Fotopic Servers have disappeared (again), unlike the major outage in January 2009, this time it appears this is terminal and Fotopic will be history. Companies do fail and their Websites disappear overnight and this is just part of business life. So is the case of Fotopic different?
In business terms not really, but as a Photo Sharing site started back in 2001 it developed a loyal following and by 2007 was hosting over 76,400,000 Images, with Members across the world. The outage in 2009 seriously dented confidence, not just because it happened, but the poor customer service in telling Members what was going on.
Although never a member of Fotopic, several of my Friends are/were members and through them I am aware of others. They all spent considerable effort over many years putting together interesting Photo Galleries, many of which attracted considerable numbers of repeat visitors. Because of the amount of work that had been put into creating their Galleries, they stayed with Fotopic, even though the site owners seemed to unwilling to communicate with the Member Base.
But over the last 12 Months the situation further deteriorated , with frequent drop outs, lack of development and even poorer than usual communications from the site owners. So there has been a 'drift' to other services, but this all takes time and again considerable effort and on the 8th March 2011, time ran out when Fotopic, without warning went dark!
No information has been received at time of writing from the Site Owners: Snappy Designs Ltd, who in turn are part of the ANY-Web Group
Even Businesses that fail at least try to communicate the fact to their Customers, but even to the end it appears Snappy Designs treated the Members of Fotopic with contempt.
Links:
An up to date Wikipedia Page on Fotopic
The Fotopic User Group (Google Groups)
A series of Posts on this Blog from 2009:
4th Jan 2009: Fotopic Disappears - followed by a Deafening Silence
5th Jan 2009: Fotopic Disappears - But the Silence is broken:
5th Jan 2009: Fotopic Reappears
In business terms not really, but as a Photo Sharing site started back in 2001 it developed a loyal following and by 2007 was hosting over 76,400,000 Images, with Members across the world. The outage in 2009 seriously dented confidence, not just because it happened, but the poor customer service in telling Members what was going on.
Although never a member of Fotopic, several of my Friends are/were members and through them I am aware of others. They all spent considerable effort over many years putting together interesting Photo Galleries, many of which attracted considerable numbers of repeat visitors. Because of the amount of work that had been put into creating their Galleries, they stayed with Fotopic, even though the site owners seemed to unwilling to communicate with the Member Base.
But over the last 12 Months the situation further deteriorated , with frequent drop outs, lack of development and even poorer than usual communications from the site owners. So there has been a 'drift' to other services, but this all takes time and again considerable effort and on the 8th March 2011, time ran out when Fotopic, without warning went dark!
No information has been received at time of writing from the Site Owners: Snappy Designs Ltd, who in turn are part of the ANY-Web Group
Even Businesses that fail at least try to communicate the fact to their Customers, but even to the end it appears Snappy Designs treated the Members of Fotopic with contempt.
Links:
An up to date Wikipedia Page on Fotopic
The Fotopic User Group (Google Groups)
A series of Posts on this Blog from 2009:
4th Jan 2009: Fotopic Disappears - followed by a Deafening Silence
5th Jan 2009: Fotopic Disappears - But the Silence is broken:
5th Jan 2009: Fotopic Reappears
