appreciate the candid feedback on the reasons behind the ImagePro discontinuation. </p>

<p>Like Steve, I also see the subscription as a way of supporting the site as I'm sure it's a sentiment shared by most subscribers. However, we aren't always aware that you don't always control every aspect of the site and this type of clarification can go a long way in avoiding false attribution and negative sentiments potentially misdirected toward you. </p>

<p>I hadn't even noticed it was gone. I remember being one of the early testers and had hopes for the ImagePro platform, but it was clunky and couldn't be customized to suit my preferences. I wanted something suitable for presentations of multiple related photos - essays, themes, documentary projects, etc. The ImagePro platform never quite managed that. And even after I'd set up my page, a few months later I checked and all my content was gone - blanked out as if I'd never set it up to begin with. I never bothered with it again.</p>

ImagePro? What imagePro? I have my own web site and never even looked at or tried ImagePro. I guess there were some people who did use it. From what I see above it was not very good and was not used by many people anyway. I like complete control and placement of text and images including sizes. I like to start with a blank web page and use my own HTML to create what I want and need.

<p>Just got the email today from Glenn. Had to do a Photo.net site wide search to find a mention of it and found this thread.</p>

<p>ImagePro was a nice simplistic but stylish way to show my images where I could upload my own designed graphics banner. Didn't get any calls, emails or mention from any living soul after I had it up. It was nice to show up at the top of a Google search entering my name so local folks didn't have to go rummaging around my Photo.net gallery.</p>

<p>It became more of a novelty tinker toy web presence experiment for me. Now I know how long galleries of this sort last and the cause of their demise. At least I'll know what to expect if I sign up for some other type of gallery site. All I want is a place for people who Google my name to see what I do that I find of value.</p>

<p>However, having the ImagePro gallery was the only reason I paid for a PN subscription each year. If Photo.net administrators come up with an alternative, similarly designed gallery venue I'ld pay my annual $25. I've already forgotten what the other benefits of a subscription bring because most of the stuff I do is respond to forum threads which is free. I never took advantage of other subscription features.</p>

I was one who used it extensively. I in fact maintained my site on it constantly.

 

The "bad" part of the timing on its cancellation was that in fact the very day, 24 hours, before the email

bomb was dropped on me and it just disappeared, one of the Fire Departments I work with had put ten

new "facebook albums" on its facebook page, which is subscribed to and followed by hundreds of

individuals and other Fire Departments all over North America, Each of those ten facebook albums

which were sent to be viewed by those people and departments are contained the credit line "all photos

by Robert C Anderson, website at www,robert100.photography,com".

 

(those albums showed just over 830 of my images of Firefighters to all the subscribers of that fire department)

 

The timing,of this cancellation of that website, in a word, "stunk". There are now people all over the

place who are going to that website, and instead of seeing the type of work I produce, are getting the

words "this site is no longer available" staring at them from a plain white background.

 

The plain white background with those words does not say "and it;s not because Robert doesn't

maintain his site,,,,,,,it was sold, without him knowing it was coming"....it just looks like I personally

screwed up. Not impressive.

 

And is there anything any of you at photo.net could have done about it ? Nope.

 

C'est la vie.

<p>I had heard of it but never looked into it--and I first stumbled onto this site fifteen years ago. I joined a couple of years later.</p>

<p>As for Photo.net's health in general, it will surely outlive me, and I feel fine.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p>I put a good effort into it including Google Analytics and discovered no one visited it. I only hope now they remove all the content from all the Websites people built so their not just collecting byte dust on some server with a lot of files and images. The owners have the responsibility to erase all the user accounts and content, and I hope the folks at Photo.net ensure that happens since they sold us this feature.</p>

<p>I was about to renew my photo.net subscription this morning because I saw this in a google search of my name.<br /> <a href="http://imagepro.photography.com/dfthornton">Subscription Expired - ImagePRO <em>Photography</em></a><br>

<cite>imagepro.<strong>photography</strong>.com/dfthornton</cite> Subscription Expired. This user's <em>photo</em>.net subscription has expired.<br>

-<br>

Now I have no idea who this dfthornton is but this is what google returns with the search phrase "bill landon photography"<br /> Lovely, now what do I do !!!</p>

<p>Lets hope photo.net itself doesn't just disappear one day. There is not a lot of traffic on the forums it seems. Lots of people are looking for an inexpensive, easy to use gallery to show their work. photo.net/photos/sanford would work if they could offer (for a fee) a completely ad free version. </p>

<p>I'm sorry to see it's gone. It was a simple interface to set up and use and it was a perfect way for me to set up galleries for others to see. I've looked around at other options and so far nothing else has jumped out at me. If anyone can suggest something that works similarly to Image Pro, I'd appreciate it. Thanks</p>

<p>If you want to remove the associated ImagePro URL that shows up Googling your name and which NOW shows the professionally unflattering "Page No Longer Exists" or in my case with Firefox..."Server Not Found", here's some info on how to do it...</p>

<p>http://www.laurenstarling.org/tag/google-cache-removal/</p>

<p>http://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#newwindow=1&q=Google+search+result+cache+removal</p>

<p>http://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1663691?hl=en</p>

<p>WayBack Machine found my old ImagePro site but lost the original formatting and no photos are showing up. I didn't wait long enough for a full download because it was too ugly to look at without original formatting and design I worked so hard on anyway.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Good grief. Just lovely. So much for my 2000 new cards with a now bad URL and email address. :-/</p>

<p>I too used my Imagepro site as my main web page. Timing was also bad for me. I am doing a portfolio review at Photoplus Expo and gave them that URL to see my work. It was overcrowded and not pretty but it was what I had. I set up a simple web site on Squarespace which I'm going to keep that way. I'll just link back to photo.net and others for people to see more. I've also given out a lot of business cards with the old URL. At least my e-mail address is still good on them.</p>

<p>I feel your pain, Mark Harris. A year or 6 months notice would have been appreciated and courteous. I was just on my imagepro site a few days ago doing some work. Not a peep of warning, an email would have been nice. Wow, I am utterly dismayed at the lack of notice and lack of respect, not even to apologize for the inconvenience. While the site may not have been of use to some and apparently not used by many, for a number of us, we regarded this as part of our PN membership and used the service, this is an inconvenience.</p>

<p>Update, looks like I did get an email on 10/16 at around 3:30 pm telling me. At least I got an email and offer of a refund. I will not ask for the refund because I feel Photo.net is worth supporting, even if I am not happy with the Imagepro fiasco.</p>

<p>I can't find any hint of an email notification, even in my junk, let alone a warning. And I have an opening reception in less than 2 weeks, and so now I have to come up with something to replace it.</p>

<p>It is probably a much better idea to have your own website if you are a professional.</p>

<p>I'll be setting something up on GoDaddy.com, it is not too expensive to buy a domain name through them or another hosting service. They have tools you can use, or you can use your own website editor and build the site on your computer and use an FTP program like Filezilla (Free for PC and MAC) to upload to your site hosted by them. They are a big web hosting service and probably not going to disappear overnight.</p>

<p>For those with a PC using windows, Microsoft is giving away their old Web Expressions 4 for free that can be downloaded right from Microsoft. This is a WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) HTML Editor, used to sell for around $150. They no longer support it, but it is a pretty good tool for basic website creation and is just a little harder to use than working with Microsoft Word and Microsoft is giving it away, free download.</p>

<p>There are also WYSIWYG editors out there for MAC and Linux. Filezilla FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is also available for WIN,MAC,Linux. What ever hosting service you go with, should have instructions on how to upload your files to your domain. If you are a little computer savvy this is not to hard. </p>

<p>It is probably a better idea to own your own domain name and you can always transfer it to any domain hosting service on the web. You get your own email too and have control if you want to create many email addresses at your own domain. They even have a tool for you to see if the domain name you want is available.</p>

<p>Post questions if you want to learn more on the Website creation forum. I have built a couple websites using GoDaddy as a domain hosting service and using Expressions and Filezilla. I am in the process of building another for a local band and looks like I will building yet another. </p>

<p>I know the Imagepro was nice and convenient being able to just search and link photos off your Photo.net gallery. You can still do this, but you would have to copy and paste the image url into your site. You can also just create folders on your own domain and put the photos there which is far easier.</p>

<p>Doing it yourself, can be a little harder, but you really have a lot more control in designing your site. The biggest tip I can suggest is really figure out how to organize your images with folders and organize your files and art on your website. It makes it easier for editing and making changes to the site down the road.</p>

<p> There is also tons of info on the web on how to work with HTML and Java scripts if you really want to get creative. They also have easy cookie cutter software that you can use to get something up fast until you are ready to really customizing the site.</p>

<p>Just one option of many out there.</p>