Well, we at Eons seem to have been having a few of those lately…And we know you’ve noticed too.

Recently, we made some enhancements and changes with sharing photos on Eons. It started off great! A few little changes here, a few there…then it snowballed. In short, we are currently missing the mark on our goal of improving your photo sharing experience on Eons, and for that we apologize.

In an effort to improve our photo capabilities, we introduced a lot of changes that in some cases were confusing or simply not easy to use. Please allow me to briefly explain what our plans were, and how we arrived at what we have today. As valued members of our community, I feel I owe you some insight.

How We Got Here
On Eons, there are several areas on the site where members upload or share photos. Most notably, photos are uploaded and shared by members on Profiles, in Groups, Blogs and LifePaths.

In the past, we saved photos solely in that one place where you posted it (your Group, Blog or Profile). This wasn’t so great because if you wanted to post the same photo in multiple places, you had to upload it over and over again in each separate place. Our solution to this was to create a Photo Center, which is accessible from your Profile that would allow you to more readily access and manage all your photos, as well as let you upload a photo once and then share it anywhere on Eons you choose.

Further, we planned to roll out the changes in a series of quick upgrades to the site, starting with updates to your Profile photos, followed by Group photos and then Blog photos.* The operative word in our planning efforts was “quick.” (Ahem, didn’t quite work out that way…)

To elaborate, we went into this not fully appreciating how complicated the photo systems changes would prove to be. Then we had a classic problem on our hands. The longer we took to deliver the new features, the more torn we became on whether to offer some of the new features (e.g., uploading multiple photos and the ability to create albums) or to hold off on delivering the new features until all the new features were completely ready. (That would be where the snowball effect comes in.) Well, we decided to not wait and to give Eons members some cool new features along the way. As a result, many of you are now experiencing challenges because our photo offering is out there for you to use, yet it’s not complete. Please know we are committed to getting the photo features in place that you want and need, so here is what we plan to do.

Making it Right As Soon As We Can
As of Tuesday (7/1), you will have control over what photos you want displayed on your Profile. You can do this by marking certain photos as ‘favorite photos.’ Also, please note that when other members or visitors visit your Photo Center, they will be directed to a view of your favorite photos.

Although not for release tomorrow, we are also working on enhancing the controls that you will have with regard to other members or visitors viewing all your photos, which is currently an option from your Photo Center. Please note that we have privacy controls in place today, but want to offer you even greater control over who sees what when it comes to your photos. On a related note, we are working on ways to make uploading and sharing photos easier within your Groups and Blogs. By the end of July, I am confident that we will have an easy-to-use set of photo features that will make you proud to share your photos on Eons.

Each day, we receive invaluable input from you, and in large part, you very much influence and frequently co-author what we are trying to build here at Eons. That’s a good thing and we look forward to more feedback. In the meantime, thank you for your patience.

Lee Goss
President, Eons, Inc.

* Please note that LifePath requires substantial work to improve the overall capabilities of that tool, so we plan to address the changes to the photos within LifePath later this year.