Yeah, that was an unpleasant surprise.
The way I found out was totally by chance.
While linking to a picture, I noticed a typo in my notes and went in to edit it.....but no changes are allowed.
Instead of the box with all the editing options, there was a big SMILE logo instead.
It's not so much that the site is going away, it's that the new version, SMILE, has a totally different business plan than Webshots did (even though it's the same founders), which excludes a ton of current users in the hopes, I guess, of acquiring new users for the new service.
So it's not just a case of now charging for the basic service - which I would have been fine with - I think most rational people can understand it costs money to store all those photographs and maintain the site.
And I was NEVER bothered, or quite frankly, even noticed, any advertising as an unpaid member.
To be honest, I just used it for my quilt album - at the time, it was the easiest-to-use site out there, and had enough features for my limited needs.
I'm glad I did because after the Great Hard Crash of 2010, those were the only photos I had left.
Apparently, even if you opted for the new service, the automatic transfer over was/is a hot mess - instead of nicely organize and annotated albums, they just got dumped.
Including those of paid webshots users.
The level of anger and ire on the boards/blogs associated with users was the highest I've seen in a long time - especially about the almost total lack of communication about the change-over.
You have until Dec 1 to download your photos off of the old webshots site before they go POOF for good!!
Last edited by MTS; 10-09-2012 at 06:35 AM.