As of December 1st. They've started a new "photo storage" site called Smile, which has a annual fee and is NOT a public photo share site like Webshots is. You MUST do something prior to December 1st, otherwise you'll lose access to your photos forever. You can tranfer your photos to Smile (though I understand from people who have that they end up all scrambled, NOT in the original albums, and are only available to view for invited guests - a real bummer for those who want to look at cross stitch projects), or you can d/l back to your computer. I have an old Flickr Account I rarely used, and tried out PhotoBucket, but preferred Webshots format at the time. This is the 3rd online photo storage/share site that has closed on me. Not sure what I will do. Be aware that if you've linked to photos on Webshots, those links will no longer be valid. When my computer crashed and I lost everything between 2005 and early 2010 (my backups didn't work), I was able to replace SOME of them because I did have a Webshots and FlickR account. The link to one of my Webshots albums is apparently listed in a Galveston tour guide, and I have traffic because of that. I don't know who lists it, so I'm not sure what will become of those photos. I'm unsure what to do now. Anyone have any suggestions?
Thanks.
8 comments:
Hi Linda, I have serious issue with the new Smile transition,considering the fact that my subscription ends 07/14/2013. Here is the response i got when i asked if my present subscription would be honored by Smile after Dec. 1st.....OCT 03, 2012 | 11:20AM PDT
Corey Nelson replied:
"Hello Rainer,
Thank you for your email and we appreciate your patience during the transition. During the transfer period of the old company to the new company, we are not able to access anyone’s credit card information
This means we are unable to charge credit cards, issue refunds or cancel accounts". So basically Smile is not giving back any refunds and you must RE-subsrcibe in order to continue this service, hopefully other people are realizing this and pressure this company with emails or phone calls (1-800-222-8815) this is a perfect case for a class action suit..I'll be watching your site for a reply...thanks R. Coleman
Yeah, I hope they improve that Smile program, or I won't be using it. I mostly used it as wallpaper, but enjoyed a lot of the photos. One thing that is scary is that it started uploading photos from my computer. Some of those photos are wallpaper and pictures from other sites where I have a very limited license and can be sued if they show up on other websites.
if you don't require the latest and greatest features, in a photo gallery hosting service, try ours at https://pixi.me/ - no ads, since 2004.
Don't use Smile, it sucks!
Better is to go to Flickr!
I HAVE BEEN USING WEBSHOTS TO UPLOAD MY PICS IN IT, BEFORE I SHARE THEM ON MY BLOG! AND NOW, ALL I SEE IS ‘TEMPORARILY UNAVAILABLE’ FOR ALL MY PICS FOR ALL THESE YEARS! OMG!!! I HAVE SINCE SWITCHED TO USING PHOTOBUCKET TO UPLOAD MY PICS, BUT MY OLDER POSTS WITH THOSE PICS WITH IT ARE ALL GONERS! IM SO LOST!!!!!
(sorry for the caps, I typed this on another site, and tot I would like to share this comment on your site too).
Just learned last night that all my albums are gone and I don't have a back up for a lot of them. Nobody notified me. They notified me in September 2012 that they took $29 from my credit card to pay my premium membership fee for one year so I had no idea - they did not tell me they were going to start shutting down and would be gone by December 2. That is really sad to do this - I was a member forever and now I cannot even contact my friends. :(
Also - I've lately been using Shutterfly and Snapfish - both are good. I miss Webshots - so sad. They left with our funds evidentally. I will not stay with Smile -
This is so lame, I am also a long time customer since 2001 and had important photos. I was able to back up only one file. So I moved all my photos to one file and was able to retrieve them today. It was lucky that my old PC files were saved on their software but not that hard drive and were saved by backing up from just one album. Hope that helps anyone else in this terrible situation. Very uncool of webshots to just leave us hanging!!! Sorry for all those who paid... this seems illegal.
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