We’re excited to announce that our completely redesigned Photo Portfolios are now available for all 500px members today. With 500px serving over a billion page views per month, 500px Portfolios give photographers an opportunity to get discovered and showcase their work to a large, global audience that’s passionate about the highest quality photos: the 500px community.

For the past several weeks, we’ve had over 1000 users beta testing the features and we’ve incorporated their feedback into the product. The overwhelming response is that the new Portfolio has exceeded their expectations.

"One of the first things I noticed is how beautiful it is," says photographer, author and digital media expert Scott Bourne. "I set up and customized my site effortlessly. The Portfolio redesign really makes your photos pop."

"Being able to completely personalize 500px Portfolios is an outstanding new feature,” says photographer and author Nicole S. Young. “I'm really excited about the direction 500px is headed.”

"The best just keeps getting better,” says photographer and Education Director for NAPP Matt Kloskowski. “500px's new Portfolios have taken an insanely inspirational website and made it a one-stop shop for finding, sharing and showing off beautiful photos."

“We want to thank the members of our community who participated in the beta version and shared their thoughts and ideas,” says Evgeny Tchebotarev, COO, 500px. “You helped us refine our UX and take it to the next level.”

New Features

The Portfolio redesign is based on three principles: It’s Easy to Use, Beautiful and Unique.

Photographers can now create a custom personal website on 500px with its own URL, tabs, pages and zero maintenance or incremental hosting fees. They can express their vision and style by:

• Setting up and customizing their Portfolio page in just a few minutes, seamlessly updating their photo collection as it grows.
• Showcasing photos in beautiful, minimal layouts with many options for sharing and interaction.
• Developing their own look and feel to the page design and access to additional features, such as complete CSS customization (for the brave).

We’re also increasing upload capacity for all accounts. Free accounts will now be able to upload 20 photos per week, while Plus and Awesome accounts will accept larger size of photos, up to 100Mb per file, and as always have unlimited uploads.

Over the next couple of months, we’re rolling out even more features including custom pages, full integration for Stores/ecommerce, blogs and localization.

“This is the beginning of the next phase of our platform,” says Evgeny. “500px is rolling out a lot of new features over the next few months and continually working towards being the best place to get photos and photographers discovered. We have some exciting products in the pipeline.”

For more information about Portfolios and how photographers can get the most out of its features, take a look at the Google+ Hangout video Q&A 500px developers held with users.

Everyone knows photography is an experiential activity. And while the 500px community is mainly virtual, we’ve always been committed to bringing creative photography to life in all the places you live and work. That’s why we partnered with other great brands like Land Rover, Canon, Blurb and CanvasPop to enhance your photo sharing experiences both online and off.

And now, we’re excited to announce new marketing partnerships with a couple of great US photo supply and gear companies we know well and respect: ProMaster and BorrowLenses.

We’ve worked with them to produce special 500px gift cards, which offer discounts off our Awesome and Plus accounts.

Beginning in May, when you shop at a ProMaster dealer you’ll get a gift card for three months of a 500px Awesome account for free with the purchase of an interchangeable lens camera or lens. And with every purchase at BorrowLenses you’ll receive a 500px gift card ranging anywhere from six months of a 500px Plus account for free to 25% off a 500px Awesome account.

For over 50 years, ProMaster has been one of North America’s premier retail dealers of high quality photo products, gear, accessories, supplies and books.

BorrowLenses is a US based online shop that makes amazing photography accessible to everyone by renting the best gear you need to bring your photo concepts to life including camera bodies, lenses and lights.

500px is rolling out a lot of new features over the next few months and continually working towards being the best place to get photos and photographers discovered. 500px gift cards are a way to give back to existing customers and make 500px more accessible to photographers new to the 500px community.

“This promotion extends the 500px brand into bricks and mortar and online retailers and introduces our community to serious photographers who may not know who we are,” says Dustin Plett, vice president, business development, 500px. “We’ve got more exciting partnerships in the works including one focused on destinations that are on every serious photographers bucket list.”

And don’t forget that until May 15, when we roll out our redesigned Portfolios, you can lock in your 500px account at the old price for as long as you want.

We’re excited to announce the launch of the completely redesigned Professional Photo Portfolios.

Our talented development team has been working on overdrive to redesign the 500px Portfolio offering from the ground up. And once our final beta testing is done in early May, we’ll be rolling out what we believe will become the industry standard for creating and showcasing professional-grade online Portfolios.

What are New Portfolios and How Will They Improve Your Experience?

Our new Portfolio UX will supercharge your 500px experience by enabling photographers to design and create a custom personal website on our platform with its own URL, robust backup system, tabs, pages and zero maintenance or incremental hosting fees - we take care of that for you. And as always, your Portfolio page links directly to your 500px account.

Portfolio is based on three principles: Beautiful, Unique and Easy to Use:

• Showcase your photos in beautiful, lush and textured layouts with rich options for people to interact with you and your photos.
• Setup and customize your Portfolio page in just a few minutes, seamlessly updating your photo collection as it grows.
• Create a unique look and feel to your page design. With Portfolios you’ll get access to more features, like full CSS customization (for the brave), Store integration so your visitors can buy your photos straight from your portfolio, and Blog integration that lets you to stay in touch with your customers and readers.

And our Portfolio’s features will continue to evolve — not just with your photos, but with additional themes and customizations so you’ll be able to create a one of a kind look for your page that expresses your vision and style.

We’re planning to release Portfolios in early May. And as we lead up to the launch, we’ll provide you with previews, updates on the features and tutorials so you’ll be ready to go.

We’re also increasing storage limits for all accounts. Free accounts will now be able to upload 20 photos per week, while Plus and Awesome will accept larger size of photos, up to 100Mb per file and have unlimited storage.

Because of the additional functionality and features, we wanted to let you know we’re adjusting the pricing of our Plus and Awesome membership. Starting May 1, the Plus account will be $25/year, and Awesome account will be $75/year.

The good news is, if you’re current member or planning to upgrade, we’ll let you lock in the old pricing for as long as you want by purchasing or renewing your Plus or Awesome membership before May 1, 2013.

Limited Preview Available

Interested in being among the first to preview the new Portfolios? Let us know, we’ll select a lucky few to give you a pre-launch taste and feature you on our blog.

Our goal at 500px has always been to provide the highest quality experience to our community wherever they are and whatever platform they are on. In the past year we focused our energy on creating visually enticing mobile apps for iPad, iPhone and Android platforms.

Today, we are excited to announce the launch of the 500px experience on a new platform, Google Chrome. Our latest project, completed in collaboration with the Google Chrome OS team is a new 500px Chrome OS app that can be downloaded from the Google Chrome store for PC or Mac browsers or used directly on any Chromebook including the new touch-enabled Google Chromebook Pixel laptop.

The Chromebook Pixel high resolution screen impressed our developers because it offers a stunning visual way to experience our photos. Additionally, it allows for tap, pinch and swipe functionality, which we built right into the app so you can move effortlessly from one image to the next using touch, as well as highlight and expand parts of the photo you want to look at more closely.

500px Chrome app features include:

• Most inspiring photos on the planet
• Browsing images by Popular, Editor’s Choice, Upcoming and Fresh
• Letting users create a personalized photo stream through Flow
• Swipe enabled, built for Chromebook Pixel laptop
• Tap or click to view photos full-screen
• Easily find descriptions and photographer’s information
• Seamless one click sharing on Google+, Facebook or Twitter

“We are excited about the launch of 500px for Chrome OS. Chromebook Pixel is an amazing device, it's very easy for developers to create an outstanding user experience. Working with Chrome OS and the Google team behind it was a real pleasure and we hope that our users like the end result. 500px for Chrome brings our photographers yet another high quality way to showcase their work.” says Oleg Gutsol, founder and CEO, 500px.

“Google has been a great partner,” he adds. “They are focused on quality and pushing the envelope on innovations. We are planning some more exciting projects with Google platforms in the near future, including a full upgrade of our Android mobile app that brings it up to iOS parity and beyond.”

As many of you know, last Monday 500px received a call from the Apple store regarding concerns about our iPhone app. The request pertained to images that contravened the Apple Store’s standards.

We worked with Apple over the last week to address their requests while maintaining the highest quality user experience our community expects. We submitted a revised version of the app for review and are excited to finally announce we are back in the App Store.

Among the changes we made include:

• Ensuring any adult content is clearly tagged and more difficult to unintentionally come across
• Making changes to the app search terms that address Apple’s search filter request
• Built in new reporting features making it easier to report questionable content in the app

“We are committed to the highest standards for our photographic community and have strict policies and procedures in place to ensure we adhere to them,” said Oleg Gutsol, CEO, 500px. “We’re working in partnership with Apple to provide the highest quality enhancements to our app.”

“We take the content that appears on our site very seriously,” he added. “If we find content that is in violation of our terms of use we remove it immediately from our system and block the user’s account. Our policies are clearly defined in our terms of service.”

“We want to thank our community for your patience and support and hope you spread the word that the world’s best photography is once again available as an iPhone and iPad app.”

When Canon was developing Image Square in Calgary, a first of its kind technologically-advanced photo exploration and discovery space, they turned to 500px, to curate the gallery experience.

Each quarter, 500px will choose two local photographers renowned for their originality and creative approach

For the first show which opens January 15, we’re presenting two very different but equally inspiring Calgary artists:

• Bin Dong focuses on creating dramatic images of the Rockies.
• Wayne Simpson is known for his evocative landscapes and portraits that communicate mood, emotion and a sense of place.

Both men’s work demonstrates how Canon technology helps them bring remarkable images to life.

The Image Square experience also includes:

• Full-motion thematic settings and sculptural exhibits to test point-and-shoot and digital SLR cameras, a range of lenses and accessories and a selection of printers.
• Touch screen media wall where visitors can post and interact with their own images.
• Interactive discovery tables where visitors can select an image, learn about its features, and find directions to the related product station.
• A fully-operational showroom exhibiting a range of Canon print production devices and solutions for business needs.
• A photo studio outfitted with professional Canon digital SLR cameras, Speedlight flashes, and photo production software.
• Expert staff dedicated to answering questions, sharing tips, and finding information for visitors.

Located at Eighth Avenue Place in downtown Calgary, Image Square is a place for visitors to learn how Canon products and solutions can help them enhance their photo skills.

“For any photographer, understanding how to get the most out of their equipment helps them produce great work,” says Oleg Gutsol, CEO, 500px. “Canon’s Image Square provides an innovative space that combines a showroom, education and hands-on testing. We’re pleased to partner with a company that shares our commitment to pushing the boundaries of photography.”

In 2013, 500px will be making upgrades to our platform to ensure we continue providing the highest quality experience for our community. We’re starting the process today with the launch of a full redesign of our photo uploader.

We’ve rebuilt the uploader from the ground up and added a new interface that’s simple, elegant, easy to navigate and offers many user-requested features, including:

“We have been developing our iPhone app for some time,” says Oleg Gutsol, CEO, 500px. “However, we only release a new product or an update when it meets our high aesthetic and functional standards and enhances our photographers’ experience.”

• Intuitive UI for the uploader, library, stories and sets/portfolios options
• Drag and drop photos
• Paid accounts can batch upload an unlimited number of photos. Free accounts can batch upload up to 10 photos per week.
• Click and drag photo cropping
• Increased discoverability and better tagging
• One-stop to fill in photo and camera details
• Easy to use privacy settings for those who want to use them

“Uploading photos is one of the most important elements of our platform because that’s where it all begins,” says Evgeny Tchebotarev, COO 500px. “It’s our photographers’ first point of contact. We outgrew the current interface with the number of photos our members are uploading, and we were determined to redesign the interface to offer more flexibility with the same high quality experience our photographers expect from us. We believe the new uploader delivers on that promise.”

Curate your Flow

500px has also launched a new feature: Curate, which is part of Flow, your personal feed. Curate helps you get started on 500px by presenting images based on the categories you like. These include: black and white, landscapes, people, animals, still life, cities and architecture, transportation and abstract. Click on categories that interest you and 500px will recommend photos and photographers to follow.

The uploader upgrade and Curate are previews of the types of enhancements and the new design language 500px will be rolling out over the next several months.

Every company has its own terms of service, that is a document outlining the house rules and what you and the organization agree to when you set up an account on the site.

And it’s normal for businesses to revise their terms from time to time. If that happens, the company should inform its customers about the changes but the onus is on the users to pay attention.

However, most people never bother to read the terms of service before they start posting on a site and are often surprised by what they sign away.

At 500px, we respect our photographers rights and do what we can to protect their work and give the community flexible options to share or monetize their photos.

Here are five of the things we stand for:

• We do whatever we can to protect your photographs and your rights to them
• You decide if you want to sell your photos - always
• We cannot sell your photos without your permission
• We introduced Creative Commons as an opt-in option for members who want to use it to license their photographs
• You can remove your photos at anytime and we have no rights to them. (By the same token, if we deem an account contravenes our policies, we can remove it.)

We’ve also written our terms of service in as plain language as possible so the community understands how we operate. And if we change them, we’ll let you know.

"Our users always come first,” says Oleg Gutsol, CEO, 500px. “As photographers ourselves, we respect and adhere to copyright laws and have created our platform in a way that allows our community members to control sharing and monetization of their photos. This is how we started and this is the way it will always be.”

2012 is ending on a high note for 500px. We launched our iPhone app, which beat company expectations by generating over 100,000 downloads in the first 48 hours and news and online stories around the globe.

Over the past few weeks, we were featured by Time as one of the world’s top 25 blogs, we announced Creative Commons licensing for our community, acquired the talent behind Pulpfingers and had successful marketing partnerships with Klout, CanvasPop, Land Rover and Blurb.

And we’ve just been named the number one startup on Techvibes Canadian Startup Index.

In addition, Twitter Design moved its company hosted photos from Flickr to our platform.

“The strong and passionate creative community behind 500px made it an obvious partner for us to engage with on sharing more our own creative efforts,” said Martin Ringlein. Design Manager, Twitter.

“We welcome Twitter to the 500px community,” says Oleg Gutsol, CEO, 500px.

“In 2012,” he adds, “we’ve worked to bring on innovations that enhance the quality of our platform and enhance our community’s experience both online and off. You can expect a lot more exciting news in 2013.”

With a million downloads expected by year-end for our iPad and Android apps - both released less than a year ago - the 500px mobile platforms have exceeded company goals. In fact, when we released our iPad app in 2011, 500px was relatively unknown. But when the app generated 100K downloads in its first week, the photography community took notice.

Now, 500px is set to raise the bar even higher with the launch of our new iPhone app featuring a lush design and elegant, easy to navigate user interface.

“We have been developing our iPhone app for some time,” says Oleg Gutsol, CEO, 500px. “However, we only release a new product or an update when it meets our high aesthetic and functional standards and enhances our photographers’ experience.”

The iPhone app is part of the company’s strategy to bring the 500px premium photo experience to people wherever they are.

Outstanding design

Members of the 500px community can effortlessly glide through the app using the navigation bar at the top of the screen to browse their favorite categories including Fresh, Editor’s Choice, Popular or Upcoming. They can easily search for content by photographer and keywords.

Flow, a photo stream curated by your friends on 500px and one of the platform’s most popular features, has been seamlessly integrated into the iPhone app. This was an essential component of the build.

“Our iPhone app is focused on great photography and, with minimal UI, is distraction-free,” says Adam Shutsa, lead designer, 500px. “We display the largest photos possible for the device with an outstanding design that fills the screen and showcases our community’s incredible photos.”

When people view photos, they can interact with them by liking, commenting or adding to their favourites. Users can explore photos and email or share them on social channels.

Tap on a photographer’s avatar on the top of the screen to view their profile, photos, bio and other info.

Near the bottom you can see the comments photographers have made about their work, its rating, pulse and details on the camera and how and where the photo was taken.

“With our new iPhone app, we are continuing to push the boundaries to create a seamless, premium photo sharing experience for photographers, on whatever device they use”, Gutsol adds.

We just held our second annual PixelHack event in Toronto and, in addition to all the great apps that were developed, we had some business developments too. We’ve just made our second ‘aqui-hire’, that is, we acquired the talent behind 500px iPhone app, ISO500. It’s our first European business deal and follows the July 2012 acquisition of Algo Anywhere.

David Charlec and Jerome Scheer are the founders of Pulpfingers, a Strasbourg, France based company that launched the app in October 2011. Having developed their app, they’re familiar with the design and community aspects of our platform. We want to welcome them to the 500px team.

“It’s a strategic move,” says Oleg Gutsol, CEO 500px. “We’re all about creativity. And when you have the right chemistry with talented people in a market you want to expand into, you get creative to make sure the deal happens. I’m pleased we arrived at an arrangement that makes good business sense for all of us.”

Charlec and Scheer will continue to operate Pulpfingers over the next few months as they transition into full-time roles inside 500px.The Pulpfingers team will be spending time in the Toronto HQ next year to get fully immersed in the company and its culture.

The ISO500 app will remain available in the App Store and users can expect an update that will introduce enhancements as well as support for iPhone 5. 500px plans to launch its official app over the next few weeks.

‘We’re looking forward to continuing our vision and building beautiful, high quality applications for 500px,’ says Charlec.

‘It’s a great fit for us because we love photography, we love design, and we love the 500px community,’ says Scheer. ‘We’re excited about the possibilities now that we’re combining forces.’

“It’s been our intention to increase our presence in Europe and we’ve been looking for the right opportunity, says Oleg. ‘We have huge numbers of photographers in Germany, France and Spain, so a central presence in France makes a lot of sense.”

For artists and creators, copyright is often a challenge because on one hand they want to protect their work and on the other they’d like it to spread.

We’ve just announced we’re rolling out Creative Commons licensing that gives our photographers more options to let others share and re-use their work. This opt-in program provides the 500px community with greater flexibility on usage, photo attribution and additional sharing opportunities.

Creative Commons is well known as a global nonprofit organization that enables sharing and reuse of creativity and knowledge through the provision of free legal tools.

The Creative Commons copyright licenses and tools forge a balance inside the traditional “all rights reserved” setting that copyright law creates. Creative Commons tools give everyone from individual creators to large companies and institutions a simple, standardized way to grant copyright permissions to their creative work.

‘While our platform still defaults to full copyright protection as it always has, we want to give our photographers as much flexibility as possible to spread their work and build their profiles and businesses,’ says Oleg Gutsol, CEO, 500px. ‘Our move to offer Creative Commons licensing is another way we’re providing additional services and value to meet the needs of our growing community.’

With tens of millions of high quality professional photos potentially now available through Creative Commons, 500px is planning for the increased traffic from bloggers, publishers and media outlets that have been clamoring to get at the content for several years.

‘We’ve built content searching by keywords and applicable license right into the functionality,’ says Gutsol. ‘Our hope is that this targeted searching makes it seamless for people to find the content they’re looking for.’

With this rollout, 500px joins the ranks of other prominent rich media communities such as Vimeo, SoundCloud and YouTube who already have Creative Commons in place.

“500px is a great addition to the family of CC-compatible media platforms,” Creative Commons CEO Cathy Casserly said. “500px caters to a talented and intelligent community of photographers, just the sort of users we're always excited to see licensing their work under CC. I'll be curious to see how creative people everywhere reuse and remix the work of 500px photographers.”

From November 9 to 13, PyCon Canada brought together the diverse Canadian Python programming community for the first time - to exchange ideas and share insights and push boundaries of Python development. The sold-out event attracted over 275 enthusiasts and high profile speakers.

500px is pleased to be PyCon Canada’s exclusive Gold Sponsor.

In April 2012, the PyConCa Association decided to hold the first ever Canadian national Python conference. We’ve been a longtime supporter of the platform and when we heard the news, immediately contacted the organizers and and asked how we could help make it happen. We came on board the first day sponsorships were available and became the Gold Sponsor.

‘Thanks to the generous financial contribution and personal involvement we received from 500px, we were able to get the conference off the ground and attract top-tier speakers and sponsors to the event,’ says Diana Clarke, the conference chair. ‘They gave us the legitimacy and funding we needed to attract the audience we wanted and make the event a success. We couldn’t have done it without them or the other sponsors that 500px’s early support helped attract.’

’500px is moving toward creating many of our upcoming features in Python,’ says Oleg Gutsol, CEO, 500px. ‘And one of the reasons we sponsored PyCon is we saw it as a great opportunity to inform the community that we’re actively looking for Python devs to build out our data mining and search product lines. We’re believers in big ideas and innovation and are looking forward to doing what we can to help build PyCon into Canada’s premier Python event.’

This event is a prelude to the 2014 PyCon North America conference, which will take place in Montreal. It will be the first time the international gathering will be held outside the U.S. The PyCon movement is dedicated to enhancing Python, a dynamic and flexible programming language that enables developers to create advanced coding quickly.

500px is pleased to announce an exclusive partnership with CanvasPop for an innovative program specially tailored to our community: starting November 6, photographers will have access to more high quality printing options at preferred prices.

CanvasPop helps people create their own personalized art in innovative, simple and fun ways. A premium user experience and quality digital printing is built into the company’s DNA in the same way the quality of its online interface is integral to 500px.

Like us, CanvasPop is a rapid growth, design-obsessed businesses, with a strong commitment to their members’ experiences both on and off the web.

‘We take our photographers needs seriously,’ says Oleg Gutsol, CEO, 500px. ‘We only partner with brands that share our vision and commitment to excellence. With CanvasPop, we’ve found a company whose attention to detail, values and customer service matches the passion we have for photography.’

‘We worked closely with 500px to create exclusive pricing for their members and providing the highest standard in prints,’ says Adrian Salamunovic, Co-founder of CanvasPop. ‘What we love about 500px is their laser sharp focus on the user experience - they always put their community first.’

CanvasPop has reduced shipping costs so 500px photographers can expect to see a 50 percent higher commission from the photos ordered on on our site nd fulfilled through the CanvasPop platform. And we’ve increased the range of sizes available to 500px photographers, who can now order custom prints in the following dimensions: 20 x 40, 12 x 48, and 18 x 48, 24 x 36 and 30 x 30.

This announcement is part of our company’s evolution from being a premier hosting site to empowering photographers with seamless end to end solutions. ‘We’re committed to offering additional resources and value to the 500px ecosystem,’ Oleg adds.

EBE12, Spain’s largest social media conference, is a gathering of nearly 2,500 digital and social media practitioners and enthusiasts, November 2 to 4 in Seville. The event focuses on creativity, talent and innovation in the online space.

This year, 500px CEO Oleg Gutsol has been asked to be a feature presenter at the event.

He’ll tell the entrepreneurial story of how he conceived and started 500px, based on his passions for photography and computer programming. He’ll discuss how he developed his vision, what he’s learned along the way, where the company is heading and the plans he’s putting in place to make 500px the place for the world's best photography.

“Our goal is to offer photographers the highest quality photos and user experience,” says Oleg. “We developed algorithms to discover and showcase the best photos our users share with the community.”

EBE12 is divided into four streams of content with a larger networking area and interactive sessions based on hackathons, speed dating and open spaces.

Oleg’s presentation will be live streamed from the conference on November 3, 2012, at 17:00 CET . You can follow the discussion on the #EBE12 hashtag.

No app is an island. And no community is created in isolation. 500px relies on our photographers, developers, designers and the community at large to interact with the site, test it, push the limits and suggest and create apps to refine and improve the user experience.

PixelHack is a free, open weekend event in Toronto geared to designing and coding apps based on open rich media APIs. We’re inviting talented designers, photographers, programmers and product managers to come together and build inspiring visual applications using open web, mobile and desktop APIs.

The environment is fast-paced, collaborative and fun and developers are encouraged to pair up with designers and photographers to bring the concepts to life.

At the end of the hackathon, developers who bring the best, most innovative apps to life will compete to receive prizes. Judges include, Erin Bury, managing editor, BetaKit, Russ Martin, writer, Marketing Magazine, Andy Yang, managing director, Extreme Startups and Oleg Gutsol, CEO, 500px

Pixel Hack is presented by the 500px team and hosted at Extreme Startups. Sponsors include: Canon, Microsoft Windows 8, Jet Cooper, Henry’s, Aviary, Moo, Gelaskins, Context.io and Extreme Startups.

PixelHack 2012 event details:

Each year Time scours the Internet to review and select its best blogs of the year. And we’re pleased to announce the 2012 list features the 500px blog.

According to Harry McCracken, Time technology reporter and creator of the Technologizer blog, “Toronto-based photo community 500px is bursting at the seams with stunning imagery from around the world.”

The 500px blog has been published since January 2010 and celebrates our photographer community by showcasing stunning photos and the stories behind them as well as interviews with top photographers who discuss their approach and techniques.

The blog was created and is written by Toronto photographer and web editor Diana Tula, who also curates the 5oopx.com’s editor’s choice photos.

“Every day I explore the photographic realms of 500px looking for fresh and exciting content in hopes that what I feature on our blog will fascinate, inspire, and educate our community,” says Diana. “I’m honored our blog has been recognized by Time as one of the 25 best of 2012.”

“I also want to thank our readers for their input and encourage them to share their thoughts and ideas of where we can take it from here,” she adds.

Watch for enhancements to the blog in the near future as we add additional content and features.

500px is pleased to announce a partnership with Klout for an exclusive reward on our premium accounts. If you have a Klout score of 90 or above, you can qualify for a reward of 100% - that means you get one of our premium accounts free of charge for a year.

There's a sliding scale based on your influence score and the minimum reward you'll receive is 10%. This offer is open to anyone who has ever considered joining 500px, but was waiting for the right time.

Klout helps users understand and benefit from their influence by analyzing their engagement across social networks. For each user, Klout creates a daily score on a scale from one to 100 and lists the topics for which they are most influential.

The promotion is available to new members and those members looking to upgrade their account. 500px is the first company to develop a program with KloutPass SDK, which allows partners to authenticate and register users with Klout letting users access Perks around the web.

Sign into 500px using your Klout account and, based on your Klout influence, the site will calculate the reward you get when you purchase a premium 500px Awesome or Plus accounts (i.e. the higher the score, the bigger the reward).

Both of our Awesome and Plus accounts provide photographers with additional sharing and marketing benefits including: unlimited photo uploads, the ability to set up a store to sell your work, access to organizing and creating unlimited sets (public and private) and advanced statistics.

In addition, the Awesome account lets you create a personal portfolio, establish a subdomain you can easily link to, do domain mapping and add Google Analytics to get a deeper understanding of how your online engagement and determine if you’re reaching your business goals.

The Klout reward is available beginning October 17, 2012.

There’s a natural fit between quality photography and exploring the wild and untamed terrain.

That’s part of the reason 500px chose to partner with Land Rover in the photo community’s first major promotional contest.

From October 15 to November 12, 2012, Land Rover USA will use various social media platforms to invite photographers to enter a content hosted on 500px. To participate, entrants need to sign up for a free 500px account and submit a photo story with a quote or theme that ties into the Land Rover brand’s “go anywhere” spirit.

Participants can feature between five and 10 original and creative photos for their stories, which should be tagged “Land Rover Story Challenge” on the 500px site. The contest is open to current residents of the USA.

"We're pleased our first major marketing partnership is with a brand as iconic as Land Rover," says Oleg Gutsol, CEO and co-founder, 500px. "They came up with a creative way to capture the imagination of our community and tie into two of their passions, travel and photography."

Five winners will be announced by November 19 on both the Land Rover USA and 500px communities.

Winners will have the opportunity to drive a 2013 Land Rover for up to two weeks and submit photographs of the vehicle for the brand to consider featuring in upcoming promotional activities. Each winner will receive a contract for $10,000 and travel expense, along with the opportunity to experience Land Rover and create exquisite photographs for the brand.

You can follow Land Rover USA on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Tumblr to learn more.

Downtown Toronto may not your typical urban jungle, but its streets, people, architecture and sites provide a visual feast for any photographer.

500px is partnering with Blurb, the leading online print-on-demand publisher to offer our Toronto community a free three-hour Photo Safari through Toronto’s historic Distillery District on Tuesday, October 23.

U.S. magazine, newspaper and commercial photographer and photo instructor, Daniel Milnor and the folks from Blurb will lead people on an afternoon of photography and discovery. Milnor is currently “Photographer at Large” for Blurb and splits his time between the smog-choked arteries of Southern California and the spiritual landscape of New Mexico.

Milnor will help guide participants and offer tips on lighting, timing and composition. He’ll share ideas and advice on how to approach your work with an eye on the story and output you want to create at the end.

The Safari will be followed by a reception and discussion at Cafe Uno in Toronto. Space is limited so be sure to RSVP early. The Photo Safari is the final event in the Blurb Canadian Road Trip series.

Photo Safari event details:

Pre-event Google+ Hangout

As a primer for the event, join 500px photographer Sara Collaton in a Google+ Hangout, on Monday, October 15, as she moderates a conversation with some of the world’s hottest street photographers talking about the latest photo trends and what to expect on the Safari.

To participate, follow us at gplus.to/500px and look for the Hangout link on Monday, 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. ET.

Welcome to our redesigned and updated newsroom.

We’re using this site as the prime source of company and product news and innovations—it’s the place to discover where we’re heading.

This is where you’ll find information on new products and services we’re launching, business and marketing announcements, where we’re speaking, events we’re sponsoring, photography trends and interviews with the company’s leadership and key developers.

Of course, you can still find photo-oriented content on our popular blog, which features photographers and their stories, what’s popular and trending and the site’s most outstanding visuals.

We’ve got a lot of exciting initiatives planned for the fall. And this is where you’ll hear about them first.

Stay tuned.
We’ll be back with lots more news.