Beyond Pinterest and Instagram Ten visual social networks that should be on your radarJuly 2012 pot

Beyond Pinterest and Instagram -Ten visual social networks that should be on your radar July 2012 by @dirktherabbit... Beyond Pinterest and Instagram -Ten visual social networks that s

Beyond Pinterest and Instagram

-Ten visual social networks that should be on your radar July 2012

(by @dirktherabbit)

1 - Jux

Less than a year old, Jux was called "the most beautiful blog platform yet" by The Next

Web at launch and I agree

Think of it as an even more visual and better looking alternative to Tumblr, with a lot of the same functionality (repost articles, follow other users)

Beyond Pinterest and Instagram

-Ten visual social networks that should be on your radar

At Rabbit, we’ve written a lot recently about the growth of the visual web - how the big social media success stories of 2011/2012 were visual, and how imagery is becoming more important online

I summarised the trend in a webinar presentationI did for EyeFor Travel (link here)

However, though Pinterest, Tumblr and Instagram have grabbed the headlines, which ones should you look out for next? I've listed the ten I've had some exposure to over the past six months

Sure, not all of them will be a success Some will be though, and they are worth keeping on your radar

Jux has quickly become a Rabbit favourite, with some of us (for instance catturner.jux.com

greenwicholympicdiary.jux.com) having recently created personal sites

Jux boss Ted Metcalfe is adding features all the time to improve the functionality, so this is definitely one to start to get to grips with and thinking about what you can use it for Like Tumblr, the process of signing up and posting takes minutes

2 - Tadaa

I wrote about Tadaa the other month, it's one of a

series of photo-sharing mobile networks that

could on the surface of it be considered Instagram

competitors

However founder Niko Schoppmeier's aim isn't to

compete with Instagram on numbers, which he

can never win Instead, it is to create a network

for mobile photographers who really take pride in

the quality of their content - think Vimeo vs

YouTube

Tadaa recently went through an upgrade adding

more filters and features I think its a better

'product' than Instagram with better features and

filters

What it's lacking at the moment is basic

community features such as the ability to group

images by hash-tag and the ability to call out

someone publicly through @ The fact that

Instagram lifted both of these conventions from

Twitter proved to be crucial to its success

However, unlike Instagram you can post an image

and ask other users to post images in reply - most

challenges and contests on Tadaa are run like

this

3 - EyeEm

Like Tadaa, EyeEm is a German-based company While Tadaa is iOS only, and Instagram is iOS / Android, EyeEm is a good option for Windows Phone users

Its a service I very much like and have started using personally I also think its got a lot going for it, with attractive product features For example, it gives you the option of filling out your caption and location for you, which is a nice touch if you are stuck with what to add

The interface looks good, you can call out other users through the @, and though there are no hash-tags as yet, you can instead create albums around any location or activity Once you've done this, any other user can add photos to that album

EyeEm seems to be taking a similar approach

to Tadaa in differentiating itself in being a higher end network for mobile photo enthusiasts

Having said that, Britain's Race for Life charity

recently chose EyeEm in preference to Instagram for its high profile event

4 - 500px (http://500px.com/why)

If Tadaa wants to be the high end Instagram, Toronto-based start-up 500px wants to be the high-end Flickr The Sydney Morning Herald describes it as being "home to some of the most amazing photos in the World"

Like Flickr, free membership will get you a certain amount of functionality (10 uploads a week), while paid for accounts start at $19.95

Recently 500px acquired another Canadian company Algo Anywhere, with the aim of integrating its recommendation system into the site The fact that 500px was able to shell out $2 million on this implies a certain level of deep pockets

5 - Cowbird

Cowbird is in theory invitation only It is not a photo or video sharing service, instead it is a story-telling site with added multi-media Or rather, as Cowbird puts it, it is designed to become a "public library for human experiences."

Cowbird doesn't actually allow video as founder Jonathan Harris says a video is a story in its own right It does encourage photos and sound

6 - Storywheel

Like Cowbird, Storywheel is all about (as the name says) the story Anyone actually old enough to remember pre-PC age picture slide-shows will immediately get the concept

Storywheel is the creation of Soundcloud, the growing social network that aims to become the YouTube of audio You upload a series of Instagram photos together, and then turn them into a narrated slide-show

7 - Picle

Picle is another app that meshes audio and images Record ten seconds worth of sound on top of your pictures

Picle was the idea of London digital agency Made by Many, which launched the app at SXSW

A month in, and it had netted 50,000 downloads

8 - Socialcam and Viddy

Along with Viddy, Socialcam has been described as the Instagram of mobile video Instead of taking a photo with your phone, you record a short video and then as with Instagram you enhance it via a series of filters

There are question marks over whether Socialcam has 40 or 80 million monthly users, given accusations of gaming the Facebook app charts

However, even the lower figure is impressive and the service has generated a lot of noise

in the US in particular Brands have also started signing up, for example the Washington Post is using it for its Olympics coverage

Rather than automatically funneling everything over to YouTube, Socialcam could be a

good alternative or supplement to any video based campaign

Viddy is Socialcam's main competitor and differs in that it is iOS only, and also restricts your videos to 15 seconds For that reason its been compared to Twitter as well as Instagram and a lot of people

(myself included) prefer it to the larger socialam

Viddy has a fair share of celebrity users including Justin Bieber and Britney Spears

9 - Cinemagram

Recently at Le Web, Instagram founder Kevin Systrom said that while he saw problems

with mobile video (mainly to do with speed), he did see potential in Cinemagram

Cinemagram allows you to create animated photos, or cinemagraphs - the Cinemagram

blog gives examples, with many users having turned these animated gifs into an art form

10 - Snapguide

I think of Snapguide as the online version of

picture recipe cards Except its about far

more than food covering DIY, technology,

photography automotive and beauty to

name a few

Basically you create a how to guide,

through images Typical examples include

how to clean silver jewellery using

toothpaste, how to make a bracelet out of a

baseball, and how to make authentic

Mexican salsa

Having recently raised $5 million, Snapguide

integrates with Pinterest, and the

potential-in for brands to create profiles and their

own how to guides seems obvious

-Those ten are by no means a definitive list For example, in photo-sharing networks you also have Via.me and Streamzoo In animated photos you also have Gifture In mobile video you have Burst and Klip - and so on

But these ten are ones that caught my eye and are good representatives of the different genres of social networks that are on the rise and that you should be aware of - story telling apps, mobile photography and mobile video

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