Kevin Rose’s New App Tiiny Lets You Share Photos That Disappear in 24 Hours | Hacker News Reader

Kevin Rose’s New App Tiiny Lets You Share Photos That Disappear in 24 Hours

techcrunch.com

27 pointstodd846 comments

This is such a waste of bright minds. There are so many fun, interesting, real challenges in the world. Why are we still devoting so much energy into finding new ways to fucking share photos?

Exactly... It's all about the Benjamins.

Just like everyone who creates a startup is doing it for the money.

They definitely aren't doing it because they like to make something they think is cool and would like to see in the world. Absolutely not.

The vast majority of people who create startups are trying to make $$. Nearly all of the claim to the contrary that they are doing it for the reasons you mention, but very few actually are.

No. They're doing it to create beautiful, innovative products that make life more beautiful. And innovative.

This is such a depressing comment to read. Especially as the top one on HN.

Maybe he just wanted to make it? You know, the same reason someone might write a compiler, build a violin, cook a casserole, go jogging? Just the fact that he's getting out of VC and back into making things should be commended. Especially by a community that extols the "maker" attitude so heavily.

You could easily replace "share photos" with "look at the world" or "talk with people." Sharing photos is a HUGE part of technology because humans communicate extremely well visually. Of course every new consumer product is going to have the basis of sharing.

Also, it's incredibly self-centered to criticize someone else's work as not being "interesting" or "fun." Turns out there are folks in the world with other opinions than yours...

    At first for us it was just about a lot of fun. In fact, 
    some early critics of Twitter said, 'Twitter is not useful,'
    to which Evan, my co-founder, replied, 'Well neither is ice
    cream. Should we ban ice cream? Ban all joy and stop working
    on Twitter? Absolutely not. We were having fun working on it.

    — Biz Stone, Twitter co-founder

I'm not saying his app is going to become Twitter. I'm saying the way you're criticizing it is a cheap shot.

Shame you got downvoted for this.

Kevin Rose is hardly some brilliant genius that could be off curing cancer instead of doing this. He came from the world of media, it's his passion and he's releasing products that he wants to release.

I actually think he is onto something with this. Although I would make the photos bigger. But a dynamically changing wall would be pretty engaging and addictive.

I don't wholeheartedly disagree with you. And I don't mean to come off as implying he should be curing cancer. But this specific app feels very derivative.

You're right tho, he made something and that in and of itself is much more challenging, productive and much more deserving of kudos than me sitting on my couch calling it lame.

I couldn't agree more, though with one small caveat.

> Rather than making you scroll through full-width photos like Instagram, Tiiny lets you get a constantly-updated look at what lots of your friends are up to in a single glance.

Essentially they're combining instagram and snapchat. That's a cool idea, I can see it. I also can see both of those companies implementing the exact same thing with only a couple days of dev time to do so.

And this is where my caveat lies. I love projects where people make things, maybe useful - maybe worthless, but typically interesting things that they make because they want them. Call it the hacker ethic, or a "maker" attitude, or whathaveyou.

I also have no problem with people then turning these into successful businesses. But you've got to be realistic when turning that into a company and this project feels more like a side project than a full-time company to me. If snapchat and instagram didn't already exist it'd be another story - but they do so the project no longer is as novel as they were.

So in the end I very much dislike that your parent comment was upvoted as much as it was on hacker news - but at the same time context is important, that this a company and not one person's pet project.

>"In my line of work, in the investing side, you just see a lot of the same old stuff or a slight little variation... you see a lot of crap.... Hats off to them for trying something different."

-Kevin Rose, talking about being impressed by a video sharing app

This was from a podcast posted 3 weeks ago. I thought it was a bit of a silly comment then and even more so now, but I guess that's what he finds interesting. More power to him.

http://fourhourworkweek.com/2014/08/22/the-random-show-episo...

It's not really about sharing photos. It's about sexting. There is all the money in the world to be made in finding new ways to talk to Horny Singles In Your Area.

Everyone criticized the Yo app for being a dumb thing to develop and a dumb thing to invest $1.2 million in.

Then the developers partnered with a service in Israel that sends alerts to users about incoming mortar fire, therefore potentially saving lives.

The point is that you should never, ever judge technology by its cover. In the end, it's all about how it is used.

Somewhere between instragram's explore view and snapchat's functionality.

I'd like to see some more creativity...

I hope he still does http://foundation.bz/ interviews those were the best product to come from KR in awhile.

Insert different name and no one cares.

This seems to be a step in the wrong direction. The user's connectedness to their friends is now becoming even more superficial.

People already spend too much time consuming social content that doesn't enrich their lives, and this type of content is even more detached than anything on fb, twitter, or snapchat.

"The user's connectedness to their friends is now becoming even more superficial."

Maybe 'connectedness to their friends' is not a good metric?

"People already spend too much time consuming social content that doesn't enrich their lives"

Maybe stuff from outside their circle of 'friends' will enrich their lives?

I've no idea if tiiny does this or not, but there's got to be more to the topic of media sharing/discovery than what we have now.

I'd say that you're right, mate. Stuff outside of your circle of friends (i.e. this site) does enrich lives. So why make tiiny?

Maybe 'connectedness to their friends' isn't a good metric for tiiny, as maybe that's not their goal. But I would say it's a good metric to keep in mind for people in general, and one that I think is being overlooked as people consume more and more 'social' content that doesn't really make them feel very social at all.

I'm confused, didn't Kevin do this with Milk? This really feels like a double déjà vu. What's the angle? Why do basically the same thing you did before?

Throw away the first one and write it better the 2nd time around?

Not sure, I'm confused as well.

No they are rapidly prototyping start-ups. They are going to come to market with a dif product every quarter until one is sticky/ run several apps simultaneously (and integrate?).

Just like with Milk and Oink, right?

It's the same, just later. He probably feels he's learned from his previous mistakes and can do it better this time.

Plus, I think Milk was a way of getting into Google. Build anything, get picked up by G-Ventures.

This time, he's just doing it for himself because he likes building products. There really is no end game.

> didn't Kevin do this with Milk?

Yes. He did the exact same thing before. Copy a popular category of apps that's probably on its way out already, and promise a 'fast pivot' if it doesn't work.

> What's the angle? Why do basically the same thing you did before?

If I had to guess, I'd say it's something like: 'I'm loaded, being a VC is soulless, and I think Snapchat is dumb because of [reason]'.

[reason]

"...have a valuation."

Not sure why the article would say it's peculiar when it's the same thing Rose did before:

> [North] has a peculiar strategy. Rather than languish on building one app, North is trying to use a small team of about 3 people to launch a new mobile app every three months.

Except last time they only ever released 1 app.

"Well, that's an interesting take on applying the ephemeral trend to tumblr / bing image search" was my immediate thought, and I wanted to see some of the other comments were. Turns out that a few folks here express sour grapes about how a successful person devotes their time, energy, and resources. Kevin Rose & his team of 3 developers don't owe anyone solutions to the world's problems.

Of course not, he doesn't owe the world anything. But I mean, really. Don't you wish that the valley had more Musks and less photo sharing apps?

Unfortunately, it is a lot easier to build a photo-sharing app with a lifetime of experience in the consumer internet space, than it is to become arguably the best entrepreneur to have ever lived.

Surely there is room between "imgur meets snapchat" and SpaceX.

There actually is a lot of cool innovation, but it takes a long time to have credible deliverables. Firefly space systems comes to mind. Oculus is pretty cool as well. I think in the consumer space you have Ladar levinson's new cryptography. Lot of shit being built on BTC protocol. But yeah, id like to see more done and hope to participate soon.

My only wish for silicon valley was that it was cheaper to live there. I really don't care that there are a ton of photo sharing apps. If someone has a fire in their belly and want to make something, even if it has been done before, more power to them. Let the VCs sort through the junk and fund what they find valuable, that should be part of their value. I don't understand this reaction to a techcrunch article. I wish there were more Elon Musks, but don't necessarily care if they were in Silicon Valley. Personally, I'd like to see Detroit come up, and I'd like to see money flow into augmenting the life of the majority of folks; people that can't afford Tesla cars. And the valley does have more Elon Musks, waiting to break out like Paypal so they can chase their crazier aspirations.

This is probably going on a tangent, but I think a better question is: why aren't there more Elon Musks already?

It's not like Silicon Valley isn't a welcoming place for a deterministic person like Musk. Furthermore, people with his determinism generally need to will their vision into existence, so it's not like some amazing entrepreneur is just sitting under a rock waiting to be discovered.

I think you meant "determined", if Musk was deterministic that would surely detract a lot from his future potential.

This may be a fun app BUT geez is that all silicon valley entrepreneurs can do...photo-sharing apps?

It may be helpful to create a diagram of all possible permutations of photo-sharing apps (persistence, symmetry, synchronicity, transformation, augmentation, distribution).

New startups could then self-identify, e.g. as Type 27. This would free up time for investors and consumers to focus on other differentiators like branding, design, PR, etc.

I'm starting to hope someone makes an app that stores photos indefinitely.

I reckon I will give it a try before I blast it on an online message board. KR is a smart guy, and he sure could use a win, so all the best to him.

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> Rose told TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington that the app is currently going through the iOS App Store approval process and should launch very soon.

What about Android? Another app that's releasing on iOS first? :(

You should simply pick one platform and get it right first. Iterate or pivot then once you gain traction, port.

Why iOS first? Does it matter? It's his call.

iOS users are Apple consumers. Among that group there are far more people who: a) are interested in associating themselves with tech-fashion trends and companies, b) have the disposable income to spend (either directly or indirectly via advertising-driven sales), and c) have shown that they are willing to part with said income fairly readily.

I don't particularly care for Apple's products. I find them to be at best of equivalent quality to other items on the market and the aesthetic doesn't particularly appeal to me. But I recognize the value in targeting and marketing to that audience first.

Developing for iOS is less expensive.

iOS users spend more, are worth many times Android users to ad buyers, get laid more, and are an all around better demographic. It's true - look it up.

http://www.wired.com/2010/08/gadget-sex/

http://fortune.com/2014/06/27/apples-users-spend-4x-as-much-...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tonybradley/2013/11/15/android-d...

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