2019 Year In Review
By: Aaron Meyers
Tags: Release Notes, Year In Review, Product

2019 was a busy year for SmugMug, just as it was for our partners at Flickr. We’ve all been hard at work making the world better for all you photographers out there. Most significantly, we made big improvements to how you and your visitors view and buy your photos. Your photos are being viewed, engaged with, and purchased more as a result of that work.

This year we supported and provided opportunities for four interns, helped Flickr complete their infrastructure migration, fixed hundreds of bugs, upgraded the operating systems that power SmugMug, and, as a result, kept everything running all the time — day or night.

I wanted to take some time to summarize the many improvements made over the past year and talk about how that’s helped you. Here are some of the more than 1,000 product improvements made over the course of the year (that’s over four improvements per business day!).

Love for showcasing your photos:

New Lightbox: The window that displays your photo got a smoother, simpler, better viewing experience. As a result, your visitors are engaging on your photos more, more stories are being written about the photo, and our Pros are selling more.

The window that displays your photo got a smoother, simpler, better viewing experience. As a result, your visitors are engaging on your photos more, more stories are being written about the photo, and our Pros are selling more. Default gallery presets: Save your most common gallery settings so you can easily apply them when creating a new gallery. You can even set one as a default so your new galleries will always have the settings you want from the start.

Save your most common gallery settings so you can easily apply them when creating a new gallery. You can even set one as a default so your new galleries will always have the settings you want from the start. New photo sizes: Send us your 4-gigapixel, 500-MiB photos. We can handle them!

Send us your 4-gigapixel, 500-MiB photos. We can handle them! Browsing is more accessible to all: We’ve made browsing all aspects of SmugMug more friendly, especially for those who browse with keyboards.

We’ve made browsing all aspects of SmugMug more friendly, especially for those who browse with keyboards. Better display of your photos: When you or your visitors look at a photo, you want that photo to look amazing and display right away; we’ve made improvements to ensure they display at lightning speed, especially on mobile.

You and your visitors use your mobile devices more frequently every day, and we’ve invested heavily in making sure the iOS and Android apps are constantly providing more value for you.

iOS and Android improvements:

Auto-Upload: Enable Auto-Upload today in our iOS and Android apps to keep your phone photos safe.

Enable Auto-Upload today in our iOS and Android apps to keep your phone photos safe. HEIC Support: Photos taken in the new image format, particularly on newer iPhones, are now accepted everywhere at SmugMug.

Photos taken in the new image format, particularly on newer iPhones, are now accepted everywhere at SmugMug. Change gallery settings: You have even more options when you’re on the go: allow (or disallow) gallery downloads, set cover images, and more from within the apps.

You have even more options when you’re on the go: allow (or disallow) gallery downloads, set cover images, and more from within the apps. Organize your photos: Move and collect virtual copies of your photos in the apps.

Move and collect virtual copies of your photos in the apps. Sign up for SmugMug: You can now start and pay for a SmugMug account from your iOS or Android phone.

It’s important to help many of you make money, and we saw some nice improvements in helping your photos turn into $$$.

Helping Pros make $$$:

Shop view: The new “Shop View setting” is helping you sell more by surfacing your shopping cart as soon as visitors open your photos. Maximize your sales by enabling this in “Gallery Settings”.

The new “Shop View setting” is helping you sell more by surfacing your shopping cart as soon as visitors open your photos. Maximize your sales by enabling this in “Gallery Settings”. Getting started with selling: Pre-built pricelists and a walk-through guide are helping photographers get started with selling. If you’re unsure how to sell your photos, look for the new “Suggested Pricing” options to use data-driven prices to help you get started.

Pre-built pricelists and a walk-through guide are helping photographers get started with selling. If you’re unsure how to sell your photos, look for the new “Suggested Pricing” options to use data-driven prices to help you get started. Page templates from our designers to you: Photographers like you frequently have “About Me,” “Services,” and “Pricing” pages to attract new visitors to your photos, and it’s now super easy to create these with our pre-built templates.

Photographers like you frequently have “About Me,” “Services,” and “Pricing” pages to attract new visitors to your photos, and it’s now super easy to create these with our pre-built templates. Order status improvements: You and your clients are getting better information about the status of orders thanks to the new Order Status page.

Lastly, the shopping cart expanded this year with several new products for you to buy and sell.

More products to buy and sell:

… plus hundreds of other improvements that won’t fit in this space. Many of these improvements were thanks to your constant feedback, and we love to hear how we can help you all. Keep it coming. We’ve got a great 2020 in store and can’t wait to deliver more for you.

Aaron Meyers