At least the photo sharing world.
There has been a lot of buzz lately about the “new” photo sharing site 500px. Not new at all, 500px has been around since 2003. So why all the attention now? I suspect it has to do with some improvements they’ve been making to the UX as well as the lack of the same from the leader, Flickr. Whatever the reason, photographers like Zack Arias are deleting their Flickr accounts and moving to 500px. I am about to do the same and I am also thinking about disconinuing my Project: 90 Days blog and posting them on 500px.
Why 500px?
There are several reasons to move from Flickr to 500px. The terms of service for 500px is just enough to cover them but greatly favors the photographer. It is the most favorable TOS I’ve seen from a social networking site. The user interface is light years beyond Flickr with a strong emphasis given to the photography. Sounds like a no-brainer but one look at both interfaces side by side makes Flickr look cluncky and out-of-date (which it is). The photos on a photographers page are displayed as a grid of fairly large thumbnails with the titles and rating clearly visible when the picture is rolled over. The single image page shows a fairly large (900px) main image with comments and a like and dislike button.
A portfolio page on 500px with larger thumbnails and photographer info down the left.
You can browse through the highest rated pictures as well as editor picks. The social aspect of it lets you follow other photographers, like their photos and add to favorites. Photographers new to 500px are excited by how much faster they receive feedback and followers than Flickr but I think that will trail off as more photographers flock to 500px. But, the service lends itself much better to the social aspect so I think it will be a stronger place for interaction.
Unlike, Flickr, I don’t think 500px is a dumping ground for photos. The quality of images on 500px is very high and I think if you want to gain any traction on this site you need to put your best foot forward.
A single image view with a large main photo 900px wide (make me wonder why it’s called 500px).
Like any social networking site, the more you put into it, the more you get out. Following photographers, commenting on photos and rating will lead to people checking out your work. If you put up good quality work, you’ll get more comments and higher ratings and get some images featured. Then the snowball starts rolling. I’ve noticed many of the highest rated photos are from photographer who have multiple photos in the ‘most popular’ section.
I’m not sure of the value behind throwing your photography up for other photographers. Other photographers are not going to hire you for a job and you most likely will not get good critiques of you work, most will either ignore you or pat you on the back.
That being said, it looks to be a good place to get noticed. Maybe it won’t be long before Art Directors and image buyers start looking through the site.
It is also a great case study for UX designers because I think the difference is all about the user experience of 500px.
As the site gains popularity, hopefully, an API will pop up for plug-ins and maybe and improved app. At this time there are no WordPress plug-ins for displaying 500px images on your blog. I’m also looking forward to a time when camera apps will add 500px to the sharing options along with Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.
All this makes me wonder if 500px is to Flickr as Facebook was to MySpace.
I do like 500px and accept that most of the missing bits (detailed stats, API etc) are due to its stage of development (clearly that have really been working 100% at it for 8 years). My main “issue” is that I would like to see a more “brute force” filtering available. I appreciate the artistic value of nudes etc but due to their prevalence on 500px I always advise people to not use at it in the workplace. Bit of a pain that 🙁
I agree, Stewart. There looks to be a fair amount of nudes. Maybe an option to completely remove any nude content from your viewing stream. I don’t think they should ban nude content, but giving you the option to ban it from your browsing would be good.
I agree, Stewart. There looks to be a fair amount of nudes. Maybe an option to completely remove any nude content from your viewing stream. I don’t think they should ban nude content, but giving you the option to ban it from your browsing would be good.
I found the site a couple weeks ago and have been impressed so far. I primarily work in nudes, but agree there are times you need to exclude them and there is an option for this.
There is a checkbox to do this under Settings -> Site. You’ll also see a small checkbox that does this on many of the photo browsing pages. I imagine that it only works as long as people classify their photos correctly, but that’s going to be the case on any site.
Sorry, flickr is still more useful for sharing photos. The flickr groups alone make it more powerful. flickr is setup more like a database and allows various options for organizing photos that 500px does not. So, 500px has a long way to go before it’s close to replacing flickr. By the way even the founders don’t consider their service to be a flickr replacement.
Just to be clear, I don’t think Flickr will go the way of MySpace. Each offers it’s own advantages. Right now, 500px can’t even come close to the traffic Flickr gets and, as you pointed out, the groups are valuable to the people who use them. I think many people will choose to use both. I’m just really excited about the look of the site and the way it displays my work. Maybe 500px will give Flickr a much needed kick in the butt to update their UX.
Just to be clear, I don’t think Flickr will go the way of MySpace. Each offers it’s own advantages. Right now, 500px can’t even come close to the traffic Flickr gets and, as you pointed out, the groups are valuable to the people who use them. I think many people will choose to use both. I’m just really excited about the look of the site and the way it displays my work. Maybe 500px will give Flickr a much needed kick in the butt to update their UX.
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I’m another convert; http://500px.com/englishphotographer
Much happier to put work on 500px. It gets more views and comments, and there’s a greater concentration of talented photographers.
More importantly, the interface is much better, and my photos are displayed at a sensible size without lots of clutter.
The like/dislike system is good too. I recommend 500px to all of my clients whom I teach photography too as well. The only potential rival is fotoblur.
I haven’t tried fotoblur but I think I’m good with 500px. Another thing I noticed is that Flickr seems to be a dumping ground for photos whereas 500px seems to be more selective. As one of my mentors said, “Shoot more. Edit more. Show less.”