One of the things I liked about the site was that it was a great place to host images, images that I might nor normally upload to my main web site, www.timsdigitaldarkroom.com

Now I have the painstaking task of going back and either deleting post with photrade images, of which there are a lot! OR trying to figure out what images I posted and re-host them.

Either way I am not looking forward to it, which is why I have put it off for so long. BUT, it has to be done.

So please bear with me while I re-tool :)

This is a true macro lens of course. Allowing you to achieve 1:1 magnification ratios. Whereas for instance a lot of zoom lens also have a macro function @ the highest mm value, like 200 or 300mm but the BIG difference being that the macro magnification is only 1:3 or even 1:4.

Sell photos on photrade | By timsdigitaldarkroom Sell photos on photrade | By timsdigitaldarkroom

Sell photos on photrade | By timsdigitaldarkroom Sell photos on photrade | By timsdigitaldarkroom

Due to the uncertainty of the future of Photrade these are likely the last images I post from and upload to that site.

As it is, it’s not probably that we’ll get paid anymore for ad rev. That is unless of course it’s just one of hundreds of things that is on Andrew’s to-do list and he hasn’t gotten to it yet.

Here is my last macro, it is the blade portion of a man’s electric razor (the part that vibrates).

Sell photos on photrade | By timsdigitaldarkroom Sell photos on photrade | By timsdigitaldarkroom

Sell photos on photrade | By timsdigitaldarkroom Sell photos on photrade | By timsdigitaldarkroom

Sell photos on photrade | By timsdigitaldarkroom Sell photos on photrade | By timsdigitaldarkroom

Dear Photraders,

As I am sure everyone is aware, many companies have been laying off employees to conserve their resources as the economy appears to be going into a recession. Particularly notable startups from Zappos to Zivity to Mahalo have laid off large portions of their staff.

I wanted to personally let you know that Photrade has recently had to go through the same kind of downsizing. We decided internally that it makes more sense to make cuts now so we can maintain the overall service going forward. As you may or may not know, we are a venture-backed company and fund raising timeframes have lengthened.

Thus with our reduced staff, we have been overwhelmed trying to keep up the former level of customer service as well as to continue to roll out new releases for the site. We will continue to run the service and do our best to get back to your questions in a timely manner.

We deeply appreciate all that you, our loyal users, have done to evangelize Photrade and are very sorry to have to make this announcement about our service. We’re working as hard as possible to try to raise more capital so we can expand the service offering again and get back on the “fast growth” track.

If you like the service and would like to get involved in helping Photrade move forward, please email me personally at andy@photrade.com.

We will keep you informed of any changes (especially positive ones!).

Yours,

Andrew Paradies (CEO and Founder)

Hmmmmm. Well this is almost exactly what Andrew told me yesterday in response to my post, Photrade: Strike 2! What is going on???

From what he told me I wrote this Photrade Issues Update: Site not DOA!

BUT

We have no way of knowing what that all means. Do the cuts of the staff truly help? Hurt? Buy them time? Did the staff get the shaft? Why can’t they talk about the site? If they don’t get funding and get it quick will the server have a sheriff’s eviction noticed pasted to it?

We have no way of knowing and honestly my faith being restored yesterday was mostly due to the fact that it was the first communication from anyone @ the site in over a month.

Maybe my faith isn’t restored. Though, it is nice to at least to get an official “update” as to why the customer served tanked.

Meanwhile however, my friend who ordered some merch from me….”Photrade never bothered to reply to yesterday’s email and they haven’t responded to my PayPal dispute, that place is pretty damn pathetic.”

SO there again, at this point I certainly would not have ANY faith regarding placing new orders! She placed a order about a month ago, probably when the fit hit the shan who knows….

I still hope for a “to be continued” (in a good light)

Photrade: Strike 2! What is going on???

Well I am happy to report that my fears have been laid aside, questions answered, and my faith in the site  restored.

Andrew Paradies, the CEO of Photrade

was generous enough to reply to me regarding the site and the issues perceived or real that I talked about in my post in addition to the comments I made or that were left.

I would like to publicly thank him for sharing that information with me, he by no means had to. I think it shows, despite what it may look from those of us on the outside looking in, that he is still very much committed to making the site a success.

I am going to continue to use the site and I hope others will as well.

I think anyone will tell you that I am a huge proponent of the Photrade site, have been ever since I joined last November when they were in private Beta. Now I realize that they are still in Beta….

BUT, ever since they opened membership to the public the site has been like a ghost town.

ISSUES:

• Site Outages (strike 1) – This to me is inevitable based on the dynamic and heavy load running an image web site must put on servers. I accept this but what I do not accept is that they’ve only made 1 blog post about it and nothing in the time since to update their users. I realize they may not want to air the specifics of their dirty laundry but some reassurance that they are top of it would be nice.

• • Since that original blog post on 10/23, there has been another major outage (like 18 hours +) and several small ones. It would be nice if they kept everyone in the loop. The last major outage was so long that some were fearing that the site had closed entirely! (myself included). In fact the only way I found out what was going on was that someone made a post in a Flickr group and Scott B. said that they were just having server issues again…things were being worked on…
  • To compound matters, the blog is on the same server that the main site is so even if they did make a post and the site was down you would be able to see it.

• Customer Service (emails) – Prior to going public, 9/10 someone from customer service (or even Krista herself) would have emailed me back to address an issue or a suggestion within one day. Even if the issue wasn’t something they could resolve immediately they would at least let you know that they were aware of the issue and that someone will take a look at it.
  • Since going public I have yet to receive a reply of any kind in an email I have sent to them. I’ve made about 12 of them so far about various issues and never got a reply from them….no acknowledgment of any kind. In fact, I even had to resort to making a blog post about a problem I had before I heard back from them about a payment issue. Even then it took over a week to resolve but in the end I was taken care of.
  • Again, I realize that they must be busy and all of that but not to even respond with an acknowledgment is not a good sign in my opinion. How do we know if they are just busy or if the ship is sinking?
• Ghost Town
  • Getting back to my original ghost town comment. I figure they are slammed working on other stuff? but nothing on the site has changed in over a month. I mean they even stopped updating the featured photos section. The same featured photo has been on the splash page now since 10/2. That might seem small and insignificant but it was one of my favorite things to check! To me it shows that the site is alive and interested in what is going on with it’s members.
  • Regardless of what they are or are not working on, it would be nice for some noticeable sign that the site is still alive and kicking…a list of things they are working on (fixing issues, new features – even if they never come to fruition). Just some sort of communication…even a simple “It’s been a crazy few months, yada, yada, yada”.

• Customer Service – (ORDERS) STRIKE 2!))
  

  • This one is huge and the main reason for my post today. I consider this one by far a greater sin compared to anything I have mentioned thus far.
  • The Story – A friend of mine ordered a print and a key chain from me last month but never got her merchandise or the print.  She let me know about the problem and I emailed customer service…even CC’d Andrew and Krista and of course they never got back to me. Someone did contact my friend and apologized and said it would be taken care of but guess what…here we are a week later and still nothing! They never got back to her after the initial apology and promise of is being addressed.
  • My friend:

I just emailed them again as they lied to me on the 5th and said an Andrew somebody would be responding that day with more information and still nothing.

My order was now placed over a month ago and I got nothing.

Did they ever answer you? I was really looking forward to this stuff, especially the keychain but I am now afraid to ever order from them again, I hope you understand, if there’s somewhere else I can get your pictures on stuff, let me know.

That to me is completely unexcused. They should have sent her stuff out the next day using over night delivery @ their expense. Meanwhile, was this yet another isolated incident or a sign of things to come?

Stumble It!