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Spymac V

amacgenius

amacgenius

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Aug 3, 2005
1,931
28
Buffalo, NY
Let me rephrase this thread so it can actually be a discussion topic.

Seems, that everybody's (except mine) favorite, and "largest" Mac community, Spymac.com has taken down their website for an unannounced "Version 5" upgrade, dubbed Spymac V.

Spymac is/was currently in Version 4 - and if this is a system upgrade it will be the shortest time Spymac has ever spent in a "version".

The only thing you can currently do is check your email and download some iffy quality wallpapers, so what do you all think of this, has anybody from Spymac come here while they wait (hoping to stay here ;)), or do you just hate Spymac's guts (like myself) and hope that they stay offline.

Here's a picture of their current splash page which plays a flash movie:


Discuss.
 
I don't have anything against it, and I don't have anything for it.

I never go on it, don'te even have an account.
I don't hate it guts, but I don't like 'em.

I <3 me some MR. :D
 
I've been a long-time member of Spymac. I've met a lot of nice people from the site and the staff has been extremely nice to me as well.

I don't agree with some of the decisions they made with version 3 and 4, so I'm not exactly sure how I feel about version V. I think their biggest mistake was the 1GB email plan -- that seemed to be the "beginning of the end" for a lot of people. The sense of community really seemed to fade for me after that, but I stuck around because of the gallery (the only thing I really used on that site).

Then the gallery went out for a few months and was eventually replaced with a cool forum-type gallery, but the thumbnails were tiny and made browsing an absolute nightmare. I since moved to Flickr and have been happy since.

Spymac was the first online community I really got into and enjoyed so it was sad to see it go downhill, but I wish them the best of luck and hope everything works out for them. I may not be as popular on MR as I was in Spymac, but when it comes to discussing all-things-Apple, MR is hard to beat.

Fishes,
narco.
 
Before I became a member of MacRumors I was a member of Spymac, I really liked their site and the community, when the announcement of Spymac 4 was posted I was anxious and exited. The site was pulled down for the upgrade and we were told it would only take around 2 days ,instead it took IIRC a few weeks. Then when the site finally came back up nothing worked, almost everything on the site yielded "The feature is not available yet" the site was suppost to be upgraded in a month, instead it was a few months. And when V4 finally came out, a lot of people didint even like the new layout everything was very unintuitive and clunky. We were told that they expirenced problems during the transition, which was very understandable but the final result was what made many people stop using spymac. During their transition I found MacRumors and joined.
 
sorry for starting a rubbish thread, it's not good having your first thread being sent to the wasteland.

I have been a member of spymac since 2003 when i got my first mac, i think it was the first mac forum i stubbled across, it seemed ok, so i stayed. but since spymac 4 it has been going really downhill, most of the threads seem off topic, the mail is *CRAP* i had to switch to gmail, the gallery takes hrs to scroll through.

so i guess if there is no reason to go back.
 
That was one corny introduction movie for a Mac website. "Hold your fists clenched until it's time to emerge"...uhh ok...
 
Hope its better than 4. They could have put up a little more info. All it says is April 2006, last time I check it was April so where is it? Maybe if they spent less time on flash movies and actually fixing the site 4 would not have been such a screw up. And you can't even read the text at the bottom.
 
Dey Don' Care

Such a good idea was Spymac, but almost impossible for an intelligent, but poor, person to use.
Living overseas and not having a credit/debit card precludes many members form joining the exclusive "club" for $25. And the forums have lost much of their smartness, descending into favourite colours and foods and some awful mindless stuff. Try to start a forum with wit and spunk and it's virtually ignored.
Anyway I had to come here to find out why I couldn't get away from that uninforming, repetitive trailer thingy, so thanks for all that.
So many times I've threatened to quit that spymac habit. Perhaps this latest bunch of horse feathers will goad me to success this time.
 
How to get beyond Spymac V splash screen?

How to get beyond Spymac V splashi screen?

I can't access anything but webmail.spymac.com.
 
a long time ago....

I was once a member, then after the 1GB email thing, well for me the site died. Now this trailer to be honest if they would spend that much time on other parts of the site... anywho... we shall see.
 
Back in the day it was good...

I used to frequent SpyMac (i think when it was version 2), but got frustrated when the site was redesigned for version 4. It simply became a nightmare to navigate. Way too many buttons, adds, and links. It made me feel like I was going into seizures the first time I saw it.

Sad to see it go, because like many other people who have replied, I used to like the small and fun community that it had going. :(
 
Better isn't the problem...

maya said:
Corny or not, I would like to see you do any better. ;) :)
Click to expand...

That trailer is utterly pretentious and sophmoric....

It also illustrates Spymac's problems quite well....a lack of a defined target audience.

Mac-based news site? Hardly....rehashed news pieces from around the web.

Flickr competitr? Took them, what...6 months to get the galleries back up and running and now its down again?

Mac-based forums? All the posts denigrate into childish blather....If you're looking for intellectual, or even technical stimuli.....ain't here.

Ad-filled wasteland? That must be it....

ooohhh but you get an email address with the domain of a site that caters to teenage mac wankers....

no thanks :)
 
This just makes me feel sorry for the people who actually pay and use spymac. Could you imagine if MacRumors shut down without any announcement for weeks?
Im glad I dont post there anymore.
 
edesignuk said:
Didn't they only quite recently actually get everything back working again since the last "upgrade"? :rolleyes:

omg wtf spymac sux0rs.
Click to expand...


everything was working? must have missed that headline. Also Laser brings a good point, too bad for all those club users that paid for services...
 
amacgenius said:
Let me rephrase this thread so it can actually be a discussion topic.

Seems, that everybody's (except mine) favorite, and "largest" Mac community, Spymac.com has taken down their website for an unannounced "Version 5" upgrade, dubbed Spymac V.

Spymac is/was currently in Version 4 - and if this is a system upgrade it will be the shortest time Spymac has ever spent in a "version".
Click to expand...

I don't despise Spymac the way you clearly do, in fact I enjoy my Spymac membership (free, not paid) but I really wish they would stop treating their members like kindergarten pupils and give them some warning that the site is going to be down (it's been a week now IMO). Mail is up and every Spymac member has a mail account so why the hell can they not send a blanket email telling people the damn site is going to be pulled? Or at least that something special is about to happen and we should be patient yadda yadda yadda. They have a major communication problem since the launch of SM4 last August which they have still not resolved. I think it is safe to say Spymac members have had enough surprises to last a lifetime.

Oh yeah, and if anybody from SM is watching WTF is that video all about? Do you not realise that not everybody has a 5mb dsl line??? Jesus, after waiting that long for a goddam movie I would have expected something as long as Gladiator, not 5 frames of some arty farty whooshy thing with Powerpoint transitions.

Anyway, that's my rant over but I think it should be said that because of Spymac's lamentable inability to communicate with its members I now have a macrumors account. I never had any desire to have one before.
 
speakster said:
That trailer is utterly pretentious and sophmoric....

It also illustrates Spymac's problems quite well....a lack of a defined target audience.

Mac-based news site? Hardly....rehashed news pieces from around the web.

Flickr competitr? Took them, what...6 months to get the galleries back up and running and now its down again?

Mac-based forums? All the posts denigrate into childish blather....If you're looking for intellectual, or even technical stimuli.....ain't here.

Ad-filled wasteland? That must be it....

ooohhh but you get an email address with the domain of a site that caters to teenage mac wankers....

no thanks :)
Click to expand...

Good comparison!

I've been a user for Spymac for 3.5 years, it's really gone down hill, I don't think that Spymac will recover from Spymac V since if it removes features (temporarily) such as an "edit" function, then people will leave in disgust.

I paid for Spymac's "Club" program, which essentially gives me an ad-free Spymac and a software application to allow me to do blogging on my desktop.. and probably something else.. but it's not worth it anymore since I'm paying my money towards something that's not finished.

I want my member forum to be back since I have a loyal user base who goes to the member forum, but it hasn't been around for 9 months so it's too late now to get it back.

I'll probably leave spymac if they don't make improvements towards what I want to see changed, and if they don't come back online soon.
 
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