Hi, we made an app called Tinygram (http://tiny.by) that I think is more Instagramm-y (uggh!) than this.
Its not done yet (missing a few big features) but it has a smaller canvas 10x10 and a unique way of choosing color shades and doing animation. It already has a sizeable community and sputtering of new content (pixel art is hard for most people we discovered.)
It is an interesting community building experience so far.
Anyhow in case you are curious on how closer it is to Insatgram, its free at http://bit.ly/tinygramming .
This removes their duality of being a media / service play. This is highly beneficial to Twitter itself as well as to a new service/platform aiming to be a pure microblogging piping service. The only loser here are the Twitter app developers and startups which are faced with a now limited channel to promote their apps.
A large amount of users rely solely on a dedicated third party client. If those apps lose the ability to provide the same reliable service, then Twitter (as a platform) will also be affected.
It will coerce/force a % of users to use the 1st party apps. It will also allow them to focus on media platform features without the distraction of pleasing 3rd party devs (at the moment). I am pretty sure they will improve that side AFTER they have finished being a destination platform.
At least list out the 50 countries. After reading the blog post and hunting on their site for 10 minutes, i still cannot find the countries Plivo is compatible with.
I have joined and paid $100 but my biggest concern is they are VC funded which is a more insidious position for someone to pressure them to do something not in line with the current vision. Also, there is a long line of startups that hate advertising at first then acquiesced when the only budget big enough to cover their burn rate are the ones advertisers have. This includes Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr.
The tone of the blog post seemed to suggest that the author already had launched a few startups and nailed how its done. The bravado maybe even implied he has successfully pitched his company to PG. But it was weird to find out that he has done none of this.
Kevin Systrom interned at a couple of high profile startup pre-Burbn too. Pinterest had a product called Tote before Pinterest so theres a not insignificant time of preconditioning there too.
I use this > http://testico.net/ then i test it on my device (iphone 4S) where i relocate it in a couple of pages. I also put it inside a folder too to check if the icon is 'readable' there. Then i ask a few people if it stands out. Then sometimes, i sleep then check it first thing in the morning where i am groggy. If it passes all those then its a good icon. I may have to add a check when I am in a bad mood or hungry for my method to be ultra comprehensive.
If you have budget to spare, A/B test a few different variants on the Facebook ad platform.
Would it kill the people at testico.net to display a one-sentence description of what their site does? I had to view HTML source and read the meta description:
"You can to put the icon you've created on your iPhone or iPad home screen, and generate automatic previews of standard icon sizes on the standard iPhone and iPad screens"
A pro studio will go for the best tool (with cost considered as a factor) not the cheapest tool. It doesn't pay to cheap out on tools, especially if it leads to extra labor costs because of bad workflow, etc.
Plus all other factors aside, you have to imagine there's some name recognition involved. Valve and Source are big brands, and could draw in a curious audience if only for the novelty.
Its not done yet (missing a few big features) but it has a smaller canvas 10x10 and a unique way of choosing color shades and doing animation. It already has a sizeable community and sputtering of new content (pixel art is hard for most people we discovered.)
It is an interesting community building experience so far.
Anyhow in case you are curious on how closer it is to Insatgram, its free at http://bit.ly/tinygramming .