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[MusicHawk]

SmugMug is a very very strong photo publishing site, used by pro and serious photographers because it does so much so well --just like MC in spirit. They just got stronger by buying Flickr, which will be integrated. If MC's photo features are ever going to evolve, supporting sync with SmugMug could be a must-have feature.

SmugMug syncing is not a hack-job, there's a documented API. the SmugMug folks already provide code and guidance to use their API. Adobe Lightroom and other apps and tools have connected to it for many years.

SmugMug and MC would be wonderful working tools, could lead to more users because there's no overlap of functionality, yet lots of complementary capabilities. Many SmugMug users also use Lightroom as a local PC client because it syncs, but MC costs much much less (Adobe charges $10 to $20/month for Lightroom) yet could fill the same need.

Given that photography, organization, and sharing is by far the largest, fast-growing "local media" activity (as CDs and downloads and television continues to fade), upgrading MC's Image abilities seems like a huge business opportunity.

PS: There are SmugMug integration requests (not by me) here in Interact as far back as 2006. Maybe now is the time?

[MusicHawk]

I've learned more about why this is a business opportunity for JRiver:

SmugMug is the leading photo publishing site (and they now own Flickr too). BUT their built-in Organize is simplistic, MC runs circles around it. Also, they have a simplistic PC-to-site uploader. Because a separate image management app (like MC) is highly desirable, even necessary, they also have a page of third-party sync/upload tools (standalone utilities, and major apps that do it).

https://help.smugmug.com/third-party-uploaders-downloaders-migration-tools-and-utilities-r11dlxDJNBz

The one they repeatedly recommend is Adobe Lightroom Classic CC. It does two-way sync, but it is a beast to use, and it is expensive, $120/year. They recommend it because there's a Lightroom plug-in that syncs local image files with online SmugMug files, including updating Keywords. That makes it very very important. But it costs twice what SmugMug costs ($4 to $6/month for most users), just to sync changes?

Yet in many ways MC is far superior to Lightroom for photo organizing, viewing, tagging, etc, etc etc. Lightroom is typical bloated, slow Adobe software. It has some good image editing capabilities for those who need them, but I get the same or better results with other faster tools. Therefore, for me Lightroom boils down to an expensive Sync tool. If MC had that "simple" ability, it could be on their list, doing much more than sync, costing much less, win-win-win.

SmugMug has API and provides a bunch of code snippets and modules for those who want to integrate. Seems like a JR opportunity to get SmugMug (and Flickr) to SELL Media Center to the photo enthusiast world.


PS: Lightroom fans might know there is also Lightroom 6 which also syncs with SmugMug, priced at $149 for perpetual license. But last year Adobe declared it orphaned, no more updates. They want everyone to subscribe to their cloud versions, Lightroom Classic CC (or simpler Lightroom CC) for a substantial monthly fee.

[JimH]

I just want to acknowledge your posts.  Thank you.  It's interesting.  Probably a good idea.  We've got some other work ahead of it though. 

[MusicHawk]

Thank you Jim. I hope I'm being helpful.

Also, in SmugMug's forum (cutely named Digital Grin) I posted a lengthy description and endorsement of JRiver Media Center, in a thread that discusses alternatives to Adobe's expensive yet (to many) disappointing "famous" products. In the thread Forum users are suggesting a range of apps and utilities that are useful to photographers, but none of them are the swiss-army-knife that MC is.

In my post I especially cited MC's efficient operation, strong customization and manipulation capabilities. and warp speed performance, compared with my frustrating experiences with Adobe Lightroom, which to me is a ponderous, sluggish mess. Similar frustrations are said by other posters.

This might be a classic opportunity for disruption by JRiver, beginning with simple intelligent two-way file+metadata syncing with SmugMug. In my prior post here (above) I added a link to the page that lists the current sync apps and code resources, just FYI...

[JimH]

Here's the thread:
https://dgrin.com/discussion/263806/meta-data-not-fully-supported

I just sent Aaron a license.

[MusicHawk]

This is the main thread where I bragged about JRiver Media Center:
https://dgrin.com/discussion/262774/photo-editing-software#latest

The Metadata thread is about some bugs I uncovered that they are working on, but the main bug was discovered when I uploaded photos that have MC-supported backslashes to created a tree of keywords, very slick. But making the keywords useless in SmugMug because they were stripping out the slashes and concatenating the multiple words. Aaron confirmed that they should not, there's no prohibition in the metadata standard, so is being fixed.

Also, they read metadata only upon new upload, but fail to update metadata when a photo is replaced (for whatever reason), awaiting fix.

I appreciate that product manager Aaron is willing to acknowledge such problems and work on fixing them -- same as JRiver.