7/28/2019 Tech column: Rise of Instagram

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technology officer at Facebook, and JackDorsey, cofounder and chairman at Twitter.

Our new capital will also allow us toscale to the opportunity weve been handedacross a variety of platforms on mobile andthe Web, Instagram CEO Kevin Systromsaid in a blog post last week.

POINT-AND-SHOOT RIVALSmartphone picture taking has begun to

take a serious bite out of another importantconsumer electronics industry: the point-

and-shoot digital camera.

Market research firmiSuppli predicted earlierthis year that the point-and-shoot has about three good

years left before its sales begin to decline.

iSuppli analyst PamelaTufegdzic attributed thislargely to smartphones,

which are now equipped with cameras that rivalpoint-and-shoots.

In particular, multime-dia cell phones nowequipped with higher-mega-pixel cameras are cannibal-izing low-end DSCs (digitalstill cameras) that haveequivalent resolutions,Tufegdzic noted in her re-port.

And because most digitalpoint-and-shoots cant ac-cess the Web, the smart-phone is often the easieroption to send photos tofriends.

Morrison, a softwaredeveloper, has a digitalpoint-and-shoot, but it nev-er leaves his laptop bag.

I cant even rememberthe last time I used it, hesays. I dont even know

why its still in the bag.I should probably just

get rid of it.

STREAM OFCONSCIOUSNESS

But what about the qual-ity? Will we regret the day

when we documented ourlives with smartphone appsthat lacquered a permanentartistic filter onto eachframe?

The people who usethese apps say theyre actu-ally taking many more pho-tos than they would have

without a smartphone intheir hand.

Im not looking at theseas an archive, Morrisonsays. If I was going to takepictures that I really caredabout I would probably use

a real camera.These are more of like interesting one-

offs like a stream of consciousness.For Heaton, who mostly chooses not to

use Instagrams retro filters, its a way to build a social network around informal

pictures. Shots of food, shots of people hesmet, shots of everyday happenings.That, he says, allows for a new way to

build relationships on the Web.I read their tweets, Heaton says. I

look at them on Facebook, I look at theirphotos and I get an understanding of whothey are.T CONTACT MARK W. SMITH: 313-223-4424 ORMSMITH@FREEPRESS.COM. FOLLOW HIM ONTWITTER: @FREEPTECH

Quality is, especially for photography,somewhat nostalgic, Heaton says. And Idont think that if I had a perfect, crispphoto of that shot it would evoke thosesame kind of memories.

Instant digital nostalgia is easy to findnowadays. Popular smartphone apps likeHipstamatic and Instagram have created amovement of amateur photographers pro-ducing digital images that look as if they

were plucked from a 1970s photo album.The apps use the smartphones camera

and send out square digital

photos, some with bordersand artistic filters, that areintended to look just likethose old pictures.

The result has been agroundswell of faux-nostal-gic picture taking, a sort of hipster renaissance, thathas filled social networks

with quirky and often beau-tiful photos of everydayactivities.

It becomes more a quicklittle challenge to see howgood you can make some-thing look with a limited setof options, says DanielMorrison, 29, of Holland, anInstagram user.

FIRST IN RETROHipstamatic led the way

on this retro movement,debuting in late 2009. Sincethen Hipstmatic prints havelanded in a London art gal-lery and evenon the frontpage of the New YorkTimes.

The iPhone app, de-signed to look like a cheapplastic toy camera, allowsusers to choose a vintagelens, film and flash. Eachcombination produces adifferent artistic effect.

Hipstamatic ($1.99) alsoallows users to purchaseactual prints right frominside the app that aremailed to their home.

PicPlz is a nice free al-ternative that also has a

version for smartphonesrunning Googles Androidoperating system.

The apps are built on apremise of creating beauti-ful photos of everyday mo-ments and sharing them

with friends on social net- works.

And, with smartphonesalways at the ready, picturetaking has never been lesscumbersome.

It makes it really handyto be able to see somethinginteresting, take a snapshot of it, post it andget feedback from other people immedi-ately, says Heaton, the director of experi-ence design at Southfield-based advertisingfirm Doner, who has used Instagram sinceits October launch.

Since that debut, Instagram, a freeiPhone app, has amassed more than 1.75million users and now sees more than290,000 photos posted to the service eachday, the company says.

The San Francisco-based Web servicelast week said it had raised $7 million infunding from Silicon Valley-based capitalfirm Benchmark Capital.

The backing includes contributions bysuch big names as Adam DAngelo, chief

A stack of 35-year-old photographs sits on

Andrew Heatons desk. Yellowed and square, the pictures from

1974 the kind on that textured, thick pa-per are waiting to be scanned into a computer forhis mother.

The quality is atrocious on all of these, says Heaton, 42, of Clarkston.But theres charm in those imperfections. A reminder of the years that

have passed. A warm memory of a simpler time.

That 70s shotSMARTPHONE APPS TAKE A RETRO APPROACH TO

PHOTOS OF EVERYDAY MOMENTS

TECH TUESDAY

MARK W. SMITH

PLUGGED-IN

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313-222-6610 features@freepress.com

LIFE NPEAKS AND VALLEYS: In his book Lastingness The Art of Old

Age (Grand Central Publishing, $24.99), Nicholas Delbanco ex-plores geniuses of visual art, literature and music and why somepeak as they grow older while others diminish. Delbanco will readfrom and discuss the book, 7 tonight, Nicolas Books, 2513 Jackson

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T Adopt a pet.

On freep.comD

TOP SMARTPHONECAMERA APPSHIPSTAMATIC

Cost:$1.99System:Apple iPhoneKey features:This app produc-es the best retro images.Youll have to pay a bit forthem, though. It comes with aset of lenses, film and flashes,but you can buy more for 99cents from inside the app. Youcan also buy prints from insidethe app.INSTAGRAMCost:FreeSystem:Apple iPhone and iPodTouchKey features:The big featurehere is that the app is itself a

small social network of picturetakers. You can follow otherInstagram users and see thephotos they share in a newsfeed.RETRO CAMERA

Cost:FreeSystem:AndroidKey features:This is a goodfree Android alternative toHipstamatic, with five vintagecameras to choose from and anumber of other digital ef-fects.PICPLZCost:FreeSystem:Apple iPhone, iPodTouch and AndroidKey features:A great freealternative to Hipstamaticthat also has an Androidversion. It has some of thesame social networking fea-tures as Instagram.CAMERA +

Cost:$1.99System:Apple iPhoneKey features:This is a greatpowerhouse camera for theiPhone. Photos can be cropped,rotated and given any numberof effects and borders. Photoscan then be saved to thephone or uploaded to anysocial network.

LEFT: SMARTPHONE PHOTOS BY FREE PRESS READERS. GALLERY OF 100 PHOTOS, FREEP.

-- MARK W. SMITH

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