WebShots Bankruptcy & the Future of our photos...

[Phred]

WebShots, the photo storage site that many of us use, is owned by the At Home Corp ("ExciteAtHome"), which has filed for bankruptcy. This may have a serious effect on those of us who store photos on WebShots...

Here is the important part of a mailing I received as a WebShots album owner...

" Dear Webshots Member (.name.),

As you may be aware, At Home Corporation ("ExciteAtHome"), the owner of Webshots, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and is in the process of selling some of its assets, including the Webshots business. The buyer of the Webshots business would like to continue providing the Webshots service to you and to other Webshots members.
To do so, your consent is needed for the transfer to the buyer of Webshots of your membership account and your Personal Identifiable Information, as described in the Webshots Privacy Policy. The buyer of the Webshots business will be required to abide by the terms of the current Webshots privacy policy:
http://www.webshots.com/go?terms

At Home has entered into an asset purchase agreement with Twofold Photos LLC, which is a company owned by the three original founders
of Webshots. Under the bankruptcy procedures it is possible that Twofold may be outbid by another party, and that the other party may ultimately be the purchaser of the Webshots assets.

If you wish to continue your Webshots membership after the sale of the Webshots business, you do not need to take any action. After the sale of Webshots your membership will continue and your member information will be transferred automatically to the buyer of Webshots. However, you may elect NOT to continue your Webshots membership and NOT to have your member information transferred to the new buyer of the Webshots business."

It goes on detailing how NOT to continue as a member.
---------------------------------------------

Well... I guess it could be worse. At least they are saying that the interested buyer wants to continue providing service ~ but note they did NOT :( say continue providing
FREE service. Does anybody read 'annual membership fee' somewhere in between these lines? If we all loose or give up our WebShots albums, there will be a lot of empty spaces on an awful lot of Pet Talk pages :(.

Keep your eyes open for more details or information - and please post it here if you see something new.

[zippy-kat]

Yeah, I got the same msg. If they do start chargin', anyone know of anyother free sites that we can post pics and be 'bandwidth bandits' once again?

[Former User]

Well, I guess MSN has free photo storage too, at least we have a personal album there...It's not as good as Webshots, but better than nothing I guess....

[Logan]

And I don't think you can post from MSN to Pet Talk successfully... :( . I feel certain that there is a charge forthcoming for this service, like you, Phred. If they are charging annual fees for using Blue Mountain e-cards, which I understand they are now (part of the same network), then I imagine the Webshots will be next. Frankly, I don't mind paying a nominal fee to be able to share my photos. Of course, this is what PhotoPoint did last year..maybe we should have all just paid that fee!

But you're right....Pet Talk will be naked :eek: if they take away all those pictures!!!

[Former User]

I guess we won't be paying then...just have to keep updating our homepage more often then, at least that's free!

[Former User]

testing....posting from MSN...
http://communities.msn.com/_Secure/0OAAAAG0T6wk5FljnY8xcOHzel!W!

[Former User]

and it didn't work as we can see
:( :mad: :( :( :(

[Paul]

   I had thought that eventually Pet of the Day could host images for Pet Talk people. I wanted this software for two reasons. I wanted the software to automatically adjust images so that they could not be too wide nor too large (in file size). And I wanted to make it easier for people to get their photos online. I guess I would need to create the software that could automatically upload your images. I will try to get his done sooner rather than later.

[Phred]

Paul ~ Is this possible?

Could Pet Talk "partner" with one of the existing photo hosting sites to provide a common (to all Pet Talkers) album where we could store our photos in mass, using only one (or maybe a few) of the host site's albums? If one album for all would be too massive, possibly arrange for several and divide them by the subject or alphabet.

If costs were involved, we Pet Talkers could pay a dues fee to Pet Talk for picture posting rights.

Any way this could work?

[thelmalu99]

Sigh, I can just see myself telling my grandchildren as I hand them my credit card, "in my day, you could do so many things on the Internet FOR FREE! Those were the days!"

Progress, my foot! :mad:

[ December 13, 2001: Message edited by: thelmalu99 ]

[4 feline house]

Well, NOTHING is free. Webshots makes its money by charging for printouts and by advertsing photo equipmemt and supplies.

Most sites are free but are festooned with annoying ads. You know, kinda like NBC, ABC and CBS.

Most people don't understand the costs involved with running a website. Bandwidth can get expensive! This is why only a tiny fraction of all websites are free AND free of ads. The exception would be those run by another organization - such as those run by your employer, your state government, your utility company, etc. or those who are simply advertsing their own wares, such as those run by Iams or Tidycats, for instance.

Although I do find them annoying, I put up with the ads, because the alternative is that I would be paying alot more to surf the web than I am now.

[Paul]

   Phred,

   I think all the generic photo hosting sites will start charging. I would only want to partner with another site if they were excellent. I will put looking for a partner in the middle of the very long to do list.

   Each user definitely needs their own album. Although, a Pet Talk area makes a lot of sense.

[ December 13, 2001: Message edited by: Paul ]

[Paul]

   Some things are free. Pet of the Day, Dog of the Day, and Cat of the Day come to mind.

   Apache the software that runs most of the websites on the Internet is free. Linux the operating system that Apache often runs on is free. The Free Software Foundation and Project GNU (http://www.gnu.org/software/software.html) has created tools that the computer industry has used since 1984.

   That said the cost of serving Pet of the Day has risen. I think there will be a day when we will have ads.

[jackiesdaisy1935]

I would be glad to pay a fee to PetTalk to be able to post pictures, I can post them from Homestead, but I'm paying 29.95 and only for the first year, then it will be much higher. So far MSN is free to have an album if you start a community or join one, but who knows how long that will last.
Right now another place that is free is http://photoisland.com but that is probably only for a while.
Jackie

[ December 15, 2001: Message edited by: Jackie ]

[4 feline house]

There aren't many sites that I would find worth paying for, but Pet Talk would certainly be one of them. There is another site I visit occasionally that charges a fee to use its bulletin board; however, you have to pay even to lurk, and I don't think that's fair. If a fee only to posters would not generate enough income to allow lurkers to browse for free, I would rather see ads.

[slleipnir]

I heard of ppl using horsechat.com it works the same kinda..i think

[Former User]

testing...

http://www.photogra.com/galleries/33097/curr/8481518_20011215_142239_20011215142239.jpg

[Former User]

okay...that above pic came from www.photogra.com (http://www.photogra.com) anyone interested, go check it out. We think we will use it if Webshots stops working.

[RachelJ]

Originally posted by Logan:
[QB]Frankly, I don't mind paying a nominal fee to be able to share my photos. Of course, this is what PhotoPoint did last year..maybe we should have all just paid that fee!
QB]

Speaking of PhotoPoint, I stuck with them when they started charging because the first year was reasonable. The charge for next year is going to be quite a bit more, but the rub is that the site hasn't been accessible for the past 3 days...and my signature pictures aren't showing up. I don't know what the problem is because they haven't even emailed me to explain. Don't know if this is a temporary problem or if they crashed and burned.

[AvaJoy]

With my Earthlink ISP I have an abundance of free webspace on which to store pics, use as a homepage or whatever. Easy and reliable with no annoying bells/whistles. Highly recommend! :)

[Cinder & Smoke]

Rachel ~

Just found this article on the Digital Photography Review BBS:

"Photopoint, the photo sharing and printing site has been down for well over 24 hours. The last time this happened (back in July) the company was in trouble and shortly afterwards was sold back to its original owner Pantellic Software Inc.
Neither the Photopoint or Pantellic websites (or other servers) can be contacted.
It's a mystery at the moment, lets hope it's a technical problem for the sake of Photopoint's users.

UPDATE: In addition to this it appears that several users have, in the last week, received emails from Photopoint telling them that their print service is not currently available and directing them to 'EZ Prints' as a 'trusted partner' during the holiday season.

This is most worrying because Photopoint is of course now a paid service."

Above from: Digital Photography Review BBS site. (http://www.dpreview.com/news/0112/01121501photopointagain.asp)

Good luck with Photopoint, Rachel!
If you get hung out by them, there's always:

Webshots.com at: Webshots.com (http://www.webshots.com/homepage.html)
or the new one Casper & Kitty found:
Photogra.com at: http://www.photogra.com/

[TheAntiPam]

I don't mean to muddy the water even more on this photo problem, but... ;)

As AvaJoy has mentioned, if you have an internet provider that includes free storage space for your own personal web page, you can put your photos there. You can't view them like an album, or browse them like on WebShots, but at least for PetTalk posting they would be available.

Each internet provider has a little different way of getting your files into that free space, but they are all basically the same. Then, you can use the [IMAGE] button when posting to PetTalk to show the photo.

If you are already using your storage space for a Web page - you might not have room. And for some, the amount of computer jargon and confusion to get photos posted might be daunting. :( But, you CAN use your web site space for photos, even if you don't ever intend to have an actual page for people to visit.

Good Luck, everyone - and be brave! This photo situation has many solutions!

[ December 15, 2001: Message edited by: TheAntiPam ]

[4 feline house]

Thanks for the idea, Anti-Pam! I just made my first web page! (http://home.swbell.net/lgsees/)

[Cinder & Smoke]

Monday @ 1:30 pm ~ Still no word on what's happened to Photopoint ~

This info source is: "Imaging-Resource.com" (http://www.imaging-resource.com/NEWS/1008613697.html)

"More on the PhotoPoint situation!
By Michael R. Tomkins, The Imaging Resource
(Monday, December 17, 2001 - 13:28 ET)

Site still down for a fourth day as reader
emails continue to flood in...

We told you yesterday about a major outage ongoing at online photofinisher PhotoPoint.com, and whilst we've yet to elicit any comment from our contacts at the company, some reader emails do shed more light on the situation. One such email came from Andrew Murphy, who provided info and photos from the offices of Pantellic Software Inc. (the company behind the PhotoPoint service) last July when the site was down for a similarly long period. Andrew tells us:

"At 11:28 I spoke to a lady "in the financial department" of Pantellic, who "was not at liberty to tell me" whether the downtime was organisational or technical, or when service
was to be restored. She then backtracked from "not at liberty" to "I have no idea what's wrong, I just found out this morning that we are down." She suggested that "someone" would be in this afternoon who might have some idea what was up.

The place was even more unpopulated-looking than the last time - she was the only person in evidence."

Another reader, Al Mark, pointed out that the Pantellic-hosted Epson PhotoCenter website is still online and operational. The 'About Us'
page on PhotoCenter notes that the site "was co-developed by Epson ... and PhotoPoint ... [this] means the site uses PhotoPoint's technology and content, and is hosted at PhotoPoint's technical center." If this information is up-to-date (which, since it refers to PhotoPoint Corp., it may well not be) it does seem somewhat unlikely that some kind of catastrophic equipment failure has taken the PhotoPoint site offline yet left another site hosted in the same complex untouched. (It is certainly still possible for an equipment failure to affect one site and not the other, though.) It seems that perhaps this is a similar case to last July, where legal wrangling over the fate of the site whilst PhotoPoint Corp. went bankrupt essentially required the plug to be pulled, and also meant that until negotiations were over neither company could publically comment even to let customers know the reason for the outage. Whatever is up at PhotoPoint, we'd guess that the staff are working their hardest to restore the service, whether that's by fixing technical problems, or through some kind of legal process.

Whilst it might be small comfort to Ebay users in particular, who use the site to host photos for their auction businesses, it does seem that reading back over our reports for the history of July's outage might be enlightening. Although the site was down for an extended period, it did come back up - and without the loss of anyone's photos. Paying
customers were credited for the period of the outage, and it did become clear that Pantellic had little choice in whether or not to tell customers what was happening in 'real time' due to the legal process they were negotiating.

As with last time, we'll endeavour to get the full story to you as it unfolds. Watch this space!"

[4 feline house]

My ISP's webpage hosting was too rigid - One font, one template, etc.\

So I got really bold and designed a Tripod webpage! I know it looks really amateur so far, but I've only been studying HTML for 4 days.

Here is the new address: http://wesees.tripod.com/

[RachelJ]

A friend of mine just started using Ofoto, which is a Kodak site. Nice albums but I couldn't find anything there about linking to bulletin boards. Does anyone know anything about Ofoto?

[NoahsMommy]

Leah S,
My page is on Tripod too, how did you get the cat background? It looks great...

[RachelJ]

I found out the answer to my own question about Ofoto. No, they won't let you link to bulletin boards. They claimed too many people would link other people's pictures and they considered that copy right infringement and didn't want to be part of it. Ghrrrrr

[4 feline house]

Noah's Mommy, sorry I didn't respond sooner but somehow I missed your post until just now.

I got it from Cat Stuff. They let you use anything and only ask that you give them credit and upload what you want to your own server. You can get to them by clicking the icon at the bottom of my page or going to:
http://www.xmission.com/~emailbox/catstuff.htm

[Cinder & Smoke]

Here's a web site that compares a lot of the current Photo Hosting and Processing sites and gives click-links to most of them...

Guide to Online Photo Albums (http://www.andromeda.com/people/ddyer/photo/albums.html).

Enjoy!

[4 feline house]

I just spent many, many hours learning HTML so I could come up with a NEW AND IMPROVED website! I hope y'all visit!
http://wesees.tripod.com/

**MIDI WARNING! MIDI WARNING!**
Turn your speakers down if you're at work!

[Logan]

Leah, you have done a beautiful job with your website!! I love it. I now have a special place in my heart for poor stinky Pepper though....and she is NOT ugly!!! I think she is beautiful!!! :D

[4 feline house]

Thanks Logan. Of course, we love Pepper as much as the other kitties, but the funny faces she makes, her "odors" and the fact that she is a spaz makes her a perfect target! She's very happy that you called her beautiful, and she wants to know if she can come live with you. ;) :D

[Cinder & Smoke]

Don't panic; but take note of this:

Webshots will be upgrading servers at 5pm this Friday (January 11th). Please expect weekend outages.

This probably means that if you try to access WebShots while they are doing this work, you'll get an error message from your browser saying that the site is down and not responding. HOPEFULLY they are being honest and the site will return in good shape by Monday or so.

Another effect of this work outage will be that our Pet Talk site will be full of *Broken Picture Icons* ~ Every place someone has a WebShots photo, including signature thumbnails, we will see the :( *Broken Picture Icon*. Annnd... Pet Talk pages might not fully load and display...

If you seem to wait forever to see a Pet Talk page, try hitting your browser "STOP" button and wait a minute more. Often times this will tell your browser to *stop* trying to load a picture it can't find and display whatever it has got - you should see the text at this point.

[ramanth]

But it wasn't the weekend on Wednesday and I've had broken images from Webshots since then. :( :( :mad:

So should I just wait until next week and see what happens then?


It's 10:18 a.m. on a Friday and I just logged into Webshots. My photos are there. Why are they not showing up here? I can alter, add, edit, anything.... that doesn't make sense....

~Kimmy

[ January 11, 2002: Message edited by: Kim S. ]

[NoahsMommy]

Are there any other places (besides a personal home page) we can store photos to post here?

[RachelJ]

Oh, it's worse than that.. http://news.com.com/2100-1023-802658.html?legacy=cnet&tag=ch_mh

I had over 600 photos there. The cost is nothing compared to the time it took to upload, crop, arrange, add captions, etc. Although I still have the original photos on my hard drive, I feel an awful loss.

I have signed up at the Photogra.com but I don't think I will ever be able to put in the effort or enjoy the process anymore.

[lizbud]

RachelJ,
I read the link you provided & it is grim news
indeed. You do have back-up of the pictures on your
hard drive right ? I would download them to disk as a
another back-up from your drive.
I may be wrong, but I think Karen said something at
one time about Pet Talk having it's own webpage space
for people's pet photos. Wouldn't that be Great!! I would
even pay a fee for knowing our pictures would be in
safe hands. Liz.

[RachelJ]

Liz, I have some of them backed up but not all. I have so many digital pictures I have used up all of my zip drive disks. I need to get the device to burn a cd which would hold so many more. I need to do this sooner rather than later as I would be crushed if I lost them completely. Thanks for the reminder.

[Freckles]

Today I noticed Jackies sig and all but one pic in Souraya's sig are not visible and I can't bring them up using right click, copy image, paste at top, etc. any more. So far Graham is still accessable.

[RachelJ]

I don't know that anyone here other than me was involved with PhotoPoint, but if so, there is now a message at the website www.PhotoPoint.com.