Explain to me the appeal of instagram

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K

Kev

Lifer
Dec 17, 2001
16,367
4
81
How is an app that applies stupid color effects to pictures so popular? I don't get it.
 
Saint Nick

Saint Nick

Lifer
Jan 21, 2005
17,722
6
81
It's so that all of the little tweeny/trendy Facebookers can post images showing how great of a "photographer" they are
 
Aharami

Aharami

Lifer
Aug 31, 2001
21,205
165
106
Saint Nick said:
It's so that all of the little tweeny/trendy Facebookers can post images showing how great of a "photographer" they are
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what bothers me more is that now I see one of my photographer friends who has quite a talent with photography, only posting instagram pictures on fb now
 
foghorn67

foghorn67

Lifer
Jan 3, 2006
11,883
63
91
Aharami said:
what bothers me more is that now I see one of my photographer friends who has quite a talent with photography, only posting instagram pictures on fb now
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Who cares? Im a photog, but I love IG. I'm not lugging my SLR's everywhere.
The social aspect is cool. I get to see my friends creatively share their lives in a fun way.
 
QueBert

QueBert

Lifer
Jan 6, 2002
22,875
1,082
126
I'd use it except I don't do the whole "social networking" thing. And the Android version's 17 megs and doesn't support app2sd. It seems like a great way to share pictures with friends.
 
Aharami

Aharami

Lifer
Aug 31, 2001
21,205
165
106
foghorn67 said:
Who cares? Im a photog, but I love IG. I'm not lugging my SLR's everywhere.
The social aspect is cool. I get to see my friends creatively share their lives in a fun way.
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maybe it's because I dont use it, so I dont see its benefits...but why use instagram instead of posting the pic directly on your fb wall?
 
Saint Nick

Saint Nick

Lifer
Jan 21, 2005
17,722
6
81
Aharami said:
maybe it's because I dont use it, so I dont see its benefits...but why use instagram instead of posting the pic directly on your fb wall?
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I think Instagram turns it into a Polaroid-esque photo. I really don't know.
 
M0oG0oGaiPan

M0oG0oGaiPan

Diamond Member
Dec 7, 2000
7,858
2
0
digitalgamedeals.com
Wired did an article about this.

When the mobile app Instagram emerged just over a year ago, I didn’t expect it to make a splash. Photo sharing is old hat (ask Flickr and Facebook), and social-media tools .. eh, they come and go. But Instagram didn’t go: It exploded, amassing 12 million users who’ve posted 250 million pictures. Not bad for an app built by six people.

What’s the allure? It’s partly that Instagram made mobile photo sharing drop-dead easy. Plus, photos are the global lingua franca, so the app spread worldwide quickly.

But I think the main answer lies elsewhere. The real allure of Instagram was its photo “filters”—and the subsequent rise of filter culture. Filters help us see the world in a new way.

When Instagram launched, it offered 12 settings to augment users’ photos in ways that produced lovely and often surprising results. You’d take a picture, put on the Lomo-fi filter, and boom—the popping colors made an otherwise drab party picture emotionally vibrant. Or the Hefe filter—my personal favorite—which boosts contrast while reducing saturation, uncovering subtle details I don’t notice with my naked eye.

As I used the app more and more, something surprising happened: I became increasingly observant of the world around me. Walking to the subway the other day, I spotted a backhoe parked on a corner and got curious—what could I do with that? Presto: Hefe helped me turn it into the dirty claw of a weary dragon. Later that day, a filtered snap of my living-room floor revealed how it secretly looks like the wood on a country barn.

In old analog cameras, many such filter “effects” were a chemical byproduct of the film, so photographers became expert at understanding the unique powers of each. Fujifilm’s Velvia film, with its high saturation and strong contrast, attracts photographers looking to capture the vibrancy of nature, Instagram cofounder Kevin Systrom notes.

But casual photographers rarely developed this type of eye, because they just wanted to point and shoot. What Instagram is doing—along with the myriad other photo apps that have recently emerged—is giving newbies a way to develop deeper visual literacy.

“All Instagram did was take the creative tools that the pros have been using and put them in the hands of the masses,” Systrom tells me.

The movement is growing rapidly, according to Lisa Bettany, codesigner of Camera+, a top-selling app for the iPhone. Six months ago, 60 percent of the photos taken with Camera+ were filtered. Today, it has risen to 70 percent.

Does this make people better photographers? Bettany thinks so: She gets letters from people saying the filters encouraged them to take their pictures more seriously and to be more daring. “There’s all this food photography now,” she says. “You’re in a restaurant and you see people crouching down—they’re going like, ‘Oh, I need to get this angle right!’”

Critics sniff that filters are mere retro-chic nostalgia. That’s partly true, but it misses the creative urge here—and how filters affect what gets photographed. Scroll randomly through Instagram feeds and you’ll see the expected cat pictures and look-at-me headshots. But there are also tons of still lifes and landscapes, filtered into poetry: A vacant pair of blood-red subway seats that seem weirdly alarming, the corroded metal clock on an old oven as a meditation on time. When I was a kid in the ’70s, you only got that sort of composition in National Geographic. Now it’s omnipresent.

I find it a lovely moment. Today’s tech is often blamed for producing a generation of people who stare at screens. But sometimes it opens up a new window on the world.
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http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/12/st_thompson_instagram/

Pinterest is pretty huge too. Some guy did an article on getting a huge following that he can market to. Women love that site.
 
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Zeze

Zeze

Lifer
Mar 4, 2011
11,395
1,187
126
Because they look 'good' and 'artsy'. Millions better than plain stock photo on phone. Why do you need articles written and threads created for it?
 
P

Puddle Jumper

Platinum Member
Nov 4, 2009
2,835
1
0
People needed a way to differentiate the crappy pictures they take of their friends at the bar down the street and post on Facebook on a weekly basis.
 
Maximus96

Maximus96

Diamond Member
Nov 9, 2000
5,388
1
0
now everyone is a pro photographer with their iphones and androids,

the live filters are pretty cool though
 
C

Childs

Lifer
Jul 9, 2000
11,313
7
81
Cute girls post pictures of themselves trying out new clothes, hats, glasses, etc. If you're not a perv or exhibitionist, it doesn't seem to have much use.
 
Anubis

Anubis

No Lifer
Aug 31, 2001
78,712
427
126
tbqhwy.com
dear god, who would have thought an ap that makes pictures of crap sepia toned would eventually make you a billion
 
N

Naeeldar

Senior member
Aug 20, 2001
854
1
81
Kev said:
facebook buys instagram for $1 billion. lol
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A billion split 6 ways... nice. I think we are about to see more millionaires these days with the rise of mobile apps. Too easy to make with little resources.... one hot app and overnight you are rich.
 
slayer202

slayer202

Lifer
Nov 27, 2005
13,679
119
106
I imagine, or at least I *hope*, it makes some sort of financial sense to pay a billion fucking dollars for a company like this, but I find it damn hard to do so
 
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