I wasn't thinking about social network sharing when I was referring to social features - I was thinking about social features within the community.
I'm an amateur photographer, the work that I do is of interest to other photogs, rarely to my "real life" friends. Flickr's Groups, for all its faults, allow me to keep up with photographers of similar interests, and they with me - no amount of "Facebook/Twitter/StumbledUpon/+1" button integration will get you that sort of interaction.
There are really two sides to this that I can think of:
- Discoverability: can you discover the work of other people easily, and they yours? 500px has a wonderful way of measuring top uploads and exposing the best work to the world in a beautiful way. Flickr has groups where you can reach out and interact with photogs of similar interests. AFAIK SmugMug has very little in this regard.
- Interactivity: what can you do once you discover interesting, good work? On Flickr you can comment, you can add to group pools (to the collective groaning of everyone, but hey), you can fave, you can give all sorts of feedback. Similar for 500px. SmugMug is not nearly so tightly integrated in this way.
It's very much organized to be individuals of portfolios, there's not a distinct feeling that you're part of a greater network rather than simply looking at a single photographer's work.
I'm an amateur photographer, the work that I do is of interest to other photogs, rarely to my "real life" friends. Flickr's Groups, for all its faults, allow me to keep up with photographers of similar interests, and they with me - no amount of "Facebook/Twitter/StumbledUpon/+1" button integration will get you that sort of interaction.
There are really two sides to this that I can think of:
- Discoverability: can you discover the work of other people easily, and they yours? 500px has a wonderful way of measuring top uploads and exposing the best work to the world in a beautiful way. Flickr has groups where you can reach out and interact with photogs of similar interests. AFAIK SmugMug has very little in this regard.
- Interactivity: what can you do once you discover interesting, good work? On Flickr you can comment, you can add to group pools (to the collective groaning of everyone, but hey), you can fave, you can give all sorts of feedback. Similar for 500px. SmugMug is not nearly so tightly integrated in this way.
It's very much organized to be individuals of portfolios, there's not a distinct feeling that you're part of a greater network rather than simply looking at a single photographer's work.