Dec. 8th, 2010
Instagram snagged over 100,000 users in its first week in the iTunes App Store, so there are plenty of you out there who’d be happy to leave the “almost” off of the headline above. When I first installed it a few weeks ago, my first thought was “I already share photos on Flickr. What do I need this for?” My mate Lachlan Hardy and I had a long chat about it and agreed throughout, but I’ve got to say my attitude’s changed after a recent 42 day trip through 14 cities in Europe.
If you’ve never heard of Instagram (you can skip this paragraph if you have) it’s an iPhone app that allows you to make a photo, crop it to a square format - which makes sense considering the screen you view the photos on - apply one of eleven filters to it - to give it the look of a 70’s Polaroid for example - and post it to the ‘net with a location and a comment. You can find and follow other Instagram users, and what they post, you see, and your followers see your posts. You can also choose to simultaneously post your photos to Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, Tumblr and send your location to Foursquare to check in.
At first I snapped a little and looked through my feed occasionally, but on my recent trip I really started to get into Instagram. Taking me back to my Polaroidiary days, I started shooting whatever I was experiencing wherever I was and sharing it with friends. In the spirit of “the best camera is the one that’s with you” (can anyone give me the original source of that quote?) through Instagram I learned to appreciate my iPhone’s camera and really enjoy making photos with it, and found it especially suited, due to it’s inconspicuousness, to making candid shots of the people around me. Instagram is shoot from the hip and share, and contrary to my first opinion, I found it a great way to easily share snapshots, with the option of posting the best of them to Flickr as desired. Instagram’s interface makes it quick and easy to do what it’s there for and I’ve really had fun with it.
There’s just one grain of sand in the Instagram ointment.
The small irritant is that Instagram pays at best lip service to the web as we usually see it, i.e. in a browser (but hopefully not IE). If you choose to post a photo to Twitter, it creates a short link, like this: http://instagr.am/p/e7NZ/. The page shown completely omits the location and comment of the photo, and there’s nothing else - no way to see any other photos, the photographer’s profile or followers - nothing but the photo. And, if you neglect to post your photos to Twitter, there’s no way at all to get a link to your photo after the fact - it can only be viewed in the Instagram app itself. My web sharing & grazing take place on at least 3 platforms depending on context, and I like to have a link for every bit of data I’m putting out there, to use when and as I see fit. This post is a perfect example: I can only share photos here that I either posted to Flickr or Twitter. I can’t link to all photos from a certain day or place, for example, nor can I send you to my Instagram page to see all of my photos.
Going on the principle of focussing on the essence, I can understand Instagram’s decision - it’s a mobile app, and the shooting, sharing & viewing are intended to happen on a mobile device, and that all works fine. I can understand it, but I’m a little irritated all the same. To be fair, it could also be a “core first” decision, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they beefed up the web view in the future. Any Instagrammies out there got any inside goss on this?
Side note: when I was made aware of the Instagram Terms of Service, which gave Instagram and other users the right to use your photos as they see fit, I was ready to drop the app completely. To their credit Instagram reacted quickly and corrected what was apparently a bit of a copy & paste error. Kudos to the Instagram team. You can see the updated ToS here.
Update: the Instagram guys let me know that you can grab the link to a photo by tapping the … button on the right under any photo you’re looking at.
What do you think? Leave a comment…
Feb. 18th, 2009
This was originally published last July on Stowe Boyd’s blog /message, reproduced here with Stowe’s permission due to my odd feeling of wanting to have all my stuff in one place.
A new week, a new wave of invites. Hello New Social App, I’m an edgling, so I’ve got a pre-punched hole in my cheek for your hook. If you’ve got a new app that’s even mildly interesting, odds are I’ll jump on an invite and check your shit out. Why? It’s a mix of an admittedly petty urge not to be left behind, the excitement of an unexplored landscape, and the joy of turning friends who’re further from the edge on to new and exciting things. So I’m your perfect target-groupie, right?
Well, I was. My attitude’s changing. I certainly have my waves of social media fatigue (who doesn’t?), but that’s not it. I’m getting sick of having to work to understand you, New Social App. After this week’s identi.ca rush, I noticed how tired I am of expending energy to understand the value of a new app every week.
My identi.ca experience went like this: me and 172 of my best friends are standing around eating chocolate ice cream (Twitter) together. Then somebody shouts, "hey guys, the guy next door’s got ice cream too!" And about a quarter of us drop our ice cream and rush next door to see what’s up. The guy next door (identi.ca) does indeed have ice cream. It’s chocolate too. Tastes the same but he’s forgotten the spoons, and most of the people I was sharing ice cream with a few minutes ago didn’t come with. So we all rush back again, resume our ice cream party, and forget about the guy next door almost immediately.
There may be some amazing technical advance behind identi.ca, some subtle stirring in The Force that makes it special. Maybe I’m just not Jedi enough to feel it. Social apps have got it pretty easy so far. Most of their target-groupies are Jedis: pre-alpha-early-adopters who build things themselves and enjoy teasing out the hair-splitting advantages of any new service and blogging about them so that Padawans like myself might also give a damn.
But where’s the social web going? The future of the social mob are those in the center who’re taking hesitant steps towards the edge, and they haven’t even heard of The Force. That’s your plumber, your dentist, and yes, your mother. The more "normal" it becomes to use these apps, the less interesting the technology behind it becomes. My New Social App, you’re soon going to have to start preaching to someone other than the choir.
I’m an edgling in spirit, but I’m no coder, so I guess I’m a good canary for your coal mine. You should know that I and your mother don’t care about your software architecture, we don’t care about how many days it took you to get built and we don’t care if Scoble or Arrington like you. All we want to know is: "What can you, and you alone, do for me?" If we can’t understand this in 15 minutes (at the very most), you’ve lost us.
The pre-registration page helps to lure me in, if it’s done right. A few sites have this covered:
Twitter: a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?
FriendFeed: Discover what your friends are sharing.
Feedly: a more social and magazine-like start page.
But they all drop the ball as soon as they’ve got their hooks in. I’m interested, I sign up… what now? How do I find friends? What can I do here? Um, there’s nothing going on here, is there? Why should I keep using this thing? Silence. Buh-bye.
One of the few services I’ve seen that does this right is LinkedIn. They’ve got a didactic interface which immediately gives me things to do, explained in simple terms. By doing these things I learn what they are and what their value is for me. They take me by the hand and show me around. They make me feel welcome.
Another exciting development in this direction is commoncraft and their videos which explain web technology in plain English. They’re so simple and make everything seem so interesting and easy that Twitter added "Twitter in Plain English" to their home page. Twitter didn’t develop the video themselves, but at least they took notice. Commoncraft may not understand technology (I can’t say I know) but they definitely understand communication, and that’s what society’s all about, right?
So, my New Social App, open the door, invite me in, and tell me up front what you can do for me. But don’t forget to serve drinks and give me a friendly tour. If all you want is registered guests at your party, I’ll be there like every other edgling that gets an invite. But if you want more than zombies standing in the corner dribbling ice cream, make sure I know why your ice cream’s the best, show me the ropes, and make sure I’ve got a personal reason to stay and love you.
What do you think? Leave a comment…
