Enhanced Social Features#126

It is hard to build a real conversation by simply commenting on individual photos. If this is to become a ‘community’, I think we need something more. I’m not sure what the answer is here, but some ideas:

1) Allow people to create groups, so they can discuss photography in that smaller, private group
2) Create community-wide discussion forums on different topics, e.g. everyone that wants to learn more about landscape photography or discuss their love of shadows, or a Q/A area
3) Allow photographers to create ‘posts’ that mix in with their photos, where they can write a little bit about their photography in general (almost like a blog), so you can learn a bit more about a photographer other than just their photos.

At the moment, Glass just seems a bit empty/loney and there isn’t really anything at this stage to make the app/community feel alive and sticky.

Stu

The photos themselves are what keeps me coming back. I know it is tempting to add the kinds of features we see in other apps but we know how badly that can turn out. There is a value in keeping the app calm. I came back to glass because it is quieter than other social media. Beware adding noise for the sake of engagement.

The first and easiest thing must be a DM-function thou. So two people can have a chat about what not in private, or am I wrong. It feels dumb to talk about >insert random topic< on a photo of a horse. :)

I would also love community groups. When I heard this app described as the modern Flickr, I thought immediately of the photo groups from the mid 2000s that were so lovely to be a part of. I really think this community needs a group feature so that we can see photos by topic and not just by photographer

Has this improved in the 9 months this post exists?
I’m new here and while the subscribtion is on trial I find it hard to stick around. Photography is good, but practically every good photographer on here has a website or an instagram page. You can see the same photos on there.

If community is what you’re building, there should be features that support it, like the OP mentioned: Groups, maybe a ‘guestbook’ on your page where people could leave comments and questions about your photography in general, not under a specific photo.

Hope to see it grow!

I’m on trial, and here in July 2022 the pickings are pretty slim image wise, there are few images and engagement seems sparse and superficial. One can have a “calm” environment that can also be deep. Writing about photography is as old as photography itself.

My greatest interest is photobooks – indeed, I teach a university course in just that – and it would be nice to instead of just post a pretty photo or such, to have a way to put up a series of photos that hang together and give a larger, different experience than just a feed of shots.

The problem with groups on Flickr is that it’s too easy to create them and they become esoteric and gamified to try to beat the algorithms for “exposure”. If we’re to have an emphasis on discussion, we need to be very slow in splitting into categories so we don’t lose engagement.

Please don’t make Glass a copy of Instagram… keep in mind the original vision for Glass! In my experience, closed groups lead to cliques - not very social. Forums are something entirely different from a photo gallery. DMs are ok though, I think.

Don’t turn Glass into a copy of the social media networks you wanted to escape from when you started Glass… it would defeat the purpose. No matter how many people who are accustomed to social media vote for that - sometimes the broad masses/majority’s wish is NOT the best way (don’t want to get political though). Don’t support features that allow the vitriol and hate of Twitter, FB et al.

Would be nice to be able to comment on a series too and not only on a individual picture.

Does something have to be built into the app? Discord is a great space for engagement and fostering community.

If this needs to become a social space it’d be important to allow ppl to communicate better eg via DM or join into groups. I understand the voncerns but I find impossible to have meaningful technical conversations with other photographers in the comments of their or mine photos

I think special interest groups are a valuable social feature of photographic communities, the interests of a Still Life or Landscape photographer are quite different to those of a sports or wildlife photographer for example.

For myself the lack of advertising and commercial activity is the main reason I am looking for a different type of platform but I think the ability to socialise with chats and private messages would be no bad thing.

I think a simple starting place for Community chat would be to have a chat for each Category, possibly with member moderators, this would perhaps be a good starting point towards creating more of a community feel.
I agree with many others that the thought of member crested groups would just create chaos, so it needs to be limited.
Most importantly, keep it advertising and sponsor free

In other news…keep up the great work

Where are we on this? Last implemented feature was in October 2024… we’re now in April 2026…

I would love to be able to contact photographers privately. Maybe we could have the ability to stay private (not available for DMs or something like that) to avoid spaming… or just block users as it is possible now…

This to me will decide whether I stay. There is simply little interaction