Ask HN: How long would it take you to build instagram?
How long would you take? how much help? what platform?
Instagram value is not only about software. You have a big community, integration with a lot of services, a lot of servers to handle the stupid amount of images uploaded in a day.
So, it is not probably about days. If you want to create the next Instagram, you should do something far better than that.
The hard part, really, would be BECOMING Instagram. The software is pretty much trivial (as was Facebook at the beginning)...
Unfortunately, due to time constraints we went the built first, talk to mentors etcetera and only then do actual diligent market research route. Everyone we've spoken to recognizes some value in the project and came up with different USPs. As a result, focus shifted dramatically in a matter of weeks, ultimately leading to a complete lack of focus and loss of a common goal. This week we re-evaluated it all, decided to work out these wrinkles in the coming weeks and start selling aggressively to a narrow collection of potential customers.
When all is said and done, I expect the iOS app will be shelved. Did learn a lot about iOS development, though :D!
All I can find so far are apps and IFTTT recipes to back up your Instagram photos to Dropbox, e.g. https://instadrop.appspot.com/. But what appeals to me here is the idea of decoupling the app (photo sharing with filters) from the storage (Dropbox). I think that might give users more control and create new possibilities.
http://theopenphotoproject.org
https://github.com/photo (for all the goodies)
Disclaimer: I'm the lead dev.
What I really have in mind is a way to share photos (follow, be followed, comment), not just upload them for safekeeping, which I'd guess is probably a use-case far fewer people are interested in.
Again, I'm just responding to the home page and "overview" subpage... if there is a social aspect your team should mention it more prominently.
We've been a little slower on adding social features right in the platform. With very limited resources it just isn't high on our priority list.
On a side note, I'm not convinced the size of the sharing market is as big and can be sustained as many people think (besides Facebook). I think the vast majority of photos which people place a lot of value on are ones they share with specific family and friends (this excludes photos of sunsets, lattes, and cats). The safekeeping of these photos is a big deal.
There's a lot going on with private social networks which I think is interesting but the chicken/egg problem for small networks is BIG.
ANYWAYS, the project is open sourced for a reason. We've built and are focused on the platform and safekeeping of photos. Pure social features may or may not find their way in but anyone can fork and add it. We provide a very stable and robust base to work off of.
Hmm, perhaps, but this is still sharing just the same, no?
I guess I don't understand the value proposition here. Maybe I'm not the target audience. The way I see it, there are three things I want to do with my photos:
1. Look at them myself. 2. Back them up. 3. Share them with other people (publicly or privately).
I can do #1 without uploading them to the internet at all. I mean, I can do that right on my camera. Or on my smartphone in the Gallery app. This is kind of a built-in feature of taking photos.
For #2 I don't need a service that's specific to photos. Direct to Dropbox works fine, or a generic backup solution like Carbonite, Mozy, etc. And backups aren't as exciting as sharing, for about the same reason taking out a new insurance policy isn't as exciting as going to a club.
And #3, you don't really do.
Granted, I'm thinking like a young person. I think that for the under 25 crowd (which I am not quite a member of anymore), most photos are impermanent, like teardrops in rain. They have meaning in the moment, which is squandered and lost if they are not shared. On the other hand, if I were a parent saving pics of my kids growing up, maybe I would want this. You've solved use case #2 above and put a somewhat more convenient browsing interface on it. It still seems a little unclear, but maybe I'm just not the target audience.
That being said, we're combining 1, 2 and 3.
You could look at all your photos, perhaps. But most likely not on your mobile device or tablet unless you're using some online service.
Backups aren't difficult but the fact is most people don't do them or have them. If your backups are just for backup purposes then it needs to be something automatic that you never think about (i.e. Crashplan). But even then it's sort of a black box of content you never ever see.
We're approaching it as a way to store, organize, share and backup in one place.
As far as the lack of sharing, that'll be addressed here in a few weeks, we hope. And we're leaning heavily on email for private sharing of photos (and of course Facebook).
Definitely appreciate the feedback. You're probably not the target audience but it's important that even you can understand the value proposition. If you hear about our release (look for OpenPhoto being rebranded) I'd love to know if you think the new messaging makes it any more clear (jaisen@jmathai.com).
Don't forget, you need to build both the frontend and backend.
Software like this needs to be as asynchronous as possible and ready to fan-out, even if you know you wouldn't need to scale to 10M users from day 1.
Use as many pre-built and vanilla UI components as possible. Custom UI slows down development by a lot.