Instagram made headlines when the social media giant Facebook paid $1 billion (about Dh3.6 billion) for the app in April this year. Facebook launched its own camera application last month, but tech shutterbugs are far from fed up with Instagram.
Launched in October 2010 by Stanford University graduates Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, the free photo-sharing smartphone (iOS and Android) application allows users to snap a picture, add a photographic filter and then share the image on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr in a few seconds. iPhone and Android users can edit a photo they just took or choose one from their gallery. Instagram then allows them to add a frame, a circular or rectangular focus blur and then 18 photographic filters. There are other applications that support Instagram, but two recommended iPhone applications are PicFrame and Typo Insta. With PicFrame, users can add two or more images into one frame, creating unique montages and Typo Insta allows you to add text in any font, colour and size onto your pictures.
ONLINE DEAL
Instagram users can also display their photos on an online gallery thanks to online marketplace Instacanvas (www.instacanv.as), which allows fans to buy and sell their Instagram photos as canvas art. Purchasing images would cost anywhere from Dh146 (12”X12”) to Dh293 (20”X20”). Since the site ships internationally, shipping charges are about Dh179 to the UAE. Buying you own images cost less — Dh117 (12”X12”) to Dh235 (20”X20”) — excluding the same international shipping charges. On the other hand, if you sell your own images, Instacanvas keeps 80 per cent of each sale as a commission. This leaves photographers with Dh29 for every 12”X12” canvas sold, a pretty good deal considering the site hosts your gallery, prints and ships your photos.
The application has also spawned a mini-industry of services that add value to users. Instamaker.com lets users create custom-tiled T-shirts and coffee mugs using their Instagram photos while stickygram.com creates mini magnets of your photos.
CONCEPT CAMERA
Despite several virtual Instagram-inspired start-ups, Antonio De Rosa, an Italian designer from design and communications agency ADR Studio, has created a concept camera that’s shaped as the Instagram logo. “After I saw the app icon, I decided to create Socialmatic,” says De Rosa. “I think it’s the first time you can merge social network power with social photography and communication.” De Rosa now hopes the people in charge of Facebook and Instagram will contact them to check on the possibility of producing this gadget. Instantly would be nice.
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