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How to get more views for your 360 photos with Panorama 360 (P360)!

Panorama 360 P360 is a very popular photo sharing platform that can help you get more views for your 360 photos
Panorama 360 P360 is a very popular photo sharing platform that can help you get more views for your 360 photos

Panorama 360 is a popular app for sharing panoramas and 360 photospheres.  Here’s how you can get more views for your 360 photos with Panorama 360 (aka P360).

Panorama 360 is an app for sharing panoramas, including 360 photos, with an emphasis on 360 photos of places.  With about 12 million users, it has one of the largest number of users among 360 photo sharing platforms.  In fact, with the exception of Facebook, Google Photos and Google Maps, P360 could have the highest number of users among 360 photo sharing apps and sites.  Here is a video about P360:

The interesting thing is that Panorama 360 started in 2011, before the Ricoh Theta was introduced to the market, as a way to capture panoramas and photospheres with a smartphone.  Here is a video showing how to capture a panorama with your phone

Even today, the vast majority of photos uploaded to P360 are smartphone panoramas, and therein lies the opportunity for 360 camera shooters.   Although smartphone panoramas can have high image quality in terms of resolution and bit depth, in the real world it is difficult to take a smartphone panorama without stitching errors.  This is not a problem with P360’s app — it’s just a characteristic of smartphone panoramas, regardless of which app you use to take them.  There are just too many things that you must be careful with, such as the lens position, movement in the background, etc.  The stitching errors that 360 camera shooters complain about even in cameras such as the Nikon Keymission 360 or Kodak Orbit360 look smooth in comparison 🙂

Not surprisingly, on P360, photos from 360 cameras are significantly more popular than smartphone panoramas.  How much more popular are they?  I inquired with P360’s CEO Vineet Devaiah. P360’s developers compared the interactions on 360 camera photos versus smartphone panoramas.   Based on their analysis, they conservatively estimate that 360 camera photos receive 40% more engagement.  In fact, the interaction rate for 360 camera photos is much higher — closer to 200 to 300% but part of that is because 360 camera photographers have more followers, and so they tried to factor that out, to compare content shared by users with similar number of followers, and their best estimate from their data is 40%.

Because 360 photos are more popular in Panorama360, P360 makes it easier for a 360 camera shooter to get more views.  Indeed Vineet said some shooters on Panorama 360 have gotten paid assignments this way.  And if you’re already a Panorama360 user and you don’t have a 360 camera yet, this is one good reason to get a 360 camera.

Besides its large user base, Panorama360 also offers tools for 360 shooters such as a Google Cardboard view, the ability to embed your photos on a page using iframe, and the option to share your 360 photo on P360 to your Facebook timeline, a specific Facebook page, or a Facebook group (your 360 photo will be viewable as 360).  The Panorama360 app can also connect directly with some 360 cameras such as the Ricoh Theta.

In summary, P360 is an app with a very large number of users who have at least some interest in panoramas and photospheres, and at the same time, photos from 360 cameras stand out on P360 and get more interaction, and several 360 camera shooters have gotten many followers on Panoroma 360.  So if you’d like to get more views for your 360 photos, try Panorama 360 and use a fully spherical 360 camera.  (Related post: Here are some 360 cameras for under $150.)