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Comment by Aardwolf | Hacker News Reader

Is it possible for someone to explain to a rarely-social-network-site-user what Instagram actually does?

All I know is it has something to do with photos.

But you already can upload photos to various social network sites (and could already upload photos way before this whole so called social thing existed).

And marketing talk saying how great photos are (which I think people knew 100 years ago too already) doesn't really help understanding it :)

So, what does it do? :)

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It's super fast to take pictures. You don't have to use a filter, but if you do, you can make an average or below-average picture look halfway decent (or even amazing). There's very little friction to get started and it's easy to follow and interact with people. Easier said than done to get such a great experience on mobile. It's photos and social done right, in my opinion. Anectdotally, it got someone like me who never took pictures before to really enjoy the creativity and process of sharing photos with friends and have memories of things I've seen in New York.

Are these filters better than what Photoshop/Gimp/... can do?

They're probably better than what Photoshop/Gimp can do on your smartphone. Producing professional-quality portfolio pieces isn't the main use case here :)

(Speaking as someone who also doesn't quite "get" Instagram.)

Of course not, but you can't compare a desktop application like Photoshop to a mobile app because the use cases are completely different. With Instagram you can take the picture, select the filter, upload the photo and share to Facebook, all within 10 seconds, at the beach. During that time, Photoshop is still loading fonts and initializing action palette, on your computer at home :).

Not to mention, loads of people don't have Photoshop, have never heard of Gimp, and are scared to even try to get started learning either of them.

No, but it's easy to use on-the-go with your mobile phone. However, there are definitely people on Instagram who care more about the look of the photos and do more professional touchups to their photos. They probably aren't there for the ease of use but for the community aspect -- posting more professional pictures for a large following.

They are better than what most people can do with Photoshop/Gimp. People have tried to recreate them with actions but they haven't quite got there.

I'll admit to also not knowing.

My understanding, and perhaps I'm wrong, is that:

1) It's like Flickr, except it's an app on a phone rather than a web page

2) It uploads directly from the phone rather than you having to upload

3) I believe there's some type of photo effects studio

And that's the sum of my understanding, but it still doesn't add up to much... what else is there that I'm missing?

PS: I feel I've just done the tech equivalent of one-line movie synopses: http://johnvey.com/features/movies Totally failing to express what you might feel when you use the app, my knowledge of Instagram is really just what I've heard... if there's a big warm fuzzy thing I'm missing please share.

I like Instagram because it feels less serious then Facebook. When I upload something to Facebook, it feels like it has to be something good. On Instagram I can just post whatever picture I want, doesn't really matter that much. I do also not have any relatives on Instagram, which is quite nice. I think that might be one of the reasons why many like Instagram over Facebook/Flickr (or maybe it's just me that reason that way).

So Instagram pictures do not end up at Facebook? I thought they did, shows in how big need I was for an explanation :)

You have the option to additionally post to Facebook and Twitter.

I was not a fan until recently, but my wife and her friends have been avid users for quite some time.

A. Frictionless sign up. easy to find friends [1] B. Extremely efficient to 'share' photos with the world, i.e. Facebook, Twtter, tumblr... C. Photos look good. Like, exceptionally good for just snapping your dog outside or some random place. If you use Instagram (or other filtered photo apps) you start to realize 90% of non-professional picture taken without filters look like crap. D. It is a photo sharing network. Except the photos are good. Its mobile-centric. And fairly effortless.

1. Something about finding "real" friends and starting a "new" network is very refreshing (i.e. Path's thesis). Get rid of the hundreds of FB posts I don't want to see, now just see a niche group of friends photos (not /rants) & make my photos look a lot better than 3 seconds ago when I took it.

If you ever get an answer to this question, please post it on HN as its own story so the rest of us can share in this knowledge.

Because, like you, I have no idea what half of these social media sites are good for.

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