Photobucket | Dad's Pixels

Ever since I first realized you could post and share your digital photos online (without having to send them as email attachments to your loved ones) I’ve been on a permanent quest for that perfect photo-sharing service.

I was originally only looking for a nice online photo album to post my photos to; where I’d just have to send a link to friends and family directing them to my photos; so a now-extinct service called myphotoalbum.com did it for me back in the day. It was alright I guess but they made you buy stuff from their store at least once a year in order to keep your albums for you for free so that quickly made me look at other options.

Image: Flickr Creative Commons

Social media to the rescue

Enter social media and sites like Flickr. For the first time it occurred to me I didn’t have to share my photos only with real life friends and family. Flickr first and then Twitter and Facebook suddenly were there for me to share my work with the whole internet. I guess that’s when I became addicted to social media and from that point on, if there’s a site that’ll let me post photos online more likely than not I’ll give it a try. That’s why I post photos not only on the previously mentioned sites but also on SmugMug, 500px and of course, Instagram.

Which one’s the best?

Of course there’s no right answer here. Or wrong answer, for that matter. It all depends pretty much on what it is you want to do with your photos. And on who you want to share them with. If it’s a large audience you’re looking for then you definitely need to stick with Flickr, 500px, Instagram and maybe Photobucket. If what you want to do is share this weekend’s trip to the beach with relatives and friends then I regret to inform you that you’re stuck with Facebook. Let’s face it, if you’re in any way like me (meaning you’re an internet nobody) your only chance of having your photos looked at, liked and commented on is by displaying them on Zuckerbergville. Sad, I know.

What about Google+?

Yeah, what about them? How come I’ve left them out of the mix up until now? G+ stands in the unique position of perhaps being the best social photo-sharing site where hardly anyone you know hangs out. Pretty tragic if you ask me. With its circles and ties to Google Search, plus one of the best photo-sharing feature-sets in Google+ Photos, this network has everything needed to become the definitive destination of photo-sharing and social media enthusiasts with one glaring exception: Your friends. You know where they are, right? Yup. In Zuckerbergville. Which brings us to the age-old philosophical conundrum: If you post a photo online and no one sees it; is it really online? While the occasional +1 or comment from a complete stranger is okay, Google+ has its work cut out for them if they want to come anywhere near the level of interaction and engagement you see with your Facebook posts, where almost every like or comment comes from the people you ultimately care most about. And that is why I can’t commit 100% to G+ and leave my real life friends behind in Facebook. At least not yet.

So at the end of the day, which is the best social-media-photo-sharing service? I’ll tell you what. I’ll just go ahead and let you answer that in the comments below. What’s your favorite social network? Where and (perhaps more importantly) with whom do you share your photos on the internet these days?