Photopoint Offline All Day~What Gives?

Self | 12/14/01 | Self

[Merovingian]

Photopoint has been nonfunctional all day. Hope this is not a repeat of the fiasco last Summer. Anyone with information?

[Merovingian]

FYI Photopoint Members

[pcl]

Try monitoring Photopoint at www.fuckedcompany.com

They already have a thread running on Photpoint.

[Merovingian]

What kind of smart-ass remark is that? I did a search, found no thread on it........LINK???

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

FYI ping

[pcl]

Calm down.

Just go the site I gave, and type in Photopoint into the find box or just use the link below to get the Photopoint thread:

http://forum.fuckedcompany.com/fc/phparchives/search.php?search=Photopoint

[SGCOS]

Photopoint offline all day..

Oh, the horrors! &^)

[Rustynailww]

http://forum.fuckedcompany.com/fc/phparchives/search.php?search=Photopoint

[Merovingian]

Dingbat, that is OLD news. They resold the company to the original owners, since then all has worked just fine until today........

[pcl]

smart-ass/dingbat

There are two other sites similar to FC that may have some information. Since you are so cordial about my previous attemtps to help you, I will let you find them on your own.

[Merovingian]

You are right. Your first post I misunderstood. 'Dingbat' was uncalled for. I am a reactive fool.

[Snow Bunny]

Thank you for the ping Tonkin and the thread about this Merovingian.

This last week they have been only working part of the time and today all day nothing. I am getting VERY concerned, I have tons of pictures and graphics there.

[Billie]

Hopefully they'll be up and running again shortly, Bunny. :^( Can you access PhotoPoint at all? I do hope you still have all your photos on your computer in other files, too, just in case you have to move them, and what a pain that's going to be.

[Snow Bunny]

I have most things on floopy's. Like about 42 floppies of pictures , packed full. LOL

Fingers are crossed for Photo point.There is no acesss at all to their site.They are MIA

[Merovingian]

Still no Photopoint...I fear the worst..I had 2000 photos there from all over the world, had paid whatever they asked for this amount of pics. I did have enough sense to buy a photo CD from them which contains the most important ones, and have all original floppys......but will never rely again on an online photo hosting outfit...even if this is just a major HD problem with them...

[Snow Bunny]

I agree, I feel the same way. WOW ! You TOO, you used it like I did. I am so sorry for you and all of us that trusted them to be honorable.

I paid what they asked and then because I had more pictures then they allowed I paid an extra charge to be able to have more pictures there.

I didn't order a CD, wish I had now. But I do have everything on tons of floppies. But the work oh man to put them all somewhere else. whew!

What I am going to do today is find another place and start putting things there. I can't sit and wait for Photopoint. I use it when I do the threads for the USO Canteen FReeper Style on here and in posts as well.Plus a couple of web sites I have for business.

I wrote to the Support email addy, but even before they never answered on the weekends and if the site is down they won't get it till it is up again....if ever.

I did a lot of searching last night for some kind of news about it, but could not find anything at all. Very mysterious.

[Merovingian]

I agree, Snow Bunny, it is very strange that we are not seeing news on Internet Tech sites like Wired News,etc...I paid extra also, would have even paid more. If only they had the common decency to warn folks so they could have at least downloaded thumbnails or whatever..I think it's a bad sign that when you try their site, they don't even have a "Temporarily Not in Service", or Something! That's why I think they are belly-up.....

[Snow Bunny]

Yes, gosh if it was a hacker or something, it would be on the news.

Shoot, and I really loved photopoint.

[Merovingian]

Snow Bun, I tried to look at your profile, you better re-do it, and remove all those Photopoint pics, as they prevent loading in..I got it to load in by puching 'stop'...What a proud philosophy....I enjoyed reading it..

[jmp702]

Any update on the status? (other than it's still down)

Incidentally, an excellent 'free service' is ofoto.com.

[Cacique]

I can't seem to access the server via the web but managed to ping it with neotrace and it is apparently on-line.

[Snow Bunny]

Thank you my friend.

Your right, I will have to redo my profile page.I can't get any pictures at all.

I am going to start to put pictures from now on at another place. I am so sorry about all your pictures too.

It is just so mysterious and horrible.

Thank you again for your kind words about my Profile page.

[undergroundwarrior]

Photopoint still down. What is the story? Will be getting killed with my Ebay auctions (no pics!!).

[Snow Bunny]

I have no idea,, but I am NOT happy about this at all.

[undergroundwarrior]

Any news on Photopoint yet????

[Snow Bunny]

None, I give up on them. They must be owned by DemoRATS !!!!!!!!!

I am not going to post here what I would like to happen to the owners of PhotoPoint, even if it ever comes back on, LOL

[Merovingian]

I've been thinking the same thing. Of all the times for them to do this without warning....very sleazy operation.

[Snow Bunny]

I agree my friend. ((hug ))

[Snow Bunny]

LOL, you might be right.....I had a lot of pictures there I saved from FR, of Bill and Hitlery in not so pretty pictures.

I think one of my albums I had even labeled.....Evil Dems.....giggle...

[2Jedismom]

Pantellic Software Inc.
1505 Barrington Street, Lobby Level
Halifax, NS B3J 3K5 CA
Colin Sutherland
colin@PANTELLIC.COM
(902) 492-8341 extension 1701 (Canada)
(FAX) (902) 492-8342

[Fury]

PhotoPoint goes dark, draws concern
By Evan Hansen
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
December 17, 2001, 1:50 p.m. PT
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-8209794.html?tag=prntfr

Online photo site PhotoPoint has been unavailable for days, wreaking havoc with thousands of customers who store pictures on the popular site.

The company began referring some 1.25 million current and former customers to partner EZ Prints for printing and other services in a Dec. 7 e-mail message. The note said the shutdown was due to technical difficulties, but it left unanswered the bigger question of when, if ever, customers would be able to access their PhotoPoint files.

Executives at PhotoPoint and parent Pantellic Software, which acquired the service this summer, could not immediately be reached for comment. Web sites for both companies were unavailable Monday. A published company phone number listed as the contact for both companies had been disconnected.

"We have encountered some technical difficulties and hope to have prints, framed prints and photo gifts back online as soon as possible," the San Francisco-based company wrote, acknowledging the inconvenience this might cause customers during the holiday season.

Jamie Bardin, chief executive of Atlanta, Ga.-based EZ Prints, said the PhotoPoint service has effectively shut down, at least temporarily.

"To the extent of my knowledge, PhotoPoint is not in existence at this time," he said. "It's tragic that this happened at this time in the year."

Bardin said his company has been signing up former PhotoPoint customers for the past 10 days, but he would not reveal exact numbers. He said the future of PhotoPoint is unclear, but he did not rule out the possibility that the site could eventually relaunch.

PhotoPoint's troubles come as once-hot online photo sites face a tough shakeout, marked by takeovers and closures. Eastman Kodak acquired online photo service Ofoto in June. In October, mail-order film processor District Photo bought online photo company Snapfish. And in June, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers-backed Zing.com said it would shutter its consumer operations.

For its part, PhotoPoint has been passed around like a hot potato. Halifax, Nova Scotia-based Pantellic spun the company off about two years ago and scored about $11 million in venture capital financing for the start-up. But VC firm Sherwood Partners shut it down and sold some of the assets back to Pantellic in July. After a five-day outage, the site returned but began charging for its services.

The latest shutdown was greeted with anger and confusion from some customers, who said they fear losing photos stored with the service. EZ Prints' Bardin said his company is accepting new photos from PhotoPoint customers but said there are no plans to transfer files stored on PhotoPoint's computers.

Eric Foltin, a self-described "disgruntled" customer, said he lost photos stored for use in eBay auctions, potentially costing him sales.

"I am a seller on eBay and I lost all my pictures for the last three days of my auctions, probably losing me a couple hundred dollars out of my pocket," he wrote in an e-mail to CNET News.com.

Gary Madison of Lake County, Calif., said he's worried that he might lose two years' worth of painstaking work on a surprisingly popular Web site devoted to describing modifications he's made to his 1991 Mazda Miata. The site has racked up a million hits, according to Madison, who said he's been getting "quite a bit" of e-mail from fans wondering why some of his pages are inaccessible.

Madison said he backed up the 1,000 or so photos associated with the site, but he wrote detailed captions describing the sometimes complex mechanical work that exist only on files stored by PhotoPoint. He said the company's editing tools made it easy to make changes to the photos from the Web site, and he never worried that PhotoPoint would leave customers in the lurch.

Although the company's status is still unknown, PhotoPoint's silence has only added to the worry.

"I'm appalled that a service of the size and caliber (of) PhotoPoint would go offline with no notification so that we could recover our work," Madison said. "I just want my captions back."

 Go to  Front Door  |  Media  |  Search  |  One Week View

[FreedomPoster]

I have most of my pics on my hard drive, backed up on the hard drive on the server down in my basement. I think it's time to make sure that both locations have ALL the material, then burn a fresh set of CD's to carry down to my safe deposit box at the bank.

Hard drives are around $140-$150 for a 60 gig drive, burners are less than $150, CD blanks are $0.10-$0.20 in bulk. Storage is too cheap to not have good backups. I also save (not just bookmark) good material I find online, like the Diogenesis Operation Enduring Freedom photomontage posts.

[LegoZ81]

hehe nice huh stupid photopoint...... should we all do what this guy is saying? "We once again have to recommend that if you have PAID for this service, you contact your credit card company and request a charge back. It is disgraceful that Photopoint did not make the smallest effort to let their customers know what is going on." -from http://www.auctionguild.com/generic.html?pid=62 E-mail sent to epson since they use Pantellic's software for there site.(a hope that i could get through to here is their reply: Hi Louis, We are sorry, but we are unable to answer any questions regarding the PhotoPoint site. If you have any questions or concerns about a PhotoCenter account, please contact us. Thanks, Kelly Member Support Epson PhotoCenter photo.epson.com YEAH! :| anyway last time this happpened you could go to epsons site and get your photo's i have not been able to get logged on.

[undergroundwarrior]

Is there any hope of getting our photos back???

[Merovingian]

Thank you, Fury for this article. Not at all surprising, I just knew in my gut they were finished. All of my photos are on CD or /and floppy, but, of course the hours spent captioning the volume are a total loss.

[Merovingian]

I think it's time to make sure that both locations have ALL the material, then burn a fresh set of CD's to carry down to my safe deposit box at the bank.

Great plan FP..My online travel galleries with captions are lost, which is unfortunate, but the pics I use for business are on 2 websites now.....I'll TAKE NO CHANCES again...

[LegoZ81]

you can try to log into photo.epson.com but i can't get logged on to it gives invalid user no promise it will work but you can try.... this is making me sick i lost so much stuff if they do put the site back up for at least a little

[Merovingian]

Ping

[Merovingian]

By Michael Bartlett, Newsbytes
HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA, CANADA,
17 Dec 2001, 3:44 PM CST Photopoint.com, a popular but troubled picture sharing Web site, apparently has been offline since Friday. Parent company Pantellic Software's Web site also is down.

Photopoint went out of business in July and was acquired by Pantellic, a company that builds online photo services for businesses and was the original creator of Photopoint. Pantellic purchased Photopoint from Sherwood Partners, a crisis management firm that was liquidating Photopoint's assets.

Several worried Photopoint customers today posted messages on the F--kedcompany site. One person, who identified himself as "big ron barnstead," titled his post, "photopoint stole my money."

"I had four hundred photos uploaded on the site," he wrote. "I just re upped my next year payment, boy did they ever stick it to me."

Another reader, who called himself "crap!!!" replied, "OK, this just sucks. I have (had?) 25 megs of pics on their servers. Would have been nice if they had given us some warning. Grrrrrr!"

Photopoint.com used to be at http://www.photopoint.com .

Reported by Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com .

[Fury]

From the Photopoint Super Happy Fun SLander Corner at F'd company.com:

"Appearently they turned off the servers and then got drunk in the office for the rest of the afternoon. Pantellic/PP has left their space in Halifax, NS, Canada and appearently left all their servers and equipment (that was leased and way behind on payments) right in the racks...

Word is the owners and few employees left (after massive layoffs) have gone to start a new company in the Halifax area under a new name.

F#&*ed? I think so. Kiss your photos goodbye (and any $$$ you paid them).

"

[Snow Bunny]

I can't write what I wish would happen to these Photopoint people, but I sure as heck am thinking it and strongly too.

I asked my agent how many I had there and he said about 1700 pictures.

I am ao angry and I feel badly for you too and everyone on here that thought they were dealing with good business people.

[RonDog]

I can't write what I wish would happen to these Photopoint people, but I sure as heck am thinking it and strongly too.

I asked my agent how many I had there and he said about 1700 pictures.

I am ao angry and I feel badly for you too and everyone on here that thought they were dealing with good business people.

All may yet be well. We have been through this drill before.

See:
More news on the PhotoPoint situation! [Free Republic mentioned!!]
Posted on 07/16/2001 09:53:36 PDT by RonDog

One of the BEST sources of information is FReeper HKDragon2
(aka Michael R. Tomkins, at The Imaging Resource)

See their BREAKING NEWS page, but, as a courtesy to HKDragon2, please do NOT post the "full text" of his articles here on FR.
He has requested that we only post PARTIAL QUOTES, and include a link back to his website, i.e.:

Tuesday, December 18, 2001

More on the PhotoPoint situation!
13:28 ET - Site still down for a fourth day as reader emails continue to flood in...

We told you yesterday about a major outage ongoing at online photofinisher PhotoPoint.com, and whilst we've yet to elicit any comment from our contacts at the company, some reader emails do shed more light on the situation. One such email came from Andrew Murphy, who provided info and photos from the offices of Pantellic Software Inc. (the company behind the PhotoPoint service) last July when the... (More)

[RonDog]

From:

Shutter falls on PhotoPoint site

Dec 17, 2001 5:48 PM PT
Shutter falls on PhotoPoint site

Online photo site PhotoPoint has been unavailable for days, wreaking havoc with thousands of customers who store pictures on the popular site.

The company began referring some 1.25 million current and former customers to partner EZ Prints for printing and other services in a Dec. 7 e-mail message. The note said the shutdown was due to technical difficulties, but it left unanswered the bigger question of when, if ever, customers would be able to access their PhotoPoint files.

Executives at PhotoPoint and parent Pantellic Software, which acquired the service this summer, could not immediately be reached for comment. Web sites for both companies were unavailable Monday. A published company phone number listed as the contact for both companies had been disconnected. --Evan Hansen, Special to ZDNet News

[Zon]

I also save (not just bookmark) good material I find online, like the Diogenesis Operation Enduring Freedom photomontage posts.

I learned that lesson the hard way six years ago book-marking pages and then getting the dreaded "404 file not found" message when trying to return to them. Most recently, today I was looking for a page to grab a quote from but the page was no longer available. Fortunately, goggle.com caches pages and I was able to retrieve the cached page from there.

[Snow Bunny]

Thanks RonDog !!!! I appreciate it very much.

[RonDog]

There is now MORE news from HKDragon2 at http://www.imaging-resource.com/NEWS.HTM.

Perhaps the folks at www.EZprints.com will ride to the rescue:

Tuesday, December 18, 2001

PhotoPoint - the plot thickens!
23:25 ET - Has the online photofinisher reached the end of the road...?

An email forwarded to us by IR reader 'Sandy' suggests that the outage at online photofinisher PhotoPoint might be more permanent than the many users who've emailed us since the site went down on Friday have been hoping. If you're not familiar with the situation, PhotoPoint.com was transferred to Pantellic Software Inc. from its prior owners last July, and at that time the site was down for several... (More)

[Howlin]

Ah........um...........is it down for good? (Sorry, I'm late to the party!)

[RonDog]

Ah........um...........is it down for good? (Sorry, I'm late to the party!)

So far, it has been a re-run of their actions last July (see the old FR thread, linked above):

They shut down access to their website, and then don't answer the telephone. VERY bad PR. Again.

The last time, as you may recall, their "parent" company (Panhellenic) rode in on a white horse, and re-opened the website after about a week of frustrating, "no comment" dithering - eventually restoring full access to ALL of the images previously stored on PhotoPoint, to the great relief of MANY subscribers. So there is a precedent to support my hoping for the best now.

IMHO, we will have a few more days of uncertainty, and then a NEW, new owner will step up to the plate. Perhaps EZPrints.com. The merger of PhotoPoint into a MAJOR player with "deep pockets" (financially) - like Kodak - would be nice, but unlikely.

[Merovingian]

Thanks for the update, RonDog. I'm not counting on anything. I read a few of the threads at the site mentioned above....Doesn't look to good, even worse than in July. Have you any info on that ofoto.com site?

[LegoZ81]

I believe we may be hosed...... http://photo.epson.com/