Filter or #nofilter – that is the question

Do you use Instagram?
I don’t. That is, I didn’t until earlier today. But recently I’ve noticed that several of my “late majority” friends seem completely hooked. And we’re talking ppl who don’t really use Pinterest, Twitter and other fairly common social media communities.

That got me thinking… Why Instagram is such a hit? And how can I, as a marketer, use it?

Can I create a more professional looking site just by adding instagram pics?
Is it simply a lazy woman’s Photoshop?

Let us compare:

Poppy flower. Pic taken with my Motorola Atrix a few days ago. Not a bad picture, but it could do with some cropping and tweaking.

Same picture Instagram-style. Can’t tell you which filter I used, I simply picked the one that “felt right’

Pretty much a tie in which one is “prettiest”, don’t you think?

Let’s do another one!

My balcony plain and simple. No editing, not even closing the windows.

Instagram earlybird filter with extra sunlight.

The latter one is definitely the more artsy and professional looking one, wouldn’t you say?

Ok, one last one then.

No filter, no editing passionfruit flower (also located on my balcony)

Instagram version.

See, now I’m getting annoyed that ALL photos are square. But sure, Instagram might win over the non-edited one if looking for a “professional” photo. While I still feel you’re missing something of the of the original feeling.

I guess Instagram can stay in my phone for quick editing purposes, but I wouldn’t recommend anyone interested in pictures to use it exclusively. After all, how many 1977 pictures can you take before you feel like a broken record?!

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Do I have to…use a computer

I hardly use a computer anymore*. 99% of what I need to do I’ll use my iPad or even mobile for.
I admit, surfing the traditional web is sometimes a hassle on iPad (need I mention Flash), but most really interesting places have found a way to make it work without scaling to an old school mobile design (not Google, but them putting up a fight is understandable)

On the other hand you can imagine how much more effort the 1% is requiring nowadays – my computer is 5-6 years old at this point. Eventually I’m sure I’ll see the benefit of spending money on a new one.

My camera is basically replaced by my phone, and the result – I actually take pictures! It’s not really that I don’t like my camera (Sony Cybershot in hot pink). It’s actually awesome, but it’s over 4 years and the screen is a bit hard to read by now. If I didn’t love so much I’m sure I’d get a new one, but for the last year I’ve just replaced it more and more with my phone (Motorola Atrix 1). Since I use the camera so little I just recently realized that a big upside to it is that I can load my pictures straight on to my iPad, which it won’t let me do from my phone. Luckily sharing from my phone is idiot proof and covers every direction I’ve ever wanted to go in.

So what is the 1%?
Word-processing and saving documents as PDF
Watching tv-shows if I miss them (I’m traditional when it comes to watching TV)
Surfing certain sites that just don’t get it
Backing up my phone (honestly, I just don’t do it)
Creating presentations, PPT and Prezi (my pet peeve, should be so much more fun on iPad!)

What do you use your computer for? And better yet, which one should I go for when I just can’t take the 10 minute start-up process and the 1-minute-to-change-program anymore?

*At home that is. When it comes to work my laptop is glued to my fingertips!

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Surfing the Google Wave

I started this post back  in June, but it got stuck in draft mode. This is what I’d written:

Google is changing the rules of internet sometime during this year.
I would argue they HAVE already changed it – they made me watch a 1 HOUR and 20 minutes video of them marketing their latest product.
I ask you – HOW many commercials are allowed to be 1.20 hrs?!

I was skeptical, I really was! And I still am – but just about the release date. I guess I just have to admit to having drunk the Google kool-aid. And it’s okey, because I think ppl who do good marketing are allowed to be successful.

Although I have a hard time doing stuff “half-ass”, I do say: It’s not about KNOWING what you do, it’s about LOOKING as if you know.

So, WHY have I swallowed the Google buzzwords? Because I LOVE technology that allows my messy brain to stay messy. I use Gmail because it group conversations, and because I can search for any keyword and get all matching messages.

And Google “promised” me that Wave would be even better – and since I don’t expect YOU to watch the entire video, here are the goodies:

For some reason I never listed the goodies!! Now I wish I had, because I feel like the dumbest person alive for hyping Wave the way I did, to get the preview and find “poll gadget” and “collaborative sudoko” as the exciting functions.

There IS a way around it, it’s just I haven’t really found it. There are several really good apps/gadgets/add-ons/thingies – it’s just TOO DAMN HARD to come across them.

And for the 3rd time I’m wishing I knew more about writing code – then I could create what I wanted, or at least explain to ppl.

There ARE stuff I like about Wave! Like the fact that there is a “Swedes on Wave” wave created. I mean, things like this can only happen when services are small! Imagine “Swedes on MSN” or “Swedes using email” – those list have probably existed in some form at some point, but WAY before my time. This is realtime history people. And as always, nothing is as straight forward as it will seem looking back.

I’m still effected by the Wave kool-aid and it won’t take much to get me advocating the brand, but it will take a couple of things:

• Speed-it-up! There is just no way around this. The window of opportunity is starting to shut.
  A wave with 300+ user CAN be slow – but not ALL waves! There is just no way for me to internalize wave usage at this point. And there is no way I can leave wave open without it slowing down the entire web browser.
• Gadget URLs – great that I can add them! BUT, once I’ve added a new one, it should really show up in a list of some sort! I mean, there is no way I’ll keep a separate list of URLs for adding to waves. (Taskboardy, Napkin gadget)
• In a long wave – I have to be able to skip all old items and just see the new ones. Maybe I can, I don’t know – maybe it’s just the UI
• If you can’t speed up all of wave, then at least let me see WHAT I’M WRITING! Honestly, it’s cool to see stuff written real time – BUT as a viewer I’ll get annoyed if someone misspells due to not knowing how far he got in the sentence. And as a writer I get even more annoyed, since it’s not real time when you’re forcing me to think and write slower for the system to keep up

I wanted wave to use it as a real time project tool in my small marketing team – but reality hit me and now I’m looking at traditional tools instead. No way to revolutionize the web, if you ask me!

 

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