During this holidays break I setup a new site for my photography and new profiles in 500px and Flickr. 500px is set up in a manner that all new photos get some chance at being viewed a few times (Flickr’s Explore section has a threshold of some number of views). So while I was uploading at the same time at both 500px and Flickr, the copies on 500px actually got some views and ratings while very few on Flickr.
So, after 3 days of uploading of my 2013 portfolio for a total of 57 photos, 12 of them got voted enough (forming a “Pulse” which calculated according to a not disclosed algorithm of 500px) to reach the “Popular” section of the site (photos with an over 80 Pulse). In total this gathered until now 1225 views, 585 Likes, 340 Favorites (a bookmark-like feature) and 85 comments. This might look very good and in part it is, but due to the way 500px works (mainly, the Pulse algorithm which after the first 24 hours of a photo being upload is reduced in order to promote more fresh photos) this is the bulk of attention my photos will get unless I actually build a social network on the site. But that’s something to explore in the coming weeks ;)
For now, it is interesting to see which photos worked for the 500px audience (mostly other photographers) and which didn’t. I’ll be doing some comparisons with G+ as all these photos have first been posted here throughout the year.
You can see my 500px portfolio or at my previously mentioned site or on Google+ (if you have been following me there you’ve might have seen most of it on your feed).
For more details on 500px’s Pulse algorithm see Jason Waltman overview (“My thoughts on 500px’s Pulse 2.0“). More on the broader subject of how functions and algorithms end up forming people’s behaviour, see Timothy Burke writings (“The State of the Art: 500px and Flickr as a Window Into Social Media“)
Tags: 500px, algorithm, Flickr, photography, social media
