Camera+ Turned Down Acquisitions From Adobe, Google, Twitter; Also Says “F*ck The VCs” Two years ago, app developer tap tap tap launched Camera+ onto the App Store. For only a buck, users could get way more mileage out of the mobile photography experience, bringing 27 color effects and granular controls to their iPhone cameras. These features have made it one of the most popular camera apps out there. So popular, in fact, that Camera+ rang in its second birthday today with its 8 millionth download, tap tap tap founder John Casasanta said in a blog post.
As part of the celebration, Casasanta reflected on his company’s journey over the past two years. In his post, he reveals that tap tap tap received a handful of acquisition offers from several notable names: “It started with Adobe, then went to Zynga (for The Heist, not really for Camera+), then Google. The startup has also apparently had plenty of interest from VCs and was recently close to the finalizing its first round of financing.
You most likely won’t have a runaway hit like a Koi Pond your first time through. The Instagram Effect? Mobile Photo Sharing App PicPlz To Shut Down Permanently On July 3. PicPlz, the mobile photo sharing app that is perhaps known best for being an early and direct competitor with Instagram, will shut down permanently on July 3. PicPlz delivered the news through a short post on its company blog as well as in a brief email to users that read: “On July 3, 2012, picplz will shut down permanently and all photos and data will be deleted.Until then, you can log in and download your photos by clicking on the download link next to each photo in your photo feed.Thank you for your support of picplz and we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.”
Visitors to PicPlz’s website now see the following message on the homepage: This is not a completely surprise move. Instagram began pulling ahead in the filtered mobile photo sharing space more than a year ago and in 2011, PicPlz pivoted into being part of Mixed Media Labs, a broader smartphone app development company. We’ve reached out for more comment on the shutdown and details on what the future may hold. Y-a-t-il une place pour un Instagram de la vidéo ?
C’est la question que se posent tous les investisseurs en ce moment : où est le nouvel Instagram ? Il faut dire que ceux qui ont participé au dernier tour de table d’Instagram, qui avait placé la valeur de l’application à “seulement” 500 millions de dollars en avril, ont pratiquement du jour au lendemain doublé la valeur de leur investissement. Sans parler de ceux qui ont investi encore plus tôt. La réponse évidente pour beaucoup, c’est que le prochain Instagram sera l’Instagram de la vidéo. On surveille du coup de près Socialcam, Klip ou Viddy qui vient de lever 30 millions de dollars. Mais n’oublie-t-on pas un peu vite YouTube (racheté en 2006 par Google pour 1,65 milliard de dollars), me direz-vous ? Est-il trop tôt pour la vidéo ? Mais si YouTube a du retard sur le mobile, c’est surtout le mobile qui a du retard sur la vidéo: si prendre une photo dans la rue et l’uploader sur Instagram prend quelques secondes, faire la même chose avec une vidéo est bien plus long en 3G.
SuperAlbum Is The Best Way To View Photos. As we know, sharing photos is one of the most popular things to do on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr. The act of sharing photos has also spawned services like Flickr, Instagram, and 500px who serve that purpose exclusively. While you probably haven’t gotten around to storing all of your photos in one place with a service like Snapjoy, it can be a maddening experience to try to figure out which site you shared what photo on. Especially if you’re trying to show one to someone at a bar or family function. SuperAlbum won’t store all of your photos for you, but the iOS app will let you view all of your shared photos from one interface within the app. It’s extremely well done, and fixes a problem I’ve been facing for years. The app is $.99 cents, which is a steal if you’re facing the problem of “where did I post that photo?” Like I am. All the photos Once you open up SuperAlbum, you connect the app with all of your accounts.
➤SuperAlbum. Confirmed: Scalado’s Camera Tech Is Inside BB10. At RIM’s keynote earlier this week, CEO Thorsten Heins unveiled a brand new camera app that will ship along with BlackBerry 10. It was quite impressive. It basically lets you snap a pic, select a subject’s face, and sift through frames captured before the moment you pressed the shutter button to make sure everyone looks their best. Perhaps the person on the left had a huge, wonderful smile while the person on the right was blinking. With the BB10 camera app, you will be able to fix that. But the tech seemed awfully familiar. So familiar, in fact, that we had to do a little digging to satisfy our curiosity. Come to find that a company called Scalado, known for their super badass imaging tech like Remove and Rewind, actually invented this tech a while back.
Here’s the official word from Patti McKague, Sr. RIM has been working with Scalado on camera technology and has licensed some of the Scalado technology for the BlackBerry 10 platform. 87% Of Connected Consumers Prefer Websites & Mobile Sites Over Apps. Welcome to the connected consumer. This person most likely has a tablet and smartphone, and is constantly connected to their friends via Facebook.
Today, more than 60% of 25-34 year-olds (Gen-Y) own a smartphone. One in three online consumers will buy a tablet by 2014. That's a lot to digest at once, right? A new survey from Zmags investigates the connected consumer and their digital habits. Only 4% of these consumers use branded apps. The survey also cites Facebook as an untapped opportunity: More than 75% of connected consumers are also active Facebook users. The survey found that 87% of consumers relied on their PCs and laptops for browsing, researching and purchasing.
According to the survey, a total 52% of connected consumers are women with a mean age of 40 and a household income of approximately $63,000. The connected consumer is also on Facebook; in fact, 34% of tablet owners who are also connected consumers shop on Facebook from their tablet. The Future of Social Is Video: Interview With Socialcam CEO Michael Siebel. Socialcam is being called the "Instagram for Video" app. With this phrase comes the idea that, like seemingly every startup nowadays, the goal is to build an awesome and thriving community, pump up the product to the level of ultimate coolness and then cash in by selling to a bigger social company that may or may not have a working business model. That's one way to look at it. After one conversation with Socialcam CEO Michael Seibel, it seems like the future of social video isn't in selling your company to Facebook - it's in the niche communities that populate this tiny app.
They are the true owners of this bustling social video community. Spun off from Justin.tv and launched little more than a year ago, Socialcam is a social video app that gives users a ridiculously easy way to shoot a video, upload it to the app's niche-focused community and then share it to other social sites if they'd like. From Politics in DC to the All-Video World of Justin.tv "My dad was a programmer," he says.
Report: Photo & Video Now The Fastest Growing Mobile App Category. Ever since Facebook’s $1 billion acquisition of Instagram, the search for the next “Instagram of [insert app category here]” has been on. One area many pundits have focused on in this context is video and according to the latest data from mobile app analytics company Flurry, that’s probably not a bad bet.
Video & Photo is now the fastest growing mobile app category across the major mobile platforms. The time spent on photo and video apps per active user increased 89% to 231 minutes per month between October 2011 and March 2012 and a massive 166% since July 2011. This data is based on Flurry’s analysis of the 180,000 apps that currently use its analytics software on iOS, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry and HTML5. Other mobile app categories that, according to Flurry, are currently growing fast are music (72% since October 2011), productivity (66%), social networking (54%) and entertainment (40%). Sadly, Flurry doesn’t distinguish between video and photo apps in its report.