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I wrote this blog post partly for myself – because to be quite honest, I was really starting to wonder if I was missing something because I’m not a big user of picture sharing applications – but I realise that they can be very important for some people and even businesses. So, for you and me…I have now summarised what the ACTUAL difference is between the 3 main hot topics on the image front: Flickr, Instagram and Pinterest.
Flickr
Flickr was launched in Feb 2004 and is basically a smart way to store your photos (in the cloud) and share them easily. Acquired by Yahoo in 2005 (for $35million) it allows a user to store images for free up to a limit and thereafter pay for unlimited storage. (You can also store videos up to 90 secs long). In 2011 Yahoo reported that there were 51+million registered users; received 80 million unique visitors; and that it hosted more than 6+billion images. (Yeek)
The ease of Flickr is that it allows you to access your pictures no matter where you are or what type of device you are using; plus…it let’s you share those pictures – no need to burn a CD or save them on a flashdrive to share with your family. You would literally just send your Flickr address and voila. Oh, and a good point to note – Flickr can act as a backup for your images (which is something I have begun to worry about with almost 5g’s of pictures to store now).
Flickr is widely used by bloggers to host the images that they embed in blogs and social media. I haven’t yet – but maybe I should be!
There is a slight “social network” element to Flickr – because you can add friends and they can be subscribed to your stream of pictures straight through Flickr (and the associated mobile device apps) – or subscribe via a RSS feed. Your friends also have the ability to comment on your pictures.
My favourite Flickr account example: The White House
Launched in Oct 2010 – Instagram is nifty Smartphone app (only available on Apple or Android mobile devices) that allows you to create special vintage effects (17 filters) on your photos that you take and then share them with your friends on your social networks.
You have to create an account to use Instagram because it is also a social network which basically means that you can follow other people’s photo streams, or they can follow yours. You have the ability to “Like” and “comment” on them.
Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 for $1billion, and since then Twitter revoked access of Instagram user to their Twitter accounts via the app (read why here) – to which Instagram responded by disabling the ability for Instagram photos to be viewed in the Twitter stream). At that time, there were 30million users and 5 million pictures were uploaded every day.
President Obama joined Instagram to communicate images of his re-election campaign of 2012 – love it!
Launched in March 2010 (invitation only – in beta) it is a Pinboard style platform, arranged in theme-based image collections. What is interesting about this platform is that people actually follow interests (as opposed to heavily person-centred profile following). You “Pin” original images from websites or web content that you like – so in essence are bookmarking them. Why bookmarking? Well, because when you or anyone then goes back to click on that Pinned image…it will take you straight back to the original webpage or web content that it came from. You can also upload your own images (although be sure that they are YOUR images) to boards as well. There is a capability to also “Pin” videos to the boards as well.
You can follow people (i.e. all of their boards) or just one board that belongs to someone, and you have the capability to “Tag” another Pinterest user; re-Pin an image you like from someone else’s board; and/or just simply “like” or “comment” on images.
Pinterest is a full blown social network of its own (ranked in the top 10) and businesses are becoming more and more prevalent , especially with the launch of Business Accounts. The interest lies in user interaction/recommendation of images which bodes very well for ecommerce (driving interest to online shopping).
I am enjoying Mashable’s Pinterest account…especially their “Nerds Like To Eat, Too” board.
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So, basically I reckon you need to revisit what you do with images in your business (or personally) and work out if there is value in leveraging them properly – because there may be user generated content you can get from using them. Or at least – you would be best placed to pay attention if you haven’t before – because these picture/photo sharing opportunities are heavily on the increase – especially through mobile devices.
Be smart…have a good think…and ask any questions if you have any (I particularly like questions which you think are silly…so hit me!)
Oh – and also review what devices and tech you are using…because I clearly need to change my Blackberry based on the review I’ve done above!
