Comments on: Photo site Webshots comes under new ownership again, will re-launch as Smile

By: OLga

OLga — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 15:30:31 +0000

Wow, I am glad to see i am not the only one so upset. I have been a member of webshots for years as well and loved it. When i saw they switch to Smile i was suprised. Than the trouble started, Smile is awful just awful, nothing at all like webshot. It would freeze my computer, hog my memory etc… I am a premium member for years, i hate smile and tried my hardest to cancel and not only has it been very hard i send them emails for help and they donot reply they completely ignore any of my questions and so on. I had to call my bank to change my credit card number because it is the only way for me to cancel them. The bank told me they might still try to charge, if that happens i am gonna sue their a@@ I am so upset Smile not only invaded but are nothing but thieves……IAM SO ANGRY AND AM GLAD TO SEE I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE!!!!

By: Patrick Williot

Patrick Williot — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 10:04:56 +0000

Webshots was for us a brand new sportcar, now Smile is just a child scooter ! For years, I was an happy paid member and I uploaded all my photographs on Webshots. Now, I’m really angry !

By: Slime Hater

Slime Hater — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 14:36:04 +0000

You read all these comments…. and this is the corporate BS you respond with??
How do you sleep???
Just two points:
1) Clearly, you didn’t send emails to everyone. Clearly. You didn’t.
2) The old webshots desktop “on the verge of being outdated”…. I’m not clear what that means.
If that means that it will be available forever from other sources and work forever offline just perfectly……… well….. OK.
How can you not see what you’ve done??

By: Narendra Rocherolle

Narendra Rocherolle — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 23:12:57 +0000

Webshots albums will be coming back as part of a a bunch of new search filters. The new service will eventually help you find photos far faster than the past and without having to create albums in the future.

By: Narendra Rocherolle

Narendra Rocherolle — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 23:09:53 +0000

As one of the co-founders of the original Webshots and the new Smile, I wanted to make sure people understood some of what has happened over the last few months.

1) American Greetings was about to shut down Webshots for good. At the 11th hour (and with some investors), we were able to strike a deal to save portions of the service to try to turn it into a viable business.

2) Paying members automatically had all of their personal photos transferred to the new Smile service for safe keeping. Subscriptions were also put on pause during the transition and continue to be on pause until the new service fully launches

3) Free members had 60 days to download or transfer their photos. We emailed all members with photos several times to let them know about this deadline that was dictated by the deal.

4) The existing members who are vocally unhappy are
a) Those that used the old service to embed photos in blogs and on the Web. We are sorry, there was no feasible way to continue that service.
b) Those that enjoyed the public community and the ability to download millions of photos to their desktop and screensaver. Again, this service was not viable.
c) Those that loved the old Webshots Desktop Windows software to manage wallpaper and screensaver. This program was on the verge of being outdated and we could not maintain the code so a new version that had many features stripped out was released in order to provide basic functionality. It isn’t perfect yet! But we can maintain it and improve it which is what matters most. There has been confusion because this old software was on millions of desktops and in some cases upgrading revealed some bugs like not being able to find old wallpaper that had been downloaded over the years. These photos were not deleted and our help staff has been assisting with these types of issues.

5) The new service is NOT for all of the old members. Webshots had millions of free users. The new service will be a pay service when launched so many many folks will not want that service. Again, this is a business decision. We believe that over the next few months you will find the absolute BEST way to maintain and share large personal libraries of photos with Smile. You will be able to rediscover amazing moments and find things in seconds. If you loved getting stunning images, we will still have premium content for you and now it is available not just for Windows but for Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android and Windows8.

6) Change is difficult and we take it personally when people are unhappy but not everything that is FREE on the internet lasts forever and we are putting together a new service that we believe people desperately need.

Thank you all for the comments, gripes, and encouragement.

We only have one true help channel so if you need help, you must visit http://help.getsmileapp.com

By: cristy

cristy — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 22:01:14 +0000

I doubt there will be any refunds the way it reads on the help site. This is terrible. I’ve been a paid member for years and had numerous albums on there. They are now gone. It was so cool to just type in something you wanted to see photos of and member’s photos would pop up. I don’t need a program just to organize my pictures or whatever the heck they are trying to do. I’m very upset. I sent an email and I’ll bet I never get an answer.

By: Joanne

Joanne — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 08:57:05 +0000

Kathryn, go to your My Documents folder and look up Webshots Data folder and see if they aren’t in there.

By: Joanne

Joanne — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 08:51:59 +0000

I could not have said it better Trish.

By: JOANNE

JOANNE — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 08:43:32 +0000

I am another loser with this Webshots transfer to Smile. I have been unable to transfer anything to Smile. I asked for my money back and haven’t seen it yet. Too bad they had to change the format.
Possibly they can’t handle it. It seems they launched Smile before they knew what they were doing.
That being said, all of your pictures should be in your webshots data folder in your My Documents file. Mine are but I can only access the ones with a J Peg extension. The others with a WB1 file extension are not downloadable unless your change the file extension with a special program. When I try to download the program, my virus protection tells me not to. So, I have lost my access to my albums. I only used Webshots for wall paper and screen savers and also to upload pictures from my camera to a file in My Documents. I am finding, there is life after Webshots. I hope they refund my money. To date, nothing has come my way in the form of a refund. Good luck everyone. I don’t see much hope for SMILE.

By: Rwade

Rwade — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 05:44:54 +0000

i just want MY pictures back! I am a paid member for a long time. Sheeze a bit of notice would have been nice so we could have backed up our pics