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 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...

[Former User]

and it didn't work as we can see

[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!

[ 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 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.