6X6

Crowdsourced Instagram short films are all the rage

 

Love this - a crowd sourced short film from Thomas Jullien made up of 852 instagram photos.

#lexusinstafilm shows how brands can mobilise the Instagram community

 

Instagram Is

Instagram Is from technopaul productions on Vimeo.

 

Socialmatic: the Instagram camera shipping mid 2013

Is this the future of social mobile photography?

The concept camera Socialmatic, an Instagram specific designed camera has been released as a prototype and will be on sale mid 2013, according to its makers ADR Studio.

It looks amazing - roll on 2013 is all I can say. Check out more photos here.

Instagram banks on photo meta data to tell better stories

The Instagram 3.0 update has landed.

The focus has been on a wholesale browsing update, with cleaner lines and much faster response rates and is all part of making Instagram an industrial strength social platform ready to serve the next round of user growth.

However, the feature that has got the most attention is the photo map. A feature that surfaces photos that have been geo tagged into a map you can explore. Including people you follow.

I think the map is a great idea. But the actual user experience is not stand out. On a tiny screen you can't really get that immersive map experience you get with a desktop. But perhaps that will be handled via the Instagram API ecosystem.

However, the map and its use of geo data, points to a much more interesting future development. One where data and visual storytelling is overlapping.

This course of development was evident in the media frenzy and this most noticeable quote from Instagram's CEO and co-founder Kevin Systrom:

“Photos without meta-data are just photos, but with meta-data you can start to do very interesting things.....you can tell the story of your life or events....we are creating a signal and hopefully in the future we can surface events or news happenings.” 

The faint whiff of a business model here? Surfacing news events, brought to you with sponsored photos percolating in your stream perhaps? 

This has moved beyond users just taking photos. Instagram fundamentally wants to encourage new user behaviours like curation and discovery. They want users to think about the total storytelling potential of their stream. 

With this update the prospect of social mobile photography is begining to take shape. Where real time and re-imagined 'albums' of life events are discovered through meta narratives using the data of photos. Where scocial context and geography turn pictures into a myriad of decisive moments, micro communities and global canvasses. 

Instagram is well on its way to become the visual social signal for the planet.

Look out Twitter. 

Instagram and the Olympics: the numbers

So the numbers are in for Instagram and London 2012. And its gold!

_{(Source: VenueSeen)}

Brand adoption of Instagram continues to grow

The march of Instagram continues.

It was reported this week that 40% of the worlds leading brands are now active on Instagram.

Timed to launch their new Instagram analytics tool, Simply Measured published a study of how the top 100 interbrand brands are using Instagram.

One of the key insights from the report was how luxury brands are using the platform. Brands like Burberry have been trailblazers of course, but other established fashion brands like Armani are quickly adapting their engagement strategies to incorporate social mobile photography.

It's also interesting that there is a low correlation between the number of followers and engagement as a % of followers, suggesting that the network effect on a brand by brand basis may be limited. To counter this I am sure brands are lobbying Instagram to implement a share button soon!

Whilst 40% adoption may sound like a lot for a platform that is only 2 years old, as Instagram approaches 100m users and the next stage of its development I expect to see more brands flock to platforms where they can develop visual engagement strategies. 

You can read the full report here:  

Instagram Brand Adoption Study from Simply Measured

The SixBySix Photography Round Up No.4

Instagram Gets a Kick In Again 

In typical Guardian fashion Instagram got pulled apart this week and not without a response by incensed bloggers . The article seemed to think that Instagram was somehow 'debasing photography'. I am so bored of this preachy and aristocratic viewpoint. By making the point all about filters, the writer completely missed the point about how social mobile photography is changing the very nature of media itself.

Olympic Robo Cameras

As London 2012 approaches, thousands of photographers will be hitting London to capture the perfect olympic shot. But some people are going to the extremes to get the shot. Check out the geekery of these photo robo cams. 

Capturing Libya through Hipstamatic

Read this great interview with Ben Lowy on how he captured Libya using his iphone and Hipstamatic. A perfect example of how mobile photography is disrupting the conventions of journalism. 

Obscure and wonderful Instagram hashtags

Hashtags on Instagram are just bloody amazing.

I am constantly amazed by the diversity and richness of what to find. It's like hitting a new seam of photographic gold everytime I come across a new one lurking on someone's feed.

It's surprising that hashtags often get overlooked, both by users and brands. However, the more you dig the more you find how these tags truly are the connective tissue for small and mega communities.

My hashtag archaeology has led me to conclude that the more extreme in #hashtag obscurity the more vibrant the micro-community is that feeds off the hashtag.

Of course the most popular hashtags are tracked and monitored daily, with #love pulling in over 23m photos and #foodporn 2.5m photos. But the hot hashtags are not always the biggest!

So to celebrate the obscure and wonderful I thought I would share a few recent interesting finds.

 

#texturestalker - 81 photos

_{Credit: @hennybeaumont} 

 

What is mobile photography?

This is a post about the importance of definitions. 

They particularly matter when it comes to defining the movable feast that is photography.

Photography has never been easy to define or catalogue. Science or art? Its confusing.

We have now entered the world of the visual social web. Where photos are both language and currency. With our experiences being increasingly shared through lenses, filters and photos that both capture and dominate our social experience.

When the history of mobile photography is written three dates will appear significant in the chapter on post digital: June 11th 1997 when the first image was taken by a cameraphone, the launch of the iphone and the launch of Instagram. 

Mobile Photography has changed everything.

Instacanvas - the marketplace for Instagram prints

The stream of Instagram periphery apps continues unabated.

Say hello to Instacanvas.

Instacanvas is a marketplace for instagrammers to buy and sell their instagram images.

The site has recently come out of beta and has already over 30,000 galleries open. The Instagram sale to Facebook has put rocket fuel into its user acquisition activity with demand exceeding server space.

It took a while to get my gallery opened - I had to take this photo to plead for it to be opened - but it was worth the wait. I can now see all my images in glorious detail and secretly hope someone out there might want to buy one...one day...

Prints start at $39.95 for a 12" x 12' frames and up to $79 for 20" x 20" canvases. Instacanvas make 20% of the sale of each item sold.

I'll post back if I sell one!

Review of Statigram - Your Instagram metrics dashboard

What geek wouldn't like to know how well their instagram account is performing?

Say hello to Statigram.

Statigram is a web service that provides detailed metrics for your Instagram account. It reports on your most liked and followed photos, your most used and favourite filters, tagged images and who your most engaged fans are. It even reports on what days and times you prefer to share images.

One nice touch is seeing your very first instagram shot. You can go back in time and see every shot you ever published which was an unexpected delight.

Data is refreshed every time you log in using your instagram user name. The graphical dashboard is split with a monthly overview where you can scroll to different months to view activity.

You can also email a summary of your stats to friends, but is not nearly as good as the dashboard user experience. There is no mobile site yet, but I expect that is in the pipeline very soon.

Final Verdict: It's very rich in detail and has a decent UI. Statigram is free and would be very useful for any poweruser who needs to understand how their account is performing. Potential to be the leading analytics provider for Instagram perhaps?