The new 2.0 version of Phanfare has a number of exciting new features. Our goal with this release is to tighten our focus on family photo and video sharing. We implemented many features directly requested by customers and took a step back to re-think how some of the core sharing features work to make them more collaborative and fun.

The primary change that may impact you is how you share albums with your family and friends. However, there are a number of other features that have changed, too. Below is a list of functionality in the old version of Phanfare that is altered significantly or not available in the new version.

We are rolling out the new version to all users between January 1, 2008 and June 2008. You will receive email before your account is upgraded to Phanfare 2.0 (if you are on Phanfare 1.0). You need do nothing to get on the list of people who will be upgraded.

There is no way to stay on the 1.0 version as all accounts are moving to 2.0 by the end of June.

The 2.0 version of Phanfare is free to use if you keep your account under 1GB of storage. The unlimited plan is $54.95/year.

How you share albums

There are four main sharing albums in Phanfare 2.0:

Set your albums to be public albums at http://albums.phanfare.com/xxxxx. This means they will just appear at that URL with no password or registration required to view.
Invite friends and family to connect with you within Phanfare to view. There are many collaborative benefits to this approach and you get visitor reports that tell you who exactly was looking at your albums and when.
Create an outside group to share your albums with. Groups also requires registration but can be by invite only or be open so that people can join themselves just by knowing the URL.
Use external links to share individual albums with people connected AND not connected to you. External links to albums do not require registration or a login to view but only give you access to the specific album.

Here is the help page that describes each of these options further: http://help.phanfare.com/index.php/Sharing_albums
Site/album passwords

There are no album or site level password options in Phanfare 2.0.
For families, looking for security, the registration based security is far superior to the prior password security. The only people who are viewing your albums are the people you have invited to connect. They will see only the albums you have shared with them. No more having to lock a certain album on your site because you don't want everyone to see it. You control who can see each album. Further, if your viewer forgets their login credentials, they can go through the forgotten-password wizard to retrieve to reset their passwords.

If you need a specific album on your site to be private and not viewable to all friends/family or the public, you can create it as completely private. This means it is not posted anywhere. Then, you can get an external link for it (see link in section above) and give that to the person or people you want to see it. Doesn't need a password because the only route to the album is through the link that only those people have.

CNAMES and Album URLs

Currently, Phanfare does now allow new customers to use their own domain names to point via a CNAME to their Phanfare albums. For existing customers, the CNAME will function as a straight redirect to your Phanfare albums. The URL will no longer be masked, and the Phanfare address will be visible in the web browser’s address bar. Read more about how the changes affect customers using their own domains. This change was motivated by technical requirements of the new collaboration features.

User Reports

We have improved visitor reporting in the new version so that using your Phanfare home page, you can see the number of visits to your shared albums by day and by album for the past 30 days. You can also see who in the past 30 days has looked at your albums and what albums they viewed. Read more on visitor reporting.

Thumbnail Layout

The vast majority of Phanfare customers were using the hybrid Phanfare layout (thumbnails on left and larger picture on right). To simplify the initial user interface, we eliminated the all-thumbnail album layout.

Multiple Accounts with Same Email Address

Since email address is used as the login in the new version, an email address can only be associated with one account. If you need multiple accounts, you will need to use different email addresses for each one. If you currently have multiple accounts under the same email address, you will need to change the email address of record on the accounts to be different prior to upgrading to the new version. Once your account is upgraded, all of the photos and videos in your accounts will be combined into the account with the most recent activity.

RSS Feeds

In the initial release of the new version, RSS feeds will not be available. However, we plan to include RSS functionality in an early release following the upgrade.

External Links and Embedded Photos and Videos

Because the addresses to photos and videos stored on Phanfare changed to accommodate the new method of sharing, external links that used the old addressing scheme will no longer work. The links will redirect to your table of contents if the person clicking the link is logged into Phanfare and connected to you. If they're not already connected to you, once they've signed in, they'll be taken to a page where they can request to connect with you as a friend or family member.
The changes to the addresses also means that embedded photos and videos will not play unless they're updated to use the new address.
All users can create new external links to their photos and videos as well as embed them in web pages.

Referral Program

Since, we now offer a free level of the service, we have terminated the referral program. We will honor any referral credits that have been earned or are in the process of being earned (meaning your friend is still in trial but you are listed as the referrer) prior to December 31, 2007. If you believe that you referred someone, but did not earn the appropriate credit (most likely because they actually forgot to list you as the referrer when they signed up), you will need to let support (mailto:support@phanfare.com) know prior to January 31, 2008. No back credit can be issued after this date.

Monthly Subscription Plans

We will no longer offer monthly subscriptions. At the end of their payment period, monthly subscribers will need to purchase annual subscriptions if they want to keep unlimited storage. Converting to an annual plan is less expensive in the long run for monthly subscribers since the monthly plan was 33% more expensive over the course of the year than the annual plan.

Lifetime Subscription Plans

We will not sell new lifetime subscriptions. All lifetime memberships previously purchased remain active and these customers will continue to have unlimited storage for life.

Phanfare Phriends

The Phanfare Phriends feature has been removed in the new version and replaced with the new sharing and linking features in this version. The new linking features and the web-browser client much better reflect real-world sharing conventions.

Hiding Option Menu at Right

The option menu for your shared albums, which contains the links to Order Prints, Download Hi-Res, Download Album, etc., can no longer be moved so that it only appears when you hover over the images. It will appear on the right side of the page next to your images in the new version. This change was motivated by wanting to focus our presentation design efforts on a single layout.

Other
- Table of Contents pagination: You can no longer control how many rows of albums are viewable on your the Table of Contents of your shared albums. All pages will allow 15 rows. Note, that if you use our timeless albums feature, you are able to choose whether to have this section appear before or after your dated albums in the new version.
- We removed the option to start the year at a month later in January. This was a feature used rarely, except by a handful of schools and clubs.
New Features

We added in many exciting new features like comments, and we have plans to continue to add features every month.

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