Instagram for Android: Little Photo.

February 19, 2012 2 Comments

Little Photo - Instagram for Android

Little Photo - Instagram for Android

You probably dropped across beautiful instagram pictures by now. Instagram is an app (or a way) to share your life with friends through pictures. The idea is fairly simple: snap a pic with your iPhone, apply a filter to transform the look&feel and share it to your social network.

I have to say, Instagram instantly turns people into wonderful photographers. As I’ve always dreamed of being a good photographer myself, I believed the tools to turn into a photographer were finally within my reach.
All I need to do is getting the Instagram app, right?

Wrong! Unfortunately I use an Android device and Instagram is an iOS application. So I’m unable to use Instagram without getting a stylish (over-priced) iPhone. It turns out however that I’m not the only Android user who wants to use Instagram – as Google search suggestions demonstrate.

Instagram is iPhone only

Instagram search suggestions - Instagram Android.

Instagram search suggestions - Instagram Android.

As mentioned before, you need an iPhone to run Instagram. The photographic talent amongst Android users remain untapped. And regardless of the rumours about Instagram coming to Android I believe and notice that people are looking for alternatives. The best alternative I encountered so far is the free app Little Photo.

Little Photo: Instagram Android

I’ve experimented with a lot of Android photography apps up until today. But I really like Little Photo. Here’s why.

When accessing the app, you can take a picture with your camera or start from an existing image. Once you’ve done that, just touch the pic to experiment with filters and effects. The application has a bunch of filters and effects and you can go easily through all filters and effects and see how it transforms your image and consequently decide whether you want to apply it or not. The app supports multiple filters applied to the same image.

Next to the brilliant filters, it’s possible to save your image without overwriting the original file. Little Photo automatically creates a separate directory on SD card.

Finally, the app allows to easily share to different social networks. And as far as I know, it doesn’t create an additional social network as is the fact with Instagram. This sounds like a plus to me as I don’t want to engage on yet another social platform.

Little Photo example

Little Photo - White Shine

Little Photo

The above Little Photo example started from an existing photo that I did not take myself. I received this image from @JuliaPentcheva. It depicts a scenic winter landscape near the small mountain village of Momchilovtsi in Bulgaria. As the village is known for its “magic” I tried to “LittlePhoto-ize” that magic into it. Below is the original picture.

Original image

Original image

What after the Instragram Android release?

I wonder when Instagram becomes available for Android devices. Does somebody knows the ETA?
The question however is whether I will feel like making the switch after falling in love with Little Photo before…

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Everyone deserves 2 seconds of fame. Iphone App Messe Düsseldorf.

March 30, 2011 Leave a comment

Guess this Iphone App Ad were mine…watch the movie online at Digi:Media Trade Fair website.

My 2 seconds of fame - marketing without a cost

My 2 seconds of fame - marketing without a cost

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The app store economy: an innovative price model for publishers?

December 13, 2010 4 Comments

News behind a pay wall?

News behind a pay wall?

Newspaper publishers suffer for years now. The number of readers is going down – and as a result advertisers are less interested to put an advert in a newspaper. With the rise of the app store economy, publishers have the chance to come closer to a price model that works.

Strategy 1: news behind a pay wall?

In order to generate revenue there are plenty of newspapers who have turned news into paid content. The UK Times experiment with the paywall demonstrates that people say “No, thanks” and click away to another site when faced with a paywall at a news site. Source: The Times UK Lost 4 Million Readers To Its Paywall Experiment

Strategy 2: look at other industries (gaming industry) – The app store economy

The app store economy - innnovative pricing through inn-app purchase

The app store economy - innnovative pricing through inn-app purchase

Since there are loads of buzz within the publishing industry about publishing for the iPad, why not have a look at the opportunities of the app store economy? In the beginning of the Apple App Store, you had free apps and paid apps. After a while, they added a functionality called “in-app purchases”. In-app purchases mean that you can offer the apps for free and charge upgrades in the app – like e.g. in the gaming industry new levels.

Price model innovation newspapers: app store and in-app purchase

Consider this: a newspaper publisher creates an iPad edition. Would it make sense to offer the app for free, allowing everyone to read the entire newspaper on iPad? Would it make sense to limit the free articles to 3 and then offer “in-app purchase options” if one wants to read more? Would it make sense to show a summary of all articles and offer “in-app purchase options” to get the entire article?

We’d love to see publishers experiment with it and see whether the strategy from one industry can be applied to another one.

Filed under Business, Economy Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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